Anson Chan’s US visit highlights hypocrisy of localists
- They back the former chief secretary on her mission to encourage Americans to interfere in Hong Kong, but slam the Taiwanese mayor who spoke to mainland officials on trips to the city and Macau
Our localist politicians got all hot and bothered when a popular mayor from Taiwan visited Hong Kong and Macau and met mainland officials. They even issued statements to denounce the meetings.
But for them, it’s par for the course for our former chief secretary, Anson Chan Fang On-sang, who is more enamoured of British colonialism than the Brits themselves, to fly off on one of her periodic pilgrimages to Washington to encourage Americans to interfere in Hong Kong.
Most of them are secretly jealous that they weren’t invited to sit at the feet of their American masters.
Too bad! You need the stature of someone like Chan and Martin Lee Chu-ming, or at least the name recognition of Joshua Wong Chi-fung to get a direct pat on the head in the White House.
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Chan urged Washington to oppose the Hong Kong government’s proposal to allow the transfer of fugitives to the mainland, “before it is too late”. Actually, the rendition plan involves not just the mainland, but Macau and Taiwan as well.
Chan was voicing her warning at, of all places, the Heritage Foundation, an extremist Republican outfit.
She told the Americans: “Talk to government officials, politicians and business interests, and the average man in the street and please, please speak up when things are not right.”
Here’s an idea, Mrs Chan. The Hong Kong government’s plan concerns three other Chinese places. Why not go to the mainland, Macau and Taiwan to talk to “government officials, politicians, business interests and the average man in the street” and ask them to speak up? Did Chan talk to average people in Hong Kong and urge them to speak up before jumping on a plane to America?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to try to convince the Chinese people themselves who have the most stakes in the plan?
Maybe Chan has concluded it would be futile to deal with the mainland and the Macau Special Administrative Region.
But what about Taiwan? The island is fully democratic, with a sitting president who hates Beijing as much as Chan.
While we are at it, here’s another idea. Has Chan tried to reflect her concerns directly to her former colleagues in the government, such as her one-time underling and current Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor? Maybe that’s futile too, no?
It’s far more useful to tell the Americans to interfere in our own affairs. I get it now.
