Advertisement
Shades Off | Are Hong Kong’s leaders speaking the same language as the people?
- It makes sense for officials to emulate Beijing’s language on foreign affairs, but it raises questions over the intended audience for their words
- The way they speak suggests the opinion of their bosses in Beijing matters more than the pressing concerns of everyday Hongkongers
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
38
A patriot I am apparently not. When Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and others in her administration speak of national security and related issues, their language is unfamiliar to me.
Advertisement
Their speeches are peppered with phrases and ideas that I don’t hear other Hongkongers utter. Expressions like “foreign interference”, “external forces” and “black hands”; this is mainland-style terminology that is alien to a city that has been used to bland bureaucrat-babble.
In the past few months, the United States has been the target of foreign ministry and Hong Kong government vitriol, the language in press releases and statements being virtually identical.
The government, in welcoming a ministry “fact sheet” detailing 102 claimed instances of American interference in local affairs, contended that the “malicious acts” had now been exposed with “ironclad evidence”.
“Hong Kong people can now grasp the facts, understand clearly the years of interference by external forces in Hong Kong and avoid falling prey to the malicious attempts of the US,” it said.
YouTube video player
At a National Day reception, Lam said “a small number of anti-China individuals” had used the media to portray unrest that followed an attempt to introduce a controversial extradition law in 2019 as “a reflection of Hong Kong’s deep-rooted problems and that they could be solved through democratic reform and political dialogue, which I am afraid was a trap made by foreign forces”.
Advertisement