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Pan-democrats hijacking LegCo for own aims

Global Times | Zhang Dinghuai
Published on January 26, 2014 20:58

Some pan-democratic members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) have been using conspiracy theories to make an incident out of the replacement of local Chinese language newspaper Ming Pao's chief editor recently. They raised a motion on press freedom and editorial independence, speculating that the decision to remove the editor was politically motivated.

Politicizing every single action will only complicate matters. Kenneth Ka-lok Chan from the Civic Party warned that if Ming Pao "falls," they will have to resort to the "Occupy Central" movement, implying that the logic pan-democrats use in handling the Ming Pao issue risks evolving into a violent one.

In the first place, the LegCo, which holds legislative power in Hong Kong, is not entitled to motions of this kind. If the government is really suppressing and taking a firm grip of the media, it's reasonable that the council, as an institution of the public will, extends its power to pass such a motion.

The LegCo members are supposed to be pro-rationalists. But the motion was raised on the basis of groundless conjecture. It's beyond question that the replacement of chief editor of Ming Pao took place in suspicious circumstances given Hong Kong's intricate present-day situation. But the nature of the Ming Pao issue was changed when the motion on press freedom was debated in the LegCo and even passed by a narrow majority of two votes, although the motion doesn't have binding force.

There are three questions deserving deep contemplation: Does the motion embody rationality? While having no factual basis, is the passing of the motion an abuse of democracy given that it obviously targets the government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region? Will the motion aggravate the already existing tension between Hong Kong's executive and legislative authorities and thus harm Hong Kong's further development?

It is well known that freedom, and press freedom in particular, is an outstanding feature of Hong Kong. Taking advantage of this, some Hong Kong media outlets frequently make irresponsible reports and even launch unbridled attacks on the central government. The central government tolerates this under the principle of "one country, two systems."

It is estimated that the majority of global verbal attacks targeting the mainland are from Hong Kong. Chinese former leader Deng Xiaoping stated in a speech at a meeting with members of the committee for drafting the Basic Law of Hong Kong in 1987 that "after 1997 we shall still allow people in Hong Kong to attack the CPC and China verbally."

There are actually no restraints on Hong Kong media, and it's the degradation in professional ethics that has led to the decline of the public credibility of Hong Kong media nowadays.

There is no need to make a fuss over personnel changes in a commercial media in such a highly free society as Hong Kong. As a publication subordinated to a listed company, any personnel changes in Ming Pao are the decision of inner management within the company in accordance with certain commercial principles.

The reason that the motion could be raised and passed is closely related to the intricacy of Hong Kong society.

Currently, a certain group of Hongkongers have maintained an outdated mentality, lacking trust in the central government. When there are specious suspicions, they would rather believe those are true. Extremists in the pan-democratic camp in the LegCo are natural opponents of the government. They would make full use of such specious matters, packaging them with conspiracy theories, and using them as excuses for their ulterior motives.

The Hong Kong government denied and rejected the accusations concerning Ming Pao. It's normal for a government to be the target of criticism in a highly open and free society like Hong Kong. But the motion in the Hong Kong LegCo created a dangerous precedent of politically interfering in commercial and media operations, which will only consume Hong Kong's political resources and power.

The author is deputy director of the Center for Basic Laws of Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions, Shenzhen University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn