PUBLIC ORDER POLICING IN HONG KONG THE MONGKOK RIOT KAM C. WONG Palgrave Advances in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia Palgrave Advances in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia Series Editors Bill Hebenton Criminology & Criminal Justice University of Manchester Manchester, UK Susyan Jou School of Criminology National Taipei University Taipei, Taiwan Lennon Y. C. Chang School of Social Sciences Monash University Melbourne, VIC, Australia This bold and innovative series provides a much needed intellectual space for global scholars to showcase criminological scholarship in and on Asia. Reflecting upon the broad variety of methodological traditions in Asia, the series aims to create a greater multi-directional, cross-national under- standing between Eastern and Western scholars and enhance the field of comparative criminology. The series welcomes contributions across all aspects of criminology and criminal justice as well as interdisciplinary studies in sociology, law, crime science and psychology, which cover the wider Asia region including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Macao, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14719 Kam C. Wong Public Order Policing in Hong Kong The Mongkok Riot Kam C. Wong Xavier University (Emeritus) Cincinnati, OH, USA Palgrave Advances in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia ISBN 978-3-319-98671-5 ISBN 978-3-319-98672-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98672-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018956287 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans- mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Laura de Grasse This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland This book is dedicated to Kam Ho Wong, Peter A shining light of the Wong family Foreword Where does the truth lie, or does it? Varieties of vérité? Gary T. Marx Every way of seeing is also a way of not seeing A.N. Whitehead Men of well-padded intellect with a genius for platitudes have been warning against violence, they have been deploring it in the cities… They are the men who see the absence of violence as the opportunity for inaction. J.K. Galbraith1 The above quotation from philosopher A.N. Whitehead reminds us that no matter how accurate and well intentioned, all answers are partial and perspectival. And as the quotation from economist and diplomat J.K. Galbraith implies, any answer raises two questions: “who determines the questions?” (agenda setting) and “who gives the answers?” (whether 1 A comment made about President Johnson’s appointment of the Kerner Commission to study US civil disorders in 1967. It seems unbelievable in 2018 to see that as late as 1967 a commission concerned with race relations was made up largely of middle-of-the-road, middle-aged white men (there were two blacks and one woman). There was no voice for the angry young or the more criti- cal social movement representatives. That voice was heard in a document The Harvest of Racism (Shallow 2018), which I was privileged to work on. The report, however, was embargoed and not released until 50 years later. vii viii Foreword truth, knowledge, wisdom or their opposites). While in principle all have a voice, all voices are not equal. His comment was in reference to President Johnson’s 1967 appointment of a very unrepresentative national commis- sion (Report 1968) to study US civil disorders. These two chapter epi- graphs are a fine introduction to Professor Kam C. Wong’s insightful inquiry into Mongkok; a book that might have the subtitle “Says Who, Who Should We Believe and Why.” Professor Wong is a one-man riot study commission. As a scholar, practitioner and citizen he brings his vast erudition and varied experience to this analytically dispassionate inquiry into a most emotive subject, the Mongkok events of 2016. Trapped by language and popular usage, these events have become known as the “Mongkok Riot.” Yet, as this book makes clear, just what the event “was” offers the scholarly and popular engines plenty of fuel, along with an abundance of hot air. This book offers a model for what a fair-minded study into these events (in Hong Kong’s terms an Independent Commission of Inquiry) should be.2 The author makes a strong case for the need for such an inquiry, and offers direction, while realistically noting the challenges and limitations it faces. Using open sources, Wong documents what happened and what has been said about the incident, and masterfully locates this in a context of Chinese and Western scholarship on the nature of knowledge and types of knowing. He offers piercing questions, strictures and data to guide understanding. This book is a thoughtful prelude to and an essential directive for any commission of inquiry into this or any subsequent civil disorder events. Mongkok is a small chain in an endless link going back centuries, even as it is impacted by new tensions between the young and old, Hong Kong and mainland China, China and the West, and the ten- tacles of globalization. 2 However, just how “independent” such a commission anywhere can be when it is appointed by the government in power is a good question. A government-appointed commission will be more likely to see its (usually moderate) recommendations acted upon and have broader (if hardly total) legitimacy than is the case for self-anointed and appointed commissions of special interest groups (e.g. those of a protest group or civil liberties group, chamber of commerce or police union). The latter are likely to have clarion and less nuanced views regarding causes and the actions needed. That is said knowing that such government commissions are often disingenuous forms of impres- sion management conveying the sense that something is being done, while calling for more study and simply kicking the can down the road. Foreword ix A Chinese expression holds that “when three people gather on a jour- ney, there is one I can learn from.” Professor Wong as a public intellectual is clearly one to be learned from—with his bridging experiences between Chinese and Western societies; Hong Kong and mainland China; a ivory tower academic and a black belt instructor in karate; a colonial riot police commander and a defender of the civil rights of the poor; and a crimi- nologist and lawyer. Wong’s varied career, like a famous 1950s film made in Hong Kong, “is a many splendored thing”; so too is his love for Hong Kong and the pain he feels at the problems revealed by Mongkok. The use of Chinese characters to document and supplement English will prove useful to those able to read both languages. On the book’s first page we encounter an activist saying, “this was not a riot, it was a prelude to a revolution.” Professor Wong uses this claim to elucidate the “political nature and cultural relativity in naming.” A rose by any other name may be a rose, but is that true of events called a riot or a revolution? Categories matter—one rose does not make for spring, or for a garden. But how many (and what kinds) of individual acts of disorder or angry words make for an event deemed worthy of attention—whether as a riot to be suppressed, or as an early warning signal calling for corrective action or for both? One issue here is how we think about individual actions versus the aggregate of many such actions, as the whole becomes different from the individual parts and can change over time. In the West we are more prone to think of individual rather than group (whether family or political) responsibility. The disjunctures and connections between the individual and the group yields a complicated conceptual space that offers no easy (or perhaps universal) answers, as Wong’s call for attention to Chinese history and culture suggests. While this book has implications for international comparisons, it involves the varied, separate and changing actions over 12 hours of hun- dreds of people shorn of their individual distinctiveness by whatever lin- guistic shorthand (e.g. “The Mongkok Riot”) the observer chooses in clumping together the fragments of multiple realities. It offers a record of, and responses to, a significant event (or more properly events) in Hong Kong’s recent history. But just what “were” those events; and how is this different from or similar to asking about the chemical properties of the flower—whether it is called a rose or something else? x Foreword The Fox with the Wide-Angle Lens In political theorist Isaiah Berlin’s (2013) terms, Professor Wong is a fox (a person aware of many perspectives) rather than a hedgehog (a person who holds to a single perspective).