Pandas to the rescue

CE John Lee says the Hong Kong economy will improve next year, thanks in part to the arrival of two baby panda bears. The Standard report also mentions the possibility of a ‘giant panda economy’. (We must now accommodate no fewer than six of the lumbering, dull-witted beasts. And the babies look nightmarishly repulsive, like the thing in Eraserhead.)

HKFP op-ed on the way forward for Hong Kong’s economy identifies some problems…

…Hong Kong has relied on a civil service operating on auto-pilot, a finance industry cosily protected by the Hong Kong dollar, elites happy to dine out on high property prices, and a government squeezing every last dollar out of its land bank for tax revenue. One of the main reasons for Hong Kong’s privileged position over the mainland – the rule of law – is rapidly eroding, leading global businesses to quietly skirt it for more stable climes.

…The potentially long-term structural decline in China’s fortunes will make it more difficult for Hong Kong to rely on the mainland. It will also force Hong Kong to reinvent itself.

…Hong Kong needs to find new sources of economic growth. It must differentiate itself from the mainland in order to fashion itself as an international city, rather than as a glossy and expensive part of the Greater Bay Area.

The author (a capital markets guy) suggests encouraging fund management, trade in renminbi-denominated derivatives and promotion as a base for MNCs to manage Asian supply chains. Obviously not as depressing as cramming dozens of millions more tourists in and declaring chunks of land hub-zones. But it’s still grasping at straws, partly because it’s limited in scope, but especially as it’s contingent on Hong Kong independently improving relations with the West when (as he says) the Beijing officials in charge worry mainly about foreign forces.

(As the panda desperation shows, straws are all we really have. If pushed, I’d suggest enabling smaller local entrepreneurs, who – after decades of being squeezed out by rent-seeking skim-based parasitism – could in theory be reintroduced into the wild. A major drop in rents would be a start.) 

…All of these strategies will require creative thinking by the government, and a willingness to carve a path forward through healthy negotiations with Beijing. It’s not clear that the government has the political skills, global understanding, or nerve to engage in blue-sky thinking. But the alternative – chasing quick fixes through ad campaigns and bright and shiny policies with little content – will not work over the long term. Hong Kong must reinvent itself with verve and imagination.

Short RFA video interview with film director Kiwi Chow, who contributed to 2015’s Ten Years, on his brushes with the NatSec Law and why he stays in Hong Kong. He hasn’t been arrested, but shooting and screenings of his movies have been suddenly cancelled. 

HKFP story on the Hong Kong government’s declining support for gay NGOs…

“I don’t think the government is targeting sexual minorities, but we’re definitely not what the government wants to support…”

An elderly widow in Beijing and Stanford University in the US are in a legal battle to determine rightful ownership of the diaries of Mao’s former secretary Li Rui…

For several years before his death, Li’s daughter Li Nanyang, who lives in the US, had been scanning, transcribing and cataloguing her father’s papers, and ultimately transferred them to the Hoover Institution, the leading archive for CCP history in the US. 

…“By all indications … the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is running this litigation behind the scenes,” lawyers for Stanford have argued. “To put it simply, Ms Zhang lacks the financial ability to pay the attorneys’ fees being incurred on her behalf.” Zhang’s lawyers deny there has been any interference from the Chinese government.

“It’s simply about control,” says Ian Johnson, author of a book about China’s unofficial historians, such as Li. Under Xi Jinping, China’s leader, the party has made it clear that it “can’t allow competing narratives of what happened in the past”.

…“The detail is mind-boggling,” says Frank Dikötter, a historian. Insights into elite politics are buried among notes about how many laps he swam in the pool, and how many times he got up to use the bathroom at night.

CSIS Interpret:China does ‘Fully Implement the Spirit of the 20th Party Congress to Vigorously Advance New Industrialization’ by Jin Zhuanglong, head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It comprises 7,880 words in 31 paragraphs – some of them giants. Here’s the first (after the preface)…

Promotion of  new industrialization is a major strategic plan, made by the CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, to coordinate the major deployments being made  for the overall national rejuvenation strategy in the context of changes unseen in a century taking place in the world. Since the 18th Party Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping has raised the flag, taken the helm, and navigated the ship, making important expositions on a series of major theoretical and practical issues of promoting new industrialization, and has put forward a series of new ideas, new views, and new assertions, which have greatly enriched and developed the Party’s understanding of the underlying regularities of industrialization, and provide fundamental principles and guidelines for action in the promotion of new industrialization. To study and understand General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important exposition on new industrialization, it is necessary to grasp the essence of the thinking and the core meaning, which can be summarized in six aspects.

And here’s the last…

When strong winds come, we will break through the waves, hang our sail high, and bravely cross the sea. In promoting new industrialization, the prospects are promising, the mission is glorious, and the responsibility is great. Let us unite more closely around the CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, take Xi Jinping’s thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era as the guide, deeply comprehend the decisive significance of the “two establishes,” enhance and firmly establish the “four matters of confidence” and achieve the “two upholds,” be pioneering and innovative, shoulder responsibilities and take action, and work hard to comprehensively advance the building of China into a superpower and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation using Chinese-style modernization.

CSIS provides a summary.