A few days ago the once retired but recently back on board again temporary deputy commissioner of police, Alan Lau Yip Shing, sent an internal letter to the police force to comfort and encourage them on their contribution in the operation dealing with the Hong Kong's ever biggest social movement in the past three months. Being the second man to the police commissioner, it is alright for Lau to cheer up his team in the hope to earn the continuous support from the team as the movement seems to be unlikely to die out in the near future. Indeed this is the expected role on Lau for his reunion with the police force again even after his retirement due to his past experience in the operation on the Korean farmers' protest on the WTO meeting held in Hong Kong back in 2005.
In Lau's letter, he accused the people from sectors in political party, lawmaker, religion, media, education and social welfare attacked the ruling of the government for the sake of their political purposes and interests. He further questioned why the same police force was rated as among the few best in the Asia just back three months ago but now became what is alleged as the evil police.
It is absolutely alright to motivate his subordinates but if the content in Lau's letter really reflects his genuine thinking then his letter just gives away how innocent and naive of the second man to the police chief is.
Any police force in the world is the law enforcement arm of any regime in the world. Therefore police force is part of the constitution and establishment. It's fundamental role is very simple, ie., to safeguard the regime against mostly internal challenges including those from the outlaws and anti-governmental activists. So whenever there is any anti-governmental activity, it is always the police force out there to combat them. If people has neglected this ugly part of the police force then it is just a big misunderstanding.
On the other hand, the police force has been doing its job in maintaining the law and order in Hong Kong and the crime rate is among the few lowest countries or areas in the region, at least prior to the outbreak of the massive social movement since this June. Hong Kong police force really deserved the reputation which it earned from its hard work throughout the years. To be fair, even during these few months of social unrest, Hong Kong police force is still working hard in doing their jobs on the maintenance of the daily law and order against the outlaws.
What marked the difference on the image of the police force is their role on the suppression on the social movements since four years ago from the Occupy Central. Being part of the establishment, police force is repeatedly used by the administration in cracking down all unwanted voices and actions. This was when the police force got its curse as evil police. It was CY Leung's and now Carrie Lam's administration that put the police force in direct confrontation with the public. Indeed they are the one to be blamed.
In fact people should also distinguish the police force's management from the individual police officers. The latter acts according to the instructions given from the former. The on-site commander should be held responsible for the tactics and deployment of forces. Excessive aggressive actions could have been taken in order to brown-nosing the superiors or even Beijing. Naturally there are some police officers have overly exercised his force at his own discretion. This is really an undesirable behaviour.
While people is accusing the police force is evil, it is better to target precisely who the black sheep are but at the end of the day, it should be the one who is responsible for bringing up this chaos be accountable for the blame.
So don't blame the police force. They are just like a dual faces character. Whether they are evil just depends on which face you are looking at. Remember, your great hound is always excellent and the difference lies on whether it is hunting for you or hunting you.
2019年9月29日 星期日
2019年9月26日 星期四
Who knows?
People may wonder if Hong Kong is at the brink of what is similar to China's Cultural Revolution when in last week battery happened between opposing groups with different political opinion. This was quite alike the chaos happened 50 years ago in China where Red Guards fought furiously with each other both claimed they were guarding Mao's thoughts. That was the most insane social movement ever in China's modern history. That was also China's dark age arising from the internal power struggle within the CCP on the party leadership. At that time, sons against fathers, wives against husbands, brothers against sisters, students against teachers, tens of thousands families torn apart because of different stances. All blames to the sinister Mao ZeDong whom utilized the movement to safeguard his leadership and the evil CCP's keen-to-power-struggle nature.
When people look around what is happening here in Hong Kong now they found similar signs of such violence among the public. Apart from the battery in last week, the first incident was the "terror attack" by the men-in-white to the men-in-black back in July. The latest addition is the assault on the democratic lawmaker, Roy Kwong, and the attack on the female reporter who works for Apple Daily, an explicit opposition media, in two days ago. Many believe the July terror attack was a premeditated crime against the opposition protestors while the battery in last week was suspected to be a counter-attack by the radical protestors on the two seemingly pro-government men as both cases happened in Yuen Long. The tendency of violent confrontation among civilian seems growing, on top of that between radical protestors and police.
While those believe the radical protestors are under the support or even the direction of foreign influences, they might have overlooked another possibility. For people who know the development history of the CCP know that the Party actually grew alongside with continuous internal power struggle from its founding stage and even still in its hardship on the civil war with the GMT army for seizing the ruling on the nation. In fact internal struggle has never stopped throughout the 70 years after the founding of Communist China. Throughout the years some internal struggles were about the direction of the state development. However, even more struggles were for power, ie., leadership on the Party especially those happened in the latest couple of decades. As and after China joined the WTO and her economy enjoyed a sharp growth, grasping on the say means controlling the most lucrative sectors of the economy. Every candidate were eyeing on the posts of the Party's general secretary, the president and the chairman of central military commission. Anyone who can grasp all the three posts becomes the modern emperor in China. The current emperor has a nick name of Winnie the Pooh.
While Winnie is sitting at the highest throne but he is not lack of jealous eyes whom are so eagerly to take every opportunity to pull his leg or even take him down for the sake to replace him. When China's propaganda is blaming the U.S. capitalizing on the Hong Kong card on hindering China's rising, Winnie's every move and strategy on dealing this problem is under his rival's scrutiny. Despite Winnie seems to be in full control in his throne but his rivalry will take no mercy should he make a wrong move that not only fails to resolve the problem but also brings damage to the state. This could just give the rivalry a good excuse to force Winnie on the abdication. A possible way is to stir up a greater mess in Hong Kong to replicate another massacre.
Perhaps there are someone else who are in greater desire that Hong Kong to be even more chaotic than does Trump. Who knows?
When people look around what is happening here in Hong Kong now they found similar signs of such violence among the public. Apart from the battery in last week, the first incident was the "terror attack" by the men-in-white to the men-in-black back in July. The latest addition is the assault on the democratic lawmaker, Roy Kwong, and the attack on the female reporter who works for Apple Daily, an explicit opposition media, in two days ago. Many believe the July terror attack was a premeditated crime against the opposition protestors while the battery in last week was suspected to be a counter-attack by the radical protestors on the two seemingly pro-government men as both cases happened in Yuen Long. The tendency of violent confrontation among civilian seems growing, on top of that between radical protestors and police.
While those believe the radical protestors are under the support or even the direction of foreign influences, they might have overlooked another possibility. For people who know the development history of the CCP know that the Party actually grew alongside with continuous internal power struggle from its founding stage and even still in its hardship on the civil war with the GMT army for seizing the ruling on the nation. In fact internal struggle has never stopped throughout the 70 years after the founding of Communist China. Throughout the years some internal struggles were about the direction of the state development. However, even more struggles were for power, ie., leadership on the Party especially those happened in the latest couple of decades. As and after China joined the WTO and her economy enjoyed a sharp growth, grasping on the say means controlling the most lucrative sectors of the economy. Every candidate were eyeing on the posts of the Party's general secretary, the president and the chairman of central military commission. Anyone who can grasp all the three posts becomes the modern emperor in China. The current emperor has a nick name of Winnie the Pooh.
While Winnie is sitting at the highest throne but he is not lack of jealous eyes whom are so eagerly to take every opportunity to pull his leg or even take him down for the sake to replace him. When China's propaganda is blaming the U.S. capitalizing on the Hong Kong card on hindering China's rising, Winnie's every move and strategy on dealing this problem is under his rival's scrutiny. Despite Winnie seems to be in full control in his throne but his rivalry will take no mercy should he make a wrong move that not only fails to resolve the problem but also brings damage to the state. This could just give the rivalry a good excuse to force Winnie on the abdication. A possible way is to stir up a greater mess in Hong Kong to replicate another massacre.
Perhaps there are someone else who are in greater desire that Hong Kong to be even more chaotic than does Trump. Who knows?
2019年9月21日 星期六
All men are equal before law? Perhaps you got it wrong
In the past few months the whole island is heated up because of the social activities arising from the protests on the extradition bill. The origin of the people's vigorous resistance is the concern on the two legal systems in the Mainland and Hong Kong respectively. At the beginning of this social movement Hong Kong people voted with their marches on how lack of confidence on the judicial systems in China, one may assume that they are contented on the one that is being practiced here in Hong Kong, at least comparatively and relatively.
China's judicial system is no doubt infamous due to the root cause of its constitution that the CCP leads every governmental functions including the courts. When the ruling party is above and rules the courts then naturally no fair trial can be expected as long as the defendant is the government meaning the CCP itself. Compounded with the serious corruption both in private and public sectors including the courts, so justice is just something of lip service only even if in the ordinary civil cases which dignitaries or the riches are defendants. This is the reason why, prior to the withdrawal of the Bill, Hong Kong people is so worried that if one day they are extradited to China no matter for true or fabricated accusations.
The fear on China's judicial system is substantive because it is notorious with countless existing examples. This undermines the propaganda of the promotion of living in Greater Bay Area. Naturally the reality is that there are already many Hong Kong people living in China due to work or other reasons. They might think as long as they stay away from any anti-government movements and to be an obedient citizen then they should be free from the threat. Naturally the danger is not imminent but the problem is that even if one does not actively engage in "dangerous activities", it does not necessarily means he will not come across injustice incident. For example, one may be knocked down by a car driven by a drunken senior official, or say his business is too good but hurts that of his jealous dignitary competitor whom thus sends in wretches to teach the former a lesson. In both cases the plaintiff most probably will not receive a fair trial on the cases.
Perhaps everybody agrees that judicial system in countries with totalitarian regime is injustice. So how about those in the democratic countries? Naturally the latter is far more better than the former but having said that, injustice seems to be a dark side of human nature disregard the difference in the ideology. To look into the issue, a scrutiny on the formation of the legal system, even if in the democratic countries, is essential.
Depending on the constitution in a particular country, laws are drafted and then passed in the law-making body. Therefore the legislative system, ie., who draft and who is responsible for passing the laws are equally important to the fairness of the judicial system among the whole legal system. The controversy brought out by the anti-extradition bill incident often rests on the confidence of Hong Kong's judicial system but the courts are the parties who judge cases based on the established laws. When the laws themselves are in favour of some particular "beneficiaries" in the first place or the legal proceeding process is not friendly to some segments of the society then no matter how fair the courts are, injustice is just inevitable.
For the first point on the law-making process, the proposal of a bill is usually drafted by the related governmental agency which may or may not have consultation with the public. In reality most ordinary people are not equipped with the needed knowledge or time to attend consultations, let alone those at the bottom of social minority who is often neglected. On the other hand those wealthy classes or big corporations have much more resources in engaging professionals on the lobbying of the law to their favour. The lobbyists in K Street in Washington D.C. is a good example of this unfairness at the start.
On the other hand, the complicated legal process on a proceeding and the most of all, the associated legal fees often scare common folks away on the attempt to get justice through legal action. In most places, lawyer's legal advice charge is hourly based. One even cannot afford to pay the charge for the legal advice whether a further legal action is justified. Even if one's pocket is deep enough for the legal advice bill but the subsequent court proceeding costs and the barrister fee which is unknown till the end of the case often wards ordinary people off from this route in pursuit of justice. This is particularly true for the case of a small potato plaintiff vs a wealthy defendant.
After all, no matter totalitarian nations or democratic nations, laws are so constructed to mainly serve the dignitaries and riches. The reality is that justice comes with a price tag which is often too costly to ordinary people. This is an untold truth that could break the heart of billions of people who is dreaming all men are equal before law.
China's judicial system is no doubt infamous due to the root cause of its constitution that the CCP leads every governmental functions including the courts. When the ruling party is above and rules the courts then naturally no fair trial can be expected as long as the defendant is the government meaning the CCP itself. Compounded with the serious corruption both in private and public sectors including the courts, so justice is just something of lip service only even if in the ordinary civil cases which dignitaries or the riches are defendants. This is the reason why, prior to the withdrawal of the Bill, Hong Kong people is so worried that if one day they are extradited to China no matter for true or fabricated accusations.
The fear on China's judicial system is substantive because it is notorious with countless existing examples. This undermines the propaganda of the promotion of living in Greater Bay Area. Naturally the reality is that there are already many Hong Kong people living in China due to work or other reasons. They might think as long as they stay away from any anti-government movements and to be an obedient citizen then they should be free from the threat. Naturally the danger is not imminent but the problem is that even if one does not actively engage in "dangerous activities", it does not necessarily means he will not come across injustice incident. For example, one may be knocked down by a car driven by a drunken senior official, or say his business is too good but hurts that of his jealous dignitary competitor whom thus sends in wretches to teach the former a lesson. In both cases the plaintiff most probably will not receive a fair trial on the cases.
Perhaps everybody agrees that judicial system in countries with totalitarian regime is injustice. So how about those in the democratic countries? Naturally the latter is far more better than the former but having said that, injustice seems to be a dark side of human nature disregard the difference in the ideology. To look into the issue, a scrutiny on the formation of the legal system, even if in the democratic countries, is essential.
Depending on the constitution in a particular country, laws are drafted and then passed in the law-making body. Therefore the legislative system, ie., who draft and who is responsible for passing the laws are equally important to the fairness of the judicial system among the whole legal system. The controversy brought out by the anti-extradition bill incident often rests on the confidence of Hong Kong's judicial system but the courts are the parties who judge cases based on the established laws. When the laws themselves are in favour of some particular "beneficiaries" in the first place or the legal proceeding process is not friendly to some segments of the society then no matter how fair the courts are, injustice is just inevitable.
For the first point on the law-making process, the proposal of a bill is usually drafted by the related governmental agency which may or may not have consultation with the public. In reality most ordinary people are not equipped with the needed knowledge or time to attend consultations, let alone those at the bottom of social minority who is often neglected. On the other hand those wealthy classes or big corporations have much more resources in engaging professionals on the lobbying of the law to their favour. The lobbyists in K Street in Washington D.C. is a good example of this unfairness at the start.
On the other hand, the complicated legal process on a proceeding and the most of all, the associated legal fees often scare common folks away on the attempt to get justice through legal action. In most places, lawyer's legal advice charge is hourly based. One even cannot afford to pay the charge for the legal advice whether a further legal action is justified. Even if one's pocket is deep enough for the legal advice bill but the subsequent court proceeding costs and the barrister fee which is unknown till the end of the case often wards ordinary people off from this route in pursuit of justice. This is particularly true for the case of a small potato plaintiff vs a wealthy defendant.
After all, no matter totalitarian nations or democratic nations, laws are so constructed to mainly serve the dignitaries and riches. The reality is that justice comes with a price tag which is often too costly to ordinary people. This is an untold truth that could break the heart of billions of people who is dreaming all men are equal before law.
2019年9月5日 星期四
Stupid vs smart
HSI rocketed almost 1000 points in the day before yesterday when there was speculation that Carrie Lam, the chief executive of HKSAR, would announce certain back down after the trading hours of the Hong Kong bourse. Withdrawal on the long debated extradition bill finally came true when Lam threw in the towel at a pre-recorded TV press release in the same evening. However the belated move did not earn applause but criticism instead. The opposition camp condemned Lam for the damages that she brought to Hong Kong in the past three months due to her stubbornness, rigidity and arrogance on the public opinion.
In the broadcasting, Lam appeared weary and short of spirit. Undoubtedly she must has gone through very hard time during the past few months especially the past August when the confrontation between the radical protestors and the police escalated into a new height. Pressure from the North to settle the chaos in its soonest was mounting but on the other hand Beijing's tie on Lam's hand for concession just drove her crazy. Lam's listlessness did come with good reason because she knows well just the withdrawal itself will certainly not meet the request from the public on the five demands. Her ordeal is far from over.
It is widely believed that Lam is forbidden on any concession on the five demands without the consent from Beijing so her announcement on the withdrawal is definitely not at her own discretion. This is really an extremely stupid decision to make concession on withdrawing the proposal of the bill only. The move not only fails to ease the tension between Lam's administration and the public when the slogan "all five demands or nothing" has been deeply rooted in the protestors' mind but also produces a speculation that when Lam backed down on the withdrawal then she will eventually have to do the rest.
Even any greenhand in public relationship field knows that for any PR crisis, it must be dealt with immediately and straight to the specific point. On the other hand, if a politician does something only because of the pressure from his/her opponent then he/she can only be in the underdog position. However, Lam and her boss in the far North committed these two mistakes. People just can't help but puzzling why on earth the top leadership of the world's second largest economy would commit such stupid and elementary mistakes.
For anyone who buys the saying that the anti-extradition bill movement at its later stage was hijacked to be the U.S.'s Hong Kong card against China will agree that apparently the former is playing this game far more smarter than is the latter. In the beginning the movement was solely a locally sprouted one originating from the distrust on Beijing but the U.S. capitalizes on this sentiment as well as the many long-existed social issues in Hong Kong to brew the movement into an anti-China campaign. The most ingenious part of the game is that the battle field is not in the U.S. but in Hong Kong which is also the China's soil. Therefore the U.S. can have the cake of either that when its plan works out then Hong Kong card can deter China's rising and even if the plan fails, the damages to Hong Kong arising from the recent chaos do not hurt the U.S. at all so it has nothing to lose but could possibly succeed in combating China if in luck. People once said the British is best in playing politic but it seems the American has already outpaced their relatives since they defeated the British Empire. In politic gaming China appears like a primary school student comparing to her American counterpart.The U.S. can rest relieved that China is in no way capable to challenge its alpha status.
In the broadcasting, Lam appeared weary and short of spirit. Undoubtedly she must has gone through very hard time during the past few months especially the past August when the confrontation between the radical protestors and the police escalated into a new height. Pressure from the North to settle the chaos in its soonest was mounting but on the other hand Beijing's tie on Lam's hand for concession just drove her crazy. Lam's listlessness did come with good reason because she knows well just the withdrawal itself will certainly not meet the request from the public on the five demands. Her ordeal is far from over.
It is widely believed that Lam is forbidden on any concession on the five demands without the consent from Beijing so her announcement on the withdrawal is definitely not at her own discretion. This is really an extremely stupid decision to make concession on withdrawing the proposal of the bill only. The move not only fails to ease the tension between Lam's administration and the public when the slogan "all five demands or nothing" has been deeply rooted in the protestors' mind but also produces a speculation that when Lam backed down on the withdrawal then she will eventually have to do the rest.
Even any greenhand in public relationship field knows that for any PR crisis, it must be dealt with immediately and straight to the specific point. On the other hand, if a politician does something only because of the pressure from his/her opponent then he/she can only be in the underdog position. However, Lam and her boss in the far North committed these two mistakes. People just can't help but puzzling why on earth the top leadership of the world's second largest economy would commit such stupid and elementary mistakes.
For anyone who buys the saying that the anti-extradition bill movement at its later stage was hijacked to be the U.S.'s Hong Kong card against China will agree that apparently the former is playing this game far more smarter than is the latter. In the beginning the movement was solely a locally sprouted one originating from the distrust on Beijing but the U.S. capitalizes on this sentiment as well as the many long-existed social issues in Hong Kong to brew the movement into an anti-China campaign. The most ingenious part of the game is that the battle field is not in the U.S. but in Hong Kong which is also the China's soil. Therefore the U.S. can have the cake of either that when its plan works out then Hong Kong card can deter China's rising and even if the plan fails, the damages to Hong Kong arising from the recent chaos do not hurt the U.S. at all so it has nothing to lose but could possibly succeed in combating China if in luck. People once said the British is best in playing politic but it seems the American has already outpaced their relatives since they defeated the British Empire. In politic gaming China appears like a primary school student comparing to her American counterpart.The U.S. can rest relieved that China is in no way capable to challenge its alpha status.
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