AsiaTimes: US behind 'secession' plot in Hong Kong?

By Kent Ewing

HONG KONG - Fourteen years after this city's handover from British to Chinese rule, the United States has launched a secret plot to encourage Hong Kong to declare independence. Ultimately, the sinister aim is to undermine China's rise on the world stage and reassert US dominance in Asia.

That should have been last week's top news story around the globe, according to Hao Tiechuan, director general of the Department of Publicity, Culture and Sports of the Central Government's Liaison Office in Hong Kong. Then again, this is the same senior official who recently urged the people of Hong Kong to adopt a Beijing-prescribed program of national education in its schools because "brainwashing is an international convention".

In other words, anything Hao says or does should be regarded as suspect...

Sounds like prime material for a question-mark headline, then.