At the end of last week, leaders of Hong Kong’s “pro-democracy” opposition, many of whom organized violent protests last year against Beijing, held an unofficial “primary” to narrow down the list of opposition candidates who will participate in the Sept. 6 elections for Legislative Council (LegCo). The primary, in which 600,000 people participated, wasn’t authorized by Hong Kong authorities, but was hailed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who gushed on July 14 that the “pan-democrats” primary “clearly demonstrates their desire to make their voices heard in the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to suffocate the territory’s freedom.”
The opposition falsely claimed their primary was to “safeguard Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy.” In fact it was a blatant provocation. Yesterday, Xinhua reported, the spokesman for the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council charged that the so-called primary constituted illegal manipulation of the election, posed a blatant challenge to the Special Administrative Region’s (SAR) Basic Law, and was an attempt to turn Hong Kong “into a base for waging a color revolution.” The “primaries,” the spokesman continued, have severely disturbed the election order, and may have violated the recently-enacted national security law.
