WTO Fuss

There's been a lot of fuss over the WTO Ministerial Conference which is currently being held here in Hong Kong. The powers-that-be have been predicting Dooom and Glooom all round. Riots in the Streets, massive property damage, etc. There's been very little real drama at all, apart from some street theatre by Korean farmers, who staged short arranged battles with the Hong Kong Police.

There's been a surfeit of fawning media coverage, and plenty of lies from Government. Apparently Hong Kong was a 'sleepy fishing village' 50 years ago. Rubbish. Hong Kong was founded as a trading outpost of the British Empire when the Qing dynasty Emperors wanted the Brits out of Guangzhou. The Portugese had the western side of the Pearl River, so the British took the deep harbours and safe anchorages of Hong Kong. The city has been a trading outpost since 1841, and a haven for refugees from China since the revolutions in 1917, 1949 and 1967.

One thing which has been very obvious, however, is the dishonesty of the Hong Kong media. They've been portraying this whole week as a complete breakdown of law and order in Hong Kong. Television news has been reporting on the chaos and disorder when it's clear from their own pictures that there's little more than a small handful of protestors being anything other than perfectly orderly.

One reporter from the SCMP, Annemarie Evans, referred to Lockhart Road as "riot scarred" in a piece on a charity event in Wanchai. However, it isn't normally journalists who choose the headlines, so it's the editors of the SCMP who are peddling fear through lies, rather than Ms. Evans.