What threat does Hong Kong face that places the world over – from Singapore to Mexico to Belgium to Kenya – do not? From HKFP…
“The evil of soft resistance lies in the fact that you may not know it is evil,” Secretary for Security Chris Tang said in an interview with Commercial Radio on Monday. “You may even think it is [coming from] a good person.”
Reiterating language introduced by the government last year, Tang listed “four great national security risks” in Hong Kong. These include interference by foreign forces, domestic terrorist activities, fugitives continuing to spread “Hong Kong independence ideology,” and “soft resistance.”
Among the four, Tang said, “soft resistance” is the “most malicious” since its dangers are not as clear as the others’.
“If it is not illegal, first consider its intentions,” Tang added. “If it is illegal, action should of course be taken.”
Tang did not elaborate or provide any examples.
Perhaps there is a translation problem here, and the Secretary means ‘insidious’? If it is really more malicious than terrorism, surely ‘soft resistance’ should be made illegal.
Either way, he still fails to tell us exactly what it is. Many observers see a deliberate ploy here. By not defining this threat, the label is a convenient catch-all. If the authorities call something ‘soft resistance’, mainstream media, schools, lawyers, cultural groups or other institutions might be too scared to defend or have any contact with it, even if it seems to be ‘coming from a good person’.
But at the top levels in the CCP, it perhaps also reflects a deeply rooted fear of the unknown – amorphous ideas, concepts or practices possibly lurking out there in Hong Kong’s midst. Not merely ‘known unknowns’, but ‘unknown unknowns’ (for fans of Donald Rumsfeld). Things that, as Secretary Tang puts it: ‘you may not know are evil’ (bear that phrase in mind next time you see a cute puppy dog). Even things that perhaps do not actually exist.
Which leads to the question: is doubting the seriousness or reality of soft resistance a form of soft resistance?
“Which leads to the question: is doubting the seriousness or reality of soft resistance a form of soft resistance?”
Don’t be a child. Of course it is.
It seems to me that “soft resistance” is simply the manifestation of the Party’s chronic, institutionalised paranoia, and that the local Party apparatchiks feel the need to batter on about it simply as the easiest way of demonstrating their fealty.
What is the difference between “soft resistance” and “soft power” which Beijing openly admits using against the rest of the world?
SR is nothig more than a ploy to justify the unaccountable resources devoted to NS and a justification for the alarming increase in surveillance paraphernalia.
That the patriots are pushing the low altitude economy despite its security implications enforces the ambivalency Joe Public has to navigate,
So things that aren’t evil are evil.
Got it. Makes perfect sense.
@curious: One is an excuse to use against the domestic population and the other is used against the outside world. Fear everything. Hide in bunker.