As they have done every time the central government or the special administrative region government launched a cross-boundary project beneficial to Hong Kong, the opposition camp has again voiced vehement but unfounded criticisms of the plan to put Hong Kong and mainland customs and immigration facilities side by side at the West Kowloon Station of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link.

One of the opponents' main arguments is that once the SAR government leases part of the station to mainland authorities, many other places across the city could follow and mainland laws would thus be applied throughout the SAR.

Doesn't such an argument sound familiar? When they opposed the proposed study on the possible use of peripheral areas of country parks for residential use to alleviate the housing shortage, they claimed that once the government did that, more peripheral areas and finally the country parks themselves would be developed in future. That first move, according to them, would set a "bad precedent" that might end up sacrificing a precious asset of Hong Kong. "Setting a bad precedent" is an expression they love to use.

This kind of tactic - suggesting without corroboration that a so-called bad precedent would lead to many other subsequent events and finally end up in an undesirable result - is called a "slippery slope argument", a kind of fallacy in informal logic that university students learn in Philosophy 101.

There are many lawyers in the opposition camp, who are needless to say well-versed in argumentative skills, and the slippery slope argument is one of their favorite tricks. This kind of fallacy is actually a form of "fear-mongering". It plays upon people's fears and worries, real or imagined, and is often very effective.

Seeing uniformed mainland personnel enforcing immigration and customs laws on this side of the boundary might make some people who have little understanding of the mainland feel uneasy. Brainwashed by the opposition and their media, some Hong Kong residents do harbor the misunderstanding that "one country, two systems" and the SAR's high degree of autonomy could easily be undermined.

The fact is, State leaders have time and again emphasized that the central government will not abandon "one country, two systems" or let it be distorted in whatever way. It is safe to say that if the central government really wants to give up the "one country, two systems" arrangement and apply mainland laws in Hong Kong, which it won't, it can simply announce it and does not have to beat around the bush.

"The worst fear is fear itself." Hong Kong people should not be fooled by conspiracy theories and allow their unwarranted worries to be played upon at the expense of their own interests.

(HK Edition 08/04/2017 page10)