A couple of items that may or may not warrant forthright responses from the government press-release writers…
Washington Post op-ed co-authored by Samuel Bickett calls for sanctions to cut off banks and other companies involved in illicit trade off from the US financial system…
Once a trusted global financial center aligned with Western democracies and governed by the rule of law, our new report with the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation details how Hong Kong has become the world’s leader in such practices as importing and re-exporting banned Western technology to Russia, forming untraceable front companies for the purchase and sale of barred Iranian oil, and managing “ghost ships” that illegally trade natural resources with North Korea.
Hong Kong’s business-friendly policies, which make it easy to conceal corporate ownership and quickly create and dissolve companies, allow illicit actors to make a mockery of U.S. and Western sanctions. At the same time, slow and inconsistent enforcement by Western governments has allowed those actors to continue their operations with relative impunity. The United States can and should address this situation without delay.
…Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee’s statement in October 2022 confirming that the territory would not enforce U.S. sanctions offered a green light to illicit operators who had set up shop in the city. Since then, many more have done so, from Russian tanker owners to Iranian exporters of drone technology.
…other jurisdictions in places such as Central Asia and the Middle East play a significant role in sanctions evasion. Yet Hong Kong stands out for the sheer volume and breadth of its involvement with rogue nations. In 2022, only mainland China shipped more integrated circuits and semiconductors to Russia than Hong Kong did — and the difference between them was small.
BBC radio documentary – Erasing Hong Kong…
Authorities are attempting to erase and rewrite history – both the recent history of pro-democracy protests, as well as Hong Kong’s 180-year history as a British colony … and how ordinary people are trying to resist.
Includes the disappearance of Luisa Lim’s Indelible City from public libraries and the wiping of RTHK’s archives.
An obituary of barrister Alvin Cheung, who spotted what was happening 10 years before everyone else…
A Canadian citizen of Hong Kong descent, Mr. Cheung, 38, was a Hong Kong barrister in 2009 when he noted the insistent and steady encroachments by Beijing on the former British colony, especially through the city’s supposedly independent common law courts. As he studied how authoritarian governments manipulate law to seize and retain power, Mr. Cheung wrote tirelessly about the coming downfall of legal and civil rights in his hometown years before Beijing seized control.
Mr. Cheung was not satisfied just with sharing his concerns among fellow lawyers and academics. With his characteristic, even caustic wit — he once described Beijing’s intervention in a Hong Kong decree as a political “temper tantrum” — Mr. Cheung told journalists and his social media followers that the Chinese and Hong Kong governments had weaponized law to undermine the city’s autonomy and degrade civil rights.
RIP to a true patriot (of Hong Kong): Alvin Cheung
Very sad news about Alvin Cheung, who indeed was unhappily vindicated, time and again.
OT from RTHK:
Olympic gold medallist Vivian Kong will start work at the Jockey Club this weekend, just days after announcing her retirement from professional fencing.
That was quick. I guess the last 10 years or so she has been collecting law degrees will come in useful as an assistant external affairs manager.
At this point you have to wonder if HKSARG isn’t beginning to regret locking up Samuel à Bickett on trumped up charges to appease the cops, presumably working on the assumption:
“Let’s face it — what’s the worst one mouthy little gweilo can do? Him and the US consulate’ll just whine a bit and then we’ll send him off home, tell him he can’t come back and we’ll never hear from him again. Job done. Meantime we keep the dogs onside by showing them support, and wave the stick at the uppity gweilos, too: it’s win-win!”
Cut to two years after his release and deportation and what’s the betting they’re now all running about crying “Will no one rid us of this troublesome brief?” as he loudly reveals his plan to scupper their last hope of dragging the economy out of a self-induced nosedive.
@Canterbury – Well, well, well. There’s a certain uncanniness about that quote you’ve created. Sounds like every other expat cop I’ve known when it comes to ballsing up arrests and fabricating charges,
@Canterbury Fails
Indeeed. And the whole concept of “if we burn, you burn with us” is alive and well as Hong Kong keeps getting one black eye after another with non stop ridicule from the western press.
Also the tin pot cartels like the taxi cartel are starting to really age badly when even mainland are offering more official flexibility to ride hailing apps than HK, who is openly refusing to allow competitive ride hailing due to how it affects the parasite class.
@Canterbury Fails: You’re assuming the lapdogs of the CCP and their master give a shit about what ANYone thinks.
Vivian is being ‘groomed’. A few years at JC to connect with the movers and shakers. Then an appointment as under secretary with the next adminstration.
JC should make a book on this.
Hong Kong has also been shipping hundreds of millions of USD worth of high-end AI and server semiconductors over the border in contravention of US ban on their sale to China. A once mighty trading outpost reduced to peddling illicit goods all over the world. How low can you go?
The HK puppet gov have become masters of the art of kicking thenselves in their own ass using the Streisand effect.
Many anti-gov articles in the international press (which, of course, is the only place they can appear now) would pass unnoticed in HK, at least by me, if not for the borderline-insane response by whichever clown is charged with generating today’s North-Korea-style mouth-frothing press release.
@Chinese Netizen
I take your point, and sort of agree, but on the flip side, there’s a plethora of delightful evidence that they desperately care what people think: the fact they bothered to “enact” a “National” “Security” “Law”; the elaborately rigged “elections” to a powerless “legislature”; the hundreds of outraged press releases denouncing “the bad stuff X said about us this week”; the slow shift to censoring the internet and social media; arresting folk for waving their hands in the air or wearing a T-shirt; the huge kerfuffle over the real anthem vs the official anthem.
The list goes on and on, and it screams “hugely insecure government”. The whole thing is weird, illogical and childish, but that’s the CCP for you.
A more detailed obituary for Alvin Cheung, who will be sadly missed. One can only imagine that recent political events contributed to his depression.
https://archive.ph/z0Rri