My Take | US fingerprints all over Hong Kong’s recent disturbances

Leung Chun-ying said the government had no need to reveal evidence of foreign forces interfering in Hong Kong affairs and undermining security. The former chief executive made the claim while speaking at a book launch last week.

That was a mistake. He makes it sound like the government and officials, including former ones such as himself, are making claims they can’t back up with evidence. There is overwhelming evidence of interference in Hong Kong over many years, especially by various agencies of the US government, and not just during the unprecedented anti-government protests and riots in 2019. Leung should have said such evidence was readily available as public records and anyone could just google the original sources, as well as news reports and numerous exposés over the years.

Those US agencies or Washington-funded entities have openly acknowledged it, either through their own documents, financial statements and other public records, or through US congressional testimonies. I leave aside clandestine operations by secret services such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency, which by definition we could have no knowledge of. However, revelations relating to spying on Hong Kong by Edward Snowden in 2013 did make some eye-opening reading.

Alan Weinstein, the founder of the US Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) once told The Washington Post in an interview that a lot of what they were doing was what the CIA used to do.

According to the NED’s own database for grant awards, various Hong Kong groups and activists received US$1,936,568 in 2020, including US$90,000 “to build the capacity of Hong Kong activists-in-exile, and to raise awareness of and garner support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement”.

It continues: “The organisation and its partner will leverage their extensive existing networks to support exiled activists and to sustain and grow activist communities remaining in Hong Kong, providing training to empower these communities to engage in effective advocacy. The organisation will also strengthen regional and international support for the pro-democracy movement by coordinating with other rights NGOs, hosting outreach events, and implementing social media campaigns.”

In 2019, it provided a total of US$637,263, including funding for a sister organisation, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), for political advocacy in Hong Kong worth US$325,000.