Martin Lee says "one country, two systems" has been undermined by Beijing
A former Basic Law drafter is concerned about how two localists have given Beijing license to undermine the "one country, two systems" concept.
Martin Lee Chu-ming, founding chairman of the Democratic Party, said he was suspicious about the actions of Youngspiration lawmakers-elect Sixtus Baggio Leung Chung-hang and Yau Wai-ching, who were disqualified by the High Court on Tuesday.
Speaking after a Commercial Radio program, Lee said the Hong Kong government and Beijing could point to Leung and Yau and say "not only do they want independence, they were insulting the people of China. Of course we should get rid of them".
Leung and Yau have given Beijing the excuse to change oath
"Then they have become good excuses for Beijing not only to attack them, because they could be removed anyway by the judge even without the interpretation, but making life very difficult for so many of us and in fact destroying 'one country, two systems', giving them the excuse to do so," Lee said yesterday.
He said Beijing's interpretation of the Basic Law had destroyed the "one country, two systems" principle as it suggested the city's public officers, including judges, had to pledge allegiance to both China and "its special administrative region".
The interpretation says "the taking of the oath stipulated by Article 104 of the Basic Law is a legal pledge made by the public officers to the People's Republic of China and its Hong Kong special administrative region".
This is different from the Basic Law that says: "principal officials and members of the Legislative Council... must swear to uphold the Basic Law and swear allegiance to the Hong Kong special administrative region."
Elsie Leung says the oath was changed to safeguard the law
Lee said this suggested officials and lawmakers had to pledge allegiance to the mainland's constitutions as well as the Basic Law.
He said this would have major consequences and questions could be raised over several lawmakers having dual nationality.
"If they have a US or British passport, how are they pledging allegiance to the country? Chinese law does not recognize dual nationality," Lee said.
However, Elsie Leung Oi-sie, vice-chairman of the Basic Law Committee under the National People's Congress Standing Committee, rejected Lee's criticisms and said the committee had acted in accordance with the law.
"There is no question of it destroying the rule of law. The move is to safeguard the rule of law and the 'one country, two systems' principle."
Leung said it was the fault of the Youngspiration pair for refusing to acknowledge Hong Kong is a part of China.
She said the ruling was not aimed at "chasing dissident voices out of the Legislative Council".
The debate continues, but Lee is right. The nature of "one country, two systems" has changed in Hong Kong. The mainland continues its dragging of the city closer to the mainland...
Cathay Pacific pilot Hank Cheng realized his dream of flying a homemade plane
Back in late August Cathay Pacific Airways pilot Hank Cheng took off on a flight around the world in a locally-made plane and returned to Hong Kong safely earlier this week.
He flew 49,650km in the plane named B-Koo Inspiration and along the way touched down in 45 airports in 20 countries.
At times Cheng was forced to alter his flight path as he faced difficult weather conditions, including chilly winds, snow and typhoons, according to a project spokeswoman.
The small aircraft took seven years to design and build
After he landed, Cheng said he hoped his achievement would "put Hong Kong on the map".
"There are Hong Kong climbers who have climbed Mount Everest. I wanted to put the Hong Kong flag on the map, so this is a source of pride."
He said the most exciting leg of his journey was from Hilo, Hawaii to San Jose, California, a 3,800km flight across the Pacific Ocean that took 14 hours and 37 minutes to complete.
Flying in the plane, Cheng said "I brought together all the hopes and dreams of [my] team. It started as a personal project, but it became a bigger group and I was just the guy flying the plane, taking their hopes around the world."
Cheng and his co-pilot Thomas Ng wave from Karachi
It took Cheng seven years to make his dream of developing and building an aircraft into reality. It was a collaboration between Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company and St Paul's Convent School.
B-Koo Inspiration now joins the list of 14 amateur-built planes to have flown around the world, according to international aviation society Earthrounders.
Congratulations to Cheng and everyone involved in the project!
He has demonstrated that through patience, perseverance and hard work, dreams can come true.
Polar bear named Pizza is hanging out in its faux icy conditions in a mall
In a shopping mall in Guangzhou is an enclosure that holds what animal activists are calling "the saddest polar bear in the world".
Three-year-old Pizza, a female polar bear, lives in a small glass-walled enclosure and there is video footage of her pacing and swaying her head, evidence of mental decline.
You'd be lying like this too if you were bored in a small space
Hong Kong-based charity Animals Asia posted the video online in July which caught global attention, forcing the mall to announce it would temporarily move Pizza during an upgrade of her home.
"Pizza the polar bear will temporarily leave Guangzhou and return to her birthplace," the Grandview Mall Aquarium said on its official account on WeChat.
The move was part of ongoing upgrades and "minor alterations" to the mall, and the aquarium would remain open during Pizza's absence, though it did not say when she would return from a zoo in Tianjin.
But animal rights groups have called for the move to be permanent, saying the conditions in the mall are unsuitable for a polar bear.
The shopping mall uses Pizza to attract shoppers
Peter Li, a campaigner at Humane Society International, said in a statement that sending Pizza back to Guangzhou would be "cruel and heartless".
"No amount of renovation could ever make a shopping mall a suitable place for this animal," he said.
First of all -- why is a polar bear called Pizza? Isn't that inhumane?
And why is she even being housed in a shopping mall? If this is the mall's way of attracting shoppers, it's very shocking to use an animal in this way.
While zoos in the west are wrestling with the ethics of keeping animals in cages, China is only starting to see the novelty in it and not how this is not the politically correct thing to do.
Perhaps they should watch Oscar-winning animator Nick Park's Creature Comforts, where zoo animals explain what it's like to live in cages:
Yau Wai-ching holds up a copy of the High Court's ruling in front of the media
Hong Kong's High Court has decided that two localists who were democratically elected in September are disqualified from becoming legislators because of the way they took their oaths of office last month.
Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus Baggio Leung Chung-hang of Youngspiration have vowed to appeal the ruling.
Mr Justice Thomas Au Hing-cheung said the pair's conduct during the October 12 ceremony meant they declined to take their oaths and must therefore vacate their seats.
The Youngspiration pair have been disqualified from Legco
During the oath-taking ceremony, they had carried banners that read "Hong Kong is not China" and said "Sheena" instead of "China", which many consider to be a derogatory term the Japanese used during World War II.
The judge also ruled Legco President Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen had no right to allow Yau and Leung to retake their oaths, adding that he came to this conclusion before the National People's Congress Standing Committee made its ruling last week.
Justice Au said according to the Oaths and Declarations Ordinance, the oath must be taken solemnly and sincerely and that oath takers are "bound in conscience to perform an act faithfully and truthfully", which he believed Yau and Leung did not do, nor did they recognize "one country, two systems".
The judge says Andrew Leung cannot decide on retaking oaths
The pair's lawyers had argued that the courts had no right to intervene in the affairs of the Legislative Council, citing the UK, where the parliamentary supremacy reigns and no constitution exists.
But the judge said in Hong Kong's case, the Basic Law is "supreme" instead of the legislature.
It sounds like Justice Au was at pains to clarify he arrived at this conclusion independently of the NPC Standing Committee, but one will never know since Beijing made its decision before the High Court.
Either way it's a sad state of affairs for democratically-elected legislators in Hong Kong. There have been previous cases of the Legco President allowing people to retake their oaths.
Now suddenly it's been decided this is not possible.
We understand Beijing is clamping down on anyone suggesting independence. We also have to stress this is a very small minority of people.
But this also indicates that many people here find it hard to accept that Hong Kong is a part of China, but at the same time, it is NOT China.
