Privacy-invasion and sedition go hand-in-hand in Hongkong SAR
wchao37  Updated: 2004-03-19 09:17

Although I agree that public scrutiny through the media is a major tool of representative government, I also happen to believe that there ought to be a limit set on the legality of invasion of privacy, beyond which damages can be sought on behalf of the victims by disinterested parties.

The way they were sensationalizing the Laci Peterson murder case in America is devastating to the emotional well-being of the woman's parents and there are many complaints against such behavior. In the case of Hongkong, there was a public outcry in 2002 against the deliberate defamation of a well-known actress (Lau Ka-ling) by a gossipy tabloid. In cases like these, justice was rudely shunned aside and the ruthless tabloid owners walked away unscathed and in fact laughed all the way to the bank.

Therefore, striking a happy balance between public scrutiny and privacy protection is frantically desirable these days, although most countries aren't doing a good job in this regard, erring either on the side of over-sensationalizing to the point of criminal defamation, or on the side of under-reporting of corruptive practices of public servants for fear of social unrest.

Let's examine the case of Hongkong..

Hongkong's practice of allowing indiscriminate attacks on high officials did not prevent the Britishers from looting astronomical sums of money from her citizens in the pre-retrocession days.

Remember that the Brits started to allow multi-party politicking in Hongkong only during the term of the last governor (Chris Patten), just before the retrocession of the colony back to Chinese control. As such, it was meant not to enhance democratic prospects in Hongkong, but to create an atmosphere of perpetual distrust of the post-colonial government with daily lurid accounts of official impropriety amongst high officials.

Before the retrocession in 1997, Hongkong governors sent from London had limitless powers not subjectable to public scrutiny or ridicule. You never heard one word of criticism of the governor and in fact there were political prisoners locked away at Stanley Prison near Repulse Bay for their daring to challenge the authority of the colonial government. So the 'transparent democracy' they advocated near the end of their colonial occupation of Hongkong was simply a cruel joke and a figment of idealistic imagination.

In fact, in pre-retrocession colonial Hongkong, many police chiefs were British crooks (such as the notorious chief of police Godbar -- ?spelling -- in the 1970's, who upon retirement was found to possess over half a billion Hongkong dollars (roughly 65 million USD) with graft money stashed away in secret bank accounts).

The newspapers had the right to report it, but only after strenuous efforts were the authorities able to catch the guy and extradite him back to Hongkong for trial. After a short sentence, the former police chief retired with his millions to Spain. For every graft-taker like Godbar that was caught and incarcerated, hundreds of others escaped scot free with hardly a day spent in prison.

Despite all the nominally existing public scrutiny, Hongkongers were robbed even in broad daylight by the Brits. The new airport today at Chap Lap Kwok is built on an island far removed from downtown Hongkong. A nearer site originally selected by many Chinese engineers working on the initial feasibility studies was rejected simply because there was little to be gained financially by the departing Brits. Fat contracts for construction of all the supporting bridges, roads, railways and other gadgets, signed at suboptimal prices, were all awarded to British firms, much as Iraqi contracts for re-construction today are awarded to American companies such as Bechtel and Halliburton. Again, public scrutiny at the time certainly did not seem to have any effect on the ongoing corruptive practices. The situation turned around radically only after the purposive establishment of an agency to combat corruption and not because of so-called public scrutiny by the media.

Now I am going to let you see the crystal ball in my left hand.

In my view, the case surrounding former Financial Secretary Leung last year is not an example of better government through public scrutiny. It was an attempt at character assassination by the ruthlessly unregulated anti-mainland media mob of Hongkong, which both in name and in substance is a relic of the former colonial government fossilized in its anti-China stand.

The man had given up a much more lucrative job in the private sector (as former chief of Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Hongkong) to accept his position as Financial Secretary.

He has done a good job keeping the colony afloat under the worst of circumstances -- with foreign and Taiwanese subversive forces eager to destabilize China through scandalizing the Hongkong government and scaring investment dollars away -- and in the process earning enmity amongst these subversive forces. With 20/20 hindsight he should have been more circumspect in handling his taxes in the purchase of the SUV before the new taxation system went into effect if only because he was the Financial Secretary, but the amount involved was so small that it certainly did not warrant the torrential attacks on Leung in the Hongkong media.

Would they have done so if the Brits are still in power and a similar case of negligent oversight had occurred with Governor Chris Patten? The question may be rhetorical but I seriously doubt it. After having been colonial subjects for 156 years, the Chinese in Hongkong had become a different breed of people -- they did not dare to criticize their British overlords, but they would not hesitate to trounce their cousins to the north with surprising ease and overwhelming vehemence.

This had happened with the Jewish controllers recruited from amongst the Jewish prisoners of war by the German Gestapo (secret police) in the concentration camps -- these controllers treated their fellow inmates with much more sadistic cruelty than their German masters.

It is a law of behavior amongst colonial peoples throughout history, whether it be Egyptians, Indians, Indonesians, the concentration camp Jews, or Hongkongers. Once they lost self-respect and accepted that their colonial masters were a higher breed of animals than they were, self-doubt set in and their good judgment suffered, resulting in their ridiculous ineptitude in not seeing the biblical timber in the eyes of their master and their alacrity in locating wood specks in the eyes of their compatriots.

In July of last year, Hongkong was going to pass a law -- long planned for at the time of the handover in 1997 -- called the Anti-Sedition Act, according to Article 23 of the Basic Law. The Act was aimed precisely at such destabilization efforts on the part of anti-China elements in Hongkong.

For reasons enumerated above, I had wholeheartedly supported the passage of the Article 23 Anti-Sedition Act in Hongkong for I believed that irresponsible sensationalization in the name of public scrutiny should be done away with, and that such policing of the media is within the irrefutable rights of every responsible government.

Unfortunately things did not work out as planned due to reasons known to all, and ratification of the Act has suffered a setback. Backed by financial support from the International Black Hand, the detractors were able to delay the official implementation of anti-subversive procedures in the Colony.

Eventually however, the will of the nation will compel events to move along rather quickly in Hongkong during the next election for the highest office of the SAR. If non-patriots can truly be prevented from even entering the race without bloodletting, it will have sent the same poignant message as if the Anti-sedition Act had been passed in July, 2003. On the basis of such an analysis, I feel there are ample grounds to believe that the arduous struggle is ahead of us, not behind.

The above content represents the view of the author only.

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