When weirdoes start crawling out from under the woodwork, can the denouement be far away? Lifelong communist faithful and former Justice Secretary Elsie Leung warns that anti-National Education hunger strikes and occupation of the government concrete at Tamar will lead to anarchy. That is, a state of no functioning government – public administration unable to implement policies owing to protestors’ tactics that are emotive, effective and make patriots and officials look and feel humiliated. The old girl has a point.
Beijing-friendly broadcasters are onto something as well. When I checked the now-infamous ATV editorial on the protestors on YouTube yesterday, it had been viewed 10 times; it is now nearing 2,200 – and other versions floating around have been seen by a multiple of that number. It is a classic (and funny) example of Chinese Communist Party paranoia: the anti-National Education movement is part of a British/American plot to destroy Hong Kong in order to make China look bad (that is, in case anyone needs to have it spelt out, look incapable of running a city of 7 million that worked fine up to 1997).
Where are the evil Anglo-Saxon influences undermining the Big Lychee so the motherland loses face? They are not among the Westerners in our high-value service export industries who pay tax and give our retail sector a boost at weekends through their large-volume purchases of liquid refreshments. They are nowhere to be found among the gwailos who are so active in air-cleaning, heritage-preserving, dolphin-protecting and plastic-pellet-gathering circles. They are probably not even among the Native 
English Teacher brigade, despite being in the perfect position to poison malleable young minds.
No: they have infiltrated far deeper than that.
- Behold legislator Regina Ip (British-style HK University, Glasgow University, Stanford University, degree in Elizabethan literature, British-trained civil servant.) Her handling of the Article 23 legislation left Hong Kong authorities powerless to counter threats to Chinese national security.
- Behold ex-Chief Executive Donald Tsang (son of British-trained cop, British-trained bureaucrat, MA from Harvard, wears bow-tie). He crafted the original proposal for National Education in such a way that mainstream Hongkongers were bound to see it as a sinister, creepy, alien bit of communist brainwashing – even funding a United Front body to produce fatally propagandistic teaching materials.
- Behold Chief Secretary Carrie Lam (HKU, Cambridge U, British-trained bureaucrat, Fullbright placement with US Government in 1988, smarmy British accent). Her well-honed condescension and stubbornness have now almost certainly left Hong Kong officials incapable of indoctrinating local youths into correct thinking about the one-party system, and indeed has persuaded the kids to embrace resistance.
The London/Washington-backed Hanjian exposed.
Even so – there is now officially absolutely nowhere you can escape Mainlandization.
Click to hear Jacqueline Taieb’s ‘La Fac de Lettres’!
For me, the present turmoil is far from being an endgame, since the CCP hasn’t yet thought of bringing in the big guns. Like the maritime land grabs, like the efforts to teach benighted foreigners Mandarin, the suppression of HK is a long-term goal, with various stratergies and tactics tested, discarded, adapted and fine-tuned.
United Front methods involve freezing out the democrats, the foreign devils, the writers, and making the soft underbelly take sides. That’s why the three people you cite are at the heart of the struggle: all articulate, hard-working, cosmopolitan, highly educated, highly competent insiders — or at least they were until they were asked to choose.
Picking on the police, judges, perhaps university teachers, the press has been put in the too-difficult pile for the moment. But their time will come sooner or later.
The locals have gone native. Another triumph for the Foreign Office.
I woke up this morning and almost got a buzz when I saw ANARCHY IN HONG KONG..
…yet lo and behold it wasn’t the Sex Pistols passing through, it was Ms Noddy Elsie Leung.
How do you get a head like that? Was it a forceps birth and they used pliers instead?
And do you have to choose a photo of Donald farting? This is a family show.
Sorry to all, But this whole THING is STOOPID
Goddess of Democracy statues outside Tamar Base ( sorry Donald’ Duck’s Folly) ?
BS ! Soooo STOOPID !
The Mainland is coming, whether we like it or not, but hopefully we have the chance to channel and restrict the inflow in order to handle the load on the KCR , which is real practical problem
Sh1T : major cities in China much bigger than HK have faced this massive immigrant problem for years – and their immigrants are there to stay = live and work, not just to shop and visit Disneyland
Of course there’s no super-plot ,and no infiltration.
That’s total BS
If I say I know half the ruling coterie of govt big wigs on first name terms and they are all perfectly rational people trying to their level best , would that cast any weight with the “crisis -seeking” international press? Probably not because ” no news is NO NEWS ”
So BUGGER OFF you big time press
At least let HK handle its own family affairs privately, for once
I am an anti-communist
I am an anarchist,
Don’t know what I want
But I know how to get it.
I wanna destroy national education
‘Cos I wanna be anarchy,
Ho dogs body
Anarchy for Hong Kong
It’s coming sometime and maybe
I give up rice for a week,
Your future dream is a shopping scheme
Cause I wanna be anarchy,
It’s in the city
How many ways to get what you want
I use the best I use the rest
I use the Tamar site.
I use anarchy
‘Cause I wanna be anarchy,
It’s the only way to be
Is this the DAB
Or is this the FTU
Or is this the Civic Party
I thought it was Hong Kong
Or just another country
Another public toilet
I wanna be an anarchist
Yes our British trained civil servants are utterly inept at passing contentious legislation through to law. Why?
Well the broken political system is partly to blame;
Some officials (Michael Suen is a recent example) seem to think its pre-1988 when the then appointed legislature would pass anything put in front of it;
The executive led system (stuffed full of pro-establishment worthies) requires that they do not have to pay any heed to the wishes of the populace, who are not the electorate that can vote them out of office?
Fifteen years of the Government trying to sneak these things through has garnered a organized opposition who can smell a CCP love-in at a thousand paces;
Apple Daily and new media;
If we are under orders – is Dame Carrie (alas she’s the best the Government has) unable or too timid / incompetent to look her bootpolished coiffured Cadre in the eye and say “sorry cadre that won’t wash in Hong Kong it will lead to demonstrations and bad international press – best we revisit that much much later”;
The system is broke and nationalism and the CCP is not the same thing this side of the border. But take a step back. Who came up with this idea of national education, it’s not required under the basic law? I suspect, it was our pro establishment fuckwits trying as ever to ingratiate themselves with the Central Government – and once again making an utter mess. The DAB silence is deafening so vote Pro-Dem on Sunday.
A few observations, firstly, this will get a lot worse before it gets better, secondly, where are the major parties in all of this especially the Civics and the Dems ? Their silence speaks poorly of them, particularly in terms of what their constituents would expect from them. Thirdly, keep an eye on those voicing support, aiming for goodies to be handed out later.
Rather than a “Chinese Spring” current events are more of a “Hong Kong Sunset”.
Somewhat surprising when it happens, occasionally spectacular, but over before you know what’s happening.
RTP: not for the first time, if you love the mainland and loathe the free press so much, maybe you are the one who should bugger off elsewhere.
Or don’t bother, since at this rate HK will be indistinguishable from the mainland within our lifetimes.
SCMP: “Popeye Fung Siu-ning, chief editor of ATV news, resigned last night.” Does the nomenclature suggest that a peddler of foreign influence has fallen?
“They are nowhere to be found among the gwailos who are so active in air-cleaning, heritage-preserving, dolphin-protecting and plastic-pellet-gathering circles.”
I too have noticed this demographic. I have always found it odd, and depressing, that in a city where 97% of the population are Chinese, 97% of those active in trying to clean up this dump on their behalf are non-Chinese.
“If I say I know half the ruling coterie of govt big wigs on first name terms …”
Ooooh, I am well-impressed!
“Real Tax-Payer’ (wot a moniker!) do you happen to derive from Cheltenham Spa? Do you write opinion pieces for the Daily Mail in the your spare time?
You kind of remind me of the Treaty-Port Old China Hands that Harold Acton, Somerset Maugham, Osbert Sitwell, Arthur Ransome and others lampooned so mercilessly in the 1930s.
RTP reminds me of born-again Christians/Mormons/Christian Scientists who have a definite message to peddle. They work in trendy expressions, trivial concessions and italics where available, and even attempt rather heavy-handed humour.
Let’s face it: even Bela’s vulgarity would be preferable, since he can on a good day verge on the witty or the insightful, even if rarely both.
Huge opportunity for Starry Lee here to “see the light” such that “after full consideration” she “now understands the concerns”, and announce that she’ll have a quiet word with CY and the gang and propose an indefinite moratorium on the wash brain policy.
Then, Starry gets pictured (beaming smile) going into Government House in a short skirt at lunchtime. This is followed, that same evening, by a capitulation by our government (announced by Carrie with a solemn, wordless Eddie on her wing). A government who – it turns out – really, really cared for the impressionable, malleable youngsters after all.
All just in time to secure a massive last-second upswing in votes for the DAB, which thereby wins seats by the dozen.
In fact, surely this is the grand masterplan? A bit of false brinkmanship to manipulate the electorate.
Anyway, there’s a couple more days to ratchet up the suspense yet. Just bide your time, Starry … bide your time.
Hong Kong is pregnant with promise and anticipation, but is murdered by the hand of the inevitable.
“I too have noticed this demographic. I have always found it odd, and depressing, that in a city where 97% of the population are Chinese, 97% of those active in trying to clean up this dump on their behalf are non-Chinese.”
God just shut the F up you racist prick.
@ All
Seems RTP has inadvertently trod on some very sensitive toes.
( Not my deliberate intention to tread thereon , but it so happened in a rare speak-truth epic moment, being alarmed at what damage these kiddies may in fact do to both HK and themselves, because this Tamar Base demo thing is a no-win situation : if the kiddies win the Govt loses and vice versa: but both sides will eventually lose, and get hurt badly, just like it was in June 1989 , though not on the same scale … hopefully)
Well, such toes need either to get the heck out of HK or else get used to touching ‘nasty’ Mainland toes
Because Mainland China and HK have only one way to go, which is closer , much closer.
So be prepared to touch toes
Hope you are not ticklish !
PS : Mainland toes really don’t feel and smell so bad … after all, we are all one people : is that not true ? Hope you don’t separate us Chinese people into two grades based just on an artificial and arbitrary border along the Shenzhen river . Because if you do think that way, you really have no future here
So Bye Bye smelly toes !
@RTP
“get hurt badly, just like it was in June 1989”
Now you sound like Lau Nai Keung.
“Hope you don’t separate us Chinese people into two grades based just on an artificial and arbitrary border along the Shenzhen river . Because if you do think that way, you really have no future here”
Us Chinese people? Are you ethnically Chinese now or are you just identifying with them? Are you the Allan Semen of this forum?
Do you realise that, unlike being British or Australian or Canadian or even a Hongkonger, you will never become “Chinese” if you are not ethnically so? Ethnicity is intimately tied up with the “one country” obsession.
Do you actually believe that there is no difference between HK and the mainland, and do you really embrace this? If so, kindly stop pretending to give a crap about the interests of HK. You can’t have it both ways.
Peter, bite me.
Just because I speak an uncomfortable truth does not make it any less true. So piss off.
Sir Crispin does indeed raise an uncomfortable and awkward truth. Not to take anything away from Dumas’ maxim about generalisations (google if you need to) there is a highly perceptible ethnic (but in fact just cultural) slant to activities that raise environmental awareness in the city, but this is changing..
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the MNE demonstrations – however misguided – at least the kids are showing the beginnings of a societal spine.. sure it’s a bit cartilagenous for now but give it time and it will develop into something stronger (at least until Beijing crushes it). The current generation of students are the first I can remember in HK that are actually bother to stand up for something – and it’s kids of their age who are mainly the ones cleaning up plastic pellets on beaches and leafleting restaurants to ban shark-fin etc. They deserve our and everyone else’s support – it sure as shit isn’t we few thousand crusty gweilos who are going to achieve the slightest modicum of positive change around here.
@All,
Be Advised. HK Police already scanning blogs and websites for the CCP. One of the blogs detected HK Police scanning the websites.
generally this is prelude to CCP cyberattack to the blog/website. Please take countermeasures.
Slides 3 &4:
http://www.lilywong.net/archive2008/lilyarc020e.html
Oh yeah, and Peter, STFU.
@ Headache et al
Maybe you all mistake me for a western guy just because I write colloquial English and express what you immediately associate with typical “ex- pat” views
BIG Mistake
We Chinese come in many different colors
RTP
What colour are you then?
@ Stanley Gibbons
Why does the word ” colour” even come up in relation to kin?
Any more than fat/ thin or tall/ short ?
Please don’t take that the wrong way, because I recognize within myself a built-in racial skin colour prejudice that I simply cannot erase ( just as I could never fall in love with a short / fat woman , but tall/ thin , or even short/ thin is OK )
But do I treat short/ fat women ( and men) the same as tall/ thin , and regardless of skin colour ? I do hope so
So should you
( Sorry : this is far too deep a subject for a simple blog comment : It’s much more than skin-deep )
@ RTP
Well what height, shape, and colour are you then?
PS, entre nous, you are clearly not my kin in any respect.
@rtp
He was using your expression and words. Perhaps he was just interested in determining a bit more about your background. Not so sure he was really interested in your actual skin tone.
Ethnicity’s always been a bit of a non sequitur in my book. Being mixed reveals to you that most of it’s bunk of the highest order. Mao certainly didn’t care about it when he was busy squashing my family’s holdings and building parade squares on them.