I make the humble admission that I love Hong Kong, from its rabid devotion to capitalism to its amazing shops, Victoria Harbor and possibly the finest dim sum I’ve ever eaten. It has been the home of the unleashed Chinese, a wonder for expats and those looking to succeed. Now, with China denying what it had promised, the freedom for Hong Kong to select its own candidates for election, protesters are finding that dissent falls to the knock on the door…
Via NY Post:
In the days before the sun finally set on the British Empire in Hong Kong, Beijing aimed to capitalize on the moment by using it to underscore the evils of colonialism. At a rally in Guangdong province, for example, the government burnt a thousand pounds of heroin and methamphetamine, in memory of the Qing Dynasty official who set off the war that led to Britain’s acquisition of the island when he destroyed more than 2 million pounds of British opium.
Yet however real the sins of colonialism, the ordinary people of Hong Kong appreciated it had also bequeathed them something precious. Just before he died, newspaperman Tsang Ki-fan put it this way: “This is the only Chinese society that, for a brief span of 100 years, lived through an ideal never realized at any time in the history of Chinese societies — a time when no man had to live in fear of the midnight knock on the door.”
These words come back to me as Mark Simon, an American expat working in Hong Kong, calls to report that authorities had raided his apartment and seized a computer from his 10-year-old daughter. The same day, the same police raided the homes of his boss, media owner Jimmy Lai, and a local legislator, Lee Cheuk-yan.
The knock has come.
These men are targets for the high crime of believing that Hong Kong ought to be a society of, by and for the people. They have supported this democratic principle with financial contributions, with public advocacy and with moral courage.
