Big Lychee, Various Sectors

How many cops does it take to unroll plastic barrier tape in Hong Kong’s attempt to beat the World 100-metres Barrier Tape Frantic Unravelling record? Count them. 

Note the Deputy Sub-Assistant Lockdown Ambush Commander sprinting into the sunset with the tape. His mission: to ensure no residents spot what’s happening and flee Kam Ping Street with seconds to spare. He is clearly massively chuffed – after much pleading with his boss – to have been picked for the job. His mother must be so proud. (Similar video of the cops in action here.)

Links for the weekend…

Hong Kong’s greatest living ‘innovation and governance architect’ says cycling is inconsiderate. (Selfish space-wasters on bikes do leave a mess on your Alphard when you drive into them, don’t they?)

An academic thinks Macau might not renew US casino operators’ licences when they expire next year. Obviously, it would be another way to hit back at the US right now. But Beijing has long been unhappy that foreigners were making so much profit from Mainland gamblers. And it would mirror the earlier pattern in other (infinitely less scummy) industries where overseas investors gained access to China’s market until Mainland companies acquired the expertise to do it themselves. 

In Atlantic, Timothy McClaughlin looks at the arrest of activist Tam Tak-chi for sedition and sees Hong Kong going back to being a colony.

What the Hong Kong government has lacked in creativity with regard to addressing the protest movement, it has made up for in finding ways to punish those involved.

(In fairness to the CCP, the Mainland under one-party rule is arguably a colony, too.)

The US State Dept offers writers of press releases a superb lesson in causing maximum offense to the right people with the smallest number of paragraphs and words: PRC pressure on Taiwan threatens regional peace.

China Media Project on how CCP theoretical organ Seeking Truth has become Xi Monthly over the last few years.

John Pomfret in Atlantic on what Xi Jinping is doing when he clamps down on private business

Why is he messing with this golden goose? In a word, control.

National Interest compares (in a fairly non-wacky way) Xi’s China with Nazi Germany and the USSR.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s very readable preface for the Thai edition of his book on the Hong Kong protest movement.

Lowy Interpreter on the wolf-warriors’ own goals, with reference to the Big Kimchi War…

…unnecessary, transitory chest-thumping over fermented cabbage.

Great thread on an arrogant-going-on-delusional Xi-inspired war-mongering piece in the SCMP (link included) by Zhou Bo…

Col. Zhou concludes by saying “Biden… can save China-US relations from going into free fall.” Hope springs eternal because otherwise, you are getting into a fight too early and therefore, likely to lose.

A good basic post-pandemic economic outlook for China by George Magnus.

Magnus Fiskesjo in LARB on Racism with Chinese Characteristics.

A Western artist sneaks subversive work into a Beijing exhibition. 

Did Covid-19 leak from a lab? A long deep look from New York magazine.

A review of Trade Wars are Class Wars by Klein and Pettis.

On off-topic out-of-area matters…

An extract from American Kompromat, a book on Russian influence over Donald Trump.

A digital game designer’s view of QAnon – a game that plays the players.

Hilarity of the week has been Reddit-based kids forcing hedge funds betting against GameStop into a ruinous short squeeze. David Webb explains why other, later-arriving short-sellers will, inevitably, ultimately win.

For your viewing pleasure: a hyper-in-depth analysis of Max Headroom (amazing VJ-concept wrecked by idiotic backstories. For hardcore 80s pop-culture/media geeks only).

In case you hadn’t noticed, Beijing is planning changes to Hong Kong’s ‘electoral’ system. This might seem superfluous. The CE is hand-picked by the CCP, with a small-circle rubber-stamp ‘election’ following. The Legislative Council has always been rigged, and is now largely cleared of pan-dems. District Councils are largely powerless, and now due to be cleansed of pan-dems as well. 

But just rigging outcomes is not good enough. Underlying polling figures still show that Beijing ‘loses’ whenever a free vote is allowed, making the process itself humiliating for the CCP. So we are now hearing talk of rejecting nasty Western-style democracy and replacing it with a healthy ‘consultative’ approach – essentially to strip universal public participation out of the formula.

Presumably, District Councils will end up being ‘elected’ by (Beijing-friendly) functional/United Front bodies – thus becoming like Municipal People’s Congresses, which send delegates further up the pyramid to rubber-stamp the regime’s decisions, like selecting Chief Executives. The symbolic presence of popular representatives in the Chief Executive ‘election’ procedures will end. 

This is not about control so much as appearances. The abandonment of just a pretense at a Western-style electoral system (outlined in the Basic Law) sends Hongkongers an obvious message about their cultural/national identity. And simply the sight of opponents within the essentially ceremonial structure drives the Leninist mind nuts. The system is perfect, so by definition there is no place for opposition or dissent. In order to maintain this state of bliss, it follows that accurate public opinion polls will also have to cease.

In other Hong Kong matters…

The FT reports (paywall) that the HKMA, SFC and Financial Services Bureau are phoning bankers and fund managers leaving Hong Kong for Singapore and Tokyo, to ask why they are relocating. 

The calls … described as new and unusual, asked for a full picture of the decision-making process behind the moves and the significance of the timing. 

Sadly, no mention of the answers the agencies received. It would be a bigger story if these agencies weren’t keeping tabs on this trend.

And a Bloomberg op-ed wonders whether Beijing is more nervous about suppressing Hong Kong than we might think. The circumstantial evidence is that the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China – the organization behind the annual Tiananmen vigil – survives. 

Of course, the June 4 gathering itself is suspended owing to Covid. But continued toleration of the vigil was one of Governor Chris Patten’s dozen or so tests of whether Beijing was upholding One Country Two Systems. Another example of Beijing’s supposed restraint would be RTHK, which remains editorially independent and vibrant (notwithstanding attacks on specific programming and staff members). 

So maybe the CCP is slightly mindful about upsetting international opinion. Or maybe it just has a long list of hostile forces to work through.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam describes the anti-Covid lockdown in Jordan – which 98% of armchair experts agree was chaotic and pointless – as a success. She says her officials might do it again, though on a smaller scale – limited to just a street or a few adjoining buildings. She has omniscient power and knows for certain that future suspected clusters or outbreaks will be less extensive than in Jordan. 

But – just in case we think she is going soft – she adds that the government might impose several such lockdowns at the same time in different places. And to keep everyone on their toes, there will be no leaks or other announcements, so the operations will be ‘raid/ambush-style’, to use her own inimitably crap choice of wording.

And voila! At an intersection in deepest Yau Ma Tei, the cops suddenly descend and roll out the expandable barriers to seal off several buildings, while plain-clothes nurses with nets and spears fan out into alleyways, where they in wait to to pounce on passers-by. 

Not being a public-health expert, I can’t say for sure whether this lockdown approach makes sense (most doubt it). The problem is that, even if Carrie and her officials merely act competently – let alone dazzlingly – the aura of stupidity and malice is so thick that we will only perceive another mess.

Are the quasi-military tactics and language a conscious choice by forces that wish to acclimatize citizens to life in a police state? Or have top officials so thoroughly absorbed Beijing’s paranoid hatred of Hongkongers that testing elderly slum residents for Covid and clubbing MTR passengers are all part of the same thing? Either way, the government seems compelled to alienate the public through its contemptuous style – a need to assert crude dominance – even while the community has by global standards done a better-than-average job of fighting the virus. 

Which reminds me – what’s happened to that PR agency Carrie hired?

Some mid-week links…

The SCMP reports on Hong Kong’s latest exciting demographic figures. One minute there’s not enough land, the next minute there aren’t enough people.

Christopher DeWolf at ZolimaCityMag explains how bureaucrats forgot – and the community quickly discovered – the Bishop Hill reservoir, which looks like some Byzantine emperor’s stables.

From Sebastian Veg: Music in the Umbrella Movement – on the role played by music in Hong Kong’s protests, complete with tons of links to the songs and other material.

And SMH looks at Xi Jinping’s ‘doublespeak masterclass’ to the Davos World Economic Forum bore-fest.

Meet Dan, who’s moving his savings out of the reach of the NatSec Regime. Like a lot of people, he was spooked by the cops’ freezing of Ted Hui’s family members’ local savings. 

I know people who have transferred much of their cash and investment accounts from HSBC or BoC across the street to the local CitiBank or DBS branch – but that leaves the wealth in Hong Kong and presumably just as exposed to freezing or seizure. Dan already seems to have an account in Canada. But what’s the simplest way for a plain retail saver to move money offshore if they do not have an overseas bank account/address/residency? 

(And no, not crypto.)

The Hong Kong government’s Mainland-style lockdown/mass-testing in Jordan was – let’s be generous – no more clumsily executed than we would expect. (Full photo-journal here.) The operation was leaked (maybe one in eight residents fled) and involved chained-up buildings. Not that there’s a neat, warm and cuddly way to do it, but you could at least make an effort to disguise the contempt for poor, elderly and brown people. Maybe chuck a few hundred bucks in with the instant noodles and Ma Ling luncheon meat, for the inconvenience? It makes you wonder what happened in Wuhan. (Official statement tries to sound sensitive.)

After putting 7,000 under house arrest – many in crowded and unsanitary subdivided apartments – officials find only a dozen or so positive cases. So was it panicky, heartless incompetence? Or did the lockdown yield useful and reassuring results, marred by an unfortunate dash of giving-Muslims-pork? 

Philip Bowring criticizes the whole pandemic strategy as disproportionate. The negligible impact of Covid on the city’s death rate seems to bear this out – but of course we could argue that at least some of the measures have helped keep Covid at bay. For all we know, if the government hadn’t closed the beaches, half of us would now be dead. If the authorities just pretended to know what they were doing, it would help. After all, apart from freak places like Taiwan and New Zealand, the whole world has been clueless.

As it is, citizens are left with the impression that the administration’s priorities reflect a traditionally dismal quality of governance, amplified by the malignance of the NatSec-era. It seems the number-one priority is to make sure all decisions on vaccines and travel restrictions please the CCP. Next comes the need to exploit the health crisis to suppress political protests and opposition. Third is to minimize the economic and social impact on our friends. Looking after the local community comes last.

Some good background on the origins of China’s court system in this SCMP piece by Jerome Cohen on the grim outlook for Hong Kong’s judicial independence…

Beijing and its Hong Kong agents have now made it clearer than ever that they expect Hong Kong judges to behave like their mainland counterparts. Local lawyers, especially barristers who specialise in criminal defence, should not believe they will be exempt from similar pressures.

Liberal Studies assignment is to watch an in-depth video presented by Alexei Navalny on the corruption of his poisoner Vladimir Putin, exemplified by an immensely tacky Putin’s Palace. Looking forward to the one on Xi Jinping. (Found the place on Google Maps here.)

The HK Police bring in Howard the Not Very Convincing Kim Jong-un Lookalike for possession of a gun that isn’t a gun and which he says he doesn’t have anyway – but since when did something have to exist to be a national security threat?

China imposes sanctions on the likes of John Bolton, who is chuffed. US sanctions on Chinese/Hong Kong ‘elites’ hurt because such people like to move their assets and families to the US. It doesn’t work the other way round. (See also the SCMP’s Letter of the Week.)

And then there’s this…  

HK’s Curriculum Development Council named a committee “Committee on the renamed subject” to rename the subject of liberal studies as the Education Bureau decided to rename the subject but hasn’t come up with a new name.

Surely that should be ‘yet to be renamed’? There’s Orwellian, and there’s Kafkaesque, and there’s Hong Kong bureaucracy in the age of NatSec. How about ‘illiberal studies’? 

On the subject of education, Harrow International School – the publicly subsidized (via land grant) ‘non-profit’ college for rich Mainlanders’ kids – has paid HK$240 million in fees to a company owned by some of its own board members. I know of a case whereby a British private school essentially franchises its name to a local campus via a company that provides ‘consulting/management services’. Presumably, this is something along those lines. A nice deal for the people who own the go-between. (And presumably legitimate – surely the Hong Kong officials didn’t imagine brand-name English boarding schools would whore themselves out for free?)

Some reading you might have missed…

In HKFP, the collision between the NatSec Law and the Common Law systems.

From the FFC’s Correspondent, can RTHK survive? The amazing thing is that the public broadcaster has still barely been rectified. The transition to propaganda outlet has barely begun. As if it has some sort of magic force field protecting it from Leninist ‘serve-the-Party’ duties.

A translation of Mainland academic Chen Duanhong’s National Constitution Day speech. David Ownby’s introduction is worth reading, even if you can’t put up with the Schmittian BS of the speech itself.

A Bloomberg op-ed urges Beijing to tone down its ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy. Who will dare tell Xi Jinping to get over his delusional ego-trip? (Anyway, the soft-power obnoxiousness will help dissuade Biden from lapsing into Obama-era Panda-indulgence.)

Perry Link on why so many Chinese dissidents and other anti-CCP folk have (had?) a soft spot for Donald Trump.

(And with all that in mind, Taiwan’s ambassador was invited to Joe Biden’s inauguration.)

Not sure about the book, but this review of a ‘Hong Kong expat novel’ is pretty good.

He is the everyman who was here at that time saying what everybody like him said.

Global Times gets stroppy about how kimchi is really just the same as paocai, sort of, in some ways. (As an artisanal craftsman of both, I would say GT is half-right, but since they’re making soft-power obnoxiousness out of it, I’ll let them stew in their own brine. Luckily, no-one’s told them about sauerkraut.)

Not much of a surprise given the criticism: David Perry QC has dropped out of the prosecution of Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee, Margaret Ng for the CCP’s Hong Kong regime. Funny how the government can write a relatively short whiny press release when it feels like it. Looks like the days when overseas lawyers took on such work are over. With the outgoing Bar Association head warning that the NatSec regime has diminished judicial independence, overseas Court of Final Appeal judges will be under more pressure to quit.

The Hong Kong government is meanwhile planning to let the Immigration Dept bar people from exiting the city. This is ostensibly an amendment aimed at asylum-seekers, but it could easily be applied to would-be emigres, BNO passport holders, or anyone.

Here’s a clue. Uncle Bob – a cockney-speaking Hongkonger who does some amusing food/lifestyle vids – detected suspicious Gestapo-types lingering at the airport, as if to monitor who is leaving town for LHR. Given that many pan-dems (and other) people have a range of documents to use (BNO, HKID, HK/Portuguese/Canadian/other passport), perhaps the Immigration Dept computer system can’t keep track of everyone, so they want to do visual IDs of faces. 

The UK hits back at Beijing’s threats to take action against BNO passport holders moving to Britain. HKFP looks at one family that’s leaving.  This is early days.

As if the Brits aren’t annoying enough, a London borough is thinking of renaming streets to piss off the newly relocated Chinese embassy. While wondering how to pronounce ‘Xiaobo Road’, local residents may also be able to admire the Tibetan flag flying from the town hall.

Following the New Year Purge, the US puts sanctions on pro-Beijing stalwart Tam Yiu-chung, three members of the NatSec Police, and a couple of Mainland officials overseeing Hong Kong. Reuters report here.

Tam has presumably been included because he is the only Hong Kong member of the NPC Standing Committee, which issues Beijing’s imperial edicts that override the Basic Law/local legislative process – notably the one imposing the NatSec Law. 

Tam is a veteran CCP loyalist who came through the local United Front hierarchy – thus more than a mere shoe-shiner from the tycoon/social-climber brigades. But he doesn’t have any input into serious high-level CCP decision-making. The Standing Committee, like the whole NPC, is just a rubber-stamp. He has also been a member of the CPPCC and the local Executive Councils – both essentially ceremonial ‘advisory’ bodies. 

So, unlike the cops and officials on the list, he does not hold actual executive authority or wield power. All he does is strut around obediently reciting the party line – as he has done on NatSec issues. In his zombie-like way, he is innocent. Unfazed Tam’s inclusion in the sanctions should worry other ‘heavyweights’, as the SCMP calls them.

It certainly worries someone. The HK government goes beyond whiny and bursts into some of its most brain-exploding freak-out ranting yet in its press statement, which starts with ‘insane, shameless and despicable’ and ends with ‘deplorable … totally illegitimate and violates established principles of international law’. The extreme ‘utmost’ ‘so-called’ panty-wetting – and the insistence that the sanctioned are ‘discharging an honourable duty’ – are presumably for the benefit of Tam and the NatSec cops as they adjust to life without personal bank accounts and credit cards. Apart from that, the CCP will take their continued slavishness for granted, and one day they will be of no further use.

The HK government rolls out its loyalty oath for civil servants. The pledge is brief and inoffensive enough to convince most – probably all – civil servants to sign and return it within a month. But it is also vague, and subject to NatSec Regime definitions of words like ‘allegiance’ and ‘obedience’. Tam Yiu-chung will be happy to explain more about what this means in practice to your freedom of expression and action. The days when civil servants could attend protests or sign petitions are over.

Bureaucrats will have more declarations to fill in if they have to state that they do not hold a BNO passport. The SCMP article mentions the UK’s policy of offering residency as ‘overreach’ in China’s view, but perhaps Beijing is the one trying too hard. Large numbers of Hongkongers – including many oh-so-loyal pro-Beijing folk – hold BNOs, Canadian or other passports, even though China does not recognize dual citizenship. Having to come clean about, or even sacrifice, their hard-earned overseas right-of-abode would be a serious test of their love for the CCP. 

The Law Gazette on the rights and wrongs of David Perry QC prosecuting people like Martin Lee and Jimmy Lai. Sympathizers argue that he must take on clients regardless of their ‘morality’ – as advocates have always done to ensure (say) heinous murderers do not go unrepresented. This sounds fair and noble when you are defending an individual. But does the principle apply if you are asked to prosecute on behalf of a repressive (foreign) state or thuggish regime trying to keep itself in power by assaulting citizens’ rights and freedoms? (Some learned comment here, and in the Guardian.)

(As commenters have pointed out, to get around the current ban on travellers from the UK, Perry would have to do 21 days in – say – Dubai, then another 21 days in quarantine here. So how will he make it for February 16?)

Unless something interesting happens during Hong Kong’s latest cold snap, I’ll probably be hibernating for a few days.

Can’t have a whole week go by without a round-up – 11 people arrested in connection with the HK12’s attempt to escape to Taiwan. Or an interesting court case: RTHK’s Bao Choy pleads not guilty to ‘making false statements’ when checking Yuen Long attack vehicle details. Also on an RTHK/transport theme, the broadcaster wins Headline of the Week Award for the story on a (pro-Beijing) lawmaker doing a video conference call while driving…

An ornament that had previously been spotted hanging off his rear-view mirror also swung into view every now and then, and the lawmaker looked around far more often than one would be expected to during a video conference, in a manner more consistent with someone cruising around on the roads, not online.

Will he get prosecuted?

In other legal affairs: does this guy need the money this badly? David Perry QC from the UK prepares to do the NatSec Regime’s dirty work by prosecuting the likes of Martin Lee and Jimmy Lai. A commentator asks about his quarantine arrangements – is the Hong Kong public paying for the highly remunerated barrister to spend 21 days in a hotel?

Some links…

A profile of US-born lawyer John Clancey – one of the arrestees in the New Year Purge.

China Digital Times with details about the HK Police’s blocking of HKChronicals.

Asia Times on Beijing’s plans to eliminate pan-dems from Hong Kong elections (yes, they’re already eliminated – but the CCP doesn’t take chances).

Reuters on the number of Hongkongers likely to leave for the UK in the coming year – specifically, how much money they’ll take with them. The economy can handle the capital outflow, but will it miss the skills of some 300,000 (presumably middle-class) people in their 30s-50s?

Younger/poorer Hongkongers are moving to Taiwan, and many seem attracted to the Qingshui coastal suburb of Taichung. I prefer the downtown area myself, but the new district is cheaper.

The US Consulate in Hong Kong is keeping a (melodramatically named) list of everyone arrested – and those charged – under the NatSec Law.

Interesting thread on all the Covid-came-from-outside-China theories.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom reviews books on the CCP’s campaigns against Hong Kong and the Uighurs. 

An Atlantic story on Epoch Times, the pro-trump Falun Gong paper aimed at readers for whom one cult isn’t enough.

Protest artist Harcourt Romanticist does Raft of The Medusa.

After deciding to drop several US-sanctioned Mainland stocks, the HK Tracker Fund (managed by a US institution) is going to include them again. Maybe. But wait! There’s more! Maybe they will reverse the reverse. 

Judge Ernie strikes back. The Chief Justice says you can wear anything in court. Ernie says no.

The HK Police deny – in that oh-so-convincing tone of maximum righteous wrath – a report that they are sending arrestees’ phones over the border for data extraction. The reporter responds that the denial does not address the actual content in the story. The press-statement equivalent of parking your van on a hill and not using the handbrake.

And, perhaps most perplexing of all – after maintaining that the Covid pandemic is serious enough to warrant beach closures, travel restrictions, etc, the Hong Kong government suggests that it won’t rush vaccinations, as it has the ‘luxury of time’ to sit back and wait and stare in the air while doing nothing. (There might be a scientifically sound reason for this. The epidemiologists’ ‘sit back and stare in the air’ strategy. Nasty suspicious minds wonder if the aim is to drag out the social controls for as long as possible to keep a rebellious community in check.)

Some deaths to announce. RIP: Melvis, who brought pleasure to at least dozens of inebriated Central pub-goers; Sheldon Adelson, who brought happiness to the Macau money-laundering sector, if not to gambling addicts; and (reputationally) mildly amusing comedian ‘Uncle Roger’, who has kowtowed to the Almighty Panda so profusely it would shame Kenny G. (More here.)