A CHINESE proverb says 'The shameful business of a family cannot be exposed outside'. There are similar sayings in English. Whether it is in the East or in the West, one of the first things parents teach their children is not to wash their dirty linen in public.
The family member who goes public with a domestic scandal stands to be condemned, especially if outsiders have a vested interest in dividing the family by backing rival members of the household.
Crude as this reasoning may sound, it is how Beijing sees people such as Martin Lee Chu-ming, who often speaks ill of Hong Kong's post-1997 development by dissecting the territory's problems in articles published in the international press, and in meetings with foreign government officials.
From China's point of view, Mr Lee is trying to rally international pressure to bear on its Hong Kong policy.
Lately, Mr Lee has found a new critic in Governor Chris Patten for spreading allegedly false messages about Hong Kong overseas. Mr Lee was lambasted by Mr Patten for undermining foreigners' confidence in the territory's rule of law by 'talking in . . . irresponsible and exaggerated terms about the destruction of the rule of law in Hong Kong' as a result of the Sino-British agreement on the Court of Final Appeal.
What enraged Mr Patten most was that Mr Lee was even honoured by the American Bar Association for his criticisms of the CFA deal, and that the association's citation to Mr Lee's 1995 International Human Rights Award contained what appeared to be 'factual errors'. Mr Lee was presented with the award in Chicago yesterday.