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Alex Lo
SCMP Columnist
My Take
by Alex Lo
My Take
by Alex Lo

Annie Wu Suk-ching is the true conscience of Hong Kong

  • The heir of the Maxim’s catering fortune could have led a comfortable life instead of speaking up for the city and paying a steep personal price for it

Who’s a real Hongkonger? Young rioters who shout empty slogans, trash their own city and destroy the livelihoods of countless ordinary people – all in the name of freedom and democracy and fighting for their future? Or a 71-year-old businesswoman and philanthropist who could easily avoid trouble, and sit pretty and comfortable instead of speaking out for the city against those who have slandered and blackened its name in front of foreign governments and organisations?

Annie Wu Suk-ching spoke truth to rioters and hooligans and their apologists at a United Nations human rights forum. For that, her family business has been targeted, its shops repeatedly vandalised and firebombed.

The ironic thing is that, though she is the daughter of the founder of Maxim’s, the giant catering group, she has kept at arm’s length from its management.

Daughter of Maxim’s founder says she has lost hope in city’s next generation

Yet, Starbucks, Jade Garden, Genki Sushi and Simplylife, brands and franchises run by Maxim’s, are being targeted.

I ask: who is being ugly, brutal and violent? Who is subverting law, civility or simple decency?

Wu told the UN forum that a minority of violent protesters do not represent Hong Kong people. Yet, endless protests have destroyed businesses and livelihoods, and undermined public order and safety. It seems to me that what she said was perfectly true.

But even if you think her stance is one-sided, at least it serves as a counterpoint to previous testimony served up at the same forum by singer and activist Denise Ho Wan-sze, who presented the protests as Hong Kong’s struggle for freedom against Chinese tyranny.

I should think Wu had as much right as Ho to claim to speak for Hong Kong. Why then has her family business been repeatedly targeted? Why has no one spoken out for her? In a newspaper interview, she said the younger generation seemed to have lost all sense and reason. From the ashes and debris at Maxim’s shops, it certainly looks that way.

I have heard there are grumblings within the catering group that the “old lady” should shut up. But if she doesn’t speak up now, who will? Should she have waited until our whole society is torn asunder and economy destroyed?

Wu is fighting for her city in the only way she knows how, and is paying a steep personal price for it.

I take my hat off to her. She is the real Hongkonger. She is the conscience of our city.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Annie Wu is the true conscience of HK
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