Flying Sand | Thanks to police, Hong Kong can breathe easy after bomb scares – for now
The force wins a well-deserved PR victory for the way its bomb squad was able to deftly dispose of two second world war US bombs, but the incident arouses fears that the city is sitting on a minefield
For the first time in what must seem like an eternity – certainly for the officers who man the thin blue line between law and disorder in Hong Kong – our police are front and centre of an explosive event – and it hasn’t blown up in their face.
Fifteen years ago if you had told me that the – hardly unusual – discovery and disposal of a couple of unexploded second world war bombs would represent a prime public relations opportunity for a 28,000-strong force which, quite rightly, used to be considered “Asia’s Finest”, I would have told you to keep taking the medicine.
But things have changed, and then some.
Recipe for disaster being served up in Hong Kong’s incendiary political kitchen
However, after more years than I care to remember covering crime in Hong Kong, it has been with more than a twinge of sadness that I watched an opportunity-starved police PR machine enthusiastically serve up an easily packaged and controlled yarn of derring-do to a media hungry in equal measure for a story in which there are no losers (Well, not quite, more of which later).
