Driven by ideological bigotry, Western anti-China politicians and their mainstream media have relentlessly vilified the Hong Kong Police Force over the past 18 months with a ferocity unseen before.

But Trump supporters' storming of the Capitol in Washington on Jan 6 and subsequent events have not only exposed the sheer hypocrisy and double-think of those Western politicians and media outlets, significantly reduced their credibility, neutralized the toxicity of their vilification, and therefore derailed their smear campaign against the Hong Kong Police Force, but more importantly, cemented the force's long-standing reputation as "Asia's finest".

Hong Kong police officers consistently exercised maximum restraint and demonstrated unrivaled professionalism in their bitter battle to restore law and order in the city over six months of violent rampages perpetrated by black-clad rioters in the second half of 2019. Thanks to the police's restraint and professionalism, not a single rioter was killed in law enforcement actions during the six-month social unrest. In sharp contrast, several people died as a result of the single-day Capitol conflict between law enforcers and mobs, including one police officer and a female Trump supporter shot by police at close range.

Yet China-bashing Western politicians and media outlets have gone all out to discredit the Hong Kong Police Force, making unsubstantiated accusations of "police brutality" while turning a blind eye to the jaw-dropping criminal acts of the black-clad rioters, who attacked front-line police officers with petrol bombs, arrows, catapults, steel bars and laser pointers, and whose extended insurgency was much worse than the Capitol siege, or what US President Joe Biden called an insurrection, domestic terrorism and an assault on the rule of law.

The Hong Kong Police Force faced unprecedented challenges and hardships in the past couple of years, particularly in the second half of 2019. But the headwinds they endured are not without a silver lining. The force has developed from urban security police into a strong, reliable and trustworthy law enforcement unit that effectively safeguards national security and maintains Hong Kong's stability "after a year of hammering in blood and fire", in the words of Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. His visit and tribute to the force on Sunday reaffirms the central government's recognition and support for its work, and will boost morale significantly. The force enjoys strong public support for its work, as shown by police chief Chris Tang Ping-keung's revelation on Tuesday that it has received over 40,000 messages from the public through the national security hotline set up on Nov 5, and gained useful information for further operations.