The television series The Traitors has been a smash hit in the United Kingdom and other Western countries. It is a reality show where contestants, secretly divided into “Faithfuls” and “Traitors”, compete to win a cash prize. Traitors “murder” Faithfuls nightly, while the Faithfuls aim to identify and banish Traitors at the daily round table vote. If Traitors reach the end undetected, they steal the money from the remaining Faithfuls. Fans of the show soon pick their favorite contestants. They may support “good Traitors” whom they like, or they may prefer to support the Faithfuls in exposing and banishing those they see as “bad Traitors”.
Some have criticized the show for promoting the worst of human traits: deceit, lies, manipulation, selfishness and greed. However, it can also be seen as an allegory for our times, throwing an unflattering spotlight onto contemporary Western society and its hypocritical attitudes towards real-life traitors. When morality takes second place to self-interest, hypocrisy is never far behind.
In the UK, for example, perceived traitors who have allegedly undermined the British state are invariably vilified. A recent example of this was the furor over the collapsed legal case against two British men accused of spying for China. Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher and director of the hawkish China Research Group, and his friend, Christopher Berry, a teacher and consultant working in China, were charged under the Official Secrets Act in April 2024. They were accused of gathering and providing information prejudicial to the safety and interests of the state between December 2021 and February 2023. However, the case collapsed because there was no evidence that China was in fact a national security threat. Despite both this and the strong assertions of innocence by Cash and Berry, the story remained headline news in the UK for some time, with a number of members of Parliament and commentators still trying to imply there was a case to answer.
However, it’s a very different story in Britain when other countries are allegedly being undermined by treacherous behavior. In such cases, those involved are often seen as heroes rather than villains. The case of Hong Kong’s former media mogul, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, is a classic example. Following a lengthy trial spanning 156 days, Lai was found guilty of conspiring to collude with external forces to endanger national security. There is no doubt that Lai received a fair trial and was found guilty on purely legal rather than political grounds. However, the British media has fully backed the British government in calling for the verdict to be overturned. Ignoring the mountain of evidence presented at the trial, UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told Parliament that Lai had been “targeted by the Chinese and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region governments for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression”. Seemingly oblivious to the meaning of the rule of law, she called for Lai’s immediate release, presumably believing that Hong Kong’s laws shouldn’t apply to him because he’s “an advocate for democracy”. Indeed, the predominant line being peddled in the British media is that Lai is being punished for supporting democracy. The reality is that Lai was found guilty of collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security. This offense is far more serious than the allegations leveled in Britain against Cash and Berry, but clearly, the British media can’t or won’t see it this way. Britain seems quite oblivious to these sorts of double standards.
The reality is that Lai was found guilty of collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security. This offense is far more serious than the allegations leveled in Britain against Cash and Berry, but clearly, the British media can’t or won’t see it this way. Britain seems quite oblivious to these sorts of double standards
It’s a similar story in the United States and elsewhere in the West, with the latest example of hypocrisy coming from Canada. According to the premier of British Columbia, David Eby, secret meetings held recently between separatist activists in neighboring, oil-rich Alberta and members of US President Donald Trump’s administration amounted to treason. Eby told reporters: “To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that — and that word is treason.” He continued: “It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to go and ask for assistance to break up this country from a foreign power and — with respect — a president who has not been particularly respectful of Canada’s sovereignty.”
Clearly, the premier of British Columbia believes that colluding with a foreign power to destabilize Canada is a treasonable offense. It’s a pity he didn’t speak up in the same way about Jimmy Lai, who was found guilty of exactly the same offence in Hong Kong. He was not alone in this. Canadian government officials, members of Parliament, and the Canadian media have all called for the immediate, unconditional release of Lai, calling his trial a “politically motivated prosecution”. The hypocrisy is astounding. Hong Kong has a long and proud tradition of an independent Judiciary upholding the rule of law. In this case, the three judges were satisfied with the “ample evidence” that Lai broke Hong Kong’s security laws. He was found guilty of soliciting foreign interference by seeking US sanctions, blockades, or other hostile measures against China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
In Canada, as with the UK, it seems that alleged collusion with a foreign power to harm, undermine or destabilize the country is only regarded as treacherous when it’s your own country in the firing line. As with fans of the hit television show, Western countries clearly differentiate between perceived “good traitors” and “bad traitors”. Portraying them as either heroes or villains, according to national self-interest, is the epitome of hypocrisy and double standards.
The author is a British historian and former principal of Sha Tin College, an international secondary school in Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
