Mark Pinkstone/Former Chief Information Officer of HK government
The US Consul General for Hong Kong and Macau, Gregory May warned Americans on a CBS televised interview that in Hong Kong no one can criticize the local government. That is a blatant lie. Of course, anyone can criticize the government and many do.
What they cannot do is incite hatred towards the government. And that is a big difference. Criticism verses incitement. May is fully aware of what incitement means as similar laws appear in the US, UK, and other jurisdictions following the common law system.
But May was choosing his words carefully as he knows the impact they have in the US. His track record is that of damning Hong Kong as per the wishes of his bosses in Washington which has orchestrated a series of sanctions against Hong Kong people for the enactment of our National Security Laws.
With his barrage of anti-Hong Kong interviews, May is demonstrating total contempt and disrespect for his hosts, never seen anywhere before among the world’s diplomatic corps.
“People in Hong Kong are not free to criticize the government like they used to be able to,” said May in the interview. “It’s so disconcerting to see their rights and freedoms being so steadily taken away from them.”
The deliberately falsified interview was carried by CBS a major US television broadcaster, so his comments would carry much weight among a gullible audience. He went on that enactment of Hong Kong’s Article 23 created “a chilling effect, a massive chilling effect over Hong Kong. It is important, I think, that Americans who come here realize that you need to be careful what you say.”
If this doomsday scenario painted by May is real, then why are there some 85,000 Americans living in Hong Kong and 1,300 American enterprises making money in the Pearl of the Orient? The people of Hong Kong, including the American population know the real story: that Hong Kong is alive and well and all freedoms within the law are enjoyed by the populace.
In the words of Executive Council convener, Regina Ip in a segment of the CBS programme: “All the stability [and] safety have returned to Hong Kong.”
The Commissioner’s Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) issued a strong rebuke of the recent comments made by May, telling him to abide by his duties and stop smearing Hong Kong. The office called for May, as the US government’s representative in the Hong Kong SAR, to abide by the basic professional ethics and code of conduct of consular officials and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and badmouthing the SAR.
The Hong Kong SAR Government also hit out against the US’s highest representative in the city saying it strongly disapproves of and condemns absurd remarks on the Hong Kong situation, noting that the US had 21 pieces of legislation dealing with national security. The Government said in a statement that ever since the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL) in June 2020, the US has chosen to overlook the large-scale and incessant riots that devastated society, livelihoods and the economy of Hong Kong in 2019. Instead, the Government added, the US has chosen to maliciously slander laws relevant to safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong SAR, and to blatantly attack the city’s efforts in safeguarding national security dutifully, faithfully and in accordance with the law.
The American audience was given an “insight” into what Hong Kong is like today by CBS interviewer Ramy Inocencio, who found “the city felt hollowed of its people and its soul.” Was he locked up in his hotel room on July 1 and didn’t venture out on the streets? Hong Kong is full of vitality and that’s the reason millions of tourists are flocking to our shores every day. Hong Kong is a go-go place.
Inocencio, CBS’s Beijing correspondent, was very dramatic in his picture of Hong Kong. “Multi-lane highways and narrow back alleys were devoid of traffic and footfall. Many official celebrations the government had advertised felt barely celebratory, with just a sprinkling of attendees.” What!
But that is what the American public is being fed by their national media and State Department officials. Lies and more lies. The Americans living here must be horrified to see such reports and it’s interesting that not one appeared on the CBS programme to present their side of the story. They know better, they live here.
Others interviewed by Inocencio included Chan Po-ying, wife of “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, Sebastien Lai, son of jailed activist and former newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, and Nathan Law another activist who fled to the UK to escape the long arm of the law.
Mark Pinkstone
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **