By: Azhar Azam
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-08-23/Hong-Kong-residents-should-prevent-a-point-of-no-return--Jo60hOfzpu/index.html
On August 17, as many as 476,000 people rushed to the streets of Hong Kong with their national flag to denounce violence and to support peace in the Chinese Special Administrative Region (SAR) and the constitutional principle of “One Country, Two Systems.”
The massive “Oppose Violence, Save Hong Kong” rally that took place near Hong Kong Legislative Council Complex went unnoticed in the Western media as it didn’t gratify their cryptic objectives and lacked the “spices”, they needed to deface China’s image.
For distractors, things were sprinting meticulously as soon as the violent demonstrators had choked the autonomous region with their subversive acts of storming into and wrecking the statutory headquarters, marring its walls with graffiti, and hoisting foreign flags.
But the pro-peace protestors’ call to return Hong Kong back to normalcy, tranquility, and stability muted, rather stunned, the hawkish elements of the international media that were anticipating the tensions and conflict to escalate in the territory.
The sensible Hongkongers have a different take on China as they believe that Hong Kong is their very own region and China is their very own country. They realize that if the situation degrades further, it could disrupt the society and could additionally affect the livelihoods of many people of Hong Kong.
Peace-supporters envisions the basic law of “One Country, Two Systems” as a key substance to Hong Kong’s economic growth that has pushed its trade to GDP ratio from 233% in 1997 to 376% in 2018, enabled the Mainland to become Hong Kong’s largest trading partner, and drove China as the largest domestic export market of Hong Kong, accounting for more than 44% of its total domestic exports.
The Mainland is Hong Kong’s second largest source of inward direct investment as well. At the end of 2017, investment from the Mainland accounted for about 25.5% or about $497 billion of the total stock of region’s inward direct investment. As a total 197 Chinese companies had their regional headquarters and another 255 companies had set up their regional offices in Hong Kong, the Mainland has played decisive role in providing job opportunities and improving the well-being of Hong Kong residents.
Nevertheless, the defiance of the violent marchers could negatively impact the region’s status as one of the most important global financial hubs and could also concede its leadership standing in the world. As Hong Kong enjoys greater degree of autonomy since China took its control from British 150-year colonial rule in 1997, the acts of infidelity such as waiving foreign flags and slurring national emblems could elicit chaos and instability.
China should be given credit for showing a greater restraint on these perfidious events which otherwise could have been reproved by strong military crackdown. While the radical protestors are testing China’s forbearance, the Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned “The situation in Hong Kong has been deteriorating, with the interference of outside powers” and that the dissenters have challenged the bottom lines of law, morality, and the fundamental paradigm of “One Country, Two Systems.”
The radical protestors should pay heed to Wang’s alert “any responsible government and any society rules by law would not sit by and tolerate this” and must circumvent to play in the hands of foreign interveners. People of Hong Kong need to understand the sensitivity of the issue. The sole objective of the meddling foreign countries is to hurt China and the well-being or security of the people in Hong Kong nowhere sits in their veiled agendas.
From Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria to Libya and parts of Africa, the foreign intervention has only brought increased casualties, human sufferings, economic breakdowns, and frightful devastations. International coalitions initially scooped the hopes of these nations in the name of democracy and freedom of expression and latter faded away. It is only the local inhabitants which are thoroughly exposed to the threats of lives and risks of economic survivals.
Now, the US and British led alliance is trying to unbolt a new front against China by covertly intervening and flaring the protests in Hong Kong. Their shared goal is to spike unrest in Chinese Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and once their objective to trigger a conflict between China and Hong Kong is met, they would perish as they used to do in the past.
Hongkongers should give an astute review to the unsavory credentials of the foreign interferers before it is too late and the circumstances push them to a point of no-return.