Big Lychee, Various Sectors

By Bangkok officials, at least.

Thailand has 463 times the land area of Hong Kong, and a population nearly 10 times bigger – the kingdom has 363 people per square mile, versus Hong Kong’s 18,200. The kingdom’s nominal per capita GDP is a seventh of Hong Kong’s. Last year, Thailand had around 33 million tourist arrivals last year, while Hong Kong had nearly 50 million. 

Which of the two places wants to boost tourist arrivals, and which wants to curb the numbers?

Bloomberg (paywalled) reports…

The Southeast Asian nation, famed for its beaches and city nightlife, is only targeting about 33 million foreign visitors this year, well below the nearly 40 million who arrived in 2019.  

…“We’re not too worried about the number of tourists because we want to generate more revenue from each visitor,” [Thai tourism official] Nithee said. “We focus on quality markets.” 

We leave the riffraff to Hong Kong.

…The agency is targeting travelers drawn by medical care, wellness retreats, concerts, festivals, golf, marathons and other sporting events because these visitors tend to stay longer and spend more.

The agency’s website also leans heavily into the luxury and wellness angle…

…But with tourism accounting for about one-fifth of Thailand’s economy, the ecosystem of hotels, restaurants, food markets, transport operators, dive shops and tour companies which has sprung up around that depends on large volumes of visitors.

Thailand has the space – and the low-paid workforce – to accommodate more low-end tourists. But they think they can and should do better than that.

Some weekend reading…

From Postcolonial Politics, a short (by which the authors mean ‘long’) article on how Hong Kong has never decolonized.  The analysis has to produce results that support an ideology – so partly interesting, partly a bit loopy…

After the failure of the “Umbrella Movement” in 2014, localist and “anti-mainland” sentiment grew further and faster, pushing more young people to declare themselves “localists” in order to counter the increasing influence of the mainland Chinese government, and a new form of colonialism.  …demonstrators claimed the right of Hong Kong people to elect their own government and employed the argument of the specificity of Hong Kong’s socio-cultural identity. But where does this specificity come from? 

Wishing to avoid having a population that was either pro-CCP or pro-KMT, and unable or unwilling to Anglicize floods of new arrivals, the 1960s colonial government cunningly engaged in…

…the construction of a Hong Kong identity, based on an American and European-style consumer society. The worker, the producer must become the consumer. The political and social changes of the 1960s and 1970s therefore closely resembled the transformation of everyday life, especially in the sphere of leisure, which took place in Britain and Western Europe in the late 1950s and 1960s. It was above all the privatization of daily life, the withdrawal into the home and the family facilitated by the miniaturization of the media for the consumption of cultural products (transistors, inexpensive televisions, and later the audio cassette), which were significant for the construction of this new identity. Such privatization implied the fragmentation of collective life, especially with regard to workers and their unionization. 

It was nothing compared with what smartphones were to do. 

The authors are essentially seeing the 1967-97 development of a Hong Kong identity as a contrived plan to maintain British rule. Beijing officials would of course heartily agree. Certainly, administrations during that era laid on the ‘community’ stuff with gusto. But it was likely as much to do with keeping up with changing public attitudes as managing them. Hong Kong during that period was pretty much the freest society in Asia, and the local population had the opportunity and means to carve their own identity – and did. Leftists often find it hard to imagine that non-Westerners have their own minds. But they sort of anticipate this criticism…

In the construction of the Hong Kong identity, the worst aspect was the institutional denial of the agency of the Hong Kong people by the colonial authorities. In the twenty-first century, historical reality has constituted many parts of Asia as constituents of modernity and not merely its exploited objects. It is a modernity that bears the marks of colonialism, is full of contradictions, unfinished processes, turmoil and hybridity. But is it really any different from the rest of the modern world where women and the working classes constitute the domestic colonized? In Asia, these contradictions and consequences of capitalist development have simply been exacerbated causing a concomitant amplification of the human suffering and dilemmas that go hand in hand with urban capitalist industrialization in general.

Entertaining if you have nothing important to do.

War on the Rocks looks at the challenges of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan…

Three key missions at the heart of any cross-strait campaign have never been successfully executed under modern threat conditions: an amphibious landing against a credible coastal anti-ship missile threat, a large-scale airborne drop against modern air defenses, and a large, opposed air assault at extended range. In other words, the People’s Liberation Army would have to make history three times in the same campaign.  

…The familiar point is that invasion would be difficult. The sharper point is that Taiwan would not need to defeat the invasion force outright. It would only need enough surviving capability to disrupt the sequence. In a campaign built around tight timing and limited lift, the threshold for disruption is far lower than the threshold for destruction. China would have to move, land, reinforce, and sustain exposed forces under fire. Taiwan would only have to break that sequence.

Lift makes the problem more concrete: China would need to deploy sufficient combat power ashore in the opening hours to prevent the beachhead’s isolation before follow-on forces arrive. That makes amphibious lift central to the campaign. If China cannot meet that threshold in the opening waves, it must either accept a dangerously thin landing force or compensate with airborne and air assault operations. Those workarounds create the second and third Nevers.

Essentially, you can’t launch an invasion without large, slow ships and planes full of troops and equipment moving right up to the defenders. Unlike in the past, defenders today have numerous smaller and faster missiles and drones to mess things up.

The SCMP interviews Hongkongers spending the holiday across the border…

…[Edward Wong said] that Hong Kong eateries, which often required table sharing and imposed dining time limits, were less competitive than their mainland counterparts.

“Restaurants on the mainland are more spacious and offer better service,” he said.

Simon Chiu, a 66-year-old retiree, headed to Shantou in Guangdong with his wife to join a group of friends for a short getaway.

…Chiu said Hong Kong’s dining scene lacked fresh ideas and creativity while the mainland offered better value for money.

“Most importantly, many of our friends have headed north during the holidays, so we would be the only ones staying behind if we remained in the city,” he said.

Maggie Tsang, 42 … set aside around HK$1,000 (US$127.50) for food and children’s game parades, ball pits and family facilities at shopping centres in Futian district.

She said playgrounds and child facilities on the mainland cost about half as much as those in Hong Kong.

“It is also much more affordable as we are travelling with another family, splitting all the bills with us,” Tsang said.

Raymond Yeung, a 48‑year‑old technician … said … Shenzhen offered more options for family activities.

“You have more space in Shenzhen to play, and there’s more greenery too,” he said.

Why is the overcrowded and overpriced side of the border the one trying desperately to boost its tourism industry?

From the Standard – NatSec police arrest Hunter Bookstore owner Leticia Wong and her husband…

…for allegedly distributing seditious materials and utilizing a youth exhibition on student suicides to brainwash children with anti-government hatred, all while facing accusations of laundering massive amounts of overseas funding from anti-China organizations.

[They] … were recently arrested by officers from the Police National Security Department on suspicion of “doing an act or acts with seditious intention.” 

Wong is also implicated in an additional money laundering charge for allegedly receiving multiple suspicious payments amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars from overseas anti-China organizations. 

According to informed sources, in addition to selling and displaying publications with seditious intentions, the involved bookstore frequently utilized seminars and sharing sessions targeted at teenagers and students to instill anti-government ideologies. 

Recently, the bookstore held an exhibition regarding the “issue of student suicide,” but the exhibits contained a massive amount of content intended to disparage the central and Hong Kong governments, instilling a psychology of hatred in young children. 

Human Rights Watch marks six years of NatSec in Hong Kong…

The Chinese Communist Party and state have comprehensively reengineered Hong Kong’s foundation of governance, reshaping its leadership, personnel, institutions, and ideology. The authorities no longer present national security as an exceptional response to the 2019 protests, but as a standing principle of administration. They have enforced citywide compliance by punishing increasingly minor acts and targeting ordinary people for peaceful expressions. 

…The government cites national security to justify censoring expression across the arts, film, and publishing. Even restaurant licenses now include national security clauses. 

…The draconian national security regime has been used by the government to stamp out dissent and act with impunity, with far‑reaching consequences. The deadly Tai Po fire in November 2025 is an example of this new approach. Despite ample evidence pointing to government negligence, no officials have apologized or shown any indication of accepting accountability. Instead, the authorities silenced critics on social media and arrested a student and a YouTuber for “sedition” after they spoke out. The government also barred victims from displaying banners on their homes and journalists from accompanying survivors as they returned to their apartments to retrieve their belongings. 

Benedict Rogers in Union of Catholic Asian News…

Almost three decades on, those promises lie in tatters, those treaty obligations and constitutional protections shredded.

Over the past decade, and particularly the past six years since the National Security Law was imposed, most of Hong Kong’s basic freedoms — of expression, association, and assembly, along with media freedom — have been dismantled, and other freedoms — of religion and academic thought — increasingly undermined.

Hundreds of political prisoners remain in jail, including the media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, serving a 20-year sentence, barrister Chow Hang-tung, and trade unionist Lee Cheuk-yan. Independent newspapers have been forced to close, civil society has been shut down, pro-democracy political parties have ceased activities, and the legislature has been transformed from a vibrant multi-party quasi-democratic entity to a puppet rubber-stamp body of pro-Beijing goons handpicked by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Hong Kong has been transformed from one of Asia’s freest and most open cities into one of its most repressive police states. The only features that mark it out from mainland China are that it retains its own currency, and the internet is still more freely accessible. The ‘Great Firewall’ of China has not yet engulfed Hong Kong, although what you post or share or even ‘like’ on social media can get you arrested and some websites, such as that of Hong Kong Watch, which I co-founded almost a decade ago, are blocked.

HKFP reports the closure of Undergrad, the Hong Kong U student paper founded in 1952…

…after failing to recruit enough members for its editorial board … 

In a statement, the 2025 editorial board attributes the move to ‘the natural ebb and flow of history’ – a nice touch of irony, perhaps.

HKFP points out that in recent years…

At least six universities, including HKU, have seen their student unions disbanded, evicted, or stripped of institutional ties. 

How many independent student unions or publications still exist in Hong Kong?

In the Standard…

An off-duty police officer attached to the National Security Department admitted on Monday (Jun 29) to secretly filming beneath a woman’s skirt at an MTR station and attempting to seize a colleague’s loaded service revolver.

Ko Chun-chung, 39, pleaded guilty at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts, sitting as a District Court, to one count of unlawful recording or observing of intimate parts and one count of attempting to possess a firearm without a license.

From a book review by Ian Johnson in Foreign Affairs… 

…the country’s own leaders implicitly doubt the very concept of their nation. Government officials and many ordinary people vehemently proclaim the sanctity of China’s borders, even as many of its border regions are run under a state of near-martial law. Official narratives, meanwhile, forbid a coherent explanation of how China obtained these lands.  

…Chinese leaders behave as if they were running an upstart nation with no history—one that has to demand that visitors refer to it as “the People’s Republic” and repeat that there is only “one China,” located within sacred and immutable borders. The country today “is a multiheaded creature of no certain or reliable identity,” Xu Guoqi writes in his new book, The Idea of China: A Contested History. “If there were a clear or reliable identity, today’s leaders would not be so obsessed with trying to impose one.” 

…It remains unclear whether Xi’s version of China has any values beyond holding on to the territories of the old Qing empire and keeping the Chinese Communist Party in power, or whether the CCP’s project is capacious enough to accommodate the country’s historical hybridity. 

…the rise of the modern nation-state forced the ruling Qing dynasty to deal with other countries as equals rather than as barbarians or vassals. Outsiders might have called the Qing’s territories “China” or some similar variant, but the empire’s officials rejected the term. In their eyes, there was no country of China; there was only the Great Qing, and some of their diplomats insisted—unsuccessfully—that foreigners call them by that name. 

…The basic idea is that all people who have ever lived inside the current boundaries of the People’s Republic are now and always have been “Chinese.” This applies, most absurdly, to conquering foreign military leaders, including Genghis Khan, whose mausoleum is found in the current region of Inner Mongolia. There, officials lionize him as “a great man of the Chinese people.” 

HKFP reports a rare thing in Hong Kong these days: a demonstration. But it’s not anti-government. Well, it’s anti-UK government…

The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU) on Tuesday protested against the jailing of retired police officer Bill Yuen, who worked as a manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO), which represents Hong Kong’s government in London. 

The jailing of Yuen was a “complete political manipulation and judicial fabrication, interfering with China’s internal policies and Hong Kong affairs,” Stanley Ng, HKFTU chair and a lawmaker, said in Cantonese.

Two dozen people showed up. Their banners and placards featured slogans in English as well as Chinese, which is unusual in the pro-Beijing milieu. Ng and the FTU did not invent their own phrases or demands – they are standard-issue terms used by Beijing officials. For example, the PRC ambassador in London…

…[urged] the UK to reverse what he called a political manipulation against China, halt the arrests and convictions of Chinese citizens, and stop supporting anti-China groups.

Ambassador Zheng leads us to the interesting part: both the convicted men – Bill Yuen and Peter Wai – hold UK citizenship. When they convict UK citizen Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong/Chinese authorities insist that he is Chinese. When the UK courts convict such dual nationals in London, they are… still Chinese.

Some weekend reading and viewing…

Donald Clarke’s Chinese Law Notes on Beijing’s new ‘ethnic unity law’…

Will China actually use these provisions to prosecute foreigners it doesn’t like? Perhaps they are hoping to get the benefit of scaring people without paying the cost in bad publicity of actually prosecuting anyone. There’s just no way at this point to know, and whatever aims the central government has in mind (assuming it has a unified view), we can’t be sure officials at lower levels won’t try to score points by patriotically prosecuting meddling foreigners. You can avoid danger, of course, by staying out of China—and Hong Kong, and Macau, and any countries, with or without extradition treaties, that are likely to be vulnerable to Chinese pressure.

Via his Substack, Michael Kovrig on ‘buck-passing and bandwagoning’ among European countries when it comes to resisting Beijing’s mercantilism…

Last year every EU member state ran a trade deficit with China for the first time, with the total EU-China deficit hitting €359 billion (yep, about a billion euros a day) — roughly double the pre-pandemic figure. China’s exports to the EU are up another 16% in the first half of this year. The Economist notes that bankruptcies are running at levels last seen in 2015. Germany, the industrial heartland, shed 143,000 manufacturing jobs last year…  

Compounding the problem for European leaders is that the Chinese Communist Party has demonstrated willingness to mete out punishment against countries that impose trade and investment barriers or otherwise frustrate its ambitions. It has a track record of weaponizing access to China’s market, squeezing dependent firms to influence government policy, and using control of supply chains for coercion. That’s why at the European Council meeting, the session in which leaders debated the threat was billed as focusing euphemistically on “global macroeconomic imbalances.” One is reminded of the dictum of another French statesman, Talleyrand: speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts. 

…States facing a rising threat decline to confront it and instead hope somebody else will bear the burden of doing so. For the EU, each member would be better off if the bloc collectively balanced against Beijing. But for any single government, the smart move, given that the others are hanging back, is also to hang back…

In Foreign Affairs, Patricia Kim doubts whether Beijing’s transactional and tightly focused foreign policy can translate into international leadership…

Unlike the United States, which built a network of alliances and underwrote the postwar order, and the Soviet Union, which controlled a formal bloc of communist states through the Warsaw Pact, China has shown little interest in assuming responsibility for a rival order or even a tightly organized coalition. Beijing instead seeks global reach without entanglement, partnerships without binding obligations, and great-power status without the burdens of leadership. 

…China has been practicing what might be called a “China first” strategy—prioritizing its narrow interests while disclaiming global responsibilities—long predating the current “America first” policy championed by the Trump administration. 

…China sustains its partners [such as Russia and Venezuela] economically and shields them diplomatically but won’t defend them when it matters most.

…Many partners publicly back China at international forums … these gains … may bolster the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party and help Beijing shape international discourse, but they rarely translate into meaningful alignment or costly action. It remains unclear whether China could lean on its friends in a major crisis.

There are already signs that Chinese leaders doubt the reliability of their partners. For instance, when the Trump administration imposed sweeping global tariffs at the height of last year’s U.S.-Chinese trade tensions, Beijing feared that its partners might strike side deals with Washington—restricting Chinese exports in exchange for tariff relief. Chinese officials responded with threats of “reciprocal countermeasures.” 

…Even as confidence in the United States has wavered and American allies have strengthened economic ties with China, Beijing has struggled to convert that engagement into strategic alignment. For states such as France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea, China is an important economic partner and a consequential great power that must be dealt with, but it is seen as neither a potential security partner nor a credible leader of a durable global order.

A video showing Hong Kong ‘going backwards’. The account that posted it on Chinese social media has been banned.

A 1960s Dutch psychedelic band called Dragonfly did something like this – in the second half of their vid…

From HKFP…

Police said in a statement just after midnight on Thursday that a woman, 33, and a man, 32, were arrested on Wednesday. The pair allegedly displayed and sold “seditious” titles and “received multiple remittances from foreign political organisations,” they said. 

Local media reports identified the woman as ex-Civic Party district councillor Leticia Wong, who runs Hunter Bookstore in Sham Shui Po…

In the statement, police said the two allegedly sold seditious titles that stoked hatred against Hong Kong authorities, the judiciary, and law enforcement agencies. They were suspected of violating the city’s homegrown national security law, the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, commonly known as Article 23. 

…Last year, HKFP reported that Hunter Bookstore had faced dozens of inspections and audits by various government departments. 

…In March, independent bookseller Pong Yat-ming and three of the staff members of his Book Punch store were reportedly arrested on suspicion of selling seditious titles, including a biography of jailed media mogul Jimmy Lai. 

No details as to what the ‘seditious’ books are, let alone how they stoked hatred of the authorities. Nor of the ‘foreign political organizations’ that sent ‘multiple remittances’. However, the Standard states that…

Hunter Bookstore had been selling books that defame the central and SAR governments and glorify the 2019 unrest, including the biography of Jimmy Lai and works by anti-government figures. It also hosted talks and sharing sessions targeting young people, and collaborated with other anti-government shops on exhibitions and film screenings.

Government statement. A pic of police ‘rectifying’ the shop window here.

From a year ago – a Japanese outlet’s feature on the store…

Friends and customers often ask Wong if she’s afraid to be selling these kinds of books.

When I ask her the same question, she replies, “I want to ask the opposite. Why are you afraid? What exactly is so frightening? If you look fear in the eye, you might realize it’s not as terrifying as it seems.”

Hunter Bookstore has been inspected several times by government officials.

“They’re just trying to intimidate. If I’ve broken a law, they can arrest me,” Wong says calmly.

The LA Times picks up the story.

RTHK reports…

Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law on Tuesday said she is confident the tourism sector could meet the government’s target in accounting for about five percent of the city’s gross domestic product by 2029.

…Law said the target is not “aggressive”, given the city’s track record in being a tourism hub.

Last year, the industry accounted for about three percent of the city’s GDP.

“I think with improved connectivity, with high-speed rail and good cross-boundary facilities, it’s natural that the flow of people in Hong Kong and nearby cities, including Shenzhen, would improve and would increase,” she said.

…While many residents have headed to Shenzhen during weekends or on long holidays for its increasing number of attractions and low prices, the minister said it is “unrealistic” for the SAR to expect other cities, which compete with Hong Kong for tourists, to remain unchanged.

Instead, the city should continue to grow, she said, offering attractions that benefit locals and tourists alike.

So if we can build on our current tourism levels – 50 million in 2025 – we can push the industry’s share from 3% to 5% of GDP. Based on raw visitor numbers, that implies an increase to over 80 million tourists. Where will the extra 30 million people go? How do they fit onto the sidewalks, trains and buses?

And, although 3% vs 5% of GDP sounds like a lot of money, how do we know tourism actually boosts net wealth? Assuming the extra visitors increase demand for certain retail spaces, their presence will push up rent for existing stores, which in turn increases the cost of living for local residents. In some cases, stores serving local consumers might end up going out of business. Local entrepreneurs will see narrower opportunities. On a net basis, the extra two percentage points of GDP might simply be cancelled out by lower GDP in other sectors.

Hong Kong bureaucrats have a fixation with tourism – perhaps because it’s so easy to measure visitor numbers and interpret them as a sign of success. That said, Rosanna Law seems to recognize that by cramming more tourists into Hong Kong, you worsen local quality of life and encourage residents to cross the border for cheaper and less crowded leisure experiences…

“First of all is of course ensure that whatever we are offering to our local people, it should continue to be of good quality, value for money. But together, I think we also have to ensure that whatever we are offering to our visitors, from our nearby cities would be attractive, novel, and also value for money,” the official said.

“This way, I think the flow of people, the flow of visitors will be mutually beneficial.”

But maybe it’s not mutually beneficial. Higher-spending Hongkongers go to Shenzhen for weekends, while more Mainlanders bring packed lunches over the border to have their photos taken standing outside colonial architecture…

Looking ahead, Law said Hong Kong would continue to offer cultural experiences at historic buildings — similar to the old Yau Ma Tei police station exhibition — which she described as very successful.

“We are actually thinking of how to enrich it [the experience] even further, and to maybe even collaborate with nearby shops. One of them has already introduced a nostalgic theme in their packaging,” she said.

“So I think that is a good potential of showing what Hong Kong is like, and what is uniquely Hong Kong to our visitors.”

Haw Par Mansion in Tai Hang, for instance, could showcase the unique East meets West cultural environment of the SAR, Law added.

The 30 million extra visitors go to Haw Par Mansion. Overcrowding problem solved.

The Hong Kong government’s strategy: try desperately to keep rents absurdly high – regardless of far lower costs just over the border – while simultaneously striving for economic vibrancy. (In order to enable over-inflated civil-service salaries, perhaps?)

A couple of other stories of note today.

From the Standard – the average size of new homes in Hong Kong has fallen from 50.4 sq m [542 sq ft] in 1996 to 37.2 sq m [400 sq ft] in 2024…

Nearly half of the units completed in 2024 were under 40 sq m, compared with only 4 percent in 2000, the study said.

Despite the recovery of Hong Kong property completion from the post-2000 trough, the unit size is shrinking, the report said.

Private housing showed diverging trends in sizes: the share of completions under 40 sq m rose from 18 percent in 1995 to 45 percent in 2024, while that of 70 sq m or above decreased from 26 percent to 11 percent, the study said.

Large private homes have shifted from a mainstream product to a marginal share of new supply, it added.

Again, purely down to government policy of prioritizing land revenues over basic living standards. How does it help Hong Kong?

And HKFP reports on a mother pleading guilty to manslaughter after beating and starving her five-year-old child to death in Sham Shui Po. Warning: this is about as grim as it gets.

The SCMP reports…

Hong Kong election authorities have stopped compiling voter turnout data by age and sex, citing a lack of operational need, in a move that has raised concerns about undermining the transparency of polls.

Analysts and politicians said such statistics were valuable for election hopefuls in understanding voter demographics and formulating policy suggestions, while authorities could use the data to improve governance.

There probably isn’t an ‘operational need’. But is that a reason to stop compiling the stats?

The turnout in last December’s election reached 31.9 per cent, with nearly 1.32 million residents casting votes. It surpassed the 30.2 per cent recorded in the 2021 poll, but remained significantly below the 58.28 per cent turnout in 2016.

Participation among young voters, in particular, has slumped since Beijing revamped the electoral system in 2021 to ensure only “patriots” could hold power.

In the Legco election held later that year, turnout among voters aged 30 and below hit a record low of 7.01 per cent, compared with 45.81 per cent for those over 60.

In the 2023 district council election, turnout stood at 7.49 per cent for those aged 30 and below and 41.22 per cent for those over 60.

By contrast, the turnout rate across all age groups exceeded 50 per cent in the 2016 Legco election and reached about 70 per cent in the 2019 district council poll, which was held amid anti-government protests sparked by an unpopular extradition bill.

Voter turnout collapsed after the authorities barred all but ‘patriotic’ candidates from the ballot. Once-popular and outspoken politicians have ended up in prison, while most candidates running in the new-style polls are unknown and apparently devoid of any serious views. Furthermore, most seats in the legislature are now filled by small groups of government-picked electors – often organizations rather than humans. It’s hardly surprising if the public sees less point in voting.

The SCMP apparently struggles to find anyone who supports the new move…

Lawmaker Mark Chong Ho-fung called on the government to resume releasing the data to enhance transparency, saying that the change could damage public perception.

He said that the figures were valuable for politicians, especially those representing geographical constituencies, to better analyse voter demographics and formulate policy suggestions.

…Emeritus Professor John Burns of the University of Hong Kong described the decision as regrettable, saying the release of comprehensive data was essential for electoral openness and transparency.

“We no longer have a government that pledges to be as accountable to the public as possible, as open and as transparent as possible,” he said.

The expert in public administration explained that such statistics helped to reveal voting behaviour, allowing the government to identify support across age groups.

“They need this information in order to better understand where their support lies, who their supporters are and who they need to win over, who they need to convince,” Burns said.

Even Lau Siu-kai, a pro-Beijing think-tank commentator, disagrees with the change…

“Understanding the turnout rate by age group does not simply help boost voter turnout,” he said, noting that the government could try to change the attitudes of age groups that were more reluctant to cast ballots.

“It allows an in-depth study into the factors influencing voter behaviour, including whether people are satisfied or dissatisfied with the government and social conditions.”

And perhaps this is the reason why the data won’t be available any more. If less than 7.5% of under-30s vote, there’s a pretty serious problem. If there’s no such statistic, the problem goes away!

The fundamental question is: why have a legislature at all, when it no longer represents the people or has a role in holding the executive branch to account? 

An op-ed by activist and lawyer Patrick Poon in the Japan Times joins the international alarm over the new ‘instant Nat-Sec offense’ mechanism. And it goes further…

…Chief Executive John Lee, has dealt a lethal blow to the rule of law in Hong Kong…

The chief executive can now certify anything as “endangering national security” and thus restrict freedom of expression with the new unlimited power given to him. Judges will have no say as the secretary for justice has already made it clear.

…On June 8, Lee announced that he will decide and certify whether any matters would involve national security and the decisions cannot be challenged. Nobody knows about the criteria, except for Lee himself. In April, it was announced that travelers who refused to share passwords or deny access to personal electronic devices could be subject to criminal charges in Hong Kong.  

…Judges are reduced to executing legal interpretations set out by the executive, and no judicial interpretation will be allowed 

…Not to mention that there is absolutely no more separation of powers. The executive dominates government operations. The legislature only performs the role of a rubber stamp, legitimizing whatever decisions are made by the chief executive.  

…China is not only exporting substandard products but also its draconian governance culture. The death of Hong Kong’s rule of law and civil society is not only about Hong Kong and China; it’s affecting the political landscape in Taiwan, East Asia and even globally as the foundations of sovereignty and democratic self-governance come under increasing pressure. 

Will the writer of irate HK government press statements even know where to start?

The Court of Final Appeal upholds the law making it illegal to urge people to do something that is legal – namely boycott an election in Hong Kong. HKFP reports…

Although casting a blank ballot or not voting is legal, encouraging others to do either remains unlawful.

…[Chief Justice Andrew] Cheung said that calls to boycott an election by ways of casting a blank vote or not voting at all could undermine the “legitimacy, credibility, or representative mandate of the electoral process.” 

The law does not bar individuals from casting a blank vote or choosing not to vote, he noted, as it only bans the act of publicly inciting others to do so: “It is one thing for individual voters to choose not to vote, or to cast an invalid vote. It is quite another for voters to be publicly incited to do so on a mass scale,” Cheung wrote. 

“It can hardly be disputed that such incitement, if successfully carried out, is liable to undermine the effective conduct of elections,” he added.

Surely it can easily be disputed. Is calling for an election boycott a crime in any democratic society? Does it undermine elections in those places? And why do far fewer people vote these days: calls for a boycatt, or a tightly restricted range of permitted candidates?

He said the law has imposed a “modest” and “carefully circumscribed” restriction to freedom of expression, targeting public incitement rather than private discussion or individual decision-making.

Cheung also dismissed the argument that the law favours voting participation and discriminates against the advocacy of casting an invalid vote or not voting, which are lawful electoral choices. He said boycott calls could undermine the election and therefore a differential treatment is justified.

They’ve lost me. Surely, urging people to vote or not to vote both potentially affect or ‘undermine’ an election in equal measure. Just as both are urging or ‘inciting’ people in equal measure. (Note the key role played by the loaded term ‘incite’, which we never used to hear before 2020. It’s as if you are free to suggest, propose, urge, advise or bitch about; but if the authorities switch to the word ‘incite’, you’re suddenly committing a crime.)

Samuel Bickett adds…

The reasoning is, of course, thin. The court called the restriction “necessary” because calls to cast blank ballots risk “undermining the legitimacy” of Hong Kong’s elections, a legitimacy the government has done the most to erode by barring opposition candidates from running. It drew a line between abstaining and backing a candidate, holding that only abstention threatens the system, while declining to mention that openly supporting pro-democracy candidates can itself land you in prison.

That’s an interesting question. What if – in the run-up to a modern-day Hong Kong election – you call on people to vote for (say) Long Hair or other pan-dems who are now barred from the ballot? Does that count as urging/inciting people to boycott?