My Take | Silent Majority have ears in high places

Wow, what a week, and it’s not even the weekend! The government is taking localist lawmaker Lau Siu-lai to court in a bid to eject her from the legislature. Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus Baggio Leung Chung-hang yesterday lost their appeal against being disqualified as legislators.

Beijing suddenly announced pan-democratic lawmakers would be granted permanent home-return permits, an apparent U-turn after having denied many of them the right of return to the mainland for decades.

Chow founded Silent Majority for Hong Kong two years ago to fight Occupy Central. As its leader, he managed yesterday to meet the who’s who in Beijing in charge of Hong Kong affairs. These included National People’s Congress chairman Zhang Dejiang (張德江), Liaison Office director Zhang Xiaoming (張曉明), Wang Guangya (王光亞) of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and Chen Zuoer (陳佐洱), chairman of the semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies.

One meeting reportedly lasted two hours. And the encounters were no mere chit-chats. Zhang used the occasion to warn that advocating independence for Hong Kong would “bring calamity to the country and the people”, and Hongkongers must “struggle” against it. Chen said there must be no mercy in dealing with secessionists, who must be ruthlessly pursued and rooted out.