More on Lord Neuberger from HK Watch (blocked by the ISP without irony for me in Hong Kong)…
45 civil society organisations from around the world sent a letter to Lord Neuberger, a former president of the British Supreme Court, urging him to seriously reconsider his position on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.
The letter follows Lord Neuberger being one of five judges who unanimously upheld the convictions of Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee, Margaret Ng, Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan, “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho for “participating in an unauthorised demonstration” on 18 August 2019. The alleged unauthorised demonstration involved a peaceful march against the Hong Kong police’s use of force, which involved 1.7 million people marching without violent incident from Causeway Bay to Central.
In the letter, the civil society organisations emphasise that the “seven democrats would not be found guilty under other common law systems, including in Britain”, as the right to assemble is “guaranteed under Hong Kong’s Basic Law, and Hong Kong’s obligations under international law”.
The organisations also call attention to how in the 76-page judgement, Lord Neuberger was “not eager to provide any dissenting opinion to emphasise the importance of free peaceful assembly and free speech in Hong Kong”. Lord Neuberger also failed to warn against the Public Order Ordinance, the local criminal law centred in this case, which has been widely weaponised by the authorities to crack down on free peaceful assembly and thousands of protestors in 2019. Both of these actions contradict Lord Neuberger’s previous effort in advocating free speech in his book, Freedom of Speech in International Law.
Given that Lord Neuberger’s involvement in the Hong Kong Court opens him to credible charges of sponsoring a systematic repression of human rights against peaceful activists in the city, the organisations implore Lord Neuberger “to immediately follow the example of your British and other foreign colleagues who have decided to step down from the Hong Kong courts”.
The civil society organisations await a reply.
A Foreign Policy piece (probably paywalled) by Robert E Kelly dismisses the idea that Donald Trump can be taken seriously as a proponent of ‘realist’, let alone serious, international relations thinking…
A second Trump term may well take an entirely different tack on China from the hawks—and even if he wants to move against Beijing, he lacks the discipline and ability to do so.
There is far more in Trump’s first term to suggest indiscipline, showboating, and influence-peddling than the clear-eyed, bloodless calculation of national interest that realists aspire to.
…Trump also undercut any ostensible focus on China by picking unnecessary fights with the United States’ regional partners. U.S.-South Korea and U.S.-Australia relations, for example, sank to their lowest point in years as Trump picked fights with their leaders because he wanted a payoff for the U.S. alliance guarantees.
Realism values allies for their ability to share burdens, project power, and generate global coalitions. Trump does not seem to grasp that at all. When Trump backed off his criticism of Japan, the turning point was apparently then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s relentless flattery, including giving Trump a gold-plated golf club, rather than any strategic reevaluation by Trump or his team.
…Trump’s admiration for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s autocracy was blatant, and Trump has once again recently praised Xi as his “good friend.” The former U.S. president has spoken approvingly of China’s crackdowns in Tiananmen Square, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. He solicited Chinese help in the 2020 election, and China happily channeled money to Trump’s family and his properties during his presidency.
Trump clearly craves authoritarian powers at home and is happy to take China’s money.
…Trump’s supposed policy positions emerge on the fly as he speaks. He is lazy. He is not capable of the strategic thinking that realists want to attribute to him; one must only listen to his campaign speeches this year to see this. He routinely lies, makes up stories, and speaks in indecipherable word-salads. When Trump has spoken on Taiwan, he makes it clear that he sees it as just another free-riding ally that owes the U.S. protection money.
…Trump is lazy, unread, venal, easily bought, susceptible to autocrats’ flattery, captive to the ideological fixations of his domestic coalition, ignorant of U.S. strategic interests, and dismissive of alliances that amplify U.S. power. Vance is ostensibly more clear-eyed, but he is a foreign-policy neophyte in the pocket of Silicon Valley donors
Hard to see much upside for Trump after yesterday’s Democratic Party national convention. (One highlight here – a Texas representative called Crockett, no less. Click on pic for a musical one.) As a narcissist, he can only get more erratic and crazy if he is sidelined, humiliated, or just plain losing. The key thing to remember about narcissists is that they’re not trying to convince others that they are superior; they care only about constantly reassuring themselves of that – regardless of how absurd it looks to everyone else. It probably won’t get to this, but if the polls really massively turned against him, it would be in keeping with his toxic personality disorder to just storm out from the whole thing – ‘you have all betrayed me, you don’t deserve me’.
Lord Neuberger’s reply to the world after being called out on his shameless hypocrisy:
https://tenor.com/search/giving-the-bird-gifs
Mr. Trump’s foreign policies were a cornucopia of hurt feelings around the globe.
His aversion to regime-change wars was especially disappointing to the warmongers in the foreign policy establishment. They would have liked nothing better than a hot war with Iran, Russia or China, or Venezuela in a pinch, instead of the rhetorical confrontations he delivered. Once he left, they made up for lost time on Ukraine and the Middle East tout de suite.
Apart from extracting valuable trade concessions from Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Japan and China, pushing NATO countries to meet their commitments, improving relations with North Korea, devising & implementing the Abraham Accords, and not starting any new wars, one could fairly describe Mr. Trump’s foreign policy as a complete disaster.
Clearly what the world needed was more Chinese belligerence, North Korean missile testing, Russian aggression and Iranian-sponsored terrorism, and now we’ve got it.
Thankfully, no more mean tweets from the White House.
The bar of the FCC and this comments section: two places in HK where you can reliably find that rare bird the Trump supporter.
Anyone has to be better than the laughing drunk and her gooning running mate as a follow-up to dead man stumbling.
Apart from the fact that Steve Bannon’s message is obviously copied from somewhere else on the internet (the details give it away), it has the same provocative tone as those messages that we sometimes see from Reactor # 4.
No, it can’t be !!
Simon, say it ain’t so.
As a corollary to that, can anyone explain why leftists are protesting outside the LEFT wing DNC funpark?
“Facts are stubborn things.” – John Adams
Narcissistic President:
“Inside the Beltway: Obama references himself 392 times in one speech”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/7/inside-the-beltway-obama-references-himself-467-ti/
Perhaps we should support Kamala Harris because of her stances on the issues:
https://kamalaharris.com/
Whoops – she doesn’t have a stance on any issues. Which is why she has refused to give an interview since announcing she would be the candidate. Genius really, everyone can now think that her views match their own. If she actually had to explain her views (rated the most liberal of all Senators when in the Senate – to the left of Elizabeth Warren & avowed Socialist Bernie Sanders), people might not like what they hear. But rest assured, if she is elected, the country will be in the very best of hands…/s
@asiaseen
“can anyone explain why leftists are protesting outside the LEFT wing DNC”
It’s a diversity of opinion thing that is popular in functioning democracies. Don’t worry, just stay safe and warm inside your bubble there.
Kamala wants to spend more, so she wants to tax more.
Corporate Tax Rate to 28% (vs. 21% in the EU and 25% in China).
Capital Gains Tax Rate of 44% (vs. 20% today).
Capital Gains Tax Rate on the wealth on UNREALIZED gains of 25%.
https://pro.thestreet.com/market-commentary/kamala-harris-unrealized-gains-tax-should-worry-voters
Maybe a lot of rich Americans will renounce their US citizenship and move to Hong Kong – good for HK real estate prices!
@asiaseen: Read (if you actually pay for “news”) David Frum’s piece in The Atlantic titled “The Defeat-Harris, Get-Trump Politics of Protest” (Aug 20).
Quite interesting.
And good to see the formerly very active “Republicans Abroad” gang in HK coming out for some air.
Why would the pathologically lying son of a KKK clansman’s version of ethnonationalism not appeal to the (white) wealthy, privileged expatriate men of HK? It’s not like they have shared interests with other types of economic migrants… after all, they’re going in the other direction! Entitlement is a hell of a drug