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  • Walter's Blog.
  • Home
  • Introduction
  • About Walter
    • 1980 Joining Up - Grafton Street >
      • Arrival and First Impressions
      • First Week
      • Training
      • Passing Out
    • Yaumati Cowboy >
      • Getting on the Streets
      • Jumpers, pill poppers and the indoor BBQ
      • Tempo of the City
      • Into a Minefield.
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      • Baptism By Fire
      • Kai Tak with Mrs Thatcher.
      • Home; The Boy Returns
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    • PTU Instructor & Getting Hitched
    • Having a go: SDU
    • Starting a Chernobyl family
    • EOD - Don't touch anything
    • Semen Stains and the rules
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    • Blue Lights, Sirens & Grenades
    • Drugs, Broken Kids & A Plane Crash
    • 600 Happy Meals Please!
    • Hong Kong's Best Insurance
    • Riding the Iron Horse
  • Crime in Hong Kong
    • Falling Crime Rates - Why?
    • Triads
    • The Saga That Rocked Hong Kong's Legal Fraternity
  • History of Hong Kong Policing
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    • History 1945 to 1967
    • Anatomy of the 50 cent Riot - 1966
    • The Fall of a Commissioner.
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    • Three Wise Men from the West
    • The Blue Berets.
    • The African Korps and other tribes.
    • Getting About - Transport.
    • A Pub in every station
    • Bullshit Bingo & Meetings
    • Godber - The one who nearly got away.
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    • British Policing - What's to be done?
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Reflections on recent events, plus the occasional fact free rant unfiltered by rational argument. 

"If you want to read a blog to get a sense of what is going on in Hong Kong these days or a blog that would tell you what life was like living in colonial Hong Kong, this blog, WALTER'S BLOG, fits the bill."  Hong Kong Blog Review
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22/6/2022 4 Comments

Wilful Blindness

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“I've concluded that people don't incline to take in the tangle of truth.”
History is a story. Sometimes it’s the easier story that wins out or the more comfortable one — the neatest version of events that sits well with personal or national perceptions. That’s the distinct impression that forms as I write this blog sitting in the UK. 

As seen from here, there is no doubt that the interpretation of events in Hong Kong is either shaped by the self-serving chroniclers like Lord Patten or agenda-driven pundits. Sometimes it’s so is out of kilter it’s laughable. This week I was asked, “Were you in Hong Kong when the Chinese army invaded to stop the riots in 2019?” Oh Lordy!

I've concluded that people don't incline to take in the tangle of truth. Hence the easy line is that China crushed Hong Kong while everyone else is blameless. And that is as far as the commentary goes. Boom. Done. 

Of course, with the 25th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, the likes of Chris Patten are milking the opportunity with books and opinion pieces. Before moving on, it’s worth anchoring a couple of points.

Patten, having had the boot from the people of Bath, and knowing little about Hong Kong or China, parachuted into the role of Governor in 1992. Convinced that he knew more than everyone else, regardless of their previous experience and detailed knowledge, he was late on the scene. 


The negotiations for the handover concluded years before, and the "Joint Declaration" was signed in Beijing by Margaret Thatcher in 1984. The Basic Law - the cornerstone of Hong Kong’s administration after 1997 - was published in April 1990, including a provision for the National Security Law.

Hence, Patten had little to do except make a nuisance of himself, and upset the mainland Chinese. He succeeded. Hong Kong was poorly served in those final years of British rule by Patten operating in 'Catholic savour' mode. Did a sudden pang of guilt take hold having cut off Hong Kong people from the UK with the 1981 Immigration Act? Looks like it.

Yet regardless of well-meaning or not, Patten was running against the clock. All Beijing needed to do was wait until 1997. Perhaps a wiser politician could have played the game better. 

Also, wiped from the record or downplayed in all the discussions is that Hong Kong was taking steps towards more democracy under Chinese rule until the opposition decided to scupper what was on offer. That derailed the whole process. Proposals on the table in 2014 set out a path to limited democratic reform. It was a start. 

With that rejected, the seeds of the 2019 troubles germinated, which China felt compelled to address with an imposed National Security Law. Still it’s odd that commentators aren’t acknowledging that the NSL contains more safeguards than similar legislation in the West. 

Reading the UK pundit's account of these events, I realise despite being there; I don't know my own story — not for them, the deep, more tangled view. So, supposedly, the whole of Hong Kong rose in protest, a 'fact' supported by images of streets filled with people. Truly that is incontrovertible evidence. 

Hence there is no truck with the idea that the majority didn't protest or march. Moreover, once the violence took hold, attitudes turned on a sixpence, as the numbers showing willing support fell away dramatically. 

Meanwhile, without any sense of irony, last week, The Times ran an article suggesting the Commonwealth be a bulwark against the rise of China. With opinion leaders still wedded to the idea that the UK commands the world stage, such views border on the delusional.

The Times also suggested that taking Hong Kong by force was a 'good thing', blithely ignoring the fact this was done to secure the opium trade that led to untold addictions and dislocation in Chinese society. 

In essence the author argues that drug trafficking was fine and dandy because this led to modern-day Hong Kong. That misses the point that Hong Kong was held for strategic reasons, with the interests of the people having no bearing on events. Some recognition of that side of the story would be welcome. 

Mind you, I shouldn't express surprise at such disingenuous behavior because half-truths and outright lies pepper British politics. You could argue this is par for the course when the ‘head boy’ routinely breaks the law, reneges on international agreements and can't keep his ethics advisors. That he even needs an ‘ethics advisor’ speaks volumes. 

At the same time, Boris is moving to distance the UK from the European Court of Human Rights because it has ruled against him. 

In the coming days no doubt we can look forward to Boris and others lecturing us about the ‘rules based international order’ and erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong, while he acts as a law unto himself. 
4 Comments
Willms
23/6/2022 06:05:14 am

Today I learned that Ruanda (or Rwanda), to where the UK wants to deport refugees who managed to cross the Channel and survived, is a member of the Commonwealth, although Rwanda never had been a British colony. Before gaining independence, Ruanda was a colony of Belgium, and this since the end of the first world war, or rather since when the winners of the war divided up the bounty among themselves. Before that, Ruanda and its neighbour Burundi were part of the German colony which was named later Tanganjika and then Tanzania, after the merger with Sansibar, which Britain got from Germany in exchange for Helgoland, the little rock in the middle of the North Sea.

Little Belgium, which was invaded at the begin of WW1, and battle field with trenches, machine gun fire, and gas grenades, owner of the huge Colony Congo, got the neighbouring Territories Ruanda and Burundi as their part of the overall war bounty.

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Gloria Bing
24/6/2022 10:41:39 am

"Catholic savour"..."I love the smell of incense in the morning". And surely describing Patten as having a "pang" of conscience has got to be a pun?

Reply
Chris Emmett
25/6/2022 06:25:41 pm

Would Walter consider submitting this to the Guardian or the Times as an Op-Ed piece? It's well within journalistic standards and it hits the mark. They may say no, but it costs nothing to try. Refusal to publish would be a good subject for another of Walter's articles.

Reply
Bjorn Brown
21/7/2022 04:35:22 am

Very good piece. As you know, the western media is filled with articles extolling the "peaceful protests" of 2019. There were some, of course, but it was a little more complicated than that, wasn't it? A tremendous amount of revisionist history is taking place. All quite instructive. I echo Mr Emmett's suggestion.

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    Walter De Havilland was one of the last of the colonial coppers. He served 35 years in the Royal Hong Kong Police and Hong Kong Police Force. He's long retired. 

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