Invited by the SAR Government, Li Fei, the chairman of the Hong Kong Basic Law Committee under the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), came to Hong Kong to attend to a seminar in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR. He delivered a keynote speech entitled Hong Kong's Role and Mission as a Special Administrative Region of the Country under the National Constitution and the Basic Law. Well founded and clearly expounded, this speech is rigorous and forceful yet not hard to understand. It will play a positive role in helping members of various social sectors including a proportion of secondary school students to understand issues concerned.
Li Fei's speech mainly focuses on three most basic questions: From where did the Hong Kong SAR come into being? Where is it now? And where will it head to? And the answers are: the Hong Kong SAR came into being from the national Constitution and the Basic Law; It is now in a position as a local administrative region under the jurisdiction of the Central Government; In future it must act as a component of the country more accurately and more suitably to respect the Constitution, to safeguard national sovereignty, security and interests of development, and to maintain Hong Kong's long-lasting prosperity and stability.
Twenty years after Hong Kong's return to the Motherland, these three basic questions should have become unquestionable any more. But this is not the case. As a matter of fact, quite many Hongkongers only have a superficial, rather than profound and substantial, understanding of these three basic problems raised by Li Fei. For instance, they only know of the Basic Law but not of the Constitution, or think that the "two systems" are on an equal footing and everything would be fine if the Central Government leaves Hong Kong alone. Such an understanding is hardly satisfactory. Not to mention a small number of opposition politicians, radical "localists" and pro-independence activists, who not only refuse to recognise "one country" but prefer to change the "one system" on the Mainland into the one in Hong Kong.
Consequently, two decades after the handover of Hong Kong, Li Fei today still has to come to Hong Kong to earnestly and maternally raise and address these three basic questions. This is by no means superfluous but of great necessity. In Hong Kong today, the questions, from where it came into being and where it will head to, must be raised and discussed again and again. In particular, Hongkongers must be clearly aware of "from where Hong Kong came into being" and "to whom it belongs" and must not forget "the father's surname", so as not to regard as glorious acting "modern fake foreign devils" by waving a dragon-lion flag while it is the five-star red flags that are flying over their heads.
On these three basic questions, several paragraphs in Li Fei's speech yesterday are very pertinent and important. On the question about Hong Kong's identification and status, Li Fei points out: the system of the Hong Kong SAR is also a component of the system of the whole country, which cannot operate against stipulations in the Constitution. All local power organs are local state institutions which are a component of the state structure of the country, so what it exercises are powers of the state being part of the country's governance system.
Likewise, addressing the questions "where the SAR will head to", Li Fei cearly points out: In the Hong Kong SAR, all systems and policies must be based on stipulations in the Constitution and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR, and a fundamental precondition is accepting the reality that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is a socialist country under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). On the basis of recognising the country's constitutional system, the Hong Kong SAR must on its own initiative undertake its primary responsibility to link the SAR system operating in Hong Kong to the system practicing in the whole country, to safeguard the Central Government's authority and statutory powers, so as to protect the nation's unification and the smooth operation of the national system.
Today, two decades after Hong Kong's return to the Motherland, Li Fei coming to Hong Kong to further clarify Hong Kong's role and mission as a special administrative region under the national Constitution and the Basic Law is really helpful for us to improve our understanding, to keep sober-minded and to tell right from wrong. For the opposition and pro-independence activists, this is like a blow on their heads. It is time for them to wake up from their daydream of resisting China and making trouble in Hong Kong 17 November 2017
