Letters | Hong Kong’s governments have failed to fight for ‘two systems’

Hong Kong national security law (NSL)

Letters

Published: 6:40am, 10 Feb 2021

Why you can trust SCMP

Hong Kong’s government and the city’s vested interest groups have betrayed citizens in a shameful way. The “one country, two systems” policy should have encouraged government officials to fight for the people they represent. Instead, they have increasingly proven to first support the “one country” policy (“Beijing is making it clear that my sort are no longer welcome in Hong Kong”, February 9).

This is evident in their support for the national security law, the changing of education guidelines to bring them in line with that law, changing the laws related to freedom of expression, agreeing with Beijing about the status of BN(O) passport holders, and aiming to curb the status of district councillors. I could go on.

In short, they abandoned us.

We lack a government with courage and vision. The coronavirus crisis has made this clear once more.

04:35

What does ‘one country, two systems’ mean?

We are a paralysed community, because our government prefers to listen to Beijing instead of its own citizens. Several policies make no sense: closed beaches, social distancing measures for flower markets when normal markets and shopping malls remain crowded, a three-week quarantine for aircrew which will cost Cathay Pacific HK$400 million a month, whereas the government just poured in HK$39 billion to keep them afloat.

The legacy of this government as well as the previous one is that they never had the courage to fight for “two systems”, but surrendered to “one country”.

History will haunt them.

Peter den Hartog, Tuen Mun