By Philip Yeung
Joshua Wong has just been sentenced to 10 years in prison for colluding with foreign forces.
Instantly, in knee-jerk fashion, ten foreign ministers from America to Australia jumped to his defense, condemning his "unfair prosecution". As a teenager, some argue, Wong shouldn't have spent a single day in jail.
Since when does a country tolerate a teenager tearing up its system for a fake cause? Liberty is not a license. The foreign ministers don't just interfere in China's domestic affairs. They are also insulting our intelligence, turning a teenage troublemaker into a savior.
Something is fishy here: Wong began his career as a street protester at the tender age of 14! For 16 years, he hasn't worked a single day in his life. Yet, as of 2023, he had a personal net worth of $5million? Where did his money come from? CIA, perhaps?
This dyslexic teenager dived into the role of social agitator without the ability to tell right from wrong. Self-important and ignorant, he has a huge appetite for headlines--a strutting, annoying under-ripe Mr. know-it-all.
Yet, he is hailed as a hero in the West, as savior of society, when he is just a numbskull puppet of dark foreign forces.
Because China is in the picture, he instantly gets a halo. China has changed the moral calculus.
It took generations to build Hong Kong into a fabled city. It took a dyslexic kid just 79 days to launch himself as a human torpedo to tear up its social fabric.
The rioters who brought chaos to Hong Kong are not freedom fighters. The unlikely poster boy of social unrest that swept Hong Kong is no teenage angel either.
Wong, dyslexic, is too busy running around like a headless chicken to even finish his bachelor's degree.
Being underage has made him hot and newsworthy, busy meeting the US consul general in Hong Kong, being received by the mighty Nancy Pelosi and Marco Rubio in the US Capitol, and hailed as a hero in fighting for the freedom of his people.
Hong Kong, famous for its political apathy, rule of law and economic vitality, became an ugly mess. Wong's unforgivable sin is altering its DNA beyond recognition, divided and drifting.
Beijing studiously honors its "one-country-two-systems", a formula for Taiwan's future peaceful reunification. That is why the National Security Law was not enacted until 2020, as the city teetered on the brink of anarchy.
No political movement, East or West, has ever been led by a teenager who knows so little about life and even less about geopolitics. At just 17, he was nominated for Time's 2013 Person of the Year and named one of the World's Greatest Leaders by Fortune magazine in 2015. Netflix created a documentary titled "Teenager V. Superpower" to honor him. Then he hit the jackpot and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 at just 19.
In May 2011, aged 14, he cofounded Scholarism, a protest organization later reincarnating itself as Demosisto, attracting 100,000 members, including many 12-year-olds bored with school. Intoxicated by his sudden fame, he went on a hunger strike. His name was everywhere.
Western journalists embraced him as a darling. His age made him uniquely marketable. His anti-China stance made him heroic. The CIA allegedly arranged for his military training by the U.S. Army. Gullible and exploitable, he became a valuable US asset.
The West is peddling a lie. Wong is a hollow-headed, callow youth who hasn't lived a day authentically. This is not a fight against oppression, or poverty, or injustice. He is chasing personal vanity and the limelight.
A mature society with unique charm is told by a juvenile on how to run itself. In human history, no teenager has ever been given the permission to define the character of a society.
That is a disgraceful chapter in Hong Kong's history. Its big mistake is in not nipping the trouble in the bud, ICE-style.
As a driver in the Umbrella Movement, he brings the umbrella to a society where there is no rain. He and his ilk occupied Central for 79 days, while his brain remains occupied by unfiltered propaganda. America nominated him as one of the Most Influential Teens who lobbies foreign powers to impose sanctions on his own city and country. From age 14, this kid has done Hong Kong enough damage to last a century. If this is not treason, what is?
So, spare us your "holier-than-thou" sermons and stop insulting our intelligence.
This is a sick joke inflicted by people with too much freedom and no worries about making ends meet. Law professor Benny Tai is another idle busybody whose fat salary and job security gave him the luxury of playing risky political games. Together they form the "much ado about nothing" gang.
The fallout is frightening. If China is plunged into war over Taiwan, you can blame it on a 14-year-old who was allowed to run riot and scuttled the formula for peaceful reunification. This is strategically CIA-clever, subverting peace in the Pacific.
When he leaves jail, pack him off to Africa to preach revolution in the jungles. Like monkeys, that's where he belongs. Or, if you want to keep Wong in the Pacific region, dispatch him to Papua New Guinea, where they used to dine on each other. Wong has zero concept of the law. He belongs in the jungle.
Alternatively, the US can adopt him as its favorite son and let him work up a tsunami of social upheaval in beautiful America.
Wong is not the conscience of Hong Kong. He is its curse.
Post-Handover, Hong Kong people were the freest on the planet—free, even, to call for the downfall of the CCP without consequence. The de facto freedom was such that this once apolitical city saw, on average, 19 protests per day.
This Infant Terrible has fooled us all.
Without knowing a thing about life, he has occupied the moral high ground, armed with the God-given right to dictate our fate. With utter disregard for the law, at 19, he demanded the right to run for the Legislature when the statutory age for candidacy is 21.
Wong is an empty vessel that makes the most noise, neither knowing the hardships nor the happiness of life. Still dependent on his parents, he was fighting for you and me to get a vote in picking a leader who needs Beijing's blessing, instead of letting a committee do the job. That is the cosmetic change he fights for.
Yet he feels this tiny stake justifies throwing Molotov cocktails and bricks, terrorizing presidents of universities, the citadels of freedom. If this is our hero, Hong Kong is in trouble.
It is time for this lie to die an early death. An entire society is paying for the theatrics of a spoiled child.
We are left to sift through the wreckage left by his infantile hyperkinetic antics—an expensive coming-of-age story. But the West is not footing the bill. We are.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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