Hong Kong emerged from the Umbrella Movement as a deeply divided city, something that had not been seen since 1949. The CCP versus KMT division, although deep, had little relevance to local people. But 2014 ended with a deep division of Hong Kong people into the Yellow Ribbon camp who are pro-Umbrella and the Blue Ribbons camp who opposed it. The choice of yellow ribbon in Hong Kong can be traced to the American song Tie a yellow ribbon to the old oak tree, then later appropriated as ‘Shina’ is the largely archaic Japanese name for China. It was used in the early and mid-20th century and always carried a derogatory meaning. After the end of the Second World War it fell out of use and was replaced by ‘chūgoku’. The Hong Kong nativists picked up this term again as an affront to both Beijing and Chinese people in general. freedom. The yellow camp can be further differentiated into “light yellow” (“light” here means moderate) and “dark yellow” (which should be understood as “orange” in terms of colour, signifying those who were more “hard-core”). In opposing the yellow camp, the pro-Beijing parties chose blue as their colour.
The Nativists’ Onslaught
The nativist emerged as the foremost winner once the Umbrella Movement ended. Only they enjoyed rapid growth during and after the Umbrella Movement, while the democratic forces which sustained the movement suffered organizational stagnation and loss of self-confidence. The nativist now continued their offensive not against Beijing but against the HKFS. The small groups of xenophobic localist students in different universities immediately initiated a teoi lyun, a campaign to call for the withdrawal of their respective student unions from the HKFS through a students’ referendum. To justify their attack on HKFS they now put all the blame for the failure of the Umbrella Movement on the latter. This new offensive was a success; eventually four student unions withdrew and dealt a heavy blow to the HKFS. Very soon the leadership of those remaining student unions also changed hands, for the first time in many years, from the democrats to “localists”. What is even more worrying is that, the once passionate youth now descended into passivity, and largely disappeared from protests and marches. Even the annual memorial of the Umbrella Movement is now chiefly attended by the middle aged and senior citizens. The new generation at the turn of the century, although more advanced than their parents’ generation in the 1970’s, was still largely not equipped to respond to a complicated political situation.
Meanwhile outside the campus the nativists conducted campaigns to harass Mainland visitors in commercial/tourist areas. They were small in number, but their actions achieved their goal of maintaining visibility and hence political influence. They were even more successful with their propaganda opposing democrats holding the annual June Fourth Memorial, arguing that China’s democratic movement has nothing to do with Hong Kong because Chinese lack the very ability to practise genuine democracy anyway.
The nativists’ momentum continued to grow which culminated in the riot on the evening of the 9th and continued into the early hours of the 10th February, 2016, during the Chinese New Year holiday. Days before, several groups already planned to carry out actions on the 9th in Mong Kok to express solidarity with the food vendors there who might be the target of the Hawkers Control Team. They were Scholarism, the League of Social Democrats, Lau Siu-Lai, and Hong Kong Indigenous. A recent New York Times report only mentioned the Hong Kong Indigenous and its leaders, Ray Wong and Edward Leung however, and it said that when health officers tried, “to shut down unlicensed vendors” they confronted the officers ending in clashes.(1) This was not true. On that night the solidarity with the vendors and the clashes with the police happened at different times. The former action was successful, and the vendors were carrying out their business in peace. In this sense the objective of protecting vendors had already been accomplished. More police arrived at the scene to watch but initially they did not disturb the vendors. However some people in the crowd began to act aggressively and then Ray Wong and Edward Leung suddenly appealed to the people to start an “election campaign march” (Edward Leung was about to run in a by-election) and clashed with the police. This was confirmed by some other reports and my interviews with some of the participants.(2) We go into detail here because Edward Leung would become the spiritual icon of many young “localists” in 2019 after he was jailed for the 2016 riot in 2018. His slogan “reclaim Hong Kong, revolution of our time” would become the slogan of the anti-China Extradition Bill movement. It was not clear what kind of new society he was looking for, but one thing is clear: it is a society with no Mainland visitors. His Hong Kong Indigenous had organised various actions harassing Mainland visitors and they shared similar politics with the Two Wong and One Chin.
Meanwhile, two other groups of young nativists were also on the rise, namely the Hong Kong National Party and Youngspiration.
The pan-democrats were now largely paralysed, while a new democratic force began to emerge, and made self-determination their main slogan. It was constituted of four streams: Scholarism was now reorganized into Demosisto; the conservationist Chu Hoi dick; the sociology lecturer Lau Siu-lai who had been running street classes during the occupation; and Long Hair from the LSD. They suffered organizational stagnation, but electoral success now seemed to be possible. The common ground between them was that none of them came from a pan-democrat background, and by advocating self-determination it also meant that they broke with the latter’s position of working within the framework of the Basic Law. They were also different from the nativists as they were not involved in racist attacks on the Mainlanders.
The September 2016 election became a new page in Hong Kong’s history – for the first time we had a pro-self-determination force and pro-independence nativists running for Hong Kong elections and achieving good results, at the expense of the pan-democrats. The election drew the highest voter turnout since the handover, showing a higher civil spirit after the Umbrella Movement. Together they garnered 21 percent of the vote, with the pro-self-determination current gaining 13.1 percent and the xenophobic localists 8.1 percent. The former won four seats, while the latter won three (two from Youngspiration, one from Passion Times) – all seven of them, except one, were new hands at elections. In contrast, four pan democrats lost their seats, including two from the Labour party. Without the rise of a self-determination current the nativists would have been the sole beneficiary of a new section of voters turning more radical. The Two Wong and One Chin all lost their election campaign to young nativist competitors as well (Edward Leung attempted to run in the election but was disqualified).
Then the situation made a sharp turn. Beijing, using the pretext of Yau Wai-ching and Leung Chung-hang’s (the two Youngspiration legislators) modification of their oath in taking office to promote their independent position (and also by pronouncing the word “China” as “Jee-na”, the Cantonese version of the Japanese “Shina” which is very derogatory to Chinese people)(3), started a counter-offensive. On 7 November 2016 the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) interpreted Article 104 of the Basic Law to clarify the requirements that the legislators need to swear allegiance to Hong Kong as part of China when they take office, and stated that people who either advocate independence or self-determination are seen as supporters of secession and hence would be prohibited from taking office. This was the fifth time the NPCSC has intervened in Hong Kong’s affairs by invoking the clause in the Basic Law – so much for its autonomy. This was followed by the High Court ruling to first disqualify the two Youngspiration legislators, followed by disqualifying four more legislators in the same year, mostly pro-self-determination legislators .
The racist act of the two young leaders of Youngspiration, which triggered the domino effect that led to the kicking out of four more pro self-determination legislators, sparked debate as to the question of the real identity of these two nativists. The Sing Pao Daily published a claim which made the issue more explosive. On its front page it accused the Youngspiration people of being agents and pointed out that, contrary to what they claimed, they never took part in the Umbrella Movement, and that some of their members came from an organization called hoeng gong se keoi mong lok (Hong Kong Community Network) which was led by the well-known pro-Beijing politician Lau Nai-keung (more about Sing Pao below).(4) Then Martin Lee, the long-time leader of the Democratic party (itself long complaining about infiltration by agents), also openly questioned whether the two young leaders of Youngspiration were agents: “if you cannot even show (the public) just one photo to prove you really participated in the Umbrella Movement, what is your explanation?”(5)
The two nativist leaders defended themselves (although failing to provide any photo). Regardless of whether they were agents or not, they had unnecessarily provoked Beijing, giving leverage for it to kick out six opposition legislators.
The Cheng Wing-kin case also proves that dark forces were at play. He, along with two accomplices, were sentenced to prison in 2016 for vote buying during the local election in 2015. According to the Yearly Review of the Prosecutions Division for 2016, Cheng “offered about HK$200,000 to members of various local political organisations as inducement to stand or to get other persons to stand as candidates at specified geographical constituencies of the District Council Election.”(6) During the court hearing it was revealed that Cheng’s work was directed by “suspected people from the United Front Work Department of the CCP”. Cheng provided these localist candidates who ran against the democrats with 150,000-200,000 HK dollars each in 40 constituencies.(7) It is commonly believed that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Two years later, the SAR government went on to ban the Hong Kong National Party. In addition to this the government has already prosecuted and/or sentenced a lot of activists to jail, including two of the Occupation Trio and the HKFS leaders. Meanwhile in an atmosphere of fear the media is more and more self-disciplining itself. The Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) has been conducting “Hong Kong Press Freedom Index” surveys since 2013, and they showed that between then and 2017 the index has been declining.(8)
Books are subversive
If Beijing merely wanted to silence the opposition then it was already on the right track. But it is clear now that Beijing’s goal goes far beyond this. We should not blame everything on Xi, however. The crux of the matter is that China’s bureaucratic capitalism has proved itself unable to co-exist with Hong Kong’s liberal capitalism in the long run. It is not because the latter is enough to threaten the former. Surely Hong Kong continues to influence China with some doses of political liberties and pluralism. But Beijing’s grip over Mainland society should make its top leader confident enough that Hong Kong alone would not be able to transform the Mainland. If Hong Kong’s autonomy must be eliminated, gradually but totally, it is more because China’s bureaucratic capitalism itself carries an endogenous logic to eliminate all civil liberties, especially Hong Kong’s. There is no better illustration of this situation than the Bookshop Five incident.
Since the late 1970s Hong Kong has become a publishing platform for journals and magazines which target Mainland Chinese visitors’ taste for Party secrets. All across local newspaper stands, books and journals about Beijing’s leaders’ secrets were openly for sale. No matter how much nonsense there is within these publications they are always in great demand, because, after all, there is always a grain of truth among the nonsense. Even if the detail is unreliable, these reports about corruption and foreign assets held by top leaders are true in general. It is also widely believed that different factions within the Party make use of Hong Kong’s freedom of press to hit out against their opponents. This publishing war eventually proved to be damaging to all factions, and above all damaging to the top leader, Xi Jinping.
In January 2014, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released a report on nearly 22,000 tax haven clients from Hong Kong and mainland China. “The confidential files include details of a real estate company co-owned by current President Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law and British Virgin Islands companies set up by former Premier Wen Jiabao’s son and also by his son-in-law.”(9) The Mingpao daily was one of the research partners of the ICIJ. It also released reports on the findings. The following month, however, Kevin Lau Chun-To, ex-editor of the Ming Pao Daily, was seriously wounded in a knife attack. It is widely believed that the incident was related to the ICIJ report, although no evidence could be found. The next year saw another incident, the Causeway Bay Bookshop Five, which now fully revealed how Hong Kong’s freedom of the press directly affected top leaders in Beijing and their fight among themselves.
Between October and December 2015, five owners / staff of Causeway Bay Bookshop went missing. In February 2016 Guangdong authorities confirmed that all five had been taken into custody for an old traffic accident involving Gui Minhai, one of the owners. Hardly anyone outside the Chinese government believed the explanation. It is widely believed that the five were arrested for publishing books about the private life of Xi.(10) What is alarming is not only that this violates the one country two systems principle, but also that two of the arrests were apparently extra-judicial arrests. Circumstantial evidence points to a scenario where Gui Minhai and Lee Bo were abducted by Chinese agents in Thailand and Hong Kong respectively. The lesson of this incident is clear; the free flow of information offends the core interests of the top leader in Beijing, and hence must be eliminated using the most drastic measures.
The Chief Executive Selection Game
Chapter One briefly mentioned that Beijing had publicly shown its displeasure with the Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-Shing. This was in fact just a small part of a bigger event – Beijing had turned against its traditional allies first in the 2012 CE election, and again in the 2017 election.
The Basic Law has not really granted a high degree of autonomy to Hong Kong at all. This is shown in the arrangement of the “election” of its Chief Executive, who is “elected” by a 1,200 member election committee, itself “elected” by “functional constituency” mainly composed of the business sector. In reality the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the HKSAR openly intervened to make sure the pro-Beijing parties follow its instruction to vote. Even if this intervention fails, Beijing still holds all the cards: it alone possesses the power to appoint the CE after they are “elected”. In contrast, even Mainland municipal mayors, once “elected” by the municipal People’s Congress, do not require further appointment from the Central government. So much for the “high autonomy” of Hong Kong.
Pro-Beijing parties always defend the arrangement as fair since the British government did the same or even worse – the latter directly appointed a governor to Hong Kong without even consulting the people there. This is true, although one cannot understand why in this aspect Beijing would look to colonialism as a model. Furthermore, while the previous colonial government was rarely affected by the changes of government in London, this is not so for the SAR’s relation with Beijing. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the selection of the CE and their eventual fate is all directly affected by the power struggle in Beijing. The first CE, Tung Chi Hwa, was unable to finish his term. The second CE, while able to finish his term was sent to jail afterwards. The third CE, C.Y. Leung, was unexpectedly only able to stay in office for one term against his wish.
The local tycoons have always considered that they were the natural candidates for high government posts, especially the CE position, their own turf. It was widely believed that the former leader of the Liberal Party, Henry Tang, whose father had close connections to Jiang Zemin and his inner circle, had the latter’s blessing for the CE job long before the CE election (or ‘selection’, as Beijing has the final say) in 2012. He unexpectedly met a challenge from C. Y. Leung though, a man who was not considered a local business leader. According to Brian Fong, while Henry Tang’s supporters were mainly business people (71.3 percent), C.Y. Leung only garnered 30.2 percent of business support.(11) However, Henry Tang seemed to have lost Beijing’s favour. Just before the election campaign started, leaked reports suddenly filled the pages of the media suggesting that Henry Tang had illegally enlarged his mansion when he renovated it. This sealed his fate. Tang unexpectedly lost his campaign in 2012, thus allowing CY Leung to get the job.(12) Since then, the Liberal Party has become less enthusiastic about being a ring leader for Beijing.
This was widely believed to be partially a result of an alleged fight between the Jiang faction and Xi faction several years back. According to this discourse (the Falungong media, the Epoch Times, is one of the most active proponents of it), Jiang Zemin and his clique owned the privilege to run Hong Kong and Macau affairs and to appoint the CE of both cities. But this was challenged by the new leader Xi Jinping, hence Henry Tang was thrown out at the last minute. A senior staff writer of the Sankei Shimbun (one of the leading newspapers in Japan), Akio Yaita, told us a more complicated story in his book. Throughout the last decade, instead of two there have been three cliques at the top fighting each other: the Shanghai clique led by Jiang, the Communist Youth clique led by Hu Jintao, and lastly the princeling clique led by Xi Jinping.(13) The three probably also fought over the control of Hong Kong and Macau affairs. Just like many events in China, one never knows what is really happening behind the scenes but the screams and fights can still be heard from outside.
In 2016, Duowei News attacked the Liaison Office for performing poorly and also for acting beyond its authority of merely conducting “liaison” and, in the capacity of representing the Central government, starting to intervene in Hong Kong politics.(14) Duowei was considered by many overseas Chinese critics for being pro-Xi Jinping after it was taken over by the Hong Kong media tycoon Yu Pun-hoi. At some point it reversed a critical comment on Xi in its article into one which praised Xi, which was seen as proof of Duowei’s connection to Xi’s faction.(15) In a few months something big happened in Hong Kong in the run up to the CE election in 2017 and which was related to the Liaison Office, suggesting that Duowei News’ previous attack on the Office might be just a prelude to the main event.
The 2017 CE “election”, or to be precise, its prequel, was even more revealing.
What dominated public attention before the nomination of CE candidates in February 2017 was whether C.Y. Leung would run again or not. He already expressed his intention to seek a second term long time ago. From August 2016 onwards until the CE election, the Sing Pao Daily suddenly started a fierce attack on C.Y. Leung, followed by a more escalated attack, this time on the Liaison Office Chief Zhang Xiaoming, and eventually even targeting Zhang Dejiang, then member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the CCP and head of its Hong Kong and Macau Work Coordinating Committee. Sing Pao held all three of them responsible for manufacturing the pro-independence movement so as to achieve its agenda of power grabbing.(16) Eventually the daily named Jiang Zemin as their ultimate patron. Sing Pao was a long time daily and was owned by a local family before it was sold to the Chinese merchant Gu Zhuoheng. After Gu started the attack, there were counter attacks on Gu from the other side, but they were very weak. C.Y. Leung was well known for his intolerance of criticism and used to threaten critics with legal action. However, he was completely silent over this vicious personal attack. It was widely believed that Gu was acting in accordance with Xi’s faction. Again, this is not proven. There was a clue which is worth attention though. C.Y. Leung eventually announced, two months before the nomination started, that he would not run again. Eventually the CE election was a contest between two candidates, Carrie Lam and John Tsang, both top bureaucrats in Hong Kong for a long time, and each probably had his or her own patron (as was hinted by many within the pro-Beijing camp). Now the drama itself is much more boring than the prequel, except that the pan-democrats were so foolish as to be led to believe that John Tsang would be the winner and thus threw their support behind him. But it was Carrie Lam who would win the contest. (17)
How credible is the story given by Sing Pao that it was the Liaison Office head who had manufactured the “Hong Kong Independence movement”? It is hard to say, nevertheless, what had happened in Tibet could give us some clues. Tibetan Communist Party was also accused for provoking the Tibetan Independence Movement to profit from it as well. The accusation came from Bapa Phuntso Wangye, a Tibentan communist leader who remained faithful to the program of self-determination for Tiebentan and because of this was deposed in 1950s and then put in jail. The Tibet expert Melvyn Goldstein had compiled his biography.(18) Phuntso Wangye had written to the Party top leaders to warn the latter about the actions of the former.(19)
The second question is why did Beijing turn against its own allies? The big tycoons knew that it was firstly because of economic interests. With the rise of China, Chinese capital, mainly state-owned enterprises, have become even more aggressive in capturing market share in every sphere of business. Indeed, by March 2017 Chinese capital already accounts for more than 63.7 percent of the market share of the local stock market.(20) These Chinese capitalists now also have a direct interest in fending off the local tycoons. James Tien, the Liberal party leader, noted that “Chinese firms now penetrate many aspects of lives of common citizens, for instance they paid incredibly high prices to buy land and this already out compete many local tycoons. When the state controls our main economic lifelines…. this means that everything will be decided by the Central government.”(21)
There is also a political logic pushing the Chinese companies and their respective Beijing patrons to seek direct political control, despite Beijing’s previous promise to allow local tycoons to run the city. Beijing has grave concerns about how to keep its companies safe from the radar of the ICAC (Independent Commissioner Against Corruption), the anti-corruption watch dog. Since this cannot be done without having some say over the election of the CE – who is solely responsible for the appointment of the agency head – this compels Beijing or its Liaison Office to kick out the local tycoons in the CE election.
A third factor is the “categorical imperative” of a Chinese autocratic regime – it demands all its subjects, even if they are previous allies, to not just kneel but unconditionally kowtow to the Emperor. Tycoons like Li Ka-Shing, or politicians like James Tien, still have too much independence.
When this autocratic element mingled with a power struggle at the top, behind the curtain, it not only implied that a large section of Beijing’s traditional allies had lost the latter’s favour, it also spelled the end of Hong Kong autonomy.
Beijing turns against its own allies
The Liaison Office now began its open intervention in Hong Kong affairs. It turned against its former allies one by one, this time the Heung Yee Kuk (or “Rural Council”). The Council is a statutory advisory body representing establishment interests in the New Territories which is legally still a rural area. The Council is practically the representative of big landlords, a deliberate arrangement by the British colonial government so as to rope in the former. Since the handover, the Council has always been loyal to the new ruler and never did what the Liberal party did. Yet more and more, with the encouragement of the Liaison Office, the DAB (The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong), the main pro-Beijing party founded by local CCP members, now began to compete with the Council’s candidates in the elections. In the 2016 legislature election the Liaison Office even split the Council by supporting the Council oppositionist Junius Ho to run against the Council’s official candidate Ken Chow. What followed was even more revealing: he stated that he was offered five million HK dollars to withdraw from running. He refused, but soon on 25th August 2016 he publicly announced, crying, that he would stop all election campaigning as he had received threats.(22) The next day before he flew to London, he told reporters that the person who threatened him was even more powerful than the mafia and the Liaison Office. After he returned to Hong Kong, he told reporters that he had already written his will and it would be made public if he went missing.(23)( Eventually his opponent won the seat.
Chapter One mentioned how Beijing openly showed its displeasure with Li Ka-shing during the Umbrella Movement in 2014. A year before Li had already begun to divest from the Mainland, a move which some speculated was related to what happened to CE candidate Henry Tang in 2012. According to a report in SCMP, from January 2014 to April 2015, “Li cashed in almost 80 billion yuan via asset transfers and other means, and moved the registrations of all his mainland firms overseas.”(24) Then in September 2015 a Chinese official research organization Outlook Think Tank published an article, “Don’t let Li Ka Shing run away”, criticising Li for profiting from China without fulfilling his social responsibilities. The article was quickly removed yet it had already achieved its goal.(25) On 28th September Li struck back at his critics by releasing a statement, denying that he was divesting from China, defending his patriotism, and lastly stating that “it is with deep regret that the tone of the articles sent chills down people’s spines with a distorted view.”(26) In response to Li the state-run Global Times “urged Li to refrain from ‘making a big fuss’ over media claims that he was ‘unpatriotic’ in withdrawing capital from the mainland.”(27) The above quote comes from a SCMP report with the topic Accept your fall from grace, Chinese state-run paper tells Li Ka-shing after he rebukes critics. SCMP was sold to the head of Alibaba, Ma Yun, in 2016, and is considered to be pro-Beijing. A year later Li sold another valuable asset, this time The Center, a skyscraper worth 40 billion HK dollars. His son, Victor Li, remarked that there were no assets, except their headquarters Cheung Kong Center, that could not be put on sale.(28)
The Liberal party now made a U-turn in its attitude towards Beijing and the Liaison Office. On 15th November 2018, in a banquet hosted by the Liaison Office the head of the Liberal party, Felix Chong, openly declared that his party would no longer play the role of “naughty kid”.(29) He proposed to the legislature to table the National Security bill for discussion which his former party head, James Tien, had blocked in 2003. Felix Chong actually had the full support of James Tien this time, who said that tabling the bill should be “the sooner the better”.(30)
While Beijing turns against its allies, it continues to deepen its agenda of forced assimilation in Hong Kong, even intervening in how schoolboys and girls should march when they join the ranks of boy or girl scouts. The Liaison Office began to persuade schools to replace their uniformed youth groups’ British marching steps with those used by the People’s Liberation Army (ironically, the Chinese foot drills were copied from those of the Soviet Union). (31) The result of these attempts is that local grievances against Beijing have now turned into outright contempt and hatred for the central government – the local image of the latter is nothing but a medieval autocratic regime. The young generation now simply wants to be left alone by the Chinese state and looks to the West as its mentor instead.
January 2020
Notes :
1. In a Possible First for Hong Kong, Activists Wanted by Police Gain Protection in Germany, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/world/asia/hong-kong-china-germany-activists.html
2. Geming tuoli qunzhong dengyu yudan wuyu (A Revolution Detached from the Masses Amounts to Fish Ball without Fish), Stand News, 11th February, 2016.
See also: You Wangjiaoa chongtu dao Xianggang weilai (From Mongkok Clashes to the Future of Hong Kong), Stand News, 20th February, 2016.
3. ‘Shina’ is the largely archaic Japanese name for China. It was used in the early and mid-20th century and always carried a derogatory meaning. After the end of the Second World War it fell out of use and was replaced by ‘chūgoku’. The Hong Kong nativists picked up this term again as an affront to both Beijing and Chinese people in general.
4. Zhonglianban Liang Zhenying huogang, peng qingnian xinzheng ban gangdu (The Liaison Office and C.Y. Leung Favor Youngspiration and the Latter is Pretending to be Hong Kong Independence Advocates), Sing Pao, 3th September, 2016.
5. Shigui yeshi ren (They are Ghosts, but they are Also Human), Ming Pao, 23rd November, 2016.
6. Yearly Review of the Prosecutions Division for 2016, https://www.doj.gov.hk/eng/public/pdf/pd2016/doj2016pd_full.pdf
7. Hong Kong waiter jailed four years over cheating bid in District Council elections, SCMP, 26th October, 2016.
8. Hong Kong Press Freedom Index:
https://www.hkja.org.hk/en/survey-report/hong-kong-press-freedom-index/
9. Leaked Records Reveal Offshore Holdings of China’s Elite
https://www.icij.org/investigations/offshore/leaked-records-reveal-offshore-holdings-of-chinas-elite/
10. Hong Kong bookseller abducted by China vows to reopen shop in Taiwan
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/08/hong-kong-bookseller-abducted-by-china-vows-to-reopen-shop-in-taiwan
11. The Partnership between the Chinese Government and Hong Kong’s Capitalist Class: Implications for HKSAR Governance, 1997-2012, Brian C.H. Fong, The China Quarterly, Vol 217, March 2014, pp 195-220.
12. There are contradictory rumours about who is the patron behind C.Y. Leung, some said it was the former president Hu Jintao, some said it was Zhang Dejiang, the former head of the Central Coordination Group for Hong Kong and Macau Affairs of the CCP.
13. Xi Jinping: The Weakest Leader in Communist China, Akio Yaita, Chinese edition, Commonwealth Publishing Co., Ltd, Taipei, 2012.
14. Beijing shegang jigou jidai zhengsu zhongzu (Beijing’s Departments in charge of Hong Kong Affairs Urgently Require Purges and Overhauls) , https://duoweicn.dwnews.com/CN-2016%E5%B9%B412%E6%9C%9F/10003005.html
15. Duowei pi Xi wenzhang youshan youhuan, xuezhe cheng zuofa buke jieshou dan zheng yu guanfang guanxi miqie (The Duowei Web’s Article Criitque of Xi was Deleted then Revised, Scholars said this was Unacceptable but Proved that the On-line Media is close to the Government), Radio France Internationale, Chinese Edition, 6th December, 2018.
16. Zhang Dejiang cehua weigangdu yinmou, quanguo renda lun dianfu zhengquan gongju (Zhang Dejiang Plots the “Fake Hong Kong Independence Campaign” Conspiracy, the National People’s Congress Becomes Tools of Subversion of the Government ), Sing Pao, 6th November, 2016.
17. See also the following report: The role of Beijing’s ‘invisible hand’ in the chief executive elections,2nd April, 2017, Hong Kong Free Press,
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/04/02/role-beijings-invisible-hand-chief-executive-elections/
18. A Tibetan Revolutionary, The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phuntso Wangye, by Melvyn Goldstein, Dawei Sherap, William Siebenschuh, University of California Press, 2004.
19. Phuntso Wangye guanyu Xizang wenti gei Hu Jintao de xin (Phuntso Wangye’s Letters to Hu Jintao on Tibet), http://beijingspring.com/bj2/2008/140/2008529124456.htm
20. Ganggu shizhi ershinian zhang babei (Hong Kong Stock Market Value Rose Eight Folds), Ta Kung Pao,27th June, 2017.
21. Tian Beijin: zhongzi jiang shentou ge shenghuo huanjie, gangrene zhengminzhu gengnan (James Tian: Chinese Capital is Going to Penetrate all Walks of Lives Making Hong Kong People’s Fight for Democracy Even More Difficult), Stand News, 4th April, 2017. Translation by the author.
22. ‘Election bombshell: threats and attempted bribery alleged as Hong Kong’s New Territories West Legco candidate drops out of poll race’, South China Morning Post, 26 August 2016, https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/2009109/hong-kongs-new-territories-west-candidate-drops-out-race
23. Yuyan tang xiaoshile geng jingcai, Zhou Yongqin zhi yi xie yizhu, ruguo wo chushi, hui quanqiu zhuanzai, (Ken Chow Foretold “if He Disappears it will be Even More Wonderful”, Ken Cow Revealed that He Already Wrote his Will and He Added that if Something Wrong Happens to Him His Will will be Published Globally), 7th September, 2016, MingPao.
24. Accept your fall from grace, Chinese state-run paper tells Li Ka-shing after he rebukes critics,
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1862689/accept-your-fall-grace-chinese-state-run-paper-tells-li-ka
25. Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka Shing ‘runs away’. Chinese netizens ask, why shouldn’t he? 17th September, 2017, Hong Kong Free Press,
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2015/09/17/a-hong-kong-business-magnate-runs-away-chinese-netizens-ask-why-shouldnt-he/
26. Li’s empire strikes back: Hong Kong’s richest man slams mainland Chinese media for ‘totally unfounded’ reports he is divesting from country
27. Accept your fall from grace, Chinese state-run paper tells Li Ka-shing after he rebukes critics,
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1862689/accept-your-fall-grace-chinese-state-run-paper-tells-li-ka
28. Zai mai Xianggang wuye? (Selling Hong Kong Asset Again? ), Stand News, 12th August, 2016.
29. Ziyoudang Zhong guobin: Ziyoudang buzai shi huaihaizi (Liberal Party’s Felix Chung Said Liberal Party Would no Longer be Bad Boy),Ming Pao, 15th November, 2017.
30. Tian Beijun: 23tiao lifa yuezaoyuehao (James Tian: The Tabling of the Bill on Article 23 the Sooner the Better), Ming Pao, 17th November, 2018.
31. Hong Kong uniformed groups requested to swap British marching steps for Chinese style
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/02/09/hong-kong-uniformed-groups-requested-swap-british-marching-steps-chinese-style-report/