In 2019-20, concerted efforts were made to wreck the “one country, two systems” governing policy. Spearheaded by local subversives and encouraged by foreign governments, the insurrection was designed to weaken China’s development and frustrate national resurgence. It caused considerable harm to Hong Kong, and this was aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic that followed.
However, despite the horrors of the “double whammy”, Hong Kong has not only turned things around (in record time) but also revived its fortunes. Although, in 2020, the Five Eyes partners tried their hardest to harm the city and hurt its people, whether by cancelling trade preferences, suspending cooperation agreements, imposing punitive sanctions, or issuing hostile travel advisories, they failed abysmally. Their failure is attributable to the protections provided by the national security legislation, the stability ensured by the “patriots only” electoral system, and the resilience of the Hong Kong people.
Although the foreign media gave massive coverage to every negative story they could get their hands on during the insurrection, they have downplayed (or ignored) the city’s recent successes. Readers of, for example, The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, or The Times, will be largely (if not entirely) in the dark over Hong Kong’s remarkable international ratings over the past year. For example, their readers have been told little — if anything — about Hong Kong’s ranking as the world’s freest economy (Fraser Institute), as the Asia-Pacific’s most preferred seat of arbitration (Queen Mary University), or as the world’s third-most competitive economy (International Institute for Management Development). Still less were they informed that in the 2025 Rule of Law Index, Hong Kong was ranked 24th out of the 143 jurisdictions surveyed (World Justice Project) — perhaps unsurprisingly, given it was streets ahead of a whole slew of Western countries, including the United States, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
However, the foreign media sensed an opening after the Tai Po fire. They finally had a bad news story, and they have milked it for all it was worth. They have sought to politicize the tragedy, casting aspersions on the Hong Kong authorities not only for their handling of the situation but also for preventing troublemakers from stoking tensions and causing further unrest.
Even though an independent research committee, led by a judge, is being tasked with investigating the circumstances and making recommendations, the foreign commentators, eager to put the boot in, have rushed to judgment. They want to rub salt in the wound and have no interest in awaiting the committee’s conclusions.
Although the foreign media cannot be prevented from misrepresenting the situation and casting smears, they are, once again, on a hiding to nothing. If they understood Hong Kong at all, they would have realized that its Lion Rock spirit is indomitable, and more than capable of seeing off those who peddle myths and wish it ill
Leading the pack, not surprisingly, has been The New York Times, no friend of Hong Kong. Within hours of the tragedy, it was telling its readers that the “early signs” were that the fire was due to “negligence, poor decisions and circumstance”. On Dec 3, its columnist, Li Yuan, launched a frontal attack on the Hong Kong authorities, accusing them of responding to widespread concerns with “smears and intimidation”. This was because they had tried to stop ill-intentioned individuals from inflaming the situation and destabilizing Hong Kong at a time of particular sensitivity.
Although any responsible government would have done the same thing, Li, who previously worked for The Wall Street Journal in New York, also launched irrational criticisms of the city’s national security laws, the handling of disasters elsewhere in China, and the conduct of the Communist Party of China in responding to public order situations.
As Li had stated previously that she wanted “all my work to be accurate and fair”, it was astonishing that she sought to bolster her piece by calling in Glacier Chung Ching Kwong, not least because it blew away her professed objectivity. A darling in anti-China circles, Kwong declared that the Hong Kong authorities were “terrified of anything that can generate a sense of collective identity or bring people together” — conveniently ignoring their considerable efforts in caring for the victims and their families and allaying public concerns.
Moreover, Kwong’s antecedents speak for themselves. Before leaving Hong Kong, she was a supporter of “Youngspiration”, a localist political party. Having campaigned in Germany in 2019 for European support for her anti-Hong Kong agenda (including the ostracization of the city’s police force), alongside the professional agitator Joshua Wong Chi-fung (since convicted of conspiring to cause subversion), she was subsequently snapped up by the US-based Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC), which sensed her potential. The HKDC was founded in 2019 and has developed close links with anti-China groups in the US and the United Kingdom. It is widely seen as a tool of American foreign policy — an impression Kwong did nothing to dispel. She currently works as a senior researcher for the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which propagates anti-China messaging across various parliaments.
Operating from her bases in England and Germany, Kwong has also campaigned for the national security suspect and convicted felon, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying (for whom she was once a columnist at Apple Daily), including at Canada’s parliament.
It beggars belief, therefore, that Li imagined, given her baggage, that Kwong was in any position to validate her criticisms of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.
Although Li has previously claimed her journalism “aims to provide perspectives that can help the world understand (China) and its people”, her coverage of the fire’s aftermath, tainted by IPAC’s involvement, will have had the opposite effect.
The Hong Kong authorities are responding to the Tai Po tragedy with compassion, professionalism, and sensitivity, and this is the message that fair-minded commentators should be conveying. They may not be perfect, but they are listening to rational voices and doing all that the situation requires. Everybody is united in their resolve to ascertain what went wrong and put things right, and the world needs to understand this.
Although the foreign media cannot be prevented from misrepresenting the situation and casting smears, they are, once again, on a hiding to nothing. If they understood Hong Kong at all, they would have realized that its Lion Rock spirit is indomitable, and more than capable of seeing off those who peddle myths and wish it ill.
The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
