Ninety legislators will be sworn into office this week, 35 of whom will be taking the oath of office for the first time. It will be a combined act of patriotism, a far cry from the swearing in ceremony in 2016 when four potential lawmakers created their own oaths advocating self-determination and were subsequently disqualified from office.
The western media, including some in Hong Kong, brand “patriotism” as a bad thing for Hong Kong, inferring that there is no “opposition” in the legislature. But they are wrong. The legislators have their own mind and will vote according to their conscience.
Four pieces of legislation proposed by the government have not passed the test and were voted out while many others were heavily debated by the legislators. Regardless of what London’s Guardian newspaper and others say, Hong Kong does have a meaningful opposition.
It is unfortunate that the local Democratic Party, seen by the west as the “opposition,” did not field any candidates in the recent elections and eventually closed down. The choice was theirs and their recent actions indicate they did not intend to follow the rules of the council.
The Legislative Council is a place where lawmakers are elected to serve the people, not to use it as a platform for subversion as had happened in the past.
In 2017 four lawmakers – Long Hair Leung Kwok-hung, Nathan Law, Lau Siu-lai and Edward Yiu – were stripped of their seats for failing to take their oaths of office in a “sincere and solemn” manner. They used props and amended the oath to suit their purpose. Others followed, including student Agnes Chow who also failed taking the oath of office but later jailed on subversion charges. The quartet’s disqualification followed the highly publicized ousting of two localist lawmakers, Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching, whose oath-takings involved anti-China banners and usage of derogatory wartime slurs for China.
Together, the quartet had mustered 185,727 votes in the 2016 elections and their selfishness left their followers void of leadership. Their actions were that of self-interest, to achieve their own hidden goals, and not to serve the people who put them in the seats of power. They abused their positions.
Obviously foreign forces had infiltrated the legislature and political unrest ensued as attempts were being made to unseat the base of Hong Kong’s parliament. In July 2020 the government announced that the nominations for 15 candidates were declared invalid due to their objection to the national security law or were sincere in statements involving separatism. And on November 11, 2020, Dennis Kwok, a founding member of the Civic Party and a representative of the legal profession in the council, was accused of delaying the legislative proceedings and passage of bills and was subsequently disqualified along with follow lawmakers Alvin Yeung, Kwok Ka-ki and Kenneth Leung. Just hours later 15 fellow lawmakers resigned in protest.
Kwok was later charged with collusion and fled to Canada and then to the US with a HK$1 million bounty on his head.
The festering germ of dissent even spread to the local district councils who also used their positions to undermine the government.
It had to stop and in March 2021, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (SCNPC) approved changes to the Hong Kong’s electoral system allowing only patriots to serve the government and the people of Hong Kong.
What publications like Hong Kong Free Press, The Washington Post, London’s Financial Times etc. don’t understand is that Hong Kong is a target by the five-eyes network of spies and clandestine operators, led by the US and including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The ultimate target is, of course, China. By crippling Hong Kong and especially its law-making process, it can cripple China and hamper its progressive growth.
These publications will continue to use Hong Kong “Patriots only” legislature as a slur, not as a compliment. It’s in their DNA to be anti-Hong Kong/China. They are the vehicles of the west to bring discord to Hong Kong with total disregard to fact.
But “patriots only” apply to every democracy in the world. No place could be more patriotic than the US where the stars and stripes (the US flag) hang from the porches of almost every household. And legislators in all democracies have to swear allegiances to the country and their constitution. And like Hong Kong, they are vetted to ensure their allegiances are true to the country before standing for election.
Mark Pinkstone
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
Before Jimmy Lai was arrested in 2020, it was believed he was worth HK$9.3 billion. Today much of that has dwindled considerably due to bank seizures of his assets and the millions he poured into his anti-Hong Kong campaigns.
Court records show that during the uprisings from 2013 to 2020, Lai spent more than $160 million paying off the rioters, politicians and promotional campaigns in his fight against Hong Kong. Of this, some $93.26 million was for “donation to Hong Kong’s opposition camp.” Another $26.70 million was paid to Jack Keane (former US Army general with access to the White House), Paul Wolfowitz (former US deputy secretary for defence), and Rupert Hammond-Chambers (US-Taiwan Business Council president). American think tanks received up to $389,000 per year as a “donation”. And millions more were spent on advertising and editorial space in major newspapers throughout the world.
Much of the payments were made by Lai himself and through his navy intelligence associate Mark Simon.
When local banks froze his accounts in February 2021, Lai used his Canadian cash cow LAIS Hotel Properties Ltd and Dico Consultants Ltd. Indeed, it is the Canadian interests that is paying his current “Release Jimmy Lai” campaign.
Among Lai's assets that were targeted included local bank accounts of three companies owned by him as well as the 71.26 per cent stake in Next Digital worth around $350 million. In fact, Lai had earned some $1.9 billion in shareholder funds from Next Digital, one of his companies frozen by the banks between 2001 and when Apple Daily ceased its operations in 2021.
The records show that he paid Catholic Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun $3.5 million as a “donation.” But it was an established fact that Zen, together with Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee, pop singer Denise Ho Wan-see, Hui Po-keung and legislator Cyd Ho Sau-lan ran the “612 Humanitarian Relief Fund” to assist the legal fees of rioters who were arrested in the anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB) movement. At its height, the Fund had raised $140 million to pay the arrested rioters’ legal fees, medical bills and other expenses. All trustees were arrested for colluding with foreign forces.
Indeed, the guilty verdict, handed down by the three judges – Esther Toh, Alex Lee and Susana Maria D’Almada Remedios – documented a tangled web carefully spun by Lai involving a cluster of companies to fund his attempts to overthrow the Hong Kong Government. The 855-page document showed the dedication in which the judges arrived at their conclusions. Every detail was carefully explained, and every dollar was accounted for.
Once Lai’s accounts in Hong Kong were frozen, he turned to the LAIS group of companies in Canada acquired by his twin sister Si Wai and included properties in the Southern Ontario wine and vacation region of Niagara-on-the Lake as well as properties in Caledon and Jordan (also in Ontario). Leading financial source of corporate information, Dun and Bradstreet, lists Mark Simon as chief executive officer for the group, which gave him access to the Lai fortunes in Canada. It listed Simon as residing in Morristown, New Jersey, USA.
Simon had given Wayland Chan Tsz-wah (a paralegal and member of the “Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong” group) $30,000 for promoting the 2019 riots and through the LAIS hotels, spent $5.1 million on foreign media outlets in global campaigns to promote the 2019 riots. Money was no object for the Lai campaign and millions were spent on print media, as well as a large amount being spent on social media with a dedicated website providing links for people to join from Australia, Canada, Germany, Denmark, France, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States. In the US link, it urged viewers to ask senators to implement and enforce sanctions against Hong Kong. And in the UK and other sites, it urged viewers to participate in local rallies against Hong Kong.
At the height of the riots in 2019, a massive advertising campaign blanked the world, including the United States (New York Times and New York Times (global)), Canada (The Globe and Mail), Japan (Nikkei), Australia (The Australian), Taiwan (The Liberty Times), Finland (Sanoma), Denmark (Berlingske), Sweden (Dagens Industri and Dagens Nyheter), France (Le Monde), Germany (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) the UK ( The Guardian, The Times, Evening Standard, City A.M., The Week and The Economist), South Korea (Kyunghyang Shinmun), Spain (El Mundo) and Italy (Corriere della Sera). More than $1 million was spent on ad space in the UK alone and more than $4 million in other newspapers. All of the advertising costs were paid for from the LAIS Hotel group.
After the arrests of Lai and others, the international campaign against Hong Kong ceased and instead a “free Jimmy Lai” campaign surfaced, spearheaded by one of his six children, Sebastien. Two of his siblings, Ian (now 45) and Timothy (48) were arrested in Hong Kong during police raids of Next Digital in 2020. They were later charged with fraud offences and released on bail.
Sebastien, based in London, had not spoken to his father for four years prior to the launch of the campaign last year. Since then and with money to burn, Sebastien travelled the world with his team of public relations-cum-international legal team – Doughty Street Chambers – seeking help from foreign governments, senior politicians and the press for his father’s release, citing Lai senior’s poor health, even though Lai’s defence counsel told the court he was being well treated.
The judges are to be commended for their detailed findings, after hearing 156 days of evidence and sifting through 161 documents. Despite extreme pressure from foreign forces, the judges produced their findings without fear or favour. They are a credit to Hong Kong’s judicial system and proved the point that money cannot buy everything.
