As the summer holidays approach, while students and working professionals are planning to further their studies and add value to themselves, external forces are also making their moves.

Multiple free overseas courses hosted by foreign organizations, parading as "international exchange" and "leadership training," are reaching out to various sectors in Hong Kong, with the "International Visitor Leadership Program" being the most typical example.

Some political figures have bluntly stated that such courses use all-inclusive flights and accommodation as a draw but are essentially carefully designed political schemes aimed at recruiting individuals from all walks of life to cultivate them into agents for external forces.

Looking comprehensively at the trajectories of numerous anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting elements in recent years, it is not hard to discover that such courses are exactly the channels through which external forces identify and cultivate their agents.

From black-clad riot leaders Nathan Law and Joshua Wong, to Ronson Chan, former chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association—which has repeatedly been pointed out by the outside world as an anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting organization—and Bao Choy, founder of an anti-government online media outlet, all have participated in similar programs.

Facing the deliberate infiltration of external forces, political figures remind all sectors of society not to let their guard down.

In particular, the vast number of youths and elites from all sectors must maintain a clear head at all times, reject these vain temptations that are actually sugar-coated traps, recognize the political schemes behind these so-called "exchanges" and "trainings," and absolutely avoid being utilized by anti-China forces to become pawns or even betray their country.

A political figure pointed out that for many years, external forces have created various pretexts to establish all kinds of exchange programs and scholarships, such as the "International Visitor Leadership Program," the "Study of the U.S. Institutes," the "Fulbright Program," and the "Chevening Scholarships."

They offer free courses that cover flights and accommodation in different ways, with itineraries including visits to key political and economic sites and face-to-face meetings with high-level officials.

They even provide overseas living allowances, using "zero cost" as a selling point to attract local youths and professionals hoping to "broaden their horizons."

The targets recruited for these courses are by no means random but carefully selected and highly targeted.

They deliberately lock onto target figures across different sectors in Hong Kong, including politics, media, academia, and law.

Under the banner of high-level international leadership training and exchange, they issue invitations to these targets, making them believe they were selected because of their excellence, thereby lowering their guard and agreeing to participate in the courses, through which they infiltrate various sectors in Hong Kong and cultivate agents.

These overseas courses superficially flaunt false propositions like "leadership training" and "international perspective," arranging for participants to meet and exchange ideas with foreign political figures, think tank scholars, and non-governmental organization representatives, creating an illusion of being "highly valued."

However, external forces will seize the opportunity to repeatedly instill hostile, anti-China, and Hong Kong-disrupting ideologies into the participants, distorting their perception of the country and the SAR government.

They imperceptibly implant stances and emotions of confronting the state, striving to completely transform the participants so that they willingly serve the external forces.

"External forces will secretly select students who are easily swayed into becoming agents, continuing to infiltrate them after the courses, step by step cultivating them into political puppets and agents who take orders from them, thereby stockpiling so-called 'human resources' for their long-term interference in Hong Kong affairs and smearing of the country's image. These cultivated puppets may later appear in the capacity of scholars, journalists, or industry experts, acting as mouthpieces to badmouth Hong Kong and smear the country on various occasions, or even directly participating in or leading anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting actions," the political figure said.

As early as 2014, reports had indicated that the United States deliberately provided scholarships for student movement leaders from different countries. That year, Joshua Wong, who rose to prominence due to the "illegal Occupy Central" movement, was suddenly selected as Person of the Year by the American magazine Time. Despite his extremely poor public examination results, he was subsequently approved for admission by several top American universities.

Hong Kong-disrupting elements targeted for cultivation

According to informed sources, many anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting politicians who openly defended rioters during the black-clad riots and begged external forces to sanction China and Hong Kong had also participated in overseas courses such as the "International Visitor Leadership Program" in their early years.

These include former Civic Party leader Alvin Yeung, who was sentenced to over five years in prison after being convicted of "conspiracy to subvert state power," and former Democratic Party chairman Lo Kin-hei.

It is estimated that Lo Kin-hei and Alvin Yeung successively participated in the aforementioned courses in 2012 and 2014. Shortly after returning to Hong Kong, Lo leapt to become the vice-chairman of the Democratic Party, while Yeung became the chairman of the Civic Party's New Territories East branch.

The two thereafter actively participated in a series of anti-government chaotic situations such as the "illegal Occupy Central," the Mong Kok riots, and the black-clad riots, rising rapidly through the ranks by "supporting violence" to ultimately ascend to the positions of party chairman and party leader, respectively.

As for those who had "merit in disrupting Hong Kong" during the black-clad riots, external forces have also rewarded them heavily.

For instance, Nathan Law, who is wanted by the Hong Kong police with a bounty for the crimes of "inciting secession" and "collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security," fled overseas and was exposed for using his status as a black-clad riot leader to sexually assault female comrades in arms—a fact known to everyone in those circles.

Yet surprisingly, he was first admitted to a master's program at Yale University in the U.S. with a full scholarship and later awarded an honorary doctorate by Washington & Jefferson College.

Other examples include Bao Choy, who smeared the police force through television programs during the black-clad riots. In 2021, she received the "Nieman Fellowship" from Harvard University in the U.S. to study there for a year.

After returning to Hong Kong, she founded the online media outlet The Collective, which holds an anti-government stance.

Furthermore, Ronson Chan, former chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association—frequently pointed out by the outside world as a Hong Kong-disrupting organization—was invited to participate in a six-month so-called "fellowship program" organized by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University in the UK shortly after becoming HKJA chairman in 2021.

Not only were his flights and accommodation covered, but he also received a monthly living allowance. After going to the UK to receive "training" and returning to Hong Kong, Chan worked even harder through his identity as HKJA chairman to continue smearing the SAR government and polarizing society.

Political figures emphasized that, facing the deliberate infiltration of external forces, all sectors of society must absolutely not let their guard down. In particular, the vast number of youths and elites from all sectors must maintain a clear head at all times; reject the vain temptations through which external forces lay actual sugar-coated traps; recognize the political schemes behind these so-called "exchanges" and "trainings"; and absolutely avoid being utilized by anti-China forces to become pawns or even betray their country.