On this day in Mainlandization…

Bar Association-linked academics (presumably presumed guilty of thought-crimes) are banned from teaching a Common Law course at Peking University. This neatly serves two purposes – crushing unpatriotic radical opponents in Hong Kong, and preventing evil Western ideas from infiltrating the motherland.

While the rest of us had pretty much forgotten about pro-democracy group Demosisto, Mainland security forces have not: they reportedly pick up a couple of members and put them through a relatively low-key Kafka-Stalin-with-Xi-characteristics struggle session. Just a friendly reminder. (At least they’re allowed to cross the border.)

Mild-mannered pro-Beijing figure Tsang Yok-sing’s ‘think tank’ proposes formalizing the functions of the Chinese government’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong.

In the Mainland, each level of civil administration (like a city mayor) has a parallel shadow office-holder representing the Communist Party. Tsang’s idea appears to be that the head of the Liaison Office (though technically part of the state structure) publicly assumes a sort-of Party Secretary role, watching over Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s bureaucrats and guiding them on national and ideological matters. As he says, they’re already doing it anyway.

It is no surprise to find Tsang also pushing National Security legislation – otherwise known as ‘rollbacks in press and speech freedoms’, for which we have been prepared by the oh-so subtle orchestrated Andy Chan/Independence mass-mouth-froth.

Tsang suggests tying it in with political reform – an idea so lame and desperate it sounds like ill-informed and naive minders in the Liaison Office might have asked him to float it as a possible ‘sweetener’. Beijing has made it totally clear that Hong Kong (or anywhere in the one-party state) cannot and will not have representative government.

Meanwhile, Andy Chan’s HK Independence Party keeps getting extensions to the period for responding to the government’s attempt to proscribe it. Presumably, officials are afraid that the whole charade – a ban on a barely existent but law-abiding group – is on shaky enough legal ground without unreasonable-sounding deadlines.

In other words, it’s a sign of calculation and determination. The word has come down from Beijing that Hong Kong must eradicate pro-independence (and in due course no doubt other) expressions. The local administration must therefore find a constitutional way of criminalizing certain opinions, while pretending that nothing strange is happening.

Renewed proposals for fake elections would be unconvincing, but the Liaison Office can hope that with the city bending under unbreathable air, unaffordable housing and outbreaks of dengue fever, maybe few will notice abolition of free speech.

 

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6 Responses to On this day in Mainlandization…

  1. All this surely gives us reasons to rejoice.

    The less common law we have in China, the more China can be controlled, the less it is on the loose and the safer America is for liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And rounding up dissenters is part of that. Hurrah!

    Be honest. No one in prosperous White Western neo-liberalism or the New World Order wants liberated Chinese, just as they don’t want liberated Blacks or Hispanics.

    Neither do you or your readers. Stop weepin’ dem ol’ crocodile tears.

  2. Gooddog says:

    There’s a special place in hell for those western schooled and educated public servants who knowingly do the bidding of a evil, corrupt, bullying, oppressive regime for a flat in Happy Valley and a decent pension.

    If you are going to sell out your fellow citizens at least make the deal for a spectacular price – not something so banal as a crappy apartment…what a bunch of weasels.

  3. “If you don’t like what the China Liaison Office is doing, then they are already doing it even if it’s not written in the Basic Law,” Tsang said. “If you put it into the Basic Law, we can give an opportunity for people to discuss what should be written.”

    Or to take a parallel example, even though theft is illegal, robbers are still stealing. Allow theft by law, and we have an opportunity to discuss how much they are allowed to steal and in what circumstances.

  4. gweiloeye says:

    You forgot the discplined services beeing summoned to Peking to get their own regular dose of CCP training.

    https://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/2161577/chinese-vice-premier-han-zheng-urges-hong-kong-officers

    What my local Fire Station cum Ambulance Station have do with ‘One Country’ is beyond me.

  5. Jeff says:

    What is the point in communist states of having a shadow office holder representing the Party when the civil office holder is supposed to be a party member anyway? It seems completely inefficient and ass backwards

  6. JFK says:

    @Jeff – the thick-necked gweilo at the back of the photo line-up looks familiar… not that he’s ever felt my collar

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