Opinion | An attempted coup versus a beautiful sight to behold?

By Edward Hei Leung, LegCo Member

A Democratic-led congressional committee highlights the Capitol Riot as an attempted coup to overturn US presidential election result. Committee members believe that Proud Boys and Oath Keepers planned this horrible attack under the support of former US President Donald Trump. It does not only spark off heated debates in American society, but also expose US double standard and political manipulation to the international community.

Last year, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building, and four people died amid the chaos. On that day, the congress held meetings to certify Biden's election victory. After a 10-month investigation, the Jan. 6 select committee has interviewed over 1,000 witnesses, and gathered more than 140,000 documents to illustrate how US democracy is in danger.

Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, believed that Trump lit the flame, summoned and assembled the mob; meanwhile police officer Caroline Edwards described the attack as chaos she never imagined in the wildest dream.

In fact, Trump's accusation of mass voter fraud is largely unverified, even the Attorney General in Trump's era calls those conspiracy theories as "non-sense", "idiotic" and "crazy stuff". As a result, it seems reasonable for Biden administration to identify the incident as an attempted coup. Again, what matters most is the double standard.

Back to the time when Hong Kong was engulfed into black violence, the beautiful sight to behold in western politicians' eyes. The so-called peaceful protestors trashed shops, attacked innocent people, threw petrol bombs and even stabbed police officers. Meanwhile, government officials, lawmakers and pro-Beijing individuals suffered from doxxing activities. Instead of blaming pan-democrats, western governments demanded our authority to address the legitimate concerns through meaningful political dialogues. Will Biden governance cater to the political concerns of Trump supporters? How comes so different in the responses?

Remember that Hong Kong's anti-extradition bill protest was more severe than the US Capitol riot. The demonstration lasted at least half a year. At that moment, extremists and separationists set roadblocks, build homemade weapons, hurl petrol bombs and set innocent people alight. Imagine that similar event had continued in the US for several months. What would happen?

Needless to say, freedom is not boundless. That is the international standard habitually ignored by our western counterparts. Ironically, in enemy countries, destructive protests became the beautiful sight to behold, and rioters were even heroized as human right fighters. Nevertheless, in western societies, the US administration, for instance, defines the infamous attack to Capitol building as riot, the UK crack down the application of guerilla protests, Canada identifies the freedom convoy does not have constitutional right to block others, to name but a few. 

Democracy is fragile, particularly when the minority refuse to compromise and abuse their rights to air grievances, not to mention foreign interference. The enactment of national security law, and the electoral reform have successfully steered our city back to the right track of "One country, two systems", and more importantly, to ensure healthy democratic development. Hong Kong society should support its own course of democracy rather than blindly follow western models.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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