From China Law Translate, an English version of the NPC’s decision on rolling representative government in Hong Kong back to 1991. And from NPC Observer, a detailed explanation of the wording.
Beijing officials gush that this means ‘strong positive energy can be gathered under the banner of patriotism and love for Hong Kong’. For some really classy-cum-desperate rhetoric, no-one can do better than lawmaker Regina Ip, whose political-biological clock is ticking away loudly – this is her last ever chance to be Chief Executive – who says the…
electoral reform is not to suppress democracy, but to cure the ills of the existing system, and to explore a path toward epistocracy.
Note that no local or national official has suggested the idea that the ‘improvements’ are aimed at exploring a path to ‘rule of the knowledgeable’, or indeed to anything other than tighter CCP control. This is simply poor old Reg attempting to: justify the eradication of any representative government in Hong Kong; strike the CCP as loyal and compellingly useful; and sound – yes – knowledgeable, with those fancy big words.
Do enjoy the replies to that tweet.
To get a sense of where we’re going, historians would recommend looking back to see where we’ve come from. HKFP recounts the path of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement from the early 80s up to today, when…
…all the leading pro-democracy candidates have been arrested for subversion … Court proceedings are underway in a chaotic mix of common law conventions and mainland-style rules … judges strain to produce coherent rulings…
As a (probably paywalled) FT story puts it:
The subversion trial has highlighted how some mainland legal practices now supersede Hong Kong norms in national security trials, such as the previous presumption of bail for most defendants.
Those who espouse elitist rule always consider themselves to be among the elite.
When Vagina Ip founded her party she would only accept members with a university degree. So her elitist tendencies are nothing new. Just don’t tell the pro-China plebs whose votes she needs to remain politically relevant.
Best way to get around the FT paywall is Google the article name and click it via Google results. I have been able to read every hk related FT article this way.
Vagina is the most resolute epistocrat!
@ Thankyou Mr Bradley – we’ll get that little loophole filled before long. We do appreciate how public spirited of our informants are!
Let’s just call it the HK People’s Congress and get it over with.
Sesame Street today was brought to you by the word ‘epistocracy’
If Big Bird et al. are working backwards through the dictionary, we’ll soon be getting ‘episiotomy’. Regina in kinky boots, a mask, and with a sharpened grappling hook should induce across the Mid-Levels a Mexican Wave of grade 10 ouches.
“ Thankyou Mr Bradley – we’ll get that little loophole filled before long. We do appreciate how public spirited of our informants are!”
They allow it on purpose in the desperate hope that people will buy a subscription. It is intentional because usually I need to take a quick survey before viewing content but that beats paying the absolute rip off subscription fee
Regina used to describe herself on Facebook as a “public intellectual”. If she still does I know not and can’t be arsed to check but “public idiot” would be more appropriate though it does explain her trawling of the dictionary. As far as her chances of getting the CE job, she fucked up so badly in 2003 I doubt the overlords would consider her worthy on an assistant under-secretary’s job.
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1580642-20210315.htm?spTabChangeable=0
That’s a guaranteed screw-up then but what gives her the idea that her masters will allow her any options?
My guess is that Ms. Ip came to the screwball libertarian idea of epistocracy from online discussions of how Singapore might qualify as one of those–which it doesn’t. And even for hardcore western advocates of such a mode of governance, from Plato to John Stuart Mill to Walter Lippman to, I don’t know, Emmanuel Macron?, the obvious premise in the case of Hong Kong–that the CCP and its acolytes constitute the “elite” that gets to “vote”–is a non-starter.
As Bugs Bunny put it, “What a maroon.”
A Hong Kong delegate to the National People’s Congress, Stanley Ng, said he thinks the election committee should pick 50 of the 90 legislators.
Ng said 20 seats should be retained by the special interest functional constituencies, leaving 20 for the public to vote on.
Ng does not get it, the FTU is ‘loyal garbage’ and destined to be sidelined. Scroll back to Nov 2019 DC election : Speaking a day after the pro-Beijing party’s 57 candidates – out of the 62 it fielded – were defeated, Ng said the FTU should not be blamed for the rout, saying it was simply caused by the current political environment.
Rewarding losers with safe appointed seats is not part of ‘the plan’