Carrie Lam rejoices, nearly 5% through her term

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam is finalizing her 2017 Policy Address (yes, it’s the second this year – predecessor CY Leung moved the vacuous ritual to January, and she is returning it to October). She will offer measures in such areas as housing, schools and the elderly aimed at unifying our divided community, in keeping with her earnest desire to restore harmony.

As Carrie spreads warm and cuddly vibes by announcing vouchers and handouts for the underprivileged and left-behind, citizens tuning in for the speech will detect muffled shouts, bangs and crashes in the background. That will be the Liaison Office’s latest United Front struggle – perhaps lawmaker Junius Ho nailing a pro-independence student to a tree, or Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen demanding 20 years’ penal servitude for academics and priests guilty of inciting others to incite others during Occupy.

Hong Kong is undergoing two parallel campaigns: Carrie Lam’s let’s-all-be-nice-to-one-another-and-heal-divisions thing, and the Chinese Communist Party’s obsessive-compulsive paranoid psychopath crush-the-enemy thing.

Carrie has to smile and pretend the Cultural Revolution with Hong Kong characteristics isn’t really happening. When her own officials pursue vindictive and contrived court actions against perpetrators of thought crimes, she has to state baldly that rule of law is intact. When patriotic lynch-mobs and deranged shoe-shiners like Junius Ho are on the rampage, she must try to ignore the blood-spatter on her cheongsam and do her auntie-knows-best tut-tutting about civilized discourse and decency.

It will be interesting to see how Carrie manages to maintain this semi-aloof stance as the ideological rectification mayhem continues around her. She must be loyal to the sovereign power that appointed her, but she can (she must be hoping) distance herself from the more disgraceful and loathsome Leninist excesses. (If you think Junius Ho is a pitiful embarrassment to the human race, wait until the authentically imbecilic Holden Chow starts Trying Too Hard to impress his Communist Party masters.)

We could ponder how the Liaison Office enforcers might want to help bolster Carrie, perhaps by restraining their more rabid attack dogs. They probably will if the counter-revolutionary purge becomes counter-productive. But otherwise she is there to help them, not the other way round. She is at the publicly acceptable end of the spectrum of useful idiots, and they are all disposable. The bright side – there’s only another 95% of her (first) term of office left to go.

 

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16 Responses to Carrie Lam rejoices, nearly 5% through her term

  1. Not A Political Decision says:

    She seems to have high approval ratings and can take the moral high ground so I would say everything is working as expected. Those academic debates are a welcome distraction for her, at least she can say something harmonious. Start asking her tougher questions on rampant pollution or asphyxiating corruption and she’ll be lost.

  2. Herr Torquewrench says:

    Isn’t inciting others to commit murder a crime in Hong Kong? Why has Junius Ho not been charged?

  3. Big Al says:

    @ Herr Torquewrench

    Genius Ho (he’s a “doctor” buy the way!) is a total shitbag, sorry, Pro-Beijing Shoe Shiner. As such, his call to kill anyone who advocate independence, will not be seen as incitement, but “merely” a patriotic suggestion.

    However, of more importance: Is inciting others to incite others to incite others a crime? If not, can Benny Tai et al claim that they were “merely” inciting others to incite others to incite others? I think we should be told.

  4. Chinese Netizen says:

    “Why has Junius Ho not been charged?”

    Asked rhetorically, right?

  5. Stephen says:

    @Not A Political Decision

    Perhaps an even tougher question, constitutional development ? Handle it correctly and you would neuter the independence narrative once and for all. Do I think she has the capacity to explain this to the mouth-frothing CCP ? No. You are right, at best, she is able to take the easy moral high ground against utter fuckwits like Junius Ho and Arthur Li, as they spew their poisonous bile.

  6. dimuendo says:

    Solicitor readers should make formal complaint against Junius Ho for bringing the profession into disrepute. They will have to convene a tribunal and even in the present society I cannot see how inciting killing is something the solicitors side can defend.

    At te very least it will cause him to lose face. Boy, does he need to lose face.

  7. gumshoes says:

    I think Junius has really blown a gasket. This is pathological.

  8. WolfLikeMe says:

    From his Wikipedia page:

    “He was bestowed an honorary Doctorate of Laws by Anglia Ruskin University in 2011.”

    Is this a prestigious institution?

  9. Revolution says:

    WolfLikeMe – it’s the other University in Cambridge that’s not Cambridge University. It was Anglia Polytechnic before Polys were abolished. So it’s a real Univesity, not a “Dr” Elizabeth Quat style degree mill.

  10. dimuendo says:

    I am from the UK. The only mention I have heard of Anglia Ruskin University is the mention on Ho’s wikipedia page, so no, not prestigious. However, a “degree” from their meant he qualified to sit his law exams, which he must have passed, and got on the ladder.

    Overwhelming arguement that the number of so called “universities” in the UK should be slashed and the number of law schools be reduced even more.

    If allowing Ho to qualify is not an example of “dumbing down” I do not know what is.

    For the record, and I have spoken to him more than one, he is an aggressive thug but greasy with it.

  11. Chinese Netizen says:

    “…he is an aggressive thug…”

    Which means he’ll be of use for the CCP until…he’s not of use either through going too far to please his masters (causing a need to distance themselves) or just simply committing a true crime.

    But these types aren’t capable of actually inflicting any injury. Unless surrounded by 10-15 triad thug types to bolster him up.

  12. Headache says:

    @ diminuendo

    The fact that Junius Ho was made President of the Law Society and (if I recall correctly) did not depart that post in disgrace (compare Ambrose Lam) tells you everything you need to know about how much of a shit the solicitors’ limb of the profession really gives.

    They’ll bleat away on easy topics like criticism of the judiciary when it comes to sentencing of student activists, but their bread and butter is cross-border work and they have less spine than the barristers when it comes to calling out “sensitive” rights abuses and other legal misbehaviour.

    Compared to the respective law associations in England, Australia etc, our legal professional bodies are hopelessly compromised and timid. Respect to the few remaining lawyers who persist in speaking and acting in support of fundamental rights and values in such a cash-first system.

  13. @Chinese Netizen – Junius is also part of the indigenous property developer establishment – never short of triad thug types to back them up.

    @dimuendo – Anglia Ruskin is ranked 118th out of 129 UK universities in a recent survey – meaning that if it was a Premier League football team, it would be in severe danger of relegation. Ho’s doctorate is “honorary”, meaning he hasn’t actually had to work for it, but he did earn a bachelor’s degree from the same institution.

  14. LRE says:

    Dubious Ho: putting the second syllable in the phrase “One Country Two Systems”

  15. AHW says:

    “Anglia Ruskin University” is a real institution, but hardly “prestigious”. I should know – I graduated from there in 1975 (when it was called “Cambridgeshire College of Arts & Technology” – it couldn’t be a polytechnic because the city of Cambridge wasn’t deemed “industrial” enough).

  16. dimuendo says:

    Headache

    I agree with much of what you say about the Law Society and certainly the Council. It is over represented by members of large firms (or small firms like the unlamented Ambrose who apparently does a lot of cross border work). My information is a relatively small number of the Council have a disproportionate share of power, including the great and ubiquitous Huen Wong (who seems to be a member of absolutely everything connected with the establishment) , Gilchrist, Lintern Smith etc. People like Dennis Brock have announced the Law Soc should not be involved in (and therefore pronounce upon) politics.

    Others are simply conservative eg Nasir, Cecilia Wong etc. Stephen Hung is now with a mainland firm.

    Since the no confidence motion in Ambrose, and his subsequently standing down, some (but by no means all) of those elected have been of a different persuasion. I do not want to name the (relatively) good guys, but others who are ambitious shits – and who are evidence you do not need to be particularly bright to succeed in the HK legal market, just well connected – are Nick Chan and Roden Tong.

    So a little hope, but a long slow battle.

    AS for the secretariat and the rules etc both need reforming. It is wrong that the Director of Compliance is not qualified as a lawyer (solicitor or barrister) in HK so has no experience of what she is presiding over. She apparently has a degree or legal qualification from the land of Trump.

    Like the Lands Dept they take out the easy cases, but not the more challenging ones. The clear example is why nothing against K and L Gates when the local senior partner stole millions of dollars from their cleint account to blow in Macau. Even if replaced, where is the supervision of the accounts, and what happened to joint responsibility and liability?

    Apologies for the no doubt numerous typos.

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