May 4th is the May 4th Youth Day. Hong Kong Customs announced that the May 4th Movement gave birth to a great spirit with patriotism, progress, democracy and science as its main content, and its core is patriotism. The Customs chose to fully adopt Chinese-style marching on this meaningful day, which reflects the firm determination of all staff to continuously pursue progress, as well as their sense of belonging and patriotism to the country.
The adoption of Chinese-style marching by Hong Kong Customs means that the Hong Kong disciplined forces are further decolonizing.
Among the five disciplined services in Hong Kong, the police performed the Chinese-style marching in public for the first time on the sixth National Security Education Day in April 2020, and used Cantonese to shout “Look to the right”, “raise the gun”, “” When the march was over, the commander shouted the slogan “Loyalty secures national security, bravery keeps home safe”. The disciplined forces adopted Chinese-style footsteps instead of English-style footsteps, which has far-reaching symbolic meaning.
It has also recently been reported that the Hong Kong police plan to abandon the use of American-style Smith & Wesson .38 revolvers and use Chinese-made pistols. Finally finalized the search for Chinese-made pistols.
The quality of Chinese-made pistols is comparable to that of the West, and the price is relatively cheap. The mainland police use a variety of pistols, including the Type 54, Type 64, Type 77, Type 92, and Type 2005 police revolvers, which can fire rubber bullets. It is absolutely not a problem for the Hong Kong Police Force to purchase pistols or other weapons in the Mainland. Last year, the Hong Kong Police Force purchased three domestically produced small water cannon vehicles, which are relatively small and suitable for walking in the narrow streets of Hong Kong.
Twenty-five years after the handover of Hong Kong, the disciplined forces began to change their marching methods and began to purchase weapons from the Mainland. There are many reasons.
1. Historical reasons. When the Basic Law was drafted in the 1980s, some colonial signs in Hong Kong were also considered, including street or place names in Hong Kong, such as Statue Square, Queen’s Road Central, Nathan Road, etc. Whether judges and lawyers should wear English wigs when they go to court, and how the disciplined forces walk.
At that time, just before the return, my grandfather took into account the emotions of Hong Kong people and thought that they might not be able to get used to changing the names of colonial places and some things completely for a while. be standardized.
2. Rapid changes in the international environment. In recent years, the attitude of Western countries led by the United States towards China is very obvious. US President Trump launched a trade war with China in 2018. After the Central Government formulated the “Hong Kong National Security Law” for Hong Kong on June 30, 2020, the United States and the United Kingdom and other countries have successively announced some measures against Hong Kong, including the United States sanctioning Hong Kong officials, the United States banning the sale of police equipment to Hong Kong, and restricting military-civilian relations. The technology used is exported to Hong Kong. The United Kingdom imposed an arms embargo on Hong Kong. From a practical point of view, it is natural for the weapons used by the Hong Kong disciplined forces, including various types of equipment used in duty and riot control, to abandon Western products and switch to domestic products. First, the supply can be guaranteed not to be interrupted. Moreover, the domestic weapons are of good quality and cheap. Hong Kong has turned to the state to purchase them, and the same effect can be achieved at a lower cost. Why not do it?
3. Decolonization involves the return of the human heart. Twenty-five years have passed since Hong Kong’s return, and the “fifty years unchanged” that Deng Xiaoping said back then has gone half way. There is no longer any worry that “at the beginning of the return, the Hong Kong people did not adapt to changing the colonial mark.” And things with a strong colonial feeling are actually a big obstacle to the return of people’s hearts, especially the disciplined forces, which emphasize loyalty to the country and the people, and adopt the British style of marching, which is actually a bit nondescript. .
Of course, there is no need for a one-size-fits-all approach to removing colonial markers. For example, street names don’t have to be changed, but judges and lawyers continue to wear English wigs in court, so I have some reservations. Hong Kong wants to maintain the rule of law, but whether or not judges wear British wigs is equivalent to having the rule of law. Of course not, this is just self-deception.
Under the drastic changes in the international environment, Hong Kong must do its job well and truly practice one country, two systems instead of the system of colonialism.
Editor’s note: Mr. Lu Yongxiong took a leave of absence for more than a month due to personal affairs. During this period, Li Tong, the editor-in-chief of “Bus News”, wrote “Bus Review”.
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Li Tong