Lai See | External forces have helped to fashion modern China

So it is now official. External forces are fomenting discontent in Hong Kong, according to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. The central government has long maintained that this is the case. But it has yet to share its evidence with us. We have "to take it on trust".

It is natural Beijing should be sensitive about foreign funds and influence. Indeed, a little historical context in this respect shows the Chinese Communist Party was unlikely to have survived in its struggle with the Kuomintang had it not been for the support of Communist International and the Soviet Union.

The formation of "a Chinese workers and peasants Red Army" was ordered by Joseph Stalin in 1927, according to Hu Shih, writing in the October 1950 edition of Foreign Affairs. Hu was the Republic of China's ambassador to the US between 1938 and 1942 and chancellor of Beijing University from 1946 to 48. In 1930, a provisional Soviet government of Southern Jiangsu was established. In 1931, the executive committee of Communist International advised the Chinese Communist Party to establish a "central Soviet government". This duly occurred in 1931. Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the government, and Zhu De, commander of the Red Army.

The famous retreat of the Red Army in October 1935 was influenced by the Lenin-Stalin doctrine of "correct retreat" that contributed to the Long March and the survival of the Red Army.

Indeed, University of Hong Kong historian Frank Dikotter, in his latest book, The Tragedy of Liberation, points out that one of the great foundation myths of the Chinese Communist Party - the Long March - was funded by Moscow. It should be remembered that the party was not in power at the time and was fighting to overthrow the Chinese government.

Clearly, "external forces" have long been a force in China's politics and are presumably viewed favourably by the Communist Party given the decisive historical role it played in saving the party and the army.

So it is not for nothing that the Communist Party, which has an acute sense of history, gets twitchy about external forces. Although there was overwhelming evidence of Soviet support for the Chinese Communist Party, those that talk of external forces in the Hong Kong context have yet to enlighten us as to where they originate. Could they include the country that is educating Leung's daughter, or perhaps it is the one where President Xi Jinping's daughter is studying?