Lawmakers have duty to defend sovereignty

Thirty-nine pro-establishment members of the Legislative Council issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning three opposition lawmakers who went to Taiwan on Monday with two leaders of radical student groups at the invitation of "pro-independence" legislators in Taiwan to form a separatist alliance. The statement called out Law Kwun-chung, Chan Chi-chuen and Chu Hoi-dick for openly joining forces with separatist elements in Taiwan in total disregard of their duty as lawmakers of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and deemed their unconstitutional act intolerable. We completely agree with those pro-establishment LegCo members. We believe the SAR government should look into the incident and consider appropriate action against such unacceptable behavior.

Law, Chan and Chu were joined by Joshua Wong and Alex Chow, leading figures in the illegal "Occupy Central" movement in 2014. They told reporters in Taipei that they see their hosts as "allies", who made it no secret the "congressional caucus" they were launching that day was specifically timed to show Beijing "pro-independence" forces in Taiwan and Hong Kong had joined forces without using the word "independence". Their official call-sign is "democracy" but we all know that's not what they really crave. "Democracy" is merely an excuse for them to raise hell if necessary to grab as much power as they can for the ultimate goal of declaring independence from the Chinese nation.

It is public knowledge that all LegCo members are required by law to abide by and uphold the Basic Law. The Basic Law stipulates in the very beginning that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China. That means all lawmakers must not do anything to jeopardize the nation's sovereign rule over Hong Kong directly or indirectly. Their illegal acts were clearly motivated by the preposterous belief that they are not Chinese citizens and Hong Kong is not part of China.

Their tendency to challenge the rule of law notwithstanding, Law, Chan and Chu cannot deny the fact that their alliance with "pro-independence" forces in Taiwan will only convince more people of the calculating separatists they really are.

(HK Edition 06/16/2017 page13)