With no soul, and no capacity to feel happiness or joy, former Chief Executive CY Leung must be one of the most miserable people in Hong Kong. The nearest he comes to experiencing emotional fulfillment is when he is pulling the wings off butterflies. Failing that, he uses Facebook to ‘shame’ companies with the temerity to advertise in the anti-Communist Apple Daily.
CY proclaims himself to be disgusted by an article that (quite viciously) attacked a prominent pro-Beijing businessman who had died just days before. Coming from someone impartial and compassionate – a nun, say – this claim to moral outrage might be halfway convincing. Coming from a full-blown supporter/member of the thuggish Leninist CCP, it’s opportunistic and hypocritical, and indeed compounds the disrespect for the deceased shoe-shiner.
Despite (or maybe because of) his pitiful attempts to remain useful, CY will one day find that the Communist Party is dispensing with him. Maybe his over-eagerness will become too much of an embarrassment (as it did when he was CE), or shifting circumstances will leave him kowtowing to the wrong faction, or his value will simply fade and expire. If he’s lucky, he will be tossed away and forgotten. But there’s always a chance that he will come to a stickier end – purged, scapegoated, falsely accused or denounced. In which case, he will receive the CCP’s finest reserved-for-its-own kick in the teeth. Maybe such an honour will actually make him happy at last.
I declare the weekend open with some updates on the CCP’s latest contributions to civilization and progress. The NYT on how Beijing is sanitizing popular culture and infantilizing the nation. An attempt to gauge China’s ever-expanding internal security apparatus. The spread of Communist ideology in education (including some familiar-to-HK-sounding stuff on getting little kids to do flag-raising ceremonies). And a response to the school that has silenced Professor Xu Zhangrun, critic of all this creeping totalitarianism.
CY is a remarkable man and unites Hong Kong – young and old, rich or poor, pro-dem or pro establishment. By God even the CCP in 2017 made a decision about him that found near universal favour amongst the community. It would be such a shame for a man with his unique talent to just fade away.
When the time finally comes that the CCP Disciplinary Board orders CY to write 20 pages of self criticism for supporting the wrong party line, he will write 30 pages instead, just to be on the right side of obsequiousness. Then Christine Loh will write a column praising his high moral character and she will mention Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li’s names only 7 times while dropping subtle hints that she is totally available for whatever cushy job comes along in regard to the Greater Bay Area Glorious Motherland Plan Zone Vision.
But Joe Blow forgot to mention that Ms Christine Loh will be exhorting HK to throw off its colonial mindset, while she doggedly hangs on to her Order of the British Empire (how much more colonial can you get than THAT…?)
And on the matter of people falling from grace and out of the public eye, what has happened to poor old Ron..? Mr. Arculli has not been appointed to a committee for over a year now – what IS going on..?
He’ll be useful to keep around to make other appointed leaders look better by comparison.
@ Des Espoir
Mr. Arculli has aged considerably and is no longer the vigorous man he once was. He has curtailed his business and social engagements accordingly.
Re: The spread of Communist ideology in education link:
“It is essential to gradually open and upgrade ideological and political theory courses in primary, secondary and tertiary schools, which is an important guarantee for training future generations who are well-prepared to join the socialist cause,” Xi Jinping was quoted as saying at a March 18 symposium for ideological and political theory teachers in Beijing. “Ideological and political courses should deliver the country’s mainstream ideology and directly respond to false ideas and thoughts.”
Not sure how that’s meant to help when all the princelings go to US Ivy League schools.
@ A Harvard reign
The princelings are a small minority and most can be relied on to back the system that facilitates their privileged state. The ones in need of assimilation are the rising middle classes who mostly attend domestic universities.
In any case, the CCP has all of them under its wing for primary and secondary. Most (though not all) of the ones I’ve met in tertiary institutions in Hong Kong and the west already bear the hallmarks of PRC state education.