No jokes, please

The government complains about another Zunzi cartoon in Ming Pao. And the paper suspends the strip…

In an interview … Wong Kei-kwan had told AFP “jokes can be very dangerous”.

“The powerful try to… make the masses believe there is no one else but them to follow,” he said.

“Jokes can quickly pierce through all this and nail the lies. They can drag the powerful down from their thrones.”

Here’s one of his last ones (inspired by this) – the Long March Tours guide says ‘This way comrades, just another six hours to the Tsim Sha Tsui ham and egg rice place’…

No, you can’t have Chickeeduck, either. (Could potentially have been an iconic local brand exporting HK soft power.)

More NatSec threats to be tackled – the government wants to arrest people for having a black bauhinia flag on a website?

Thread by Eric Yan on the amendments giving the authorities the right to bar overseas lawyers from Hong Kong courts

Don’t do a cartoon of it… Even all-patriot LegCo members are getting stroppy about the low-value Mainland tour groups…

Some 1,700 mainland group tours visiting Hong Kong in recent months cost just 500 yuan (HK$565.60) or less, with 87 percent of the 9,600 tours arriving since February staying for just a day or two, according to the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau.

Since the Travel Industry Authority began requiring licensed Hong Kong agents to provide fare information on inbound mainland tour groups on March 29, it received a total of 3,183 itineraries – 54 percent of which cost 500 yuan or less.

The figures came out in a response to inquiries made at the Legislative Council by Federation of Trade Unions lawmaker Kwok Wai-keung, who said the tours had caused road obstructions in districts such as To Kwa Wan and Hung Hom and had “unsatisfactory” meal arrangements.

Kwok cited views that the tours – said to be “low cost, low quality” with the uptick in mainland visitors causing discontent among locals – was a “lose-lose” situation that caused public nuisances and deprived visitors of a good experience.

How do the tour operators even make money from bussing in all these apparently elderly rural folk who grab local barbarian babies for photos? Could it be they are all issued with dutiable goods (eg cigarettes southbound, phones northbound) to smuggle? 

Al Jazeera on the implications for foreign businesses after raids on compliance and consulting companies in China…

In a lengthy news report on Monday, CCTV said unspecified Western countries had carried out “rampant theft” of intelligence in critical industries related to China’s military and economy and accused “overseas institutions” of using consultancy firms to collect sensitive information.

The report accused Capvision of pressuring local experts to reveal company or state secrets on behalf of unknown clients, and said a senior researcher at a state-owned enterprise was sentenced to six years in prison on espionage charges related to their work for the consulting company.

From Andrew Batson – with Beijing ordering a ‘better life’, ‘accelerating the construction of a modernized industrial system that supports the real economy’, national security, industrial policy and technological self-reliance, where is China supposed to be going?

Foreign Affairs fears China could inadvertently talk itself into war over Taiwan…

The dynamics among China’s political leadership, its policy elite, and the broader public have generated an internal feedback loop that is not entirely within Xi’s comprehension or control. This could result in China’s being fully mobilized for war even without Xi deciding to attack Taiwan.

Nikkei Asia sees Beijing calming down over Taiwan invasion threats…

…anonymously written [non-censored] articles that thoroughly reject China’s hawkish “wolf-warrior diplomacy” are being reposted on different portals, with their content slightly changed and the tone of their headlines becoming increasingly strong. They all emphasize the likelihood of China being plunged into a “four-front operation,” suggesting the country would be surrounded by enemies on four sides. Another belief is also gaining disciples: Those who shout “Taiwan unification by force” are “stupid.”

The Diplomat on how the US is not so sure…

“They know that their training needs to be more realistic and probably more wholesome… They’re sitting around a lot not really having realistic difficult exercises and training when they need it,” Waltz said in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “…We particularly in the special operations community are working with them to move more towards a partisan resistance model,” he added.

Another twist on the ‘China discovered America first’ claim. This one isn’t so absurd given that there were no such peoples as ‘Siberians’ or ‘Chinese’ 20,000 years ago.