All we are saying is give peace a chance

THE NOMINATION of three Hong Kong activists for the Nobel Peace Prize by a group of US congressmen has put the cat among the pigeons. The trio - Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow - much in the news for having served time in jail for their role in the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the storming of the government's Tamar offices, were cited as "champions of peace and freedom and Hong Kong's entire pro-democracy movement".

Signed by, among others, Marco Rubio, the Republican senator who ran for president in 2016, this first nomination for a Hong Kong candidate cast a wide net with the inclusion of the movement as a force for good, immediately setting the Nobel committee on a potential collision course with China that took a less sanguine view of these events and continues to fear outbreaks of student recidivism.

The letter goes on to highlight the "peaceful efforts to bring political reform and self-determination to Hong Kong and protect the autonomy and freedom" enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law that has seen frequent re-interpretations by China's highest legislative bodies - most visibly in the November 2016 decision by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress to disqualify elected, but outlier, "localist" lawmakers for having made a travesty of their oath taking ceremony.