Then & Now | What would the late Beijing loyalist Dorothy Liu say about those in charge in Hong Kong today

Hong Kong has inevitably resorted to “old batteries”. The sarcastic term refers to the small, self-serving clique who have always run the place on behalf of their own vested inter­ests, and who invariably reappear, like the proverbial bad pennies, whenever the next “think tank” is formulated. But who coined this local term?

British author G.K. Chesterton wrote, “My country – right or wrong – is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying my mother, drunk or sober.” One lifelong Beijing loyalist who never said that was the redoubtable Hong Kong politician and lawyer Dorothy Liu Yiu-chu.

Nicknamed “Dotty” from early childhood, this moniker referenced her defiant, seemingly contra­dic­tory individuality, as well as being a diminutive for the English name (shared with her mother) that she later publicly eschewed as a Chinese nationalist gesture.

Unwavering loyal opposition and speaking truth to power have always been a scarce commodity in Hong Kong’s public life. This is seldom more apparent than among supposedly pro-China politicians, whose self-preserving, toad-like silence further quietens what passes for public debate.

But not “Dotty” Liu – she told it straight. When she felt that the mainland power brokers were in the wrong, she said so. And if they didn’t like what they heard, then that was their problem. As someone who only wanted to see better from those she staunchly supported, they knew that. Consequently, her sharp-tongued honesty was tolerated, even through gritted teeth.

Born in 1934 at Mount View, the family’s substantial Pok Fu Lam home, Liu could easily have enjoyed the same comfortable, blandly conformist existence as the rest of her social class. After graduation from the University of Hong Kong in 1956, she studied English literature at Oxford, then law at Harvard.