Opinion | Hong Kong’s continued turmoil raises risk of the dreaded ‘nuclear option’: PLA

I have just about run out of words to describe Hong Kong’s current state of affairs. “Pandemonium” I used last week – and there is really no other word to describe what had gone down in Sheung Wan and Yuen Long, two weekends in a row. So, how about capital of hell?

In response to the pandemonium, all that Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s ministers could muster was to tell people to say “no” to violence. And that is the most action we have seen from this government since mid-June. Their hands may be numb after being sat on for more than a month, but this is no excuse. Given Lam’s dexterity with vocabulary – in describing the extradition bill as “delayed indefinitely”, then “dying of natural causes” (壽終正寢), and finally, as simply “dead” – it is hard to believe that all her team has got left to offer is: “Say no to violence”. Come on.

It is so pathetic, it probably warranted defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian’s raising of the possibility of what we have come to see as “the nuclear option”: the mobilisation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). A nuclear option that would cause a whole lot of people to go completely ballistic. As a relocation and citizenship adviser said in an interview with this paper: “No one wants to see a new Tiananmen in Sheung Wan.”

And yet, the nuclear option has always been there; it is written in Articles 14 and 18 of our Basic Law. Article 14 says that military forces stationed by the central government here are for defence, but, at the request of the special administration, may assist in the maintenance of public order – a task the Hong Kong government is responsible for – and in disaster relief.

Two summers ago, neighbouring Macau was so badly hit by Typhoon Hato and the government so unprepared, that soldiers were called in to help with disaster relief. Many Hongkongers were stunned, aghast at the thought that the day might come when Hong Kong calls on the PLA for help. Dr Chung Kim-wah, from Polytechnic University, said at that time, that “if the same happened in Hong Kong, it would be unbelievable. A public outcry could be expected”.

Well, it happened. Last October, more than 400 soldiers were sent to Hong Kong’s country parks to help remove fallen trees caused by Typhoon Mangkhut. It was a first for the garrison stationed in Hong Kong. But unlike Macau, it happened not at our request, according to Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung. Cheung denied that the local government had requested the help, and that it was a voluntary community service organised by Beijing’s liaison office. Cheung told Hongkongers that “these things happen, so do not read too much into it” as it was “intended for Hong Kong’s good”.