Big Lychee, Various Sectors

The death in a local hospital of King George Tupou V of Tonga gets a bit of coverage in the Hong Kong press this morning – the subtext being that no-one knew the guy was ill, or happened to be in town, or (frankly) even existed. But anyone with an interest in the cosmic, fifth-dimension side of things may like to note that he will go down in history for having brought democracy to a smallish, former British colony in the Asia-Pacific.

Which leads us to the inescapable and hilarious chaos of the Hong Kong establishment civil war that has displaced what was supposed to be a neatly scripted Chief Executive quasi-election. This shambles would not and could not have happened were Beijing’s original intended appointee Henry Tang not a total klutz. The man’s ineptitude – or perhaps more accurately his advisors’ – was on full display over the weekend as people pondered his allegation during Friday’s debate that rival CY Leung mentioned the possibility of using riot police and tear gas against Article 23 demonstrators in 2003.

On the surface, this is a relatively clever little smear. It hits the Article 23 button; in local political mythology, the constitutionally required national security law is a demon that cannot be resurrected, or even mentioned. It hits the ‘CY is a creepy authoritarian’ button brilliantly; this is exactly the sort of thing we would expect the stereotype Leung, with his vague reputation for tyrannical leanings, to say. But the main result was to land Henry in the dirt for having breached the principle of the confidentiality of top government meetings.

Of course, if his advisors simply made the story up, he is not guilty of breaking the confidentiality rule – merely of lying. Several people present at Executive Council meetings at the time deny ever hearing CY say such things. Regina Ip manages to maintain that CY is innocent of the remarks but Henry is nonetheless still guilty of breaching the confidentiality principle. The logically impossible is so easy when you are fantasizing about Sunday’s CE poll producing no result, and Beijing plucking you from nowhere to win a second round.

Although it may well be that the ‘tear gas’ allegation is a fabrication, Henry obviously has to admit breaking the confidentiality rule, and he does so on grounds of public interest. But it’s not Zyklon B we’re talking about, and as Tung Chee-hwa discovered, the Hong Kong people will turf out a leader who threatens civil liberties. So: Henry as valiant whistleblower defending the right of Hongkongers to demonstrate without fear of excessive police force? Not very convincing. But nice try.

Being loyal to Beijing, Henry can hardly try to smear CY for his supposed Chinese Communist Party membership. But as luck would have it, yesterday saw the launch of a book doing just that. My spy at the event says the author, Florence Leung Mo-han, was a member of the Hok Yau Club, a United Front youth organization active back in the 60s, and provides a rather fetching photo of the lady. Eccentric and likeable loner, or superbly disguised secret Henry weapon? (It’s hard to imagine Henry’s team having the inspiration to come up with that wardrobe.)  

Mainlanders are always mystified as to why the CCP is such a sensitive topic in Hong Kong. Having had carnal relations for a while with a former Party member, I can attest that they are just normal people. CY Leung is and will be CY Leung whether he secretly belongs to an underground branch or not. Still, like the ‘tear gas’ story, the red scare might chip a couple more percentage points off his opinion poll rating.

Here is a good-as-any (and admirably succinct) summary of the factional struggle in China, and the parallels with the friction between the CY and Henry camps here in the Big Lychee. In a nutshell: our local division reflects the national one, but Hong Kong is a sideshow and the big boys in Beijing aren’t too fussed about which side our eventual CE represents.

Unless Regina’s dreams about blank ballots and a second quasi-election are to come true, Beijing has just a few days to indicate its preference to all those tragic Election Committee members still unsure who they should vote for. Henry needs a revelation – of midnight sacrificial pedophile vampirism proportions – to make CY more unacceptable than a philandering, basement-building spoilt rich dimwit. And he needs it… now.

The South China Morning Post invites us to spare a thought today for those who, faced with the uncertainties and confusion of modern life, suffer from doubts, a crisis of confidence and consequently great mental anguish. They are the useful idiots who pad out the 1,200-strong Election Committee, which theoretically votes for Hong Kong’s Chief Executive. Not only do they vote the way Beijing tells them to – they freely admit it. There they are, all ready to strut around the polling hall on March 25 being big important electors casting their votes, and the great cosmic understanding and acceptance of the inevitability of Henry hasn’t happened.

Kwan Chi-yee of the Chinese medicine sector pleads for help: “I wish that Beijing could give a clearer message of its preference so that we could vote for that candidate accordingly.” The Hong Kong Taoist Association’s Hau Wing-cheong laments that “The central government’s officials did express their preferred candidate [to us] a long time ago, as we understood it. But the situation has changed.”

Maybe Kwan could suck on a cordyceps or do a little moxibustion to clear and strengthen his life energy and come to a decision all by himself. Hau, of course, can always resort to the Taoist concept of Wu Wei – ‘action through inaction’ (always works for me). Funny how a practitioner of unscientific, superstition-based folk healing and an adherent of a religion that isn’t a religion turn up in a charade of an election procedure.

Some EC members are made of slightly sterner stuff. Tycoons and demi-tycoons are increasingly expressing tentative acceptance of CY Leung in public. If Beijing intended to penalize them for not voting for Henry, they would have heard by now; that’s essentially the logic. It presumes that China’s leadership is paying attention at a time when it is wrapped up in reformist/leftist/princeling factional tussles. (The purging of Bo Xilai may be about personality as much as ideology, but it puts a dropping of little Henry in perspective.) Note that this logic – and the agonizing of EC members generally – assumes that the CE ‘election’ ballot papers can and will be checked to see who voted for whom.

To the extent that China’s top officials are thinking about Hong Kong right now, they must be considering the city’s outspoken, march-prone populace, its raucous press and its undisciplined, infantile tycoons. And they must be looking at the porous border, and, being paranoid, pondering the possible contagion of their own simmering masses. And they must be concluding that they have to allow the spoilt former colonial subjects to exercise a veto, to shut them up. The people of Hong Kong have got the Chinese Communist Party by the balls. That’s all nervous, undecided Election Committee members need to know – assuming, of course, that Henry is beyond redemption and/or CY is beyond character-assassination. In which case, we are in for some seriously glum faces. Try to grin and gloat with at least a pinch of decorum.

Click to hear ‘Mexicali Blues’ by the Grateful Dead!

Just above the door in the conference room on the top floor of S-Meg Tower – in the heart of the bustling central business district of Asia’s zippiest international financial hub – is a dark-framed black and white photo of an elderly man. He gazes at the camera stiffly, though with dignity, from the confines of an iron lung. He is the late founder of S-Meg Holdings, who built the conglomerate up from humble origins, before bequeathing it to his number-one son. This morning, I fancy, the old man has a slight sneer as he looks down upon his heir.

The Big Boss has just returned from Beijing, where he attended the annual National People’s Congress/Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference fancy dress party, followed by a mildly discreet visit to his fat Mainland mistress to recover from the ordeal. Even in a good year, the NPC/CPPCC session is a chore Hong Kong tycoons hate; they are dragged away from vital work to sit around in a hotel waiting for mainland delegates to finish their naps, so long, turgid meetings can begin, day after day. The only relief comes from the Hong Kong press corps, who, in exchange for quotes about state leaders’ Delphic remarks, provide fresh gossip from the Big Lychee. And the word from back home this year was nerve-racking.

“I really, really wish I hadn’t given Henry my nomination,” the Big Boss mumbles. He looks at the backlog of junk mail – Ms Fang the hunter-killer secretary weeds nothing out – strewn around on the shiny, triangular, good-feng-shui rosewood table. “Joseph Yam and David Li, they just kept calling me. Calling at night, at day, when I was in Singapore, when I was in Los Angeles. I just… couldn’t say no.”

I nod sympathetically. This is a sort of rehearsal of what he will say to CY Leung on March 28 or 29, or whenever the victorious Shandong-Transylvanian finally deigns to receive congratulatory tribute from those who so smugly and brazenly backed Beijing’s hand-picked Henry Tang. If it finally works out that way. If a grinning CY Leung makes the call to the establishment top dogs who hate him, and who were destined and entitled to have Hong Kong run by one of their own, before a last-minute illegal basement full of infidelities and bastard children came flying out of nowhere and turned the world upside down.

The messages are mixed. After 10 years of locking up Nobel-winning essayists, trendy artists and people who complain about poisoned milk, kindly Uncle Wen Jiabao says China needs democracy, freedom and apple pie. His comments on Hong Kong’s next Chief Executive are similarly uncertain. He could mean the most popular candidate will become Chief Executive; but he could be saying that the person who becomes Chief Executive will be the most popular – or we will run you over with a tank. I try to reassure the Big Boss with this cheering thought, but he is not convinced. It seems tantalizingly possible that the 7 million people of Hong Kong will get the casting vote.

The awful truth is that the dynamic, networking, string-pulling, access-enjoying leader of S-Meg Holdings may be in a state of having shoe-shined the wrong guy. It has never happened before, and it is the ultimate nightmare – a trap with no way out. Like waking up and finding yourself in a buried coffin. As he sifts aimlessly through the glossy newsletters and tacky invitations, he wonders aloud how he can avoid whatever vengeance CY as Chief Executive would wreak on him.

“I need to reach out. What about that factory in Indonesia we bought from those Chiu Chow people – the one that makes durian-flavoured cigarettes for children. Surely CY has a nephew who’d like it for a very good price, as a token of my esteem. It’s got the whole market sewn up.”

I try not to look skeptical. “The problem is… CY doesn’t, um…”

“No,” the Big Boss admits. “If he did, we’d know by now.”

CY doesn’t do tokens of esteem. The future looks hellish. Just as Hong Kong’s leading conglomerates wouldn’t last five minutes on a level playing field, so their owners’ status and influence will evaporate if just a hint of inclusion and meritocracy intrude on the existing system of insiders, favouritism and cronyism.

“How will things work?” the tycoon wails. “How will anyone get anything done?”

The strange thing is that S-Meg, and S-Meg’s employees, and S-Meg’s clients would probably be better off in a Hong Kong where we could all spend less on overpriced real estate and other cartelized goods and services, and more on other, even fun, stuff – be it durian-flavoured snacks, health care or whatever. But we have had this conversation before. It’s not about economics. Not even that much about power. It’s about preserving the elite’s self-image as the elite. What are they without that?

The Big Boss takes a sudden interest in a shiny brochure advertising Versailles-style beachfront property in Hainan. His father surveys the scene, as if to say, “I always told you to keep away from politics.”

With the Beijing officials responsible for guiding Hong Kong’s quasi-election apparently on a luxury yacht off Phuket, unbridled disgrace continues. The Standard reports that ‘core’ supporter of Chief Executive candidate CY Leung drove ‘notorious gangster’ Shanghai Boy to the Fanny Law-Heung Yee Kuk Dinner of Infamy in his own car. But wait! There’s more! The paper adds that Eastweek magazine – part of the same Sing Tao group – reports that it was a car that “looks like one that Leung owns.” (Could it have been the big black shiny one? The one with four wheels? Yes it could.)

Refined ladies faint with shock on learning that such horror can take place right here in the Big Lychee. First, nice polite civil-servant-next-door Donald Tsang dons a polo-neck sweater and transmutes into some sort of carrion-chomping, billionaire casino-dweller. Next thing, his former colleague, the lovely demur Fanny – whose glorious and no-nonsense views on school suicides once almost had me begging for her hand in marriage – mutates into a foul-mouthed, finger-chopping triad-ess floozy with tattoos on her thighs. What is happening to our city?

The shocks reverberate as far away as the North American prairies. The normally staid Calgary Herald (est. 1881) takes a break from its usual coverage of grain silo fires and drunken Red Indians to blurt out its amazement at how the hunt for Hong Kong’s next boss has degenerated “from farce to buffoonery.” While bits of the article may be debatable, it is on the whole a candid summary of the quasi-election so far, as seen by a stereotypically Canadian wide-eyed innocent who has wandered into the bustling, glitzy Big Lychee from the dusty wheat fields…

Sir Donald’s discomfiture came as Beijing’s plans to replace him with … Henry Tang blew up in its face.

[Hong Kong] is an oligarchy where effective power is in the hands of a cartel of tycoons whose fortunes are based on ideologically corrupt land development deals … Since the British left in 1997, however, these cartels have come into their own as the ruling tycoons have embedded themselves with the extended families of the Chinese Communist Party.

This evidence of rot at the top has left many Hongkongers, already rebelling against the Chinese identity being thrust upon them, troubled that regressive mainland civic values and shady business practices are infecting the territory

Sometimes you need a stranger to tell it like it is to your face.

Even the world of creativity and beauty finds itself wiping little patches of mud off itself. The West Kowloon arts hub organization is thinking of changing its name from the Bureaucrats Know Everything About Culture So Shut Up Department to something a bit less tainted by what the South China Morning Post describes as “various political and funding scandals.” The Independent Commission Against Conflicts of Interest, perhaps.

You don’t have to come from the broad expanses of Alberta to qualify for an ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes and Innocents’ Award. We have home-grown ingénues of our own, and who fits the bill better than the Liberal Party’s James Tien – the thinking man’s Henry Tang?

Tien imagines that the quasi-election on March 25 could end up producing no winner. The conventional response is that Beijing will arm-twist loyalists into voting one way or another rather than hold a hasty and humiliating second campaign. But, by this stage, if a mile-long cylindrical object from the Planet Zarg silently glided over Victoria Harbour and beamed CY and Henry up for experiments, I wouldn’t be especially surprised.

Tien says of his party’s voting intentions: “Our original choice was Henry because he used to be one of us and we feel that he’s knowledgeable about the commercial community…” (Does the 2012 Euphemism of the Year Award already have a winner? For ‘knowledgeable about the commercial community’ read ‘determined to keep Hong Kong in the grip of a parasitical property cartel’.) “…but his popularity has dropped so much over the last couple months,” Tien continues. Then the guileless textiles scion concludes: “This is not universal suffrage but we still have to respect public opinion.” On top of disgrace, shock, horror, farce and buffoonery comes tragedy.

Apart from me, my amah and the next-door neighbour’s pet cat, it seems everyone in Hong Kong has now allegedly been smeared by Chief Executive candidate CY Leung’s team. If inoffensive, mild-mannered pro-Beijing stalwart Tsang Yok-sing gets mud flung at him, is anyone safe?

The mud, predictably, is thin and watery. And we can say the same about the attempts at negative campaigning mounted by CY’s rival Henry Tang’s camp. The Great West Kowloon Corruption Scandal looks decidedly feeble, as does the Fanny Law Gangster-Infested New Territories Dinner Outrage. However, the latter – while undeniably desperate – looks more professional: the naturally pro-Henry New Territories godfathers trick CY’s people into dining with bad elements, the media make a fuss, and next thing Henry is asking for police protection from triads and whining about how CY is undermining our core values. Before you know it, Hong Kong University students are spending funds protesting what the press are calling CY’s gangster link.

Last-ditch smears can work, and it looks like they could be Henry’s only hope. There are 10 or so days to go; Beijing seems to have been struck dumb, some of Henry’s nominators are quietly starting to regret backing him, while his hard-core fans are loudly forecasting that a third of Hong Kong business will evaporate under CY.  Now all we need is someone to start a rumour that CY Leung was really born in Kenya.

As with the birther movement in the US, anti-CY sentiment is a broad spectrum, stretching at one end into parlous states of mental health. A hard-working local politician has received evidence of this, as no doubt have all sorts of people and organizations with public contact details. Behold ‘Peter Wong’, Chief Commander, Overseas United Front Work System of the CPC Central Committee; Chief Representative, Advisor, Central People’s Government Central Military Committee; Founder Director, Overseas General Office of the CPC Central Committee. No less. (Complete with yahoo.com.hk email address. There is, so far as I can see, no ‘Overseas’ General Office – just a plain regular one in Beijing, which oversees party discipline. The mailing address is a – probably non-existent – 4/F.)

The titles and names vary but, in essence, he has been tasked by the highest authorities in China to save Hong Kong (and Taiwan and the Mainland) from the evil forces behind CY Leung. What seems to have tipped him over the edge is the Apple Daily suggestion that Vice President Xi Jinping favoured CY. Fans of deranged mouth-frothing in the context of elaborately constructed fantasy worlds will find his (English) output here and here, and some Chinese with rough translation here, with the world’s most amazing ‘cc’ list at the end. Unless, of course, he and his colleagues are for real (or someone has a warped sense of humour). A little light reading while we’re waiting for something sane to happen.

The South China Morning Post treats readers to another double-page spread of Chief Executive candidate blather, this time with the three individuals asking each other questions. The answers (with one exception) are as Propofol–like as you would expect. The questions are more telling.

CY Leung successfully highlights his two rivals’ weaknesses. He invites Albert Ho to provide an example of the sort of economic illiteracy befitting of Hong Kong pro-democrats, and is duly obliged with twaddle about expanding the Convention and Exhibition Centre. And he skewers Henry Tang’s claim to good relations with civil servants by citing the Mike Rowse case (when Henry the accountable official, his wife perhaps being unavailable at the time, publicly offloaded blame for some tediously obscure wrongdoing onto a bureaucrat).

Albert Ho, given a rare opportunity to put the two ‘serious’ candidates on the spot about, say, housing or health care or the fiscal reserves, has to blow it with some mind-numbing question about functional constituencies. The FCs are a means by which Beijing can guarantee a veto in the Legislative Council; a fully independent legislative branch would be incompatible with a one-party state. Neither CY Leung nor Henry Tang could do anything about it if they wanted to.

Henry barely deigns to ask Albert Ho anything, but he tries to highlight one of his own perceived advantages by demanding how CY could be Chief Executive without administrative experience in government. To his immense credit, CY replies…

I cannot see the logic of ‘administrative experience’ being an essential pre-qualification for the office of the chief executive…

The chief executive is a political leader, not an administrative person. He leads with vision and provides direction to the government and the community. He is supported by a team of political officers who in turn rely on the civil service to implement government policies. Senior civil servants are experienced administrators…

This is the first time I can remember anyone saying this. It seems to be taken for granted in Hong Kong that you must have administrative experience to lead.

Partly, it’s a way to keep non-bureaucrats at bay. A few years ago, there were two candidates for head of the Equal Opportunities Commission. One was the boss of a charity – charismatic, articulate and very clever (and of humble origins and physically handicapped). The other was a civil servant. No prizes for guessing which one got the job, and what the official excuse was. (As it happened, the bureaucrat went native and turned into a proponent of gay marriage, education for brown kids and other outlandish stuff.)

But the assumption you must have something called ‘administrative experience’ is also part of the Big Lychee’s cult of credentials. Google the phrase alongside Donald Tsang’s name to see how entrenched the idea is. CY has someone on his team who questions things. No wonder he scares people.

A similar widely held notion in Hong Kong is that hard work is the secret of success. Good exam results and sparkling careers result from grueling, grinding effort and little else. Today’s Standard, in one of its half dozen or so shoe-shining items, attributes the rise of one Miranda Kwok to the top of one CCB (Asia) bank to 26 years of it.

Personally, I find it more impressive when people achieve through guile and wit and having fun and goofing off as much as possible, especially when it comes to the tedious stuff. I seriously empathize. Do what you enjoy and hire people with ‘administrative experience’ to do all the rest.

In US Democratic Party primaries for a couple of decades, candidates all went around loudly proclaiming how they weren’t going to mention Chappaquiddick – the scandal that made Ted Kennedy unelectable. The equivalent buzz word in Hong Kong is, of course, ‘basement’. Disappointingly, the word does not crop up in the SCMP’s little debate. To redress this omission (and with thanks to Ms Lillian Court), I am delighted to present the Jesters – they had to be called that didn’t they? – and their long lost foot-tapper, ‘Down in Uncle Henry’s Basement’…

China’s next leader calls for a bit of calm in the Big Lychee after its spate of Chief Executive ‘election’ smears and mayhem. The thought that the wrenching pain and humiliation of recent months will now come to an end naturally causes widespread dismay among the general populace. But even if the outbreak of leaks and mud-slinging now subsides, we can be sure that things will not be the same again (as with a certain other epidemic that struck the city this time nine years ago).

You know things are strange when you find yourself nodding with agreement while reading a Trotskyite on-line journal. But who can dispute that “A succession of scandals has left no doubt about the culture of corruption, lying, law breaking and cronyism surrounding Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing political elite and the business tycoons they serve”? Amusingly, China Worker gets mightily upset at the allegation that CY Leung is a socialist (which is not, to them, a slur). Mostly, though, the publication’s reading of events is eminently sensible. The unprecedented hostile split in the local business establishment probably reflects jostling for power within the Chinese leadership. Disgraced Henry Tang remains a contender to be next CE because Beijing is clueless about what to do. The paper is also confident that Leung’s backers were directly responsible for setting off the first bomb – the basement revelation – if unaware that it would trigger such an explosive chain-reaction. And they engineered Donald Tsang’s ‘luxury’ outrage for good measure.

On a scale of zero (colonic irrigation) to 10 (curing cancer), pondering the exact provenance of Hong Kong’s recent well-planned and well-timed exposés probably comes in at around 2 in terms of social usefulness. But it is irresistible fun.

I was with a small group investigating the issue in ridiculous detail yesterday. We agreed that local traditional patriotic groups – most sitting avidly on the fence awaiting word on whom to support – would only get involved in anything like this if they were told to. Minor players with personal grudges, like Henry’s disgruntled ex-colleagues or dumped girlfriends, wouldn’t have the means.

The problem with pointing the finger solely at CY Leung’s associates (in practice, it would be unseen associates of friends of associates) is that it underestimates the gravity of attacking Beijing’s clear favourite.

In principle, such a move is an attempt to derail the Communist Party’s plan for leadership succession in the Chinese Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. Thwarting the will of the one-party state is tantamount to subversion. You are taking control (even if only of choice of CE) out of the hands of the party and exercising it yourself. In theory, anyone in Hong Kong seriously trying such a thing could forget about setting foot in the Mainland for a very long time. Whether your faction’s supporters in Beijing end up in power or not, you have crossed a line and cannot be trusted.

So, even assuming that CY personally would not have endorsed such chicanery, well-intentioned but misguided local supporters doing so must still have had some sort of reassurance from the Liaison Office, out there near The Henry in distant Western.

One group of possible culprits that we quickly dismissed were bureaucrats. They wouldn’t want to destroy Henry’s chances because they are far more comfortable with the prospect of a pliable dimwit than the radical, reformist alternative of CY Leung. But then, after beer three (or four, or something), I came up with a scintillating scenario…

Picture a coterie of serving and former senior officials secretly meeting up at Anson Chan’s place around a year ago. Dame Conscience herself is in the chair. David Akers-Jones has curtly sent his regrets. As individuals, they are self-consciously a bit detached and aloof from the tycoon-bureaucrat milieu that increasingly runs Hong Kong. Snotty about it, in fact. They are nostalgic for the old days when the Civil Service was God, ruling over all, showing favour to none. They can’t bear to see Beijing planning to give us another five or even 10 years of this erosion of the ‘traditional Hong Kong values’ they cherish, as landed interests get their claws deeper into the administration and public respect for government declines accordingly. They hatch a revanchist plot.

They have all the dirt on Henry, connections in the media and, collectively, decades of experience of practicing dark arts discretely. Knowing that CY is way too creepy to be a Plan B, their aim is to besmirch Henry with several devastating revelations that leave Beijing with no choice but to look to another civil servant for the top job (one who’s well-bred and went to university and doesn’t think it’s cool to hang out with riffraff tycoons). At first the plotters are thinking of easing a trustworthy minister-level official like Carrie Lam into the position; later, as Beijing appears to stick by Henry thick or thin, they would be happy with Regina Ip. But they have misjudged which way the Chinese government will lean if it has to budge. It is not to be. In the final scene, CY Leung personally marches the Handbag Gang onto a Gong An truck, which trundles off to the border. (In the movie, Anson would be played by Meryl Streep and Carrie Lam by Dodo Cheng.)

I declared this weekend open last night.

One of Hong Kong’s big property tycoons, Henry Cheng, coyly hints that he could live with CY Leung as Hong Kong’s next Chief Executive, even though he nominated Henry Tang. This looks like a throwaway bit of hedging rather than the start of the official abandonment of the one-time dead-cert (whose alleged love-child appears in print today). But if Beijing does indeed plump for CY, the sight of the plutocrats performing their crestfallen, crab-like shuffling in his direction, shoe-shining kits at the ready, will be a treasure to behold.

The epic battle between the two seems to have spread to the world of commercial branding. Following the launch of an obviously pro-Tang real estate development called The Henry, we now have a new restaurant in Upper Soho clearly aimed at countering the philandering, basement-building rich-kid: the Monogamous Chinese. ‘Sichuan and Peking’ cuisine, it says – in other words, no Shanghainese. (The eatery is right under the Mid-Levels Escalator just below Caine Road.)

Another clash pits supporters of Chief Executive Donald Tsang against detractors. Redoubtable old anti-corruption fighter Elsie Tu pens a heartfelt paean defending the good name of Sir Bow-Tie from the ‘cruel effort to destroy him’. Some highlights…

It is sad to see the last four months of the chief executive’s seven years of office being made a time of sorrow, rather than gratitude for an honest leader.

Behind the scenes, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen has done much for Hong Kong, but the good he did has been buried in a cruel effort to destroy him…

I made acquaintance with Donald Tsang when he was a civil servant in the New Territories. I was representing a group of people whose homes were to be demolished. Donald was a young official in the case, and I found him very polite and sympathetic. In fact, he was quite popular with the people, until he was named successor to the post of chief executive and had to shake hands with leaders in Beijing…

…I would be sad if the Independent Commission Against Corruption were to weaken in its splendid work. On principle, one should not name a person as being corrupt until one has absolute proof … No one should speak of corruption in connection with Donald Tsang unless there is absolute proof that corruption was involved.

Donald is probably too clean-minded to think a joyride required a bribe.

The accusations against him are cruel. If they are found untrue, the accusers should themselves be accused of spreading false information.

That’s one way of looking at it, and one that quite a few people would broadly agree with, in an up-to-a-point sort of way. Until, perhaps, they read an open letter from former civil servant LK Shiu replying to the CE’s groveling apology to his fellow bureaucrats. A translation appeared here, then went away; the original Chinese version remains. Maybe the guy wasn’t totally satisfied with his English – he was an Administrative Officer. The cached version says “feel free to disseminate,” so here it is pretty much unedited. Some highlights…

…Owing to the ridiculous system of Hong Kong, you [Donald Tsang] have to kneel before Beijing’s mandarins and are often unreasonably assailed at home, until your will is eroded, your energy spent, and your popularity consumed. Frankly, what you have got is the least enviable job on earth. This I understand.

You have indeed passed the minimum wage law during your term of office. And the much overdue competition law is about to become reality. Notwithstanding its many defects, this is still progress.

But what has become of Hong Kong all these years? You alleged in the press statement that as the CE, you “had to get a full picture of what was happening in the community” and hence the need to maintain “contact with people from all walks of life”. In fact, you do not understand the life of 99% of Hong Kong people. Nay, it’s not just you but your entire governing team, so called.

For you are surrounded and escorted by the rich and powerful wherever you go. Your commissions and committees are inundated with like-minded friends and second-generation dandies. You read only newspaper cuttings well filtered, and bureaucratic papers amended and tailored to the palate of senior management. Your political shows at districts are all about fretting and strutting through well-dressed windows. The balls and parties you attend are filled with pleasant tones and lukewarm syllables, harmless but meaningless speeches. Have you ever noticed the soles of your top officials’ leather shoes? They are hardly worn out because they step on only limousines and red carpets. Have you ever noticed the collars of your shirts? They are barely stained by sweat because you only sit in well air-conditioned conference room.

Since you are the yes-man even in front of provincial Mainland officials, what could have your subordinates done? What more could we expect? After seven years of your reign, we couldn’t even hold our heads high in our own city. Our gini coefficient measuring rich-poor divide almost ranks the world’s highest. The so-called “sub-divided units” for ordinary folks cannot even measure up to pets’ dwellings in tycoons’ penthouses. Those living on speculation make it bigger and bigger and those down-to-earth hard-working people – be they running a Cha Chaan Teng or high-tech start-up – can barely see their future.

Faced with such grievance or indeed indignation, Your Excellency’s administration is only left with the broken device of conferring small favours year after year, which only serves to destroy our traditional work ethics…

…Your administration turns a blind eye to the monopoly of the property tycoons, whilst taking a tough hand on small peddlers and street hawkers selling egg waffles or polishing shoes, or indeed, any Hongkonger who is proud not to live on the dole that you use to bribe us into supporting your failed administration.

While most of us have to work like slaves for only a few square feet in order to live with basic decency, those in your cabinet – those who have already gleaned the last scraps of housing benefits funded by taxpayers – are knowingly, unlawfully and stealthily constructing their own Versailles. Obviously, you could not rein in such improprieties – to put it mildly – owing to your own implication. However skilful you are in acquitting yourselves by exploiting the smallest loopholes in our law books, it is undeniable that Hong Kong is close to the tipping point where the “poor has no place to stick an awl”, as our ancestors put it.

Of course, all of your corrupt behaviours are technically lawful, for you people know the law and regulations … like those property developers [who] “lick to the last drop of gravy”. However, the authority and morality of you and your team are both on the verge of collapse…

Finally, I hope that the ICAC would save itself the trouble of that useless investigation. What good can be done with a Commissioner appointed by Your Excellency? I sincerely hope that this institution – the pride of Hong Kong and possibly the last bulwark standing between us and the mainland – would not have its reputation, hard earned on forty years of toils, sunk for the sake of a single person’s unspeakable petty advantages…

We tend to look down on the cream-of-the-civil-service AOs, if only because (as the second paragraph of the full letter makes clear) that’s how they feel about us. But their arrogance springs from a genuine belief in their institution’s moral superiority, and this letter reflects a deep sense of betrayal that, from what I hear, has affected the whole administrative caste.

Where have I heard that tone of outraged and grievous bitterness, notably in the third paragraph above, before? Yes it’s in the Declaration of Independence, where the founding fathers list the ways the King has infringed their rights – rights as Englishmen – and conclude that they have no choice but to make the ultimate, once unthinkable, break.

None of this helps us answer the question of what the hell is going on. But whoever or whatever started the plethora of leaks must be wondering what they have unleashed in terms of division and disillusion. And there are still 16 weeks to go before the new CE takes office.

For a bit of light relief: a hilarious, rhyming love letter in Hong Kong car licence plates.

And what will we do all day instead?

The Hong Kong Chief Executive ‘election’ shock-horror outrages du jour are: a) aides of CY Leung attended a Heung Yee Kuk dinner at which a former triad boss was present; and b) the (or a) much-discussed alleged illegitimate offspring of Henry Tang may have resulted from a liaison while the textiles scion was at high school in the UK.

These are, of course, non-stories, and signs that the quality of scandal flying around Hong Kong over the last couple of months is undergoing a disappointing decline. Whoever is spreading the night-soil around is starting to scrape the bottom of the bucket.

The fact is that if you go to a Heung Yee Kuk event and no New Territories mafia are around – that’s major news. Indeed, you’d probably be on your own. Everyone knows that.

Similarly, if you send your precious little prince or princess to one of those pricy, oh-so-high-class boarding schools in our former colonial motherland, the kid will soon discover the delights of rutting like crazy between piano classes and remedial Chinese tuition. The brochures portray British education as neo-gothic architecture, sprawling green playing fields and bright-eyed young exam-passers in smart uniforms. What they don’t mention is Europe’s highest rates of teenage pregnancy, abortion and venereal disease, not to mention all the booze and drugs.

On a more positive note, we are reliably informed that our current Chief Executive, high-living victim of maliciously-triggered corruption probes Donald Tsang, has the full backing of the Central People’s Government. Such support is not automatic. The nation’s leaders can obliquely indicate disapproval by failing to mention you or by lavishing praise on your counterpart in Macau, or they can be blunt and openly say you’re useless.

Even if the mud-slinging now dies down (sob) for want of new ammunition, the question remains: who is behind all these leaks, or at least the initial disclosures that prompted retaliatory dirt-digging? We can still only presume that the Central Government’s Liaison Office in Western must have had a hand. Guiding the Chief Executive selection process is the emperor’s prerogative, and no local pro-Beijing player would have the audacity to usurp it. The chaos and division resulting from the revelations also point to the same incompetents who were surely behind the vote-rigging in last November’s District Council polls, which at least partially backfired. As for why: maybe Beijing wants a tighter grip ahead of ‘universal suffrage’ in 2017, or maybe the local Hong Kong and Macau Affairs officials have simply been trying too hard to impress their bosses back home (either way they have some explaining to do).

A more convoluted theory involves joining up the dots backwards. Beijing – it goes – has orchestrated Donald’s downfall. This is partly just to avenge the time he (quite likely) threatened to resign unless the Chinese state made its unprecedented concession to the pro-democrats on political reform. But it is mainly a counterattack after Sir Bow-Tie’s administration tried to smear CY Leung with its inept pair of press releases one (very long) month ago. And that was an attempt to rescue Henry after Beijing pulled the plug on him after/with the basement fiasco and decided to make CY the next CE. The fact that this de facto tussle between the Communist Party and Hong Kong’s tycoon-bureaucrat clique would have been fought by proxy doesn’t make it hugely more believable. But it’s fun. Asia Times, fountain of truth, accuracy and impartiality, has more.

Another idea is that Donald is nobly taking the heat off Henry, by distracting attention from the spoilt rich-kid’s misdoings (and wouldn’t it be typical of a spoilt rich-kid to make his low-born, cop’s son buddy do that?)  This of course is the opposite of the Asia Times theory, which has Sir Bow-Tie’s jet-setting helping rather than hurting CY. Take your pick.

One factor we cannot ignore is the role of Hong Kong’s famously free press. Although local actors would never openly pre-empt Beijing’s own meddling, some of them can no doubt interfere unseen through the media. And let’s not forget the role of the masses. It is no secret that waiters, hotel workers, emergency services personnel, and hospital, airport and other minions in Hong Kong can augment their humble incomes quite nicely with one call to our grubbier newspapers. What we have been seeing is Mainland officials thinking that they could manipulate the local media, only to find that it’s not that simple, and the press even end up in charge. It has been hilarious, and we can only trust that the cadres will go back up north with a newfound respect and admiration for the role played in a free society by the fourth estate.

Before being edited, the Hemlock Time Out HK feature on evil, grasping tycoons mentioned each of the Big Lychee’s four big property kings’ ‘silliest development name’. In truth, they were plucked at random; nearly all real estate projects have ridiculous branding. For the curious, they were…

• Cheung Kong’s Li Ka-shing: Vista Paradiso (Ma On Shan)
• SHKP’s Kwok brothers: Yoho Midtown (Yuen Long)
• Henderson’s Lee Shau-kee: La Botanica (Xian)
• New World’s Cheng Yu-tung: Chateau Regalia (Beijing)

Occasionally, new towers’ names look not so much drug-induced as just unfortunate. You are cordially invited to a launch party this Thursday to celebrate this phenomenon. “Where the Good Life Begins … the Ultimate in Lifestyle … Living it up with The Henry”. Serviced apartments; way down Des Voeux Road West.

And now a word from our sponsors: The Bow-Tie Privilege Card, courtesy of RTHK’s Steve James. Which brings us rather neatly to the continuing saga over Chief Executive Donald Tsang’s links with tycoons.

The latest episode takes a further twist concerning a members-only 4,000 sq ft luxury suite at a Macau casino, apparently booked by Sir Bow-Tie’s then-student son. The deal, we are told, is that you either gamble several million, in which case the place is free, or you pay HK$20,000 a night. Donald’s ‘palling around’ with gambling moguls meanwhile gets a mention in CasinoLeaks Macau, a (Nevada labour union-funded) website aiming to highlight the sleaziness of Las Vegas’s main global rival. We can only sigh at the tackiness of it all.

These people are NOKD: the more unpolished, unsavory end of the business community. The New York Times says that “a small circle of tycoons now runs top levels of government” in Hong Kong, yet Donald’s jet-owning friends are the comparative riffraff who are not in that circle. Didn’t he realize why they were so nice to him? Maybe his humble origins are coming back to haunt him. It’s hard to imagine former Chief Secretary Anson Chan getting carried away with the idea of a ride in Charles Ho’s yacht. Dame Conscience, with her oldish money and arty relatives, would have put down the phone with distaste and dabbed some Pak Fah Yeow onto her cheeks with an understated silk handkerchief to recompose herself. Donald says “ooh yes” and ends up wearing a Joseph Lau-style, tight, polo-neck sweater like some thug’s boss in a movie based in Shamshuipo.

And so a final intriguing word which may or may not pertain to the selection of Donald’s successor from property agents Savills: “The Henry redefines lifestyle accommodations in the City.” Not before the Buildings Department has issued a permit, we hope.