This story was updated on 15 June with new information added.
The Security Branch and the Hong Kong Police appear to be taking a tougher approach to demonstrators this time round with teargas, pepper spray and rubber bullets compared with their handling of Occupy Central. Many residents will applaud, particularly retail business people who suffered severe losses during the 79-day Central shutdown. Others will deplore the crackdown on youngsters protesting against the apparent pending loss of freedoms in Hong Kong and undermining of our rule of law. Who is behind the new harder line by the police force?
Here are brief portrayals of the Secretary for Security, Commissioner of Police and Assistant Commissioner for Operations. All have attended police and university courses on the Chinese mainland for training, familiarisation or indoctrination depending on your political viewpoint. If you have read Richard McGregor’s The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Party, you will realise that to believe The Party has not sought to indoctrinate our officials would be naive.
Also we have interviewed a police officer who doesn’t want to be named and his comments appear below.
Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-Chiu
The 61-year-old Secretary is a former police officer whose last post in the force was Deputy Commissioner (Management). Lee has been secretary for nearly two years in Carrie Lam’s administration. He took flack from the local press after Security Bureau officers attended training courses on counter-terrorism in Xinjiang. Here China is alleged to have been systematically “Sinocising” the population harassing as many as one million Uighurs. Lee attracted press criticism after the Xinjiang trip by saying “everything we saw was humane”. China’s methods in the northwest province had worked, Lee said, because “there had been no real attacks in the past two years”. Hong Kong journalists accused him of parroting the Chinese Communist Party line.
Before joining the Security Bureau as an undersecretary seven years ago, John Lee was a police officer who rose through the ranks serving in virtually all departments as the force moved him around to broaden his experience. He has a master’s degree in public policy and administration from Charles Sturt University, Australia.
All three senior officers in the Security Bureau are former police officers, leading to criticism that a police mentality may have taken over, unbalanced by moderate voices.
Our police informant: “John is a very quiet, extremely bright former police officer with a strong career background in criminal investigation. He was not in line to be Commissioner so he made a very smart move, switching to the Security Bureau. There he became the Commissioner’s boss. He also cleverly side-stepped the retirement age, 57. At 61, he is extremely influential, advising Carrie Lam. John’s a smart operator.”
We asked the officer about the hard-line tactics of the police. “The instruction for the use of force at about 3:00 pm last Wednesday had to have come from above the Commissioner, some people believe. But it was a complex situation. Officers were being attacked. The police were quite justified to respond. Who knows who made the pivotal decision? Hong Kong’s reputation was at stake. At great deal of communication would have gone on. We will never know.”
Commissioner of Police Stephen Lo Wai-Chung
Lo, appointed Commissioner in 2015, has attended a command course for police chiefs at the Chinese People’s Public Security University in Peking. Also known as the Chinese National Police University, it comes directly under the Ministry of Public Security. Run like a military academy, it is deemed to be a “Double First Discipline University”. Instructors and upper class students are reported to harass and haze new entrants. This university has been training Hong Kong police officers since 2009. Commissioner Lo has also studied leadership courses at Harvard and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
He joined the police force as a probationary inspector after obtaining a University of Hong Kong degree in social sciences. His official biography claims that after wide experience in most branches of the force he played a significant role in the establishment of its first Major Incident and Disaster System. Later Lo was seconded to Interpol at Lyon, France. He became Assistant Director for Interpol Asia. Lo has continued his education gaining a master’s degree in risk, crisis and disaster management.
Our police informant: “Stephen Lo is a different character from the previous Commissioner. He’s a quiet person, not high profile, not seen as a very strong leader. He is a safe pair of hands, a careful manager. We all saw his stumbling performance at a press conference. Entirely understandable, no sleep, extremely high pressure.
“The Commissioner is not seen as a hard-liner. He’s no maverick. He has got to maintain a difficult balance between political imperatives and policing imperatives.. The whole situation needs a political answer. The police have to be impartial. They do not like this. The police are seen as political pawns, they feel they are puppets.”
Deputy Commissioner Operations Tang Ping-Keung
Tang has been widely trained at public security courses at academies in the mainland. He has studied at the China Executive Leadership Academy in Shanghai and Academy of Government in Peking. Guess who’s being groomed for Hong Kong Commissioner? Expect him to be despatched to the People’s Public Security University in Peking soon. Tang has also attended courses at the Royal College of Defence Studies, London. He was seconded to Interpol in France becoming Head of the international Criminal Organisation and Violent Crime Unit. Tang has a social sciences bachelor degree in business administration and a master’s in international security and strategy.
Our police officer contact agreed Tang is likely to be the next Commissioner. “He is a safe pair of hands, reliable, trustworthy, a balanced individual. Tang is a hard worker who won’t drop the ball. He’s balanced and smart. He won’t upset people with different points of view.”
BUZZ asked our informant if he had attended a public security course on the mainland. “Yes, in Beijing. Everyone in the Hong Kong police force is attending these courses over time, from the most senior ranks to the lowest. Dozens of officers are going in batches. You have to expect selling of the achievements of the ruling party. Some would call this indoctrination. It depends on the individual, how they react to it. I gave a lecture on the police work I was doing at the time. Most of the mainland officers slept through it.”
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