Then & NowOutrage over Hong Kong independence leader Andy Chan’s speech only reinforces his message

Unrealistic calls for Hong Kong’s inde­pendence from the mainland to one side, possibly the most damaging thing that Chan’s speech has done – so far – is shine a spotlight on unsettling aspects of contemporary Hong Kong life that many prefer to deny or ignore.

Echo-chamber opponents unwittingly poured accelerant on the dry fuel of Chan’s underlying assertions. Warnings by the usual pro-establishment cheerleaders to not “provoke” or “anta­gonise” Beijing simply reinforced Chan’s sharply articulated belief that, as far as the mainland regime is concerned, being different is the same as being wrong.

The haste with which Hong Kong government officials queued up to toe the official Beijing line sharply underscored Chan’s remarks about steadily diminishing local autonomy. Previously, local admin­istrators mostly did as bidden behind closed doors – now, they must be seen to publicly tremble and obey their ultimate masters. And so they did. Hours after the event, the inevitable, thundering official Chinese denunciation followed – “the feelings of 1.4 billion people have been hurt”. Were they all asked for their personal views, one wonders, and within such a short space of time?

Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes (1837) immediately springs to mind regarding Chan’s sharper utterances about the modern Chinese state’s unlovely realities. Not being content, like the little boy in the story, to merely cry out that “the emperor was naked”, while the sycophants queued up to gush over his marvellous new robes, the little boy followed it up, metaphor­ically speaking, with the observation that “his belly sags, those fangs are yellow, and you can smell his rank breath from here”. None of these observations are readily forgiv­able. And why? Because they are both deeply unflattering and observably true.