The South China Morning Post invites Hong Kong’s four Chief Executive candidates to comment on the apparent abduction of Xiao Jianhua by Mainland agents…
Only former Security Secretary Regina Ip says anything of substance – and that’s about the lack of a cross-border extradition arrangement (a logical challenge, as we shall see).
The SCMP tentatively links Xiao’s detention with China’s 2015 stock-market turmoil. Maybe Xiao helped elite families use insider knowledge to profit from the bubble and dump stocks before the crash. The abduction may be to silence him, or make him talk, according to Xi Jinping’s taste as the kleptocracy’s power-struggles continue.
Some sleuth-like investigative journalism on connections between Xiao and our local business players and establishment would be interesting. Hong Kong, as we are often reminded, is the ‘super-connector’ that provides corporate partnerships, deal-making expertise and financial, legal and accounting services to people doing business between China and the world. Xiao didn’t choose this city as a base just because he and his female bodyguards liked the view from the Four Seasons.
While we’re waiting for that, we can consider how helpless everyone else is. One media report (which I’ve lost) quoted someone whining about how this episode could scare Mainland scumbag money away from our shores. But that’s the only bright side.
The international press vaguely mention fears of Chinese meddling without saying who might be fearful, or of what. Hong Kong’s government, police and other authorities can only stand by, dumb and helpless, as the Leninist state’s henchmen walk in and do as they please. The aforementioned Chief Executive candidates are reduced to the same pawn-like status as the rest of us.
Beijing’s officials and local shoe-shiners criticize Hong Kong pro-democrats for failing to comprehend ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and the Basic Law properly. The naïve Western-influenced unpatriotic elements need to understand that the ‘two systems’ are subservient to the ‘one country’, and the Basic Law is a national law created in Beijing, not some ordinance passed by the Legislative Council.
The truth is that everyone is deluding themselves.
The Communist Party is above ‘One Country’, let alone ‘Two Systems’. It is above the Basic Law. It is above the PRC Constitution. It applies whatever rules it chooses wherever it wants to whoever it wants. What Carrie Lam or John Tsang or our CE or Security Bureau can’t admit is that it is they – not the Beijing secret agents – who are out of their jurisdiction here.
As the closing sentence wryly notes, the personage of the CE is meaningless. Unless, of course, it’s Regina, in which case we might be treated to the sight of a public official gleefully carrying out her duties whilst wearing a dominatrix outfit.
Did any of you see the pic of Vagina’s decoltee ?
As you pertinently say, the CP can do what it likes, without let or hindrance.
The best that can be done, although it’s not much, is to understand the limits of its power. What countries can it operate in with impunity? In the present case, to what extent were the HK police, immigration and CE and CS’s office involved? Were some of the agents in the hotel HK ones?
And does anyone know a good locksmith?
Does anyone here think that Article 23 is de facto in operation already?
Peter Mathieson has thrown in the towel: a classic case of a competent and well-intentioned newbie thrown in at the deep end when it was empty, or, if you wish, to the lions, or rather jackals.