My Take | We pay the price of Andy Chan’s free speech
All the National Party boss has done is give Beijing the perfect excuse to toughen its hardline stance on Hong Kong with a security law
Beijing and its political allies in Hong Kong like to castigate the foreign press for its biased anti-China reports. It’s not always true. Some Western publications do get it right, sometimes. In its profile of Hong Kong National Party (HKNP) boss Andy Chan Ho-tin, Time magazine has his number. I couldn’t have put it better.
“Charisma-free, [Chan] was unable to describe the road map by which Hong Kong could achieve independence or defend itself against China,” it wrote.
“He offered no picture of what an independent Hong Kong might look and feel like, who its international allies might be, who would lead it, or how that leader might be chosen.
“He could not name an author or a historical Hong Kong figure who inspired him politically … Neither could he offer any dramatic account of political awakening or the coalescing of a Hong Kong identity.”
In a word, the guy is as clueless as they come. This doesn’t mean his fight for Hong Kong independence is insignificant – for the opposite reason. He offers the perfect excuse for Beijing to toughen its hardline stance on Hong Kong.