WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong separatist Joshua Wong Chi-fung and some U.S. lawmakers receiving Wong here in recent days have been trying to convince the world that they are the champions of "freedom" and "democracy" in Hong Kong. The truth is, they are no more than expedient bedfellows.
At a U.S. Congressional committee's hearing on Tuesday and throughout his stay in the United States over the week, Wong fabricated "police brutality," whitewashed rioters' violent crimes that have seriously damaged the economy and people's way of life in the international financial hub, and begged for U.S. intervention in what should be China's internal affairs.
As Wong got down on his knees and fawned before a bunch of U.S. lawmakers like U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has been known for building his political fame on smearing China, he was selling his soul and China's vital sovereign interests to the devil.
On the outside, Wong acted like he cared about the "one country, two systems" principle. Yet on the inside, Wong and his like-minded separatist fellows are attempting to court foreign powers to undermine the very policy that has ensured Hong Kong's smooth return to China more than 22 years ago and the city's continued stability and prosperity over the decades, deny Beijing's constitutional responsibilities over Hong Kong, and get more greenbacks and headlines from the United States for their anti-China political movements. In their eyes, Hong Kong's autonomy and Beijing's legitimate jurisdiction are mutually exclusive.
However, these U.S. politicians will disappoint Wong eventually. That's because people like Pelosi and Rubio are pure opportunists who are only interested in using these separatists to get attention and put on get-tough-on-China political shows so as to score cheap political points.
By urging U.S. firms to suspend sales of law enforcement equipment to Hong Kong, staging one-sided hearings and pushing for the so-called Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, the motives of the Pelosis and the Rubios are simple: to portray themselves as the guardians of Western values.
However, when U.S. police used pepper spray and rubber bullets against demonstrators in the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, politicians like Pelosi neither stood up against police brutality nor spoke up for the rights of the protesters. The hypocrisy and double standards of their Hong Kong moves are too obvious to miss.
More ironically, these arrogant politicians seem to be serving American voters by pointing fingers at the internal affairs of other countries. Given America's highly-charged partisan politics and an utterly fractured society, perhaps they find it a lot easier and more cost-effective to make trouble for others than to fix real problems perplexing the United States, like stopping the ever rampant shootings.
What truly matters to them is their own political self-interests, not the so-called human rights or liberty in Hong Kong they pretend to champion or the well-being of the American public, not to mention the interests of those foreign extremists like Wong. As long as they can get elected, nothing seems to be beneath their bottom line, if they have one.
At the end of the day, the plots by Wong, Pelosi and Rubio will go under. They have overestimated their ability to stoke anti-China sentiment in the international community, and underrated Beijing's determination to stop violence and restore order and stability in Hong Kong according to law. More importantly, their ultimate defeat has been preordained by the expedient nature of their bedfellowship.
