Kapok | The king is naked

Eric Sautedé

Until the jaw-dropping election of Donald Trump on November 9, all the feverish political discussions I have had on and off-line for almost a month somehow revolved around the controversial oath-taking and its ensuing rejection of the Youngspiration pair of newly elected Hong Kong legislators, Yau Wai-ching and Baggio Leung. That was the talk of the day (and night), and even those who professed to be “bored” or simply annoyed could not help commenting, discussing, and arguing. On my own Facebook page, that gave rise to the longest exchange of comments and responses I had ever had — and mainly with two “Friends”!

The bigger the stake, the higher the level of engagement. The saga aspect of the whole story, with its almost perfectly choreographed traumatic scene — visible and audible — on October 12 and its ensuing twists and turns for almost a month, largely explains the riveting effect it has produced. Moreover, the responsibility of the sudden changes of wind has been rather evenly shared: if the young radicals were the trigger, the pro-establishment forces “voluntarily” chose an unusually buoyant counter-attack to prevent the retaking of the oath, regarding which pan-democrats, old and new, objected vehemently, both vocally and physically.

The atmosphere was not subdued anymore in the LegCo chamber, and fingers were pointed at one another. Furthermore, all three sources of power were embroiled in the situation: the legislature, with its somewhat democratic legitimacy, entrenched the controversy, challenged in less than a week by the executive, requesting a judicial review from the High Court to not only prevent the Youngspiration legislators to retake their oath but to do it for good and thus unseat them.

Unity in both camps was initially far from absolute: not everybody agreed with the rather provocative stance of Yau and Leung among the pan-democrats and some pro-establishment voices were not acting outraged yet and believed things could be settled with a slap on the wrist. The just sworn-in president of the LegCo, Andrew Leung, was himself originally in favour of giving the troublemakers a second chance. When the first whispers of a possible intervention by the central authorities started to be heard, Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen indicated that “the dispute […] should be resolved within the Hong Kong judicial system”. After much denial and confusing signs, the admission that an interpretation by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) regarding oath-taking was in the tubes came from a long-time representative for Hong Kong in the NPC (herself already in Beijing), Maria Tam. And the government’s face was somehow salvaged by the revelation that the interpretation had been requested by the Chairman of the NPC, Zhang Dejiang.

When the interpretation was ultimately made public, what the Central authorities consider acceptable or not became more forceful, to the point where the “one country-two systems” principle was irremediably breached: not only does the interpretation venture into law-making by defining the penalties incurred by the “offenders”—thus going farther than the interpretation power—but also provides ample room for political manipulation (define “a manner which is not sincere or not solemn”…). Hence the 13,000-strong participants in the preventive demonstration organised on November 6 to expose a possible abuse of power and the silent march by the legal profession gathering 2,000 people on November 8 to denounce what Democratic Party founder Martin Lee has called “a tank crashing into the legal system”.

What is truly unacceptable for Beijing is thus the self-determination agenda of some radical young democrats, even though the irony is that there was no significant independence-leaning claim in Hong Kong until two years ago — the PRC under the leadership of Xi Jinping has therefore managed to accomplish in less than three years what the British could not do in 155! And to make matters worse, insult was added to injury, although one could debate the actual insulting load of the “People’s Refucking of Chee-na”. The target is a regime, and Chee-na or Shina is not derogative per se, but rather a challenge to the centrality of the “Middle Kingdom”. But in the end, patriots only deal with absolutes!