HK opposition cries wolf over fictional abductions

Leung Chun-ying, former convenor of the Non-Official Members of the Executive Council of Hong Kong, celebrates with his wife Regina Tong Ching-yi as he attends a news conference after Leung won the chief executive election at a vote counting station in Hong Kong March 25, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

On Monday, Leung Chun-ying, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, publicly addressed the controversy surrounding the "disappearance" of the co-owners of Causeway Bay Bookstore, which is known to sell "political publications" banned on the mainland.

By accusing the central government of "orchestrating the disappearance" of the co-owners, however, some political parties in Hong Kong seem desperate to show the issue is all about the "One Country, Two Systems" principle. A few of them even insist the CBB co-owners must have been "kidnapped" by mainland agents in Hong Kong and "smuggled" into the mainland, even though they have no evidence to prove their claim.

Such wanton speculation largely fizzled out after the four CBB co-owners returned from the mainland recently. But a few parties refuse to give up their game. They somehow convinced the CBB manager named Lam Wing-kee, who returned to Hong Kong last week, to "corroborate" their story and tell the press what the opposition camp was waiting for.

Not surprisingly Lam's claim was immediately challenged by the other CBB co-owners, and he has failed to come clean on the issue. This is not one man's word against that of others, but a matter of political hype versus truth.

Lam is the only one who has "alleged" that one fellow co-owner might have been "taken" to the mainland against his free will. But another co-owner, Lee Po, wrote in a post on social media that he had talked with Lam only once after returning to Hong Kong and they didn't discuss how he went to the mainland. A fact to be noted is that Lam was accompanied by a prominent opposition politician at the press conference last Saturday, where he said: "Lee left him the impression he was taken to Shenzhen (in South China's Guangdong province) against his own free will".

Lee and two other CBB co-owners said they had gone to Shenzhen and then to Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province to help police investigate illegal sale of banned books supplied by CBB in violation of mainland laws. Lam has admitted having sent banned books to mainland buyers through his girlfriend, who told a newspaper in Hong Kong that Lam had "duped her into distributing the banned books".

These incidents have nothing to do with the "One Country, Two Systems" policy, which is written into the nation's Constitution and the Basic Law of Hong Kong. And it is in the best interest of the whole Chinese nation to maintain the "One Country, Two Systems" in Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions. But it seems the opposition parties in Hong Kong and their foreign abettors cannot wait for it to fail.