“Soft resistance” has become an important avenue for foreign political intervention amid a tense geopolitical climate, Hong Kong experts and officials have said, with authorities having been urged to not just bolster legal defences against such threats.
The panel of academics and government officials, moderated by Chief Secretary Eric Chan Kwok-ki, issued the call after the opening ceremony for this year’s National Security Education Day on Tuesday.
They also said soft resistance included disinformation and ideologies “targeting the mind”, with one expert on the panel warning that such activities would be on the rise as geopolitical tensions grew.
“They cannot accept the new political order, and will do everything they can to find ways to damage Hong Kong’s stability and governance, making it a place that continues to threaten national security,” said Lau Siu-kai, who is a consultant with Beijing’s semi-official think tank, the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies.
“‘Hard resistance’ has become difficult; hence soft resistance has become an important means of political struggle.”
He described soft resistance as surreptitious acts such as “thought infiltration”, psychological and ideological warfare, “colour revolution” and subversion – a contrast to rioting, coups and armed conflicts, which all fell under hard resistance.