Where is the line when small riots grow big?

It took a 54-day trial and three days of deliberations by the jury to arrive at the judgment for the batch of five defendants who were supposed to be at the center of the Mong Kok riot on the night of Feb 8, 2016, the first day of the Chinese New Year.

According to witnesses, this was a staged clash between illegal street hawkers and hawker control staff in a crowded Mong Kok street, which soon escalated into a face-off between a violent mob and a somewhat helpless police. Rioters dug up bricks on the pavement to throw at lightly equipped policemen. When tripped over, the policemen were fiercely attacked. This did not end after a desperate cop fired one shot in the air. It was a real nightmare.

But these lawbreakers got off lightly, except for Edward Leung Tin-kei who might face up to 10 years behind bars after a nine-member jury unanimously convicted him guilty of rioting. Remember this was after three days of deliberations under the guidelines set by the judge and you will appreciate how much pressure the jurors have been under to arrive at such strange and unanimous conclusions which were contrary to natural justice.

After such a highly publicized ordeal, an appeal by the prosecutor would seem unlikely. And this will set the precedent for future trials of Mong Kok riot offenders. Such is the judicial system we have in Hong Kong, one that is skewed strongly in favor of anti-government lawbreakers.

Cast in this light, there seems to be no point in enacting legislations on national security here. First of all, our police force is not trained for such purpose, and we can hardly get any conviction after a lot of hard work on their part. Public order and national security are not our primary concern as the freedom of expression is of overriding importance.

Even now the conviction and the sentencing of Leung is a subject of controversy under the scrutiny of the Englishspeaking press and NGOs like the newly established Hong Kong Watch.

The situation is getting more delicate as China and the United States are locking their horns under the “New Cold War”. The West perceives this as a competition between two totally different systems jockeying for supremacy. Either the liberal narrative of individualism, freedom and democracy championed by the West as the universal value stands, or the Chinese model of social harmony and collective good will prevail.

The Western culture built on the foundation of monotheism tends to look at the world in terms of a dichotomy of good and evil, black and white, where the Chinese will see a hundred shades of gray. China can always embrace what is beneficial coming from whatever direction, but the West will always perceive China and Chinese as a threat, “the Yellow Peril”.

Hong Kong under “one country, two systems” is right in the middle of the crossroads. It is the meeting of the East and the West, whatever that means it is nevertheless confusing. It is even more so when some people from the West try to make use of this to gain an upper hand in their preconceived competition in order to weaken China.

In the Basic Law, we have practically given up our legal sovereignty in Hong Kong by adopting common law system and having the Court of Final Appeal stationed in the special administrative region. As such it naturally will tend to favor the Western narrative over the Chinese paradigm. It is very annoying and most of our compatriots on the mainland, together with many here in Hong Kong, just fail to understand why.

But this is the way it is, and going to be until at least 2047. This is the deal and we will have to stick to it. Even when we have a small-scale riot on our hands, this is perhaps the right way to handle it. The problem is, who knows when a small-scale riot may get out of hand to threaten not only public order, but also national security? Where shall we draw the line?

And a more crucial question: Who will draw the line? According to Article 18 of the Basic Law, it is the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.