Twilight of the spineless

Hong Kong’s most morbid pastime is ‘Guess the Next Chief Executive’. Today the spotlight turns on Secretary for Propping Up Sunset Industries Edward Yau, who is dashing, sophisticated and oozing charisma. They could appoint a garoupa and it wouldn’t make any difference – but it’s more fun watching it happen to a human being.

On the subject of those who so generously provide us with our sadistic pleasure, maybe we should end the week by sparing a thought for the shoe-shiners. We mentioned Alice Mak yesterday, and how the hangers-on and buffoons of the legislature’s pro-Beijing camp have suddenly lost their smirks. Today the NYT looks at Hong Kong’s co-opted tycoons, whom the CCP ‘has enriched, and intimidated’.

Like the wannabe local politicians who unthinkingly recite party idiocies for a pat on the head, our business ‘elites’ suddenly find they are not immortal, not indispensable – indeed, not valued in the slightest by a thuggish Leninist mafia that has buried millions of innocents to keep power. I can’t remember how often I have to say it, but he who lives by the shoe-shine, dies by the shoe-shine. It’s a lovely sight.

As the extradition bill oozes its last few drops of blood, here’s an SCMP Young Post op-ed (really) that has perhaps not aged especially well since the author submitted it (enjoy it while it’s still on-line)…

In fairness, they also present this.

I declare the weekend open with some illuminating or amusing links.  

Did you get your HK$500 from the CIA?

In case you missed it, the decline of Hong Kong’s civil service.

Kevin Carrico’s paper on the National Anthem bill as ‘legal malware’. (The word among nervous pro-Beijing shoe-shiners is that the Liaison Office will go Full Freak-Out Berserk if the anthem law doesn’t get passed smoothly. In case you wondered.)

Howard French on how censorship of Hong Kong’s protests show Beijing’s ‘extreme fragility’.

And what it means for Xi Jinping’s vision of ‘enforced homogeneity’ and absorption of Taiwan.

For linguist types, the dai pai dong runes – or Hong Kong diner waitresses’ shorthand.

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7 Responses to Twilight of the spineless

  1. Sam Clemens says:

    What was that old Hemlock description of every CCP sycophant’s inescapable final destiny as being placed on a conveyor belt, at the end of which is a giant boot that kicks him or her in the face?

    Something like that, anyway.

    So apt and so true.

  2. Big Al says:

    Edward Yau is a slimeball from a family of slimeballs – just look at that face. He’s been eyeing the top job for years, the smug fucker. He is the synthesis of the worst of Tung, Tsang, Leung and Lam. How could he NOT be anointed as the next CE? I weep for Hong Kong – we’ll look back on today as being the “good old days”.

  3. old git says:

    Saint Joshua Wong has just saved Lantau from being trashed:

    “The Legco secretariat announces the Finance Committee meeting this afternoon is cancelled.”

    Which means that HKD500 mio will not be voted for “Studies related to Artificial Islands in Central Waters”.

    Hip hip, HOORAY!

  4. @Sam Clemens – I believe you’re thinking of Orwell: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.” (1984) But maybe Hemlock added the conveyor belt.

  5. Joe Blow says:

    I am old enough to remember that prior to Queen Carrie’s coronation in 2017 the popular choice for CEO was John Tsang.

    Where is John?
    Why can’t we have him as CEO ?

  6. Mary Melville says:

    Following up on my previous rant about flogging our public parks to developers, yesterday’s SCMP Classified full front page – AECOM recruitment for CEDD Site Formation of Police Facilities at Kong Nga Po, with a smaller ad inside for CEDD contract for Landslip Prevention. Three other ads for Drainage, EPD and expansion of United Christian Hospital contracts.
    How can there not be a conflict of interest in AECOM conducting the obviously fake CEDD consultation into excavating Kowloon Park to sell/lease for a commercial mall when it is so blatantly embedded in government?
    If only I was poor enough to qualify for Legal Aid and could launch a judicial review into the flagrant abuse of the system.
    Remember your local park could be the next target.

  7. Chief Inspector Egon Myface says:

    A prescient title — although after Friday night’s thorough trolling, perhaps we should go fully Wagnerian: “Twilight of the Plods” or “Cöpperdämmerung”

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