HK campuses must not tolerate the impermissible

Hong Kong separatists reared their heads on university campuses again in the past week, one year after separatist banners on the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong provoked widespread condemnation in the special administrative region last September.

Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, condemned the student union leaders at some local universities after they greeted their teachers and fellow students on the first day of the new academic year with speeches filled with separatist references.

Attacking those using the university events as a platform to promote an "absurd" idea, she said that those advocating independence were violating the Basic Law and that anything "that impacts the basic policy direction of 'one country, two systems' or the 'bottom line' mentioned by President Xi Jinping on July 1 last year - we will not tolerate", referring to the red line he drew for relations between the mainland and Hong Kong at a gathering to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland.