Big Lychee, Various Sectors

For fans of irony: according to reports, one of the books that allegedly endanger national security is Let Only Red Flowers Bloom by Emily Feng. (English edition published by hotbed of subversion Penguin.)

From the Wall Street Journal…

Hong Kong was once home to one of Asia’s most freewheeling book markets, with shops selling everything from exposes of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown to critiques of the deadly famine precipitated by the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s.

But in the years since Beijing began tightening its grip on the city, Chinese authorities have targeted publishers and bookshops as part of its effort to stamp out dissent.

The latest incident came this week, when Hong Kong police raided two independent bookstores for carrying what authorities branded as seditious books.

One of the bookshops, Have a Nice Stay, which once carried books on protest movements in Hong Kong and mainland China as well as tomes by Chinese dissidents, also said this week that it would shut. It was impossible to operate given the lack of a lack of clarity on what books might violate the law, it said, noting security officials wouldn’t specify which books are illegal.

…A handful of small bookshops have persisted despite the crackdown, keeping out of sight books on more sensitive topics like China’s history and leadership, particularly those published overseas. The authorities have accused those shops of promoting “soft resistance” to the government, arresting staff in March and June for allegedly carrying seditious works. Pro-Beijing media had previously accused the shops of carrying a biography of Lai and works by dissident cartoonist Zunzi it said vilified the government and extolled the 2019 protests.

On Monday the state-controlled Wen Wei Po newspaper accused a handful of small booksellers of carrying works that “smeared the country and the Communist Party,” including works by a former Apple Daily columnist and another by the former head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association. 

(Interesting how much CCP papers Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao seem to guide the NatSec Police in these matters. Also that Zunzi, who worked for Ming Pao up until three years ago when officials complained his satirical cartoons were ‘inaccurate’, is now classed as a dissident.)

NYT…

Earlier this month, the Hong Kong government barred the Elmbook and Luckwin bookstores from exhibiting at the Hong Kong Book Fair, Yalkun Uluyol, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Last month, the authorities arrested two employees at Hunter Bookstore on suspicion of “sedition.” In March, the police arrested four employees at Book Punch under the same allegations. Mr. Uluyol said that both bookstores were said to have carried a biography of Jimmy Lai, a jailed pro-democracy media tycoon…

Hong Kong authorities have also launched tax audits on at least six independent bookstores since late 2023, according to Human Rights Watch. The scrutiny is part of what experts said is an attempt to silence dissent since antigovernment protests engulfed Hong Kong in 2019.

“Independent bookstores are among the few remaining spaces where people can encounter ideas, build social ties and sustain an intellectual public,” said Victoria Hui, an associate professor specializing in Chinese politics at the University of Notre Dame. “So targeting both an established bookseller and one founded by journalists displaced by the media crackdown fits a broader pattern of dismantling Hong Kong’s civil society.”

The Washington Post…

“The moves against bookstores [are] part of an ongoing struggle for the hearts and minds of young people in Hong Kong,” said Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a historian of modern China at the University of California at Irvine. Pro-democracy movements in the city have been driven by young protesters, Wasserstrom said.

From NBC (which also uses the HKFP pic)…

Amnesty International’s Asia deputy regional director Sarah Brooks said the use of “sedition” offenses to target bookstores demonstrated how the city’s national security framework “is being weaponized to silence dissenting voices and eradicate spaces for free thought.”

“This year’s escalating attacks on Hong Kong’s independent bookstores hammer home the chilling reality of what the city has become: a place where you can be criminalized simply for what’s on your bookshelf,” she said.

Authorities say the national security laws are crucial for the city’s stability. Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security Chris Tang has said the government will not set up a list of banned books, saying it would be pointless to implement in reality.

AP’s report suggests that the authorities want to leave it unclear which books threaten national security…

“If you are a bookseller, you have the responsibility to make sure the books you sell won’t endanger national security,” he said. “It’s equal to, for example, when you are selling food, you need to ensure the food won’t cause a stomach ache and is not either poison or illegal.”

Asked if authorities would make a list of banned books, Tang said that would not be conducive to effective law enforcement targeting titles that “intend to harm the country.”

“We will not let criminals off the hook like this,” he said.

So informing people what is or isn’t illegal is ‘letting criminals off the hook’?

From Focus Taiwan…

President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) on Thursday expressed solidarity with independent bookstore owners and urged the Hong Kong government to respect diverse views after authorities raided two bookstores and arrested five people a day earlier.

“Every independent bookstore is an important bastion for ideas,” Lai wrote in a social media post.

…Referring to Taiwan’s martial law era, when publications were censored and freedom of expression was suppressed, Lai said Taiwan understood that freedom and democracy had not come easily.

“We would like to express our concern and respect to all bookstore staff and cultural workers who stand their ground in adversity. Words and ideas should not be shackled by political pressure,” Lai wrote.

Bookstores Have a Nice Stay and Greenfield are raided by NatSec police…

In a statement published on Wednesday night, the government said the five people were suspected of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention,” an offence under Article 23, the city’s homegrown security law. 

…Police investigation found that the five had displayed and sold items carrying seditious intent. Their contents could stir hatred for the Hong Kong government, the Judiciary and law enforcement bodies, the statement read.

Police also seized books that had seditious intention. The five have been detained for investigation.

The HKFP pic of macho cops detaining a bespectacled young woman deserves a photo-journalism award. Her T-shirt says ‘I work at a book shop’. 

Last month, Hunter bookstore got the same treatment. Presumably, if these cases go to trial, we will find out what sort of books are capable of threatening the security of the nation. I guess a volume explaining how to make a nuclear bomb in your kitchen might fit the definition.

BBC story. AP.

RTHK reports…

The annual [Hong Kong Book Fair] opened on Wednesday, with a focus on world literature and culture. 

…Bookworm Hailey Li, a student, said she enjoyed the variety of literature on display at this year’s fair, themed “Reading the World: Cultural Legacy, Joyful Journeys”.

“I feel like this year’s book fair is more diverse. It shows different cultural aspects, for example, we have booths focused on Hong Kong culture,” she said. 

At what point do the authorities decide Hong Kong has sufficient NatSec legislation? It seems there isn’t one…

The vice president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies said on Tuesday that Hong Kong should keep improving its national security laws.

Wang Zhenmin, a law professor at Tsinghua University, described the process of improving national security legislation as a long and gradual one – saying it is always a work in progress and never truly complete. 

…“In recent years, the national security risks and challenges we face are rising significantly, especially with external efforts to suppress the country,” Wang said.

“We must respond to changes in the external security environment and the practical needs of safeguarding national security, and further improve relevant legislation, arming and protecting ourselves with the law.” 

Brian Kern on an American writer being refused a visa to visit Hong Kong…

Blumberg-Kason’s case is … not unique. What is significant about it is the insight it provides into the extent to which the Immigration Department screened her politically. Blumberg-Kason was somewhat surprised by the attention her visa application received, given that neither her books nor other literary activities have been especially “politically sensitive.” It is not hard to imagine that if the Immigration Department engages in such investigative measures in the case of the visa application of an American writer wishing to visit Hong Kong for a short period, it is making similar efforts in other cases. 

…what is most striking is that the agency was so open about its screening, revealing it to the applicant and seeking a response. In other cases of which I’m aware, the people seeking to enter Hong Kong or applying for a work visa simply got rejected with no explanation at all. 

Does the Immigration Dept have the resources for such intensive political background checks into visa applicants? Or are they outsourcing the job to amply staffed NatSec agencies?

Though it seems working in those agencies can be quite stressful…

A Hong Kong police officer has been sentenced to nearly two years in jail for filming upskirt footage of a woman and attempting to grab a colleague’s handgun to kill himself after his arrest last year.

…Ko, a married father of two with 15 years of service, had been under immense pressure since joining the force’s national security department, the court heard.

And another bookstore decides to close its doors…

Independent bookstore Have a Nice Stay has announced its closure, citing financial difficulties and “unclear red lines” that make it hard to determine which titles can legally be circulated in Hong Kong. 

…Have a Nice Stay’s post stated that the owners “cannot possibly read every single book,” let alone determine which ones are ‘problematic.’”

Authorities have declined to publicise a list of banned books.

Global Times on a recent academic gathering at which ‘experts’ said that China has sovereignty over the Batanes Islands – Philippine territory south of Taiwan.

A Taipei Times op-ed anticipates that Beijing might start to claim the islands…

The symposium offered the usual comical PRC faux history inventions. “Ju Hailong, Dean of the School of International Studies at Jinan University, noted that the [Batanes] were under the jurisdiction of Taiwan Prefecture during the Ming and Qing dynasties,” said a PRC media report…

…Many of us have worried, based on the PRC’s attempts to create a link between Taiwan’s Indigenous people and Fujian province, that eventually it would act as if all Austronesian peoples were “Chinese” in origin. Sure enough, one of the symposium “scholars” observed that the “Ivatan residents on the [Batanes] share linguistic and cultural ties with the Tao people of Lanyu [Orchid Island, off southeast Taiwan], with their cultural heritage originating from China.” Ironically, the Tao appear to have migrated up from the Philippines.

…Both the claim to the Batanes and the expanded claim to the Babuyan Islands show a key PRC behavior: claims to one territory, in this case Taiwan, lead inevitably to claims to nearby territories. Eventually the PRC will begin manufacturing claims to the Japanese islands to the east of Taiwan. This has also been the case with the PRC’s claims in the Himalayas. 

This follows similar Chinese academic discussion about Okinawa. From ASPI Strategist…

In this increasingly sophisticated narrative, the modern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa is frequently substituted with ‘Ryukyu’, the historical archipelago kingdom that included the present-day island of Okinawa. This terminology serves to decouple the islands’ identity from the Japanese state, which is cast in Chinese historical discourse as a perennial aggressor. By presenting the Ryukyus as a dual victim of Japanese militarism and US imperialism, these narratives align the Okinawan experience with China’s own century of humiliation. Ryukyu is thus depicted as a former Chinese tributary, forcibly absorbed by Japan, devastated in World War II, and later returned to Tokyo through a United States-led arrangement portrayed as illegitimate. 

The author of the latter article believes that these unofficial but high-profile hints of territorial claims are primarily a way to raise diplomatic pressure rather than lay the ground for possible future attempts at annexation. 

What would the UK’s Count Binface do if he were in Hong Kong? OK, he would possibly be in prison for subverting state power, inciting hatred of the government, or colluding with foreign powers (he’s from another planet, after all). But that aside, what would he make of my local streetside waste receptacle situation?

The pic shows my neighbourhood green bin on a good day: bits of crap balanced precariously on other bits of crap. Usually, it’s worse: boxes on either side overflow with similar pyramids of refuse. 

It wasn’t always like this. There used to be an orange bin across the road, which was emptied daily. Then the Orange Bin (‘Food and Environmental Hygiene’) Dept took it away, leaving the one in the sitting-out area (run by the Green Bin or ‘Leisure and Cultural Services’ Dept) to take the strain.

The Orange Bin Dept removed many bins around Hong Kong as part of preparations for their exciting Municipal Solid Waste Charging initiative, under which households and businesses would pay for special pre-paid garbage bags. After numerous false starts, and expenditure of several hundred million bucks, the idea was abandoned because highly paid officials couldn’t work out how to convince people to accept it. (Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have used such a system for years. It’s almost as if having democratically elected municipal governments leads to better public input into policy-making and gives leaders a mandate to get things done.)

The Orange Bin Dept never reinstalled the bins it removed, and the Green Bin Dept hasn’t increased the frequency of its receptacle-emptying – much to the delight of the local pigeons.

On a brighter note: Orange Bin Dept boss Tse Chin-wan recently won Sing Tao‘s Leader of the Year award, in the Community/Public Affairs/Environment & Conservation (of pigeons?) category.

HKFP op-ed on the case of Ami Chan – found with laser pointers and spray paint at the age of 15 in 2019, and arrested now, in 2026…

I express no opinion about Ms Chan’s guilt or innocence, on which the magistrate is now pondering. I do believe that having fallen so far below the standards expected of prosecutions in cases involving children, the Department of Justice should not have brought this case at all. 

The department’s guidelines for prosecutors (echoing numerous human rights instruments, including our local one) say that defendants are entitled to a trial within a reasonable time. What the department’s denizens seem to have trouble getting their heads round is that this may vary with the age of the accused.

Pro-Beijing forces established significant influence at grass-roots level in Macau back in the 1960s, so the city never had a civil society and political activism on Hong Kong’s scale. But there were some pan-dems and workers’ rights groups. No more. From AP via HKFP…

In July 2025, [teacher and former pro-democracy New Macau Association] lawmaker Au Kam San became the first person to be arrested under Macau’s national security law, with authorities alleging he had ties to foreign groups endangering China. 

There has since been a lack of public information regarding the case.

On Thursday, a Macau court said in a statement that a judge determined on July 2 that Au was the “principal offender” and had committed crimes of “subversion of state power”.

Au was also suspected of “establishing links with organisations, groups or individuals outside Macau… to commit acts endangering national security” and “breach of confidentiality”, the court said.

…The Chinese casino hub expanded the scope of national security laws in May 2023, which officials said was meant to step up prevention of foreign interference.

In March a new bill was passed to allow Macau’s judges to decide whether national security cases should be heard in camera and require defence lawyers to obtain clearances before appearing in such cases.

NPR’s All Things Considered – it’s still going – looks at Hong Kong’s ‘sound of silence’…

VINCENT: …On July 1, NPR saw plainclothes men following W from a gathering, across several stops on the subway and into a busy shopping district where small groups of activists gathered to quietly mark the anniversary of the handover. W says on days like this, she feels she’s under surveillance. Hong Kong police told NPR that they take action in accordance with the law and made appropriate deployments due to the threat of public safety, public order and national security.

Do you know where the red lines are?

W: I don’t know. Yeah, because some people are still saying things that’s against the government on Facebook, but they’re – nothing happened to them. But some only have less than 100 followers in Facebook, and they got jailed. No, I don’t know the red line.

…VINCENT: Across town, we meet C. He is retired but also a longtime activist. Like W, he asks not to be named for fear of reprisal.

C: It’s not just a law. It’s like a – the weapon. They weaponized it. I think it’s more like to clamp down the political opponents. They tried to erase – not only rewrite, erase the history like nothing happened before.

Still – Hong Kong consolidates its role as Asia’s independent-bookstore-closure hub…

Elmbook, an independent bookshop that opened in 1997, has announced it will shutter its physical store in Mong Kok after being banned from the Hong Kong Book Fair. 

…The announcement came a day after local media reported that Elmbook and another independent bookstore, Luck Win Bookshop, were banned from participating in the Hong Kong Book Fair, which is scheduled to run from July 15 to 21.

InMedia reported that the two bookstores had imported many books from Taiwan for the book fair, but they were suddenly notified of the ban in late June.

RTHK is producing a new show in collaboration with Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po. A sample…

Chief Executive John Lee has said Hong Kong role [sic] in the nation’s 15th Five-Year Plan has been “upgraded” – in what he says is an encouraging development that demonstrates the country’s recognition of the SAR’s potential.

While the previous Five-Year Plan had directed Hong Kong to better integrate into the country’s overall development, the latest development blueprint adopted in March 2026 says the SAR should also “serve” national development and gives explicit support for the territory to expedite the development of the Northern Metropolis.

In an interview for a new RTHK TV programme produced jointly with the Ta Kung Wen Wei Media Group, Lee said this demonstrates the nation’s affirmation of Hong Kong’s contributions.

“This is definitely a positive change, and I find it very encouraging,” Lee told Vision 15: Hong Kong’s Chapter. 

Take a quick look at the composition of the pic. Everything in it is bland, save for one (and it is just one) item, which happens to occupy the central position. Someone is taking this quite seriously.

Will people pay more attention to the Election Committee subsector ordinary elections on November 22? HKFP reports the exercise will cost HK$260 million. Last time, in 2021, just under 4,400 people voted for ‘subsector’ representatives who form part of the Election Committee, which ‘elects’ the Chief Executive – from a field of one. 

The Standard adds…

The Electoral Affairs Office is studying arrangements for polling stations, including setting up a dedicated station for those remanded or detained by law enforcement agencies other than the Correctional Services Department. Dedicated stations may also be set up inside correctional institutions for inmates and remand prisoners, with voting hours from 9am to 4pm.

And in case you’re worried that the system might be overloaded…

The electronic poll register system will be enhanced with a “three-level confirmation” mechanism, with reviews by core system development and technical advisory committees, as well as independent load and stress testing by a third-party contractor.

After being imprisoned for participating in the pan-dems’ 2020 primary elections, Joshua Wong now faces a second NatSec conviction for ‘collusion with foreign powers’…

He is accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and “other persons unknown” between July 1 and November 23, 2020, to request foreign countries, organisations, or individuals based overseas to impose sanctions, blockades or engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.

As with Jimmy Lai or Long Hair, the authorities no doubt fear that the high-profile Wong would be a problem outside prison.

A nightmarish experience several decades ago involved waking up around 5.30am. I sensed a malodorous presence in my slum-apartment. I went to take a pee, and found the bathroom was ankle deep in yellowish-brown lumpy water. At this very moment, an early riser on the floor above pulled their flush, and my toilet welled up, spewing more stuff onto the floor. The faster I tried pulverizing and sweeping the putrid slime-liquid down the drain with a broom, the faster the toilet overflowed with yet another upswell of…

You get the picture. A few hours later, a slightly-amused old plumber had turned up. After taking in the scene, he had gone down into the alleyway beside the building to poke hooks and rods up a drainpipe. After 10 minutes he pulled out a foot-long – and obviously dead – rat, followed by the rest of the building’s accumulated sewage.

So I am not a huge fan of our sleeky rodent friends.  HKFP reports that rats caught by a government contractor avoid their prescribed fate (instant drowning in water and bleach), but are restricted to apples and sweet potato. Wait for the twist in the last sentence…

Hong Kong authorities have suspended a rodent control contractor after workers were found to be keeping captured rats overnight instead of sending them to be disposed of. 

…The contractor did not properly store rat cages and failed to “humanely” dispose of the rats on the same day they were captured. 

…The suspension came after local media outlet HK01 reported that a rodent control contractor operating in Kwai Chung had stored rat cages on a slope near Shek Lei Adventure Playground overnight and fed the captured rodents with sliced apples and sweet potato.

A site supervisor told the media outlet that workers sometimes “forgot” to take the captured rodents to designated waste collection points, where the rats were to be drowned in bleach and water. The supervisor said they were not raising the captured animals.

I sold the apartment in 2017. The whole surrounding site will soon be reborn as a Henderson Land ‘visionary residential condominium development redefining sustainable urban living in Upper Central … harmonizing environmental performance with architectural elegance’. Purchasers should be aware: the marble and gold bathrooms will be haunted by a sodden, foul-smelling, four-footed, furry ghost.

An RTHK story for those nostalgic for the old Hong Kong…

Police on Monday said they have arrested 125 people over suspicions that a triad syndicate used intimidation, arson, criminal damage and other violent means to corner the lunch box business at building sites.

The Organised Crime and Triad Bureau said a recent surge in residential projects in East Kowloon created a sharp rise in demand for takeaway meals among construction workers and it is thought that a triad group decided it wanted to seize control of the market.

…Acting Senior Superintendent Au Yeung Tak said a triad group is also suspected of threatening legitimate meal box suppliers using “methods such as extortion, arson, criminal damage and other illegal violent means”.

…The bureau said it arrested 48 men and 77 women, aged between 22 and 81, and seized assets worth HK$4 million, including luxury watches, delivery trucks and gambling paraphernalia. 

The operation reportedly brought in nearly HK$1 million a month. Which, divided by 125 people equals HK$8,000 each – maybe half of which was actual profit. No answer to the really important question: what the food was like?

More in keeping with the times – HKFP reports…

Ami Chan appeared at the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts on Monday for the second day of her trial in relation to the protests and unrest in 2019. 

Chan, who was arrested in 2019 but refused bail, left for Australia in 2021. She was charged when she returned to Hong Kong four months ago.

The defendant was 15 when she was arrested. She was 21 when she was charged in March this year

…According to the prosecution, she was carrying two laser pointers and two cans of spray paint when police arrested her on September 8, 2019, in Fortress Hill.

Magistrate Wong pointed out that at the time, the nearest place where protesters clashed with police was Causeway Bay.

“That’s some distance away,” he said.

Focus Taiwan on an exhibition of protest-era T-shirts – many of which could possibly get you arrested in Hong Kong today…

T-shirts worn in past democratic movements and public events in Hong Kong reflect the city’s evolving public culture and social history, the head of an academic association said at an exhibition highlighting Hong Kong T-shirts in Taipei on Sunday.

Chan Kin-man (陳健民), president of the Taiwan Society for Hong Kong Studies (TSHKS), said organizers of public events, marches, rallies and democratic movements made T-shirts of different colors, slogans and designs to express their messages, making them a distinctive feature of the city’s public culture.

Most of the T-shirts on display at the exhibition are black, though some are white or brightly colored, reflecting the distinct characteristics of the various public issues and events they represent.

Ryan Ho Kilpatrick on ‘Sinicization’, with reference to Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt and Hong Kong…

…to treat Sinicization, in Communist Party parlance, as synonymous with Hanification, is to miss out on a crucial point. That is that, according to influential Party theorists and advisers, even ethnic Han people must be “Sinicized” as well — because it denotes not only the forceful spread of an ethnic identity but a political one. 

…Professor Jiang Shigong … notes that the Hong Kong cultural elites he earlier chided as too Westernized to grasp the profundity of Xi Jinping’s speeches had, in fact, retained Confucian rites, feudal hierarchies, and a classical language largely lost on the mainland. Paradoxically, they are both too Western and too Chinese. And it is actually the latter — an enduring sense of attachment to “cultural China” but not “political China” — that is even more dangerous to the Communist Party, for it represents what Jiang refers to as the ceding of “cultural leadership”…

Jiang worked for the Liaison Office for a while, and has written extensively on Hong Kong.  Article includes a link to his essays, and a pic of one of his works seen at Hunter Bookstore.

From Joel Chan…

Latest data as of 31 Mar 2026 shows there were a record 4,798 prisoners on remand (presumed innocent) in Hong Kong jails, which is a record 43.24% of the total prison population (of 11,096).