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.
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!
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?
@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.
@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.
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 ?