Big Lychee, Various Sectors

Who would have thought it? Shutting down parks, playgrounds, gyms and beaches makes people fatter. On the NatSec front, police arrest martial arts trainers for ‘seditious intent’ (including possession of a photo of dead protester Chow Tsz-lok), and the trial of Stand News editors for ‘seditious publications’ is set for October.

Meanwhile, incoming Chief Executive John Lee makes another pledge to fight overseas ‘fear-mongering and badmouthing’ of Hong Kong. 

Which brings us to the last few days’ international media coverage of the city (some possibly paywalled)…

The latest journalist to leave Hong Kong is Atlantic’s Timothy McLaughlin, whose parting shot is a damning critique of the Hong Kong (ie Beijing) government’s revisionist version of what happened in 2019…

The narrative of the 2019 prodemocracy movement—in which millions defended their liberties and pushed for more freedom—now recounted by Beijing and its loyalists in Hong Kong is one of paid protesters, foreign agitators, and unpatriotic internal opposition.

…This is a false and deliberate strategy, one that pins all of the blame on a few “black hands” or “hostile forces” and carries a long historical precedent. Beijing deployed the same language at the time of the Tiananmen demonstrations, and more recently during 2008 protests in Tibet. The intent is to strip Hong Kongers of their own agency and assign blame to just a few select individuals, brushing aside the many legitimate grievances of city residents in favor of a more simplistic tale. 

…[Carrie] Lam’s bid to be Hong Kong’s chief executive started, she said, five years ago, with a call from God. It ends with a flourish of lies.

(The lying and gaslighting seem to feed Hong Kong officials’ frantic insistence on ‘explaining the truth’ to overseas audiences.)

An FT piece headlined ‘She was loved for standing up to China. She may die in jail’…

Just after dawn on January 6 2021, Claudia Mo’s housekeeper heard a sharp knock at the front door. The early hour, and Mo’s profile as a prominent opposition politician, made the housekeeper wary. She opened the door a crack, leaving the safety chain in place, and saw a troop of police outside. The housekeeper rushed to wake Mo, but the officers smashed through into the living room. “It was just thuggery, sheer thuggery,” said one person with knowledge of the raid. 

Mo, who was then 64 years old, was arrested and taken to Aberdeen police station on the south side of Hong Kong island … Similar scenes were playing out across the city as hundreds of police officers pulled a dragnet over Hong Kong and arrested more than 50 pro-democracy advocates — academics, activists and politicians.

A 25th handover anniversary offering from New Statesman…

Yet only halfway through the agreed term, those promises have already been broken – and Hong Kong’s vibrant civil society has been crushed.

The National Post of Canada on the interview in which former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin was asked about her continued role on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal…

McLachlin’s last remaining justification for remaining in her post is her contention that the Hong Kong bar wants her to remain. It is unclear if she is aware that its leadership has already been purged of all dissidents, leaving behind only pro-Beijing loyalists. In March of 2022, the former head of the Hong Kong Bar Association fled the country after he was summoned to an interview by the national security police.

(What’s the deal with these retired Western judges? Do they get such tiny pensions that they need the Hong Kong money? Are they too ashamed to admit they might have made a mistake? Don’t they know what’s happened to the local courts?)

And the Guardian on Hong Kong’s rapid decline in human-rights rankings.

Some more varied reading for the weekend…

A longish explanation of China’s claim to own Taiwan…

In their pursuit of the “One China” policy and Anschluss with Taiwan, Chinese authorities have imposed an ideological and political prism through which Chinese researchers operate…

…including a theory that Taiwan’s aborigines are descended from Guizhou inhabitants displaced by Han settlers some 4,000 years ago.

(This last claim takes some anthropological/archaeological balls. It’s like the UK claiming a chunk of Norway on the grounds it was settled by pre-Celtic inhabitants of what is now Wales – who migrated to Scandinavia via what’s now Belgium and Poland – even though no such population movement ever occurred.)

On out-of-area matters, a post from a Russian ultra-nationalist who has, let’s say, ‘issues’.

If you have an hour and a half to spare – a documentary Broken Ties by Andrei Loshak on Russians arguing with family and friends about the war in Ukraine.

No offense to the faithful, but your regular reminder of the absurdity of crypto.

In today’s episode of Who Cares? – the exciting new Executive Council line-up. 

Obvious question: what is ExCo, the so-called policy-advising ‘cabinet’?

In colonial times, the EC comprised the Governor, the Chief Secretary, Attorney-General, and Financial Secretary, the Commander of British Forces, and a few ‘non-official’ members, typically taipan-types from Hongkong Bank, Jardines or Swire. At weekly meetings, each bureau head would go in one by one and get quizzed about the latest situation in Education, Health, Public Works, Lands, etc – and get a pat on the head or kick up the rear, as circumstances warranted.

Today, the EC is four or five times bigger, including all 16 of the bureau heads, plus a similar number of outsiders such as pro-Beijing legislators and shoe-shining finance/business folk. Membership supposedly confers social status, so is used as a reward for loyalty or (as with Regina Ip being named ‘convenor’) a consolation prize. The average age of the new non-officials is (I read somewhere online so it must be true) 65.7. Proceedings are confidential, but we can be fairly sure – judging by quality of governance – that this large group does not offer advice so much as receive instructions on the ‘lines to take’. Under a principle of collective responsibility, members are required to openly support government policy.

As with the ‘improved’ patriots-only elections, Legislative Council and most publicly visible ‘politics’ in Hong Kong, ExCo is essentially ceremonial. The real decisions are made elsewhere. 

Hence Hong Kong’s nonsensical and apparently never-ending Covid restrictions. Despite the quarantine/hotel requirements that make inbound travel extremely difficult, the Rugby 7s organizers are hoping to hold an international tournament later this year, using a ‘closed loop’. 

Presumably, they are hoping the Covid regime will in fact be ended by November, as the proposed arrangements (teams being confined to hotels when not playing/training) sound too onerous for the average rugby player to bother with. Hong Kong’s top rugby doc foresees medical-care problems…

It’s not possible to have a WR rugby tournament without a concussion specialist pitch side.

Your Hong Kong handover 25th anniversary metaphor du jour – a burning bridge collapses. 

Some insider/expert views on the sinking of the Jumbo from TransitJam. Seems hardly any insurers would cover the barge’s trip over high seas – but scuttling would be a convenient and cost-effective way of just dumping the thing. 

Will Xi Jinping be visiting Hong Kong for July 1? The sharp reduction in quarantine time for ‘elites’ slated to be in his presence raises suspicions he might not. Also, People’s Daily chooses this moment to remind us how greatly he cares for the city, which you may or may not think suggests he’ll cancel. More likely, he will turn up – but for a few hours at the most, and the ‘elites’ will not be allowed near him.

From Chris Patten – a pointed letter to the Times, and remarks on whether Hong Kong was a British colony…

“I’m delighted to be able to demonstrate that as the last governor of Hong Kong, that I do actually exist, that I’m not a figment of my imagination,” Patten said, referencing the proposed textbooks.

A quick Patten Q&A on ‘post-peak’ China’s ability to maintain Hong Kong as an international hub – and some cheeky advice to John Lee and family. 

More on the last governor’s book-plugging event from AP.

Some worthwhile mid-week reading…

From HKFP – an op-ed on the John Lee administration members’ uniform, and how the Hong Kong authorities are extending film censorship.

A Diplomat piece says the NatSec Law has left Hong Kong ‘unrecognizable’, while HK Rule of Law Monitor offers a depressing round-up of legal developments for April-May.

Good CCP Watch interview with Timothy Cheek on ideology in China…

The amazing flip-flops in actual policy during Mao’s life and since then certainly raise your question [‘Can the Party simply appropriate any ideologies that become effective or popular over time?’]. It’s like, they just keep changing all the time, and is there a there there? One answer is, it’s all about power. And you just look at the Chinese version of the focus group and say, what will keep us in power for the next five years, and then we’ll say that. 

Another ‘could China invade Taiwan’ article. One scenario – hitting US bases in the Pacific – essentially means starting World War III. Why would Beijing throw away all the progress China has made in the last three decades just for an island whose people clearly don’t want to be part of the country? It looks like a contrived ‘sacred mission’ too far.

What sort of cynical embittered world are we living in, where you can’t tow a decrepit money-losing floating restaurant out to the Paracels where it tragically sinks in deep water, without nearly everyone instantly muttering about insurance fraud? Shocked!

Some more on the ‘Hong Kong was never a British colony’ hoo-hah from AP. Basically tortured semantics – Hong Kong wasn’t a British colony because we didn’t recognize it as one. A Rita Fan quote in this item in Global Times gets to the heart of why this arcane point is being put into local school textbooks…

…if we were a colony, we would be able to declare “independence” and have our own nationality and culture. “But the fact is Hong Kong people are Chinese, and our culture is Chinese culture,” Fan said.

Citizen-subjects do not have the right to perceive their own heritage. We decide your identity and culture – not you. 

A Reddit meme to clarify the issue, or not.

While we’re on the subject of conflicting and shifting meanings of words – the end of ‘One China’, from CSIS…

As [the 2024 presidential election] approaches, growing repression in Hong Kong and shifting demographics in Taiwan may finally convince the KMT to modify or relinquish the last planks of its unification platform. If not, the party risks falling into irrelevancy and Taiwan’s democracy risks losing its loyal opposition.

A raucous fanfare of barrel-bottoms being scraped heralds the announcement of Hong Kong’s new cabinet. The daunting task was to find 21 people unlikely to outshine the new Chief Executive in terms of charisma or other qualities. It seems they pulled it off!

Full line-up here (some cool English names: Horace, Algernon, Ingrid). 

Carrie Lam’s stalwarts are out. The new Health Secretary is ‘falling and clutching his knee’ guy from 2015 – and a zero-Covid fan. The new Justice Secretary was ‘voted out as Bar chair’. The new Chief Secretary is yet another longtime Security Bureau guy (Immigration Dept) and was formerly chair of the local ‘Committee for Safeguarding National Security’, which reports to Beijing officials. The new Education Secretary is a Putonghua fan and former head of the patriotic teachers’ union (more on her and the new Tech-Innovation guy here). The new Commerce Secretary left the Cathay group to run Mainland-owned rival start-up Greater Bay Airlines (and is of Qing-era patriotic stock). Others have been plucked from LegCo (Alice Mak for the Home Affairs and Youth portfolio) and/or obscurity.

It’s not hard to suspect a broad common theme here: nationalism and chips on shoulders against pro-democrats, foreigners, the West, and colonial-era institutions. These people have been picked to carry out an ideological mission handed down from above. Note that the transport, housing, lands and works bureaus, which deal with key quality-of-life issues, are all going to bland technocrat civil servants – so those functions can just continue on auto-pilot. The only policies that matter are NatSec and ‘integration’.

Quite a few commentators desperately cling to the idea that the incoming John Lee administration will magic away the Covid restrictions. As it is, we see pubs’ business down 60%

Lan Kwai Fong landlord Allan Zeman is sorely vexed at the heavy-handed enforcement of new Covid rules in his nightlife district, including at ‘upscale’ establishment Carbone (Catbone? Dogbone? Ratbone?). As he points out, only a tiny proportion of Covid cases come from bars, so the new RAT test system for them (but not pure restaurants) is absurd. But did the fervent government loyalist expect to be immune from Hong Kong’s NatSec/Covid-era priorities and style of policing? 

Engineering firm Analogue Holdings is accused of collusion with a competitor on bidding for air-conditioning maintenance contracts. Interesting timing: it’s not exactly every day that Hong Kong takes action against cartels, and boss Otto von Poon is the husband of outgoing Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng, whose performance has (some say) not totally pleased Beijing.

The stock plummets 10%. (I actually own a few shares in them, on account of the juicy dividends. Maybe not quite so juicy now.)

Some links for the weekend, starting with a legal theme…

Buried away in the statistics, a minor but telling example of the decline of Hong Kong in recent years: as of end-March, 35.4% of people being detained by the Correctional Services Dept were awaiting trial – supposedly innocent until proven guilty. 

Incoming CE John Lee promises to promote Hong Kong’s legal system in the face of ‘self-interest political bad-mouthing in international politics and punditry’.

Which leads us to the submission on rule of law in Hong Kong to the UN Human Rights Committee on Hong Kong by Georgetown Law. An introduction/thread… 

Beijing and the HKG … view the need for complete control as so overwhelming that they are employing a number of different tools to achieve their national security goals. 

That’s why the government has effectively ruled out jury trials for NS cases; why only pre-selected judges can hear NS cases; why only a select few NS defendants are allowed bail; and why there are growing limits on legal aid for NS (and other) cases.

It’s overkill, for sure — no doubt the HKG could ease up on some of its procedural restrictions, and still get the outcomes they want from a sadly (thus far at least) too-compliant and insufficiently rights-protective judiciary.

Another report – somewhat broader in scope – from Hong Kong Human Rights Information Centre/ Hong Kong Rule of Law Monitor. 

Expect some angry hyper-ventilated mouth-frothing official statements about interference in Hong Kong affairs.

Or, if you prefer, a former Chief Justice advises Hongkongers not to focus so much on their rights.

Three years ago yesterday, two million on the streets. Whatever the number was, the whole area, plus all transport connections, were crammed – there was literally no room for more.

Regina Ip gets a tatty consolation prize – ‘convener’ of the rubber-stamp Executive Council. 

Plans to build lots more roads, especially nice expensive tunnels, in Lantau as part of a ‘fundamental change to the island’s function’. It will henceforth be a parking lot hub-zone.

From Atlantic, an account of returning to a newly repressive China…

China under Communist Party rule has always been an autocracy with overwhelming repressive capabilities. But in the era of Xi Jinping, the state has been empowered to tighten its grip on society and equipped with enhanced surveillance technology to make that possible. The pandemic has offered the state further rationale and opportunity to expand this power.

In Foreign Policy, a perhaps rather over-excited portrayal of China’s economy as toast.

She still has another 14 days in office, so – hey, anything could happen, right? But it is probably not too soon to say that Carrie Lam has been the greatest disaster to hit Hong Kong since the Japanese occupation. Of course, from her point of view it’s the other way round: Hong Kong is the worst thing that ever happened to Carrie. Oblivious to the end on Bloomberg TV…

When asked if she’d like to offer an apology to the Hong Kong people for anything during her time in office, Hong Kong’s outgoing leader Carrie Lam declined.

“No. I want to apologize to my husband, and my sons, for the sacrifices they’ve made.”

Do her husband and sons regard living thousands of miles away from her a ‘sacrifice’?

In another interview…

For Lam, the most unforgettable event of her term will be the implementation of the national security law on June 30, 2020 as her hands would have been tied without the Beijing-drafted legislation.

“Without the national security law, there would be no ‘patriots ruling Hong Kong’ and without ‘patriots ruling Hong Kong’ there would be a lot of things that could not be done,” she said.

The chutzpah gets better…

Lam denied that people were emigrating because of the national security law, saying the emigration wave only emerged over the past year but the national security law was implemented two years ago.

“They emigrated mostly because of high housing prices and Covid border restrictions in the SAR, while overseas countries stepped up with talent appeal schemes,” she said.

So that’s OK then!

All you could ever possibly want to know about the Great 2022 Kennedy Town Bagel War. And if you like your crappy over-hyped ‘concept’ food outlets served as villains in the struggle against imperialist classist racist misogynist cultural evils, here come the Very Serious Thought Police on the subject.

Hong Kong’s relaxation of Covid measures goes into un-relaxation mode, again, in a manner the official statement describes as ‘suitably’ (reminds me of the time the press releases called all infrastructure projects ‘necessary’). In order to enter a bar, you must show a photo of a recent negative RAT test with your name and the date and a notary public’s stamp crammed onto the little plastic box to prove scientifically and absolutely that it is yours and current. 

And the purpose of this is? Apparently an attempt to appear to be micro-managing clusters. Or something.

Some mid-week links…

Nikkei Asia on the weakening of judicial independence in Hong Kong and what it means for business…

Alvin Cheung, the scholar, argued that “certainly if your line of work involves dealing with [state-owned enterprises], you should not be in Hong Kong.”

“I would suggest that the presumption should be in favor of Singapore, unless you have really, really compelling reasons to be in Hong Kong in particular. And in that case you should perform risk management accordingly. Which is to say, any risk assessments conducted prior to 2020 are absolutely irrelevant.”

HKFP op-ed on the Justice Dept’s time-wasting prosecutions.

From David Webb, a searchable dataset of the Hong Kong government’s accounts since 1999 – ‘a resource for any policy researcher, journalist, student or legislator investigating how the Government raises, saves and spends its money’. Bookmark it.

For masochists – in New York, a personal memoir by Karen Cheung of the descent of Hong Kong into a NatSec/Covid dystopia.

From CMP, a history of the CCP’s use of the word ‘core’ – as in ‘party leadership’. (Trigger warning: contains pic of Jimmy Carter halfway through.)

Foreign Affairs asks has China lost Europe?

A BBC report on weird racist videos Chinese make in Africa.

An interesting blog post refuting the claim that the DPP is de-sinicizing Taiwan.

For those home-sick for Japan, a great thread on the country’s user-oriented design.

The government is planning another round of clunkily-distributed HK$5,000 cash handouts to help compensate for the economic damage it has inflicted through its Covid measures. But it will try to exclude anyone planning to emigrate…

…Financial Secretary Paul Chan said that the government would determine whether residents have left or intend to leave the city permanently … 

Those who have applied to withdraw their Mandatory Provident Fund early due to permanent departure from the city would also be seen as ineligible for the second phase of consumption vouchers. The government will also look at other evidence.

So petty it hardly counts as vindictive. But it suggests someone is more frustrated at the ongoing exodus than officials publicly admit. It also has a slightly sinister Minority Report thing about it. Will they employ mind-readers to determine whether people are thinking of leaving town? As a Standard editorial puts it:

…it is ill conceived to extend this policy to those who are still in Hong Kong just because someone in the government “thinks” they are making plans to leave the city.

…They are Hong Kong citizens and, therefore, have the same rights as anyone else.

Mind you – with so many families packing their bags, this could save billions.

Liberal Studies have been scrapped in Hong Kong schools after the subject supposedly fed kids warped political brainwashing. Thoroughly non-biased and objective replacement textbooks describe the 2019 protests as ‘violent terrorist attacks’. They also push a pedantic/desperate argument that Hong Kong was never a British colony. (If they catch you thinking otherwise, you won’t get your HK$5,000.)

VOA describes journalists as an endangered species in Hong Kong…

[A] journalist, who covers politics for an online European outlet, said he has considered leaving because of threats online, criticism from pro-Beijing media, and abuse on social media.

“It seems that this is a well-orchestrated pro-government attack against Western media. And even though it’s not official, for me on the ground it feels the message is quite clear,” he said. “Certain reporting is no longer welcome in Hong Kong.”

It is a stark change from when that journalist first moved to Hong Kong. “There were almost no restrictions at all, so there was nothing to worry about,” he said.

(On a related note… I’ve always allowed pretty much anything in the comments section of this site, save for the ravings of the odd sociopath. But people are currently in jail for writing or publishing opinions, such as calling for overseas governments to sanction Hong Kong officials. So, for reasons of plain everyday cowardly paranoia, comments are now moderated – self-censored, whatever you want to call it – accordingly. Sorry.)

An eye-witness account with video (from up a tree) to mark the third anniversary of 6-12, the day Hong Kong’s anti-extradition protests turned into ‘riots’. Samuel Bickett’s illustrated recollections…

Of the five demands made by the protesters, three were related to police and prosecutorial abuses, and all three initially stemmed from a single day of violence: June 12, 2019.

…The intention was always to not only attack, but cause maximum pain.

There was simply no justification for what I saw the police do that day.

Academics like Clifford Stott (who later refused to endorse an official whitewash) say that when a society has large-scale protests continuing for more than just a few days, it has a political rather than law-and-order problem. June 12 was the day it became clear that Beijing would insist that Hong Kong protests be suppressed by force, not solved through government response to public opinion. The Leninist impulse to bludgeon the world into submission led to the discharging of thousands of tear-gas rounds in the second half of 2019, and continues today – even in the obsessive and pointless quarantine regime for arriving passengers. This is what Hong Kong lost with the ending of One Country Two Systems.

Some faintly absurd remarks from ‘heavyweight’ Tsang Yok-sing pondering a reversal of the CCP’s direct rule over Hong Kong – worth a look for the SCMP’s ‘blue’ commenters ranting about how the guy is a closet pro-dem.

FCC president Keith Richburg on legal advice he received before the Club’s cancellation of the Human Rights Press Awards…

“In [the lawyer’s] words, you won’t get a fair hearing before a national security law judge, and he knows because he stands in front of him. He said you won’t get a fair hearing,” Richburg said, without disclosing the lawyer’s identity.

Richburg went on to say: “How many people arrested on the sedition or national security law have gotten off? You think they’re getting a fair trial in Hong Kong and China? Arresting people means that you’re guilty. Rule of law means the police can go out and arrest you for almost anything. That’s what’s scary about things now.”

He should have said this from the start. Some context – a graphic showing the rectification of Hong Kong news media in recent years, including the recent closure of Factwire. There’s not much left.