Explosives have put HK 'under threat'

Public order in Hong Kong is under threat, says former police chief Tang King-shing, pointing to police seizures of large quantities of homemade bombs and explosives.

He called the potential threat "worrying" as radical violent activists have begun using bombs to wreak havoc and harm residents, but he's confident the Hong Kong Police Force has the expertise and knowledge to deal with the situation.

"The huge amount of explosives seized is of grave concern to every resident, given that Hong Kong society has been comparatively quite peaceful in the past," Tang told China Daily on Wednesday in an exclusive interview.

"The haul included homemade bombs assembled with remote-control devices similar to those used by overseas terrorists. I, therefore, fully agree with Commissioner of Police Chris Tang Ping-keung that a kind of 'local terrorism' has emerged because it shows the criminals have the tendency to use bombs to achieve their goals. Fortunately, there've been no casualties," he said. "But I'm not sure whether these local criminals are merely individuals, or if they're backed by terrorists in foreign countries."

Tang praised the police force's intelligence system, professional knowledge and operational efficiency that prevented potential casualties during the operations. He called on the public to alert the police to thwart such crimes if they come across anything suspicious.

He noted that protesters had again taken to the streets and disrupted businesses at shopping malls during the past weekend, inconveniencing residents celebrating Mother's Day as the coronavirus pandemic eased.

"The violence unleashed by black-clad protesters has not stopped in the past few months. It merely took a break because of the pandemic. They've never stopped their online propaganda to deceive people and incite the public to cause disturbances on days they invented to mark certain events.

"All they want to do is to escalate their protests to maintain the hype until the Legislative Council elections in September, hoping to repeat their wins in the last District Council polls. It would be very bad if they manage to grab more than half of the LegCo seats because this would paralyze the operations of the government and LegCo," said Tang.

The former police commissioner blamed "bad influences" for the growing number of young offenders in Hong Kong. While people have the right to demonstrate and express their views, they should obey the law and toe the line. "I'm totally against that slogan 'breaking the law to achieve justice', which is merely intended to glorify violence," he said.

Tang said he supports the plan to recruit more than 2,500 police officers for the 2020-21 financial year. "It's absolutely necessary to have more policemen since the illegal 'Occupy Central' protests in 2014. Unlike other places, there's only one police force in Hong Kong, handling not only routine patrols, but also large-scale gatherings, rioting and anti-terrorism activities.

"Our police force has been quite flexible in deploying officers to handle large-scale gatherings and riots, but this means fewer policemen patrolling the streets," he said. Yet it won't be easy to recruit 2,500 officers during this fiscal year.

"Our recruitment is aimed at secondary and university graduates. But, after the 'Occupy Central' campaign and the violent protests that erupted last year, quite a lot of young people have become rather critical of the police force. Besides, the number of young people and graduates has fallen," he explained.