Big Lychee, Various Sectors

The FT on China’s ban on wording in stock-market listings prospectuses that ‘disparages the country’s laws and policies, business environment and judicial situation’…

Many bankers acknowledge that the language of offering documents has been toned down. They say they are simply acting in line with local regulations. Others, however, complain that this raises further questions about Hong Kong. A frustrated financier put it this way: If US firms in the city can no longer put prospectus filings together without asking what will be deemed to disparage China, can Hong Kong still be classed as an international financial centre? 

More whinging from the tourism industry, demanding looser rules in order to cram more Mainland visitors into Hong Kong.

What the Standard calls ‘financial experts’ – from a ‘Hong Kong Institute of Financial Analysts and Professional Commentators’ – call on officials to use the Exchange Fund to boost the market. The HSI ended at 16,216 yesterday. (Aren’t unprofessional commentators more fun?)

A Regina Ip SCMP op-ed supposedly pleads for a serious rethink of the whole economy, but is mainly handwringing over tourism and property prices, the need for a ‘population policy to attract and retain talent’, plus the same suggestion that the HKMA invest more reserves in the HK stock market. In other words, no re-think.

All these items come after various conferences and initiatives designed to boost the Hong Kong economy through ‘night vibes’, Greater Bay Area links, visas for talent, and assorted bio-engineering, AI and green tech fads. All remind us that the local bureaucrat/business establishment is having a hard time accepting that Hong Kong’s world has changed:

– Low interest rates are over; a housing-affordability ratio of 20 is no longer sustainable.

– Mainland tourists are no longer obsessed with buying vast quantities of luxury tat in Hong Kong. A crowded developed city does not need mass-tourism.

– The days when China’s economy was growing at 8% or 10% a year are history. We will never see the massive uplift of 1990-2015 again.

Maybe in her next op-ed, Regina could advise Hong Kong policy-makers to stop struggling and fighting so hard to make things the way they used to be. If you have no ideas where the economy should go next – and there’s no reason why bureaucrats should – just focus on reducing barriers to entrepreneurs in general and improving the quality of life for the population. And ditch the high-land-revenues/high-wasteful-spending fiscal model.

This assumes no-one can or will address the bigger political shifts in the background. Hong Kong’s role since the 1840s depended on being separate from the Mainland – people could do things here they couldn’t or wouldn’t do over the border. The central government does not seem to highly value that distinctiveness. And then there’s the international climate, with Beijing putting national security ahead of economics, and Western businesses reducing China exposure..

The old Hong Kong is over, but no-one’s noticed.

From Foreign Policy, Luke de Pulford on finding himself named as a co-conspirator in the Jimmy Lai trial. …

…[To Beijing, t]he national security law alone fails to address the underlying problem of Hong Kong’s burning desire for autonomy. So it was deemed necessary to resurrect a well-worn trope: that any dissent must be the result of a Western-orchestrated plot … this must mean that the 2019 protests were a Western conspiracy, and that the million-plus Hong Kongers who filled the streets were passive lemmings, manipulated by sleepers for foreign interests.

…Lai, we are told, was “colluding with foreign forces.” Septuagenarian Lai, we are expected to believe, was somehow behind the predominantly youth-run protests, ably assisted by interfering foreigners.

That’s why the charges of co-conspiracy laid against me, Magnitsky Act campaigner Bill Browder, and former Japanese Diet Member Shiori Kanno are useful tools. If Lai has supposedly colluded with foreign forces, then there need to be some foreign forces with which he has colluded.

…If I had the opportunity to testify in these kangaroo proceedings, I would tell the court that I know [Andy] Li pretty well. He was very active in his work, and many people knew him. But he simply didn’t know Lai. Li was entirely self-motivated. Nobody else was behind his work. Not me, and certainly not Lai. Of the hundreds of pages of text messages between Li and myself that are in the possession of the court, they won’t find a single mention of Jimmy Lai. Some mastermind.

This is the tragic reality of Lai’s case, which in microcosm tells the story of the degradation of a once-revered legal system and the demise of Hong Kong itself. Lai will be convicted, but not through guilt. His conviction will rely on coerced testimony from a reported torture victim who will potentially fabricate stories about certain actions that wouldn’t be criminal in any free country anyway—such as organizing roundtables on human rights or emailing a foreign politician—and all to satisfy a bizarre state obsession with a mastermind narrative.

I remember a time when Hong Kong people pitied Taiwan for being a police state. It’s impossible to miss today’s contrast.

Reg on the Taiwan elections…

Tsai [Ing-wen] exploited the turmoil in Hong Kong and whipped up support for her pro-independence stance by denigrating “One Country, Two Systems”. Many in Hong Kong thought it was Hong Kong’s chief Carrie Lam who handed her a surprising victory.

Good analysis from Frozen Garlic…

The KMT’s election results might be the most interesting. They have now failed to break 40% in three consecutive presidential elections. That’s not good. They will rationalize this defeat by talking about how Ko split the anti-DPP vote. However, they should be asking themselves why they were unable to defend that vote. A successful political party goes out and wins votes; it doesn’t just wait for the other party to mess up.

China gets miffed over ‘incorrect signals’ – international messages of congratulations – to the new leadership.

More from the Guardian…

Speaking after the result on Saturday, Chen Binhua, the spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) repeated its claim that “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan”, and reiterated its commitment to the “inevitable trend” of annexation.

“This election cannot change the basic pattern and direction of development of cross-strait relations … that the motherland will eventually be reunified.”

On Sunday Taiwan’s foreign ministry condemned the comments as “fallacious”, “absurd”, and “not worthy of rebuttal”.

It said claiming Taiwan was an “internal Chinese matter” was “totally inconsistent with the international perception and the cross-strait situation, and goes against the expectation of the global democratic community, and the will of the people of Taiwan in insisting on the value of democracy”.

And a quick word from Global Times…

Taiwan has never been a country, neither in the past nor in the future. “Taiwan independence” has never been and will never be possible. Anyone in Taiwan who attempts to promote “Taiwan independence” is attempting to divide the territory of China and will face severe punishment from history and the law, said [Foreign Minister] Wang, stressing that Taiwan secessionism will be a dead end, and China’s reunification is inevitable.

In case you overlooked them, catch up on the legislative election results.

Some reading if you have 10 minutes: a ruggedly non-CCP history of Taiwan from the Council on Geostrategy.

NatSec police take family members of two more exiled activists – Simon Cheng and Frances Hui – in for questioning. Jimmy Lai’s London-based legal team ask the UN to investigate the alleged torture of key witness Andy Li…

“Credible evidence is emerging that Andy Li was tortured when in prison in China before confessing to allegedly conspiring with Jimmy Lai to collude with foreign entities to endanger national security,” the lawyers alleged.

Li’s confession against Lai was suspected to have been “coerced and obtained after he endured torture, inhuman and degrading treatment in Chinese detention,” they alleged.

In case you haven’t kept up – Jimmy Lai’s trial continues with details about donations to pro-dem political parties.

The Standard reports that Hong Kong’s dazzlingly original regulators might follow the SEC’s decision to approve spot crypto ETFs. The issuers accept only real money, of course. David Gerard on the US move…

The SEC really didn’t want to approve a spot bitcoin ETF. SEC Chair Gary Gensler issued a statement explaining that the SEC was pretty much forced to approve by the court decision in Grayscale. He stresses that this stuff is still shaky trash.

Unlike in the last two elections, HKU will not be sending students on a study tour to Taiwan this year.

Some more Taiwan reading…

Nikkei Asia reports that financial analysts don’t want to talk about Taiwan…

Ning Zhang, senior China economist at UBS Investment Research, said at a news conference in Hong Kong on Thursday that the topic of the election was “political,” and that it was “inconvenient” to comment on it.

BlackRock shied away from answering a question from Nikkei Asia on the impact of the Taiwan election on the fixed income market at a Singapore briefing on Tuesday. The fund manager skipped the online written query, with the company’s public relations representative later saying they had received too many questions.

“I feel very humble in my ability to predict politics,” Ben Powell, chief Asia-Pacific investment strategist at BlackRock Investment Institute, told reporters last month. “Even if you told me the answer, it is not totally clear what the implications for the markets” are.

A public relations representative with French bank Societe Generale, during a Tuesday briefing in Hong Kong, declined to answer a reporter’s question on the election’s impact on the Taiwan equities market, one of the top picks for the bank: “We’re not commenting on it right now.”

Thread from correspondent William Yang…

…an important point to highlight is that there is a huge gap between the level of interest in this election in #Taiwan versus around the world.

…when the #HongKong protest triggered a surge in this doomsday feeling among #Taiwan voters, [and their] attention and interest in the election was very high. It also resulted in a very high voter turnout.

This time around, the international community is paying a lot of attention to this election, mainly from the perspective of how the outcome of the election will have an impact on regional security and geopolitics.

However domestically, a lot of voters have told me that they are quite disinterested in the election, citing different reasons. Some said they can’t imagine themselves supporting any of the candidates while others feel very desensitized by all the campaign dramas and rhetoric.

So as all of us in the international media tries to fulfill our assumption and needs, please try to take some time to really understand the Taiwanese voters’ perspective on this election. Instead of shoveling questions related to cross-strait relations, China and the possibility of war into their faces, maybe try to give them an opportunity to plainly explain what matters the most to them in this election. It’s likely that you will get a very different set of priorities from them.

From the BBC (‘But a Bit Cliched’) – the Taiwan that China wants is vanishing…

“We are all Taiwanese today regardless of where our grandparents came from. We inter-marry and mix Taiwanese and Mandarin when we speak to each other,” say a group of hikers on a trail near Taipei.

When they travel abroad, they say they are from Taiwan. “We do not want people to think we are from China.”

That is a problem for Beijing – because they are deciding what they want to be.

And that runs counter to the CCP’s message – a unified China under the rule of the Communist Party. It’s a message that has been delivered to Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongols – and Hong Kong.

Guardian video about Taiwanese civilians, inspired by the Ukrainian experience, organizing their own military training to defend urban areas from invaders.

Chatham House on Taiwan’s ‘China challenge’…

The successful consolidation of Taiwan’s democracy in recent decades has intensified the growth of a distinct Taiwanese identity. The more Taiwanese democracy and identity bed in, the harder it will be for Beijing to secure a peaceful integration of Taiwan, something that very few Taiwanese want.

As this uncomfortable reality has started to dawn on Beijing, it has ratcheted up its grey-zone tactics, using military intimidation and information operations to try to break Taiwan’s resolve, and diplomatic initiatives to isolate Taiwan internationally.

Other reading for the weekend…

Taiwanese people don’t want to be a part of China – nor do Chinese people. CNN on the rise in Chinese illegals into the US…

…In the first 11 months of 2023, more than 31,000 Chinese citizens were picked up by law enforcement crossing illegally into the US from Mexico, government data shows – compared with an average of roughly 1,500 per year over the preceding decade.

Many who left point to a struggle to survive.

Three years of Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions left people across China out of work – and disillusioned with the ruling Communist Party’s increasingly tight grip on all aspects of life under Xi. Now, hope that business would fully rebound once restrictions ended a year ago has vanished, with China’s once envious economic growth stuttering.

Following the recent arrest of a Catholic bishop, the Pillar on the Vatican’s ‘Two Chinas’ problem…

The effective suppression of a diocese without Roman approval is a major departure from the norms of the Vatican’s current agreement with the Chinese government, though it is not the first time the Communist authorities have done so.

With the Vatican-China deal up for renewal this year, the Holy See’s Secretariat of State will have to decide if Beijing’s unilateral redrawing of the ecclesiastical map is a calculated provocation, and how it can respond within its limited diplomatic room to maneuver.

As such moves become more common, however, the Vatican will have to reckon with the emerging divide between the Church in China recognized by Rome, which increasingly exists only on paper, and a different reality on the ground, run by the [Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association]. 

China Media Project looks at the CCP’s mixed feelings about the word ‘dictator’…

The Party wants to have its cake and eat it too: to be all-powerful but also to be seen as representative; to be feared and to be loved — avowedly — throughout the world.

…In 2021, as authorities in Hong Kong used the Beijing-imposed national security law to jail nearly every prominent member of the political opposition, a microblogging account amplified by official media said pro-democracy protestors were the territory’s “real dictators” due to their appeals for sanctions on the authorities imprisoning them.

And something relaxing from Public Domain Review – a circa 1902 book of kimono fabric designs…

Three months in prison for a T-shirt – but feel free to block an ambulance with your Mercedes (registration clearly visible, plus lame CC tag). Of course, the T-shirt threatens the security of the nation, while emergency vehicles just drive around the streets making a silly noise.

Apparently, the NatSec judge went easy on Chu Kai-poon, whose T-shirt had the slogan ‘Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times’ on it…

The defendant, who is unemployed, has been remanded in custody since he first appeared in court on November 30 last year.

Designated national security judge Chief Magistrate Victor So said on Wednesday that the offence was less serious than in other sedition cases as it involved a small number of items and a relatively short period of time.

The judge said that between leaving his residence and arriving at the airport, Chu only publicly demonstrated the protest slogan for five hours and 23 minutes. This was less influential than posting it on the internet, So said. He added that Chu had no political affiliation.

Found here, a table ranking 214 territories by birth rate (I’ve edited the version on the right). You would have thought that, with a drop in the number of children, Hong Kong would need fewer teachers. But an RTHK report suggests there’s a shortage of them too…

More than 6,700 Hong Kong teachers quit their jobs during the last academic year which was a 25 percent increase on the year before, government figures given to Legco revealed on Wednesday.

Secondary schools saw about nine percent of teachers resign, while for primary schools the rate was 10 percent. Kindergartens lost 17 percent of their teachers.

Data also showed that the number of new recruits failed to fill many of the gaps the departing teachers left in the city’s schools and kindergartens, with more than 1,100 posts remaining vacant.

But speaking to reporters, Education Secretary Christine Choi described the supply of teachers in Hong Kong as “very abundant”.

Almost as if there’s a competition between kids and teachers to see who can disappear first.

Taiwan votes on Saturday. HKFP have a team covering the election. (Evidence here of how clean the campaign is.)

Why is it important? Stock answer from Bloomberg…

War over Taiwan would have a cost in blood and treasure so vast that even those unhappiest with the status quo have reason not to risk it. Bloomberg Economics estimate the price tag at around $10 trillion, equal to about 10% of global GDP — dwarfing the blow from the war in Ukraine, Covid pandemic and Global Financial Crisis.

…Taiwan makes most of the world’s advanced logic semiconductors, and a lot of lagging edge chips as well. Globally, 5.6% of total value added comes from sectors using chips as direct inputs — nearly $6 trillion.

Taiwan is also Asia’s most vibrant democracy. To give an idea of the complexity of the island’s history: did you know that the first Fujianese settlers started arriving after parts of the aboriginal population were more-or-less pacified by… the Dutch? After a brief period as a province of the Manchu Qing dynasty, the Japanese took it over and did the usual railways/schools/exploitation colonial thing. The post WWII KMT were, if anything, harsher rulers, but eventually allowed free elections in the 1980s. 

The DPP likes to say there is no need to declare independence because the country is already independent. That was a psychological as much as constitutional shift – a realization that, after democratization, the ROC was an empty shell with something different living in it. Today, even descendants of the KMT-era Mainland immigrants are discovering and developing a specifically Taiwanese consciousness. China would ideally like the KMT to win, but Beijing’s canny hearts-and-minds team can always be relied upon to give the DPP and Taiwanese identity a boost (cue spy balloons,missile tests, PLA bomber incursions and NatSec trials in Hong Kong). In the Covid-Ukraine era, Taiwan has also enjoyed a growing profile in the West.

Let’s say it’s more interesting than Hong Kong elections these days.

A Guardian editorial applauds Taiwan’s democracy…

For many voters, their biggest gripes with the DPP are low wages, high housing costs and poor public services. Mr Lai’s good fortune is that they don’t think much of the alternatives. The KMT’s Hou Yu-ih and third candidate Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s party tried to cut a deal but ended up in a humiliating public spat instead. Mr Ko, who initially attracted people disenchanted with the DPP but unwilling to back the KMT, has proved erratic and unimpressive.

Whatever the outcome, Taiwan’s election should be applauded. As authoritarianism advances across much of Asia, its vigorous debate and free and fair elections are a beacon for a better way of doing things.

Beijing has made it clear that it would dish out punishment for a third DPP term … a political pathway to unification looks still more remote since the crackdown in Hong Kong.

A WSJ editorial…

The common theme is the desire of Taiwan’s voters to preserve their democracy even as they debate how. They understand the stakes after witnessing Hong Kong’s fate. Beijing has proven with its crackdown on freedom in that territory that “one country, two systems” really means the end of democracy. The Communist Party will always impose its own system.

If Mr. Lai wins as expected, Beijing is likely to go into blustering overdrive as it always does when Taiwan voters refuse to cooperate with the Party’s will. Commentators may present such a vote as a provocation…

The affront to the Party isn’t Mr. Lai’s policies, and Taiwan’s voters won’t have stoked tensions with Beijing by electing him. The problem is that Beijing can’t tolerate Taiwan’s example of a thriving Chinese-speaking democracy in which voters settle political differences at the ballot box. If a conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, this will be why. And Taiwan’s voters know it as they head to the polls.

From several weeks ago, a New Statesman correspondent (and former Portuguese minister) looks around as campaigning gets underway…

Slowly but inexorably, the US has modified its position on Taiwan. It once committed not to challenge the concept that Taiwan is part of China, but that was before China became a peer rival, one aiming to replace American global hegemony. Today, even a peaceful reunification with the mainland has begun to seem intolerable to Washington. What makes the present moment so dangerous is that the US is not the only actor to feel uncomfortable with the fragile understanding agreed between Mao and Nixon half a century ago.

The Taiwanese officials I spoke to during my visit believe that Xi Jinping has unilaterally modified the status quo over Taiwan. As made clear in Xi’s speech on Taiwan in January 2019, China now affirms that the status quo is in fact a status quo of irrevocable movement towards reunification…

…I am told that in the meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden in Bali in November 2022, the Chinese president said that China reserved the right to use force if the Taiwanese did not make a genuine effort to bring about China’s reunification. This was an entirely new position and, in the words of someone with direct knowledge of the Bali meeting, “it freaked the American delegation out”.

The BBC on the KMT’s difficult balancing act…

Another risk is that it is not clear whether a KMT government would necessarily be able to appease Beijing and guarantee peace.

“The KMT believes that it can get Beijing to promise restraint and stick to it. Looking at China’s position on Hong Kong, I’m less sure about Beijing’s willingness to commit to anything,” said Ian Chong, a non-resident scholar at Carnegie China.

“If KMT wins, maybe temporarily Beijing will ease off. But ultimately they want control of Taiwan, either through economic dependence, or show of force and intimidation.”

This also represents a problem for the KMT in the long term. With each generation, the gulf widens between what voters want for Taiwan’s relationship with China, and what the KMT has stood for.

New Bloom on Beijing’s Taiwan narrative…

…Taiwan has lived under Beijing’s constant military threat of “reunification.” However, Taiwan is often portrayed by Chinese propagandists as a “troublemaker” capable of destabilising the Indo-Pacific region or making China “upset about everything we [Taiwan] do, about our existence,” as Taiwan’s ex-ambassador to the United States Hsiao Bi-khim noted. Taiwan’s independence, be it a political appeal or an objective reality, is provocative to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP’s mouthpieces have effectively convinced numerous international observers to discourage Taiwan’s quest for independence and characterized Taiwan’s autonomy as an affront to the Chinese people.

CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping and his predecessors have consistently stressed the importance of the “Taiwan question” to the Chinese nation and the necessity of unification. In a recent interview, former Chinese ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, described the Taiwan question as a “life-or-death question for China” with ”no room for concession.” Chinese officials and commentators often invoke the “will of 1.4 billion Chinese people” when discussing the criticality of the CCP’s historic mission to integrate Taiwan.

New Bloom on the extent of Hong Kong’s influence on Taiwan’s election…

…Taiwan always sees Hong Kong as a “counter-factual” of unification with China. Since its handover in 1997, Hong Kong has been the PRC’s showroom of the “one country, two systems (1C2S)” model as a possible Cross-Strait unification arrangement for Taiwan. A democratic and autonomous Hong Kong under 1C2S would give Taiwan a prospect that Taiwan can also remain democratic and autonomous under the PRC’s unification arrangement … The 2019 protest … raised Taiwan’s dire concerns over Hong Kong’s autonomy and sent out a strong signal that questioned KMT’s compromising attitude towards China. It finally crashed the craze of Han Kuo-yu and saved the DPP from its ebb in the 2020 general election.

But in the coming days, Hong Kong is not much of a focus.

AP talks to Hongkongers’ about their involvement…

As Taiwan’s presidential election approaches, many immigrants from Hong Kong, witnesses to the alarming erosion of civil liberties at home, are supporting the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

An article on Chinese identity – and KMT links – among Taiwanese gangsters, from Shanghai’s Green Gang to the Bamboo Union, with reference to a Netflix series I haven’t seen…

We can … see how the Chinese Nationalists might have self-justified violence against native Taiwanese — and how the need to counter threats such as these may have given rise to, or sustained the need for, native Taiwanese gangs as well. 

On Taiwan culture: Clarissa Wei (author of the Made in Taiwan food book) on Japanese culinary influence – as seen in bento boxes on sale at Taipei Main Station.

The government’s decision to tighten access to vehicle registration records meets with criticism from a slightly unexpected source: a member of the all-patriots legislature.

Today’s lawmakers are a bit of a haze – a few pro-Beijing stalwarts plus a bunch of people you’ve never heard of. Mostly pretty silent. So – behold Doreen Kong. A lawyer with positions on an odd mish-mash of issues such as domestic helpers making food on the street (anti), building temporary housing (anti), and higher betting taxes (anti). She does seem to be pro-leather jackets.

The SCMP reporter describes the official response…

Journalists will need permission from Hong Kong’s transport commissioner to access the personal information of vehicle owners,  while applications might be rejected on national security grounds or due to a lack of public interest.

Vested Interests of the Week Awards:

The boss of Centaline real estate agency wants MPF funds and investor-visa applicants’ cash diverted into the property market ‘to help maintain Hong Kong as a financial centre’.

And the Liberal Party – home to big commercial landlords – suggests a departure tax on permanent residents, so they stop going to Shenzhen and spending money there – or ‘boost government revenues’.

Remember when RTHK’s Bao Choy was cleared on appeal after being prosecuted for accessing the vehicle registration system? The government has now responded – by making access to the system much harder. Standard editorial…

[The government’s measure] could also go against the spirit of the top court’s judgment, as commonly understood, when it could have been fairly simple for the authority to conform with the spirit without complicating the matter to such an extent.

Did the CFA not already state in paragraph 62 that “whilst such rights are not absolute and may be restricted where necessary, there is no reason to proceed from a starting point that bona fide journalism should be excluded from the phrase ‘[o]ther traffic and transport related matters'”?

[Transport Commissioner Angela] Lee could have readily aligned with the CFA ruling by simply inserting a footnote to the original form to include “bona fide journalism” as a valid reason under “other traffic and transport-related matters” in accordance with the CFA’s view.

…Worse still, the hurdles being put up by the transport department set a poor example for company, land and other searches crucial to journalistic duties.

Not to mention the duties of lawyers and investment analysts.

HKFP op-ed on the apparent decline in the right to have a lawyer present when talking with police, with reference to Agnes Chow and Tony Chung…

There is nothing in the national security law’s Article 43, which deals with police powers, to suggest that any new right is being conferred to deprive defendants and others involved in legal proceedings of their right to counsel.

…People involved in involuntary interactions with the police are entitled to have a lawyer present. Requiring them not only to engage in such interactions without counsel, but also not to consult a lawyer afterwards, is oppressive…

And another Jimmy Lai trial graphic, raising the question: is the trial about actions or opinions?

The prosecution presents more of its case in the Jimmy Lai trial…

Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai was the “mastermind and sponsor” of a campaign to lobby for foreign sanctions on the city and on China, a government prosecutor argued in the pro-democracy activist’s high-profile national security trial.

…The prosecutor described the chain of command in the syndicate. Lai personally instructed Mark Simon, his US-based personal assistant. Simon, in turn, gave directions to Chan, who instructed Li and Finn Lau, the core members of an international lobbying group called Stand With Hong Kong (SWHK), he said.

And from RTHK…

The trial of former media tycoon Jimmy Lai was told on Thursday that the defendant was the mastermind and a key financial supporter of an international campaign aimed at bringing down the Chinese government.

…The prosecution alleged that Lai later outlined a four-stage “implosion” agenda to instigate “administrative and economic turmoil in China”.

Samuel Bickett adds…

In Jimmy Lai’s trial today, the prosecutor focused on ads Lai allegedly funded calling for the world to support Hong Kong’s protests. They were published in Aug 2019, almost a year before Beijing imposed the NatSec Law under which Jimmy is now charged.

It is a fundamental principle that laws only apply to future acts, not past ones. For Jimmy, the court is simply choosing to ignore that principle. 

Beijing said in the lead up to the NSL’s passage that the law would not be applied retroactively.

From here – Heroic Graphic-Design Effort of the Week Award goes to a map-pictogram/flow-chart thing showing Jimmy Lai’s plot to do whatever etc, according to the prosecution…

(And I’ve cropped it.)

Meanwhile…

The Liberal Party’s Jeremy Young said a large sign, such as “I LOVE HK”, would show the world that the SAR has returned to normalcy.

New all-patriots District Council members hit the ground running, with a selection of banal ideas to boost tourism…

Cat murals, a time tunnel and Lantern Festival markets are among initiatives proposed by Hong Kong’s 18 district councils to show how unique each area is and lure in more visitors.

Central and Western District Council, which held the first meeting of its new term on Thursday, wants to set up a huge landmark at Peak Road Garden and a “time tunnel” at the facade of the Old Mental Hospital in Sai Ying Pun.

(OK – so ‘time tunnel at old mental hospital’ at least sounds interesting. Sort of captures some contemporary Hong Kong spirit.)

A district councillor said on Thursday he believed putting neon signs at street level around Tsim Sha Tsui could boost economic activities in the area, as the installations could provide photo opportunities for tourists and residents.

Problem: the government has been removing neon signs for years.

And more on District Office’s contributions…

The Kowloon City District Office proposed only one event, which is the annual Thai Songkran festival in April.

But instead of calling it the “water-splashing festival,” the Kowloon City District Office proposed what roughly translates to “Thai Vibes Kowloon City with food and water-splashing” — apparently adapted from the government’s earlier “Night Vibes Hong Kong.”

Problem: the Hong Kong police are not big fans of Songkran. (And shouldn’t that be ‘Thai Thematic Water Vibes Concept-cum-Food Zone Scheme’?)

Some weekend reading…

Beijing’s policies are – to no-one’s surprise – making life harder for those trashy franchised international schools…

A new “patriotic” education law is set to put a squeeze on British schools in China as Beijing steps up its efforts to tighten control of what is taught in its classrooms.

Harrow Beijing did not respond to a request for comment. The school was previously known as Harrow International Beijing, but on 1 September 2021, a new private education law came into effect, banning private schools that accepted Chinese nationals from including the name of overseas educational institutions in their name, or words such as “international” or “world”.

From Newsweek – a reminder of China’s extreme inequality. Maybe 10-20% of the population have a middle-class lifestyle surrounded by skyscrapers, high-speed trains and overseas vacations. Don’t mention the rest…

Internet censors in China worked around the clock this week to suppress online discussions about poverty in the country after an economist revealed nearly 1 billion people were living off less than $300 a month.

…In his article for the business outlet Yicai, Li cited data from a 2021 research paper by the China Institute of Income Distribution at Beijing Normal University, which placed the number of people living on less than 2,000 yuan a month at 964 million, or nearly 70 percent of the population.

…In June 2020, Wang Haiyuan and Meng Fanqiang, the authors behind the income study cited by Li this week, published an article in China’s leading financial news magazine Caixin, in which they quoted late Premier Li Keqiang’s comments about the estimated 600 million Chinese people who were living on less than 1,000 yuan, or $140, a month.

“Although 40 years of reform and opening up have greatly improved the country’s comprehensive strength and level of national income, as of today, the fact that we have a large population, few resources and very uneven development is still obvious, and a considerable number of residents are still close to the poverty line,” Wang and Meng wrote.

The government unveils a ‘Characteristic Local Tourism Incentive Scheme’. The initiative expands on a 2020 package intended to ‘incentivize the travel trade to develop more tourism products and itineraries with cultural and heritage elements’.

It is ‘characteristic’ in that it is obviously devised by bureaucrats and relies on handouts to the industry, with the taxpayer paying tour companies to take visitors (or locals) to a prescribed list of attractions, which of course come in two clunkily-named categories…

The CTIS is divided into two parts, namely the in-depth travel and thematic travel … The  [former] itinerary must cover at least two designated sites of in-depth travel and one interactive tourist experience activity with Hong Kong’s unique and authentic experience recognised under the CTIS … [For the latter, the travel agent] has to focus on six distinctive themes, including national history, green ecology, marine, traditional culture, pop culture, and creative travel in designing the itinerary and provide visitors with a captivating and in-depth travel experience in Hong Kong. Details of the application will be announced in mid-January, along with the promulgation of the six winning thematic itineraries under the Deeper into Hong Kong: Creative Itinerary Design Competition.

Officials hope that this scheme will meet with the same ‘enthusiastic response’ as the 2020 one – and why wouldn’t it when operators get HK$200-400 per pax? 

Why does the government need to subsidize such tours? Could it be that tourists would prefer to be doing something other (or cheaper) than being dragged to an intangible green ecology site? 

A memorable moment during the Swire ‘Under the Stars’ open-air picnic/concert at Central waterfront a couple of months ago: a tourist ‘Big Bus’ drove past on its route of government-promoted attractions, and the passengers on the open top deck looked on (enviously, I was pretty sure) at local people enjoying some genuine (private-sector-organized) night vibes.

Meanwhile, the NatSec-focused part of the government sends a different message to would-be visitors.

A Japanese tourist gets shouted at by a Hong Kong cop – plus receives the finger-pointing treatment. How many people in Japan have now seen the video?

And then there’s the Jimmy Lai trial. The latest from HKFP…

Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai used his pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, which ceased operations in 2021, as a platform to “sway public opinion” and “promote hatred” against Beijing and Hong Kong authorities, a court has heard as the closely-watched national security trial entered its fifth day.

…[Lead prosecutor Anthony] Chau said that Lai had followed 53 Twitter accounts, including then US vice-president Mike Pence, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, and UK-based activists Luke de Pulford and Benedict Rogers.

Alex Lee, one of three designated national security judges presiding over the trial, challenged Chau on the purpose of showing the list of Twitter accounts Lai had followed.

“He’s interested in international affairs, so?” Lee said.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC comments…

…2 ridiculous examples of ‘conspiracy to commit journalism’ charges today.

1. Allegation Jimmy Lai sought a comment on the extradition bill from former HK Governor Chris Patten.

This is simply public interest journalism…

The Prosecution produced, as ‘evidence’ of his ‘crime,’ a message sent to @benedictrogers in order to reach Chris Patten.

Simply ludicrous. It impacts any journalist seeking a comment on an issue of public importance, via a contact who is a UK (or other foreign) national. 

2. “Apple Daily continued to publish inflammatory publications in an attempt to sway public opinion…Relevant articles are directed at the central government, Hong Kong govt & the entire regime.”

Now it’s a ‘crime’ to publish opinionated journalism & criticise the Government. 

More daily trial updates, including translations from The Witness and Ming Pao, here.

Jimmy Lai pleads not guilty to collusion with foreign forces and publishing ‘seditious’ materials. In a move guaranteed to provoke anger – or at least derision – overseas…

The prosecution … displayed a chart labelled “Lai Chee-ying’s external political connections,” showing headshots of overseas figures that Lai was said to be in communication with. Among them were Benedict Rogers and Luke de Pulford, both UK-based human rights activists, as well as James Cunningham, the former consul general in Hong Kong. 

Jack Keane, a former US army general and Paul Wolfowitz, a former US deputy secretary of defence, were also named. 

More from the Committee for Freedom in HK on overseas co-conspirators… 

On the fourth day of the trial, the court was also given a list of people named as “co-conspirators” on trumped up charges of “collusion with foreign forces” with Jimmy Lai and named several foreign citizens – including James Cunningham, former U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong, and Chairman of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, Luke de Pulford, Executive Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), Bill Browder, founder of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, Benedict Rogers, founder of Hong Kong Watch and former Japanese MP Shiori Kanno.

From HK Watch (VPN or similar needed in Hong Kong)…

“The naming of Benedict Rogers and several other international campaigners for democracy in Hong Kong in the trial of Jimmy Lai shows this charade of a trial has nothing to do with justice. It is simply an assertion of CCP authoritarianism. It makes a mockery of the rule of law. 

…“This simply shows [Rogers says], as we have said all along, that this is a show trial and has absolutely nothing to do with genuine national security. The ‘crime’ Mr Lai is accused of is talking with foreign politicians and activists, including myself, and engaging in journalism – which, as the publisher of a major newspaper in Hong Kong, ought to be regarded as entirely normal legitimate activity. 

“Furthermore, much of this activity pre-dates the National Security Law, which means the law is being applied retroactively – something the Hong Kong government gave assurances would not happen when it was imposed on 1 July 2020…”

Safeguard Defenders.calls the process ‘an unacceptable infringement of national sovereignty ‘ and demands that overseas jurisdictions scrap extradition and mutual police assistance agreements with Hong Kong. 

(The Standard notes that Lai, along with legal assistant Chan Tsz-wah and private assistant Mark Simon, are accused of ‘calling on US, New Zealand, UK, Japan, Czech and Ireland to suspend extradition agreements with Hong Kong’ as part of the alleged collusion with external forces.)

Bill Browder says…

Hong Kong authorities have named me as a “co-conspirator” in the trial against Jimmy Lai. Although I’ve never met or spoken to him, they’re accusing him of being a part of my global campaign for Magnitsky sanctions against human rights violators.

Also from Benedict Rogers…

People who simply campaigned for democracy deemed “co-conspirators” with #JimmyLai 

People who simply spoke with him are “collaborators”

Who next? Everyone who bought Apple Daily?

Video by Luke de Pulford on being named as a co-conspirator along with Jimmy Lai: ‘The idea that 2 million people took to the streets because Jimmy told them to is risible’. 

A Bloomberg op-ed…

Lai has spent more than 1,000 days in pre-trial detention, and has been denied his choice of legal representation. Instead of a jury, his fate will be determined by a selection of judges handpicked by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee. The courts have, so far, a 100% conviction rate for anyone charged under the law.

…A devout Christian, Lai has said in the past that he was willing to “pay the price” for his beliefs, to save the city that brought him his fame and fortune. Tragically, though, Hong Kong is no longer the place Lai once lauded for its freedom and called heaven. His trial will serve as a reminder of just how far Beijing will go to crush any opposition to its rule, in what was once one of Asia’s most storied cities.