No need to over-interpret Hong Kong PLA's kindness

Several Video clips on November 16 captured a group of Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Hong Kong Garrison soldiers, with their casual clothes, gathering debris and cleaning up the road barricades left by the protesters near the Hong Kong Baptist University.

Some voices accused the PLA soldiers' of not having the permission from either the SAR Government or the Central Government, which would violate the Garrison Law of the HKSAR, and assumed recklessly that further interference from the Hong Kong Garrison would be imperative in the coming days.

Regardless of their intentions, those irresponsible and over-interpreting words make no sense logically.

After experiencing a week-long escalated nightmarish violence and chaos in Hong Kong, the lamed city is in his worst condition and needs to recover from the unrest urgently. Numerous Hong Kong citizens have made great efforts to keep the city functioning since the rioters started to paralyze roads, loot shops and sabotage transportation systems.

With the aid of all forces to save the city, the PLA is not an exception. According to a PLA officer, their cleaning up actions are voluntary and only aimed at the HK residents' convenience.

Actually, it is not the first time that the PLA participated in charitable activity. In October 2018, after Typhoon Mangkhut invaded Hong Kong, more than 400 PLA soldiers helped remove the fallen trees in HK's country parks.

Last year, the Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu said the PLA could freely decide on whether to send soldiers in to perform volunteer services outside military sites and the local government had no record of how many times this had happened.

Besides, the Hong Kong Garrison has also taken part in various voluntary activities like tree planting and blood donation events or visiting elderly homes and kindergartens in different districts of Hong Kong.

Thus in no way should the soldiers' actions to voluntarily clean up the street be seen as a breach to the Basic law. But the controversy and sensitivity it has raised have only again demonstrated the deep-rooted biases some Hong Kong people have towards the Central Government: that they do not care what they are doing but only what they represent. In fact, according to some video footage circulating online, the PLA was cheered and appreciated by many passers-by.

Some people even called on Hong Kong people to "act" based on this incident. Shouldn't people act when protesters destroy communal facilities, beat up innocent people who disagree with them, and even set a man on fire in an argument? Instead of reading too much into the PLA's actions, perhaps it is more urgent for the city to figure a way to restore peace and stability when it's economy has entered its first recession in over a decade. Any instigation at this moment will only further polarize the city and make reconciliation more impossible.