Yau Wai-ching

Yau Wai-ching on August 6, 2016

Yau Wai-ching ( Chinese  游 蕙 禎 , born May 6, 1991 in Hong Kong , then a British Crown Colony, now the People's Republic of China ) is a Hong Kong politician and member of the opposition.

biography

Youngspiration candidates for the 2016 Legislative Council election, second from right Yau Wai-ching, fourth from right Baggio Leung

Yau Wai-ching was born in Hong Kong into a long-established middle-class family. At that time, the city was still a British crown colony until it was handed over to the People's Republic of China in 1997 . Both parents were civil servants and not politically active. Yau later described her parents as not entirely on the government line, but very adjusted and focused on peace and order. After attending school in Hong Kong, she studied at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, where she earned a degree in literature. In retrospect, she described herself as largely politically inactive until 2014, when the so-called “ umbrella movement ” (entstand 運動, Umbrella Movement ) emerged in Hong Kong . The movement was a pro-democracy movement that got its name from the demonstrators' umbrellas, which were often used at demonstrations. The demonstrators wanted to protect themselves from the pepper spray used by the police. From the umbrella movement, new civil rights movements emerged. One of them was Youngspiration (青年 新政, an artificial word made up of Young and Aspiration , “Young Hope” or “Young Striving”) which was founded on January 21, 2015 by “Umbrella Activists”. The two main founders of Youngspiration were Sixtus "Baggio" Leung , an elected chairman of a student council, and Yau Wai-ching. The movement ran for election to the Hong Kong Legislative Council on September 4, 2016, and Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching were elected to the Legislative Council. In the run-up to the election, the group had spoken out in favor of “self-determination” in Hong Kong, which enjoys limited autonomy under the watchful eye of the People's Republic of China as a “special administrative region”. The Chinese administration in Hong Kong tried massively to influence the election in their favor and, among other things, disqualified opposition candidates due to “separatist tendencies” so that they could not take part in the election.

Public appearance

The two Youngspiration MPs Yau and Leung on November 2, 2016

Yau Wai-ching was known for her blunt and disrespectful demeanor. In the 2015 Hong Kong district elections, she had already attracted a lot of attention due to her committed and freshly carefree demeanor against the pro-Chinese long-time professional politician Priscilla Leung. In the election, she, a complete newcomer to the political arena, was narrowly defeated by Leung. Young voters in particular, who could not win anything from the old guard of politicians, became their supporters. In the 2016 election to the Legislative Council, she won a seat in the Kowloon West constituency with 20,643 votes , making her the youngest member of the Legislative Council. She refused to sign a statement stating that she would not support Hong Kong secession from China, and was lucky that this attitude did not disqualify her from voting like other candidates. When she was supposed to take the oath of office in the Hong Kong Assembly , the Hong Kong Parliament, a minor scandal broke out. Yau gave way to swear the prescribed text of the oath on, and, instead of the People's Republic of China fidelity, she vowed loyalty to the "nation of Hong Kong" ( "swear allegiance to the Hong Kong Nation" ). The chairman then warned them to stick to the given text. She then spread a small banner with the words Hong Kong is not China in front of her on the table and then reeled out the text of the oath in a monotonous way, always emphasizing the term "Hong Kong" aloud and English "People's Republic of China" pronounced like "People's Re-fucking of Cheena" ("Cheena" or "Sheena" was a name used by Japan earlier for China, which is now perceived as derogatory in China).

She did not mince words on other occasions either. At a political gathering of students after their election to the Legislative Council, she lamented the housing shortage and the crampedness and lack of privacy in Hong Kong, saying "If we want to fuck, we can't find a place for it".

This “cheeky” and unabashed demeanor earned her an enthusiastic fan base, especially among the young electorate, but also many critics. There were multiple protests by pro-Chinese MPs (who form the vast majority there) and tumultuous scenes in the Legislative Council. Outside of parliament there were demonstrations for and partly angry pro-Chinese demonstrations against Yau and her colleague Leung. Even level-headed politicians like the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten , expressed their skepticism. Hong Kong's independence will not come about, and Yau's spectacular actions will make the democratization of Hong Kong more difficult. Hong Kong democracy activist Martin Lee was critical of the fear that such actions could give Beijing leaders an opportunity to eradicate the independence of the Hong Kong judiciary. Various political commentators, for example in the English-language Hong Kong South China Morning Post , expressed the view that Yau had insulted all Chinese people, including the residents of Hong Kong, by using the term Cheena .

On November 15, 2016, Yau Wai-ching and Baggio Leung (who had also sworn an invalid oath) were denied their seats in parliament by the Hong Kong Supreme Court. A week before the court ruling, officials in the People's Republic of China had already stressed that elected representatives would have to take their oath of office with dignity or would otherwise lose their office. Yau's and Leung's supporters described the statement as undue interference in Hong Kong's affairs and a breach of the Hong Kong legal system. On August 26, 2017, the relevant Hong Kong Court of Appeal dismissed the two's lawsuit against their expulsion from the Legislative Council. The two had deliberately violated the rules and were rightly disqualified.

Web links

Commons : Yau Wai-ching  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Frank Chen: Yau Wai-ching: I might be stripped of my post any day. ejinsight, October 19, 2016, accessed November 30, 2016 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Protests shut down electoral commission briefing as Hong Kong Indigenous' Edward Leung disqualified from Legco elections. South China MorningPost, August 3, 2016, accessed November 30, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Yau Wai-ching refers to "People's Re-fu * king of Chee-na" at Hong Kong LegCo oath taking. October 11, 2016, accessed November 30, 2016 ( Hong Kong Free Press , published on YouTube). 
4. ↑ 《窮 沒法 性交 嗎》 - 扑 野 唔 准 講 ， 更 唔 准 做 〈原 曲 曲 囍 帖 帖 街〉 ｜ 山 卡啦 x 甲乙丙 戊. October 9, 2016, accessed on December 2, 2016 (Chinese, in the English translation: "If we'd like to bang, we can't find a room." ). 
5. ^ Helier Cheung: Hong Kong's parliament: A chaotic show that reveals deeper concerns. BBC News, November 2, 2016, accessed November 30, 2016 . 
6. ↑ 自行 宣誓. Retrieved December 2, 2016 (Chinese). 
7. ↑ Helier Cheung: Hong Kong's rebellious lawmaker Yau Wai-ching. BBC News, November 29, 2016, accessed November 30, 2016 . 
8. ^ Chow Chung-yan: The C-word: why Hong Kong localists have offended all Chinese. October 30, 2016, accessed December 27, 2016 . 
9. ↑ Hong Kong pro-independence lawmakers disqualified from office. BBC News, November 15, 2016, accessed November 30, 2016 . 
10. ↑ Ousted Hong Kong lawmakers Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching loose final bid to regain seats. South China Morning Post, August 25, 2017, accessed August 4, 2019 . 
11. ↑ Why did Hong Kong's top court strike down final appeal bid over oath-taking saga? South China Morning Post, September 2, 2017, accessed August 4, 2019 . 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Yau is the family name here, Wai-ching is the first name.