Category Archives: Blog

I’m not sure how many people turned out Friday to protest the barring of Lau Siu-lai from the election ballot, but it was a fraction of the number who marched yesterday against the Lantau mega-reclamation white elephant. And while the … Continue reading →

Sesame Street today was brought to you by the word ‘decant’, in the sense of urban planning, ethnic-cleansing or forced migration – as in ‘the decanting of Yau Tsim Mong’. I recall the word being used a few weeks ago … Continue reading →

The Chief Executive’s policy address is an annual Hong Kong establishment ritual to distract the populace from the incompetence of their supposed elites. Participants engage in mutual shoe-shining by apparently taking vacuous rubbish seriously – a sub-category of the art … Continue reading →

The Liaison Office – Beijing’s shadow government in Hong Kong – nowadays readily orders the city’s administration what to do. It then sits back and leaves it to the local puppets to clean up afterwards. From the Chinese party-state’s point … Continue reading →

The United Front tacticians must be delighted: Hong Kong, China’s expulsion of the Financial Times’ Victor Mallet is forcing bystanders to pull their pants down and reveal their true ideological positions. Fence-sitters reluctantly and tortuously take a public stand for … Continue reading →

We need a snappy word for ‘big venture into authoritarianism’, because they’re becoming a regular thing. The good news is that Hong Kong-based Financial Times correspondent Victor Mallet was not getting his visa renewed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul … Continue reading →

Situated conveniently next to the Mid-Levels Escalator in the Soho Tacky Overpriced-Restaurant Themed Hub-Zone – a shiny new Bitcoin ATM. Could it be a hip, ironic art installation, mocking the follies of our era? Or is it a cynical ploy … Continue reading →

A not-bad column notes that the Hong Kong government ‘wants to shift understanding of free speech towards a more authoritarian definition’ and has the Legislative Council votes ‘to force through a draconian’ national security law. Beijing officials and local Communist … Continue reading →

As a British colony-turned-Communist Chinese colony, Hong Kong does not do participatory government. Policy-making takes place behind closed doors; public consultations are rituals, and the semi-elected legislature is increasingly a rubber-stamp. If you want to be involved in formal ‘politics’, … Continue reading →

Your annual pro-government-line retrospective describing Hong Kong’s Occupy/Umbrella movement as a failure, featuring compulsory key words ‘deflated’, ‘disillusioned’ and ‘frustrated’. Alternative view: by forcing the Chinese Communist Party to clarify beyond all naïve doubt that it had zero intention of … Continue reading →