Journey to Nowhere

I know Donald Tsang, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, is not a politician, but only a civil servant, as he has always been; I know he is not a leader, but only an administrator.

But I never expected that he can be so bad. He can be so ignorant of history that in a radio program, he cited China’s Cultural Revolution as an extreme case of democracy, while Cultural Revolution is in fact a good example of how dictatorship can destroy a whole country.

Further, Tsang thinks if people have all the power, there can’t be good governance. In other words, democracy, people’s power, is at odds with social development and good governance.

It cannot be clearer that why Tsang was picked by Beijing to be the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. His idea about people’s power/democracy, something Chinese government is very fearful about, is just so similar to that of his boss.

View here for the text of Tsang’s interview on the radio program.

In case you don’t know, in China, when the leadership makes a speech, clapping hands in support of the points they make, from time to time, is common practice. But how can the people know when they should applaud? Easy, the leadership will raise the tone at places intended to be applauded, and then the public will know and acknowledge by clapping hands.

I was watching news yesterday on TV and could not help hold Hong Kong’s chief executive Donald Tsang in awe. Gosh, he was so good in imitating the Chinese leadership when making a speech to the Hong Kong-based Chinese army (PLA, People’s Liberation Army). Where he praised the army for its professionalism and friendliness, he skillfully raised the tone at the end of the sentence, and immediately the audience of the soldiers exploded in applauding. I found it both funny and pathetic.

Well, there must be reasons why Mr Tsang can be HK’s chief executive, and the above episode demonstrates why: You have to behave and think like you boss does.

It is saddening for HK, whose people have worked so hard to build the port city into a world renowned city, only to see they have no say in who with what attributes to lead them, and are told economic prosperity is the only thing they treasure. Their voice is fabricated and not heard.

When the government is spending a great deal of money to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of HK’s return to China, I find myself indifferent to all the fanfare.

June 4, the day China’s student democracy movement was suppresed, is a sensitive day for Mainland authority. On this past day, the press organizations in HK received an urgent press invitation from the Liaison Office of the China Central Government in Hong Kong, the highest China authority in the city. This must be something very big and important to cover, the press reckoned, given that it is on June 4 and the invitation is marked urgent. 

The press organizations sent out strong teams to the event venue, only to find that the “big and important” event was China Premier Wen Jiabao had written to a Hong Kong primary school pupil. The premier wrote in clear writing so that the pupil could identify the characters, and he encouraged the pupil to study hard and love her country and Hong Kong, the press was told.

The following day, this urgent event was reported in a small corner of the non pro-China press.

For the China press, anything that the leadership says and does is important, and invariably becomes a headline story. With little knowledge about Hong Kong and its people, the China authority in Hong Kong attempted to apply that principal to Hong Kong’s press, only to see dismal results.

The sad thing is, the China authority in Hong Kong has refused to see the reality and the truth of the world, despite their ten years in Hong Kong, after the city’s handover in 1997. And it is these people who can influence Hong Kong’s future.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang attended a meeting with secondary students this past week. It was an informal occassion where students would have opportunity to interact with the head of their government. It was reported that the students were not happy with the meeting because they found Mr Tsang not a sincere speaker.

Why did the students have such an unfavorable impression? Let me show you the kind of answer Mr Tsang gave the students in the Q&A session.

Q (a student): What advice do you have for us?

A (Mr Tsang): You should make use of the “one country two systems” to wring from the Central Government (ie. Beijing Government) what is advantageous for Hong Kong.

Is this a “person” talking? It sounds more like an official giving lecturing to his/her subordinates, as in the mainland China. His answer is so boring and so impersonal. And I assure you this style is very typical of him. 

Whenever I hear Mr Tsang talk like a top official in the Mainland China, I conjure up a bleak picture for Hong Kong. He never succeeds, in his public speeches, in convincing me that he is a leader of imagination and humanity, not to mention the ability to inspire in people. 

Hong Kong is sadly a city without leadership. Will the city have one day? I doubt it, under the current ”one country two systems”.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive says, to be eligible for canditates for the territory’s top job, one must be patriotic and competent.

Please tell me any other place where to be elected for the head of the government, the candidates being patriotic is one of the must-have conditions. It has been 9 years since Hong Kong’s handover to China and I am increasingly uncomfortable with the way the top government officials talk. Their words sound so inhuman and artifical, like that made from a political container.

It cannot be more apparent to me that a leader, first and foremost, should serve the people, and to be able to accomplish this, he or she must be competent and have the leadership. What else should matter?

It is 32 Celsius degrees – sweltering hot. It is Saturday. It is first of July. I, with thousands of others, joined the democracy marching demanding universal suffrage, on the streets of Hong Kong. I don’t think many of my friends in Hong Kong will attend the march, so I just go there alone. I took the bus from kennedy town to Wanchai, and joined the crowd there, walking for about one and a half hours to the government heaquarters in central.

People from all walks of life join in the rally. I see a man with long dirty hair hanging at the back, carrying an umbrella, and wearing a pair of broken cotten shoes, mothers and daugthers, young lovers, a man in his forty walking by himself…people are not shouting slogans at their top of voices, but there is passion and unflinching will there. ”we want universal suffrage”, some shouted. quiet tears well from my eyes, strangely. i am touched by the sense of solidarity and the will to overcome barriers just to fight for things valuable in life.

I am bebating in the morning: shall I go to the rally in this unbearable hot weather, and alone? I decide to go, at the end. Because I know I would hate myself if I didn’t go. I don’t want to be a person of words only, not actions. If I believe it is people’s right to choose someone to represent them; if I believe democracy is about people being able to participate in the process of governing and decision making process; if I belive Hong Kong has been a hugely capitalist place where only businessmen’s interests are taken care of, then I should go to this democracy rally to demand for universal suffrage.

I am glad that I am in the rally.