Big Lychee, Various Sectors

An authentic Hong Kong hero dies…

He addressed pro-democracy demonstrators during the city’s 2014 Umbrella Movement, speaking in favour of a “free market in leadership”.

The activist investor also criticised Hong Kong authorities during the city’s huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.

In one of his last public appearances, Webb warned in May 2025 that the rise of authoritarianism in Hong Kong had threatened its core economic model.

The RTHK story puts it more coyly, saying he…

…[advocated for] transparency as well as better corporate and economic governance.

I used to have lunch with him occasionally at the HK Club (he wasn’t an adventurous eater). Although geeky, he was down-to-earth and very smart. He annoyed – indeed, sometimes massively pissed off – all the right people.

His Webbsite has been reopened by a medical tech outfit. Hopefully, they will be able to keep it going. David had at least one, if not two, assistants going through corporate accounts updating all the info. Not sure if all that work can be automated.

AP describes the collapse of Hong Kong’s ranking in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index in the last 20 years…

Behind the decline are the shutdown of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, more red lines for journalists and increasing self-censorship across the territory. The erosion of press freedom parallels a broader curtailment of the city’s Western-style civil liberties since 2020, when Beijing imposed a national security law to eradicate challenges to its rule.

…A massive fire that killed at least 161 people in an apartment complex in late November revealed some of these shifts.

After the fire broke out on Nov. 26, reporters, including those from newer online outlets, went out in force to cover Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in decades. They interviewed affected residents, investigated scaffolding nettings that authorities said had contributed to the blaze’s rapid spread, and reported on concerns over the government’s oversight.

Cheng was encouraged by the coverage of the aftermath. But warnings and arrests followed.

Beijing’s national security arm in Hong Kong summoned representatives of several foreign news outlets, including The Associated Press, on Dec. 6. The Office for Safeguarding National Security said some foreign media had spread false information and smeared the government’s relief efforts after the fire and attacked the legislative election.

After arrests of non-journalists who posted allegedly seditious content online or organized a petition, public voices grew quieter, leaving reporters with fewer interviewees, Lee said.

A planned news conference related to the fire, organized by people including former pro-democracy district councilors, was canceled. Bruce Liu, an organizer, was summoned by police for a meeting the same day. An investigative report on the maintenance project by a pro-Beijing newspaper is no longer viewable on its website.

Ellie Yuen, who wrote a social media post questioning regulators’ oversight that went viral, said she stopped posting about the fire for “obvious reasons” without elaborating.

Which brings us to Jimmy Lai’s mitigation hearing. No mention of press freedom (other than publish and speak, your honour, what did he actually do?) But we learn that Judge Esther Toh gains weight when she’s on holiday and sitting at home.

The Standard celebrated the new year by having a re-design/makeover. As well as a new – and far less eye-catching – masthead, the paper has introduced a new font for its headlines. It’s a skinny-looking serif thing that experts will no doubt be able to identify. But here’s the main impression: it makes every article look like a paid-for ‘sponsored content’ advertorial pretending to be real news. Which you may think is entirely appropriate.

Best stick to HKFP. An op-ed on delays in Hong Kong in bringing criminal cases to trial…

Connoisseurs of legal bullshit will particularly enjoy Grenville Cross’s reliance on a doctrine which never applied to criminal cases and was formally abolished by the English parliament in 1769.

Another case of Mainland fraudsters thinking ‘you might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb’. From the Standard…

A mainland woman was arrested Thursday afternoon at a bank in Admiralty after attempting to use a forged document to withdraw approximately 150 billion euros.

…Upon examination, the bank staff suspected the document was fraudulent and alerted the police. 

…The arrestee, who was holding a two-way exit permit, is currently in custody for further investigation. 

The investigation is ongoing.

This follows a story (putting the ‘M’ word several paras down) in the SCMP last April…

Three people have been arrested for allegedly attempting to open a bank account in Hong Kong and depositing nearly 2,000 counterfeit bonds, each with a face value of HK$500 million (US$64 million).

…They presented 1,999 counterfeit bonds, each marked with a face value of HK$500 million, prompting bank staff to alert police.

A 72-year-old mainland Chinese man, who also held a Hong Kong identity card, was found to be in possession of the fake bonds. His companions, a 75-year-old man and a 65-year-old woman, both two-way permit holders from the mainland, were also detained.

Good to see that regardless of whether you try a HK$1.36 trillion or a HK$997 billion scam, sharp-eyed bank staff will catch you out. 

For no reason other than it’s vaguely interesting – the Economist looks at research on dogs’ genes…

Dr Lord is now looking, with the assistance of some wolf-dog hybrids, for the genetic changes which underlie this ability [to get on with humans]. And other work has already identified one plausible candidate—a pair of neighbouring genes lost in the transition from wolf to dog which, if missing in humans, cause a disorder called Williams-Beuren syndrome. This results in characteristic anatomical changes and mild-to-moderate cognitive disability, but it also promotes extreme friendliness.

Didn’t have ‘Ronny Tong does something useful’ on my 2026 bingo card, but there you go. Far less shocking (you sort of suspected it even if you didn’t know for sure): the sort of bid-rigging that went on before the Wang Fuk Court tragedy is pretty much legal…

According to the report, titled “Combating Collusion,” published in the wake of the Wang Fuk Court fire that killed at least 161, Hong Kong’s legal framework contains “significant loopholes” in tackling bid-rigging.

Bid-rigging is labelled as “serious anti-competitive conduct” in the Competition Ordinance, but it is only punishable by financial penalties and disqualification 

Although bribery in public and private tenders may be prosecuted under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance, it said, the legislation mostly targets bribery rather than bid-rigging.

And some hazy Competition Ordinance memories come back. Dating back to Donald Tsang’s time? Carefully drafted to make sure certain common practices weren’t really included, so local upstanding titans of commerce wouldn’t be unduly inconvenienced in how they ran their property and retail empires. Then again, you didn’t go to prison for wearing the wrong T-shirt either. Happy days.

Working my way through tech/economist Dan Wang’s (overly) sprawling annual letter – his first in two years… 

That task is more challenging as Europe and the US grew more apart in 2025. This year, both regions were able to look upon each other with pity. And both were correct to do so. America’s global trust and favorability measures have collapsed in Trump’s second term. Meanwhile, Europe looks as economically stuck as it has ever been, pushing its politics to increasingly chaotic extremes. But I am still more optimistic for the US.

I don’t need to lament the damage done by the Trump administration this year: the erosion of alliances, the cruelty towards the weak, the wasting of time. Manufacturing and re-industrialization, which I spend most of my time thinking of, have been doing worse. The Biden administration tried to fund an ambitious program of industrial policy; but it was so plodding and proceduralist that it built little before voters re-elected Trump. Since Trump imposed tariffs in April, the US has lost around 65,000 manufacturing jobs.

 His administration shows little interest in capturing electromagnetism before China overruns that field. Trump is more interested in protectionism rather than export promotion, which risks turning American industries into fossils like its exquisitely protected and horribly inefficient shipbuilding industry.

One of the Trump administration’s biggest blunders was its decision to raid a battery plant in Georgia, which put 300 Korean engineers in chains before deporting them. I suspect that any Korean, Taiwanese, or European engineer would ponder that episode before accepting a job posting to the United States. What a contrast that looks with China’s approach, which for decades has been to welcome managers from Walmart, Apple, or Tesla to train its workforce.

I’ll never forget seeing it in West Virginia when it first came out in… 1980 (jeez). I was so scared afterwards I had to check inside the little walk-in closet in my relatives’ creaky wooden house before going to bed. Kubrick’s The Shining will finally be shown in Chinese cinemas. 

To a fanfare of scraped barrel bottoms, the Commerce and Economic Development Secretary Algernon Lau encourages Hong Kong’s young entrepreneurs to explore new opportunities in Central Asia, Latin America and Africa…

Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, Yau said he would lead delegations of young entrepreneurs to explore new markets.

“In the future, I will personally lead teams to countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Hungary to explore new opportunities,” he said.

“We also plan to visit Latin America, but as the region is currently in a turbulent state, we will monitor the situation.

“After that, our focus will turn to Africa. In March, I will attend a World Trade Organisation conference in Cameroon. We will also explore opportunities there.”

Yau also said in a meeting last year with the Angolan ambassador to China, the envoy expressed hopes for deeper economic ties with Hong Kong.

The commerce chief stressed that young entrepreneurs should gain first-hand experience in understanding foreign markets.

“There’s one thing I truly believe: seeing is believing. We hope to give young entrepreneurs the chance to visit these countries with a government delegation, so they can better understand the realities on the ground,” he said.

I guess Hungary is of Central Asian lineage. There’s obviously a BRICS/Belt and Road thing going on here, though Algernon isn’t quoted as mentioning them (nor the Greater Bay Area). If any Hong Kong entrepreneurs are in a position to explore opportunities in these backwaters, it wouldn’t be kids who need Google Maps to get from Narita to downtown Tokyo.

Why do Hong Kong government officials like to urge young citizens to ‘seize’ opportunities overseas? Do they think the city, with its cartels and overpriced rents, has nothing to offer the next generation? Or do these ministers want to rid the place of young talent? Then again – what do the officials know, given that few of them have any experience of running or growing a business, let alone of Kazakhstan or Angola? 

A TransitJam tweet, with photo of people camping out outside a government building… 

…a “queuing gang” takes up all 100 daily quota slots for driving licence applications and then, through its office adjacent to Transport Dept, charges hapless citizens (blocked out by the full quota) $600 for submission.

How difficult is it to require real-name applicants to book ahead for an appointment?

The NYT looks at Chinese people’s reaction to Trump’s abduction of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro…

Within hours, the discourse online became a proxy debate over China’s power, its limits and its future. For nationalist Chinese, the U.S. military operation had exposed American lawlessness and frustrations in China at what they believe is Beijing’s restraint, particularly on Taiwan. For those venturing criticism of the government, the episode underscored the vulnerability of even entrenched authoritarian leaders.

…Over the years, the Chinese government has lent considerable political and financial support for Mr. Maduro. Mr. Xi’s critics characterized that as a failure of judgment after Mr. Maduro’s capture. The timing, just hours after Mr. Maduro’s meeting with an official Chinese delegation, prompted pointed questions about judgment and state capacity. “Always picking the wrong partner is also a kind of skill,” one comment said.

…In [liberal Chinese intellectuals’] line of thinking, Venezuela is not simply a foreign-policy embarrassment. It’s a case study in what happens when authoritarian rule hardens into stagnation, institutions hollow out and political loyalty outweighs competence. In Chinese debates, the blunt question becomes: Will China become the next Venezuela?

Donald Trump is no stranger to ‘picking the wrong partner’, as with Vladimir Putin and – perhaps now – Delcy Rodriguez and the other Venezuelan crony elites. 

Should the government end the civil service pay freeze imposed last year? Several lawmakers think it should (stories in HKFP, Standard).

Persistent budget deficits suggest that expenditure needs to be trimmed, or revenues increased. It would be useful to know whether (as most people suspect) public-sector remuneration is significantly bloated compared with the private sector. But officials never propose a serious benchmarking exercise* to find out. Instead, civil service pay is routinely adjusted according to a formula that tracks pay in the private sector – ignoring the possibility that the base levels themselves are mismatched. 

That said, we might suspect that officials’ willingness to implement a freeze was an implicit admission that the civil servants are, indeed, overpaid.

In a more representative system, we might expect an objective review of whether or how much public-sector pay levels exceed those in the rest of the workforce. Instead, this will continue to be a political decision driven by fear of ‘bad morale’ – which is perhaps code for a perceived need to buy loyalty among government staff.

China Media Project looks at a survey showing strong support for Xi Jinping among foreigners…

According to follow-up reports by the Global Times and other state media, the survey “selected some important concepts from Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想), and asked foreign respondents for their opinions. Nearly 80 percent reportedly endorsed “building a community with a shared future for mankind” (构建人类命运共同体) and the even more mystifying “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” (绿水青山就是金山银山), the Global Times reports. More than 70 percent approve of “comprehensively governing the party with strict discipline” (全面从严治党), “comprehensive deepening of reform” (全面深化改革), and “putting people at the center” (以人民为中心) — all concepts highly specific to the CCP political context and likely to draw blank stares from all but specialists in PRC political discourse.

How did the Global Times survey team manage to obtain such positive general feedback on what are decidedly political obscurities?

And CNN marks the 10th anniversary of the ending of China’s one-child policy.

For diehard enthusiasts of scandal/serious murk, or those who have a taste for the surreal: kung fu movie star Lau Kar-leung’s widow Mary Jane Reimer delivers a one-hour video on the theft of her husband’s remains last year and the sleazy Buddhist/celebrity scene. Includes a peek inside the plundered tomb, plus musings about the disposal of corpses in general, her past exposure of corrupt abbots, weird goings-on at columbariums, triads’ links with Cambodia and Burma, the holding of ashes for ransom, and more. (“Legally, ashes are not considered property under Hong Kong law. They are considered waste.”) As with many expansive works, it is best to dip into it.

There’s something almost nostalgic about all this: post-2019 Hong Kong has lost much of its ‘wacky mayhem’ mojo.

(Standard story from two months ago. Would anyone care to compare and contrast authorities’ attitudes towards corruption in the Buddhist establishment and within the building maintenance industry?)

Speaking of Hong Kong nostalgia on YouTube – a celebration of our proud tradition of lame tourism promotion, from the early 1960s. Yes, it was hackneyed even then.

For anyone out there needing more mind-bending content: the ever-jaunty Nippon TV on the World War II origins of Hello Kitty.

And Mrs Betty Bowers – top 10 tips on how to be a conservative Christian.

HKFP gets 2026 off to a good start, talking with Chiu Yan-loy to get perhaps the best description yet of how rotten the building maintenance industry really is…

The “accompanying bids” tactic, where multiple construction firms are deliberately arranged to lose the tender to “escort” a pre-arranged winner, may have been used in the case of Wang Fuk Court, he added. The dummy firms may then receive kickbacks for their role in the rigging scheme.

Corrupt owners’ corporation committees are also able to influence the outcome of meetings by leveraging their influence and manipulating votes to select rigged bids, Chiu said.

Submitting proxy votes is a common and generally legal tactic that owners’ corporations have used to control the voting process, he added. If a community welfare group affiliated with the owners’ corporation board “hands out small bribes in exchange for a voter authorisation letter, I can’t say that’s illegal.”

The Hong Kong government wishes a Happy New Year to the BBC…

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government yesterday (January 1) strongly condemned the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for the deliberate unfounded report on Lai Chee-ying’s health condition in an attempt to fabricate facts to mislead the public by intentionally portraying Lai Chee-ying as a victim, with the aim of covering up his numerous wrongdoings and his conviction by the court.

Court’s conviction verdict was entirely free from any political considerations

A spokesperson for the HKSAR Government said, “The court’s reasons for verdict in Lai Chee-ying’s case are 855 pages long, which are fully open for public inspection, and include the court’s analysis of the relevant legal principles and evidence, as well as the reasons for convicting Lai Chee-ying and the three defendant companies in full detail. The court clearly pointed out in the reasons for verdict that Lai Chee-ying was not on trial for his political views or beliefs. The court’s conviction verdict is well-founded and reasoned, fully demonstrating that the court has made its decision on the case strictly in accordance with the law and evidence, free from any interference, and absolutely free of any political considerations.

“The court clearly pointed out that Lai Chee-ying’s only intent, whether pre or post Hong Kong National Security Law (HKNSL), was to seek the downfall of the Communist Party of China, even though the ultimate cost was the sacrifice of the interests of the people of the People’s Republic of China and the HKSAR. Also, the court found that Lai Chee-ying was the mastermind of the conspiracies charged in all three counts, and his actions show his deliberate intent to pursue these conspiracies, which constituted a threat and harm to the national security in the PRC and the HKSAR.”

(What’s happening to definite articles?)

BBC story here, quoting Claire Lai on…

…[her] father’s deteriorating health in prison, saying that his fingernails “sometimes fall off” and his teeth are rotting.

Depressing overview of the state of the world from veteran BBC correspondent John Simpson…

[Bo Xilai] once said to me, “You’ll never understand how insecure a government feels when it knows it hasn’t been elected.”

Commentary from Bloomberg on a possible New Year’s resolution for UK (and other) policymakers, referencing the book All That Glitters by Martin Thorley…

Again and again, parties that appear independent and self-interested on the surface turn out to have connections to the United Front, a Communist Party-controlled network of groups and individuals that are used to advance its aims. Commercial interests grease the wheels, sometimes helping to frame the terms of debate; British politicians are happy to play along, particularly in the unelected House of Lords. No wrongdoing is alleged or nefarious purpose suggested. All the same, if you’re British you may read with a sense of unease. There appears to be an underlying United Front presence mingling with UK elites of various sectors, as Thorley writes. An open and donor-driven political culture makes easy targets for such actors. The impression is of a system being played — expertly.

…The [nuclear power plant] episode shows up a core error in Western perceptions of China — the assumption that the country is a divisible entity composed of divergent interests. Companies, under this framing, can be expected to act according to commercial rationality. The image is by carefully curated design; it’s also false. China isn’t divisible: It’s a unitary Leninist party-state. Everything can be subjugated to the Communist Party’s strategic aims when necessary…

That doesn’t mean that the Communist Party dictates everything that happens. But it has a “latent network,” in Thorley’s words, ready to be activated when needed. And the party that controls this network is both ruthless and deeply antagonistic to the practices and way of life of Western nations: freedom of speech, rule of law, multiparty democracy. A more muscular party state has started to manifest this antipathy with practical actions: crushing Hong Kong’s freedoms, supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, intimidating overseas universities. Cede influence to such a power at your peril.

For fans of eye-catching titles to opinion pieces – Elon Musk Should Rot in Hell.