To DQ or To Postpone? (Lee Yee)
To DQ or To Postpone? That’s probably the ultimate question for the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government and Carry Lam around the issue of the Legislative Council (LegCo) Election right now.
Since the waterloo of the District Council Election, the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government, and the Constitutional Affairs Bureau have all been restructured. The Chinese and Hong Kong Communists are ensuring that there will not be a slip in the LegCo Election in September. Forcing the National Security Law was to use the law to screen the candidates, but they had not foreseen the international backlash and that would place China under siege from all around. Moreover, Hongkongers have not retreated despite the threats of the National Security Law, but rather, a large number of youngsters from the resistance camp ended up winning in the pro-democracy primaries.
A month ago, US Secretary of State Pompeo called the September LegCo Election in Hong Kong an important indicator of whether the Election can be held smoothly, and to observe whether China is respecting Hong Kong’s freedom. In other words, if the Carrie Lam administration uses the National Security Law as a threshold to disqualify a large number of Hongkongers’ rights to be elected, the US is bound to employ more aggressive measures against China and Hong Kong.
As a result, the Chinese and Hong Kong Communists are directing their efforts in these two days to spread the word regarding the increasing severity of the epidemic, which would increase the likelihood of the virus being spread in crowded polling stations, and therefore suggested for a postponement of the Election. The truth was told by Tam Yiu-chung, who said, “Those who moved to the Greater Bay Area will need to quarantine for 14 days when they return to Hong Kong, but they don’t have a place to stay. Indeed, we’ve seen truckloads after truckloads of “voters” coming to Hong Kong from the mainland, so what will happen now?
However, the pro-democracy primaries also attracted huge crowds, but none of the recent confirmed cases contracted the virus from being in line to vote; Singapore has a worse epidemic situation than Hong Kong, but the general election was held as usual. Therefore, whether it is to disqualify through the national security law, or to postpone with the epidemic as an excuse, the US is bound to view whether the LegCo Election gets to happen as a significant indicator of Hong Kong’s freedom. For the Chinese and Hong Kong Communists, both disqualifications and postponement would lead to a dead end.
Those who are interested in running for LegCo should not worry about whether to sign the confirmation letter or not. In the nomination form, there is already a provision: “I will uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.” The additional confirmation letter added in 2016 is nothing more than a regurgitation of requiring candidates to confirm their support for Articles 1, 12, and 159 (4) of the Basic Law, which is already stated in the nomination and no need to additional confirmation. In 2016, those who signed the confirmation letter were still disqualified, and all the pan-democratic candidates who refused to sign the confirmation letter received the notice of nomination confirmation.
The National Security Law in Annex III of the Basic Law may be added to this year’s confirmation letter. Being disqualified will have nothing to do with the signing or not of the confirmation letter, but rather, whether the Returning Officer is willing to risk being disqualified (sanctioned) by the US, and whether the Chinese and Hong Kong Communists are concerned about the increased sanctions imposed by the US.
As the US election gets closer, its China policy gets tougher, and the polling of both parties benefits. The day before yesterday, Pompeo met with Nathan Law, a former standing committee member of Demosistō in exile, to discuss the Hong Kong situation under the National Security Law. Before the meeting, Pompeo said that he expected the exchange with Nathan Law to be “eye-opening”.
Pompeo also discussed the Hong Kong issue with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Previously, the UK canceled the extradition agreement with Hong Kong and announced that it would stop using Huawei equipment in the construction of the 5G network.
When Nathan Law met with the Shadow Foreign Minister of the Labour Party and the Minister of Asian Affairs of the ruling Conservative Party before July 1, he urged the British to use the Magnitsky Act to sanction Hong Kong’s “officials who betrayed Hong Kong, and the dirty cops”. 17 Canadian parliamentarians jointly petitioned for Prime Minister Trudeau to impose urgent sanctions on relevant Chinese and Hong Kong officials. Carrie Lam said, “I have no assets in the US and I don’t want to go to the US.” So “I’m not afraid”, but that would not be the case for the UK and Canada.
The night before last, a fire broke out in the Chinese Consulate General in Houston, which might have been caused by the burning of classified documents. The US required China to close the Consulate within 72 hours. Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin called that a “crazy action” again on his Weibo account. This is yet another time, since the possible ban of Chinese Communists from entering the US, for him to use the word “crazy” on US measures against China.
“Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.” All measures to safeguard human freedom are “crazy” if you ask the “birds born in a cage”. All “crazy” measures that have been imposed, and all the more to come, are all because of that National Security Law that flabbergasted the civilized world.
