Endangering national security or writing on walls?

A man is imprisoned for 10 months for writing graffiti on and around pedestrian walkways…

[Ernest Lee] stood accused of “destroying” lift doors and banners in multiple locations, including pedestrian bridges in Wan Chai and Causeway Bay, between May and December last year.

He wrote slogans in Chinese like “Taiwan independence,” a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh, and claims that the Chinese Communist Party had brought “disaster” upon Hong Kong, the prosecution said.

Lee, a logistics worker, was charged with one count of committing acts with seditious intention and eight counts of criminal damage. He pleaded guilty to the sedition charge and four of the criminal damage counts, with the other four dropped by the prosecution.

…Judge Victor So, a designated national security judge, said the court could not ignore the defendant’s aim of expressing dissatisfaction with the government and venting his inner hatred.

The slogans he wrote also involved cursing the central government and using insulting names to refer to the “motherland,” So said.

Is the crime defacing public property or expressing dissatisfaction with the government (which accounts for the sedition charge, a NatSec offense)? Ten months is relatively light for a NatSec sentence. 

Lee’s opinions are hardly out of the ordinary. Most Taiwanese would say that the controversy isn’t about whether they are independent rather than should cease to be. Non-Taiwanese are free to visit and judge for themselves. ‘Xi as Winnie’ memes are all over the place. And the idea that the CCP has brought ‘disaster’ to Hong Kong is no doubt provocative but ultimately a matter of opinion, even taste. (Is Trump ‘bringing disaster’ to the US?)

Vandalizing public infrastructure is potentially a greater national security risk than expressing hatred for the government. Discuss.

Badiucao celebrates Hong Kong’s art week with appearances on LED billboards in Mongkok.

On the subject of disatsres, China Media File looks at the response to the recent collapse of a half-built tower in Bangkok…

Shortly after the collapse, the China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group removed a post from its WeChat account that had celebrated the recent capping of the building, praising the project as the company’s first “super high-rise building overseas,” and “a calling card for CR No. 10’s development in Thailand.”