Just before I left on my inspection tour of Zhongshan, Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said that God had told her to ‘run’ in the quasi-election for Chief Executive. Skeptics chortled as they pictured the elderly, bearded Creator of the universe inducing the no-nonsense bureaucrat to bow to His will. A few days later, it is clear that she was referring to a different and more fearsome divine and omnipotent power – Beijing.
The Bible tells us that ‘the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away’. It is the same with the Chinese Communist Party, as Carrie’s overly determined rival Regina Ip finds out the hard way. After her pal Michael Tien gets mysterious phone calls, it finally dawns on her that the Chief Executive ‘election’ that is rigged against all except Beijing’s chosen one is rigged against her as well. After years of obediently bowing and scraping, she sees supposed friends deserting her for fear of backing the wrong ‘candidate’. It all becomes too much when outgoing Chief Executive CY Leung heaps scripted praise upon his anointed successor but not her, and Regina lapses into teary, ‘chokes back tears’, ‘fought back tears’ mode, with a generous bit of foot-stamping thwarted-schoolgirl thrown in.
He (or she) who lives by the shoe-shine, dies by the shoe-shine. And they never learn.
The interesting thing about this is that even some pro-Beijing figures are shocked at the obviousness of the Communist party’s stage-management of this 2017 joke-election. Michael Tien whines about a ‘visible hand’ interfering where in the past an (apparently acceptable) invisible one did the job. It makes many other establishment loyalists look and feel like foolish tools, even if the ones quick enough to leap onto the Carrie bandwagon escape the humiliating kick in the teeth.
Assuming, of course, that Carrie herself survives any remaining brutality the Leninist system has yet to deliver. A conspiracy theory fantasizes that Beijing will ultimately choose Financial Secretary John Tsang (currently being hung out to dry) to make Hongkongers think how nice the Communists really are. Slightly more realistically, paranoia and power struggles among the black hair-dye brigade in Zhongnanhai could produce an upset and a different last-minute ‘winner’. But as of now, the script clearly says ‘Carrie’.
One sign: as well as pro-establishment stalwarts bending with the wind, the Heung Yee Kuk rural mafia is showing signs of backing her. These are opportunistic scumbags who will back anything if they think it will help them line their pockets.
The callous casting-aside of Regina Ip not only offends or discomforts her fleeing or faithful establishment supporters, and shatters the wider pro-Beijing camp’s delusions that they are privileged participants in a selection process. It is a slap in the face for Hong Kong Island’s middle-class conservative retiree schmucks who for some reason vote in numbers for the harridan in Legislative Council elections.
The Communist Party doesn’t care. It is abandoning much of the (always superficial) pretense that the Chief Executive ‘election’ is a poll in any serious sense of the word, or an autonomous affair of Hong Kong. This is presumably Xi Jinping paranoia meeting an increasingly pissed-off and uncontrollable Hong Kong. Even the small, rigged Election Committee that casts ‘votes’ in the make-believe election is now over 25% hostile to Beijing and (very roughly) 20-25% spoilt/stroppy/self-serving.
Beijing feels it must get a meaningful-looking majority of this rabble to back Carrie, compared with CY’s tragic 689 votes, out of 1,200. That means some extra kowtowing to vested interests on the body, but it also means slapping around some of these idiots behind the scenes, or more openly if they insist. Regina’s thank-you-here’s-your-kick-in-the-teeth is one ‘visible’ example of such friendly neighbourhood United Front work. As for the masses – Carrie is expected to sort out her own public-opinion hearts-and-minds stuff, so expect some waffle about pensions, etc before long. But it’s really nothing to do with you.
As for Zhongshan – full marks for the Museum of Radio…
3 thoughts:
1. Is Regina even eligible? You need 20 years continuous ordinary residence to be CE. Does her 3 years in the States disqualify her? Probably not, but it would be fun to ask.
2. On the basis that they will all be as bad as each other, and there’s no chance of electing anyone who will serve the interests of the majority in HK, the democrats should use their 300 nominations to stick Regina and Woo on the ballot, to make the thing more complex to rig. Hours of fun for everyone.
3. Why hasn’t David Li been charged under the POBO in relation to the payment he made to the Tsangs?
So you say you want a revolution? (slow version),
1. To give blood, isn’t there some similar requirement as a precaution against devil tainting?
2. There’s little point in putting also-rans on: better to put a viable “candidate” that can maximally split the vote.
3. Don’t you have a Higher Diploma in the subject or something? Assuming the DoJ is sincere in the matter, they’d be advised to proceed only after a conviction, if that is what they think will ensue.
The Broomhead 2.0
Unsatisfied and betrayed by both ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’, Regina Ip goes postal in the Legco building … dressed as a hardcore BDSM dominatrix in 7 inch stilettos.
And a HKFP journalist there to broadcast it in HD on youtube.
(please, please, please, please Universe – let us end the Year of the Monkey in this most appropriate manner).
Is Michael Tien, howling at the moon, mad, Forest Gump, stupid or both ? And what sort of schizophrenic, make believe world is Vagina Ip living in ? The CCP is the Puppetmaster and you are not important or influential, just puppets. It is my hope, which I doubt will be realised, that John Tsang announces that he’s not running because he’s been told not too and that he doesn’t have a prayer of winning. If Vagina and The Judge also pull out then we get a rerun of 2003 and it completely delegitimizes this whole farce to such a degree that even Carrie of Arc recognizes it. Carrie will be CE and soon will have popularity levels that would even make François Holland or CY Leung wince. The Lam’s will be back in Surrey towards the end of 2022 when Xi Dada has spat her out.
From the Heung Yee Kuk’s perspective, I assume Carrie has “done a good job” in handling the illegal structures issue by doing nothing discernible about it except talk.
Good to see, Hemmers, that after many years you have at last learned to discern between Marxism, Stalinism and Leninism; and the differences between communism and the Communist Party. Maybe some day soon, I can bring myself to call you “comrade”. 😉
@Stephen
Michael Tien is Hong Kong’s answer to Harry Enfield’s Tim Nice-but-dim so you have to take his thinking intolerance syndrome into consideration.
As to Vagina Lip she’s always lived in the paranoid schizophrenic make believe world where Vagina Lip makes sense and is right, so she’s understandably deranged.
But the really questionable fantasists here are the CCP — in what drug-fuelled syphilitic-induced reality does Carrie Lam further their scheme for a quiet easy transfer of power to themselves?!? Johnny Pornstache would have at least bought them six months of respite from the ongoing PR “how not to” case study that is our new colonial masters’ rule.
LRE
The CCP (and any authoritarian government organ, like the local police in the USA) thrive on chaos, in times of uncertainty their power and corruption multiplies. Since Donald Duck and Lufisg, princelings have dominated infrastructure, much of distribution/transport, etc. Forget the French & Japanese labels on the fences surrounding construction sites, it’s all being sub-contracted out through tax /money laundry shelters and on to CCP state firms. Carrie the kickback is perfect for their needs. She’s as godly as Donald when it comes to taking it on the sly, and a lot smarter about it.
Even old white boys like Kadoorie and the Keswicks are up kowtowing in Beijing, looking to sell and being forced to do it cheap. This isn’t a case of what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. “Monopoly-onna-stick and Airline-inna-bun? Two for one? And that’s cutting me own throat,”
addendum : classic example of Hara-Carrie doing things right for everyone and then moving on (to collect later her delayed benefit, making it all nice and legal, if still corruption). http://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1308347-20170118.htm
@W.T.F. Dibbler, Esq.
I used to subscribe to the whole “it’s all due to the inscrutable communist leadership cleverness” meme, but the more I see of it, the more it becomes obvious to me that far from being inscrutably wise, the new emperor actually has no clues.
The princelings are absolutely not profiting more due to chaos and public anger but in spite of it — corruption works much better when most people are content enough to let it slide and sleep on (qv pre-handover Hong Kong).
The more overt and authoritarian they get, the stroppier everyone is and the more scrutiny and pressure the political powers get put under: so for example maybe the Shenzhen princelings won’t get their promised
Shenzhen Money Laundry and Job CentreLok Ma Chau Loop™ IT Playpark cleaned up, hooked up and paid for by the HK taxpayer. Whereas Cyberport sailed through with nary a word…Note to the ten year old boys hereabouts: Upon encountering the word “vagina” in any context beyond the strictly gynecological, I will stop reading whatever additional pearls of wisdom you may emit, for all eternity. Seriously, this is as distastefully juvenile (and misogynist) as Donald Trump’s phobia/fetish about women going to the bathroom.
Just shorten it down to Vag Ip. We all know who we’re talking about……
Ragina? Could mean so much… A rag ina Ip…A raging vagina…make up your own…
Vagina. So there.
Re Palacegate, did anyone else receive a phone call (in Chinese) with a recorded message asking participants to respond to a survey about the proposed museum. Options were given such as, ‘what benefits do you think the museum will bring’? There were only positive choices and no options to disagree. There was no English version so I hung up, so did my Chinese colleagues as they didn’t agree with any of the statements. Look out later on for government claims that they polled the HK population and 75% or so agreed with the planned museum and thought it would bring benefits! Note, most people nowadays do e-surveys but that would reach younger, more educated citizens and they’d probably rather poll the older, uneducated, computer illiterate generation.
Completely agree with Steve.