Big Lychee, Various Sectors

It’s barely Wednesday, but it looks like we already have a winner for this week’s Pass The Sick Bag Prize: Hong Kong Customs Commissioner Hermes Tang, who declares… 

It is an honour and yet a grave responsibility to be a member of the Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the HKSAR. I have a particular deep feeling in holding the capacity and must express my sincerest gratitude to the Central Government.

(I have a particular deep feeling that the ‘and yet’ in the first sentence is a bit odd.)

Of course, there’s more (the Pass The Sick Bag isn’t that easy to win). Commissioner Hermes goes on at far greater length – more than the most verbose or literary of us could manage even if we were paid – on the adoption of that oh-so elegant Mainland-style goose-step marching for his staff’s parades…

The Chinese-style foot drill has long been a shining icon of our country in the international community. It is also a spiritual outlook that our 1.4 billion compatriots are proud of. Good practice of the Chinese-style foot drill helps in better integrating ourselves into the country’s governance system and enriching the exercise of ‘one country, two systems’. Apart from spreading a positive message to members of the public, it also adds a vibrant colour of patriotism to the city.

Now read each sentence again carefully, and each time ask yourself whether it is true, or even logical. Really Hermes?

That’s just a small portion of a lavish bout of patriotic NatSec-era shoe-shining – though this is not so unusual among the disciplined services, who take orders, and everything else, literally.

Hermes is shown on the right presenting the Whistle of Honour (I wish I’d made that up, but no) to the best recruit. “Don’t blow it all at once,” he said. Maybe.

At the other end of the rhetorical scale… Several CUKH students have been sentenced for rioting in 2019. One, nursing student Foo Hoi-ching, wrote a defiant letter to the judge – a translation here.

From rhetoric to semantics… another Hong Kong court hears an expert’s view on how, based on 1,900-year-old Eastern Han Dynasty texts, ‘Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times’ might be a seditious slogan.

Tam Tak-chi, nicknamed “Fast Beat,” appeared in the District Court before Judge Stanley Chan on Monday … People in the public gallery made heart hand gestures and … shouted “You’re so handsome” to Tam, who at one point waved, pulled down his mask and smiled back.

Too sick with worry to do anything today. Just sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the latest news from Queen Mary’s. She should have asked someone to help her pull those suitcases full of cash up the stairs to the store room after every payday – but too stubborn, of course.

Tam Yiu-chung, a ‘delegate’ due to attend a meeting of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, is told to stay at home. The reason is Beijing’s fear of (or need to appear hyper-alarmed about) a single untraceable Covid case in Hong Kong. As his peremptory treatment shows, the NPCSC simply serves as a rubber stamp, and Tam’s role is purely ceremonial.

Another victim of Mainland cancellations is Carrie Lam, who has been asked not to bother attending a meeting between Shenzhen officials and, er, Carrie Lam. The cadres are too busy for her. It was supposed to be about the Northern Metropolis Technopole Hub-Zone.

Which brings us rather neatly to Regina Ip, who echoes my thoughts on the ideological incorrectness of the Lantau Tomorrow Mega-Reclamation Project as a Hong Kong-centric plan at odds with the New Territories-cum-Shenzhen Cross-Border Merged Technopole Integration Vision. Reg also takes the opportunity to casually mention the possibility that Carrie will not serve a second term.

(Do I feel an ‘I told you so’ moment coming? In 2018 I called the Lantau thing ’too preposterous to be real’, said that ‘If the Lantau reclamation boondoggle had Beijing’s blessing at this stage, it would just happen – no debate or lobbying necessary’, and droned on about my ‘nagging feeling that this absurd idea isn’t going to happen and isn’t really intended to happen’. If I was right, all the lovely Peng Chau residents foreseeing the death of their island can relax and drink a toast to the Greater Bay Area.)

Back with the shoe-shiners’ weekend – former CE CY Leung leaps on the Mayer Brown HKU bandwagon…

“I call on Chinese state-owned institutions in Hong Kong, all universities funded by the Hong Kong government, and Chinese clients with dignity to boycott Mayer Brown. I invite law firms who are not under the influence of foreign powers in Hong Kong to actively represent this client [HKU],” Leung said.

Far away from all this grovelling, some very forthright extracts from American lawyer Samuel Bickett’s interview with Citizen News…

Since the 2019 demonstrations, no police have been prosecuted. Whether it’s my case or the case of a cop driving a motorcycle through a crowd, or attacking a pregnant woman, or pepper spraying someone for no reason, the DOJ should have easily been able to prosecute the officers.

On the intimidation and closure of prisoners charity Wall-fare…

What the hell are the police and the security bureau thinking? I just don’t understand, did [Security Secretary] Chris Tang’s mother not love him enough as a child? What happened to him?

Epidemiologist Ben Cowling is undergoing quarantine in Hong Kong and commenting on the procedures – here, then here.

An interesting and worrying summary (not sure if it’s by Prof Cowling – link here) of the bind Hong Kong is in…

By the end of October, nearly 500000 people in Hong Kong will have been fully vaccinated for 6 months or more …  This translates to a possible decrease in immunity for this population. The HKSARG needs to use the time it has now … by making boosters available (to everyone who wants them, not just lawmakers)… Otherwise when the next wave comes (and it is more likely ‘when’ than ‘if’), it will be a disaster of epic proportions.

More on the timing side of things here. Main problem is the low vaccination rate among the elderly, about which we hear plenty of explanations but no solutions. (How about this? Send every one of them a letter stating ‘Dear valued elderly, You have three months to get vaccinated. Then the city opens up. If you are not vaccinated, you will possibly die – but that will be your choice. Thank you for your attention. PS, there’s a HK$100 Park N Shop coupon in it for you.’) 

Also…

Draconian quarantine measures in Hong Kong have exposed risks of awful and unhygienic hotel accommodation, getting food poisoning and getting infected while in quarantine (at least 2 documented in Hong Kong).

Some weekend reading…

A legal academic asks how Hong Kong courts should treat the NatSec Law with regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

HKFP op-ed on the ‘normal’ to which Hong Kong has returned.

Atlantic on that increasingly popular subject – why the US shouldn’t exaggerate China’s might.

If China’s policy makers can successfully pivot their economy to be a more productive and dynamic one, the risk to Washington is real. If, however, it turns out that China is more like Evergrande—a glossy growth story with a rotten core—then Beijing’s ambitions will unravel, much like the property company’s.

Great profile from Palladium on Xi Jinping’s chief engineer of human souls, low-profile Politburo member and ideologist Wang Huning, who is responsible for today’s anti-decadence anti-individualism drive – fighting video games, gay rights activism, celebrity-worship and so on. I didn’t realize he was also behind Jiang Zemin’s ‘Three Represents’ and Hu Jintao’s ‘Harmonious Society’ slogan-initiatives.

[Wang’s] worst fear has become reality: the “unstoppable undercurrent of crisis” he identified in America seems to have successfully jumped the Pacific. Despite all his and Xi’s success in draconian suppression of political liberalism, many of the same problems Wang observed in America have nonetheless emerged to ravage China over the last decade as the country progressively embraced a more neoliberal capitalist economic model.

Also related to social engineering: is it necessary to bring warmth to rural single men’s beds? By forcing rural single women into them, obviously. At the same time, nearly half of urban young women plan on not getting married. As if China doesn’t have enough demographic problems. 

And Andrew Batson on how the Leninist system balances – or tries to balance – reform and change with its need to retain control through continuous campaigns and struggles.

The finalists in today’s Soft Power Award: 1) a vid about Taiwan’s first Air Force NCO of African descent; and 2) China’s immensely tasteful Taiwan invasion porn.

After watching Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Korean blockbuster Squid Game (superb set design), my latest modern popular-culture fad indulgence is to take the Devil Noodle challenge – the world’s (allegedly) spiciest instant ramen. Chien-chien in the vid is a wimp, but even lovers of hot food would be wasting their time here. Imagine a junk-food snack with HK Police pepper spray as the main ingredient.

Number 8 Signal, which went up over 12 hours before the bad weather hit. It is dangerous to go swimming or sailing off the coast, therefore all offices downtown must close. Can Hong Kong think of a better system than requiring innocent meteorologists to decide, on the basis of atmospheric pressure or precise proximity of a cyclone, whether kids should go to school or not?

Beijing’s Liaison Office conducts a vast opinion-gathering exercise among the Hong Kong community, and gives Carrie Lam a suitably huge list of 500 things to do. Can’t remember them coming to my neighbourhood, but no doubt they canvassed United Front ‘various sectors’. In other words, a facile public performance – the bureaucratic version of PLA soldiers living off snow for a week, or the guy who dangles a block of concrete from his genitals. The Office itself says it aims to give the impression that the central government cares deeply about local people.

The symbolism is also of course designed to humiliate the local administration. Carrie – not fully aware of the scale of the consultation – both welcomes it and implies it’s unnecessary. If Beijing’s officials calculate that they might win a few hearts and minds by slapping the puppets around, they’re probably not wrong.

Some assorted reading for the next few days…

The Hong Kong government takes a break from railing against fake news to spread fake news – on whether disqualified District Council members would be liable to repay past pay and allowances. 

Despite official boasts about attracting overseas companies, a breakdown shows those from the Mainland are rising while the rest are declining.

Neville Sarony dislikes quarantine…

So how can 21 days of quarantine be justified for people who have received double vaccination, tested positive for antibodies, undergone PCR tests before being incarcerated and then every three days thereafter?

If the plan is to destroy Hong Kong as an international business centre, it is little less than brilliant. If not, it is dumb.

A Q&A from Owens Trodd medical practice is similarly unimpressed with Hong Kong’s current Covid approach.

To put 21 days in perspective, China kept its two Canadian hostages for nearly three years. For an idea of how inhumanely boring solitary confinement must be, Michael Kovrig is following me on Twitter. (He also follows lots of really interesting people.)

A great interview with Michael Pettis on the future of the Chinese economy if and when it abandons ‘fictitious’ GDP growth…

…it’s very hard to justify an economy that is two thirds the size of the US, with having property that is worth twice as much as US property is worth. It’s not as if US property is cheap. It’s probably too expensive in the US too, which means it’s incredibly expensive in China. 

American Prospect on how Biden can make China trade policy more coherent – opens with a forthright description of Chinese mercantilism.

The undertow against changing course on China remains fierce. Multinationals and big banks profit handsomely from the status quo, and hold enormous influence in domestic politics. Career policymakers are invested in the old model. Most economists and their echo chamber in the media still preach free trade and condemn protectionism and the sin of government “picking winners” when it comes to the U.S., but not on the part of China. The apostles of constructive engagement are loath to admit that they got China wrong. 

Quartz on Beijing’s new regulations banning private capital from news media.

Former Oz PM Tony Abbott ‘dumps on Beijing’ in a speech in Taiwan, saying ‘Australia should not be indifferent to the fate of a fellow democracy of almost 25 million people’. Beijing’s response is that Abbott’s was a ‘despicable and insane performance’.

China Media Project on the Mainland netizens who cheered the news that China has one of the highest Gini coefficients in the world – they thought the gauge of inequality sounded like a matter of national pride.

The Democratic Party says that none of its members will run in the Legislative Council quasi-elections in December. One or two dinosaurs complain that the party is using its internal nomination process to keep would-be candidates off the ballot – amusing given that Beijing’s NatSec regime has imposed extensive vetting processes to exclude pan-dems from elections. The regime would like one or two ultra-moderate pan-dems to take part for appearances’ sake.

If it had more awareness and substance, the DP would have responded to entreaties to participate in the rigged pseudo-polls by saying it would do so only when and if pan-dem politicians elected in the last polls but now in jail were freed and allowed to run. Instead, the party has focused on its obscure and tiresome internal procedures. 

The fact is that there will be no actual election either to run or vote in. The regime will probably try to pressure a feebler pan-dem or two to run; it might even place a few fake democrats on the ballot. It will also threaten (implausibly) to prosecute anyone urging voters to boycott the elections. I’m sure everyone, when deciding whether to vote, will give due consideration to what the regime wants them to do.

After doing everything possible to push up housing prices since the handover, the Hong Kong government suddenly wants a Singapore-style social-housing system covering 70% of the population. Or, to put it another way, Beijing – after letting Hong Kong governments push up housing prices for 20 years – changes its mind.

The Spectator’s gossip columnist gives Regina Ip a thorough kicking following her recent disparaging of Hongkongers moving to the UK.

Trailer for prize-winning May You Stay Forever Young, by Lam Sum and Rex Ren, set in Hong Kong in 2019. Banned in Hong Kong, of course.

An HKFP analysis of what wasn’t in the CE’s Policy Address. Prime example (apart from obvious stuff like representative government) is the barely mentioned Lantau Tomorrow Mega-Vision Reclamation Extravaganza. 

In terms of housing supply, this plan is superfluous if officials decide to utilize border areas more efficiently. A glance at the map also shows why Beijing would be less keen on it: the new urban developments would be adjacent and linked to other, especially core, parts of Hong Kong, far from opportunities for physical or symbolic merger or integration with Mainland districts. From a ‘geo-spacial’ view, filling in the sea between Lantau and Hong Kong Island does the opposite of integration – creating what the geo-politics crowd might call a ‘centripetal force’. Paul Chan suddenly declares a need for a ‘northern growth engine’.

Apart from eight inches of rain on Friday, and five on Saturday – a quick look at the weekend…

Security Secretary PK Tang sends cops out to prevent the celebration of October 10, 1911 on the assumption that the aging KMT loyalists would be expressing support for Taiwan independence. He then rises to the bait and calls for Hongkongers to ‘be prepared’ for the CIA’s healthily publicized new China-focused office. The guy is trying too hard.

John Burns on the fate of the Pillar of Shame and what it means for HKU. Kevin Carrico on the same subject, plus a suggested new slogan to replace Hong Kong’s ‘Asia’s World City’: ‘Pyongyang with better lighting’. He also seems to have identified the Mayer Brown Asia personnel who drafted the anonymous lawyer’s letter to the HK Alliance.

Singapore announces travel-lane arrangements for vaccinated people with the UK, US, France, South Korea and others. A summary of Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong’s speech on moving on from Covid. Can you imagine Carrie Lam being this rational or forthright? Baby God essentially says that, given universal vaccination and booster vaccination shots, the emotional and other strains of Covid restrictions on the whole community outweigh the possible deaths of a small number of elderly.

A brief mention of one reason Taiwan is getting more – and more positive – coverage internationally: more overseas reporters have moved there – because Beijing kicked them out of China. And a good quick thread on how Taiwan became democratized. Note (or consider possible) parallels with Hong Kong’s colonial experience. One interesting angle: the sudden fall of Marcos in the Philippines spurred regimes in Taiwan and South Korea to liberalize their political systems.

I didn’t intend to look through the government’s Northern Metropolis Development Strategy, but after an astute observer of such things assured me it ‘looks like it was pulled out of someone’s ass at the last minute’, I obviously couldn’t resist.

And oh boy – is this utter bilge or what? Welcome to ‘Twin Cities, Three Circles’, which is a ‘strategic spatial structure of the Hong Kong-Shenzhen boundary area’. 

Basically, someone was told to use some existing plans and a bunch of buzzwords to contrive cross-border hub-zone-type districts that make currently separate (even quite distant) areas look like naturally united neighbourhoods.

Thus you have: the Shenzhen Bay Quality Development Circle; the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Close Interaction Circle; and the Mirs Bay/Yan Chau Tong Eco-recreation/tourism Circle.

The first echoes the ‘Quality Living Circle’ promised by the Greater Bay Area, but for tech and logistics activities straddling Yuen Long, Nanshan and Qianhai, with some mangrove conservation thrown in. The second sees a ‘Technopole’ sprouting alongside Fanling and Sheung Shui and hooking up with a New Financial Centre, an Innovative Financial Industrial Belt, an Emerging Industrial Belt, an Internet Industrial Cluster and other hub-zones over in Shenzhen, plus some fish pond conservation. The third is a desperate attempt to find a destiny and role for the areas around Mirs Bay, resorting to sustainable, traditional and cultural blah blah.

If you never realized how important it is to make sure geographers never get their hands on hallucinatory drugs, check out some of the transport/connectivity maps.

I’ve just reached the episode where they have to play marbles, and I must say Squid Game is getting rather compellingly grim. Depends on the rate of binge-watching, but I might be absent for three or four days. (An academic’s view.)

A few things you might have missed…

HKFP on the judiciary’s response to the government’s attempt to apply ‘joint enterprise’ to riot…

The Court of Final Appeal is set to hand down a far-reaching verdict to decide whether people who are not physically present at an illegal assembly or a riot may face the same criminal charges as the actual participants under the legal principle in question.

Also HKFP, a discussion of the level of policing on National Day gives rise to some awkward comparisons…

Whereas the last Governor of Hong Kong could amble around pressing the flesh, Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive in Name Only, does not dare venture out without a phalanx of armed police sheltering her from any possible casual contact with the public. 

Indeed, the suspicion lurks that one reason why Chris Patten’s name is greeted with such venom by the current rulers simply comes down to jealousy over his popularity and ease of contact with the people he was governing.

A thread on (and link to) HK Alliance videos taken down from the group’s YouTube channel – many are being archived elsewhere on the site.

Hong Kong’s anti-Covid measures amusingly compared to EM Forster’s The Machine Stops.

From Asia Times, more on the purge of Jiang-faction officials Sun Lijun et al…

Xi has been trying to cut off Jiang and all previous leaders, but there are simply too many … To isolate them totally would deprive Xi of part of his own legitimacy, derived from being born into this elite. But to keep them around undermines Xi’s power.

Politico on how Xi lost Australia…

Nearly 10 years ago, Australia thought it was on the cusp of a beautiful friendship with China: It was opening up its economy to Beijing, wanted to teach Mandarin in schools and invited the Chinese president to address parliament. 

Now, that’s all over.

…Xi’s “wolf warrior” tactics simply pushed Australia right back into its traditional military nexus, with the U.S. and U.K., costing Beijing a potentially valuable partner in the region.

(Also from Politico – China’s self-defeating bullying of Lithuania.)

And CSIS on how Beijing, on balance, came out the loser in the two Michaels/Meng Wanzhou saga…

The defeat for Beijing was not absolute, but it was quite comprehensive, and those who advised the Xi leadership to take this approach will have a lot of explaining to do…

China’s scheme to force Meng’s release by taking hostages backfired in ways big and small. China showed its teeth, but instead of cowering in fear, Canada and the United States held firm. Chinese state media is highlighting Meng’s return home as proof of their victory, but this claim is reminiscent of the Lu Xun character Ah Q, who deluded himself into thinking that his string of failures were actually successes. 

New Statesman brings up the rear and asks whether China’s ‘rise’ is inevitable.

China’s Belt and Road is a ripoff, says academic research – news story here.

…35% of BRI projects have run into serious implementation problems, including corruption scandals, labor violations, environmental hazards and public protests, according to the study. That compares to 21% of non-BRI projects.

BRI projects take 36% longer to implement than non-BRI projects, and face a higher probability of being shut down by host countries because of “corruption and overpricing concerns, as well as major changes in public sentiment that make it difficult to maintain close relations with China,” the report finds.

Example: dirt-poor Laos now has a shiny high-speed rail line. To help pay off debt, it has passed majority control of Électricité du Laos to a Chinese power firm. (Dire headline from the Economist.)

A CNN feature on torture in Xinjiang witnessed by a defecting police officer – a lot of stomach-turning detail.

On cultural matters…

Some wall art by Badiucao in New York.

Worth a quick perusal if you’re a historiography fan, from Project Gutenberg – Hong Kong by Gene Gleason, 1963.

Finally, do you ever hear Hong Kong Thais or Filipinos complaining over and over that Hong Kong restaurants offering their homelands’ cuisine are all, universally, always terrible? No. From the SCMP, a thought-provoking report on That Problem your Malaysian and Singaporean friends have… 

It’s remarkable how every one of them likes to whine and grumble about not being able to find the foods they miss from their hometown … Even when the food is actually good, they’ll say it pales compared to Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh … At every opportunity they like to remind us how all the Malaysian and Singaporean restaurants in Hong Kong suck.

Only Chief Executive Carrie Lam would deliver a three-hour Policy Address. It’s all here. 

After years of complaining about a crippling shortage of land, the government has suddenly noticed all the underutilized space along the border between Yuen Long, Lo Wu, Sheung Shui and Fanling. It says it could accommodate another half-million or so homes. The resulting contiguous ‘metropolis’ (population 2.5 million) will form some sort of integration-friendly suburb in which Hong Kong’s Deep North can merge seamlessly into Shenzhen. All the signage will be in simplified characters and Pinyin, and facial-recognition robots will patrol the streets ensuring children aren’t playing online games.

It will also include a ‘technopole’ in San Tin…

…dubbed “Hong Kong’s Silicon Valley”, which would be a community for IT talent and provide a total gross floor area as big as 16½ Science Parks.

Can you imagine the Hong Kong government ever devising a way to encourage tech that isn’t a real-estate project?

Another white-elephant, because of course there’s always room for one more. This will be the Greater Bay Opportunities!!! Express Rail, linking Hung Shui Kiu to glamorous go-go Qianhai (presumably along a similar route to, or beneath, the Shenzhen Bay Bridge and on a bit further north to the much-hyped financial/tech/blah blah services cooperation hub-zone).

Carrie doesn’t usually indulge herself with little luxuries, but she couldn’t resist a spot of bureaucratic restructuring – combining various civil service departments like culture and tourism into one new ministry. It looks great on an organization chart. You, the public, will never notice any difference, we promise.

(Which reminds me of a great revelation I recently experienced. Walking in Causeway Bay, pondering the fact that pretty much only residents may, with difficulty, currently enter Hong Kong, it suddenly occurred to me that not a single person you see around you on the MTR or the street is a tourist. Amazing.)

Much of this stuff is vague and might not even happen. But one thing we can guarantee is that there’s a lot more to be done on national security – covering cybersecurity, a ban on fake news, a mega-courtroom and more. The Security Secretary, Carrie says…

“…is drawing up effective and pragmatic proposals and provisions, and formulating effective publicity programmes to prevent those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilise Hong Kong from taking advantage of the situation to mislead the public with ill intentions.”

Not creepy at all.

The CE appeared to get close to tears towards the end of her speech (who didn’t?). Some amateur – extremely amateur – observers interpret this to mean she has chosen not to aim for a second term as CE. This is a joke. It is not for her to decide whether to ‘try’ for a second term: she will do what the CCP tells her, and that’s that. Most of us would cry if Beijing ordered us to stay in the thankless pseudo-job for another five years.

Carrie Lam spells out her (or her bosses’) Covid travel reopening priorities…

Hong Kong’s ties with mainland China are more important than international business and global travel connections, according to the Asian financial hub’s leader.

“Of course, international travel is important, international business is important, but by comparison the mainland is more important,” Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam told a regular press briefing…

“…the most important thing is to open the border”.

No-one’s saying opening the border isn’t important, though note that Beijing seems to be in no rush at all to do it.

More here.

If I have both toothache and an ingrown toenail, do I postpone calling my dentist because the podiatrist can’t see me for a month? If I am running out of both toilet paper and beer, do I deliberately not buy any toilet paper until and unless I’ve bought the beer? Do I justify letting unwashed dishes stack up in the kitchen sink for days on the grounds that I still need to vacuum the floor this week?

It would be bad enough if Beijing was imposing this on Hong Kong simply for the sake of appearances, because they don’t want Hong Kong to look (or feel) different/autonomous from/better than the Mainland. Or as a pretext to (say) access residents’ personal and medical info. But – as the tone of the Bloomberg piece suggests – the insistence that we stay closed off until the (decoupling) Mainland eventually deigns to open up to the world seems more like a way to de-internationalize Hong Kong. 

* glances nervously at floor and kitchen sink *

Speaking of household chores, there’s one type of international travel Hong Kong must allow at all costs.

Just in: please remember in your prayers.