Chief Executive Carrie Lam takes the election-boycott agony onto a new level of mind games: if you don’t vote it means you love me and also have a very tiny penis, so there. (If her mysterious ancient-wisdom ‘saying’ about satisfied citizens not voting is correct, DAB/FTU/Regina-followers who turn out are challenging the CCP. Discuss.)
Slightly Weird Report of the Week Award goes to the SCMP story that mentions in passing that the Hong Kong Police plan to ‘publish a book on the Greater Bay Area for kindergartens’. Hipper than writing parking tickets, I guess.
Courtesy of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, an Apple Daily special edition with contributions from Kevin Carrico and others – for Jimmy Lai’s 74th birthday.
Reporters Without Borders issue a report on plummeting press freedom in Hong Kong.
CMP on why China’s patriotic blockbuster Battle at Lake Changjin is a hit at home and a flop overseas (includes brutal extracts from movie reviews)…
…while The Battle at Lake Changjin may have been a domestic success, earning more than 895 million dollars by the end of November, it has seriously misfired internationally, and the self-congratulatory tone of much coverage inside China points to the continued myopia of the country’s media system when it comes to crafting stories the rest of the world can relate to.
CNN offers a plain and effective guide to Beijing’s insistence that it is a democracy.
And as a reminder of what Chinese-style democracy is missing, check out this presidential campaign ad from Chile. Been replaying this all morning.
Mark Simon’s letter to Jimmy Lai:
https://lettertolai.genevasummit.org/i-want-to-see-my-friend-jimmy-lai/
I still haven’t figured out how village, township and county direct elections are supposed to work in China. Is there an official screening mechanism like for the “improved” Legco elections? Because from what I read CCP just harasses the shit out of independent candidates until they quit. I also read that sometimes people are urged (read: coerced) to vote for a particular candidate and in other cases people who show up to vote are turned away and it appears like polling officials are just ballot stuffing
@Mark Bradley – Suggest you read the CNN guide from the link provided above.
Did anyone see the cartoon in the Alibaba Yawn today? Was that “Englishman” Mike Rowse in the picture? (Functional Constituency Candidate of “Useless Washed Up Gwailos”)
@Penny
“Suggest you read the CNN guide from the link provided above.”
I read the CNN guide BEFORE posting that. All it says is that these elections are “scripted”. No shit. Details please! I provided more details of how it’s rigged than the CNN article itself. I mainly want to know if there are formal “legal” mechanisms like an unelected CCP controlled vetting committee or if it’s all blatantly unlawful thuggery and fraud.
@Mark Bradley: See the village “elections” in Guangdong many years ago (before great eminent super hero Shit Jumping became a household word) in which a popular villager won the office of Village Honcho (or something like that). I can’t recall all the details but did find this piece examining what eventually happened…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-wukan-insight/in-chinas-democracy-village-no-one-wants-to-talk-any-more-idUSKBN1DA15F
@Chinese Netizen
Cheers!
Oops! Silly me! I made the assumption that the CNN article and previous knowledge of CCP methodology was all one really needed to know about elections in China.