Absurd claims of foreign meddling bring shame on Hong Kong
Stephen Vines says warnings of foreign plots are farcical and dangerous
I have a terrible admission to make: I am a foreigner. Although I have lived in Hong Kong for the better part of three decades, this is the first time that I have felt compelled to make an admission of this kind.
It's not being a foreigner that's so terrible but the fact that the pressure is now on to unearth dark foreign plots and point fingers at foreigners for undermining Hong Kong.
Certain organisations are slowly but surely purging themselves of foreign staff. A recently published newspaper column argued that Hong Kong people need to rid themselves of their reliance on foreign managers who, anyway, have shown themselves to be incompetent.
On top of this, but hardly new, are accusations of foreign meddling in Hong Kong affairs. This has reached a truly absurd level with allegations that the publisher Jimmy Lai Chee-ying was somehow or other acting as a conduit for United States meddling in local affairs based on his relationship with a former US government official who belongs to a party opposed to the current US administration.
Blaming foreigners for things going wrong and accusing foreign countries of meddling is hardly novel. It comes from the playbook of the truly desperate, who have given up on rational argument and resorted to wild accusations.
Meanwhile, a nasty atmosphere of xenophobia is building up, some of it attached to the presence of mainland Chinese in Hong Kong. The xenophobes maintain that this cannot be racist as they are of the same race.
