Two collusions in Hong Kong history, but opposite receptions

ecently Alysa Liu got a gold medal in figure skating for USA after a twenty four years USA absence.

The entire X erupted with her winner on the ice rink graced with the voice of Donna Summer.

Her victory brought out multiple storylines.

First, her own amazing love of figure skating after walking away from it at age 16.

It’s worth a dive on its own.

Second, the storyline between Liu and another ethnic Chinese in Milan Olympic Eileen GU is so charged with contrasting love for something really competed for eyeballs on social media.

Liu represented the country of her birth and growth, USA, while Gu turned her back on the country of her birth and growth, also USA, but represented communist China, for consecutive winter Olympic.

Enough juice and sparks with these contrasts to ignite the stage of international politics!

Though, I seriously doubt Netflix would have the guts to turn it into a movie, always mindful of displeasing the financial clout of PRC.

Third, a storyline initially shaded but increasingly floated on to the surface of international politics and bloody history is that of the father of Alysa LIU, Arthur LIU.

Arthur was in 1989 the top most wanted student from Guangdong after the Tiannmen Square massacre.

He first fled to Hong Kong and then in USA as a political asylum seeker.

The rest was history.

All the above three storylines will guarantee on their own a Netflix movie with massive audiences.

But as noted earlier, probably not the second and third.

In any case, I will not waste ink on them here.

Rather I choose another often ignored storyline, but one readily appreciated by someone like me who was impacted deeply in Hong Kong in 1989 and then 2019.

Thus the title: Two collusions in Hong Kong history, but opposite receptions.

Arthur Liu has said in multiple interviews that after he escaped mainland China to Hong Kong, he was aided by people there eventually to the USA.

He explicitly mentioned Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China（支聯會）and expressed eternal gratitude to the people of HK.

It was with the USD 200 the people of HK gave him that he landed USA.

It was the well known “Operation Yellow Bird”（黃雀行動）run by people in Hong Kong who were then sympathetic to the student protests and disagreed with the communist brutal crackdown.

What people?

That’s where the description “collusion” comes in.

People_in_HK_memory64_2012（美国之音, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons）

Indeed it could be called a “cooperation” between people from backgrounds otherwise in opposing quarters: notably from entertainment business cozy with triad members, officials in the HK government still under British rule, and those China officials in HK still quietly objecting to Peking hardline treatment of unarmed students.

(Note: (1) As the 1989 Massacre broke HK pro-Peking newspapers did editorial front page layout of a blank without content, which was known as “sky light”（天窗）as protest.

(2) Eventually the top communist official in HK at that time, Xu Jia Tun（許家屯）  himself a communist central committee member, fled to the USA and died there, remains unable to return to the homeland to date.)

Officials, British and Chinese, working together with triads in the Operation Yellow Bird to ship wanted Chinese protesters out of HK!

Imagine the delicate air and sea exits without leaving traces to anger the atrocious authority in Peking.

Imagine the flexibility the triads network of shipping provided!

Imagine the shifting of financial contributions and donations, laundered through the mechanisms of the entertainment industry and the triads.

Normally this kind of collusion is perfect for making money, but never welcomed in the open.

Police and triads just don’t mix.

HK people would throw up if they did.

Drug money is drug money.

Gambling money is gambling money.

Those money can never be used for clean purposes.

HK people would say: “That’s not right!”

Not for Operation Yellow Bird.

For once, in 1989, to save wanted protesters using the enclave of HK as a breathing springboard overseas, the collusion/cooperation made sense.

Not on normal pharisaic lines.

But on a much higher moral ground commonly recognised by parties concerned without arguments: to save students from communist China persecution!

There was an unspoken higher principle at play that set aside all debates and ordinary concerns for niceties and legalities.

The parties worked together in what others could label as “collusion” in the Operation Yellow Bird, and only concentrated in getting youthful persecuted students out of harms length!

That was the sole objective.

No sequel.

No strings.

This was a welcomed collusion.

I dare say it would be history’s assessment.

What’s the second collusion that netted a diametrically opposite result?

White-clad suspected triads attacking passengers on a Hong Kong West Rail Line train with rods（立場新聞, Copyrighted free use, via Wikimedia Commons）

That was recorded in my reflection explaining why I had to leave HK: “It had to be pretty bad for you to leave Hong Kong”. In the first incident I cited therein, Yuen Long 721, the police colluded on July 21 2019 with white-shirted triads members to beat up indiscriminately the public in Yuen Long Mass Transit Railway station, seen throughout by this publicly listed corporation established under an ordinance to provide safe and mass transport, as first order of business.

One of the main objectives of this collusion was to teach the public a real life lesson of a Hong Kong in the absence of police.

Deliberately.

999 calls unanswered.

Station shuttered.

Beat police turned around onsite.

Earlier, police turned a blind eye over gathering white shirts holding rattan sticks in town.

And finally the MTRC Yuen Long station actually had police inside the control room monitoring cctv all along, it was reported later.

Perfect cooperation of white and black.

Just don’t know which was black for the black color usually was used to stand for triads who on that day played the instigator mob role, but all dressed in white!

Regardless, police that night was putting their arms around the shoulders of white shirted leader in Yuen Long, caught on TV.

Perfect cooperation.

Except HK people knew better and became furious.

It just wasn’t right.

Collusion between police and triad backed up or orchestrated by political overlords—it wasn’t right.

Why didn’t HK people welcome this collusion whereas they once applauded another collusion called Operation Yellow Bird.

Reason for the different treatment is obvious.

Here in 2019 Yuen Long, these parties all shared the same direction.

Heads of arrows all pointing to the same direction.

Smooth collusion.

And in Operation Yellow Bird?

The arrows of triads and police were too pointed towards the same direction, but the direction was pointing away, not in line with, that of the political powers that was communist China!

In 1989, triads and police, even with HK British political authority, joined in the arrow direction away from the party persecuting the student protesters——communist China.

In 2019, triads and police joined the communist China in the same direction of arrows, to persecute the hapless HK protesters.

There lies the simple explanation:

- protect people from communist China, all bets are off and all moral principles can be set aside—collusion tolerated for the moment.

- persecute people for communist China, police collusion with triads—doubly rejected.

Two collusions.

Two receptions.

Forever remembered.