Big Lychee, Various Sectors

It must have been a while since the SCMP had an interesting op-ed. For a decade or more, most of the paper’s opinion pieces have been churned out by one David Dodwell, whose columns are mainly known as a highly effective treatment for insomnia. So we should note a rare piece that contains a bold idea. Unfortunately, it is also stupid.

The basic thesis is: Singapore does x, therefore Hong Kong must do it too. X here being Formula 1 car racing…

For Hong Kong, introducing F1 would not only tap into the massive demand of more than 200 million motorsport fans in mainland China, but it would also drive synergy between the city’s sports and convention industries, further elevating Hong Kong’s brand value on a global stage.

The development of Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis presents a timely opportunity to build an F1 circuit.

If he was really deranged, the author would propose a permanent dedicated race circuit. To his credit, he proposes incorporating a suitable design into the Northern Metropolis street layout. Numerous benefits would follow, such as cultivation of…

…a full spectrum of local professional motorsport talent, including racing drivers, engineers and event promoters. A dedicated racetrack would also support a wide range of automotive‑related commercial activities, helping to stimulate the growth of the local automotive industry and elevate it to international standards.

High-profile international sporting events can significantly enhance a city’s image and global appeal … amplify the economic impact of such mega-events, leveraging its global reach to attract international visitors and business activities … stimulate growth across sectors such as tourism, retail, hospitality and conventions, injecting fresh momentum into Hong Kong’s economy.

In other words, yet another scheme to cram millions more people into an already overcrowded city, in the name of attracting supposedly juicy revenues that – mysteriously – no ordinary residents ever get to see.

I would guess that the author is a fan of Formula 1. Absurd-looking vehicles whizzing round and round. Men in jackets plastered with sponsors’ logos standing around looking important. A weird fixation with changing car wheels very quickly. All the pointlessness of golf, but at 100 miles an hour, and extremely loud. (The one redeeming feature of car-racing is that occasionally there are huge pile-ups in which people get burned alive, which doesn’t happen in golf but probably should.)

The conclusion…

Through forward-thinking planning and cross-sector collaboration, Hong Kong has the potential to transform F1 into a catalyst for its urban branding and industrial transformation, achieving dual gains in economic benefits and global influence.

Sure.

I sympathize with anyone who tries to think up new directions for Hong Kong. One obvious edgy suggestion to give the economy a boost would be to turn the land system on its head. Pushing up land values by keeping homes in short supply generates easy revenue for the government, but represents a self-inflicted wound on the overall economy. Making the city cheaper would at least bolster competitiveness with (say) Shenzhen for existing productive businesses. 

Otherwise, Hong Kong’s whole purpose since 1842 has been to host activities that weren’t possible on the mainland. Its success relied on being different from the hinterland – like having dependable rule of law. Even insulated from the mainland. The official line now is that greater integration will bring more opportunities for prosperity. But what if actively erasing the city’s distinctiveness means removing advantages, leaving it with fewer niches, less scope for specialization? That might help explain the endless suggestions for desperate-sounding hubs and zones.

From HKFP…

Thursday marked the first day of the public hearing into the blaze, which killed 168 people and displaced thousands living in the Tai Po residential complex. It was the city’s deadliest fire in nearly eight decades.

The inquiry is expected to disclose photos, videos, documents, testimonies, and previously undisclosed internal communication records among the contractors responsible for a major repair work at the estate.

Senior Counsel Victor Dawes, the lead lawyer for the independent committee, said in his opening statement that “human errors” had contributed to the huge life loss.

…A clip showing workers smoking on the rooftop of one Wang Fuk Court building on November 26 was played during the hearing, with Dawes pointing out that residents had long complained about the issue to contractors and authorities.

And from a subsequent report…

The independent committee tasked with investigating the deadly Wang Fuk Court fire heard on Thursday that the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit (ICU) – the body that oversees government-subsidised housing in Hong Kong – had told Will Powers Architects about upcoming inspections at the housing estate, which had been undergoing major renovation since 2024.

Will Powers Architects, the consultant firm overseeing the renovation, then allegedly alerted Prestige Construction, the main contractor.

Executives from both firms were arrested on suspicion of corruption and manslaughter following the blaze that broke out on November 26. Authorities previously said they found non-fire-retardant netting at the Tai Po residential estate, which could have contributed to the rapid spread of the blaze.

Senior Counsel Victor Dawes, lead lawyer for the committee, called the ICU’s advance notices “deeply concerning.”

Where does ultimate responsibility lie? With sub-contracted construction workers breaking the rules by smoking? With the owners and managers of the company that won the renovation contract but failed to exercise oversight on smoking and flammable materials, or to listen to residents’ concerns? Or with the all-patriots executive-led government, to which residents complained, and which manages to (for example) closely monitor old folk making ‘seditious’ posts on Facebook? The answer must be: whichever of these three actors that has the most power. 

In the HK Alliance trial…

Appearing before a designated three-judge panel at the West Kowloon Law Courts on Tuesday, Lee explained that the Alliance advocated an end to one-party rule, as such a form of governance stood in opposition to democracy.

He also said that basic civil rights, including freedom of speech, assembly, and the press, must be granted in order for civil society to organise and thrive. Only then would society at large be able to consider democratisation, he added.

“The freedom that arises [from ending one-party rule] allows people to participate in society through their own independent groups and political organisations. If you can’t even speak up, how can you talk about democracy? One-party rule… is a very, very big obstacle to democracy,” Lee said.

“Once you have a civil society, be it the intellectuals, the students, workers, women, businesspeople, or farmers, they will be able to discuss what political system works best for China. There must be a foundation for discussion before they can enter the political system,” he added.

Judge Alex Lee then asked the activist whether he meant to say that the CCP should not be in power.

The defendant replied that he was opposed to one-party rule, not the CCP’s leadership. He believed the CCP could lead the nation if the people saw it fit, he added.

One problem with Hong Kong’s old-style pan-democrats is that they saw democracy as an ideal and an end in itself rather than a means to better governance. The CCP, meanwhile, is on a different wavelength. It does not want a civil society that ‘organizes and thrives’. Note what happened to volunteers collecting food and promoting a petition after the Tai Po fire, or to a bookshop hosting Spanish lessons. The whole point of a Leninist one-party system is to ensure there are no ‘independent groups and political organisations’ in which people can participate. 

It seems absurd that these are matters before a court, and people face prison terms as a result.

In the HK Alliance subversion trial, Lee Cheuk-yan…

…argued on Tuesday that calling for an end to “one-party dictatorship” in mainland China did not mean ousting the Communist Party from its leading role under the state’s constitutional framework.

“The Communist Party can hold power, but the people should be able to choose their government,” he said on the first day of his oral testimony at West Kowloon Court.

Lee also suggested that one-party rule contradicted the constitution’s preamble, which provides for “multiparty cooperation and political consultation” under the party’s leadership.

“It is our wish that by ending one-party dictatorship, people can fully exercise their rights under the constitution,” he added.

…Lee dismissed prosecutors’ contention that the alliance used “so-called democracy” as an excuse to vilify the party.

…Lee Cheuk-yan said police had never openly stated that the alliance was a threat to the country’s safety before the present case, or cited national security grounds in banning its annual vigils.

Ultimately, this all comes down to expression of an opinion. But National Security courts have government-picked judges, no jury, and a near 100% conviction rate.

Chow Hang-tung’s statement arguing for early acquittal in the HK Alliance trial. From Brian Kern’s intro…

It’s worth stressing that, having been in prison since September 2021, she has prepared her entire defense, including this statement, from inside of a prison cell, without the aid of a word processor or the internet.

…Ultimately, what Hang-tung is portraying is two almost entirely clashing world views. According to one, citizens truly are the masters of the nation and are without question free to discuss their government and constitute it as they see fit. According to the other, it is only a supreme power entirely above the law which has the authority to dictate to its subjects what is permissible to say and do in relation to matters of governance.

In this sense, it can be said that while Hang-tung’s statement is primarily intended to address the matter at hand in the trial, it can also be read as a “statement to history,” raising issues that get straight to the heart of the political status of Hong Kong as well as freedom and human rights.

…From a political and ethical perspective, Hang-tung is saying, Of course, citizens have the right to freedom of expression. This includes expression related to matters of governance. And not only that, they have the right to choose their own political leaders. So the whole premise of the prosecution’s case is absurd; in fact, it is a perversion of the rule of law.

The whole thing is worth reading, though she perhaps unnecessarily/unwisely strays into subjects like the CCP’s non-status in Hong Kong and its treatment of Uyghurs. From the conclusion…

(76) The prosecution’s entire case is riddled with holes and leaks everywhere. Regardless of what actions the defendant incited; what methods were involved; the nature and consequences of those actions; or the defendant’s intent, the prosecution either lacked any evidence or presented no coherent facts, merely jumping between the most convenient statements available at the moment. Even though I have analyzed the prosecution’s core accusation—assuming “ending one-party rule” equals “ending the leadership of the Communist Party”—the court can see that the prosecution has still failed to prove any element of a crime.

(77) Most importantly, whether it’s “ending one-party rule” or the prosecution’s use of “ending the leadership of the Communist Party,” that is a goal that every Chinese person has the right to pursue. The prosecution tried very hard to make this goal something completely unthinkable and impossible, but they simply couldn’t find any reasonable legal or evidentiary basis.

(78) Ultimately, the fact that the Party doesn’t want anyone to talk about ending one-party rule doesn’t mean the law doesn’t allow it. The prosecution has completely failed in proving that the law “doesn’t allow it.” Throughout the prosecution’s arguments, they have been constantly subtly changing the meaning to disguise the Party’s will as law. They have changed meaning to effect, opposition to violation, motive to intent, and even mainland law to Hong Kong law.

Convincing? The NatSec court didn’t think so and rejected the application for early acquittal, and that of Lee Cheuk-yan. The trial continues today.

This is not a NatSec case, so who knows – he might not end up in prison. Or does a Wen Wei Po ‘soft resistance’ accusation tip the balance? …

Pong Yat-ming appeared at the Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts on Thursday to stand trial for allegedly managing an unregistered school after he held a Spanish course at his bookstore, Book Punch, in April last year.

…The bookstore owner testified on Thursday that before running the Spanish course, he had researched online and come across then-education secretary Kevin Yeung’s comments in 2017 that interest classes, such as those teaching dance and acting, would not require school registration “because they are interests.”

…Founded in 2020, Book Punch, located in Sham Shui Po, occasionally runs talks and workshops related to social issues and current affairs.

Last year, Beijing-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po accused Book Punch and other bookstores of engaging in “soft resistance” over an independent book fair they were organising.

The term “soft resistance” has come to be used by Chinese and Hong Kong officials as a phrase referring to threats to national security, but they have not been specific about what it means.

For anyone who doesn’t know who this person is, look no further than the Standard in August 2024: ‘Andrew Tate placed under house arrest as new human trafficking allegations emerge involving minors’…

The Tate brothers, both former kickboxers and dual British-U.S. citizens, are already awaiting trial in Romania in a separate human trafficking case along with two Romanian women. Romanian prosecutors formally indicted all four last year.

In the new case, Romania’s anti-organized crime agency DIICOT said it is investigating allegations of human trafficking, including the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, forming an organized criminal group, money laundering, and influencing statements. The alleged crimes date between 2014 and 2024.

Romanian prosecutors for some reason eased off, and they left for the US by private jet to the US. From the Guardian in February 2025…

The pair are outspoken supporters of Donald Trump, and several members of the US president’s inner circle have spoken out publicly against their treatment, including Donald Trump Jr who described their detention as “absolute insanity”.

…one of Tate’s lawyers, Paul Ingrassia, is the White House liaison official for the US Department of Justice.

…The US vice-president, JD Vance, has appeared on a pro-Tate podcast.

The brothers are now in Hong Kong, staying in a luxury suite at the Rosewood and mingling with social-media followers in Lan Kwai Fong. People are wondering why Hong Kong authorities admitted the pair and whether they are here as part of promotional efforts (Asia’s pedophile tourist hub!). Also – why the Rosewood seems happy to have them as guests.

From the SCMP…

Andrew posted a photo of himself and Tristan on a luxury boat in Victoria Harbour on X on Sunday, while other posts showed the brothers visiting the Lan Kwai Fong nightlife district and a crab restaurant in Causeway Bay.

A video he posted a day earlier showed him singing alongside a dozen Asian women as his brother looked on. 

…The Immigration Department declined to comment on individual cases

(Do you mean ‘sad-looking karaoke session with a bunch of bored Mainland hookers’? The link, if you must.)

It’s hard to imagine the Hong Kong tourism PR folk seeing any benefit by engaging with an avowedly racist and misogynist ‘influencer’ (they surely do some sort of checks when they sponsor these Instagram bores). It’s perhaps more believable that the Immigration Dept does not have the pair on its stop list. The authorities seem more fixated on national-security ‘absconders’ and foreign political and media critics. And the city’s top leadership today is perhaps not as worldly as its predecessors, and quite possibly have never heard of Tate, whose fan base largely comprises inadequate teenage boys.

The pair are wanted in the UK. Although Britain suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong following the passage of the NatSec Law in 2020, the city’s government could presumably still – if it wanted – deport the brothers as undesirable, on a plane to Heathrow (economy class). That would be a ‘good Hong Kong story’.

As for the Rosewood – maybe New World really needs the money.

Lingua Sinica report on Chinese diplomats in France complaining about a Taiwanese-German play showing at a Strasbourg theatre…

When theater director Barbara Engelhardt did not respond, the deputy consul general wrote directly to the City of Strasbourg, the theater’s principal funder, demanding the show be cancelled on the grounds that it would harm Sino-French diplomatic relations.

…It employs documentary theater to simulate the opening of a Taiwanese embassy — describing Taiwan as a country whose international recognition is inversely proportional to its economic importance. 

I’m sure the production is grateful for the publicity – it doesn’t exactly sound like King Lear, The Importance of Being Earnest or Death of a Salesman. 

Mayor Jeanne Barseghian said she responded by reaffirming France’s protections for artistic freedom…

The BBC on China’s new ethnic unity law…

The Chinese government … defends it as crucial for promoting “modernisation through greater unity” and calls it the law for “Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress”.

It lowers the status of other languages at the expense of Mandarin; encourages intermarriage between the dominant Han Chinese and other ethnicities by prohibiting moves to restrict this; requires parents to “educate and guide minors to love the Chinese Communist Party”; and, in a sweeping generalisation, prohibits any acts seen as damaging to “ethnic unity”.

…In its analysis of the new law, the China Power Project quoted Communist China’s founder Mao as saying: “We say China is a country vast in territory, rich in resources and large in population; as a matter of fact, it is the Han nationality whose population is large and the minority nationalities whose territory is vast and whose resources are rich”.

It’s true that although some minority ethnic groups, like the Uyghurs, number in millions, they are still dwarfed by the number of people recorded in the census as being Han, who make up more than 90% of Chinese citizens.

But when you look at the homelands of Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians, these massive areas are rich in mineral resources and important for agriculture and they count for a significant proportion of the country’s entire land mass.

Throughout history these groups have had periods of independence from China. They live in vast border regions with exposure to foreign countries. They not only speak their own languages but have their own distinct scripts for writing.

Indeed. And, at times in history, China has had periods of independence from Mongolia and Manchuria.

More from NPC Observer…

The Law’s political salience is also evident in two atypical features. First, it begins with a rare narrative preamble of over 800 characters. Only three statutes now include a preamble: the closely related Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law [民族区域自治法] and the Basic Laws of Hong Kong and Macao. Second, the Law uses Party-speak drawn from the “Twelve Musts” as the headings of three core chapters (II–IV): “Building a Shared Spiritual Home,” “Facilitating Interactions, Interchanges, and Intermingling,” and “Promoting Common Prosperity and Development.” Far from being descriptive and dry, as headings typically are, they incorporate key prongs of Xi’s doctrine and organize the Law around them.

For your viewing pleasure… Shaw Brothers’ YouTube channel – lots of free, gloriously trashy movies from the golden era of Hong Kong cinema. I remember an interviewer asking Sir Run Run which – of many hundreds – of his movies was his favourite. He instantly replied, ‘the one that made the most money’.

Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung continue to argue for acquittal in their subversion trial…

Defence counsel Erik Shum, representing Lee, told the court on Wednesday that the prosecution must establish that calling for an end to one-party rule is tantamount to toppling or undermining the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) leadership.

For 30 years, the Alliance’s call for ending one-party rule was intertwined with its advocacy for democratisation in China, Shum said, adding that China could become a democracy in the future through further constitutional amendment.

“Even if the prosecution can prove that ending one-party rule means ending the CCP’s leadership, it does not automatically become overthrowing or undermining its leadership,” he said. “This is a quantum leap.”

He also argued that China’s top state organs, including the National People’s Congress, could still operate without the CCP’s leadership.

…Chow, a barrister representing herself in the trial, argued that the court must consider human rights protections when reviewing whether the Alliance had incited others to commit subversion.

The Alliance’s slogans fell within a Chinese citizen’s legitimate demand for choosing the country’s leadership, she told the court.

“This is a goal which every Chinese national has the right to pursue,” she said. “The prosecution is trying to make this goal an unspeakable, unthinkable, and forbidden one, but they cannot provide any legal basis.”

In response, prosecutor Ned Lai argued that even a future constitutional amendment cannot change China’s fundamental socialist system under the CCP’s leadership.

How can an abstract idea be – as Chow puts it – ‘unspeakable, unthinkable, and forbidden’? How can merely calling for a change in the constitution be illegal?

Valiant Immigration Dept sleuths arrest 20 people in a crackdown on (presumably Filipino or Indonesian) foreign domestic helpers. Among them are…

…two domestic workers and one visitor … in Central during [a] sweep of footbridges and tunnels on Sunday, a day when most domestic workers are on their weekly day off.

Fu Chit-ho, a senior immigration officer, said that the three were suspected of setting up cardboard stalls or tents to provide massages and manicure services to other domestic workers, Ming Pao reported.

Sweep of footbridges and tunnels keeps city safe from cardboard stall menace! They were charging HK$50, and the customers would be other helpers – a sight familiar to anyone who lives in Hong Kong. Now the taxpayer pays for their incarceration, their employers are massively inconvenienced – and the women themselves subject to a harrowing experience presumably culminating in deportation. Meanwhile, feel free to park your SUV on a pedestrian crossing anytime you want. 

In a similar absurd vein, police arrest a man for using an electric bike – perfectly normal and legal in most cities in the world…

Officers on patrol spotted the man riding an electric mobile tool on a road and stopped him for inspection. Following a preliminary investigation, the man was arrested on four charges: “driving an unregistered vehicle,” “driving without a valid driving license,” “using a vehicle without third-party insurance,” and “riding without an approved protective helmet.”

…Police reiterated that electric mobile tools are not suitable for use on roads, pavements, or cycle tracks alongside regular vehicles…

Cheung Chau has no cars or trucks.

Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung seek early acquittals on subversion charges relating to their role in the HK Alliance. From HKFP…

Barrister Erik Shum, representing Lee Cheuk-yan, argued on Monday that prosecutors erred in saying that there are no “lawful means” to call for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule.

…“If there exists a lawful method to end CCP’s leadership, then the prosecution will lose its entire basis,” Shum told the court in Cantonese.

He cited Articles 62 and 64 of the Chinese constitution, which stipulate the mechanism by which the top decision-making body, the National People’s Congress, can amend the constitution.

While the Alliance had never explicitly called for an amendment, Shum said the group also did not outline an action plan for ending one-party rule. “It was merely a slogan and never a call for action,” he said.

In today’s Hong Kong you can, of course, be sent to prison for a slogan. But this raises a broader question: at what point do NatSec laws end and freedom of expression begins? Are people allowed to discuss the possibility of CCP rule coming to an end?

Chow Hang-tung – a barrister in her own right – argued that China’s constitution does not have direct effect in Hong Kong, and that prosecutors and judges lack a full understanding of the logic of the Mainland legal system (hence her request to call an expert witness)…

…She said the prosecution had adopted a broad reading of the constitution and had erred in alleging that she had directly breached it.

The constitution “certainly is applicable to Hong Kong, but that does not mean it can be directly implemented as law,” she said in Cantonese. She called it a matter of “direct effect,” referring to a legal principle allowing a law to be directly enforced in a local jurisdiction.

…Chow said that expert testimony was needed as the prosecution had not called an expert to interpret the Chinese constitution. All issues concerning the interpretation of the constitution “remain in a state where no evidence has been given,” she said.

The Jamestown Foundation looks at Beijing’s white paper Realizing National Security Under ‘One Country, Two Systems in Hong Kong, released the day after Jimmy Lai’s sentencing a month ago…

The 2026 white paper endorses the narrative that Hong Kong posed a national security threat to the PRC well before the 2019 anti-extradition movement. …the document asserts that the origins of this threat can be traced to resistance against the proposed Article 23 national security legislation in 2003… From the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) perspective, the failure to enact that legislation created structural vulnerabilities that enabled subsequent waves of mass mobilization.

The white paper links the 2003 setback to later protest movements, including the 2012 campaign against national education, the 2014 Umbrella Movement, the 2016 “Fish Ball” unrest, and the 2019 anti-extradition bill protests.

The inclusion of this narrative signals that mainland authorities now retrospectively characterize the 2003 mass mobilization—when more than 500,000 people protested the proposed Article 23 legislation—as a threat to national security. This reinterpretation stands in tension with the fact that the protests were widely regarded at the time as a lawful exercise of freedoms of expression and political participation protected under the Basic Law.

By framing the 2003 protests as security risks, the white paper recasts Hong Kong’s long-standing democratization efforts and defense of civil liberties as destabilizing forces. Through this revisionist account of post-handover social movements, the document provides ideological justification for Beijing’s hardline turn…

The report also mentions the timing of the white paper’s release and its concerns about critics and activists among the Hong Kong diaspora overseas.

Today’s guest star: Country Joe McDonald, who died a couple of days ago. Obits aren’t mentioning it much, but in later years he was a noted authority on Florence Nightingale.

There’s nothing we like more than seeing a property speculator having to cut his asking price, preferably by a lot…

Known colloquially as the “Ten Billion Shop King” for compiling one of the city’s largest caches of street shop and retail properties over the last three decades, Lai Wing-to has agreed to sell 9-11 Staunton Street for HK$105 million ($13.4 million), according to records filed with the city’s Land Registry last month.

…Lai, who had listed the property at HK$200 million in a sale effort in January 2024, is offloading the asset at a 47.5 percent markdown.

It’s a crumbling six-floor walk-up. OK – so he still made a profit…

…Lai bought the property in 2009 for HK$71.8 million, according to Land Registry records.

But that isn’t always the case…

…Lai sold [a] six-storey 1967-vintage property at 132 Sai Yeung Choi Street South [Mongkok] for HK$62 million ($8 million), parting with the asset for nearly 40 percent less than what he paid in 2009.

(Back in the old days, before there was a Mid-Levels Escalator or a ‘Soho’, I was once strolling to the office in Central past that Staunton St building one morning when a black kite swooped down onto a window ledge and instantly soared away with a pigeon, leaving only an explosion of feathers. The adjoining building has a nunnery – half a dozen shaven-headed devotees apparently oblivious to their area’s 30-year cycle from inner-city semi-slum to mega-gentrification to an overpriced, hollowed-out mass of ‘For Rent’ signage. I pretty much ignored it myself, though I do miss the annual Worst Restaurant in Soho Awards.)

Jimmy Lai’s former right-hand man Mark Simon has some advice for the US President (or for that matter any world leader, CEO, university head or Pope who thinks China will answer all their economic or corporate problems)…

We need someone in the Trump administration to walk into the Oval Office and give it to the President straight: China doesn’t have what the U.S. needs.

Yes, the Chinese economy “pitch deck” makes mouths water. The sales narrative jumps of the page; “Global manufacturing hub,” — “1.4 billion customers,” are what the Chinese government wants President Trump to focus on. But if you actually looked at the books—the real ones, —you’d see a series of dark alleys, that while not transparent to the outside world, look suspiciously like a tailspin. Beijing just set its 2026 growth target at a humble 4.5%–5%. 

…the country is filled with “ghost cities” and millions of middle-class families paying mortgages on unfinished “apartments.” When your primary asset is a hole in the ground that won’t be finished until 2029, you aren’t exactly in the mood to go out and buy U.S. beef. 

…If we are waiting for a Chinese middle-class spending spree to save American agriculture, manufacturing, or even services, we are waiting for a ship that has already hit the reef.