Michael Chugani

Opinion | Carrie Lam’s talk of ‘infiltration’ in Hong Kong education raises more questions about the city’s future

The chief executive’s call for safeguards to protect impressionable young minds comes on the heels of the government’s flip-flopping about the role of Beijing’s liaison office in the city

With the continuing mass arrests of mostly young protesters, have the government and Beijing written off a whole generation of Hong Kong youth?

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Chief Executive Carrie Lam meets the press at the government offices in Tamar on May 12. Was her exclusive interview with Ta Kung Pao meant to brown-nose her Beijing bosses or warn Hongkongers that a new political road map is being drawn for the city? Photo: Sam Tsang

Michael Chugani

Published: 6:15am, 14 May 2020Updated: 6:54am, 14 May 2020

If all the pieces of a puzzle are correctly put together, the puzzle picture becomes clear. Pieces of a puzzle are strewn across Hong Kong's political landscape. Good luck trying to fit them. Even if you succeed, the picture will look like a directionless mess, rather than a road map for our politically shattered city’s future.

Events in past weeks and months have proved more than ever before that we are a rudderless ship in a raging sea. What political implications lie ahead when Beijing’s liaison office suddenly redefines the Basic Law to assert that it and other entities are exempt from a clause that forbids meddling in local affairs?

Does the government’s flip-flopping over the clause’s meaning before bowing to Beijing’s position imply that Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has ceded real power over local affairs to the liaison office?

Should we interpret it as an ominous sign for the future when Lam suggested to Beijing mouthpiece Ta Kung Pao that liberal studies are poisoning young minds and must be overhauled? She even said subjects other than liberal studies could be “infiltrated”. What does she mean by that?

A student sits for the Diploma of Secondary Education exam on April 24. In a recent interview, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said schools must ensure misconceptions and “fallacious arguments” are not being taught to impressionable young minds. Photo: AFP

Will an overhauled liberal studies double as national education to promote patriotism? Was her exclusive interview with a state-owned newspaper meant to brown-nose her Beijing bosses or to warn Hongkongers that a new political road map is being drawn for the city?