Root cause! root cause! root cause!

Thanks to the coaching by the wife of the leg pain-led stepped down former chief executive of HKSAR, Uncle Tung that for important thing, it must be repeated three times. As mentioned in my earlier post that according to a theory of quality management discipline, when something went wrong, the so-called root cause (it's a jargon, in plain words meaning the underlying reason) must be identified so that corrective action (another jargon, meaning the fix) addressing the root cause can be developed in order to tackle the problem.

What happened at night on July 1 in the Legco building here in Hong Kong was certainly a problem which could be viewed in different angles though. People from different sectors have given their comments and views on the issue. Naturally the pro-establishment camp condemned it as outlaw violence while the pan-democrat camp did their best to justify the storm. To be fair, violence is violence. The nature is uncontroversial. What deserves a thorough examination is the root cause though.

Among those public views, except those pretentious high profile condemnation, most of them are quite fair and non-biased. The mainstream view point is that the level of violence is inappropriate,  overdone and unfortunate. However, the culprit is the establishments including the administration and the pro-establishment law makers. There are two meaningful characteristic in this incident, ie., the participants are all youth and the target of the attack is iconic.

Unlike the preceding two marches in June and the one on July 1 day time that participants covered a wide range of ages, but those who stormed in the Legco building at night were all youth. While those three marches were organized, however the storming at night was spontaneous and impulsive. Some argue that this was an organized crime and backed by foreign influences. No sensible person will naively deny that there were no facilitators in that night's actions. Those know also know that Hong Kong has been an action field of intelligence of all sorts when it was still a fishing port. The question is not whether or not on the presence but how influential they were.

There is a words of wisdom saying that maggots follow once meat is rotten (肉先腐而後生蟲) meaning the development of maggots is only the symptom while the underlying cause is that the meat is rotten in the first place as such attracts flies on which eggs are laid. In this case, foreign influences, and facilitators were just catalyst. The maggot is the incident of extradition bill which was just a trigger. The rotten meat is the resentment and grievance accumulated for a long extended period of time among the public especially the youth. When the right timing in the right occasion hits, it just sparkles into infernos venting their anger and resentment just like volcanic eruption.

The root cause of the resentment and grievance are multiple. The storming into the Legco building  can just provide some hints. Since the disqualification on the four pan-democrat law makers, the Legco became the most violent place where the pro-establishment law makers abuse their power, sadly lawfully. When the power balance between the two camps was destroyed. The public just saw how the pro-establishment law makers dominate the chairs of all committees in the legislative council thus manipulated and maneuvered the Legco meetings as if the People's Congress in China. The Legco is literally in de facto failure on the monitoring on the administration governance. The Legco became the pro-establishment camp's exclusive playground and the extension of Beijing's ever increasing inception in local affairs. The public's feeling of inability and frustration is just mounting higher than ever.

Indeed the latest Interpretation on Basic Law by the People's Congress in 2016 and the following judgment by High Court declaring the invalid oaths by the four pan-democrat law makers was the most profound blow on the relationship between Beijing and Hong Kong. That was the blatant interference in broad daylight on the most symbolic icon of Hong Kong's democracy showcase. These four law makers were all first time elected and most of all, they are from those organizations representing those youth voters. The disqualification and the following debarment on their nomination were literally a declaration of war against the youth. This is the good explanation on the ever growing hostility against China among the youth.

Under this landscape, it is somewhat unfortunate for Carrie Lam to become the scapegoat because of her poor maneuver on the extradition bill that brought out such a mess. Anyway, damage was done now. It is just not an easy task to fix it especially there is little room for Lam to play around against Beijing's policy. On the other hand, Beijing is certainly more and more uncomfortable in seeing hostile emotion against it. Coming tighter grip on local affairs is just a reasonable anticipation only.

The verbal war that should has happened within the Legco ended up to be a physical one outside it. Beijing started a war and war is what it got. However, Hong Kong is just trapped into a deadlock and fell into a vicious cycle .