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.
