Restoring Discipline and Order in Hong Kong

SimonWorld linked to the essay in The Standard by Michael DeGolyer about the rule of law in Hong Kong.  This being Hong Kong, the counter-arguments are bound to come from the other side of the spectrum ... in Chinese.  As an English-speaker/writer, you make your statement and it seemed to sink into a blackhole without any feedback.  What is the 95% Chinese-speaking majority thinking?  Or, at least, what is some of them thinking?  You don't know.  So here, I will run a quick translation of an essay in the pro-Beijing Wenweipo (via InMediaHK).  This is not a direct response to the DeGolyer essay, but such a response can easily be constructed from the presentation.  I will emphasize that I do not share the authoritarian implications of this essay; I am just providing the English-only readers with a view of that other world that will not be reflected in your regular reading.

The history of government over the past seven years gives the impression of laxity, thus causing populism to overflow and public authority to shrink.  As a result, chaos rules in Hong Kong and conflicts increase.  The remarks made recently by Legislative Councilor Chim Pui-chung were therefore made for good cause.

Chim believes that the new Chief Executive must re-take the powers from the judiciary, the Department of Justice, ICAC, RTHK and the Securities and Futures Commission.  This is necessary because these five departments exhibited many problems that have been exploited by those who only want chaos for Hong Kong.

As a matter of fact, the pan-democratic camp used the independence of the judiciary to interfere with government administration through repeated invocation of judiciary reviews, thus rendering the administrative leaders totally hapless; the Department of Justice is of poor and uneven quality, for they are tough when they don't have to be and they are lenient when they should be tough, so they have created popular discontent and lowered trust and confidence in the government; the ICAC does not seem to know who their targets ought to be and therefore cast a wide net, including aiming at the media which created unncessary enemies for itself; RTHK has always been a big problem, because the SAR government was too intimidated and therefore allowed RTHK to use government resources to criticise the government itself; the Securities and Futures Commission spends the money from the business and investment communities to create policies that are unfavorable to the investors; this is like picking up a rock and dropping on your own foot.

Traditionally, the judiciary, the Department of Justice, ICAC, RTHK and the Securities and Futures Commission were always within the power of the Chief Executive, but Tung Chee-wah never exercised those powers properly.  The judiciary may be independent, but the Chief Executive has some definite influence because the power to appoint and dismiss the Chief Judge belongs to the Chief Executive.  So no battle is necessary over these five areas, because all it takes is a Chief Executive who knows how to exercise his/her powers.

No matter who becomes the new Chief Executive, the SAR government must act from a position of power to use the law sternly against the lawbreaking elements and to use the administrative leadership to control the direction of society.

... [omitted are some analogies with stories from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms]

Over the past seven years, the underlings have shouted down their masters and authority has been weakened.  Under the influence of anti-Chinese foreign powers, the pan-democratic camp used the "two systems" to attack the "one country" in order to employ "democratic" methods to further their own goal to grab power.  This caused an interminable stormy condition in Hong Kong, leading to hostility against China as well chaos in Hong Kong.

... [more analogies being ignored here]

While acting Chief Executive Donald Tsang will almost surely be elected in the July election, anyone with some modicum of political intelligence would realize that it is no longer possible to sit pat and not fight back.  This has been shown not to work.  The biggest mistake of the SAR government was to fail to understand the nature of the 'false' democrats.  Although these people do not dare to openly fight to seize power away from the Chinese government, which of their so-called democratic ideals are not directed at the Communist leadership?  To attempt to seek a peaceful co-existence with people who hold these political ideas is like playing with fire.  Yet, under the principle of "One Country Two Systems", the SAR government must unite all the people and co-exist with people of all sorts of political beliefs.  But the first principle of co-existence is to have a powerful leverage over others, and it will always be necessary to maintain a safe distance.  For example, the lion can live with the wild dogs to hunt together because the lion is not afraid of being attacked by the wild dogs and he can afford to let the wild dogs trail him and pick up some scraps to eat.  However, if the adult lion does not pay full attention, the wild dog might eat the lion cubs behind his back without mercy.

Among the false democrats, there are many who are just wild dogs with fake lamb skin.  If Donald Tsang brings them into his Cabinet, it will be like introducing a wolf into the house.  "One Country Two Systems" will be bloodied by them, but even as they gnaw at the flesh, they will insist that they are protecting the rule of law in Hong Kong!

Seven years have passed, and the tolerant rule of Tung Chee-hwa had been showcased already.  Now is the time to restore discipline and order!

I will leave it up to you to figure out how we can live peacefully with each other on the same piece of earth that we happen to share at this moment.  In the end, of course, you know that you never expected that it will be handed to you on a platter; you have to fight for everything that you want and you have to fight to keep it.