MR CHAN KIN-POR (in Cantonese): President, first of all, I thank Mr Christopher CHEUNG for proposing this motion. I wish also to extend my support to him as he has found himself the target of much criticisms today. To establish the truth, we must conduct a thorough discussion over the issue. By working in concert with many countries, the United States is now waging a trade war on China. If the people of Hong Kong―including Members of the Legislative Council―fail to grasp the big picture and keep doing things, deliberately or unintentionally, that undermine the bargaining position of China and result in China being trounced in one fell swoop, a catastrophe would befall China and Hong Kong. While a small number of Hongkongers―including Members of the Council―may be offered refuge in foreign countries by then, the majority of Hong Kong people, who have been working hard and living frugally for decades in Hong Kong, may well be shedding helpless tears as their humble dream of leading a stable and comfortable life turns into ashes.
I wish to point out that the victim hardest hit in the turmoil caused by the amendment exercise of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance (“FOO”) is the Police. The Police are duty-bound to maintain law and order in Hong Kong, with the handling of protests being an unshirkable responsibility and part and parcel of their job. Regrettably however, they have been caught between a rock and a hard place, finding themselves the target of struggles. This is utterly unreasonable and entirely wrong. Why? Let us say some police officers had indeed overreacted in response to assaults from rioters. While they should be subjected to investigation, why do we tar every police officer with the same brush, as the saying goes? There are 30 000 police officers in Hong Kong. Do these 30 000 police officers all have to assume responsibility for the overreaction?
Take a look at what is happening. The way in which the public are bullying the Police has gone far more serious than can be imagined and turned utterly ruthless. While only a minority of police officers, whose identities were unknown, were involved in clashes, some members of the public are now targeting all police officers for bullying. For instance, police officers are often given a cold shoulder when going shopping or patronizing restaurants these days. They are subjected to cyberbullying, which takes aim at their families as well. In waging an indiscriminate campaign of ostracization against all police officers, their tormentors care nothing about whether their victims were indeed deployed to that demonstration in Admiralty for crowd control purposes. I find that way too much overboard. Why has Hong Kong come to such a state? If the situation continues, police officers would likely question the point of serving these people further, or whether their salaries are enough compensation for the kind of bullying with which they have to put up. I saw that many police officers were fully committed to their work and worked diligently, despite being on duty for hours. Yet, images showing them taking a short break inside the Legislative Council Complex―in the middle of their operation against violence―were captured and fed live on the Internet, or became a subject of criticism. What kind of world is this? How can Hong Kong people do this in all conscience? Hence, we must handle the issue with extreme care.
I wish also to highlight a question that warrants consideration by the Police, the Government and the protesters: How should the Police distinguish peaceful, moderate and rational protesters from thugs in future, so that peaceful demonstrators will not be besmirched or treated as accomplices open to criminal liability? It would be a great shame if peaceful and moderate protesters too are seen as villains and treated with the same standard. In my view, rioters and rioters alone should be held responsible for their crimes. All protesters should not be tarred with the same brush. Hence, I hope members of the public will stop their stigmatization and insulting campaign against police officers and their families. Otherwise, they may ultimately pay dearly for it.
And what have our Members of the Legislative Council done? Some of them exploited their position as Members to impede the work of the Police and insulted police officers. In this Council, they insulted Members of the pro-establishment camp on every opportunity possible. I believe any member of the public who had watched them speak yesterday would likely wonder when Members have put on such hideous faces. With the benefit of my full understanding of the ins and outs of the issue, I can tell that 99%―if not 100%―of the content of their speeches was pure fabrication, phrased in the most scathing rhetoric with the sole purpose of insulting Members of the pro-establishment camp. Hence, I wish to take this opportunity to buck up Members of the pro-establishment camp―particularly those returned through direct elections. Members of the pro-establishment camp must withstand the pressure, continue to do what is conducive to and in the best interest of Hong Kong while serving the public. I am fully confident that the people do have discerning eyes.
Given the dismal explanatory work carried out in respect of the FOO amendment, I think the Government―the Chief Secretary for Administration is present at the moment―I think he should lead the government team to conduct an in-depth review and change their practice. In this day and age when online publicity campaigns are more important than publicity through traditional media, the Chief Secretary will achieve nothing, to be honest, if the Government does not resolve to run its online publicity campaign properly.
Let me cite an example. In the course of convening a meeting of the Finance Committee for vetting 44 funding applications which were all related to people’s livelihood, what difficulties did I encounter? First, I very much wished to schedule a meeting with the opposition Members. But Ms Claudia MO demurred, pointing out that other segments in her camp do not see such a need. That was not a problem, I told her, I could meet with her alone. There was no reason for her to decline, since she was a free agent. I then offered to meet with her anytime, on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Unsurprisingly, she gave no response. On Monday, right before I was about to meet the press at 3:00 pm and gave an account on the meeting, someone stole a march by calling a press conference at around 2:00 pm, in which I was unsurprisingly pilloried and discussions were dismissed as meaningless, and so on. What was more ludicrous was that in that very evening and the two that followed, Mr Alvin YEUNG, Ms Claudia MO, Mr CHU Hoi-dick and Mr James TO spoke separately, by way of social media posts, press conferences or media sessions in the Legislative Council, twisting my words, pushing me further and further by endlessly making new demands while vilifying my character and credibility to their heart’s content.
Yet, it should be noted that none of them had made one single promise. While demanding me to do this and do that, they never said anything like “We will do such and such if Mr CHAN Kin-por managed to do such and such”. But never mind, it is in the interest of Hong Kong that all of these 44 funding applications be approved―perhaps not all of them, with the 44th item being a funding application for a study in relation to the Lantau Tomorrow Vision. My conviction that we owe it to our future generation to implement this programme―which is a matter of necessity to Hong Kong―notwithstanding, I think there is no harm waiting, under the circumstances, until the Government has done a proper job of publicity before making the relevant funding provisions. Hence, I need to process 43 projects, including hospitals, public rental housing, repairs to bridges and roads, the Cha Kwo Ling Tunnel, etc., which are all related to people’s livelihood and time-consuming in implementation. Are Members aware that the failure of the Finance Committee to approve the funding would lead to delays of the aforementioned projects for at least four months to one year? That will really hurt the people of Hong Kong. The remarks they made yesterday and just now were so outrageous that I nearly succumb to the urge of spewing profanity. Luckily, I never speak in a vulgar tongue. I then put forward an ultimate proposal in which I would urge the Government to withdraw the 44th funding item relating to a feasibility study on the Lantau Tomorrow Vision in exchange for their agreement to the speedy approval of the other projects. There were no replies from them, as if they had all vanished. In citing this example, I wish to highlight to the Government the importance of making swift responses. I had given responses twice. Any sophistry advanced by them was met with my rebuttal in an hour’s time. That was what swaying public opinion and making yourself heard were all about. That said, such efforts would still be futile, for many young people only browse a toxic website―the toxic website of the Apple Daily―with their phones, neither watching television nor reading newspapers. That being the case, how can official messages get across to the Hong Kong public? Hence, the Government must put up a good fight in the media war.
According to them, the withdrawal of the Bill that seeks to amend FOO would put an end to the incident. Yet, I wish to ask: What would be the consequence of a withdrawal? Judging from the absence of any promises made by them in the case of the Finance Committee, once the Government gave an inch by withdrawing the relevant Bill, they would only push for a yard by making other demands that simply cannot be met by the Government.
Given that Hong Kong is a city where the rule of law reigns, should we set the arrested persons free simply because of public outcries? In that eventuality, everyone should emigrate since this is not the Hong Kong we know. In my eyes at least, Hong Kong boasts of a relatively lenient legal system under which prosecutions are not instituted lightly. Even if someone is prosecuted, he or she can fight for an acquittal through litigations. That is how Hong Kong works. If the arrested persons find even such a system scary, they would find it even more so with the Mainland system. I certainly understand people’s lack of confidence in the Mainland system and the fear of being wrongly accused. Yet, how many of us really understand the FOO amendment? I have said time and again that 99% of us would not be affected by the amendment. But the opponents said 99% of us would be affected instead, along with many other weird and strange claims.
A Member mentioned an actuary in his speech just now and prattled about the offspring of leaders. An ordinary person with common sense will hardly hold such views. Hopefully, the views of that actuary are not representative of those commonly held by actuaries. Since this Member spoke with sincerity, we must listen to him seriously. The Government, meanwhile, should conduct a critical review of what went wrong in the publicity work of the amendment, which led to misstatements pervading society and the total failure of the public in receiving official messages. The pro-establishment camp supports the amendment because we understand that only a small number of people, such as suspects of murder, arson and endangerment of national security, will be affected. The majority will not be affected. Yet, I am baffled by the concern of many members of the public, strangely, about them being arrested, which bears testament to the enormous influence wielded by the media. I am sure all Members, including those of the opposition camp, present here know the truth. But instead of making clarifications to the public, the latter would naturally fan the flames. So, I think the Government should do more.
How should we go on from here? I think it is a very critical moment to Hong Kong. It can only be hoped that China and the United States can come to a useful agreement through their negotiations. While the Government of China and its people may have to suffer some losses, certain compromises are inevitable if peace and continued progress of our country are to be maintained. What is worrying is Hong Kong people making troubles for themselves, by such ways as urging members of the Group of Twenty (G20) to pressurize China―as Mr Tony TSE said just now, even commoners of the Qing Dynasty, seeing themselves as Chinese, would not do such a thing. As Chinese, we should conduct a critical review of the education system of Hong Kong, examining why our young people would turn out like this; and why, instead of dissuading them, their parents would march with them. I think Hong Kong people absolutely have the right to conduct peaceful demonstrations, in which I myself someday may participate if necessary. That said, we should be cautious about not becoming accomplices, still less using young people as cover to serve some ulterior purposes.
Issues of Hong Kong or of our country should be dealt with in Hong Kong or in our country. As a lawmaker for years, I can judge by my experience in dealing with China that, far from achieving their goals, applying coercion on China will only make things worse and lead us to an even more impossible impasse. As a part of China after all, Hong Kong is well-positioned to serve as a model of constitutional reform and lead the way in the gradual opening up of the Mainland. Things might turn out differently if Members were willing to engage in more negotiations on constitutional reform back then. While I believe a democratic system will make a government keep better tabs on public opinion, it is not without its problems. An expatriate friend commented to me some 10 years ago that while Hong Kong had indeed made rapid progress, efficiency in administration would suffer correspondingly as the system got increasingly democratic, since the opposition from even a small number of people could derail a policy. Hence, I anticipate it will be difficult for the Government to take forward any policies on Hong Kong-Mainland relations in the next two to three years. Yet, the Government should neither be disheartened nor fall into inaction. I think civil servants have a tendency to do nothing as a way of avoiding mistakes. I hope the Government will not turn itself into this.
In fact, I have been impressed by the performance of the Administration under Carrie LAM, who has the courage to innovate and the audacity to take on issues that evaded by her predecessors. Though originally well-intentioned, the amendment exercise of FOO, due to various reasons, has caused a furore and precipitated a so-called perfect storm. That said, I hope the Government will continue its efforts instead of giving up.
Deputy President, I did not intend to speak originally, lest my remarks sting the sore spots of the opposition―which is often the case, prompting them to go nuts and vent their spleen on the Finance Committee, to the detriment of the public. Yet, apart from the fact that the controversy of the FOO amendment is a matter of principle, I also think the opposition may react differently this time around. Instead of continuing their efforts to undermine the Legislative Council, Hong Kong and China, change the destiny of Hong Kong people and make our lives increasingly difficult in the future, Members of the opposition camp―none of them are present―may listen to me and reverse course before too late. By continuing their present tack, they would be doing an absolute disservice to Hong Kong people and our young people. For they are hoodwinking and misleading young people to do things that lead to lifelong regrets. Thank you, Deputy President.