The bright side: Winnie the Pooh still allowed in HK

By taking steps to ban the Hong Kong National Party, the Chinese/Hong Kong government has turned Andy Chan and his little pro-independence group into a big news item. Beijing and local officials are now criticizing the Foreign Correspondents Club for planning an appearance by Chan. Thus, they turn it into a story about their own attempts to muzzle the media.

Hong Kong’s officials would have seen that coming. But their Beijing masters are in charge, and the local administration is reduced to following orders without question.

As well as heightened media attention, the Andy Chan lunch could attract ‘patriotic’ protestors, an intimidatory police presence, and much mouth-frothing from Beijing’s locally based diplomats, who see the FCC as within their barbarian-handling remit. If the government felt vindictive, it could evict the Club from its premises. As a fatal blow, baleful former Chief Executive and occasional Club member CY Leung could turn up in the main bar more often.

Court cases and other complications notwithstanding, the outcome is that Hong Kong will probably not only start to ban dissident groups, but start to limit press coverage of them – and thus their opinions, and subsequently other subjects. In the name of ‘red lines’ and national security, this is where active censorship and criminalization of ideas begin.

While it’s difficult to feel sorry for Chief Executive Carrie Lam and her colleagues, it is tragic to witness their obvious helplessness. The kindest interpretation is that the local officials have given up trying to convince Beijing that a more proactive Mainland-style crushing of dissent will be counterproductive here. Now they must watch as Beijing shreds their longstanding – and once no doubt sincere – commitments to uphold press and speech freedoms in Hong Kong.

By contrast, as his energetic intrusion into the episode shows, CY is enjoying this. He presumably feels that the FCC/Andy Chan issue vindicates his original warnings on separatism. His ‘father of Hong Kong independence’ tag suggests they were self-fulfilling. Maybe he is fantasizing that he and the Communist Party’s United Front have cunningly crafted and executed the whole train of events to enable the dismantling of Hong Kong’s freedoms. Or maybe it’s not a fantasy.

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5 Responses to The bright side: Winnie the Pooh still allowed in HK

  1. Knownot says:

    I saw an ad
    In an MTR station:
    Sold by Watson’s
    In many locations:
    A product which,
    With sonic vibration –
    Whatever that is –
    And proper application
    Will give its user
    Clitoral stimulation.
    The item is shown
    In illustration
    But not in place
    Or in operation,
    So how it works
    Is for one’s imagination.

    This is, I suppose,
    A kind of liberation;
    And as I held it
    In consideration,
    I heard Carrie Lam’s
    New condemnation
    Of the man who calls for
    Hong Kong nation,
    Who’s invited to give
    A private oration
    To the foreign correspondents’
    Association.

    Oh lust, oh sex,
    Oh masturbation!
    Let them be
    Our excitation!
    Reject this
    Sinful agitation,
    This corruption from
    The new generation,
    These prurient dreams
    Of separation,
    This independent
    Imagination!

    Oh rhino horn
    And copulation!
    Oh patriotic
    Education!
    Oh one-hour hotel
    Fornication!
    Oh one country,
    Unification!

  2. HillnotPeak says:

    Always a pleasure listening to the deeper thoughts of our ex leader Leung. The guy was in international real estate before, he doesn’t have any friends from that period who laugh at him and say calm down bro?
    I often wonder in what kind of social circles those people move, it can’t be all commies, DAB crazies and mainland weirdos?

  3. reductio says:

    @Knownot

    Also noticed the “Sonic vibrator” ad. Was going to buy one for the missus but wondered if it would set the dogs off. Excellent poem BTW.

  4. Cassowary says:

    @HillnotPeak
    It doesn’t matter what CY’s social circle says, he knows that he has to say to remain in Beijing’s good graces. A man like that probably has handlers rather than friends.

    And anyway his social circle is commies, DAB crazies, mainland weirdos, Heung Yee Kuk creeps, and assorted boot-lickers and social climbers. The tycoons loathe him, remember? So does the civil service, probably. And it’s not like he’d deign to hang out with normies. This is the guy who forbids his children from having friends who don’t go to sufficiently prestigious universities.

  5. Joe Blow says:

    689 suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. They are loners who typically don’t have friends. Besides, who would want to be friends with 689. I bet 689 can’t even walk in the street in HK without being verbally assaulted, or worse. Even Xi Jinping hates him.

    On a different subject: whoever decided that root beer was a good idea ?

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