Alex Lo

My Take | A lecture from Beijing that Hong Kong should not ignore

It’s a given that state leaders will praise an openly obsequious government in Macau, but increasingly it sounds like a warning to us to toe the line – or else!

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Beijing’s not-so-subtle criticisms increasingly sound like frustration and impatience with Hong Kong. Photo: GCS Macao

Alex Loin Toronto

Published: 12:31am, 11 May 2017Updated: 12:31am, 11 May 2017

It has become a ritual for visiting state leaders to praise Macau at the expense of Hong Kong. For the central government, the former Portuguese enclave has been the model son while we are the wayward, ill-behaved one ever since the two cities were returned to China by their respective colonial powers.

Some of us who are old enough can still remember an embarrassed Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first chief executive, and other policy bureau chiefs, being lined up and lectured to by former president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤 ) while he lavished praise on Macau in late 2004.

So the chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, Zhang Dejiang (張德江), has continued this indirect criticism during his visit to Macau this week. He said Macau had made great strides in advancing national security, promoting patriotism and practising pragmatism.

That’s true from Beijing’s perspective. Macau has a restrained legislature and an openly obsequious government. It passed laws against treason, secession, sedition and subversion just 10 years after its return to Chinese sovereignty. We in Hong Kong are still debating whether we should even talk about Article 23 of the Basic Law, the part of the mini-constitution that places the responsibility on us to pass national security legislation.

Our city may be richer given its much larger economy, but in terms of housing, social services and disposable income, poor and grass-roots families in Macau may actually be better off.