Just Saying | From useful idiots to just plain idiots now: how the US has betrayed Hong Kong activists
- Yonden Lhatoo breaks down the recent rejection of protesters seeking asylum at the American consulate as a harsh reality check for naive youngsters who believed in false promises that Washington would protect them
Wait, what really happened at the United States Consulate General in Hong Kong on October 27 when four young anti-China activists suddenly turned up at the gates with the intention of seeking asylum?
The official silence from the US and Beijing governments has been deafening – which is kind of understandable, given the high political sensitivity and potential for a damaging flare-up at a time of extreme tensions between the two powers, with Hong Kong caught in the middle – but let’s look at what we do know so far.
The activists hit back the next day through a Britain-based group helping them, claiming they had first been encouraged to approach the premises in a prior agreement with the consulate. One of them, who is apparently an American citizen, said he had initially called the consulate’s emergency hotline and was told by staff that he was eligible for help. Along with another unidentified American citizen, he had also negotiated bringing his fellow activists to the consulate, and was assured that they would all be allowed in if they turned up, according to the group.
So they went in, only to be fed the official line that asylum claims would be entertained only if they were made on actual American soil, and relying on the supposed territorial sanctity of a diplomatic outpost would not cut it.
Aye, and there’s the rub. They were rejected because, as much as they would like to believe they fought the good fight against “tyranny” and merit “protection” for all the sacrifices they made, they are in fact nobodies in the eyes of the unscrupulous and manipulative officials and politicians in Washington who cheered them on and lulled them into a false sense of security that America had their backs.
