（By Man-to Leung. Translated by Chapman Chen｜Original version）
圖片來源：Double-M
In face of disputes about the constitutional reform, the Hong Kong Communist regime’s barbarous approach is turning white-hot. The purpose of the Hong Kong Government chiming in with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in everything it does is to push Hong Kong towards a kind of “bird cage politics”, in which puppets controlled by the CCP will become its agent in Hong Kong. Thus, the most important short-term target of the CCP is to incite defection of Hong Kong pan-democrats, so that some of the legislators will change tack and support the “false universal suffrage” proposal put forth by the local government.
Once this proposal is passed, the Hong Kong Communist regime is definitely not going to reactivate the constitutional reform. Just as the Chief Secretary Carrie Lam personally admitted on 22 April, the passing of this constitutional reform proposal will mean that the Hong Kong Government has reached the ultimate target stipulated in the Basic Law.
The Five-step Process of CCP and HK Communist Government
The Chinese Communist Party tries to make Hong Kong pan-democrats split up further, so that some of them will deviate from or even give up the basic democratic requirements of “genuine universal suffrage”. It is not difficult for the public to discern that a five-step process is being fermented therein. The first step, which had already begun before the Umbrella Revolution, is to instigate the Civic Party legislator Tong Ka-wah to oppose the Occupy action right from the right. After the Revolution, he even took the lead to support “pocket the proposal first”, so that the public cannot help suspecting that he is a spy arranged by the CCP to strike down the Civic Party at one go.
The Civic Party has gained public support relying on its repute or an image more idealistic than the Democratic Party. However, if the Democratic Party has been denounced as a traitor after 2010 such that quite a few votes have moved to the Civic Party, it will be very difficult for the Civic Party to justify itself to its supporters if it fails to seriously deal with Tong Ka-wah’s betrayal this time. Tong should be kicked out of the party before he manages to form another party.
The second step is to find scholars who flatter China but whose image is not too bad, such as Albert Chen Hung-yee, to support pro-China, “pan-democracy” government officials, like Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, to “enter the gate” or to be nominated as Chief Executive candidate. These despicable traitors to democracy have long withdrawn from political parties in order to join the government. How can they possibly represent pan-democrats? Let us forget about their bad records of administration for the time being. (For instance, Albert Chen has forcibly put forth the Third Airport Runway proposal.)
What they betray is not only the Democratic Party or pan-democrats but also an entire generation’s expectation of democracy. In recent months, a lot of absurd proposals have aimed at persuading pan-democracy legislators to accept the current constitutional reform proposal, but this way of instigating rebellion within the pan-democracy camp has neglected one important point, that is that, ordinary citizens’ disgust about hypocrites and traitors is often greater than their hatred for plainly little people.
The third step is the Beijing regime directly asking former legislators, such as Tik Chi-yuen, a key member of the Democratic Party, to go to Beijing, and inciting them to loudly support the government’s appeal of “pocket the proposal first”. Ostensibly they are looking for a way out for the constitutional reform while in reality the absurd theory of “pursing democracy albeit without insistence on resistance” is put forth. In fact, Tik has long begun to work with the Chinese Communist Party’s and the Hong Kong Communist Government’s policy to swallow Hong Kong. In particular, two years ago, he actually openly supported the Hong Kong Government to promote national education, and confirmed, as an NGO leader in the field of education, that there was nothing brainwashing about the subject, that the subject itself was quite all right. That resulted in an internal conflict of Democratic Party.
。The fourth step is to set up a climb-down for future traitors to democracy by way of non-core members and organizations of the pan-democracy camp. What is most eye-catching is Benny Tai Yiu-ting’s recent “Four-fifths Proposal”, which tries to justify the nomination committee and to persuade everyone to give up the mechanism of civic nomination. (Benny Tai was one of the initiators of Occupy Central, but he has never actually activated Occupy Central for “genuine universal suffrage”.) According to his proposal, no one can “come out of the gate” as a chief executive candidate unless he or she can get the support of four-fifths of the nomination committee, which means one-fifth of the nomination committee has the right of veto.
It is ridiculous to endorse the nomination committee in the name of “the minority going to have the right of veto” and to thereby persuade the pan-democrats not to exercise their inherent right to veto the false universal suffrage proposal. What is more absurd is that the proposal of Benny Tai simply cannot fulfill the international standard that he has insisted upon all along.
The fifth step is to incite defection of core members of pan-democracy political parties. Recently, Nelson Wong Sing-chi , central committee member of Democratic Party, claiming himself to be a moderate pan-democrat, directly called upon the pan-democrats to accept the government’s proposal. The sophistry of such core cadres is actually that if the constitutional reform proposal is not passed, CY Leung will continue to be the chief executive, which is unacceptable to all. But if CY Leung is reelected by a false universal suffrage based on a nomination committee manipulated by Beijing, isn’t it an even greater shame of Hong Kong? The important point should be to struggle for a system internationally reckoned as democratic. Only chief executives elected through such a system can legitimately represent Hong Kong.
What More to Expect of Pan-democrats?
The reason why throughout the Umbrella Revolution, progressive localist groups advocated the upgrading of action is because they did not trust pan-democrats, because they did not believe that pan-democrats would be able to fend off “false universal suffrage” from within the establishment.
Now the Umbrella Revolution has really failed and pan-democrats can hardly absolve themselves from the blame. But Hongkongers can only helplessly expect them not to make any more compromise at this critical moment. How opposition forces within and without the establishment will combine will be the deciding factor of whether the “false universal suffrage” proposal can be fended off or not.
The pan-democrats being an entity, all the elected legislators who claim to be pan-democrats have a special mission of history at this moment. Instead of failing their supporters again, they must unite together to vote down the 831 proposal – the proposal which adheres to the Standing Committee of the National People Congress’s decision of 31 August 2014 – and resolutely resist the totalitarian will of the dictatorial regime.
This at least will tell the world that what Hongkongers expect is not counterfeit universal suffrage. Forces outside the establishment must lead Hongkongers to demand all the pan-democracy legislators to hold on to the very end, and to sign an undertaking that requires those who refuse to sign the undertaking to be dismissed by their own political parties, and that will force those traitors to quit the political arena for good.
(The author is Professor, Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, cum Initiator, Democratic League of Hong Kong and Macao in Taiwan).
