Focusing on the economy

The Audit Commission finds some easy pickings: public bodies failing to include NatSec provisions in their paperwork…

The watchdog said the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education (HKAGE), an NGO fully funded by the government, had not established any measures to safeguard national security.

Such measures were also missing from…

…Hongkong’s Post contracts with stamp designers, the Department of Health’s contracts with an institution to provide dental services for the elderly, and the Transport Department’s contracts for buses for rehabilitation services.

Director of Audit Nelson Lam said in an interview with Ming Pao in February that some government departments and public organisations “completely disregarded” the national security law after it was enacted.

Good to see we are alert to national security threats lurking among providers of dental services to the elderly.

RFA on patriotism in Hong Kong schools…

…Teachers at [a NT] school have been warned “not to directly or indirectly encourage or acquiesce in students’ participation in any off-campus political activities,” according to the report, a copy of which is available on the school’s website.

…The Kowloon Technical College has also been checking its library, and has banned seven books, according to its report for last academic year.

“On March 15-16, 2023, the vice principal, director of reading promotion and the library director inspected the library collection and found a total of seven books containing political propaganda,” the report said.

The Christian Alliance Cheng Wing Gee College requires its teachers to upload any teaching materials to the school’s intranet for approval before using them in class, while teachers are focusing on “boosting national and ethnic pride” as a natural part of the day-to-day curriculum, according to its report.

Meanwhile, students at the Tai Po Baptist Public School have been attending Chinese national flag-raising ceremonies on designated days to establish “correct values ​​and patriotic feelings.”

…Students who are deemed to have violated national security laws, which include clauses forbidding public criticism of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, or any non-critical mention of the pro-democracy movement, will be counseled, punished or have their parents called in, depending on the seriousness of the alleged offense, the reports said.

And the government responds at great length to more foreign criticism of the Article 23 law…

…strongly opposed the so-called resolution adopted by the European Parliament against Hong Kong, and strongly condemned the Parliament for making baseless allegations about Hong Kong and smearing the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL) and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (the Ordinance)…

…”…the Parliament has demonstrated typical political hegemony and hypocrisy with double standards.”

…”Following the successful enactment of the Ordinance, the shortcomings in the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for the HKSAR to safeguard national security are addressed. We must once again emphasise that the Ordinance is a piece of legislation to defend against external forces that endanger our national security, acting like a sturdier door and a more effective door lock to defend our home. The HKSAR Government strongly urges the European Parliament to stop smearing and interfering in Hong Kong affairs which are internal affairs of China and ensure that their remarks concerning the NSL and the Ordinance are fair and just, and stop making scaremongering remarks”… 

Over two years after being arrested, Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho, and Lee Cheuk-yan hear that their trial for ‘inciting subversion of state power’ (June 4 vigil) will not take place until next year. Chow and Lee have been in jail the whole time.

A little weekend reading…

Asia Review of Books on a new work about the original Chinese TV chef.

And the Diplomat looks at moves to replace Mongolia’s Cyrillic alphabet – introduced by the USSR – with its pre-1940s Bichig, derived from a Uighur alphabet that had common ancestry with Arabic and Hebrew scripts. The writer sees this as strengthening cultural ties with China (though Beijing has been replacing Mongolian and Uighur with Chinese in its own ethnic-minority schools)…

On the whole, the history of Mongolian script reform and official foreign language education is not about a natural process of cultural evolution, but an artificial political project. Political decisions ultimately determine the type of alphabet to be used. In the long run, then, Ulaanbaatar’s efforts to strengthen the restoration of bichig while promoting English education may directly or indirectly affect Moscow’s and Beijing’s policies toward Mongolia.

The first thing I see this morning on Twitter – in other words, the first thing I see this morning – is a newspaper cover. A vivid reminder of the glorious horror that is a free press, and specifically of Apple Daily. The Daily Star (Scotland edition), with the headlines: ‘Greasy fry-ups will turn us into zombies’, ‘Britain’s hardest seagull is a wuss’, and ‘All you’ll ever need to know about marshmallows’ – plus an ad for discount Coca Cola.