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OpinionLetters

Letters to the Editor, February 4, 2018

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Secondary school students watch the live broadcast of a Basic Law seminar featuring Li Fei, the related committee chairman, last November 16. Photo: Robert Ng
Letters

Elections are prime time for alternative facts

Your columnist Mike Rowse is always worth reading, and usually eminently sensible and practical.

However, his contention in his latest article (“Agnes Chow’s by-election ban robs us of a ­debate on Hong Kong’s future”, January 31), that an election is a good time for people to learn about such things as what the Basic Law really means, and what Hong Kong’s position in China really is for the rest of the time, seems flawed.
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It is precisely during elections that candidates and their supporters throw out all sorts of half-truths and what have now become known as alternative facts. This is unfortunately true of both sides of the debate.

What is really needed is for a proper study of the Basic Law in circumstances when a rational approach can be taken.

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Perhaps those who advocate the study of the Basic Law in schools are right. I would say that a further study of it at universities as part of general studies, as well as, dare I say it, Mandarin, could also be of benefit to the younger generation.

David Gwilt, emeritus professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong

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