One of the objectives of the anti-extradition law parade in Kwun Tong, which was directed at the smart lamppost scheme that the government had been testing in Kowloon East, was to fight against the surveillance by the big brother. The plan was launched three years ago. At first, there was no controversy. Even when the authority decided to test it at the harbour front of Kwun Tong half a year ago, there were only sporadic oppositions. The public felt relieved when the officials of the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer guaranteed that personal privacy would not be infringed. Before the anti-surveillance parade, the officials said that they understood the concerns of the public and had decided not to activate some of the camera functions at this stage, including the Environmental Protection Department’s use of cameras to help monitor black spots of illegal construction waste dumping, the Transport Department’s bluetooth traffic detectors, and the use of cameras to collect car plate numbers to calculate road usage by different types of vehicles. The officials said such functions would only be activated when there is consensus in the society for their usage.

However, after more than 70 days of darkness, the credibility of the SAR government has completely collapsed. People no longer trust the government. They believe that officials’ promises are big lies. Shortly after the Saturday parade had started, the protesters pulled down a smart lamppost and dismantled the internal parts, alleging that the bluetooth system supplier was the same company who developed the mainland government’s “Skynet” surveillance system in Shanghai. The very night the Hong Kong government responded that the supplier was a local company. Obviously, the government is aware that the installation of smart lampposts is a sensitive issue and should be fully cleansed. The problem is that the public no longer believes that the smart lampposts are not tools for government surveillance. After the lampposts are installed all over Hong Kong, the currently inactivated functions such as video camera, face recognition, or scanning of mobile phones and RFID of identity cards, can be activated anytime. All in all, Hong Kong people no longer trust the government, considering that the latter is just a puppet of Beijing, that it is actually the state and party apparatus running the show behind the scene.

Party-state apparatus sharpens image of puppet government

Just take a look at how the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) became the “Party’s Transit Railway” in one day. Right after the Communist Party media criticized the MTR for transporting “thugs”, the MTR stopped services in advance whenever there were protests in local districts, which made cries of discontent rise all round. What’s more, the MTR trains were used to transport the riot police. Furthermore, in response to the threat of not being permitted to fly over China airspace, Cathay Pacific surrendered and fired pilots and air hostesses who were alleged to have supported the protests. As for the July 21 terrorist attack in Yuen Long mobilized by hundreds of thugs, only two were charged so far, in which collusion between the police and the thugs with the help of the Judicial Secretary to cover them up are obvious to all. The police in operation were masked and showed no number, and it was suspected that lethal hollow-point bullets and loaders were used in the sites of clashes. The public has been thinking of the possibility of infiltration of mainland armed police into the operations. When the party-state apparatus becomes more and more visible, the image of the Hong Kong government as its puppet becomes more and more prominent, and thus the people do not trust the government any more.

One can speculate that the smart lamppost project is doomed. If the government insists to push it through, a pan-Hong Kong anti-surveillance campaign would be triggered. Lampposts in all local districts would face the risk of damage and Carrie Lam would have to deploy extensive police force to defend them. Hong Kong 5G network uses smart lampposts as base stations. Failure of the lamppost project would jeopardize the roll-out of 5G. Let’s reflect on the current state of affairs. Did the protesters violently and unreasonably attack the lampposts? Or was it Carrie Lam’s negligence of the governance crisis and insistence on blindly suppressing the street protests that led to the collapse of credibility, and embroiled other aspects of the administration in public queries? In the current exercise of identity card renewal, RFID scanning function was added without known reason. People questioned if this was an attempt to complement the surveillance function of the smart lampposts. With the current level of popularity of the government, I am afraid that the new identity card would be the next target of protest.

The fall of lamppost actually signified the fall of the governance of the Hong Kong SAR government. With such intense conflicts between the government and the people, even if the protests die down over time, how could the government manage to govern effectively? The “National Anthem Law” will be tabled after the Legislative Council resumes. Then the deferred East Lautau Reclamation Project will come. Any one of these would be sufficient enough to provoke demonstrations of hundreds of thousands people, followed by tear gas downpours, and protesters being beaten up. Day after day, month after month, who would benefit most from a government who has lost credibility and relied on armed forces and state apparatus to sustain its survival? No wonder the protesters have cleverly stopped requesting Carrie Lam to step down!

Simon Lau Sai Leung

About the Author

Simon Lau Sai Leung, a senior cross-media commentator in Hong Kong, used to work in the Democratic Party think tank, then in the media industry, and later on served as a full-time consultant in the Central Policy Unit of Hong Kong Government until 2012. In 2014, he established a Youtube channel called “Kowloon Walled City – Sing Jai”, focusing on current political issues.

Source: Apple Daily Hong Kong, August 26, 2019

Authorized translation re-post

Featured image: Apple Daily Hong Kong