Tai reveals his separatist ambitions
Benny Tai Yiu-ting, one of the initiators of the illegal “Occupy Central” movement in the fall of 2014, finally bared his separatist soul and ambitions for the whole world to see this week. At a so-called seminar in Taipei organized by a group advocating “Taiwan independence” and attended by diehard devotees to various secessionist causes bent on breaking China apart, Tai delivered a speech on Monday filled with political hyperbole often used by anti-communist and anti-China enthusiasts of all ages and nationalities around the world. The most eye-popping part of Tai’s speech is his open call for the establishment of an “independent country” or “federal state” in Hong Kong, which Tai believes Hong Kong society should decide through “democratic self-determination”.
Anyone who failed to recognize Tai’s separatist self before should have no more excuses to regard him as anything else now, even though “Occupy” was conceived and launched with fostering separatism in mind in the first place. And Tai, an associate professor of law with the University of Hong Kong’s Law Faculty, has been using his academic cover to justify brainwashing Hong Kong young people with all kinds of “pro-independence” ideas directly or otherwise. Indeed all the constitutional mumbo-jumbo he has spun out over the years was designed to convince people of the “right to pursue Hong Kong independence” which does not exist. That is why he orchestrated “Occupy” — in the hope of paving the way for “self-determination” over Hong Kong’s constitutional status.
It is no surprise that Tai’s “subtly” separatist theories have been embraced by openly “proindependence” and “localist” groups in Hong Kong and even beyond, hence his presence at the separatist gathering in Taipei this week. Although it is now public knowledge that the Chinese nation will never let any attempt to break up the country through various pursuits of “independence”, we must not overlook the damage such attempts can and will cause if left unchecked. We have already seen many times how disruptive and even destructive separatist activities are in recent years, particularly “Occupy Central”, which not only caused huge economic losses but also seriously poisoned many young people’s minds, to the point that some ended up on the wrong side of justice and bore adverse legal consequences including imprisonment. For those young people who broke existing laws in the name of “democratic self-determination” their run-in with Hong Kong law could ruin their futures for good.
The central government authorities have emphasized time and again the Chinese nation will achieve reunification no matter what. This is why President Xi Jinping on the closing day of the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress in Beijing earlier this month stressed that there is absolutely no way the nation will ever give way to separatist pursuits — not even an inch. It also means we must keep educating members of the public and especially young people about the dire consequences of secessionism.