Ousted Hong Kong lawmaker Yau Wai-ching’s argument appeals to fear and alternative facts

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Yau Wai-ching displays a banner reading “Hong Kong is not China”, during the oath-taking session for the city’s sixth Legislative Council, on October 12, 2016. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 6:03am, 26 Sep 2018Updated: 6:03am, 26 Sep 2018

In his poem, Waiting for the Barbarians, C.P. Cavafy portrays a Roman city in which public life comes to a halt as the people await the arrival of their enemies – the barbarians. When their enemies fail to show up, the public becomes disoriented, because the barbarians “were a kind of solution” to them. In Yau Wai-ching’s article “Democracy’s demise in Hong Kong” in The New York Times, Yau shifts the blame for everything – from Hong Kong’s diminishing relative importance, to China’s economy, to her own imprisonment – to mainland China.

For her, casting mainland China as the “barbarians” and advocating independence is “a kind of solution”. Yet independence is just an empty shell, a facade for the pro-independence camp’s ideological bankruptcy, behind which there is nothing but numerous alternative facts, an appeal to fear, and a gross oversimplification of Hong Kong’s socioeconomic issues.

Yau claims Hong Kong enjoyed civil liberties and the separation of powers under British rule. But the facts say otherwise – representative democracy in the Legislative Council was a foreign concept until 1991. The Legco was historically presided over by the governor of Hong Kong until 1993.

After glorifying British rule, Yau makes an allegation that China manipulated Hong Kong’s economic success to boost the development of other cities, when in reality Hong Kong has benefited tremendously under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, its free trade agreement with mainland China.

Emily Lau Wai-hing wins a seat in the first direct elections to the Legislative Council in 1991. Photo: Billy Ho

Thank localists for the joint checkpoint

Yau also complains about her removal from Legco, yet conveniently omits the fact that she pledged allegiance to “the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Ref****** of Shina” in her oath. Chances are Yau quite literally thinks that the Chinese are barbarians, as evident from her usage of the word “Shina”, a derogatory term for “China”.