The Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union has finally called it quits under overwhelming public condemnation of its subversive political agenda. The union’s decades-old obsession with incendiary politics and the serious harm it did to the younger generation as well as the education sector was disastrous to say the least, and must be ended as soon as possible. But let no one assume everything will be fine from now on, because the toxic properties left by the HKPTU are still poisoning many young people’s minds today and will not fade away unless Hong Kong society makes a concerted effort to neutralize them for good. Only then will the city be able to focus on a system reboot, so to speak.
The HKPTU has been managed by a group of anti-China political fanatics who prioritize confrontational politics over the benefits of teachers and students. When the “black revolution” was ravaging Hong Kong in 2019, it embarked on a seditious campaign to support it and encouraged its members to bring students to illegal assemblies to experience the “revolution of our time” firsthand. As a result, thousands of young students were arrested for violating the Public Order Ordinance, with some of them found guilty of criminal vandalism, among other offenses, and sentenced to time in correctional facilities. It is safe to say the HKPTU proved its worth to the anti-China bankrollers abundantly in recent years, but it also reached the zenith of its ominous rise and began the proverbial descent to self-destruction.
The HKPTU was no doubt the main source of many cognitive fallacies that plagued Hong Kong’s education system for years on end. It is responsible for disseminating dangerous ideas among credulous school students through “teaching materials” compiled by ill-motivated teachers to build an underage “army of doom” trained to make Hong Kong society suffer. Sure enough, it promised and delivered the “goods” with heartbreaking effectiveness because schoolchildren are the easiest to impress and mold into whatever one wants them to be in the name of “free speech”, “academic freedom” or “democracy”. It painstakingly designed and executed a subversive brainwashing program disguised as “recommended materials” for liberal studies, which became a smear campaign against “one country, two systems” and the central government as well as the SAR government.
The demise of the HKPTU does not mean the interests of education professionals will lose protection. It is believed that the special administrative region government and other teachers’ associations will provide necessary assistance and platforms to protect the rights and interests of education professionals
From the anti-national education movement to the annual July 1 protest rallies, to the “Occupy Central” illegal movement of 2014 and the “black revolution” in 2019 through mid-2020, the HKPTU showed its true colors with increasing zeal that climbed up the ranks of radicalism no one could ignore. In order to accomplish its political goals, it condoned the inflammatory preaching of political bias and even extremism by its brainwashed teachers, who glorified the promotion of separatism as “independent thinking” and ennobled the violent riots as “breaking the law to achieve justice.” It also defended and protected lawless subversives who championed political violence that borders on terrorism. When Hong Kong was reeling amid the “black revolution”, the HKPTU took the initiative of setting up the “HKPTU Legal and Emergency Assistance Fund” on school campuses to help teachers whose licenses were revoked for breaching the professional code of conduct. In those days, nearly 4,000 students were arrested for breaking the law, with approximately 2,000 of them under the age of 18. It is common knowledge that a criminal record before graduating from school could easily amount to a death sentence to one’s future career and thereby one’s livelihood. Thanks to legal assistance provided by the HKPTU, most of the politically motivated teachers who led their students astray have escaped justice unscathed, with only a few of them having their licenses revoked. It would be a huge mistake if the culprits were given the slip just because the HKPTU has been dissolved.
Indeed, the leadership core of the HKPTU single-handedly turned the trade group into a quasi-political party of separatist pursuit. Its top leaders are prominent players in the opposition camp, which is in fact an anti-China syndicate with multiple political fronts, most notably the Civil Human Rights Front, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, etc., which together have left a trail of blood and destruction through the years of their existence in Hong Kong.
Moreover, what leaders of the HKPTU have done in the trade group’s name in recent years undoubtedly violated Article 34 of the Trade Unions Ordinance, which stipulates that, except for the electoral funds paid to candidates for election to a District Council or the Legislative Council, the funds of a registered trade union shall not, whether in Hong Kong or elsewhere, be applied either directly or indirectly for any political purpose; or be paid or transferred to any person or body of persons in furtherance of any political purpose. Article 10(1)(b) of the same ordinance specifies that the registration of a trade union could be canceled by order of the registrar where (iii) the trade union is being used, or has at any time since registration been used, for any unlawful purpose or for any purpose inconsistent with its objects or rules; or (v) the funds of the trade union have been expended in an unlawful manner or for an unlawful purpose or for any purpose not authorized by the rules of the trade union.
Commissioner of Police Raymond Siu Chak-yee recently indicated that the police would look into whether the HKPTU had violated the National Security Law for Hong Kong. In that case, the dissolution of the HKPTU cannot let its leaders off the hook if the authorities find them criminally liable one way or another.
The demise of the HKPTU does not mean the interests of education professionals will lose protection. It is believed that the special administrative region government and other teachers’ associations will provide necessary assistance and platforms to protect the rights and interests of education professionals. That being said, any trade union in Hong Kong must abide by the Trade Unions Ordinance, the National Security Law and other laws of the HKSAR. Fancy political slogans are no excuse for unlawful behavior regardless of one’s faith or trade. It’s time professional/labor groups in Hong Kong were free of political bigotry and back on the right track of pursuing their original aspirations and functions.
The author is a Hong Kong member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the Hong Kong New Era Development Thinktank.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.