Alien and its egg

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I am not sure whether the sci-fi movie The Fly produced in 1986 was the ever first movie of its kind about genetic engineering(GE). Be it true or not, the plot of this movie was an very advanced concept at the time. The story was about a human who was accidentally "fused" with a fly during an experiment so a creature with genes of both species emerged. It was an horror movie because the hybrid became a monster finally and was terminated by its human counterpart. The production seems to be against creating hybrid via the technology of GE juding from the story. I am not a scientist so only have limited knowledge about GE. Just like most of the technologies, there are pros and cons depending on its application and most of all, the people's mind behind who are developing and making use of these technologies as well as their objectives. Basically I am alright on GE as long as the technology does not change the nature of a species fundamentally but just fine-tuning its characteristic towards an improvement or eliminating some inherited flaws.

The Fly was produced in 1986 and coincidentally a political hybrid alien was also created around that time. It was the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed 1984. The Declaration was meant to resolve the reunion of Hong Kong with China after 1997 when the lease of New Territory, a part of Hong Kong,  would be expired. Apart from many technical issues, the reunion was based on the idea of so-called One Country, Two Systems which was in hope to keep Hong Kong's status quo as well as way of living unchanged after the reunion by marrying the China's socialism and the western world's capitalism as much possible as it can be resting the hope (wish?) in 50 years time the Two Systems will eventually integrated into one as seamless as possible.

The One Country, Two Systems (Idea) was once commented as an ever creative and bold master piece designed by the CCP's greatest reform pioneer Deng XiaoPing. It was true that based on the comparatively rigid and stubborn era in the CCP's history, the Idea was really creative because capitalism was viewed something toxic and even a target of striking by some veteran comrades. Allowing its existence in its own soil is really a bold idea. Deng was commented as a pragmatic person well-known with his slogan "Be it white or black, it is a good cat as long as it catches rats" so Deng's Idea was a compromise between the idealism and reality that China was very much behind of the western world including Hong Kong in all aspects so making use of this advance island to modernize the Mainland was something the lesser "evil" by allowing this once stepped son remained as much possible unchanged as the CCP could tolerate.

Despite the Idea allows the lap of 50 years to gradually bringing the once stepped son back on board with the big family but things, especially in the recent years, do not go well. Indeed it is a disaster that Hong Kong is not only not getting closer than it was to its motherland but vice versa. After all, the Idea is meant to convert Hong Kong, in baby steps by buying time, into socialism. Keeping the capitalism nature in Hong Kong was something a compromise but when China is getting more and more fully-fledged and the reliance on the island for its modernization becomes less indispensable, the Idea became less and less unshakable especially when China is imposing more and more "guidance, direction, monitoring" over Hong Kong's internal affairs.

Some people seem to be awakened and is aware of just in recent years about China's changes on the relationship with Hong Kong. They might be puzzled about the changes and some attribute it to the social movement in the past few years. They are partly right because Beijing is getting more and more annoyed with those social movement but frankly speaking the relationship is bounded to be changed even if without these social movement. People should not forget that allowing the capitalism element was only a temporary compromise based on a pragmatic need at that time. Exercising socialism in Hong Kong is CCP's ultimate goal when the island's role on assisting China's modernization is eventually finished but this step will not happen overnight in June 30 in 2047. Marrying the two systems and finally converting them into one takes time and the only way is while increasing the socialism element at one hand then decreasing that of the capitalism at the same time. we are just almost in the mid way of this process. It is like genetically engineering the capitalism gene with the socialism gene into one creature, or an alien if you like, into Hong Kong in this moment.

While the alien is getting into its shape now it also laid an egg as well. It is the Hong Kong version of National Security Law(NSL). The Law is termed as the alien's egg because it further hybrids the two incompatible law practices, ie., the Common Law and the Continental Law, into this Law. The NSL is at large based on the concept of Continental Law but it is meant to be implemented in Hong Kong where Common Law is exercised. Most of the legal practitioners in Hong Kong, especially barristers are confused how they can defend their clients in the courts or how to advise their clients to avoid violation on the NSL which mainly laid out the principles but not the specific actions of crime as put in the Common Law. The NSL egg is exact the example of the artificial genetic engineering of the hybridization the Two Systems.

God bless Hong Kong!