Last Wednesday, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa delivered his first policy address to the puppet provisional legislature. It was a masterpiece on how to de-politicise this free and vibrant city.
In his blueprint for the next five years, Mr Tung outlined a society which is purely economically driven and where power is concentrated in a handful of people.
Mr Tung only made a brief reference to the system of government, saying that developments over the next 10 years had been laid down in the Basic Law.
He held out no hope for changing the Basic Law. Thus the message is clear, the snail pace of political reforms has been set in concrete. The finality of his tone indicated there was no room for negotiation.
It is meaningless and even insulting for Mr Tung to say Hong Kong people are now masters of their own house. Unless and until we have a democratically-elected government, we will not be masters of our own destiny. No white-washing can hide this ugly reality.
Development on human rights was conspicuously absent from the policy address. This is not surprising because human rights are dirty words to the Chinese government. However the deliberate omission of this vital subject still has a chilling effect.
When the Chinese government took over Hong Kong on July 1, the people accepted the change with resignation. In the past three months, the media have been working overtime to depoliticise the news and to nurture a feeling of powerlessness and apathy in the community.