Why Hong Kong should not believe ‘Beijing man’ Lau Siu-kai’s take on the troubles of a separatist party

Alice Wu says his suggestion that the ultimatum against the Hong Kong National Party resulted from Beijing’s pressure on local officials raises questions beyond the fate of a minor political party. Those questions include whether his voice should carry the weight that it does

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Members of Hong Kong National Party hand out leaflets to the public in Mong Kok in May 2016. In July 2018, the Hong Kong secretary for security said the party had three weeks to make a case for why it should be allowed to continue its political activity, with a ban on the party appearing imminent. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 4:30am, 23 Jul 2018Updated: 1:42pm, 3 Oct 2018

Academic and professor Lau Siu-kai has never been a professional politician, but one could argue that he is Hong Kong’s most skilled political player. For one, he has enjoyed unparalleled political longevity.

Lau has been active in every period of the city’s relatively short history as a special administrative region. He is like the photobomber who makes it into every political snapshot of this city. His opinions are sought after and he gladly volunteers them. And if we spend time dissecting his many statements, we would see that his genius lies in his mastery of operating in the realm of vagueness and ambiguity.

His political clout is obvious. He has outlasted any of this city’s chief executives, and done so while being critical of them, even when he was head of the government think thank, the Central Policy Unit. Lau has accused former chief executive Leung Chun-ying of having a “Beijing problem” due to Leung’s close ties with mainland authorities.

The irony is, Leung’s “problem” is also Lau’s – except that the professor has used it to his advantage. When Lau speaks, it is understood he speaks for Beijing, though it is never clear who in Beijing he is speaking on behalf of. What is clear is he has never been “just an academic”.

Professor Lau Siu-kai takes part in the RTHK radio programme in Kowloon Tong in December 2017. Lau has never been “just an academic”. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Lau is skilled in blurring the lines. And in a 2014 interview with the Post, he demonstrated just how shrewd a political operative he is. He dismissed an accusation that he was doing Beijing’s bidding with “I was responding to questions raised by [interviewers] and explaining according to my own understanding … they weren’t necessarily entirely representative of the [central] government’s views” (emphasis mine).