What could lie behind the comments made by Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-Ying that “external forces” are involved in the territory’s pro-democracy protests? Is he referring to George Soros and his Open Society Foundations?
The protesters want fully democratic elections, and oppose the Chinese government’s decision to vet candidates for the 2017 polls. Police and protesters have scuffled amid tense stand-offs in recent days. Talks between them are expected today (Tuesday 21st October 2014).
Speaking on local television, Mr Leung said that Occupy Central, one of the main groups involved in the protests, was “not entirely a domestic movement, as external forces are involved”,
Leung went on, “There is obviously participation by people, organizations from outside of Hong Kong.” The Chief Executive added that the foreign actors came from “different countries in different parts of the world,” He declined to give details or name the countries or organisations he had in mind.
Mainland Chinese officials have frequently warned against “foreign interference” in Hong Kong, while Chinese state media have accused the West of “instigating” the protests.
Protesters and student leaders have denied any outside involvement, as one would expect. But could ‘Open Society’ be operating in Hong Kong in its customary clandestine way?
We are already aware that the Open Society Foundations, created by billionaire financier George Soros, funded the so-called ‘Arab Srping’ in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and, most devastatingly, in Syria. (His Open Society Institute is more active in the USA).
According to its own website, ‘The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant societies whose governments are accountable and open to the participation of all people’. Such an apparently worthy aim would spur an interest, at the very least, in the Hong Kong electoral process.
We also know that the Maidan Square movement in Ukraine was a creature of Soros and his Open Society Foundations. Soros is responsible for huge loss of life and liberty around the globe, all, he would say, in the vaunted cause of ‘Democracy’.
Open Society has funded a photographic project in Hong Kong entitled ‘Hong Kong under China‘. They have paid for a project called ‘Life on the margins of China’s economic boom”. Another grantee produced ‘A Photographer’s Journey Through a Changing Hong Kong‘.
Yet another Open Society photographic project argues that ‘In Hong Kong, another attack on freedom is concealed by the explosion of neon lights and consumerism. Mark Leong, who has traveled regularly Hong Kong since 1989, fears that it’s becoming, “just another freedom-deficient Chinese city.” With the support of National Geographic, he has developed a series of garish compositions, cataloguing the glaring signs of growing inequality.’ Leong has produced an explanatory video, with Open Society funding, which is carried on the Open Society Youtube channel.
George Soros has said: “My foundations have long supported arts and culture–especially film–as a means to build and strengthen open societies around the world”.
Media is a big thing for Open Society and is, as we have seen, being used extensively to further the Open Society Foundation’s aims in Hong Kong. There are also links with Academia. Ying Chan, Director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong, sits on the Board of Directors of the Media Development Investment Fund with Aryeh Neier, President Emeritus of the Open Society Foundations. The Fund invests ‘in media that provide the news, information and debate that people need to build free, thriving societies’.
The academic links go further. Open Society Foundations have been funding what they term ‘Civil Society Leadership Awards‘ which ‘offer master’s level support to individuals who demonstrate academic and professional excellence as well as a deep commitment to building open society in their home communities’. One of the participating universities was the University of Hong Kong.
The Centre for Comparative and Public Law at the Faculty of Law in the University of Hong Kong has accepted grants from the Open Society to provide financial support for students in human rights. The European Union has also provided funding. Human rights, if they derive from an understanding that Almighty God is the author of them, are a good thing, and they do appear to be less than fully developed in China as a whole and in Hong Kong in particular. The point here is that foreign money, particularly from George Soros, is enabling opposition to the Hong Kong authorities in this field.
Similarly, UNESCO is calling for a revision to textbooks in China which portray homosexuality in a less than positive light. That may or may not be a good thing, depending on one’s point of view, but it is undeniably Western interference in Chinese society.
So it would be entirely within the remit which Soros has assumed to be agitating in Hong Kong. Given his record in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Ukraine, fostering unrest and funding dissenters in Hong Kong would be entirely plausible. But is George Soros really tainting the calls for democracy in Hong Kong with OSF involvement?
An Open Society Foundations webpage listing its offices omits any mention of an office in Hong Kong.
And yet a young Chinese lady claims on LinkedIn to be working for Open Society Foundations in Hong Kong.
As with all things to do with George Soros and Open Society Foundations, it is hard to find actual fingerprints on particular events. Even when the fingerprints are there, Western media are reluctant to report on them.
The Hong Kong and Chinese authorities are already exploiting alleged foreign interference in the protests. They should make public what they know.
If it should come out that Open Society has been providing funding and other support to the protestors in Hong Kong, legitimate protests will be devalued by having been high-jacked by Soros and his agitators.
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