Hong Kong was seized by Britain to facilitate its opium trade. After a century of humiliation for China, Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 under a complex arrangement. F__oreign countries should keep out of what is a domestic issue for China. CIA, take note.

For months our media gave us wall-to-wall coverage of riots and blockades in Hong Kong. Little attempt was made to explain who the leaders were, what they really wanted except ‘democracy’, and who was backing and encouraging them. US flags were prominent but our media did not regard that as significant.

Hong Kong was not democratic under UK colonial rule. Have the media forgotten! It is not democratic today and will not be in the future. That is a fact of real life.

More recently our media failed to tell the full story on the expulsion of four ‘pro democracy’ law makers from the Legislative Council in Hong Kong.

But what is the real story?

The Legislative Council had been effectively paralysed for many months through filibuster by a group of “pro-democrats”. The four were leaders of that movement.

On top of that, they had been urging the US government to impose sanctions on Hong Kong. But itis illegal for Hong Kongers to collude with foreign powers. As a result some are moving to Taiwan.

What precisely were their demands is not clear. Perhaps they were not clear themselves. But encouraging US intervention in China’s internal affairs was provocative.

They were certainly vocal in support of the “5 demands”, one of them being the Chief Executive’s resignation (or perhaps the CE and the principal secretaries).

They were also demanding amnesty for all crimes - however heinous - committed in the course of the disturbances and at the same time, an official enquiry into “police brutality”. Joshua Wong was asked last September by a journalist from The Australian what precisely was his objective: He said “after the Police have been crushed then perhaps the government will come out and talk to us…”

Earlier this month, Nathan Law, Joshua Wong and Emily Lau were interviewed on ABC Radio National: Not once were they asked what exactly was their program for Hong Kong, apart from wanting “Democracy”. Those interviews seemed more like RN providing platforms for the interviewees.

What would the Australian Government do if our Parliament was paralysed by filibuster, unable to pass laws for JobKeeper and JobSeeker, and at the same time a group of MPs was urging the Kremlin to impose sanctions on us.

How would Canberra react ?