To Smash a Cracked Pot ｜Lee Yee
The national security honeymoon, the calm before the storm, is over. The sword of Damocles above our heads comes swinging down.
Against the professional recommendations of the Board of Education, the University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) governing council went with the majority’s decision and fired Benny Tai Yiu-ting, associate professor of the Faculty of Law. Certainly, no one would challenge Benny Tai’s comment that the decision to terminate his appointment was made by “an authority beyond the university through its agents”.
Three males and one female, aged between 16 and 21, were arrested on suspicion of “secession” in violation of the national security law. There was no action, only online speeches. Perhaps the few words by these teenagers are powerful enough to split a country of 1.4 billion people?
I had been pondering whether the Communists and their bootlickers would adopt the disqualification tactic or the postponement tactic in the upcoming Legislative Council election. The answer has been revealed that mass disqualifications would come first, and then a postponement may follow. Some said that the Communists are “braver” than I had predicted; but to borrow a young person’s words, which I find to be more suitable: rationality limits my imagination.
The three-part strike happened within a period of two days, putting an end to the honeymoon where the CCP had once sought dialogue, probed, soothed, and observed the global siege led by the United States. Now the CCP is addressing the US sanctions head-on while flexing its muscles by targeting Hongkongers.
This also illustrates that the attempt by the pan-democrats to navigate within the cavity of the national security law, to try to compromise on the confirmation letter to see a way out through election was an utter, complete failure. They could have followed my suggestion from a month ago, to run in the election with proud and loud opposition against the national security law, to welcome being disqualified and show the civilized world “what the CCP is plotting against Hong Kong”. That would have been more courageous. Yet some pushed their luck, and now they face the same fate of being disqualified.
CCP’s honeymoon period following the implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong was based on the assumption, by the CCP as well as other overseas observers, that Trump’s tough policy toward China was for his election campaign. Since the current projection of the election seems unfavorable to Trump, that there is hope for the Democrats to take over, and the US might change its policy toward China.
When the United States ordered the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, and when the four top officials, especially Pompeo’s declaration of resistance to China, made it clear that the US ultra-cold war strategy towards China is unlikely to be reversible.
Stephen Young, a senior diplomat who had stationed in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taipei, said that demanding other countries to close their consulates is a very drastic strategy. In the past, if a foreign diplomatic agency had a blunder, actions would usually have been taken against a person. The closures of the consulates suggest that the relationship is close to a break-up.
On July 25, the New York Times published the words of Ryan Hass, the President of the US National Security Council in the Obama era, that said, “They want to reorient the U.S.-China relationship toward an all-encompassing systemic rivalry that cannot be reversed by the outcome of the upcoming U.S. election. They believe this reorientation is needed to put the United States on a competitive footing against its 21st-century geostrategic rival.”
The two bills on Hong Kong, and the one on Xinjiang Uyghurs, were all passed almost unanimously in the US Senate and the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House and Democrat, Pelosi, was particularly enthusiastic; left-wing media such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, though have been critical of Trump, have both affirmed and even encouraged Trump’s anti-China policy.
This has been a 180 from Trump’s previous declaration of “America First” when he did not hesitate to offend the United Kingdom, the European Union, and even Asia-Pacific countries. Pompeo has recently been chummy with Europe and the Asia-Pacific to ally up, and emphasized in his anti-CCP declaration the need for the free world to act together. In fact, Trump’s unilateralism has pivoted, and the allies have returned to their positions one after another, and a global siege towards China has gradually been formed.
Has China been in touch with the US Democratic Party in private to probe whether its China policy will change if it wins the general election? There is no way of knowing. Even if so, the answer is apparent.
The US policy toward China leaves no room for maneuver, and the power-hungry CCP must now hold tight onto the hastily enacted national security law till the end. The longer they hold out, who knows how many more Hong Kong officials or pro-Beijing people would be affected along the lines of Bernard Chan and his sanctioned foreign bank.
What the CCP and its Hong Kong bootlickers are doing could be described with the Chinese idiom “to smash a cracked pot”. The pot is already cracked, then just smash it. It means that there are blemishes, and mistakes that cannot be corrected or will not be correct, then why not send the helve after the hatchet.
Lu Xun said, “When the brave is angered, he draws the sword towards the stronger; when the coward is angered, he draws the sword towards the weaker.” Disqualifications coupled with the postponement, is it “braver”? Or rather, “the coward is angered”.
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