US Covers Up Support for Hong Kong “Occupy Central”

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Image: The US "not" supporting color revolution in Ukraine in 2013-2014.
Tony Cartalucci 
RINF Alternative News
The US’ clumsy balancing act between backing Hong Kong protesters rhetorically and hiding its support financially, comes to a head. 
For the United States, so-called “color revolution” used to be a specialty until recently. The Western media has delighted in exposing the US State Department’s role  in the wake of successful political subversion around the world via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and a long list of subsidiaries including Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the International Republican Institute (IRI) headed currently by US Senator John McCain.
For example, the Guardian would admit in its 2004 article, “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” that:

…while the gains of the orange-bedecked “chestnut revolution” are Ukraine’s, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes. 
Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.

Amid the more recent unrest in Ukraine, Washington’s role was less subtle, with US Senator John McCain of IRI literally flying to Kiev and taking to the stage side-by-side literal Neo-Nazis to lend the movement political legitimacy it desperately lacked.

The US State Department would also brag again toward the end of the so-called “Arab Spring” of its role in fostering the chaos that would eventually lead to deadly protracted warfare across North Africa, as well as within and along Syria’s borders and now Iraq. The New York Times would report in its April 2011 article, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” that:

“A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington.”

The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED):

“The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department. “

The New York Times minces no words – the US put those protesters out on the streets after years of careful planning with some of the training and preparations taking place as early as 2008 – however, it should be remembered that initially the United States disavowed any connection at all with the protests and at first attempted to feign surprise regarding the uprisings. In fact, it was US President Barack Obama himself who would disingenuously claim during a speech in May 2011 that:

The question before us is what role America will play as this story unfolds.

Of course, that role was already being fulfilled in the form of millions being channeled into political subversion years before President Obama would even take office. He would also claim:

…we must proceed with a sense of humility. It’s not America that put people into the streets of Tunis or Cairo -— it was the people themselves who launched these movements, and it’s the people themselves that must ultimately determine their outcome. 

It must be remembered that President Obama made these patently false claims after the New York Times published its article. There was nothing genuine about President Obama’s speech, nor anything genuine about the “Arab Spring” besides, perhaps, the good intentions of some of the protesters willfully exploited by Washington and its network of global political subversion.
Fast Forward to “Occupy Central,” Washington’s Latest Project 
In the streets of downtown Hong Kong, a dwindling number of protesters carry on in vain. They hold a city and region hostage in attempts to carry out yet another US-funded and directed “color revolution.” The ruse, however, has been fully exposed with each and every leader of the so-called “Occupy Central” or “Umbrella Movement” being tied to the US State Department’s now familiar network of political subversion. Stalled and unable to materialize the momentum needed to replicate the success of foreign-backed subversion elsewhere, the US is now attempting to disavow any role in fostering the unrest in the first place.

The US NED website now has a page dedicated to disavowing evidence it is behind “Occupy Central.” Titled, “The National Endowment for Democracy and support for democracy in Hong Kong,” NED claims:

In the wake of recent pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, state controlled Chinese news outlets have published erroneous reports that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has played a central role in the protests.

NED would go on to admit that it is extensively funding political activity in Hong Kong. It would also claim:

Reports that NED Vice President Louisa Greve met with organizers of the Hong Kong protests are inaccurate, and while the National Endowment for Democracy is supportive of the goals of universal suffrage and genuine democracy, no leader of the current protests has sought assistance or counsel from the NED. On April 2, 2014 Ms. Greve moderated a panel hosted by NED featuring prominent democracy advocates Martin Lee and Anson Chan, and the full video of that event is available online. This was one of many appearances and meetings Lee and Chan scheduled during their trip to the U.S. in the spring of 2014 to discuss Hong Kong’s future. While Mr. Lee and Ms. Chan are leading democratic figures in Hong Kong, they are neither leaders nor organizers of the current protests; neither are they grantees of the NED. Lee was honored with NED’s annual Democracy Award in 1997 in recognition of his work to support freedom of the press, full democratic elections, the rule of law, and human rights in Hong Kong.

However, Martin Lee in particularly, is a regular speaker, supporter, and demonstrably a chief organizer of “Occupy Central,” despite NED’s insistence otherwise. He is a permanent fixture both vocally defending the ongoing unrest in the streets and in fact, on the streets himself shoulder-to-shoulder with other prominent “Occupy Central” leaders.
NED claims, “no leader of the current protests has sought assistance or counsel from the NED,” however this does not explain why current protest leaders and the organizations they are affiliated with have in fact most certainly received NED assistance.
“Occupy Central’s” self-proclaimed leader, Benny Tai, is a law professor at the University of Hong Kong and a regular collaborator with the US NED and NDI-funded Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL) also of the University of Hong Kong.
In 2006-2007 (annual report, .pdf) he was named as a board member – a position he has held until at least as recently as last year. In CCPL’s 2011-2013 annual report (.pdf), NDI is listed as having provided funding to the organization to “design and implement an online Models of Universal Suffrage portal where the general public can discuss and provide feedback and ideas on which method of universal suffrage is most suitable for Hong Kong.”

Curiously, in CCPL’s most recent annual report for 2013-2014 (.pdf), Tai is not listed as a board member. However, he is listed as participating in at least 3 conferences organized by CCPL, and as heading at least one of CCPL’s projects. At least one conference has him speaking side-by-side another prominent “Occupy Central” figure, Audrey Eu. The 2013-2014 annual report also lists NDI as funding CCPL’s “Design Democracy Hong Kong” website.

Civic Party chairwoman Audrey Eu Yuet-mee, in addition to speaking at CCPL-NDI functions side-by-side with Benny Tai, is entwined with the US State Department and its NDI elsewhere. She regularly attends forums sponsored by NED and its subsidiary NDI. In 2009 she was a featured speaker at an NDI sponsored public policy forum hosted by “SynergyNet,” also funded by NDI. In 2012 she was a guest speaker at the NDI-funded Women’s Centre “International Women’s Day” event, hosted by the Hong Kong Council of Women (HKCW) which is also annually funded by the NDI.

These connections are not accusations concocted by “state controlled Chinese news outlets,” but rather documented by the US State Department and its subsidiaries themselves.
What we find documented regarding the admitted US support for “Occupy Central’s” various personalities and organizations is no different than what one would have found upon investigating the US State Department’s backing of opposition fronts taking part in the “Arab Spring” before the US finally admitted its direct role in funding, equipping, directing, and backing the uprisings. The only difference is that widespread public awareness of  Washington’s role in Hong Kong’s current unrest has occurredbefore such admissions were made, and more importantly, before the US succeeded in its goals.
The West’s Weak Rebuttal 
While NED itself has elected to outright lie about its role in backing “Occupy Central,” both mainstream and lesser cogs in the West’s propaganda machinery have attempted to attack and undermine the credibility of those exposing documented US backing of “Occupy Central.” Hardly worth mentioning, these attacks focus not on the accusations themselves or any kind of sound, logical, or factual rebuttal, but tired logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks on the journalists, analysts, and causal observers simply directing readers toward this documented evidence.
Suffice to say, such attacks are entirely inadequate and had scarcely worked in 2011 when astute observers began pointing out US involvement in the allegedly “spontaneous” “Arab Spring.” Evidently, they have an even lesser effect on salvaging the credibility of “Occupy Central” still cluttering Hong Kong’s streets today.
One wonders if and when the US State Department will come clean on its destabilization efforts in Hong Kong, or if this is the beginning of the end for the entire strategy of covert political subversion ushered in under the cover of supposed “spontaneous” “popular” uprisings. For China, this would be particularly welcomed news, since Hong Kong is by far not the only region within its vast territory the target of US subversion. Far more dire conflicts simmer in its western Xinjiang province and across the Tibetan Plateau, all also undulated with US State Department backing in the form of NED’s “assistance.”