Hong Kong Chief Executive-elect CY Leung’s trellis scandal has been upgraded to a ‘glass-covered frame’ outrage (with termites). Spy satellite photos revealing the extent of the barbarity appear in the South China Morning Post. Note how the colour of the water in the swimming pool shifts over time – without Buildings Department approval, you can be sure.
While anti-CY/pro-tycoon media are keeping the pot boiling (“there was no trellis…”), it is the pro-democracy legislators who are really stirring things up, with Audrey Eu and Lee Wing-tat both quoted as accusing CY of adding lie upon lie over the dreaded glass-covered frame. Audrey is additionally infuriated by the fact that some individuals are not joining in the hysteria.
At the same time, the Legislative Council expresses ‘dismay’, no less, at the next CE’s ‘lack of attention’ 10 years ago when he failed to disclose a vague conflict of interest in a design competition for the West Kowloon Cultural District Hub Zone Complex.
The two alleged atrocities are similar. Both focus on whether CY Leung should have mentioned something of little consequence and of which he may barely have been aware. No-one gained anything. No-one lost anything. There are no victims. There is no evidence of malicious intent, and no evidence that CY even had a motive to do harm or wrong, apart from aiding and abetting creeping plants in his garden.
For a badly needed reminder of what is happening here, we turn to Southern District, where it so happens that Dutch-born civic activist Paul Zimmerman’s application for Chinese citizenship will soon be approved. He will therefore be eligible to run in the Legislative Council election later this year. Actually, it’s in September – ten weeks, three days away.
For various psephological as well as political reasons, that election is going to be even more bitterly contested than usual. We can’t elect the government, but we can elect an opposition. The pan-democrats’ main rivals – apart from each other – are the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment Etc of HK. The DAB are a front for the Chinese Communist Party and will support whoever Beijing tells them to. That means they will be pro-CY Leung. So in order to differentiate themselves and get elected, the pan-dems see no choice but to be vitriolically, mouth-frothingly, bed-wettingly anti-CY, regardless of who he really is (and especially if he introduces popular policies – because then the pro-democrats are screwed). The way they see it, they must smear him or die.
Strange system.
Click to hear My Little Airport’s ‘Audrey, About Landscape’!
“There is no evidence of malicious intent…”
Not true, Hemlock.
When Henry got the shaft because of illegal extensions, CY kept his mouth shut so that he could ascend to the throne, knowing full well that he, too, was illegally extended. If that is not malice, then what is ?
The man is as evil as he looks.
CY isn’t evil. His high cheek bones make him look quite handsome.
Joe: Wouldn’t you have done the same, if you too wanted to be the next CE?
@ JB
If you think this is bad, imagine what it would have been like under ET ( or are YOU ET ?)
Yes, Hemmers, the Pro- dems* will really be wetting their beds , because CY is – I hope – going to start doing all the good things the PD have been correctly been advocating these past years ( anti tycoon/ cartel stuff, helping the poor and needy etc ) . That really takes the wind out of the PD’s sails , so they now have to oppose all that they advocated before, just because they are THE opposition.
* just realized PD can stand for pro-dems and for property developers
Slavia: if you aspire to the highest position in the land, you must also aspire to the highest ethical standards.
Or have we become so cynical that we say, “oh, he is a politician, so therefore he is a scumbag. This is to be expected, and therefore it is okay”.
15 years and it has become the farce we all knew it would be. Eu and Emily Lau are so tiresome, if only they put as much energy into the correct causes we wouldn’t be in such a right old pickle.
Is there a term for latching onto these pointless causes? As soon as they sniff some perceived moral high ground they are all over it like a bad suit.
Lau needs to step down, she is such a whiny old thing. And Eu’s slow, croaky, forced posh speech drives me up the wall.
Joe: Lying over a metal gate, a car park roof, a trellis, a plant-growing glass house, a basement for security guard, etc makes a politician look stupid, but doesn’t make him unethical. It is the media that’re expected to tell the truth and be ethical. Sadly in HK it’s often the other way around. Media can lie and be biased as they want and no one cares, but politicians are expected to be saints even though everyone knows that they aren’t.
If CY turns his back on the poor immediately after he takes office, that will make him unethical. Now it’s just too early to judge what kind of a person he is.
So the SCMP has been looking at aerial photos and decided the trellis was not particularly trellis-like. Have they been reading Hemlock?
As for CY’s “intentions”, it’s one of those HK words, like “flexible”, that means “I’m lying, and if I’m caught out, I intend to lie about that as well”.
Ooops… was too busy in the ntscmp archives to notice a new post…
With all of the hubbub over the SCMP’s self-censorship, I decided to rummage through the NTSCMP archives. From QQ’s 1999 rundown:
http://biglychee.com/Hemlock/ntscmp-qq-end99.html
“- Eager to show the same thing, CY Leung pops up more and more. Only in HK can you be the Chief Executive’s main advisor on property policy and, er… run a major property related business at the same time. With a conflict of interest like that, Leung’s rise to the top is in the bag.”
Finally a pundit that you can return to their predictions for the future and they actually come true!
“We can’t elect the government, but we can elect an opposition”
In China to be a mayor (OK of its biggest city) can generate billions, educate your son at the world’s finest universities and (almost) get you on the politburo. All is well as it doesn’t threaten the CCP divine right to rule. Be complicit in murdering foreigners and having your chief of police running off and telling the Americans does.
Until the CCP allows HK to elect a government (never) HK will continue with a piss poor government and a piss poor opposition.
Now lets all wave at that nice President Hu over the holidays !
well, we have an opposition who er, opposes everything, like a dog barking at shadows. One question. Someone knew LCY had illegal erections agaes ago. Who kept mum and why? Far more are complicit in this than just Jabba the Ho.
@PD Don’t think CY will do anything the pan-Dems want. After his public forum w/ the Neighborhood and Workers Service Center, CY spent the next week walking back the populist stuff he said. Won’t make the rich poor to even out income disparity. Will keep housing in HK as a two-track market, private housing for speculation and public housing to keep the serfs from revolting.
As far I can see, the big plan for housing is the push for 3 new cities in NT West/Lantau. Look for some farmers who are actually using the land (which means they aren’t Kuk protected), push ’em off (like they did for HSR), and let your cronies make big profits under the rubric of “expanding the housing supply” (though make sure its expansion is roughly equal to the expansion in the money supply to ensure speculators never go underwater).
“some individuals are not joining in the hysteria”
Surely Wisteria?
Yes, tempest, teapot… blah blah blah… all good and well when it’s not Building’s Department is breathing down _your_ neck. We’ll recommend the ‘But CY Did It Defense’ for future reference.
In other news… this delightful write-up from MarketWatch on Hong Kong’s welfare state run amok:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hong-kong-housing-projects-host-wealthy-tenants-2012-06-26?link=mw_home_kiosk
Enjoy.
CY’s cabinet looks like an old tyre with a retread. But then who in his/her right mind would volunteer to serve given the current poisoned atmosphere in Hong Kong. Put one foot wrong … then be prepared to be skinned alive by the rabid media and the clowns in LEGCO. Any person of quality and with any notion of risk would run the other way.
One final point, I don’t recall the so-called pro Democratics screaming for explanations and investigations when one of their own was accused of sexual harassment and another was suspected of fiddling his expenses. We are still awaiting full disclosure on these matters.
Newspapers have got hold of CY’s programme, as decided by Peking:
1. put off democratisation
2. deal with the RTHK
3. introduce article 23
4. reinforce patriotic values through education.
@Propertydeveloper
Except that none of these things will probably happen under CY because if it did, HK would truly become ungovernable. Even the slightest move towards any of the above 4 points you mentioned will have HKers up in arms since they’re so hypersensitive about their core values.
Not at all, point 4 is already well-established and point 1 has been working fine since 2007, so why change now?
Just to be literal for a moment, HKers do not have much in the way of ‘arms’ – mass demonstrations are all well and good if you can get enough people into the streets and the powers that be are inclined to listen, but there is no actual mechanism to *make* them listen.