Tong blames Civic Party for unrest

The Civic Party should be held responsible for the social unrest in 2019 even though members have voted to disband, said Executive Council member Ronny Tong Ka-wah who was one of the pan-democracy party's founding members.

The party passed a resolution on May 27 to wind up after 17 years.

Tong said yesterday the Civic Party was "the biggest failure" in his 11-year political career, although he cofounded the party in 2006 and withdrew in 2015.

Tong recalled that when he was a lawmaker, he found that the pan-democracy parties at the time could not represent most of the citizens with centrist views, and he hoped that the establishment of the Civic Party could care for those voters, and to have a dialogue with Beijing in order to achieve democratic reform in the SAR.

But he said the Civic Party has gone off the tracks from its original vision and had become more radical in the past decade and "had eventually spun out of control in 2019." Tong criticized some members of the party for claiming violence could solve problems and he believed those people should be held responsible for youngsters who were sent to jail.

"I had heard my former fellow party members saying violence can solve problems and going to prison can make life more exciting. I'm saddened by [such comments]," Tong said.

"I think what Secretary for Security [Chris Tang Ping-keung] said is right. We are not asking you to acknowledge the mistake and make an apology, but you have to understand in front of major issues of right and wrong, you are responsible for applauding and helping people to get away from their mistakes, as well as to beautify their behavior."

Tong said the pan-democracy camp had never considered Beijing as a stakeholder when promoting democracy in Hong Kong in the past two decades.

He said the camp has never tried to gain Beijing's trust, and only wanted to create political pressure.

Tong added that people in the camp were suspicious and hostile toward the central government, and were not willing to communicate with Beijing.

Without naming Tik Chi-yuen, the only non-pro-establishment Legislative Council member, Tong said one member did not join in a Greater Bay Area trip in April, participating instead in a marathon in Britain.