On 9 September 2019, the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council opened in Geneva, and Ho Chao-chung, president of the Hong Kong Women's United Association, and Ng Shu-ching, an inspector, appeared at the meeting to speak out for Hong Kong both inside and outside the venue as representatives of non-governmental organizations.
Running to the United Nations "We have the right and ability to speak out on behalf of the people of Hong Kong"
Founded in 1993 and granted consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 1994, the Hong Kong Women's United Association represented by Ho Chao-chung and Ng Shu-ching is a non-profit non-political organization with more than 2,000 individual members and 81 group members. Wu Shuqing said that the purpose of this visit is to explain to everyone in a non-governmental way what is happening in Hong Kong. As for the sharp problems that may be faced as a result, Wu Shuqing said that she had been prepared.
Wu Shuqing: The more negative questions, the better, and we can make positive answers to negative questions. There are also challenging questions, why do we speak on behalf of Hong Kong? Many people do not know that the Women's Association has a long history of consultative status, they think that we are arranged by the Chinese government, we are not. The Chinese government is official, the country has its own government representatives to speak out, and we are completely representatives of the people. Do we have the right and ability to speak out on behalf of the people of Hong Kong? We should have no problem at all. Our women's association is a non-governmental association, and there are many women and many families who want us to speak out.
The Hong Kong Women's Association applied to the United Nations Human Rights Council for two opportunities to speak. Due to the short duration of the Human Rights Council's statements to non-governmental organizations, only 90 seconds per statement. Wu Shuqing gave up the opportunity to register her speech to He Chaoqiong. In this way, He Chaoqiong's speech time is two 90 seconds, and the two speeches are combined into three minutes, which can be more calmly and in one go.
On September 11, local time, He Chaoqiong spoke at the general debate of the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council, strongly condemning the recent violent violations in Hong Kong.
Ho's statement to the UN Human Rights Council: In the 95 days since June 9, Hong Kong people have been tormented by 130 protests, more than 110 of which ended in unprovoked violence and illegality, culminating in the closure of hundreds of small businesses and the loss of many workers. We call on the international community to condemn these organizers and influencers.
After Ho Chao-qiong and Wu Shuqing spoke out at the United Nations, many Hong Kong netizens thanked them on social media.
Wu Shuqing: The people of Hong Kong are very kind and afraid of things, everyone is generally reluctant to show their faces, after we come out, some people will say that you have spoken for us, and we thank you very much. They are also bitter and can't say it, because in the current environment of Hong Kong, everyone knows very well what the problem is. It is equivalent to a few punches in your heart to others, they can't say it, and they have no place to speak.
Reporter: You said that Hong Kong is a very democratic platform for expression, why do you think that there is no place to speak when encountering such things?
Wu Shuqing: Ordinary people in Hong Kong come out and speak to whom? Our media is now completely one-sided and will not help him report, and as soon as he says it on the road, there may be a group of people who will beat him.
If you dare to strike, you will be expelled from "my school does not welcome teachers and students who strike"
Ever since the news came out that Wu Shuqing and Ho Chao-chun were going to speak at the United Nations, attacks on them began on the Hong Kong Internet, even threatening their families and careers. For Wu Shuqing, this kind of attack had appeared before she attended the conference.
At the beginning of September, when the schools of hong Kong's major and high schools were opening, some Hong Kong rioters instigated students to strike classes, and some students of The China Foundation Middle School were affected and proposed to discuss the strike arrangements with the school.
As the founder of the school, Wu Shuqing and the principal met with these students, and considering that many students and teachers did not understand modern Chinese history, Wu Shuqing arranged for the school to broadcast patriotic films about the history from the Opium War to the founding of New China and after the return of Hong Kong.
Chung Wah Foundation Secondary School is a non-profit private secondary school established by Wu Shuqing in 2000, and she hopes that the school will provide a positive example for the education community. On the day of the meeting with the students, Wu Shuqing made it clear that he did not agree with the strike of teachers, school workers or student strikes, and would order students involved in the strike to withdraw from school and dismiss the participating faculty and staff.
After the conversation that day, the students who proposed the strike had already retreated, but the situation was no longer under their control. Under pressure from other sources, 20 or 30 of the 900 students in the school still did not come to class for half a day. Half a day later, the students decided to cancel the strike and instead call on alumni and the public to come to the school to support and protect the students. As soon as the news came out, Wu Shuqing suddenly became a thorn in the eye and a thorn in the flesh of the Hong Kong rioters, and they vowed to denounce and boycott Wu Shuqing and the Maxim Group.
Wu Shuqing: There must be something wrong with standing up and speaking, there must be someone attacking, and then a few teachers and retired principals said, "Hello brave, come out and speak." I said I think it should be done because I don't come out again to speak, my school has no position, I don't have a position to run the school principal is more troublesome, the teacher is more troublesome. Because I came out at least as a shield, the Hong Kong rioters will not attack them, and you will not run a school without taking responsibility.
Patriotic feelings are cultivated from an early age to make young people in Hong Kong realize that they are Chinese
Wu Shuqing believes that the root of many social problems stems from education, and her own experience is the best example. Born in Hong Kong in the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1948, Wu Shuqing studied in Hong Kong as a teenager and later studied in the United Kingdom and the United States, where she obtained a bachelor's degree in business administration. During her studies, Wu Shuqing never went to the mainland, but in her heart, the seeds of patriotism had long been planted.
When Wu Shuqing was in elementary school, Chinese teacher from Beijing taught them Chinese history and ancient Chinese, and often told the situation in the mainland and the story of Beijing. This kind of education not only laid a solid foundation for Wu Shuqing's Chinese, but also gave her a sense of identity Chinese.
In 1998, Wu Shuqing initiated the establishment of the "China Youth Historical and Cultural Education Fund", and in her capacity as the executive chairman of the fund, she subsidized and organized Hong Kong secondary school students to visit the Mainland every year, integrating national conditions education and Chinese history and culture into study, visit and practice.
In 2000, Wu Shuqing established the China Foundation Middle School, and talking about the difference between the school she founded and other schools in Hong Kong, Wu Shuqing said: Our school's school song is Chinese, there is no English school song. Teaching is centered on English, two languages and three languages, and it is necessary to understand Mandarin and Cantonese. At the same time, the school organizes many students and teachers to go to the mainland and foreign countries to investigate, so that students can base themselves in Hong Kong, back to the country, and go global.
Every time he went abroad, Wu Shuqing would arrange for students to visit the local Chinese embassy and consulate, and let everyone sing a national anthem with the ambassador under the national flag, so that the students knew that it was the Chinese embassy and consulate that went abroad and provided them with protection.
In the interview, Wu Shuqing introduced to us the globe she airlifted from the mainland to Hong Kong for more than 20,000 yuan, and when it came to why she bought it from the mainland, Wu Shuqing said that because the globe bought by the mainland not only has the name of Chinese, but also the mainland and Taiwan are a country, and the globe bought in Hong Kong or other places, Taiwan may be separated from the mainland.
Worried that contemporary Hong Kong youth will be misled and exploited for their lack of national concepts in their growth, Wu Shuqing invited a number of people with a heart to write "Hundred Stories of National History", introducing a hundred historical events in modern and contemporary times. At the same time, the purpose of specially training teachers who can teach Chinese history is to let the young people of Hong Kong understand that Hong Kong and the country are inseparable.
"Miss 001" casts a business legend The first joint venture after the reform and opening up was established
In December 1978, Wu Shuqing set foot on the mainland of the motherland for the first time. At that time, her father, Wu Chende, and her uncle had developed a small restaurant into a Hong Kong Maxim's Group with more than 300 restaurants and cake houses, and Wu Shuqing was also known as "Miss Maxim's Heart". Along the way, Ms. Wu, who participated in a mainland delegation organized by Xinhua News Agency, felt that the mainland's economy was 40 to 50 years behind Hong Kong's.
Reporter: How did you feel along the way?
Wu Shuqing: I was very curious at the time, paying attention to the living environment along the way. Our first stop was in Chengdu. The carpet of the Chengdu hotel is very broken, the beds I sleep on are all iron beds, and the water I use the tap is ticking. I brought soap, toilet paper, and even disinfectant water with me.
Those days in the interior coincided with the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. On the train from Wuhan to Guangzhou, Wu Shuqing heard Deng Xiaoping's speech on the radio about "welcoming foreign investment to China." Wu Shuqing keenly grasped the opportunities brought by this conference.
In 1979, China and the United States signed a general aviation agreement, deciding to open a direct route from San Francisco to Beijing, which was opened in the early 1980s, but the issue of air food has remained unresolved. After negotiations with Japan and Switzerland to build catering factories broke down, the Civil Aviation Administration of China wanted Maxim's Group to participate in the cooperation. Wu Shuqing, 31, and her father, Wu Chende, began negotiations north.
Wu Shuqing: In 1979, there was no enterprise law in the mainland, so when we came back, we translated the Hong Kong enterprise law and company law into Chinese and then took it to Beijing to discuss with them how to talk. We gave them a blueprint for a Hong Kong airline catering, and for a short time, everyone felt the stones to cross the river and talked while doing it.
In July 1979, China's first Law on Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures was promulgated. In September, the Wu family and the Civil Aviation Administration continued to talk under the newly promulgated legal framework. Although there is a law, there is no precedent for joint ventures, so it is still difficult to reach a consensus on many things.
Wu Shuqing: In November 1979, the Director General of the Civil Aviation Administration was in a hurry, and he asked my father to help solve all the problems, such as the need for 5 million Hong Kong dollars to buy equipment and the introduction of working capital to the mainland. At that time, 5 million yuan was a lot of money in Hong Kong, and there was also a problem that everyone did not have a contract, which was equivalent to no guarantee, and all risks were borne by themselves.
Reporter: So why do you want to do it?
Wu Shuqing: Everyone is Chinese and needs to help. This was the case when I was listening to him talk to my dad. Now I can't approve it, everyone is Chinese, old Wu you help.
With no contract, no funds, and only a promise, Wu Chende and Wu Shuqing returned to Hong Kong and began to raise their own funds and start the company's preparatory work. After the funds were in place, Wu Shuqing actively contacted foreign manufacturers and imported various equipment. In the name of the Hong Kong company, she took Hong Kong dollars to buy back kitchen equipment such as bread ovens and dishwashers from France and Germany, and then used Chinese freighters to transport the equipment back to the mainland. In just half a year, the preparations for renovating the plant, purchasing equipment, training personnel, formulating rules, and developing the market have been completed.
In April 1980, Beijing Aviation Food Co., Ltd. was officially approved by the Foreign Investment Management Committee for "Foreign Investment Examination Character (1980) No. 1". This is a milestone event in the process of China's reform and opening up. Beijing Aviation Food Co., Ltd. was the first joint venture in the mainland after the reform and opening up, and Wu Shuqing was also known as "Miss 001". Wu Shuqing is still the honorary chairman of Beijing Aviation Food Co., Ltd.
The Wu family, who are close to the motherland, donated more than HK$200 million to the Mainland
On July 1, 1997, After a century of vicissitudes, Hong Kong returned to the embrace of the motherland. On the same day, Wu Shuqing and her father Wu Chende attended the handover ceremony between China and the United Kingdom in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. Wu Shuqing still remembers her father's happy appearance at that time, and for her father, he was deeply touched to see Chinese place where he could manage himself.
Wu Shuqing: His father was born in the United States and came back at the age of two, and his grandfather died and his grandmother took him back to his hometown taishan. I went to primary school in Hong Kong and middle school and university in Guangzhou, so my generation felt that Chinese identity was important. After 1947, my father came to work in Hong Kong, which was a British colony. 50 years later, when they see that Hong Kong is a place of China's own, the feelings of their generation are very deep, which is not understandable to ordinary people. When we were in the Olympics in 2008, the Chinese delegation came out and my dad was very happy to stand up, we had never seen him so excited. Their generation is usually silent, but in their hearts they all want to see their country strong and want to do something for the country.
After the reform and opening up, the Wu family has donated funds to Wuyi University, Sun Yat-sen University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Tsinghua University; in their hometown of Taishan City, the Wu family has donated infrastructure such as the Children's Palace and library. According to incomplete statistics, over the past 40 years, the Wu family has donated more than HK$200 million to education and cultural undertakings in the mainland, and Wu Shuqing herself has shuttled between Hong Kong and different cities in the mainland more than 3,000 times. In recent years, Wu Shuqing has focused most of her energy on social activities, hoping to do more in youth work and education.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Gu Wanquan Text Editor: Lu Xiaochuan Caption Source: Xinhua News Agency Photo Editor: Cao Liyuan