‘Spinning out of control?’ asks the South China Morning Post about the protests in Mongkok. Demonstrators repeatedly block intersections with barriers and the police repeatedly try to remove them, creating a cycle of anger and violence with no end – either in the sense of a purpose or a conclusion. So the answer is obviously ‘yes’.
The question should be: who has lost control? Another way to put it is to ask: who is supposed to be in control in the first place? Someone, after all, is supposed to be steering the ship – or as the ancient Greeks said, ‘kubernao’.
Chief Executive CY Leung went on TV last night and blamed ‘foreign forces’ for influencing the pro-democracy movement, though he also said the movement had become ‘out of control’. So the mysterious foreign forces aren’t in charge, but nor is he. The Hong Kong administration admits that it is not exercising power (in parts of Mongkok, at least), which sounds like a serious admission of failure. But the good news is that foreigners aren’t running things there either now. Which sort of makes it OK.
CY has to blame external malevolence because Beijing officials have already done so, and they would lose face if he fails to agree. The Chinese Communist Party is perfect, so if anything goes wrong it must be the fault of hostile forces, which are invariably based overseas. CY has a simple choice: point the finger at big bad foreign forces, or be openly disloyal to the Party; if the Communist leadership said the world was flat, he and Hong Kong’s other devout followers of this quasi-religion would repeat it as a fact. From his and Beijing’s point of view, Hong Kong people’s refusal to convert to this faith is the problem. From Hong Kong’s point of view, the leadership’s inability even to begin accepting responsibility is the problem. You can see how wonderfully productive tomorrow’s government-student talks are going to be.
To regain a shred of credibility, the government needs to find evidence of malicious foreign influence over the protests. Where to start? Part of the government complex at Tamar has been covered with messages about peace, love and freedom, and named the ‘John Lennon wall’ after a native of Liverpool, England. A senior 
police officer spoke to the press a few days ago wearing a colonial-era badge on her cap; to compound the crime, she called the item a ‘souvenir’. A poster at Admiralty promoting non-violence features Paddington Bear, who is known to be from Peru. And – the elephant in the room – have you noticed that in Hong Kong the vehicles drive on the left, just as they do in the UK?
As for specific details of foreign interference, we will have to make some educated guesses. If I were in charge of the international Western plot to prevent China from rising, I would create civil unrest in Hong Kong like this…
First, get the CIA to infiltrate the bureaucracy and property developers to undermine the land and housing system in such a way that people have no choice but to live in 165-sq-ft apartments that cost some seven times median household income. If that doesn’t get people rioting, what will?
Then I would use Vatican-Kuomintang-Dalai Lama splittist elements to organize mass-scale movement of Mainland shopper-tourists into Hong Kong to swamp the public transport, drive rents up and shut down locally oriented retailing. Streets full of gold shops and nowhere to buy noodles – guaranteed to piss off the populace.
As a cunning extra touch, I would get MI6 to recruit double agents in Hong Kong law enforcement and prosecutors departments, and persuade them to implement the law selectively, so 17-year-old student activists and a guy writing stuff on the Internet get arrested, but police who kick a handcuffed prisoner don’t, and decisions to chase and prosecute computer hackers depend on the political views of the victims. You’d be surprised how sensitive the public get when the law is applied unfairly like that.
This is just scratching the surface. Look around you. These evil foreign plotters are everywhere, and their plans are working.
Very high quality irony here. Appreciate it a lot.
Chortle chortle.
Now that CY has been promoted to Brigadier in the Daft Brigade the peanut gallery are going to insist CY proves outside forces at work, knowing there are none and they can make him look even more retarded.
Behold… RTHK today: “The Convenor of the Alliance for True Democracy, Joseph Cheng, has called for concrete evidence that foreign forces are influencing the protest movement here.
He was responding to comments by the Chief Executive, C. Y. Leung, during a television interview broadcast on Sunday.
Professor Cheng said Mr Leung had “absolute responsibility” to back up his claim.
I smell regime change.
You heard it here first.
They want to see out of control? They should look at the pumpkin riot in New Hampshire this weekend. Students flipped over cars and dumpsters, set things on fire, and threw projectiles (mostly pumpkins, duh) at each other and the police. The police used tear gas, dogs, pepper spray and tasers to disperse the crowd. They weren’t weren’t even protesting anything, they were just drunk. What sinister foreign forces were behind the Great Pumpkin Menace of 2014? Are squash vegetables secretly plotting world domination?
Another way for foreigners to influence HK: have a foreign company give the CE of Hong Kong $7 million and then have one of the foreign company’s board members be appointed the chairman of HK’s subway system by the HK CE. Of course the CE will deny there was anything wrong or illegal about the actions after it comes out.
ROFLMAOL! or words to that effect.
I’ve heard some noble patriots also report they have spotted foreign faces in protest crowds or even protesters that reach ages of 25 or 30! What the?! these aren’t students! Solid evidence.
Foreign forces eh? It’s a good thing our CE and CS have their families living with them in the workers’ paradise that is HK with nary a foreign right of abode to be seen. Oh wait …….
The Heung Yee Kuk is shot through and through with evil foreign influence, as a remarkable proportion of voting, small-house-building “indigenous” villagers have elected to live abroad.
I was in the Democratic People’s Republic of Mongkok yesterday afternoon at about 5 pm inspecting the government’s hard won intersection of Nathan Road and Argyle Street. In a 5 minute period I counted only approximately 60 vehicles heading westbound on Argyle St. turn north on Nathan Rd. This is what the police/government nearly caused a riot over and has several hundred cops stationed there 24 hours a day to protect? It seems that the government has lost perspective and is looking for moral victories. While moral victories in INTERnational affairs can be important, as the central government keeps reminding the world, this is an INTRAnational issue. Why does the HK government fight battles with the HK people for moral victories?
CYL need not look far, since the usual English language papers provide “clear-and-convincing-evidence” of hostile foreign forces — AND their heart-felt wish, to see China fall flat on its face. Return of good-old-days, presumably.
Cowards, as expected! Good riddance to you
As one of the few non-journo foreign faces on the barricades, and a long way over 30 (and, as far as I know, the only one who has been arrested for protesting), it bothers me that Leung and others somehow think I’m a “hostile foreign force”. I’m not. Hong Kong has been my home for the last 15 years, I’m here because I like the place, and I expect to die here. I get a vote (generously, I admit, as a foreign national) and like other protesters I am protesting because I want that vote to be meaningful, as promised by the mainland Chinese in the Joint Declaration.
I’ve had several discussions with other protesters about whether my presence is counter-productive, and they have, without exception, encouraged me to keep protesting. Unlike Leung and his cronies, they get that if Hong Kong is to progress as “Asia’s World City” then it has to disassociate being a Hongkonger from being of Chinese race. There are many, many Hongkongers of different races. We have all made our home here (many were born here), and we are just as much Hongkongers as the children or grandchildren of people who came from the mainland.
Hahaha – Anon x 2 – the funniest 2 posts of the day – congratulations.
Please post your address so we can send you your 50cents.
And when you use “quotations” can you please provide your source. I do not recall seeing any such ” “clear-and-convincing-evidence” ” (even inclusive of the overused hyphens). Please provide the name and links to such.
Oh wait even CY Leung can’t even prove it.
Bring out the anti psychotics the lunatics are literally running the asylum.
After thinking really hard about what CY could possibly mean by ‘foreign interference’, I have come to the conclusion that he must be talking about his nutjob daughter in England taunting Hong Kong taxpayers on Facebook. If anyone could be accused of inciting a riot…
How long until the protestors add tinfoil hats to their already-delightful CY Leung caricatures?
@ Paul Christensen: keep on going & support you!
Hemmers, very funny….best of the week so far.
If CY Leung wants “foreign interference,” let’s just give it to him….
Have the UN/Royal Navy-Army/US Navy-Army showed up en masse in HK, vacate the HK gov’t and all the PLA troops out of HK. Rape, murder, then dismember CY Leung’s daugther in England.
🙂
@nulle: Or… maybe let’s not? Because that would be terrible?