More Propaganda, National Security in HK

China's control over Hong Kong expands with two departments

 

It was bound to happen eventually. Beijing is now setting up two departments in Hong Kong, one to handle national security, the other propaganda.

The new department for national security affairs will be headed by former liaison office legal affairs director Wang Zhenmin, while Yang Guang will lead the department that will manage media outlets and public opinion in the city.

Yang Guang warned HK protesters in 2019

Some may remember Yang is one of the spokesmen for the Hong Kong Macau Affairs Office, and during 2019 he was the one hosting press conferences on the anti-government protests.

At these press conferences -- the first the HKMAO made since the handover in 1997 -- Yang gave strongly-worded warnings to the protesters against street violence.

The propaganda department will take up part of the work from the office's liaison department and cater to the increasing needs to disseminate official information, host more press conferences, approve and coordinate Hong Kong and Macau journalists on the mainland, and "manage the media scene" in the two administrative regions.

Meanwhile Wang served as legal affairs director at Beijing's liaison office in Hong Kong from 2015 to 2018. 

Currently the director of the centre for Hong Kong and Macau Research under Tsinghua University, Wang published a 232-page book in January he co-authored with two mainland academics detailing the rationale and legislative process of the sweeping national security law.

Wang Zhenmin is a national security legal expert

In an article in Sing Tao Daily in February 2020, Wang wrote an article explaining the urgent need to reform the central government's governance regime regarding Hong Kong and Macau.

Veteran China watcher Johnny Lau Yiu-siu says these latest developments are a systemic approach by Beijing to enhance ideological security.

"Beijing firmly regarded Hong Kong's political turmoil as a result of foreign collusion with an aim to overturn the government, so that Beijing planned a series of organizational measures to step up ideological control," he said.

Meanwhile pro-China academic Lau Siu-kai of the semi-official think tank the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies says the departments will step up the fight against anti-China forces. 

"There is a lot to be done to weed out incorrect viewpoints about the central people's government," he said. "The new departments [in the HKMAO] will focus on monitoring public opinion and raising the awareness of Hongkongers' obligation to abide by the law at the societal level," Lau said.

Can China overturn HK people's opinions?

But will the propaganda department make any headway with so many Hongkongers skeptical of anything from across the border? It could make them even more paranoid than before, if reaction to the origins of the pandemic is any indication. 

And with information still relatively free in Hong Kong, including disinformation and misinformation, will the propaganda department be able to cut through all the noise to present its own side of the story in a convincing manner?

It will be interesting to watch its presentation and messaging, though another reminder the motherland is breathing down Hong Kong's back is a sign integration continues whether residents like it or not...

China = CCP?

Wang Zhenmin gives his best legal reasons why China and the CCP are one

China continues to drag Hong Kong kicking and screaming closer to the motherland.

This time it's Wang Zhenmin, the legal head of Beijing's liaison office in Hong Kong. He said yesterday that Hongkongers cannot say the city is a part of China and yet reject the Chinese Communist Party.

"From the angle of the world's political map, Hong Kong's political colour had been undoubtedly changed to red since its return to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997. That meant it had become part of red China."

He says since '97 Hong Kong must accept the CCP and China

He said some Hongkongers had asked if they could accept the city was part of the country, but reject the leadership of the CCP.

"I think there is no way to separate China from the Chinese Communist Party, as the nation was led and established by the Chinese Communist Party," he said.

Therefore, the fate of Hong Kong is closely linked with that of the CCP, just as relations between Hong Kong and China are inextricably linked.

Is he insinuating that China was only established since 1949? What happened to the country's purported 5,000 years of history? Where did they go?

Sounds like US President Donald Trump isn't the only one engaged in revisionist history.

Chinese refugees settling into Tiu King Leng in the 1940s

Wang seems to be completely tone deaf to Hongkongers' opinions about China -- and he doesn't seem to understand that a good chunk of the population escaped the mainland to get away from the communists.

He also seems to think (or wants us to think) China and the CCP are one. The leadership believes the more they say it the more we'll believe it.

Sorry to say we're a cynical bunch, Mr Wang. China and the CCP are two different things to Hongkongers. Taiwan would also agree...

Moving Goal Posts Again

Wang Zhenmin warns "one country, two systems" means something ese

Ah, yet another mainland quasi official warning Hong Kong people not to get out of line.

This time it's Wang Zhenmin, legal head of the central government's liaison office. He says "one country, two systems" could be scrapped if it is used as a tool against Beijing.

He said this at a seminar, where outgoing Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying spoke earlier that the assurance there would be no change for 50 years under the city's mini constitution, the Basic Law, only referred to the capitalist system and did not mean Beijing's sovereignty over Hong Kong would change.

In commemorating the 27th anniversary of the Basic Law, Leung said the autonomy Hong Kong was enjoying was authorized by Beijing and wasn't "full autonomy", and the careful implementation of the governing formula was the best arrangement for both Hong Kong and the nation.

CY Leung has a warped view of "one country, two systems"

What? Is Leung saying the goal posts have been moved again? And how could "one country, two systems" only refer to our financial system?

Meanwhile Wang, a former Tsinghua University law dean, focused his keynote speech on attacking what he says is the rising separatist sentiment in the city, and that "one country" comes before "two systems".

Again, someone is redefining what we have always known as "one country, two systems"...

"If the 'two systems' part... is severely distorted or even [becomes a tool] to confront and damage 'one country', then the reasons and conditions for the 'two systems' to exist would be lost," Wang said.

He claimed the nation was "disappointed and disheartened" to see separatists enter school campuses and the establishment, he said, urging Hong Kong people to wholeheartedly accept that the sovereignty of the city had been returned to China for good.

Under Article 2 of the Basic Law, China's top legislature authorizes the former British colony to exercise a high degree of autonomy and enjoy executive, legislature and independent judicial power. However, Wang warned that room for that autonomy could shrink if Hong Kong people continued to challenge national security.

"The more Hong Kong fails to actively defend the sovereignty, national security and development interests of the country in accordance with law, the more wary the country might be on Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and the 'two systems'. There would be less room for its autonomy."

We are grappling with the reality that our autonomy is fast disappearing -- once you have freedoms and then start losing them it's hard to accept. But Wang wouldn't understand that...

He also denied that Beijing was "interfering in the city's internal affairs" -- a long-held complaint by pro-democracy activists.

"The country is only exercising its sovereignty in accordance with the law and that should not be regarded as 'interference'," he said. "Just like we cannot say your brain is interfering with your limbs as they have always been part of your body. [The brain] is only carrying out its own functions."

Huh??? Sounds like a really bad comparison.

In any event we're dismayed by the continual shifting of the goal posts that does nobody any favours except perhaps mainland or pro-establishment officials who feel the need to puff their chests with authority...

Does the Liaison Office Get Hong Kong?

Wang Zhenmin has been stationed at the liaison office since January

The Chinese government may have people on the ground in Hong Kong gathering information about the people and the city, but it doesn't seem to want to try to understand what's going on.

At all.

The legal head of Beijing's liaison office here said Hong Kong is ill and needs medication, caused by the growing talk of independence -- which he ruled out for "1,000 years and forever".

It's either 1,000 years or forever. Which one is it?

Wang Zhenmin believes those advocating Hong Kong's separation from China are acting out of fear that the mainland's success is eclipsing the city's.

Sixtus "Baggio" Leung says Wang's comments are "laughable"

Someone really has his head above the clouds.

"Hong Kong's prosperity and stability is largely because of the motherland," he said. "Some people then think that now the motherland is developing well, Hong Kong will go downhill. It is heartbreaking to see some people going for extreme means to destroy Hong Kong."

Err... no one is really thinking that theory, Mr Wang; it is rather that Hong Kong people are tired of our dependence on the mainland and Beijing meddling in our affairs. None of us wants to destroy Hong Kong, unless the mainland has other plans for us.

He went on to declare Hong Kong would remain a part of China "for 1,000 years and forever", and that no one could break them apart.

Sounds so romantic and yet does Hong Kong have a choice in the matter?

The Basic Law expert said Hong Kong should serve as a role model for the country's economic and democratic development, along with the rule of law.

"If the 7.3 million people in Hong Kong mess up democracy and only bring extremism, violence and separatism, how can the 1.4 billion people on the mainland pursue democracy without fear?"

Is he insinuating there will be democracy in China?

Rimsky Yuen says advocating separatism breaches Basic Law

And he shouldn't he give us credit for no violent incidents on September 4, the day of the Legislative Council elections when 2.8 million people turned out to cast their votes?

Wang is the same person who raised eyebrows in April when he warned that those who discussed independence for Hong Kong in a "large-scale" setting were not only violating the Basic Law, but could also be committing "treason" and "sedition" under existing criminal laws.

That set off a debate on whether talking about separatism was considered "sedition", and the Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung warned that advocating independence was a breach of the "relevant" provisions in the Basic Law, and incompatible with the legal status and overall interests of the city.

While Wang said he was open to discussing whether "one country, two systems" should continue after it expires in 2047, he revealed that he personally preferred to maintain the

status quo.

Localist lawmaker-elect Sixtus "Baggio" Leung Chung-hang, who advocates self-determination, dismissed Wang's take on the rise of separatism as "laughable".

"When we discuss the question of independence, we are driven by the invisible hand from the Communist Party that is meddling with our rights and freedoms," Leung said. "It has nothing to do with China's economic strength."

While Wang was here at the University of Hong Kong from 1993 to 1995, and served on the Basic Law committee from 2006 to 2008, his recent time here only started from January this year.

Perhaps he feels he has to play up the rhetoric because of his position, but that just only demonstrates Beijing's lack of sensitivity to the issue or a belief in the heavy-handed approach will bring bring stray attitudes around.

Not.