What must Vice-Premier Li Keqiang be thinking? He came with a smile, bearing gifts. His mission: to charm and conquer. Our hearts and minds, that is. But he went home with a sour face, a baffled man who left behind a choppy wake. We're still rocking in it.
Li came to rev up our economic engine by fastening us tighter to the motherland's high-speed economy. He had assumed, not without reason, that Hongkongers would welcome the economic embrace at a time when the developed world could be tumbling into another recession.
But recession was not on our minds; free expression was. Hongkongers did not focus on what Li had given them. They focused on what they feared had been taken away from them by him coming.
Young people, journalists, democracy-minded politicians - they're all angry. They fear heavy-handed policing during Li's visit was a prelude to an erosion of free expression. But others are angry at them for being angry. They fear we are sending a message of ingratitude. Our leaders don't know which way to turn, as usual. At first they said the fear of diluted free speech was completely rubbish. Then they said maybe it wasn't all rubbish. The flip-flopping makes everyone even angrier.
A confused Li must be thinking Hongkongers are nuts, or, at least, a strange breed. He brought us good tidings but we cared only about the right to speak our mind. But Hongkongers are not strange, just different. Many must be thinking Li and his handlers were nuts to have assumed Hongkongers would quietly tolerate mainland-style security.
Police Commissioner Andy Tsang Wai-hung is furious at the flak being flung at him for his force's thuggish treatment of protesters. Chief Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen is kicking himself for dismissing fears of press freedom erosion as 'completely rubbish'. And Li is probably thinking: never again will I go to Hong Kong.