Claudia Mo Redux. Pushing for independence gets you in trouble

Claudia Mo, Hong Kong activist, now in jail, is the main item in today’s Financial Times article. Here. 

I wrote about Claudia Mo a couple of years ago. She did call for independence for Hong Kong, a silliness that was never on. If she’d had one jot of wit about what the tyrant to the north was all about, she would surely have known this. Which, regarding “independence” for Hong Kong, is not now, not then, not never, no not never, nay never, never never no more. Independence for Hong Kong? No. Never. Never no more. Ok?

That said, we had lots of freedoms here in HK. At least, until the Mo & Co pushed for independence, via “Hong Kong First”, via “Localism”, via “self-determination” (really??) and brought down on us all an entirely predictable backlash. The National Security Law of June 2021. For all of us. Thus, Claudia Mo is instrumental in crushing, for all of us, the freedoms we all had. (or at least some of them, for we remain a free and safe society).

Here is my letter to the editors re Claudia, which was published at the time. 

I don’t think she should be in jail. Leave it at that. Her views, celebrated by the Financial Times, her own, personal and rather dodgy views, have harmed all of Hong Kong. I say “dodgy” meaning her saying she’s against “mainlandisation”. If they were not also Han Chinese, that would be classic racism. As it is, it’s surely bigoted. Me, a foreigner, living here in Hong Kong as long as Ms Mo, thought that more Mandarin being spoken in Hong Kong was good. Because I speak Mandarin. Mo doesn’t like it. So she makes up stories about Chinese -- “mainlanders”! -- taking over Hong Kong, when all it was, was more mainlanders coming to Hong Kong, so we heard more Mandarin. To repeat: I think that Mo’s views, and those of her acolytes, are quite simply bigoted. Belted on to a demand for “democracy” to whitewash her horrid views. 

References: 

1.  Financial Times story, to get it without paywall, Google  "She was loved for standing up to China. She may die in jail” and try the link. Otherwise, the paywall version.

2.  My earlier post about Claudia Mo: “Protect the freedoms we already have, Claudia!”. February 2020

3. My letter, “Bigotry in the protest movement”. November 2019

ADDED: I don’t know Claudia, but I do know her husband, Philip Bowring. He was the editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, back in the 1970s, when I was here as the Aussie Embassy point man for economic issues. Philip was on our list of folks to call on when in Hong Kong on official reporting duties. I like his writing, though lately he tends a bit far left for my tastes (the sort of leftism that got us the Beijing Backlash). Now, of course, I empathise with him. How does it feel, what’s to be done, when your wife is in the clutches of a horrid Beijing?