Big Lychee, Various Sectors

On the third anniversary of the first big anti-extradition protest in 2019, Carrie Lam tells the Legislative Council that her record in office is ‘nothing to be ashamed of’. So let’s see: mass demonstrations met by excessive police action, postponement of elections, arrests of pro-democracy politicians, closure of Apple Daily and numerous unions and civil groups, the NatSec Law with special no-jury courts, subversion and sedition charges routine – plus a massive death rate from Covid earlier this year, and continued quarantine and other zero-Covid pointlessness cutting the city off from the world. 

Nothing to be ashamed of? Yes – if she can claim that she wasn’t really in charge. No-one can remember much happening in the first two years of her term in office, when One Country Two Systems was still in effect, and she did seem to have control, in a dithering, accomplishment-free way. Hey – a ‘civil service college’!

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s top cop disputes that the city is becoming a ‘police state’. We need a definition, so here’s Wikipedia, quoting an academic work…

…since the beginning of the 20th century [the term] has “taken on an emotional and derogatory meaning” by describing an undesirable state of living characterized by the overbearing presence of civil authorities.

What were we just saying? Excessive police action, postponement of elections, arrests of pro-democracy politicians, closure of Apple Daily and numerous unions and civil groups, the NatSec Law with special no-jury courts, subversion and sedition charges routine. Plus assorted creepiness like the cryptic warning the public not to watch Revolution of Our Times if they are ‘unsure of the potential legal risks’.

What is interesting is that Commissioner Siu obviously finds the ‘police state’ tag objectionable. Can’t he join Carrie in feeling he has nothing to be ashamed of?

The ‘Just Some Noodles Will Do, Thanks’ Stupidest Recipe of the Week Award goes to the SCMP’s veal tartare with pickled shallot and Parmesan-paprika palmiers – ‘lean, light and elegant’. Includes at least one ingredient that ‘may be hard to find’, one that must be made ‘at least one day in advance’, and one that should be humanely reared. Plus one I’ve never heard of. (Oh, those things.) It’s a starter, so you’ve still got a main course to make.

Hong Kong’s top officials will have to be isolated from other people for a week before the arrival of a ‘very important’ – and apparently paranoid about Covid – Chinese leader for the 25th anniversary of the handover. Since they have been cut off from the community for years, it’s hard to see whether anyone will notice much difference.

I recall being present many years ago at preparations for a visit from Singapore’s demi-god Lee Kuan Yew. The great man’s aides demanded that every room he entered must have been smoke-free for 14 days – but he didn’t seem to have any hang-ups about actually shaking hands or anything. By contrast, it seems Carrie Lam, John Lee and hundreds of cops will have to undergo the full ‘big white’ disinfectant-spray treatment. 

The incoming CE’s image of a merciless, tough, law-and-order-obsessed disciplinarian takes a slight blow, as he turns himself in and begs for exemption for a technical infringement of election advertising rules, in theory attracting a possible six-month prison sentence. Does the fact that you were running against yourself in a fake election count as mitigation? Even pan-democrats have been let off the hook for this, so presumably the court will be understanding.

An excellent opportunity to resurrect this…

Outgoing Chief Executive Carrie Lam warns of radicals and lone wolves lurking and plotting, and ‘very likely to use large-scale events or sensitive days to incite others to come out and do damaging things’. And the HK Police announce a counter-terrorism hotline, with cash rewards. July 1 is the Big Terrorism Freak-out day, apparently. (Will they ever find a convincing bomb-making plot?)

Samuel Bickett’s lawyers present ‘irrefutable evidence of his innocence one last time’ to the Court of Final Appeal (includes link to full filing).

Two European analysts on John Lee’s appointment to Hong Kong CE…

Compared to other names that were in the speculation as to potential followers of Carrie Lam, John Lee was the most light-weight and his nomination represents the decreased importance of the Chief Executive’s role. Beijing clearly wanted someone who follows its orders without feeling the need to balance between the untrustworthy Hong Kongers and the orders from Beijing.

A review of Revolution of Our Times. (If you are unsure of the potential legal risks of reading this piece, best refrain from looking at it.)

Once domesticated, now feral – Peng Chau’s semi-public chairs, and their ‘mysterious choreography’.

Kevin Carrico reviews Louisa Lim’s Indelible City.

Some interesting quotes in Andrew Batson’s blog on whether the CCP’s intolerance of opposing views and independent business empires is ‘unprecedented’.

George Magnus and other economists offer brief answers to the question: is China’s economic miracle over? (One, Nancy Qian, wins extra points for stating it wasn’t a miracle.)

HKFP op-ed on China’s Covid policies as a sign of governance weakness.

From ASPI, female ethnic Asian journalists and activists are being attacked by online dummy accounts presumably run by Beijing…

…These accounts attempt to attack their physical appearance, question their credibility and the quality of their work, often in response to specific content they’ve written or produced. These parts of the campaign are characterised by high levels of personal abuse including sexist, misogynistic and racist attacks that include messages such as ‘traitors don’t die well’ and ‘traitors often come to a bad end’. 

China blocks moves to protect emperor penguins in the Antarctic. (Oh please – don’t tell me the beasts’ private parts are in my anti-heaty pills…) 

From gas exports to arms sales to India – Beijing has Russia over a barrel…

Xi shares Putin’s hostility to the West and NATO, but that doesn’t mean he will be offering unalloyed charity. 

Probably paywalled, but amusing Economist article on shortcomings of PRC spies – good at IP theft and harassing dissidents, but lousy at routine intel-gathering and analysis. Back 100 or so days ago…

…at the United Nations, Chinese diplomats squirmed as their government struggled to formulate a coherent position. China seemed surprised … at Ukrainian resistance to Russia and at Western support for Ukraine. In the days after the invasion, Chinese officials quizzed foreign counterparts about the situation on the ground. Before the war, a foreign diplomat in Beijing recalls Chinese interlocutors confessing that they had limited understanding of central and eastern Europe, but were fortunate to have the Russians to explain it for them.

The pan-democrat politicians arrested a year and a half ago for taking part in the July 2020 primary election are getting closer to trial. Full list of them here.

This promises to be a raw display of rule-by-law. It seems most of the accused will plead guilty to ‘conspiracy to commit subversion’. Not because they broke any law known at the time (the authorities took no action when the polls took place), but because they see no prospect of a fair trial for NatSec charges. The maximum sentence is life, and after a year and a half in jail without trial or bail, it is their only hope of ever seeing freedom again. 

A brave few look likely to plead not guilty. It’s hard to believe they would get a full life sentence – but the NatSec regime is vindictive, and they will no doubt pay for refusing to kowtow.

Another trial in front of a NatSec judge starts – against 76-year-old activist Koo Sze-yiu for ‘sedition’ (planning a protest against the Winter Olympics)…

The court heard that police took a coffin away from Koo’s Cheung Sha Wan home, which had several slogans written on it, including “beat the Communist Party,” “end one-party rule,” “democracy and human rights above Winter Olympics,” and “getting rich just by eating shit under the national security law.”

From France 24 and HKFP, interviews with lawyer Michael Vidler on why he left Hong Kong, pursued by state media…

The last straw for Vidler & Co. came when Stanley Chan, a fiery security judge, named the company six times in a judgement convicting four protesters of unlawful assembly and possession of offensive weapons.

Chan said the firm’s phone number was on some “legal assistance resources” cards found on the defendants, and that the cards “reflected a sense of organisation behind the incidents”.

Jerome Cohen adds…

Also important … was the impact of changes in the government’s Legal Aid scheme designed to reduce the income of those firms that were deemed to be too expert in civil rights defense and handling too many cases challenging the government.

School libraries remove hundreds of books that ‘threaten national security’.

And the police aren’t sure whether it is legal to watch a movie.

From HKFP, the erasure of Tiananmen massacre commemorations in Hong Kong over the last two years. CNN says the memories are being erased. But for all the talk of erasing June 4, the date was impossible to ignore in Hong Kong this year as thousands of people assembled specially for the occasion – all dressed in blue.

Extensive official measures to ensure the anniversary got a high profile began with commemorative creepiness on Friday…

Police have warned the public not to test their determination to enforce the law on June 4, adding that even going alone to Victoria Park could end in an arrest for unlawful assembly, if someone is deemed to be there with a common purpose to express certain views.

Don’t assemble or have a common purpose with yourself? Don’t express ‘certain views’ – but what exactly would they be? Snr Supt Liauw also apparently said that you can still be committing an offense if you’re not in the park.

Interestingly, Liauw seemed almost desperate not to arrest anyone…

“Really try not to test the boundaries, as well as testing the determination or our commitment in enforcing the law in this operation.”

And the government announced that most of the park would simply be shut for the 24-hour period. 

On the day itself, cops flooded Causeway Bay, declaring that flowers might be seditious, and a T-shirt might be an unlawful assembly. Citizens found a use for old payphones. And…

Police rushed into the tram in front of us and searched a passenger. They took him off, but then it seems they asked everyone to show their bags. Looking down later, it seems they found an electric candle.

Someone up there is so petrified of candles, Victoria Park and the Hong Kong people that they won’t let anyone forget 6-4, even if they want to. Chinese foreign ministry officials helped out by virtually inviting foreign consulates in Hong Kong to mark the day – the Poles got creative, as did the Finns.

Loads more here.

Hong Kong health authorities reimpose isolation at government facilities for people testing positive for certain newer sub-variants of Covid. An expert says…

it is extra-embarrassing that they’re even thinking about doing this for something like BA.4/5, let alone *BA.2.12.1*.

the latter is literally just a pair of mutations, L452Q & S704L. unknown if the latter does anything…

Lots of other complicated-sounding scientific analysis out there saying this is pointless – the new strains of the virus are essentially the same as the existing one. It seems the authorities are actively looking for excuses to continue onerous and superfluous anti-Covid measures and avoid opening up (or just to use their sprawling Mainland-built quarantine camps).

Is it illegal to watch Revolution of Our Times? Will the NatSec Police burst into your home as you sit on the sofa watching the film on Vimeo? Perhaps it depends on who you are. The cops themselves refuse to say. (What if we ask them if it’s illegal to wear purple socks? ‘We do not comment on individual cases.’ Or to rob a bank at gunpoint? ‘We do not comment on individual cases.’)

Young people don’t want to join the HK Police. (Would these be the same young people who are routinely hassled and humiliated by groups of uniformed cops in MTR stations? If the force can spare hundreds of constables to do this every day, do they need more recruits? Or are they planning a Vimeo Eradication Squad?)

Some reading for the long weekend…

As we approach the 2nd anniversary of the NatSec regime – a roundup of month 23 from HKFP.

From Oz ABC – more on China’s over-ambitious attempt to bring Pacific islands into its orbit.

CNN talks to experts on China’s ability to take Taiwan. Rough consensus: it’s theoretically possible if Beijing is willing to take horrendous losses in personnel and ships. One factor they don’t mention is public tolerance for fatalities when most young servicemen in China are single children (as are their parents).

From the Guardian, more on the ‘tragically ugly’ and ‘evil’ school textbook illustrations. 

And a foreign affairs quiz. You can find out how your score compares ‘with that of the average American’ – so at least something to make you feel good today.

Clapped-out has-been stars singing, kindergarten kids goose-stepping, white-elephant projects sitting around unused, and a none-too-subtle bombardment of PRC/Mainland imagery – including sunset over a Covid isolation camp! Yes, it’s the guaranteed-to-alienate Handover 25th anniversary themed concept muzak video, with instantly forgettable all-purpose simpering Cantopop melody. (Grasshopper are still around???) 

Tick the boxes. Logistics industry? Check. Athletes in wheelchairs? Check. Ethnic minorities (just briefly)? Check. Whoever produced this deserves a Gold Bauhinia Medal for courage while under threat of severe mockery. But what choice was there? Like all Hong Kong official communication/PR/marketing, this had to please superiors, not impress or convince other audiences.

China fails to get 10 Pacific nations to sign up to a trade and security agreement. Chinese officials’ presumptuous attempts to take charge of little island states’ media wasn’t a great start. Foreign Minister Wang Yi tries not to sound creepy about the rejection…

“Don’t be too anxious and don’t be too nervous, because the common development and prosperity of China and all the other developing countries would only mean great harmony, greater justice and greater progress of the whole world,” he said.

A little Mainland weirdness to brighten up your day…

Illustrations in textbooks have long courted controversy over aesthetics-related issues or inaccuracies. On Friday, a non-academic children’s photo book also apologized and pledged to retract photos showing two boys licking sweat off a girl’s abnormally long hand.

(If you’re into the ‘questionable’ textbook artwork, check out Henry Darger’s Vivian Girls.)

God, I have to repeat that…

…two boys licking sweat off a girl’s abnormally long hand.

An HKFP op-ed on how Beijing is rewriting Hong Kong’s recent history: 

Tea table gossip about bought-and-paid-for protesters has become the official narrative.

There was no pro-democracy movement supported by the majority of the population – just a foreign-backed anti-China plot. Local public opinion never existed.

The claim that Hong Kong protesters must have needed outside resources and know-how to – for example – arrange deliveries of bottled water to demonstrations goes back to the Umbrella Movement. But the theme of foreign forces (invariably the NED on a hilariously tiny budget) masterminding ‘citizen journalists’ to plot the overthrow of poor vulnerable oppressive regimes is indeed suddenly cropping up all over the place. Recent examples include China Daily. Another is here, where a ‘geopolitical analyst’ writes (at impressive length)…

…the protests were well-organized, well-funded, and clearly using a long list of specialized techniques associated with a shadowy sector known as “the revolution industry”. 

(Column brought to you by the shadowy sector known as the ‘CIA controls publics in authoritarian countries’ industry.)

Who do Beijing spin-doctors think they are going to fool with this narrative? Apart from the tankies, few overseas observers will be convinced (the revised history only makes that quest for ‘credible PR’ even harder). And the several million Hongkongers who attended massive peaceful protests in 2014-19 know the CIA didn’t pay or organize them, or issue them with special top-secret laser pointers. The answer can only be that they are kidding themselves.

But of course the new version of history serves as a pretext. It has been hard to miss a recent surge in official use of the phrase ‘geo-political’ – as in Hong Kong as a ‘site for geo-political conflict’. This week’s example, a deputy police commissioner angling for Internet controls. 

As the top guy himself tells us, John Lee will bring a ‘new atmosphere’ to Hong Kong.

On the subject of tankies, a US leftist publication denounces them and Muslim leaders for siding with Beijing over human rights violations in Xinjiang – while maintaining the anti-Western integrity…

…the Uighurs are wronged four times over: by China’s oppression, by American imperialist cooptation, by left-wing denialism, and by Muslim leaders’ dereliction.

It can be done!

Commerce Secretary Edward Yau, discerner of economic well-being and public opinion, says…

Hong Kong will not compromise its anti-Covid measures for the sake of the economy, despite growing calls from the business sector to resume quarantine-free international travel.

…He said travelers will still have to quarantine for the time being to reduce the risk of community transmission, as people are worried there would be importation of cases if restrictions are relaxed.

Hong Kong remains in the news – though not in a good way.

International legal figures including former UK and Canadian attorneys-general issue a statement warning that the CCP is undermining judicial independence in Hong Kong through Basic Law ‘interpretations’ and external pressure, and that the presence of overseas judges on the Court of Final Appeal…

…“is of considerable reputational benefit to the Hong Kong government, which has repeatedly asserted [that] the continued presence of [the judges] amounts to a vote of confidence in the Hong Kong courts as whole”.

It says that in practice the number of appeals reaching the overseas judges is very limited, with many cases being dropped in suspicious and troubling circumstances.

A big piece in Wired on the items used as evidence of participation in Hong Kong protests…

At trial, Chan’s friend testified that the two had planned to move furniture from an office and use the ties to secure everything in transport. The magistrate rejected the story. In the ruling, he inferred that the defendant intended to use the ties to create barricades and “further the unlawful purpose of using them in armed confrontations, fights, [and] inflicting injuries.” The court found Chan guilty in August 2020 and sentenced him to five and a half months in prison.

A CATO Institute guy summarizes Hong Kong today…

Attorneys have been targeted for defending protestors. NGOs and museums have closed. Bookstores and galleries purged their stocks just as the Hong Kong government scoured teachers’ ranks. The Legislative Council now includes only “patriotic” members, meaning CCP factotums. Almost any political activity opposing government policy is deemed a threat to national security. Emigration has surged as people seek to get out, especially for the sake of their children.

And then there’s the negative publicity surrounding less overtly political – but still Beijing-led – oppression in the form of Covid quarantine and social-distancing measures. Despite some recent minor relaxation, these are starting to feel like they will drag on into 2023 or just become permanent social restrictions in the name of public health. 

A CNBC item on people and businesses leaving Hong Kong invites a quick guesstimate: total emigration for 2020-22 could end up at 300,000 or so – maybe 4% of the 2019 population. What percentage of the middle class? (Grimmer departures are also up, with suicides reaching four a day.) 

Reports and stories like these have prompted some local officials and government supporters to express great concern over Hong Kong’s international reputation. Could this hand-wringing be – even unwittingly – a muted form of protest against the post-1C2S NatSec/Covid regime? These people wouldn’t dare openly criticize Beijing’s broad clampdown on Hong Kong, or even show unease as the city goes down the tubes. But they can boldly call for PR campaigns or better slogans to restore Hong Kong’s reputation.

(Reg’s recent HKFP column is an example of this focus on ‘PR challenges’ as a possible proxy alarm about the whole mess the CCP is delivering. The SCMP offers another – not really worth a click, but it gingerly hints at the collapse in Hong Kong’s credibility. More steadfast/less worldly loyalists have little to say on the subject.)

To the extent local-official/pro-establishment types worrying about ‘PR’ might not be protesting in disguise, they are assuming that someone, somewhere in a position of power in Beijing, gives the tiniest damn about what the rest of the world thinks about Hong Kong. Which is just silly.

An HKFP op-ed on the fallacy of repairing governance-disaster Hong Kong’s reputation with better PR sums it all up (it refers to Covid measures, but could just as well be about any of the NatSec horrors)…

If this problem were sorted out, then an improved reputation would ensue. And if not, not.

Some post-weekend reading…

An interview with Transit Jam.

Thread on how Beijing censors US Embassy posts on social media, while state media complain they don’t have free speech on Twitter.

New Republic on Biden’s long-overdue ‘gaffe’ on Taiwan. 

…Washington’s policy of strategic ambiguity has only worked, and can only work, if China is not really in earnest about reconquering its renegade province (as it sees it) by force. 

The Spectator on Taiwan’s plans to ward off a Chinese attack.

The Guardian on Beijing’s plans for the Pacific.

And one of the weirder out-of-area stories for a while: the Sudanese of Hungarian descent…

The Magyarabs of Aswan & Nubia had had little to no contact with the outside world, so an inexplicable adoption of a foreign identity seems at once implausible. Not only that, but they clung to this Hungarian identity so strongly that the British interred them during WW1.

Results-oriented government in action: hygiene officials leave sealed rat poison packets in vermin-infested alleyways because they believe the rodents will open the plastic bags themselves. (This only works if you write ‘cheese’ on the packs.)

HK Post releases stamps celebrating the 120th anniversary of Ta Kung Pao. It would be more accurate to say the 120th anniversary of the name: today’s state-owned propaganda sheet has nothing to do with the original publication, founded towards the end of the Qing dynasty as China’s first modern newspaper. It has, shall we say, undergone changes in ownership, and is today best known for naming individuals and groups in Hong Kong in advance of their political rectification. We are also nearing the 26th anniversary of the founding of Apple Daily. And the first anniversary of its closure.

A typical example of a Ta Kung Pao target is Cardinal Zen. Two items on his arrest and the Vatican’s pact with the forces of darkness, from AFP and Chris Patten, who doesn’t pull any punches…

For many CPC officials, Cardinal Zen’s real crime is not only his regular defenses of religious freedom in China and, through his pastoral and intellectual courage, his potential threat to the party’s totalitarianism, but also his criticism of the Vatican’s secret deals with the Chinese leadership. 

A report that Xi Jinping will get the title ‘helmsman’. (That should be ‘great’, surely?) And Xinhua is producing a 50-part series on his life.

From the Guardian, what Beijing is up to in the Pacific.

And CMP asks what, if anything, the economic ‘conference’ of 100,000 cadres means.