Big Lychee, Various Sectors

The SCMP is like a luxury goods store: you often walk past it but hardly ever look inside. Deciding to have a rare sniff around Jack Ma’s organ, I find Mike Rowse bemoaning Hong Kong’s de facto curfews during bad weather, which these days seem to be once a week…

I feel obliged to ask if Hong Kong has become a city of wusses. Do we really have to close down much of the city every time there’s excessive rain?

…For the most part [during a recent ‘black rainstorm’ episode], trains, buses, minibuses and taxis seemed to have run smoothly … convenience stores were open, as were various food outlets. Newspapers were being delivered normally. Some fitness studios were open. Other aspects of daily life ticked along.

As I sat alone in the office reading the news and eating my McDonald’s hamburger, I asked myself who else was missing. The answer was clear: it was mainly office workers. If it was safe enough for the men and women who drive our buses to show up for work, why were all the people who would normally occupy the seats on those buses not there?

If it is fine for 7-Eleven and Circle K stores to open amid severe weather, why isn’t it for government offices or banks? I feel bound to ask whether there is some kind of division based on class that makes it acceptable for some people to get rained on while other precious types must be kept dry at all costs.

(Sort of. People in blue-collar jobs are probably more afraid of having pay docked or being fired.)

He suggests a vaguely more flexible approach to striking a balance between ensuring public safety and keeping calm and carrying on. 

One problem is that Hong Kong can have distinct micro-climates. It can be a normal breezy day in northern Hong Kong island, while in Cheung Chau they have 100-mph winds. Kowloon might be flooded, while Yuen Long has a light shower. And it can change suddenly.

The current alerts kick in city-wide automatically when a tropical cyclone exceeds a certain strength and/or proximity to Hong Kong, while the black rainstorm signal depends on overall quantity of rain in previous hours. Except that it seems (maybe I’m imagining it) that bureaucrats tweak the signals – traditionally to encourage people to go to work, but increasingly out of fear of being criticized for doing just that. They can’t win. 

My proposal…

The Number 3, 8, etc typhoon signals were designed in and for an era of sailing ships. Today, sailors have their own dedicated high-tech weather warning info, so this numbering ritual is redundant. Landlubbers don’t need numbered signals. Similarly, there is no need for amber and red rainstorm alerts: we can see if it’s raining by looking out the window.

The only thing people need to know is: do we go to work/school (or go home early) or not? In other words, all we need is a ‘stay in place’ advisory when conditions look likely to be seriously nasty – regardless of whether it’s a typhoon, a plain storm, a volcano, or whatever. 

It really comes down to transport, and much depends on where you live. Outlying islands’ ferries cancel services when it’s too windy, so they should have a ‘stay in place’ notice that applies to them only. And some rural areas with minimal bus/minibus connections might need something similar. But there’s no need to shut everything down throughout the urban areas, where the MTR and buses keep running, unless it gets really bad. This was obviously the case on Tuesday morning last week – even if, as Rowse noticed, by the afternoon most downtown districts were fine but empty of office types. 

Home Affairs Secretary Alice Mak celebrates international brotherhood week…

The Home and Youth Affairs Bureau is organising a series of activities marking the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War…

Efforts include … improving a section of a village road connecting to the Sha Tau Kok Anti-Japanese War Memorial Hall.

“This is to enable all sectors of society to make better use of the rich local anti-Japanese war historical resources and deepen public understanding of the history of the war,” Mak said.

The government announces that 100 candidates for the 2025 Election Committee Subsector by-elections have been screened and approved as suitably patriotic to take part in the September 7 exercise. Of the 100, 28 will take part in elections for 21 seats in six contested subsectors (such as ‘Architectural, surveying, planning and landscape’ and ‘Representatives of members of Area Committees, District Fight Crime Committees, and District Fire Safety Committees of Hong Kong and Kowloon’). Another 72 in 22 other subsectors are returned automatically because there is only one candidate per seat. Plus there’s…

…one candidate whose nomination for the Heung Yee Kuk subsector was ruled invalid by the CERC due to his death during the nomination period.

A complete list of these subsectors is here. The Election Committee officially elects the Chief Executive, who was unopposed last time, and 40 out of 90 seats in the Legislative Council, many of which will probably also have just one candidate per seat. So in essence, this is about people pretending to vote for people who will in turn pretend to vote for a ‘winning candidate’ CE already decided in Beijing or for a narrow field of carefully vetted prospective lawmakers. 

In the old days, a few of the subsectors had sizable electorates of normal people, so observers could detect signs of opposition – though the structure ensured that it wouldn’t make any difference to the result. But things have changed. As HKFP says…

…According to voter registration figures updated last month, there are 8,877 registered voters for the Election Committee polls, down from 257,992 in 2020.

And most of these voters – even those for ‘grassroots’ – are in fact corporate bodies or associations.

The budget is (if I recall) over HK$200 million? Why bother?

If Xi Jinping vanishes for a while, does it mean there’s a coup attempt underway? Is 2027 some sort of deadline for China to invade Taiwan? Lowy Interpreter on how and why outsiders find it easy to misread China…

In a system that rarely admits failure, silence can be seen as proof – a classic case of confirmation bias. These episodes show how stories can eclipse evidence, especially when they align with our assumptions. Analytical rigor means asking not just what we know, but why certain narratives stick.

Courtesy of Joel Chan – a chart of rent hikes and cuts in different areas of Hong Kong…

The ‘winner’ districts in the left-hand column are mixed – what you might call lower-middle to upper-middle class. They are mostly downtown or have otherwise desirable locations, and they have relatively affordable newish residential blocks. Kai Tak could have been included. In short, neighbourhoods that attract new Mainland immigrants.

The ‘laggards’ on the right are distinctly high-end. Southside locations Deepwater Bay and Shouson Hill are popular among very well-paid expats, typically boom-era Westerners or Mainlanders, on HK$200,000 a month housing allowances plus chauffeur-driven cars. Sai Kung and Clearwater Bay residents are more likely to be airline pilots, senior engineers, or whatever – ‘no riff-raff’ versions of Discovery Bay. Either way, they are beyond the reach of the sort of Mainland immigrants coming in on talent visas (not to mention inconvenience and tedious lifestyle).

CY Leung again warns about possible problems with an unpredictable influx of Mainlanders. This time, he’s worried about pressure on university places from ‘anchor babies’ born here before 2013 (when he barred Mainland women from giving birth here). But he also likes to point out that the number of talent visas issued does not seem to tally with the number of actual residents. In other words, people are getting permission to settle in Hong Kong but not actually moving here. His concern is that they might suddenly turn up and overload the city’s capacity. Current policymakers are probably more worried that they won’t. Thanks to Covid-NatSec emigration and an absurdly low birth rate, talent visas seem to be the city’s main source of population growth.

Eye-catching headline from the Guardian – how a teenager in Leeds, England woke up to find that China had put a bounty on her head…

Media outlets across east Asia were reporting that [Chloe] Cheung, who had just finished her A-levels, had been declared a threat to national security by officials in Hong Kong. There was an offer of HK$1m (£94,000) to anyone who could assist in her arrest or capture.

News reports included a photograph of her aged 11, seemingly the only picture officials had of her before she and her family left to resettle in the UK in 2020. “I couldn’t even really recognise myself,” she says.

…Cheung had dreamed of a gap year travelling the world and visiting friends in Hong Kong. Neither was possible now, after Chinese officials vowed to “pursue for life” Cheung and others they accuse of promoting democracy.

Includes a photo of the ‘wanted’ notice featuring an 11-year-old schoolgirl. Her story has also appeared in the BBC (‘A Level student who became enemy of the Chinese state’), Express, Telegraph, and elsewhere. The BBC report prompted a sharp riposte from Hong Kong (or as the UK media tends to say these days ‘Chinese’) authorities. If the government issues an angry statement about the Guardian’s coverage, they could point out that Cheung turned 20 in February. Or something.

Want to see a video of a guy (reportedly) being held in a jail made of mosquito nets on a Guangdong sidewalk?

And here’s a vid shot from a nimble Philippine coastguard vessel being chased by a PRC coastguard boat when a PLA navy destroyer suddenly cuts right into the path of the latter – and yes, they collide. Look for the hole knocked in the destroyer’s port bow (looks like a whole plate is stoved in, which makes you wonder whether the welding was as good as it could have been).

Action-packed government video on the dangers of ‘space oil’. We learn that ‘etomidate’ indeed rhymes with ‘date’ (as in calendar), not as in the Japanese family name. The key message is ‘Don’t vape it or you’ll die like a zombie’. The usual phrase is ‘die like a dog’, but perhaps whoever thought of renaming the drug ‘zombie oil’ at one stage insisted on portraying depraved teen addicts as the living dead – complete with gross boils on their filthy faces and bald patches where their hair has for some reason fallen out. It must have been fun to make.

Joshua Wong ‘collusion with foreign forces’ case will be heard in the High Court…

He is currently serving an almost five-year jail sentence under the Beijing-imposed national security law in a case linked to unofficial primaries.

While still in prison, he was arrested in June and charged with a second national security offence. The 28-year-old was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and “other persons unknown” between July 1 and November 23, 2020, to request foreign countries or individuals to engage in hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.

…Wong has not indicated how he will plead. Most national security law cases in Hong Kong have taken place in the High Court, where defendants face up to life imprisonment if convicted.

Someone really doesn’t want Joshua Wong out on the street, where he could be a rival source of power or something. See also: Long Hair.

Few noticed the G7’s recent statement on Hong Kong’s latest batch of arrest warrants for ‘absconders’. But the government did…

The spokesman said, “Those absconders hiding outside Hong Kong are wanted and subject to arrest warrants issued by the court, not because they ‘exercised freedom of expression’, but because they continue to blatantly engage in activities endangering national security there. The ‘Hong Kong Parliament’ is an organisation aiming to subvert the state power. Its objectives include promoting ‘self-determination’, promulgating the so-called ‘Hong Kong Constitution’, and overthrowing or undermining the basic system of the People’s Republic of China established by the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China or overthrowing the body of the central power of People’s Republic of China or the body of power of the HKSAR, etc. with unlawful means. We therefore have taken such measures to make a significant impact.”

HKFP reports…

A Taiwanese film has been axed from a film festival programme after it failed to meet requirements set by the Hong Kong government’s censorship requirements.

The Hong Kong International Film Festival said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that it had to cancel the screening of Family Matters.

…The film revolves around a four-member family in Taiwan’s historic Changhua city as they deal with issues including identity, fertility and relationship, according to its synopsis.

The film was honoured with a best feature film award at the New York Asian Film Festival in late July.

Focus Taiwan suggests what the problem is…

Taiwan … newspapers Liberty Times and United Daily News on Wednesday both cited sources as saying the cancellation was due to the appearance of the term “Min Kuo” (民國), a reference to the “Republic of China,” Taiwan’s official name, which is not recognized by China — officially the People’s Republic of China — as a sovereign state.

HK01, a Hong Kong-based online news outlet, reported the same day that, according to sources, at least seven Taiwanese films have been pulled from screenings in Hong Kong since 2021, when amendments to the FCO began requiring censors to consider whether a film’s screening would be “contrary to the interests of national security.”

(Chances are the phrase occurs in a date using the ROC’s quasi-dynastic calendar system, which counts years from 1911. For example, 2025 is 民國114年.)

If movies threaten a country’s national security, maybe it should beef up its navy? ASPI Strategist on Beijing’s fancy-looking ‘barges with legs’ – obviously designed to enable an invasion of Taiwan…

Since March, China has been making a splash with manoeuvres off its south coast involving a line of odd-looking barges with retractable legs that work like giant stilts. Taiwanese analysts aren’t impressed, however.

The barges have towers at their fronts that convert to long, drop-down bridges, so the vessels can connect to each other. If the first barge in a line of them touches the land, they can form a pier standing on the seabed and extending 800 metres or more to deeper water. Chinese soldiers, equipment and supplies could be offloaded from big ships that need that water depth, and the invasion force would have less need for ports.

Or so the theory goes.

As the piece points out, the mega-barges would be juicy targets for Taiwanese land-based forces. There’s also a problem with landing large numbers of troops, vehicles and equipment in one spot under fire – the attacker creates a huge traffic jam on the beach.

Maybe Chinese defence contractors have hit on an ingenious take on roll-on-roll-off ferries, or maybe this project is a result of too much money sloshing around for military R&D.

Since we’re ending the week on a Taiwan theme – a nice video about a book in Taiwanese, Mandarin, Scottish Gaelic and English. (When I was last in Taipei, I met a 10-year-old Hong Kong-born kid whose family had relocated and who could read any Chinese passage aloud in Mandarin, Cantonese and Taiwanese. A neat party trick.) 

The 80th anniversary of the end of World War II will be marked around the world, in various ways. In Hong Kong the government will organize…

…a series of events to commemorate the 80th anniversary of victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.

…[Cultural, Sports and Tourism minister Rosanna] Law said the Museum of History and Museum of the War of Resistance and Coastal Defence, are collaborating with two museums on the mainland to roll out a war-themed exhibition.

It seems likely that the exhibition will focus on national rather than the local experience (the fall of Hong Kong, life under Japanese occupation, etc). It will be interesting to see what sort of treatment it gives to such subjects as Chiang Kai-shek’s relations with Roosevelt and Churchill, the scale of ROC forces’ operations, and the role of US aid… 

She said such activities are aimed at cultivating people’s national identity and belonging, therefore building a consensus on defending the homeland and contributing to the nation’s development.

“We will fully leverage Hong Kong’s rich and unique cultural and historical resources to showcase our special contributions during the war, deepen cooperation with all sectors of society, promote patriotic spirit, and further enhance Hong Kong citizens’ correct understanding and sense of identity towards the nation,” Law said.

It will also be interesting to see how ‘deepening cooperation with all sectors of society’ comes into it.

HKFP reports that…

Nearly 80 per cent of the 93 vacancies in Hong Kong’s Election Committee –  which nominates and selects the city’s leader –  will see no competition in next month’s by-elections.

The committee also returns 40 of the 90 LegCo members in December.

Also – the first relative of an ‘absconder’ to be charged under NatSec laws appears in court…

[Kwok Yin-sang’s] daughter, Anna Kwok, who lives in the US, is wanted by national security police for suspected foreign collusion.

According to the charge sheet, Kwok Yin-sang allegedly attempted to obtain funds from an AIA International life and personal accident insurance policy that belonged to Anna Kwok between January 4 and February 27.

Wearing a green T-shirt and a black mask, Kwok Yin-sang said “not guilty” when asked by the court how he would plead.

The conspiracy crowd won’t be impressed, but a serious article in the Conversation dismisses the Covid ‘lab leak’ thing…

Sadly, the focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology has distracted us from a far more important connection: that, like SARS-CoV-1 (which emerged in late 2002) before it, there’s a direct link between a coronavirus outbreak and a live animal market.

It has also distracted us from the role of Wuhan authorities in covering up the initial outbreak, thus helping the virus spread to the rest of the world. And it has contributed to the anti-science idiocy of the current US administration…

To assign the origin of SARS-CoV-2 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology requires a set of increasingly implausible “what if?” scenarios. These eventually lead to preposterous suggestions of clandestine bioweapon research.

The lab leak theory stands as an unfalsifiable allegation. If an investigation of the lab found no evidence of a leak, the scientists involved would simply be accused of hiding the relevant material. If not a conspiracy theory, it’s a theory requiring a conspiracy.

It provides a convenient vehicle for calls to limit, if not ban outright, gain-of-function research in which viruses with greatly different properties are created in labs. Whether or not SARS-CoV-2 originated in this manner is incidental.

The Rope Skipping Association’s flag problems explained…

The official design, compared with the one used in the award ceremonies at the 2025 World Jump Rope Championships over the weekend, has petals that taper off more prominently into a point. Slightly more space is left between petals, and the stars are also larger.

The errant banner, snipped from the HKFP photo, is the top one. Note how the tiny stars and insufficiently pointy petals leap out at you. Looking at the government’s authorized version below, vexillological pedants will also notice differences in dimensions and maybe tone. But I suspect all three flags displayed at the medals ceremony are wrong in some way. The rope skippers could argue that theirs is aesthetically more pleasing and should be adopted as the real one, but probably won’t.

A pic of Bill Clinton with Jeffrey Epstein – outside the MTR.

Some mid-week reading…

I was in DC when the Washington Times first hit the streets (literally – they dumped piles of the paper on the sidewalks to try to get rid of them). Launched by the Moonies, it struggled to gain respect. But by today’s standards, it’s perhaps only averagely untrustworthy. Columnist Miles Yu of the Hudson Institute looks at Beijing’s upcoming parade to mark the anniversary of the defeat of Japan in World War II…

On Sept. 3, the Chinese Communist Party will orchestrate a grand military parade in Tiananmen Square to commemorate victory over Japan in World War II.

Ostensibly a tribute to wartime heroism, this display is, in truth, a monumental distortion of history, a calculated fiction meant to glorify the party, vilify its contemporary adversaries and mislead its people.

At the heart of this charade lies the falsehood that the CCP was the principal fighting force against Japanese aggression during the war. This claim is a brazen lie.

…the Soviets and their CCP clients were effectively bound to a policy of nonconfrontation against the Japanese in China during most of the war. Any military action by the CCP would have jeopardized the USSR’s neutrality pact with Tokyo, and thus Mao Zedong and the CCP carefully avoided real conflict with the Japanese. As a result, the Japanese military and the CCP forces virtually coexisted in the same large swaths of Japanese-occupied North China, where there was little to no communist resistance.

There’s a bigger picture here. Without Japan to worry about, the USSR was able to move forces west to resist Germany’s invasion and begin the pushback that led to the Nazis’ surrender. And without the USSR to worry about, Japan felt confident about attacking Pearl Harbor and launching war against the US and the UK in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In the grand scheme of things – although China suffered massively in the war – even the ROC forces played only a limited role in Japan’s defeat.

From Bitter Winter – how Beijing’s United Front uses a Taoist sect in pushing ‘soft power’ overseas…

According to [a] source, in the wake of the Confucius Institute’s fall from grace in numerous western countries and the ill sentiments generated by years of wolf warrior diplomacy, Taoism presents the PRC government with an opportunity to drum up positive feelings by promoting a cultural export that is already viewed favorably in the West thanks to popular translations of the “Tao Te Ching” and associations with tai chi and traditional Chinese medicine. This source further posited that the UFWD may be anxious to insinuate the Chinese Taoist Association into overseas Taoist groups before the religion has a chance to grow much bigger “because it’s a religious movement the CCP thinks they can actually control abroad.”

I have never paid much attention to Taoism. Could it be one of the world’s more boring religions? A scholarly Mormon source tries to be nice…

…the [foundational text] Tao Te Ching is not always easy to understand, but in a very real sense it is not to be “understood,” at least with the mind.

The Catholic Encyclopedia takes a slightly more skeptical tack…

One may well ask how the pure abstract doctrine of Lao-tze was turned into a medley of alchemical researches, a practice of witchcraft, with the addition of Buddhist superstitions, which constitute today what is called Tao-kiao, the religion or the teaching of Tao. 

The Diplomat examines China’s soft power efforts in North Korea…

The delivery methods are varied and discreet. China explores multiple channels to get media content into North Korea, including sending USB drives, SD cards, and MP5 video players through traders or other North Koreans traveling to China. The goal isn’t just for North Koreans to consume Chinese content, but for them to become familiar with Chinese culture and view it as part of their daily lives.

Even the film Ten Years didn’t foresee the fate of the guy who – by chance – was issued car registration plate US8964…

On June 4, 2024, Anthony was driving out of Hong Kong Island for the third consecutive year. He was stopped by police on the Island Eastern Corridor and surrounded by at least 20 traffic officers and plainclothes detectives . He decided that was the last time and would never drive on the night of June 4 again. However, over the following year, he and his family continued to face threats and warnings, affecting their workplace, school, and even the public housing unit where their elderly family members lived. His six-year-old daughter was reported by a stranger posing as a parent for spreading remarks that threatened national security at school. His wife was also complained about at work, and all units in the building where they lived received anonymous letters detailing their personal information. He said, “I never imagined that the consequences of my actions would escalate to such a level, so complex and serious, affecting my family and my child. It was truly unforeseen.”

They emigrated and are now in the UK.

The Hong Kong Rope Skipping Association almost comes in for similar treatment, after reports suggested that they used the wrong flag at an international competition in Japan. (If they became ‘absconders’, would they be the HK Bail Skipping Association?)

The government cancels the passports of 12 of the 19 ‘absconders’ wanted in connection with the ‘Hong Kong Parliament’. You can also get seven years in prison for giving any of the 19 financial support.

On other matters – some pithy quotes in a thread by economist Anders Aslund on Donald Trump’s trade chaos…

…the greatest madness in economic policy in a developed country after WWII…

The only two countries Trump treat with respect are China & Russia…

Since no agreements are put on paper or being properly concluded, US trade policy will remain an enigma & unpredictable.

…Few government acts are more likely to attract bribes than the exemption from tariffs.

Among his other Twitter posts…

The European Union and Ukraine are facing a bizarre conundrum: How to handle a narcissistic and lawless senile toddler who has become almighty president of the United States

The Western alliance system is falling apart, helping dictatorships around the world … The UN is likely to be taken over by China & its ilk.

It is bizarre that the GOP & its billionaire donors (Koch, Schwartzman, Griffin et al) allow Trump to pursue an economic policy that will hurt them all.

From AFP via HKFP – Hong Kong introduces new stablecoin regulations…

Stablecoin excitement has gripped Hong Kong as the city prepares to launch a licensing system for the less volatile type of cryptocurrency, but authorities warn against overplaying its future role in financial systems.

I have lived through Hong Kong being gripped by Snoopy Dolls, SARS, a milkshake murder, and Carrie Lam’s extradition proposal. I don’t quite see it with this…

Stablecoins are useful internationally because they enable fast, low-cost cross-border payments, handy in markets where hard currency is limited, such as Argentina and Nigeria.

The tokens, bought and sold on digital exchanges, are also used as a safe way for crypto investors to station their profits, instead of converting to cash.

“The size of the stablecoin market has reached a level where the cash flows have geopolitical implications,” said Paul Brody, global blockchain leader at consulting firm EY.

EY still has ‘blockchain’ in job titles?

Traders in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies use stablecoins like Tether as a surrogate for real money because the crypto end of the transactions don’t comply with banks’ ‘know your customer’ and other regulations. So it’s a buffer between the regular financial system and the parallel universe of crypto. It also provides the liquidity that supports the market in Bitcoin and other crypto. Essentially, Tether and other stablecoin issuers (themselves part of the whole crypto pyramid) just print more of their coins to keep Bitcoin’s apparent dollar value up.

The other main use of stablecoins is for money laundering, avoiding capital controls, settling trades in drugs or guns, etc. 

Some players in the real-world financial sector think that there might be ways to develop payment systems using legally regulated stablecoins, and not just for Argentines or Nigerians. They just need to find out how using an in-house currency fully backed by real currency can be an improvement on just using… real currency. Like Park N Shop gift vouchers, but way more techie. They’re working on it. Meanwhile, it looks like another solution in search of a problem…

“It makes sense for Hong Kong to try anything — it’s kind of on a declining path, for reasons that are not to do with technology. It’s mostly about the politics, and its relationship with China,” [Jonas Goltermann at Capital Economics] told AFP.

Maybe they’re not that desperate. If you want a stablecoin licence from the HKMA, don’t bother calling them – it’s by invitation only.