Big Lychee, Various Sectors

John Lee wins Hong Kong’s Chief Executive ‘election’ before it even takes place. Being the sole ‘candidate’ makes life easier for him, and for ‘voters’ and ‘polling station’ staff, not to mention forecasters. (And yes, there will still be a ‘polling station’ at the Exhibition and Convention Centre, in which ‘elites’ will humiliate themselves trying to look important while pretending to cast ballots.) 

In the absence of a policy platform (one is coming), Lee has embraced the phrase ‘result-oriented’ – apparently in connection with getting the civil service to fix outstanding problems. He takes the opportunity to expand… 

“What I will do is, first of all, I will create this team spirit and I will be asking them to do things that will create results. And then through this process of seeing results and then reinforcing with more results, the culture will be built. It will be progressive. That is important.”

Yup – consider housing, health, welfare and education woes solved! (The new CE’s written communication can be fixed, but we will have to learn to love his leaden police/Beijing-loyalist style of speech.)

Let’s see how the international media who slavishly (and inexplicably) use the official fictional nomenclature of a Hong Kong CE ‘election’ with a ’campaign’ and ’voters’ handle the only-one-’candidate’-’running’ charade. Will they finally stop calling it an ‘election’ and find a more accurate description of a CCP appointment ceremony? And if not, why not? Where are the fact-checkers on this? 

More of the backlog of links that accumulated over the long weekend…

Simon Lee on the life and times of his former boss, Jimmy Lai.

The woes of the decrepit-iconic Star Ferry.

Three books – all touching on the 2019 uprising, often drawing on personal experience and/or deep historical contexts: Kevin Carrico’s Two Countries, One System on the changes in identity in Hong Kong since 2011; Karen Cheung’s Impossible City, extending into memoir; and Lousia Lim’s Indelible City, examining the city’s historical sense of self (dedicated to…). 

And for younger readers, from HKFP, a free online kids’ book on Covid, Bobby Baboon.

Even though the Hong Kong (and Shanghai) authorities have sent residents millions of boxes of Lianhua Qingwen quack voodoo dried-toad anti-heaty pills, the company’s shares collapse.

Minxin Pei on the biggest likely losers from deglobalization…

One cannot blame Western democracies or their autocratic adversaries for prioritizing security over economic welfare. But they must brace for the economic consequences. And a middle-income autocracy like China will bear a far larger cost than rich democracies like the US and its European allies.

Thread on United Front and similar activity against Hong Kong migrants in the UK.

Chinese state media have become amusingly obsessive about online translation of embarrassing ultra-nationalist Mainland social media posts that expose the gap between Beijing’s overseas and domestic messaging. Global Times alone blasts the practice as ‘intentionally misreading, misinterpreting Chinese materials’, a ‘despicable smear campaign’, and depicting Chinese people as ‘arrogant, populist, cruel and bloodthirsty’.

As one commentator puts it…

#TheGreatTranslationMovement enrages Beijing b/c it’s 1) spontaneous, decentralized activism CCP can’t abide 2) anonymous, so smear campaigns lack bite 3) led by overseas Han, whom PRC considers ‘property’ (4) popular and beyond its control (5) very hard to logically refute.

Former Chief Executive CY Leung claims that people leaving Hong Kong because of the NatSec regime are ‘relocating’ rather than ‘migrating’… 

Leung said the authorities could help to clear up misunderstandings such people may have about political developments in Hong Kong.

Of course – it’s because they’re stupid.

“They don’t want to give up their Hong Kong identity, and this shows that they want to keep the option of returning one day,” he argued, adding that those leaving have “relocated” to other countries but not migrated.

The telling points are that he implicitly accepts that NatSec is convincing people to go, and that it would be desirable that they return. But unlike the pre-1997 brain drain, today’s movement is not about individuals qualifying for a passport as a family insurance policy – they are selling homes and taking their kids away to start new lives.

Factwire looks at the business connections of John Lee’s sons. In fairness, it would be hard to work in any major local companies that do not have ‘Election Committee’ members among owners or senior management. Indeed – without wishing to sound like a snobbish former Company Gwailo – the Lee boys’ connections are rather underwhelming. (Sniff.)

Oiwan Lam on the next CE…

If Carrie Lam’s mistake is bad political judgment, John Lee would not repeat that mistake as he is more unlikely to make his own political judgment.

…the political purge will likely continue and may further be extended to major social institutions in the name of counter-terrorism and counter-external forces…

You do not choose an ex-cop if you want someone who has his own ideas – just someone who snaps to attention and says ‘Yes sir!’ Looking at the public discontent in Shanghai, I can’t help wondering if Carrie Lam and her (non-ex-cop) colleagues countered Beijing officials’ insistence on a lockdown by warning of another 2019-style uprising if Hongkongers were forced to go through such a nightmare. Which brings us to…

Anne Stevenson-Yang in Forbes on China’s ‘governance implosion’…

Even the 1989 Tiananmen uprising did not affect as many people as the Covid lockdowns.

…Venerable as they may be, the “theories” of General Secretary Xi do not cure COVID.

Unfortunately, rather than forcing the government to make the most obvious adjustment to the visible realities of the situation, the backlash is more likely to reinforce the Party’s sense of being under siege.

…The Party is locked down in its own self-made policy claims and propaganda. The botched lockdowns and flow of damaging videos and testimonials undermine Xi’s core messages: infallibility of the Party and total focus on the welfare of the people.

However, a CNN op-ed believes that Beijing will propagandize its way out of the mess…

…some argue that China has painted itself into a corner where it now needs to uphold its stringent policy, after reveling for two years in the success of “zero-Covid,” while scaremongering about the virus and generating broad support for the policy.

Huang puts it this way: “We should never underestimate the government capacity to redefine its narrative to sustain the public support. And we should never underestimate the people’s tolerance, even for policies that harm their interest.”

Given that the Chinese people have meekly absorbed disasters like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, I would guess the CNN prediction will be right. Blame it all on evil foreign forces.

Also Forbes on China’s apparent manipulation of Covid statistics…

Even sticking to [data officially reported by the Chinese government], obvious problems emerge. In some cases, the data is incomplete. In others, it is highly implausible. And some of what is reported cannot possibly be true. 

…One might wonder how China can claim a Covid mortality rate 30 times lower than Korea’s, 50 times lower than Singapore’s? Or 73 times lower than New Zealand’s (since April 2020)? 

…Tens of thousands of officially reported Covid cases throughout China (since April 2020) that have not resulted in a single death attributed to Covid? This is not possible, and not believable. China’s countermeasures, however extreme, have no effect on mortality once someone is infected. 

Interesting thread on the topic. A grim graphic of deaths in Shanghai from Covid-measures. And the BBC on deaths among the elderly.

(The latest word is that authorities in Shanghai are now admitting a handful of Covid fatalities.)

Even the SCMP’s laboriously pro-Beijing Canada-based Alex Lo finds fault…

China’s zero-Covid success in the past two years is proving to be less than meets the eye. Its relentless and cruel application in Shanghai, the country’s richest city, is showing the world the ugly side of locking down millions. It is also looking increasingly pointless. 

The (probably paywalled) Economist’s intro to a story on Beijing’s zero-Covid fetish in Shanghai… 

It is often said that China’s government plans decades ahead, carefully playing the long game as democracies flip-flop and dither. But in Shanghai right now there is not much sign of strategic genius.

…The zero-covid policy has become a dead end from which the Communist Party has no quick exit.

It is one of a trio of problems faced by China this year, alongside a misfiring economy and the war in Ukraine. You may think they are unconnected, but China’s response to each has a common root: swagger and hubris in public, an obsession with control in private, and dubious results. Rather than being the product of statecraft with the Yellow Emperor’s time horizon, China’s actions reflect an authoritarian system under Xi Jinping that struggles to calibrate policy or admit when it is wrong

Beijing’s gullible apologists have long pushed the idea of Chinese leadership’s profound mystical oriental wisdom and ultra-long-term thinking in dimensions beyond barbarians’ comprehension. Others have known for decades – they’re making it up as they go along.

Your daily dose of pessimism about Beijing’s choice of new Chief Executive for Hong Kong, from the Diplomat…

Despite the false optimism that has been expressed by some in the international community who seek to find a positive story in Lam’s exit, her successor will likely be worse. 

NatSec horrors du jour: the HK Journalists Association considers disbanding, the disciplining of teachers in the wake of 2019, and a guy gets 16 months in prison for protesting against the (never really punished) Yuen Long mob attack on MTR passengers on July 21, 2019.

TVB’s cringe-making response to criticism that an ethnic Chinese actor in black-face played a Philippine domestic helper. People seem shocked – as if no-one would imagine that this dinosaur schlock-media company stuck in the 1980s would do such a thing.

And don’t these morons ever go away? Bunch of car bores again want the government to devote a huge chunk of land to the world’s second-most mind-numbing sport…

“We need a motor racing circuit as part of a modern city…”

Unserious question: can’t they combine a motor-racing circuit with a golf course? A tedious-pastime hub-zone that wastes land and wrecks the environment efficiently.

Some Easter reading…

Podiums are cool! The M+ museum looks at Hong Kong’s high-density residential design, and makes it sound quite visionary and trendy.

From ASPI Strategist, how China’s United Front system extends influence overseas.

And from CNN, Beijing tries to stop pro-Putin domestic propaganda from leaking out onto international platforms (notably this one) – the perils of sending different messages to different audiences.

A Taipei Times op-ed asks: have you joined the Kowtow Club yet? Sure, ‘public groveling may significantly affect your self-worth and damage your reputation’ – but think of the money.

On more distant matters…

Serious Atlantic analysis of the choices now facing the US and the West in Ukraine…

What explains the desperate throw of the dice by the Russian high command? One may assume that neither Putin, nor his senior advisers, nor even senior subordinate commanders have an accurate picture of the situation on the ground. They know that they have been humiliated, but they do not have a feel of the battlefield. As stewards of a military that cannot adequately care for its wounded and that abandons its dead, they don’t care about the human price they are paying. In a system built on lies and corruption, they receive or pass on falsely optimistic information. Having sought to upend the notion of truth in the West, they now fall victim to their own pervasive untruths.

Foreign Affairs on how Putin underestimated the West.

And a former US Army Europe commander on the transformation of the Ukraine military.

John Lee says…

…he has to finish writing his manifesto and that he may not be able to cover every area. But, he added, it … does not mean he is not concerned about whatever area is not mentioned.

Yeah, y’know, I really really care about, like, whatever, dude. Article 23, however, is to get priority treatment. It will presumably enhance the NatSec regime’s ability to punish criticism, currently limited to two-year sentences under the archaic but recently heavily used sedition law.

If anyone should be arrested for sedition, it must be John Lee’s hair stylist. But instead it’s activist Koo Sze-yiu, who gets prosecuted – for planning to protest against the Winter Olympics.

Nikkei Asia sees a depressing, security-obsessed future…

…the local and central governments seem afraid that a significant segment of the [Hong Kong] population is out to get them. Citizens, in turn, fear the Beijing-imposed national security law and the risk of winding up in prison for saying the wrong thing.

…The 64-year-old Lee’s career has focused exclusively on policing and security. He has little experience relevant to the finance and business sectors that power the economy, nor knowledge of social issues such as housing. His rise is unlikely to restore waning global confidence in the financial hub’s reputation, business executives and bankers told Nikkei Asia.

…Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, said Hong Kong was undergoing a process of “mainlandization” that cannot be challenged or reversed. 

If you thought the Great Plague-Spreading Hamster Slaughter was a one-off… Hefty penalties for quarantine patients not handing their pets over to the Covid Police for ‘follow-up’. Fines, too, for anyone helping furry friends avoid enforcement. As with flights and travel, Beijing insists that Hong Kong acts like a part of China, not like part of the rest of the world.

At the other end of the reputation-scale – can’t believe how good Ukraine is at PR.

Today’s headlines: journalist Allan Au arrested (translation of journalism students’ statement), pro-democracy local brand Chickeeduck to close, Yeung Sum out of prison. Also a rumour that another veteran journalist has had his passport seized. There are no passenger flights today into Hong Kong from the Americas, Europe, Australasia, the Middle East or Africa. That leaves Asia and Antarctica.

Writing in China Daily, often-candid academic and think-tanker Lau Siu-kai perhaps unwittingly conveys the extent of Beijing’s paranoia about Hong Kong and the world in general…

…the new CE must be able to unite, strengthen and empower the patriots so that the patriotic camp can function as a cohesive combative army in support of the HKSAR government and against the offensives of the internal and external hostile forces.

Doesn’t sound much like Asia’s world city/international business hub.

Reading between the lines (a bit), Lau indicates that Beijing has picked John Lee as someone who will obey its directives without being distracted by outdated policies, tycoons, foreigners, and similar Administrative Officer foibles. Priorities are National Security, then integration with China, and – if there’s any time left – maybe sorting out those ‘deep-rooted’ housing and social problems.

Note the repeated references to ‘Eurasia’ – presumably a Sino-Russian anti-Western sphere Beijing’s visionary foreign-affairs fantasists expect to see forming. And take a very deep breath before embarking on the exhaustive, tortuous final sentence. 

If you haven’t seen it – Parts 1 and 2 of the video One Way, about the Chow family’s relocation from Hong Kong to grimy-looking Crewe, England. They look like the sort of people who rush to do something largely because others are doing it. Nonetheless, they are adapting, and their kid is enjoying a less high-pressure school life. Story here (includes links to YouTube). 

I saw a report that some emigre Hongkongers are shocked to find that harsh discipline of kids is frowned on in the UK, so they are resorting to threats to go back to Hong Kong’s schools and housing to keep the little ones in check.

The week starts with some light tawdry tittle-tattle gossip trivia from an international company’s office in Central. A woman working for the company lives with her father and has a cat. The father tests positive for Covid. Fearing for the well-being of the feline, she reports her beloved Dad to the authorities, who duly whisk him away for days and days in some isolation facility. Upon his release, the gentleman kicks the daughter out of the family home (and who wouldn’t?, you may feel). The woman also apparently has a small son, but there’s no more info on that. Maybe she’s sold the kid to buy cat food. I will spare everyone further details. Or pass on more as I receive them. Whatever.

How much taxpayers’ money does the Hong Kong government need to spend on a make-believe poll that produces a result decided – probably months ago – in Beijing? According to HKFP, the authorities budgeted HK$228 million this fiscal year for the Chief Election ‘election’, and the five-week delay (due to Covid) will somehow add another HK$50 million. 

Surely you can’t spend HK$278 million on an exercise in which 1,400 people pretend to cast a ballot? Nearly HK$200,000 per cosplay voter. But they can. It goes on hiring venues, manning polling and counting stations, mailing, and renting storage space.

The Diplomat on Beijing’s choice…

The central government’s selection of Lee clearly indicates that it puts a higher priority on security issues over Hong Kong citizens’ livelihood matters, as well as the city’s economy and its status as a global financial center.

…the selection of Hong Kong’s chief executive may just be the latest in a series of policy decisions by Beijing leading to self-inflicted hardship. Beijing appears driven by paranoia over security and absolute state control, with a high dose of insecurity, leading it to ignore all the side effects of its extreme and draconian measures.

The weird thing is that Hong Kong should not be a hard place to run. If its leaders just don’t do stupid things, a resourceful population and all those traditional advantages we can list by heart should make the place pretty successful. Which brings us to TransitJam on how the once-a-week ‘Water Taxi’ is essentially another ‘food truck’ dud – a minor but potentially positive initiative delivered in such a way as to make it useless. This time with government subsidies…

…[ferry operator] CKS has been subsidised with free pier rental, free vessel licensing and is allowed to earn income from sub-letting its pier space.

Yes – there has to be a real-estate boondoggle somewhere in there.

Some reports say that the lockdown mayhem in Shanghai is subsiding; others that Guangzhou and other cities are next. An AP report from Shanghai…

“[The government] bragged too hard to their own people about how wonderful they are, and now they’ve painted themselves into a corner.” 

And a SupChina interview with Geremie Barme on the ranting old Shanghai guy and the ‘empire of tedium’…

…the Communists present this façade of unbelievable unanimity and monolithic unity. A decade ago, some Party thinkers and leaders tried to edge their way towards substantive change that would allow China to develop a kind of social maturity that was more concomitant with its impressive economic achievements. Instead, Xi et al prefer a state of paternalistic infantilization. Now, the whole world is also held hostage to the tedious panoply of the past.

…Here is China, having achieved in the terms of its own modern history, unprecedented riches, hard-won (if draconian) social stability, extraordinary achievements in every major field of pursuit, yet it is as brittle, bitter, self-absorbed, and neurotic a nation as it has been at any other time since the end of the Qing dynasty.

Desperate Shoe-Shine of the Week Award goes to one of many lawmakers falling into line on Beijing’s appointment of John Lee as Chief Executive…  

Jeffrey Lam from the Business and Professionals Alliance said he believes Lee can unite different sectors, revive the economy and strengthen Hong Kong’s position as an international finance centre.

“John Lee solved many cases when he was in the disciplined forces. Many cases are actually related to commerce. He had to understand about the running of the business sector,” he said.

“Therefore, he has communicated and cooperated with the business sector and other sectors in the society… John Lee can find talents who are familiar with different sectors to help him.”

Yes, Jeffrey.

Property tycoons join in the grovelling. And pro-government figures rush to participate in John Lee’s ‘campaign’. Everyone gets a chance to appear to be involved…

Daryl Ng, grandson of Sino founder Ng Teng-fong and son of the group’s current chairman Robert Ng Chee-siong, will manage HK$3.6 million of Lee’s electoral funds while Pauline Ng and Chan will be responsible for HK$7 million each.

Links for the weekend…

From HKFP, something for any of Hong Kong’s remaining overseas judges…

Clearly the inaptly named Department of Justice does not see its role as including any protection for the prospect of a fair trial for arrested people. We are transitioning to a mainland-style system in which everyone who is arrested is guilty. The role of the court is to read the confession and pass sentence.

Also, a must-read by Holmes Chan and Su Xinqi on the plight of the pro-democrats detained without trial or bail for over a year already…

Charged with subversion, the majority have been held in custody for more than a year and the few granted bail must adhere to strict speech curbs.

Most of what has occurred during pre-trial hearings is blanketed by reporting restrictions, even though the defendants want them lifted. And their trial is not expected to begin until at least 2023.

“The prosecution and the court are making the defendants invisible in plain sight,” legal scholar Eric Lai of Georgetown University told AFP.

Hong Kong public libraries’ list of banned books is secret. Home Affairs Dept explained that disclosing the list…

…may lead to wide circulation of such library materials with malicious intent by other parties or organizations and is thus unfavorable to safeguarding national security. 

From TransitJam, snouts in the Smart Traffic Fund trough – ‘a notorious gold mine for consultants’.

Atlantic on Hong Kong’s decline as an ‘East meets West’ hub…

The consternation and anger [over the resignation of two UK judges] reveal the dilemma facing Hong Kong’s new political regime, placed in power through overhauled sham elections, unchallenged by opposition, and whose fitness for office is judged by a contorted metric that has confused patriotism with blind nationalism. The city’s government and lawmakers, casting themselves always as the victim, seldom let pass a chance to denounce and belittle the West, a nebulous collection of perceived evil forces blamed for many of Hong Kong’s self-inflicted problems. Yet these same officials pine to be accepted, respected, and welcomed as they were just a few years ago by their Western counterparts.

(John Lee, of course, won’t pine.)

The Diplomat on what Hong Kong, rather than Ukraine, tells us about Beijing’s plans for Taiwan…

…the crucial insight that is revealed by Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong is that the economy no longer dictates Xi’s priorities. 

(On a related topic – Foreign Affairs on how Putin misread the West.)

Translation by Geremie R. Barmé of a glorious lockdown rant by an old Shanghai guy to enforcers in hazmat suits. For fans of crazed Shanghainese – a younger guy giving the government a piece of his mind, and a drone telling people off for shouting from their apartments at night. There are clips of crowds fighting over food, a robot-dog enforcing rules, an abandoned real dog being killed, and much more. Oh, but you can order birthday cakes.

NPR on the mood up there…

The first thing the orderly noticed when she arrived at the Shanghai nursing home was the rats.

Foreign Policy looks at shortages in the city…

The food scarcity is severe enough that some people are foraging, resulting in cases of food poisoning. Residents are swapping tips online for making vegetables last longer or preparing food that’s past its sell-by date. Unofficial shops have sprung up run by those who stockpiled over the winter, while there have been breakouts from locked-down compounds to buy supplies.

And ‘China is a joke’ – Washington Post (maybe paywalled) on Taiwan’s EyeCTV, a satire of  Chinese state media…

Imitating the mannerisms of Chinese officials is one of the group’s regular bits, and host Chen Tzu-chien, has more than a passing resemblance to former Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang. The actors also produce news commentary, sometimes delivered while seated on a toilet…

Beijing announces – in its uniquely convoluted and ritualistic way – that John Lee will be Hong Kong’s next Chief Executive. He is promptly ‘showered with praise’. It seems that, rather than fabricate a quasi-competitive process, the Chinese government will present Lee as the sole ‘candidate’…

Lau Siu-kai, the vice-president of Beijing’s top think tank on Hong Kong, said … Beijing wants to make sure there is no damage to the unity among the patriotic camp that would allow foreign forces to take advantage of the situation at the current time.

Lau also said he believes if Lee becomes the next Hong Kong leader, he will take an even tougher approach against anti-China disruptors.

‘Even tougher’ than what? The last couple of days have included denial of bail in a freedom-of-expression case, arrests for ‘sedition’ (clapping in court), and hefty rioting sentences from 2019. ChinaFile compiles a full report on NatSec regime action against speech crimes, foreign interference and subversion since mid-2020. 

John Burns writes in an HKFP op-ed…

Selecting John Lee for chief executive, dependent for his authority on the party and the police, is a calculated move. Authorities are telling us that political skills do not matter, and that neither does inspiring and mobilising the people of Hong Kong. Yet we need inspiring leaders, able to mobilise. So, who will do that?

It’s possible Beijing will allow someone more warm-and-cuddly as, say, Chief Secretary to act as the human face of a grim and menacing regime. But this assumes the CCP is subtle enough to see a need for such a figure. The word is that Lee’s fellow ex-cop Chris Tang will take the number-two position in the ‘even tougher’ administration. Local officials might pay lip-service to the idea of a Hong Kong attractive to the middle class and international business, but Beijing’s priority is to force the city to submit and obey, and root out anything that won’t.

Bookmark this site for forthcoming ‘campaign’ fun (domain registered by a PR company).

Carrie Lam ‘will not seek a second term’ – her words, quoted in numerous international media, which then take them at face value and fail to point out that a second term is not hers to seek. 

We are now going to see a flood of overseas press reports referring to Hong Kong’s next Chief Executive being decided by an election, even if there is only one candidate. Reputable and normally conscientious outlets (Reuters, NY Times, etc) will attempt to qualify this by saying only a small group of Beijing loyalists have a vote. But this will still be incorrect. Even calling it ‘stage-managed’ or ‘rigged’ is misleading. There is no ‘election’. Sticking labels saying ‘ballot’ and ‘voter’ on inanimate objects doesn’t alter that.

Xi Jinping’s number-one skill is painting himself into corners. An insistence on meeting GDP growth targets creates a spiral of debt and wasteful construction that Beijing wants to stop but can’t. The delusion that ‘the West is in decline and China will replace it’ is trapping the country in a dangerously hubristic foreign outlook. The obsession with annexing Taiwan looks ever-less realistic. And now China is committed to two more utter losers – a zero-Covid approach to Omicron, and support for Putin’s genocide in Ukraine – with no non-humiliating ways out.

In its minor and localized way, the choice of John Lee as Chief Executive is part of this pattern. Presumably there will be a reshuffling in which the visibly less enthusiastic senior bureaucrats are replaced with obedient loyalists who take Beijing’s word literally. Whatever the cost in institutional, commercial or cultural capacity, the work of making Hong Kong less distinct must continue, to prove a point about the city as a Western-infested national security weakness.

Reports (with some overlap) on the inane zero-Covid approach in Shanghai here and here…

As more residential communities are blocked off with metal barriers — some entrances reportedly even welded shut with iron bars — people are becoming increasingly unhappy about the policy.

Samuel Bickett considers the pros and cons of foreign judges resigning from Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal.

Thought for the Day from Isaac Asimov: 

“When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.”

‘Sources’ say Chief Secretary (for nine months) and ex-cop John Lee might ‘run for election’ or ‘enter the race’ for Chief Executive. There being no election or race (ignore blather about candidacy, convenors and campaigns), this means Beijing is appointing him as Carrie Lam’s replacement. The CCP has tired of Carrie’s warmth and charisma and decided to go full grim authoritarian apparatchik.

To the extent it makes any difference in terms of substance, expect an even more top-down, slavishly loyal, law-and-order-obsessed NatSec Regime to mop up remaining dissent and civil society (recent examples here and here). Internet censorship, surveillance, anti-terrorism patrols. Zero tolerance for laughing. The police state c’est moi. Many will look back at 2017-22 as a gentler time – probably from overseas.

Another rumour: Financial Secretary Paul Chan will ‘consider running’. Would a regime that backs Putin in Ukraine pick Paul Chan? Thank you. Also – the apparent leaks are all a joke to manage expectations so everyone is overjoyed at another five years of Carrie. As if people’s feelings are a consideration.

Today’s guest artist (click on a pic) dedicates her song to Regina Ip.

Enjoy the cheerful chaos of Covid policy while it lasts. The Mainland Chinese folk-medicine expert advises Hong Kong to implement the ‘Three Easies’ and the ‘Three Reductions and One Priority’. And the Hong Kong government unveils its latest exercise in futility: universal but voluntary self-testing over three consecutive days, with those testing positive kindly requested to inform the authorities. 

Doing it for just one day would be too easy – you must put serious effort into putting yourself at risk of being sent off to an isolation camp, and don’t expect any actual incentives encourage participation.

Some say the idea is to use (predictable) non-compliance to justify a subsequent compulsory mass-testing. Others think this city-wide self-testing will justify not doing that. As ever, we are left in bewilderment.

I guess columbariums are closed? Some Ching Ming links…

Hongkonger Eric Yip wins the UK’s national poetry competition. He’s 19. Sneaks up on you, and is even more compelling on a second reading.

George Magnus on China’s political and economic outlook – ‘There is no liberal reform agenda in China anymore’.

Antony Beevor (of Stalingrad and Berlin fame) on Putin fighting WWII…

An almost Stalinist determination to right the Russian military—backed by the execution of deserters and failing officers—could well extend the conflict in a bloodbath of relentless, grinding destruction.

A look at the town where Volodymyr Zelensky grew up.

A history of Singapore’s 1979-onwards ‘speak Mandarin’ campaigns in posters and other publicity materials. In 1957, most Singapore Chinese used Fujian/Guangzhou languages – and only 0.1% spoke Mandarin.

If you’re passing the FCC, check out the exhibition of up-close photographs of scary Hong Kong wildlife by Lawrence Hylton.