We need a snappy word for ‘big venture into authoritarianism’, because they’re becoming a regular thing.
The good news is that Hong Kong-based Financial Times correspondent Victor Mallet was not getting his visa renewed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (and hey – at least he isn’t/wasn’t president of Interpol).
The bad news is that by de-facto expelling him and implicitly intimidating overseas journalists and their press club, Hong Kong downgrades itself from First World to Third World as an international media hub – and that this is a fairly predictable step in the city’s ongoing Mainlandization. (Apparently ‘Mainlandization’ is a ‘vile label’. Wish I’d known earlier.)
Here’s a summary, a personal commentary, and a reminder that Chief Executive Carrie Lam is a hapless stooge here amid the emperor’s eunuchs and overeager minions.
A rule of thumb: when Carrie acts decisively, you know she is following orders from Beijing’s officials behind the scenes; when she dithers and waffles about committees and consensus and sectors, you can rest assured ‘One Country Two Systems’ and ‘high degree of autonomy’ are being respected.
Another rule of thumb is that the more exhaustive and breathless the coverage Hong Kong’s pro-establishment media give a local ‘political’ event, the staler and more meaningless the ritual. This week’s biggest snore is likely to be the Chief Executive’s Grand Blather Policy Address on Wednesday. Prepare for page after page of distraction from what’s really happening.
Meanwhile, the Genius No-Frills Cartoon of the Day Award goes to whoever created this…
The cartoon: It’s not so funny because it’s so blatantly TRUE.
Good riddance to Financial Times journalists.
1. They’re journalists. Ca pue alors.
2. They’re Financial Times.
3. Er…
4. That’s it!
Any left? Get lost please. And while we’re on, can we have a general round-up of sympathisers? You know it makes sense.
I well remember Lional Barber, FT Editor, boring us first-year modern linguists at St Edmund Hall stiff in his trench coat, drawling English, moustache and pipe. A Tory then and a Tory now. I fart in their and his general direction.
I used to believe in the free press – but a free Daily Mail? a free Daily Telegraph, a free Sun and a Free Financial Times?
Plllllleeeeeaaaassssseee!
GLM….Get Lost Mallet!!!!!!!!! He got hammered.
How about: crackdown?
Mallet:
” The HKSAR immigration authorities have the right to refuse any person permission to land except those in Part I of this chapter.”
Part I does not include UK citizen passports or non-permanent HK ID cards…
No explanation for refusal of a visa is required be it HK, UK, USA…
Jackbooting?
Re Mallet, the matter is worse because it is not refusal of a visa, like Rogers, but rather refusal of the renewal of a visa, for somebody who has previously been acceptable.
As for Interpol, presumably he made some decision against the interests of somebody who is high level oop north.
@Din Gao – and your point is? The concern here is not with the legality of the decision, but the unpleasant political motivation behind it.
Mr Adams
St Edmund Hall was always the college for third rate (at best) duffers.
As for the picture of the young lady you choose to feauture on your website (I was stupid enough to click on your “name”) I hope she sues you for a combination of unauthorised use of her “image rights” and defamation for the name you give her. Even small damages should bankrupt you. Inappropriate, gratuitous and indicative of a total tosser.
“Watching the sun set, little by little, on Asia’s greatest city…”
Wasn’t the interview process at Teddy Hall that they booted a rugby ball at you as you went I – if you caught it you got a place, if you caught it and drop kicked it back, you got a scholarship…. But then I only read Modern Languages at a place about 70 mile north-eastish from Teddy Hall…
As for the interpol guy I am sure his detention is connected to the fact that he didn’t follow through on the red notice that China insisted on for Guo Wenjui (Miles Kwok). That and his former associate having an ‘accident’ whilst walking around the parapets of a french castle? Hmmmmm……
And why did he go back to China in the first place? Was it of his own volition like booksellers do?
@Old Newcomer
There is little point in either the FCC or the UK demanding an “explanation” as none is, or ever has been, required.
We all know why he got the boot and I suppose that all foreign journalists who have not yet been here seven years and acquired a permanent ID/right of abode should be worried that they could be next for the heave ho.