Further to the Budget…

…a chart from The Collective showing ‘projected bond issuances and debt repayment by the Hong Kong government over the next 5 years. By 2029-30, cumulative bond issuance will exceed HK$1 trillion, but it will also need to repay a total of $523 billion by then’. And a cartoon by VAWong Sir…

Lam Cheuk-ting gets three years in prison for being (as in ‘being’ beaten up) at the Yuen Long mob attack in 2019. Or at least ‘fanning the flames’. Six others received sentences of two to two and a half years…

…On that night, over 100 rod-wielding men dressed in white stormed the Yuen Long MTR station and attacked commuters and protesters coming home from a pro-democracy demonstration. Dozens – including Lam – were beaten and injured during the assault.

During the trial, Lam pleaded not guilty and said in his defence that he went to the station on that night as a lawmaker to mitigate violence and protect residents.

The official account of the incident evolved over a year, with the authorities eventually claiming it was a “gang fight” between two groups of people.

[Judge] Chan ruled that Lam’s presence at the station had provoked the white-clad men and his behaviour at the scene had “fanned the flames,” adding that the incident was a result of a confluence of “two typhoons.”

Which brings us to the Free Press on How Western Judges Became Chinese Puppets…

But last year, [Lord Sumption] witnessed a situation “so unattractive” he didn’t “want to be part of it anymore.”

The “turning point” for him was the prosecution of 47 people on political grounds. Known as the “Hong Kong 47,” the group of activists was first charged in 2021 for conspiracy to commit “subversion” after holding a primary election that would boost pro-democracy candidates—an act Sumption calls their “constitutional right.”

And yet, last May, 31 pleaded guilty, and 14 of the 16 who stood trial were convicted. Those 45 were sentenced to prison, with terms ranging from four to 10 years. It’s “a legally indefensible position,” said Sumption, driven by “fear of the pressure of China.”

That’s when Sumption had a realization: He had become part of China’s mission to squash dissent. Even though he did not take part in the rulings against the 47, in June 2024 he resigned from his post on Hong Kong’s highest court, along with another British judge, Lord Lawrence Collins.

In an op-ed published shortly after his departure, Sumption wrote that Hong Kong was “slowly becoming a totalitarian state.”

From a podcaster called Polymatter, a video titled How China Killed Hong Kong’s Economy. Annoying mispronunciation of ‘Beijing’ plus some obvious factual errors – but polemical enough to be fairly watchable. The land system, the lack of representative government and the impact on the economy of Beijing’s tighter grip post-2019. Essentially, the high land prices/low tax model would have been incompatible with democracy, and will now prove incompatible with the NatSec era.