Carrie administers dose of positive energy

Imagine that someone in Beijing gives Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam a kick up the backside about boosting ‘social harmony’ in the city. Instinctively capable at implementing anything without question, she sets to it.

The lady personally declares a one-off cash handout to every member of the poor, semi-poor and not-very-rich segment of the population who (in some cases, at least) didn’t benefit from the rebates, grants, bonuses and other money-flinging measures in the recent surplus-filled Budget. Politicians from across the spectrum whine, thus enhancing the subliminal impression among the public that she has accomplished something bold and worthwhile.

Then she goes to the Democratic Party’s annual dinner, where she hobnobs and even hands them a modest donation. From a United Front perspective, there’s no harm in giving them a little face. The DP is a stale single-issue group that still takes our increasingly ceremonial Mainlandized political structure seriously, and its aging members at least consider themselves to be fellow Chinese. Trying to split them from Hong Kong’s young radical pro-independence elements is a Leninist no-brainer. As a little extra, the patriotic loyalist parties complain bitterly about ‘rewarding’ the opposition (they mean the symbolism rather than the sensuous pleasures of having dinner with Carrie), and they need an occasional kick in the teeth to remind them of their place.

Who have we left out? Oh yes – the tycoons. Carrie decides to relax and give herself a treat by setting up a committee. Obviously, she isn’t going to freak out with an original one; this Chief Executive’s Council on Innovation and Strategic Development is a resurrection of Donald Tsang’s Mega-Commission, though perhaps more tightly focused on getting leaders of parasitical oligarchic ‘pillar industries’ to suggest how to free Hong Kong from the grip of parasitic oligarchic ‘pillar industries’.

And talk about fortuitous timing! Appointments of Westerners – and indeed females, and as if that weren’t groovy enough, Western females with track records in icky same-sex trendy stuff – to the Court of Final Appeal, just as everyone moans that the Communists are scrapping our rule of law.

See how nice things can be when you don’t go around electing localists?

 

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9 Responses to Carrie administers dose of positive energy

  1. Stephen says:

    Why was Al Semen at the Democratic Party annual dinner ? He supports Regina Ip except, when he’s told otherwise and Regina didn’t seem too happy with Carrie’s largesse.

    Seriously is the Democratic Part still relevant in Xi Dada’s brave new Hong Kong ? Is Legco ?

  2. Joe Blow says:

    A committee ? Who would have thought there was room left in Hong Kong for yet another committee ?

    Bravo.

  3. old git says:

    The topic no one in the civil service seems ever to discuss in public, is that ALL government revenue and taxation for 20 years has been excessive – resulting in a reserve of a TRILLION. The civil service pension liabilities are just under that sum. So whenever the government publicly talks about reduction in taxation or the cost to it of doing so, they are meaning that the civil service wants its pension rights covered first and last.

  4. Chinese Netizen says:

    Hong Kong will be a World Class Committee Hub Zone.

    There, problems solved.

  5. @old git – a rational system (what, here?) would set up a dedicated fund to meet projected pension liabilities, not count them as part of the general government slush fund, sorry reserves. In accounting terms, they are accounts payable (albeit at a future date), not cash in hand.

    There is also the little matter of the Basic Law requiring a broadly balanced budget, but no one in government wants to go there…

  6. You see. Life is wonderful. Even propagandists have an off day!

  7. Stanley Lieber says:

    Girl Power rules OK.

  8. Donny Almond says:

    Oxtail braised in red wine. Have you ever had a dish like that ? I used to eat it in a coffee shop in HK called the Ritz Cafe. That was a chain, once (80s). It was a chunk of real ox tail, bone and all, on a hot plate, with some fries and frozen veggies. A damn good piece of meat. Then one Monday lunchtime the friendly waiter told us that they were closing down (Mongkok branch). And then all the Ritz shops closed down. Another Mongkok lunch option was the American Cafe. They advertised on Commercial Radio. “American Cafe, fun and food from the USA”. They got the name right but nothing else. Most memorable part of the dining experience was the fact that the cutlery was not clean. It had been washed in the machine, I guess, but there were still bits and pieces of food sticking to the knives and forks.

    I guess you had to be there.

  9. LRE says:

    More like “Carrie administers Kiss of Death to Democratic Party”. And not a moment too soon…

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