Just Saying | Taiwan is playing Hong Kong like a fiddle while the city burns
- Yonden Lhatoo says the city has been outclassed and outmanoeuvred in a political game over the fate of young murder suspect that Taiwan is playing to cynical perfection
You have to hand it to Taiwan when it comes to dirty, rotten, scoundrel politics.
Just look at how it’s milking Hong Kong’s misfortunes for all their worth, turning to its smug advantage a tale of two tragedies – the debilitation of this city by social unrest and political upheaval, and the fate of an unwitting young murder suspect whose case was the catalyst for it all.
Poor little Hong Kong, outmanoeuvred and outclassed, played like a fiddle, beaten like a drum by a far savvier political opponent that has mastered the cross-strait game against Beijing and treats us, by comparison, like the rank amateurs we are.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor bit off far more than she could chew when she tried to bulldoze ahead with her disastrous extradition bill back in June, holding up the case of Chan Tong-kai as moral justification to enact legislation that would allow criminal suspects to be sent from Hong Kong to other jurisdictions with which the city does not have a fugitive transfer agreement.
Chan, wanted for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan, fled to Hong Kong in February last year and could not be sent back to the island to face trial in the absence of an extradition deal.
Hong Kong prosecutors could only nail him on money-laundering charges stemming from the theft and illegal use of his murdered girlfriend’s finances. After 19 months in jail, the 20-year-old student is a free man now and a hapless pawn in a cynical game that is all about politics and has little to do with real justice. And Taiwan is playing it to perfection.