Category Archives: Blog

Working [sic] from home today, so perusing the online rather than print version of the South China Morning Post. The recent website redesign is cleaner and less cluttered-looking – but most of all, it is a major time-saver. Although the … Continue reading →

We last heard of Professor Zhang Qianfan a month ago, after Mainland censors ‘disappeared’ his textbook on constitutional law as Western Threat of the Week. He now appears in Hong Kong, suggesting that Beijing’s tightening control over the city is … Continue reading →

So many excitements still to come: Mainland extradition (the denouement), the imprisonment of Benny Tai and friends (or not), National Anthem compulsory-adoration laws, the ever-toxic Article 23 (risen from the grave) – and of course the Lantau Trillion Dollar Reclamation. … Continue reading →

Lawmaker and ex-Security Secretary Regina Ip writes a letter to the South China Morning Post complaining about the Hong Kong business community’s objections to proposed extradition measures. (She claims that businessmen have no reason to worry because they could be … Continue reading →

So many things making China’s leaders frazzled right now. First there’s Protestant Christianity. China’s rulers have long seen this as a Western plot – they suspected missionaries of using children’s eyes as medicine in the 19th century, and expelled the … Continue reading →

Cringing exercises over 100 muscles in the face and other important parts of the body. So – if you haven’t already – take a look at how Chinese state media get hip n groovy and down with the kids in … Continue reading →

While you can ignore the vacuous opinion column beneath it, the headline in the South China Morning Post asks a serious question: is the Hong Kong government getting into deep doo-doo with its proposed new Mainland extradition arrangements? See this … Continue reading →

A senior Chinese military officer complains that ‘demonization’ of ‘One Country Two Systems’ has deprived Taiwan people of their ‘right to know the truth’. If they wise up, he suggests, they could be the lucky winners of Ten Big Exciting … Continue reading →

Sesame Street today was brought to you by the words ‘abusive emulation’. It means putting a nice liberal-democratic label on something that is authoritarian. Our example is declaring the Kowloon high-speed rail terminus ‘co-location’ arrangement to be equivalent to pre-clearance … Continue reading →

A group of Hong Kong pro-democrats, ‘risking wrath’, fly to Taiwan to discuss the proposed Mainland extradition deal. This parallel diplomacy is amusing, as the pan-dems are doing what Hong Kong (or Mainland) officials cannot/will not do – namely treat … Continue reading →