Opinion | How Andy Chan’s call for Hong Kong independence fails the test of common sense

Mike Rowse sat in on his FCC talk and came away puzzled as to why a champion of Hong Kong freedoms should suggest asking America to suspend the trade privileges the city enjoys under US law. And that’s just one of the illogical points of his speech

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Andy Chan attends a lunch at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong on August 14. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 2:00am, 27 Aug 2018Updated: 1:28pm, 3 Oct 2018

It is with great reluctance that I return to the subject of Hong Kong independence as promulgated by the so-called Hong Kong National Party, and its convenor Andy Chan Ho-tin. Too much attention has already been paid to the shallow and immature thinking recently on display at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. But some important things need to be said.

I attended the FCC event. As I have written in a previous column, I think independence for Hong Kong is impossible and would anyway be against our best interests. But I wanted to understand the logic of those with a contrary opinion.

At the question-and-answer session after the speech, I asked Chan this question: “Bearing in mind that Article 1 of the Basic Law states that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China, what action have you been taking or will you be taking in the next few years to persuade the National People’s Congress to repeal Article 1?”

Chan dismissed the Basic Law, in effect saying that it was not relevant to Hong Kong people like himself because they had played no part in its drafting or promulgation. In other words, his party would proceed as if the Basic Law did not exist. Apart from the sheer absurdity of the answer, it is also factually incorrect: there were Hong Kong members of the Basic Law Drafting Committee back in the 1980s (one of whom, at least for a while, was Martin Lee Chu-ming), and a majority of the members of the Basic Law Consultative Committee were also locals.

Watch: What is the Basic Law?

Whether the reply displayed ignorance of history or wilful disregard for the truth was not immediately apparent, but no matter. In addition to the non-answer, which was bad enough, Chan had appealed during his speech for the American government to suspend the trade privileges Hong Kong enjoys under the US-Hong Kong Policy Act.