Edwin Pun in his letter to the South China Morning Post, on October 17, and an identical one sent to me has taken offence to a remark I made in an interview published in your newspaper a week earlier.
(In the interview I stated that previously, Hong Kong people psychologically resisted the Chinese five-star flag. But since the Diaoyu row, they no longer resist it).
In my reply to Mr Pun, I said I appreciated his concern. However, I was not making a generalised statement, but merely stating an observation based on comments of callers to our programmes that 'some people no longer resist it'.
In RTHK's phone-in programmes on the Chinese radio channels, which total something like five to six hours a day, a lot of people still oppose the five-star flag but many found it difficult to criticise David Chan's family for putting that flag on his coffin, or to attack Tsang Kin-shing, an activist who is anything but pro-Beijing, for bringing that flag to Diaoyu when he and his team were trying to claim national sovereignty for China. One may like it or not, the fact is that the Government in Beijing represents China in the UN.
Hong Kong people hold so many different views. The important thing is for these views to be expressed properly and freely. I am glad that Mr Pun is able to say openly what he feels and he should continue to do so.
CHEUNG MAN-YEE Director of Broadcasting Radio Television Hong Kong