Quasi-democracy binned, Chai-yan hits prime-time

After years of bait-and-switch, steps sideways and delay, 2016-17 was supposed to be the moment Beijing finally honoured its commitment to give Hong Kong universal suffrage. But the proposed reforms rest on a tightly managed nomination system enabling the Chinese Stan-TamWarnsgovernment to pre-approve – or simply select – all the Chief Executive candidates on the ballot. With pro-democrats vowing to vote against the package in the Legislative Council, the reforms look certain to fail.

One pro-dem lawmaker, the Civic Party’s Ronny Tong, has tested Beijing’s willingness to be flexible and offered to consider voting for the package in exchange for a promise to liberalize the system for 2022. The official response is now out: a blunt ‘no’. The nominating committee for 2022 would continue to be stacked with Communist Party loyalist-automatons and serve as a rubber stamp for the list of candidates chosen by Beijing.

The officials offer old, lame excuses. Constitutional Affairs Secretary Raymond Tam cites the Basic Law, while Chief Secretary Carrie Lam blathers about a need for the Chief Executive to be ‘broadly representative’ – composition of the nominating body is rigged through a system designed to appear to represent ‘sectors’. For some reason the pro-dems tend to dispute and debate these fake reasons at face value. In fact, the Basic Law, being Chinese legislation, can mean anything Beijing wants it to mean. And the nominating body is not packed with fishermen, herbalists, tycoons and aged patriots to give these special interests a voice: it is about ensuring that the Communist Party has ultimate control, and nothing else.

Ronny gives up and says there is no need to waste any more time. The representative of the accounting profession declares himself numbed. Even Frederick Fung, the mildest and most moderate pro-democrat there is, sees no choice but to vote against. These are the possible waverers the government was counting on to get the package through.

Hong Kong officials now struggle to sound eager about convincing the pro-dems to change their mind. It’s as if they have given up. Raymond Tam could almost be sending out telepathic signals that he doesn’t blame the pro-dems and would veto this mess if he were one of them. Only Carrie still exhibits a glimmer of real, if grim, determination, maybe out of a sense of duty, or perhaps fear of what might happen if and when the package fails.

Members of the pro-Beijing camp cheerfully recite the same old lines about how wonderful it will be for Hong Kong people to have universal suffrage. These are forces that hate the Hong Kong people and hate universal suffrage. China’s officials themselves seem indifferent; with Xi Jinping’s regime clamping down on everything, they are obsessed with a US plot to launch a counter-revolution in Hong Kong and the dismal quality and quantity of pro-Communist brainwashing in the city’s schools.

This story does not make the front pages. None of it is hugely surprising – indeed, it is all so predictable. Did anyone really expect a Communist one-party state to let a city’s population choose its own leader? But this is really about something completely unknowable. The grand act of granting quasi-democracy was supposed to be the ultimate privilege – denied to every other place in the PRC – to pacify and win the hearts of Hong Kong. And the ungrateful, rebellious and untrustworthy brats have spat it out. What to do with them now?

I declare the weekend open with the dreadful thought that regular and frequent TV appearances by CY Leung’s scrawny and graceless she-wolf offspring Chai-yan are just the beginning.

Leung-Chai-yan

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13 Responses to Quasi-democracy binned, Chai-yan hits prime-time

  1. PHT says:

    Is it just me, or does this girl look to be 43 instead of 23?

    Also, she makes herself up and dresses like a middle-aged housewife who just got dumped by her husband and is on the prowl for a new rice ticket by trying to look a little slutty. Unfortunately she doesn’t seem to have the style to pull the look off.

  2. Stephen says:

    As Ronny says it’s now time to put a fork in it and move on. Somewhere along the line a Legislative Council of the future (perhaps when sex kitten Starry is CE) will enact this farce into law – but not this one.

    So what to do next ? I fear that Hong Kong will get wrapped up in CY’s “hound” like offspring and the great land shortage / high property price scam. FFS loads of land in West Kowloon and Disneyland. Is the Lands Department still hawking out those mega plots, with juicy minimum prices on them, that only the Uncles can afford?

    What I would like to see for the Year of the Ram / Sheep / Goat is Christine and her bald boss being grilled on what exactly they plan to do about Hong Kong’s bad air and if it’s the usual bureaucrat blather of “building consensus” then their head on a spike. Oh yes and a court date named for Donald.

  3. PD says:

    A slight correction: “Raymond Tam cites the Basic Law” should read “… misquotes…”.

    Carrie’s “grim determination” is the greatness and tragedy of a certain local spirit: persistence tending to pigheadedness and focus verging on blinkered-ness will get you quite a long way. But they fail catastrophically in the face of paradigm shifts.

  4. Cassowary says:

    Girl’s crazier than a bag of ferrets, which I suppose was inevitable given her parentage. It also does not come as much of a surprise that her parents sought to forbid her from mingling with the poors. How else do you end up with a man who thought it would go over well with the foreign press to say that of course you can’t let people earning under the median wage nominate leaders, goodness, what would the world come to? Sure, that’s the officially designated excuse for Why We Can’t Have Democracy, but thinking that it would garner sympathy overseas takes a special kind of cave-dwelling cluelessness.

    CY is more than a loyal footsoldier, he’s a genuine insufferable snob. Which means that in the 10-15% of his job description not directly dictated by Beijing, whatever he comes up with going to be out-of-touch-what-the-fuckery.

  5. Cassowary says:

    There’s legislation in the works to mandate fuel switching for berthed ships, due to hit Legco sometime in the middle of the year, provided everything doesn’t completely go to hell by then. The EPD is also about a quarter of the way through bribing truck owners to replace their pre-Euro IV vehicles. Baby steps.

    But considering the last administration wouldn’t even admit that there was any connection between air pollution and human health, that’s already an improvement. Continental drift moves faster.

  6. Chinese Netizen says:

    @PHT: PERFECT comparo. Nail hit squarely on head! A “cougar” on the prowl…23 going on 45.

  7. Scotty Dotty says:

    A great summary of the situation by Hemlock, including “scrawny and graceless.” A harsh line, but fair.

    And onwards post handover Hong Kong drifts… Surely the only certainty from this Communist deception is a mass campaign by Hong Kongers to destroy ballot papers in 2017. It’s the only thing really left now. That or emigration.

  8. Hermes says:

    I’m wondering why at 23 she still hasn’t completed her law degree.

  9. pie-chucker says:

    Disagree, re Miss Leung. Personal attacks on her, here, unwarranted. She is obviously a bit of a rebel and therefore surely should be celebrated. Young and of an independent mind.

  10. Scotty Dotty says:

    @ pie-chucker

    You’re right, fair comment, it is unwarranted to bash CY’s daughter and rather crass. I withdraw my earlier comment.

    At least CY’s daughter (the older one) speaks some sense, which perhaps count for a lot given the claustrophobia her parents are doubtless trying to impose.

    From the Standard newspaper: “She said she identified more with the “open-minded” Western culture, after leaving to study in the United Kingdom at the age of 12.”

  11. Chinese Netizen says:

    I disagree. Once you toss your hat voluntarily into the public ring, you’re fair game. If she were a shameless, self promoting American she’d already be inking contracts for a reality show “CY’s Girl!” or “Let Them Eat Egg Tarts!” and cashing in on it.

  12. Mickey Mao says:

    Not sure about the characters in her name but ‘Chai Yan’ in Cantonese means police man – probably a hint of CY’s upbringing in police quarters
    Time for the 219 counts of Misconduct in Public Office for Bowtie now that Hui is banged up
    They should charge Edward Yau likewise for his failure to do anything except fly 1st class away from HKG 60 times in his 60 month ENB tenure
    Meanwhile why is nothing done about walking disaster zone Chan Mo Po – did he appeal his and hers defamation case verdict ?

  13. PHT says:

    I agree with Chinese Netizen. Since she was in the UK for the past 10+ years, no one would know she exists if she would have kept her hands in her pockets and mouth shut.

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