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ARTICLE 23
Mr Tung, drop the anti-subversion bill now
LAU NAI-KEUNG
If I were the chief executive, I would have called it quits and withdrawn the national security bill. Some stipulations of the existing legislation have either been deleted or diluted, and the irony is that national security could be better protected by scrapping the proposed laws. In its current state, the bill is already a retreat from existing legislation and, yet, the democrats still cry for more. What more can the Tung administration give without totally compromising national security?
By putting an end to this fiasco, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa would be credited with heeding the voice of the people - even the voice of the democrats, whom he hates - rather than the supposed orders from his bosses in Beijing. This would definitely take the wind out of the democrats' sails. With no other issues at hand, they would soon disappear from the media and be forgotten by their constituents. What is even more interesting is that the democrats cannot complain. They have, on the face of it, won a very important battle. But, in fact, they have unwittingly lost the war.
The majority of Hong Kong citizens are fed up with all this political squabbling. To please the silent majority - and raise his popularity - Mr Tung just has to withdraw the proposed legislation. The leaders in Beijing would be relieved, too. They want a piece of law to protect national security, not one that would weaken it. With the distinct possibility of further revisions, surely President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao would prefer to stick to the existing - and stricter - colonial-era laws.
[....]
Mr Tung is known to vacillate [...] No one can be surprised if Mr Tung makes another U-turn, this time on national security legislation. This is his style of governance. Like it or not, we cannot do anything about it. From the above analysis, Mr Tung has nothing to lose and everything to gain from dropping the legislation. But he has to do it fast, and he is capable of doing just that. On the other hand, should he fail to act, he will find himself in much deeper trouble than at present.
[....]
But knowing Mr Tung, I bet he refuses to take my advice. He is most likely to say, as many people have heard before: "No, no. I completely disagree with you. I have already thought about it, and it is not going to work." We will know soon enough.
Lau Nai-keung is a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference delegate.
