A view from the East

In Hong Kong Percy Lo-Kit Chan watches on television the melee outside the Lobby restaurant on Australia Day and reflects on what happened when three students got close to the Vice Premier of the PRC ... Civil discourse also at a low ebb in the HKSAR 

Your correspondent, huddled in an uninsulated flat against the howling of the winter monsoon, was aghast to watch the scene unfolding in your nation's capital.

A group of disorderly, loin-clothed, protesters appeared to be attacking both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, while they attended an award-giving ceremony for valorous fellow-countrymen.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the local Australia TV network gave no prominence at all to this story, preferring to concentrate on an attempt by 20 Papuan soldiers and a superannuitant, half-pay colonel, to take over that unhappy nation. 

The BBC was more forthcoming and showed the in unbecoming detail the course of events in Canberra, as the Prime Minister, minus a shoe, was manhandled into her car by a balding security officer.

Having welcomed the Cadigal people to country, the local ACT police authority was then interviewed to reveal that it was all in the nature of a minor disturbance, and no action would be taken against any of the "protesters" at all. 

Shortly thereafter Dr  Charlie Teo's smiling face appeared on my screen and he cheerfully admitted that his "Chinese" mother was a racist as they come and constantly inveighed against "gweilos" ("white ghosts" to you) while otherwise happily running a noodle bar in Campsie.

Ah, the refreshing honesty of a leading brain surgeon. He also candidly admitted that there is still a bit of racism afoot in your homeland, but a few years in the United States (and, one assumes, not in the Deep South) had given him a different perspective on racism when he returned Down Under. 

Trophy: a blue swede Prime Ministerial shoe

We do things differently here.

We had a visit last year to a local university by the Vice Premier of the Motherland, Li Keqiang. It is now remembered fondly by Hong Kong's human rights' activists as the "818 incident" (it occurred on August 18 last year). 

Happily, Tiananmen it was not. Hong Kong's finest were out in full force and a "core security zone" was instituted.

In addition, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the Vice Premier was accompanied by his own security officers, to the consternation of local activists. Three university students who attempted to get close to the visitor were stopped by the police.

As a result all hell broke loose in the media. Calls were made for the vice chancellor, otherwise regarded as a paragon of propriety and commonsense, to step down and, regrettably, he has "retired" early although continuing in office while his successor is chosen.

This is all of a piece with an increasing level of belligerence and bellicosity by local groups who seem intent on raising the level of the political temperature, and lowering the level of civil discourse.  

We have even had certain members of the Legislative Council throwing bananas and other items at the Chief Executive, while the council is in session.

This may cause a loss of "face", but not nearly as severely as loss suffered by the Prime Minister of Australia as she was bundled by a "minder" into her car while chased by an unruly mob on Australia's national day. 

Now I learn that her own people are partly responsible for inflaming the fracas. Sounds like something straight out of party HQ here.