Take it out on Hong Kong! ｜Lee Yee
The rash chap was wronged out there, and went home to beat up his wife and son. Ah Q muttered an insult to the fake foreigner, who beat him up with a mourning stick. Ah Q dared not argue, turned around and provoked Whiskers Wang, whom he despises, and the weak and lowly Young D. Except Whiskers Wang and Young D beat Ah Q, what a slap in the face! Therefore he pinched the young nun in the cheeks to vent.
The US has launched a series of blows against China in the ultra-cold war, with the latest development being the announcement that US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will visit Taiwan. Although there are precedents for the US cabinet members to visit Taiwan, it is now during a pandemic, with the particular highlights of this sensitive period being: that Taiwan has been rejected by the World Health Organization (WHO), that the WHO has joined forces with China, and that the US has withdrawn from the WHO and is preparing to form a new health alliance. In addition, it is rumored that Sun Lijun, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Public Security, who was investigated in April this year, was dismissed for leaking information about the Wuhan epidemic from laboratories. The relevant information has fallen into the hands of Australia and the US, which may trigger a global accountability operation.
As the US and Taiwan get closer, they repeated inch towards the bottom line of China’s tolerance. The next step could be the stationing of US troops in Taiwan, which could even lead to the establishment of diplomatic relations with Taiwan that might not be that surprising.
On the other hand, the US gave up unilateral diplomacy, and Pompeo called on the free world to unite to resist China, a declaration that was welcomed by many countries thanks to the Hong Kong national security law. Britain proposed to form the D-10, a group that is consisted of the Five Eyes, plus Japan, India, South Korea, France, and Germany, with the possibility of ASEAN countries to follow. The latest development is that in Switzerland, which has always maintained a neutral attitude in international affairs and has never been involved in international wars since 1815, Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis told the media on Aug 2 that Hong Kong’s national security law endangers Hong Kong Swiss enterprises, and if the CCP insists on pursuing it, Western countries will respond more resolutely.
As everyone knows, Swiss banks are famous for their measures against leaking depositors’ information, and therefore money from laundering is often stored in Swiss banks. Last year, Jia Kang, an economist and former director of the Finance Department of the Chinese Ministry of Finance, forwarded the news published by Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) that about 100 Chinese people had deposits of 7.8 trillion yuan, which equals to 1 trillion USD in UBS. The average deposit per person is more than 10 billion USD.
The Swiss Foreign Minister said that Hong Kong’s national security law “endangers Swiss enterprises in Hong Kong”, alluding to the next steps which could well be divestitures. Minus Hong Kong, corrupt Chinese officials have one fewer, and the most convenient, place to hide their money.
Faced with the increasing pressure from the US and Western countries, China’s response has been relatively mild. Except for the babbling from the Ministry of Foreign Arguments, none from the top tier spoke out, and the media reiterated that they would remain “open to the outside world”.
A month ago, Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin posted that China needed to increase the number of nuclear warheads to more than a thousand; a week ago, Old Hu once again proclaimed, “Hurry up and build more nuclear missiles to deter the American lunatics, turn on the steam”. These Weibo posts have hundreds of thousands of likes. However, on Jul 31, Yang Chengjun, high-level military, and nuclear arms control expert, issued a document that slammed, without naming names, Hu’s remarks as “having the foremost purpose of inciting dissatisfaction with the Central government, the Military Commission, and the military”, that it was heinous and “a lie that is extremely detrimental to national security”.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency that, “We can restart dialogues with all levels and fields with the US any moment. Any issue can be brought to the table for discussion”, “refuse to decouple, maintain cooperation; resist zero-sum, share responsibility”.
Not daring to play hardball with the US? Take it out on Hong Kong. Therefore, the policy towards Hong Kong is only going to become increasingly outrageous. Hongkongers must prepare for the worst.
Lu Xun said, “An angry hero brandishes his sword to challenge the mighty; an angry coward turns his sword to bully the vulnerable”. The next two lines that follow are, “In a hopeless nation, there will be many heroes glaring only at the children. Those wussies!” Wussy [pinyin: can tou]," means a bully who preys on the weak in the Chinese northern dialect.
If the wussies think that little Hong Kong is good to bully, then what has last year’s anti-ELAB movement do to the political, economic, internal, and external environment in the CCP? Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
