Ideas will disappear if they are false, Donald Tsang says in comments on Hong Kong independence
Genuine ones will last even if efforts are made to snuff them out, former chief executive said, adding that city faces challenge of “extreme” views
The former chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen for the first time has chimed in on the discourse over the city’s independence, saying ideas would “automatically disappear” if they were not genuine.
He also said the biggest challenge the city faced was the expression of “extreme” views with the loss of neutral or middle ground politics, but believed Hongkongers were “clever” and would make wise choices about their long-term interests.
“Some things, if true, cannot be eliminated no matter how hard you try; some things that are false or insubstantial, you don’t have to do anything and they will automatically disappear,” Tsang told local newspaper AM730 in the second part of an interview.
Tsang – a devout Catholic – also referred to the spread of Christianity two millennia ago as an example of a “truth” thatgrew from a belief held by a small Jewish sect into one of the world’s dominant religions.
“It’s like how people saw Christianity 2,000 years ago … At the time, an elder from the Jewish faith said: ‘There’s no need to worry, we see a lot of cults springing up, no need to mind it. After a while [they] will disappear on [their] own’,” he said.
“If it is really the truth, you won’t be able to suppress it, so by the same token, you can relax when looking at this problem [of Hong Kong independence].”
Tsang agreed that more communication and exchanges between political groups and the government were necessary but said it would be easier to achieve if centrists were not being “pulled to extreme positions”.