A Hongkonger I’ve known on and off for decades, since he was attending a university in the United States, recently posted online about how wonderful it was, on the occasion of a work-related trip to another country, to be interacting with top Chinese foreign ministry and other top Chinese Communist Party officials.
This guy had always leaned a bit left but had not—at least way back when I first came to know him—ever been anywhere in the vicinity of the camp of the Chinese Communist Party.
If you’re working in post-2020 Hong Kong and your work requires some interaction with top CCP personages, I can almost understand making an effort to be civil on such occasions. But glowing about it on social media? What would be the point of that unless you really do believe, or are pushing yourself hard to believe, that it really is great to be hobnobbing with these famous Chinese Communist Party people and to be walking together with them toward a bright global future?
It is possible to have lived for many years in Hong Kong and not know everything about the Chinese Communist Party, its policies, what it’s been doing domestically and overseas, all the ways that it is oppressive and murderous. But one cannot be entirely ignorant of these things. One also cannot have a good idea of the totalitarian nature of the Chinese Communist Party and then forget.
Maybe I am misunderstanding my former friend. I don’t think there’s any plausible way to interpret his report more generously. But for various reasons, I am not inclined to try to find out for sure. I’ll just have to wonder about it, forever.
