Big Lychee, Various Sectors

…the overt property-developer shoe-shine is back. The Standard reports…

The address from the director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council Xia Baolong on National Security Education Day interpreted a high-level strategic roadmap for Hong Kong, outlining the inseparable relationship between security and development, said chairman of Henderson Land Group Peter Lee Ka-kit.

…Lee, also a member of the Standing Committee of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference … noted that the entire community must strengthen its national security awareness to protect Hong Kong’s current positive trajectory. With the opportunities presented by the nation’s “15th Five-Year Plan” on the horizon, the key for Hong Kong is to translate its stable environment into tangible results.

…Lee believed that as long as all sectors of Hong Kong society grasp the One Country, Two Systems principle and work with greater confidence, the city will solidify its advantages and make new, significant contributions to the nation’s modernization.

The golden age of tycoon preemptive cringe was back in the 80s and 90s, when the (now mostly departed) original generation of real-estate moguls performed their ‘instant-noodle patriots’ trick, discovering a sudden love for the Chinese government. There was a lot riding on it in those days, when Hong Kong (and Mainland) asset values were undergoing a historic uplift – and the professions of loyalty were impressively eager. Li Ka-shing donated an entire Hong Kong HQ to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. 

Things are different now. The guaranteed vast profit margins are history. Beijing officials are more skeptical of the role of property developers in Hong Kong’s economy and society. And the younger generation of scions are a shadow of their fathers when it comes to both style and substance

RTHK reports…

Xia Baolong, Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, said some people attempted to politicise last year’s deadly Tai Po fire to stir up chaos.

Delivering a keynote speech via video link at the opening ceremony for National Security Education Day, Xia said Hong Kong must stay alert to the interference of external forces and fight smears against the SAR and attacks on the “One Country, Two Systems” principle.

Also…

…lawmaker Priscilla Leung said the National Security Education Day helps people to learn and understand the implementation of National Security Law and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

“National security education now is very important for ordinary people, as well as for the youth, to truly appreciate the implementation of the national security law as well as the national security ordinance in Hong Kong,” she said, adding it also acts as a protective layer for people’s lives and the nation.

…She believed that national security education [for students] had been “going on the right way”, noting that there were more education styles such as drama, music, and holding parades that allowed young people to participate and feel the significance and importance of national security “in a soft way”.

Plus…

Chief Secretary Eric Chan stressed on Wednesday that safeguarding security and promoting development are both essential to the implementation of “One Country, Two Systems”, while national security is the cornerstone of Hong Kong’s prosperity.

…”The SAR government will continue to adopt a multi-pronged approach to solidify the system for protecting national security, enhance law enforcement coordination, deepen national security education, uphold the principle of patriots administering Hong Kong, and prevent and mitigate all types of security risks,” he said.

Wait – there’s more…

Secretary for Justice Paul Lam said on Wednesday that Hong Kong does not strive for absolute security, which is in line with the country’s policy on national security.

…Lam said both the Chinese Constitution and the domestic security law see national security in terms of the political regime and sovereignty being “relatively” free from danger.

He noted that pursuing absolute security would be unsustainable and impractical, and that it would stifle development and go against international relations and the concept of peaceful co-existence.

“It’s made crystal clear that Hong Kong does not pursue absolute or generalised security. This is indeed, and has always been, the crux of our country’s approach to national security,” Lam said.

So it’s not “absolute or generalised”. But, from HKFP…

A Hong Kong man has been jailed for a year under the city’s homegrown national security law after pleading guilty to making seditious remarks on Facebook, including comments supporting Hong Kong and Taiwan independence.

…The magistrate handed [Raymond] Chong, a retiree in his early 60s, an 18-month sentence but discounted it by six months after considering his guilty plea.

Chong was accused of making 53 seditious social media posts between March 2024 and November 2025, local news outlet The Witness reported.

Apparently, you are threatening the national security of the People’s Republic of China – a country with the world’s second most powerful military – by posting on Facebook such phrases as: “dissolving the Chinese Communist Party is the most important thing”, “Hong Kong independence is within sight”, and “Heaven will destroy the Chinese Communist Party, God bless Hong Kong”.

Remember textiles-fortune scion and lawmaker Michael Tien sweeping the streets and sleeping in a tiny ‘cage home’ around 15 years ago? It was part of an RTHK TV series called Rich Mate Poor Mate, in which rich people experienced poverty in Hong Kong. Some of it was uploaded to YouTube back in the day. This playlist contains several 11-minute segments (with low visual quality). Worth checking them out in order: first, second, and third, in which snooker star Eric Lee sleeps on the streets and eventually gets work delivering food. 

Try to ignore the female narrator’s wildly inappropriate cheerful tone.

RTHK has since transformed from a public-service to a government broadcaster (and has wiped many of its archives). It’s hard to imagine this sort of content today.

HKFP reports…

The Hong Kong Women Development Association (HKWDA) said at a press conference on Monday that 98.7 per cent of respondents identified economic pressure as the biggest barrier to having children.

Meanwhile, 92.7 per cent mentioned housing problems as an obstacle, followed by a busy work schedule at 80.6 per cent.

The group said it surveyed a total of 2,413 people aged 19 to 49 between January 26 and February 23 this year.

The results showed that 33 per cent of those aged 30 to 39 wanted to have children – the highest share compared with other age groups. For the 19 to 29 and the 40 to 49 age groups, the figure was 16 per cent.

The Standard adds…

Housing remains a key concern. Although respondents viewed priority housing schemes for families with newborns as relatively effective, scoring 6.37 out of 10 for subsidized home ownership and 6.24 for public housing allocation, the association noted that such measures mainly benefit those eligible for subsidized schemes.

For many middle-class families struggling in the private housing market, the policies offer little direct relief, which may explain why housing continues to be cited as a major constraint.

Small surveys by NGOs are not always hyper-accurate, but this sounds broadly right. In my neighbourhood, more people have dogs than kids. Of around 15 people/couples in Hong Kong I think of as friends – none under 35 years of age – just three have children. And of course the government’s own stats show a birth rate of 0.73.

We all know that birth rates are now at similar levels in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which also have high housing costs and/or nightmarish school systems. And they’re in the 1.1-0.8 range in countries like Spain and Italy. US conservatives recently expressed alarm at the country’s birth rate hitting around 1.0. But developing countries are going the same way. China of course has never recovered from the one-child policy. Thailand is now below one child per woman. And, amazingly, the Philippines’ fertility rate has dropped below the 2.1 replacement level to 1.7. 

The HKWDA proposes lower salary taxes and cuts in home-purchase stamp duty for people with kids. These would yield trivial amounts of extra cash for most couples. If you offer every family with three kids a free 1,000-sq-ft apartment plus a domestic helper, you might see results. Otherwise, just live with the reality: women (in particular) want more from life than child-rearing, and we are entering an era of population decline.

From the (probably paywalled) WSJ…

China has helped Tehran endure years of U.S.-enforced isolation and has allowed it to sell oil and buy missile parts, drone components and other supplies to build up its military.

A significant part of that trade goes through Hong Kong. The city’s ease of setting up new companies and moving money has made it a global financial hub and a useful spot for evading sanctions.

A Treasury Department analysis found that entities in Hong Kong—most of them likely shell companies—transacted $4.8 billion in financial activity potentially related to Iranian shadow banking activity in 2024.

That was second only to the United Arab Emirates, which recorded $6.4 billion in transactions, almost entirely in Dubai. With the war in Iran raising new concerns about the security of Dubai, and the U.A.E. considering several options to crack down on Iranian shadow banking, more of this activity could shift to China.

Niao Collective presents an online collection of Hong Kong protest art.

Without informal, non-government (often missionary-run) schools on Kowloon rooftops, half of Hong Kong’s 1950s and 60s generation would have been illiterate. But today, a bookseller hosting a Spanish interest class in his store can be prosecuted…

Before handing down the [HK$32,000] fine, Magistrate Arthur Lam said he had found [store-owner Pong Yat-ming and his company] guilty of five charges alleging that [they] ran an unregistered school and allowed a person without a permit to teach.

…Magistrate Lam said the case centred around whether Book Punch met the definition of a school under the city’s Education Ordinance, which defines a school as an institution that provides formal education or “any other educational course by any means” for 20 people or more in a day, or eight people or more at one time.

Lam rejected the defence’s argument that an educational course must involve an assessment mechanism, such as exams, or lead to an academic qualification.

“A course is concerned about progress or… a series of lessons about a particular topic,” Lam said in Cantonese.

“In this case, it was obvious that Montane was teaching and the [students] were learning,” he said.

He also rejected the defence’s submission that Pong was led to believe that an interest class did not require registration because of a 2017 remark by ex-education chief Kevin Yeung … that interest classes such as those teaching dance and acting would not require school registration “because they are interests.”

Lam said Yeung’s remark came with a precondition that an interest class does not provide educational activities.

“The Spanish class in question offers information on basic grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, as well as common phrases for travelling,” the magistrate said. “These are clearly educational content.”

The fact that a CCP-run newspaper had mentioned the bookstore in connection with ‘soft resistance’ didn’t enter into the case at all – which seems odd. 

The magistrate hints at a distinction between ‘educational’ and ‘interest’ content. The law (here) seems to concern itself with actual schools, rather than informal study groups. But if the magistrate is right, it sounds as if ‘educating’ a group of eight people or more about anything is illegal unless you register with the authorities.

So who else should be fined for having an ‘unregistered school’? 

The fancy butcher chain Feather and Bone’s sausage-making classes? BiteUnite’s pasta-making ones? Corvino’s wine-appreciation courses? Dozens of pottery workshops? Flower-arranging? The YWCA’s swimming training for domestic helpers and refugees? Christian Sunday schools and Bible studies, and Buddhists’, Muslims’ and Jews’ equivalents? Golftec’s lessons on hitting little balls with sticks? What if nine people are trapped in an elevator because of a voltage dip and, to pass the time, one teaches the others some (say) Italian?  And let’s not forget ‘Learn English with Regina’…

Where do we report these outrages? It’s unregistered-school mayhem out there.

From RTHK…

Deputy Chief Secretary Warner Cheuk said on Saturday that the public should remain highly vigilant against “soft resistance” and acts that “skirt the line”.

His remarks came ahead of the National Security Education Day on April 15.

In an interview with Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po newspapers, Cheuk said safeguarding national security is a long-term battle and that it is crucial to bear in mind the lessons learned from 2019 ‘colour revolution’ in Hong Kong.

“Apart from the more conventional areas of national security concerns like political, military and homeland security, many non-conventional types of national security are also very important – such as financial, economic, social, cultural, technological, resource and data security, etc. Altogether there are 20 fields of national security,” he said.

“This is what we call a holistic national security concept.”

Sounds as if those people holding classes in sausages, pasta and wine need to watch out.

From Maya Wong of HRW, an obituary of Koo Sze-yiu…

…he continued protesting even after Beijing imposed the draconian National Security Law in 2020, under which dissent is punishable by life imprisonment. He also continued after being diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2020. As growing repression intimidated most Hong Kongers into silence and forced many into exile, Koo stayed. He protested the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. His last arrest came in December 2023 for “attempted sedition” after he planned to protest Hong Kong’s sham elections.

HKFP reports…

All Hong Kong restaurant licences will include national security clauses from September, Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan has said.

…According to an FEHD letter sent to restaurants, entertainment premises, and other businesses last year, business licence holders and “related persons” who engage in “offending conduct” against national security or the public interest could see their licences revoked. “Related persons” include directors, management, employees, agents, and subcontractors, the letter read.

…Some eatery owners told Ming Pao last year that they feared the new conditions were too vague and that they could lose their licences over false allegations.

However, Chief Executive John Lee said the FEHD was bound by law to safeguard national security, and the “offending conduct” against national security is “clearly stated” in the conditions.

RTHK story…

The clauses, [Tse] added, act as a constant reminder to restaurant managers and staff to protect national security.

So far, no restaurants have been found breaking the NatSec rules, but maybe this will be a way to eradicate ‘yellow’ shops.

Does anyone have a clue how a restaurant in Hong Kong can endanger the national security of the PRC – a nuclear power with the world’s second-mightiest military force? (Food poisoning?) And why insert special clauses into business licenses when NatSec laws already apply to every individual and organization in the city?

What other corporate activities need to be specifically required not to threaten the nation’s security? Bookstores we’ve done of course. But hairdressers? Laundries? Chiropodists? Cake shops? Kindergartens? (Whoops – kindergartens are already on board. Sorry.)

A Twitter thread on people who visit China for a few days and declare themselves experts. On medical costs in China: I was reading Deadly Quiet City by Murong Xuecun about Wuhan during the Covid outbreak – seriously depressing.

Flew into Hong Kong on Tuesday night. It seems I was one of 757,761 residents returning to the city at the end of the five-day weekend. That’s one in 10 of the population.

Melbourne is a genuinely impressive city: a distinctive gold-rush history and heritage, visible in plentiful older architecture; amazing Italian, Greek, Hunanese, etc food; cockatoos everywhere; a pleasing, slightly provincial buzz coexisting with a surprisingly cosmopolitan population; some grittiness but lots of quality of life. At ease with itself and not having to try. Unlike the poor erstwhile Pearl of the Orient, run by people desperately erasing its identity and installing a fake one in its place.

Locals complain that Melbourne is expensive. And they are basically right: rents and restaurant meals typically cost a mere 30% less than in Hong Kong (compared with Tokyo or Taipei at 50% less, and Shenzhen at 75% less). But public transport is free throughout the state of Victoria for the whole of April.

Bloomberg reports that Chinese officials have summoned the US Hong Kong consul-general…

…and urged the US to immediately cease all interference in Hong Kong and Beijing’s internal affairs.

The meeting followed a March 26 security alert from the US consulate general warning that it is now a criminal offense for anyone, including US citizens, to refuse to provide police with passwords or decryption access for personal electronic devices.

“In addition, the Hong Kong government also has more authority to take and keep any personal devices, as evidence, that they claim are linked to national security offenses,” the alert said.

…The Hong Kong government also expressed “strong dissatisfaction with misleading information and sweepingly generalised descriptions” of the new rules by foreign organizations and media.

How is issuing advice to your own citizens ‘interfering’ in Hong Kong and Beijing’s internal affairs?

As for dissatisfaction about overseas media, here’s a long, highly wrought government complaint about commentary on the NatSec Law updates, expressing…

…strong dissatisfaction with the misleading information and sweepingly generalised descriptions by certain foreign organisations and politicians, anti-China organisations and media…

Which was swiftly followed by a WSJ editorial…

On Monday Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee announced new national-security rules, effective immediately. Police can demand passwords from anyone suspected of violating the national-security law that outlaws dissent. They can also demand passwords from suspects’ interlocutors. And they can order family members, employers or anyone else who knows suspects’ passwords or decryption methods to provide them.

“A person is not excused from complying with the requirement on the ground that to do so” could “tend to incriminate the person” or would breach “an obligation as to secrecy” or “any other restrictions on the disclosure of information,” the new rules say.

Failure to comply is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison. Attorney-client privilege isn’t an excuse to refuse disclosing passwords. And once police make a demand, the subject must hand over the data and then seek a court order to make certain correspondence inadmissable at trial.

Watch for the Communist Party to use the new rule as another way to target the Hong Kong-based families of dissidents who live abroad. Parents may now be forced to choose between prison time and helping Hong Kong authorities fish for evidence to bring national-security charges against their children.

If police claim an employee is a suspect, they can now force an employer to provide full access to work accounts. Authorities can then trawl through phones and inboxes for correspondence or anything else.

In its weekly Monitor newsletter, HKFP offers some background on Hong Kong’s hazy book-banning…

Political titles have been quietly removed from the city’s library shelves since the Beijing-imposed national security law was passed in June 2020.

In 2021, HKFP reported that 29 books about the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown had been axed from libraries.

In 2023, local media reported that hundreds of titles had been pulled from libraries – most were related to democracy and protests in Hong Kong.

At the time, Chief Executive John Lee said the government had a duty to identify books with “bad ideologies.” “Books we are lending to the public are those recommended by the government,” he told the legislature.

But he said the public could still read them of their own accord and buy them at independent bookshops – a statement that may not hold today.

…Besides books disappearing from library shelves, bookstores appear to be exercising greater discretion in what books to stock.

…independent bookstores have spoken about the difficulty of navigating red lines, with some accused by Beijing-backed media of spreading “soft resistance.”

Last year, the House of Hong Kong Literature, a non-profit that promotes the city’s literary scene, halted its book fair, citing “factors beyond our control.”

On Wednesday, Secretary for Security Chris Tang evaded a question from a reporter at the Legislative Council about whether authorities planned to release a “banned book list.”

…pro-establishment lawmakers said it would be beneficial for the government to make clear what books are banned on national security grounds.

Lawmaker Junius Ho said authorities could take reference from the three-tier film classification system, under which movies are categorised as suitable for all ages, not suitable for young persons, and 18+ only.

The government could classify books as “banned,” “problematic but not banned,” and “a bit problematic,” he added.

There are no ‘non-problematic’ books, presumably.

The UK Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs’ six-monthly report on Hong Kong. Pretty much what you’d expect…

…we have continued to see developments that undermine Hong Kong’s political autonomy and pluralism. The Beijing-imposed National Security Law (NSL) continued to expand in scope and practice. Despite assurances that it would target only a “handful” of criminals, Hong Kong authorities made a further 69 arrests in 2025, including for displaying political slogans, peaceful protest and organising petitions.

The Hong Kong authorities also tried to silence criticism overseas. In July, they issued another round of arrest warrants and bounties, including those against members of the Hong Kong diaspora in the UK.

The Hong Kong government’s press statement. Also pretty much what you’d expect, but ratcheted up yet another notch on the mouth-frothing scale…

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) strongly condemns and must resolutely refute the untruthful remarks, slanders and smears against various aspects of the HKSAR in the so-called six-monthly report on Hong Kong…

A spokesman for the HKSAR Government stressed, “The HKSAR Government strongly condemns and firmly rejects the UK’s attempt through a so-called six-monthly report to make misleading and irresponsible remarks about Hong Kong matters, distort facts and reverse right and wrong, wantonly smear the human rights and rule of law situation of Hong Kong and attempt to interfere in the HKSAR Government’s law-based governance by despicable political maneuvers. 

(For fans of such diatribes: an instant response to the so-called UK’s report from Legco.)

Is ‘must resolutely refute’ a new one? We need fresh ideas like this.

I’m in Australia for the next week or so. A few pics of Rooburgers or something on Twitter/Bluesky. maybe.

From HKFP…

The founder and three staff members of Hong Kong independent bookshop Book Punch have been released on bail after they were arrested by national security police over allegedly selling “seditious books.”

Mark Clifford, author of one of the ‘seditious’ works, writes in a WSJ op-ed…

Book Punch is a shop that hits above its weight. One of Hong Kong’s last independent bookstores, it has been harassed by the government for years. Owner Pong Yat-ming has been dragged into court for giving Spanish lessons and serving sake at a Japanese-themed event.

On Tuesday police charged Mr. Pong and three employees with selling seditious books, including “The Troublemaker,” my biography of Jimmy Lai. Under Hong Kong’s vague and sweeping national-security laws, that offense carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison. The defendants were released on bail Wednesday, but the store remains closed.

Can a jurisdiction that doesn’t want its citizens to read books or learn Spanish seriously call itself a global financial center? Financial centers need freedom—to speak, to debate, to discuss, to argue. Free speech in a modern economy is not a luxury. It’s needed for economic efficiency, price discovery, efficient financial markets and good policy.

Throwing booksellers in prison is a major stumble for any government interested in prosperity. Nobody understands that better than Mr. Lai, 78, who has spent decades fighting for Hong Kong’s freedom. In early February, a kangaroo court sentenced him to 20 years in prison for practicing journalism…

Now, along with hundreds of other political prisoners, Mr. Lai is behind bars. But as the example of Book Punch’s brave owner and staff shows, the spirit of freedom remains in Hong Kong’s DNA. Pro-democracy candidates have enjoyed great support in elections since the 1990s and did so well in 2019 that Beijing changed the electoral system to guarantee the election of more pro-Beijing candidates. Six years after forcing a repressive national-security law on Hong Kong, thin-skinned authorities have been fretting about “soft resistance.” Well, resistance doesn’t get much softer than books.

Referring to NatSec justice (no jury, hand-picked judges, 99% conviction rate, etc) as a ‘kangaroo court’ is presumably what upsets the authorities so much – it’s ‘vilification’, if not ‘incitement’. At the same time, Clifford is being generous in saying the new election rules guarantee ‘more’ pro-Beijing candidates, when results so far suggest the word ‘only’ would be more appropriate.

NatSec measures do have a tendency to produce bad PR for Hong Kong – almost as if the government is vilifying itself. A security alert from the US Consulate in Hong Kong…

It is now a criminal offense to refuse to give the Hong Kong police the passwords or decryption assistance to access all personal electronic devices including cellphones and laptops. This legal change applies to everyone, including U.S. citizens, in Hong Kong, arriving or just transiting Hong Kong International Airport. In addition, the Hong Kong government also has more authority to take and keep any personal devices, as evidence, that they claim are linked to national security offenses.

Authorities are now feeling the need to ‘clarify’ that the new updates to the NatSec Law do not mean cops can force you to hand over your phone on the street (RTHK, Standard).

A Joel Chan thread on the latest population figures in Hong Kong by region and district shows that the population of Hong Kong Island has fallen 7% since mid-2019, and that of Wanchai by 10.1%. 

Hong Kong Island’s population is just one-seventh of the whole city’s. Kowloon’s population has fallen 2.7% since mid-2019. But the New Territories – where the majority of the city’s people live – has risen by 3.2%, so the total population decline nets out at just 0.3%. 

Not sure how the government compiles such precise numbers, given that no full census has taken place in that period. But, if they’re accurate, you have to wonder what sort of impact the disappearance of a tenth of residents must have on a neighbourhood. (Or not. It’s not as if Wanchai seems any less crowded.)

Lingua Sinica report on the Hong Kong Newspaper Association’s annual Best Journalism Awards. The main winner: Ta Kung Pao…

…run by the PRC government’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong, took home 29 prizes. It was record for the group and the largest haul for any media outlet in this year’s competition … The result [offers] plaudits to a state-run outlet that has been on the front lines in attacks on independent journalists and institutions (including the Hong Kong Journalists Association)…

RTHK reports…

Officials are planning to turn a typhoon shelter in southern Hong Kong into a marina equipped with recreational facilities and residential housing in a bid to promote yacht tourism.

The Development Bureau on Wednesday said it expects to launch a tendering exercise next year to seek developers to construct the marina in the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter expansion area.

In a paper submitted to Southern District Council, the authorities said the planned 11-hectare marina could offer 200 berths.

The other part of the proposal includes turning a 1.16-hectare site around Po Chong Wan into residential units as well as other facilities for services such as food and beverage and yacht maintenance “to make better use of the piece of land”.

…The shelter area is among three proposed locations outlined in the chief executive’s policy address to boost yacht tourism.

The other two are the former Lamma quarry area and the Hung Hom harbourfront.

Even assuming that Hong Kong needs ‘yacht tourism’ – do we really need three marinas? As for the housing, it will of course be of the luxury sort.

How is Mark Clifford’s book on Jimmy Lai ‘seditious’? The Standard quotes a source…

…The seized biography of Lai allegedly disregards facts by glorifying Lai’s actions in colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security, attacks Hong Kong’s judicial personnel, misrepresents the government’s detention arrangements for Lai, and deliberately vilifies Hong Kong and the mainland in an attempt to incite sedition among Hong Kong residents.

Have the authorities detected any evidence of the book inciting any sedition among Hong Kong residents? Is it criminal to ‘disregard facts’, ‘glorify’ someone’s actions, criticize judges or prisons, or ‘vilify’ places?