For years, members of Hong Kong’s establishment, if pressed on the subject of representative government, have wrung their hands and lamented the ‘lack of talent’ that so sadly makes democracy unrealistic here.
There are multitudes of Hong Kong people who could run the city better than the incompetent mediocrities we have known for the last 20 years. To take one at random, a certain Hephaes Chau pops up out of nowhere this morning on the SCMP letters page.
It is not that there is a lack of talent – but a lack of people with brains and integrity who will overtly kowtow to the Chinese Communist Party. (OK, that’s not so much a ‘lack’ as a logical impossibility.)
One of the many amusing ideas floating around right now is that once we get past all the street protests, Beijing will see the error of its ways and expand participation in Hong Kong’s political process beyond the small circle of dimwit shoe-shiners. In reality, Beijing has no doubt given up in despair at its own inept loyalists, and will run things directly. This is vividly clear from the cruel public torment of Carrie Lam. Some ‘elites’ who are sufficiently obsequious may be rewarded with figurehead roles, but in other respects from now on they will join the rest of us as outsiders.
Soon after the 1997 handover, then-Justice Secretary and devout CCP follower Elsie Leung used to refer to Hong Kong’s ‘new order’. The real new order is now coming into place.
There are so many things we can look forward to, but here are a few.
Chinese security already has lists of names, but surveillance will surely become much more comprehensive. It probably won’t just be at the border that they check phones.
Expect loyalty tests for civil servants, teachers and indeed for private-sector businesses. Cathay Pacific has fired a few staff for taking part in protests because Beijing officials (perhaps explicitly) demanded that the company do it, to instill fear not just among the airline’s employees – but among all companies in Hong Kong that think they can get away with being smug cosmopolitan liberal smart-asses that wouldn’t dream of telling staff what to think.
And then we’ve got that independent judiciary. They’ve just let Benny Tai out on bail. They will be getting the memo some time.
Now he’s at liberty, and in the absence of an extradition law, I wonder how long before Benny Tai mysteriously disappears only to turn up in a few months on CCTV in an orange jump suit …
It’s amazing how numb we have all become to the breakdown of law and order in Hong Kong over the past almost three months. I well remember how shocked we all were during the anti-WTO “riots” back in December 2015 (aka “the siege of Wanchai”) when HKPF resorted to tear gas, pepper spray and water cannons.
Now when we see tear gas (and even worse, EXPIRED tear gas!), pepper spray and Hong Kong citizens being given a good kicking by Asia’s former-Finest, the response is “Meh”. All that’s missing is the deployment of HKPF’s shiny new water cannon, which I’m sure we can expect soon. It would be great to see that commandeered by the protesters to wash the riot police into the Harbour, along with all the other turds.
In honour of last night’s totally surreal tear gassing of empty streets:
Antagonistish
Yesterday, upon the square,
We dispersed a riot that wasn’t there
It wasn’t there again today
We wish, we wish they’d go away…
When we came home last night by bus
The riot was waiting there for us
But when we looked around the mall
We couldn’t see it there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t tag our door…
Last night we saw upon the square
A little riot that wasn’t there
It wasn’t there again today
Oh, how we wish they’d go away…
(with Apologies to Hughes Mearns)
It’s true, they won’t tell staff what to think. Just what not to think, what not to say and what not to do.
I’m tempted to rage at CX, but they’re in an impossible position (cf Versace et al) and ultimately it would be to blame the victim, one of the CCP’s many.
Today the judiciary bails a political prisoner the state wants in solitary, but these pesky expat judges will retire soon enough and they ain’t being replaced.
@Headache: will the CCPSAR gov’t then have to wait out the western trained HK Chinese lawyers/judges as well or will they be forced to swear fealty and then suddenly become pragmatic?
The protesters must be disappointed at having lost one of their favoured venues, the HK International Airport. There they could do their thing under cover, with air-con, excellent internet access, a variety of food and drink outlets, and spanky-clean toilets. Moreover, it was relatively safe because the departing/arriving passengers acted as human shields. For most, many of whom still haven’t been fully weaned, and having spent a lifetime being trailed by a SE Asian lady whose sole purpose has been to wipe and dab their nether regions at key times in the day, it must have been a hoot. Certainly it would have been a lot less bothersome than cat-mousing it around the Dark Side and northern HK Island in hot, sticky weather with lots of shouty policemen in tow.
Interestingly, in parts of my extended family the economic squeeze is now being felt by those who sidle with the black shirts. The reduced cash flow is beginning to bite and the monthly financial obligations are casting an ever-growing shadow. In such circumstances it can’t be long before the mums, dads, and possibly even the little brown lady helpers, start confiscating smart phones and set about issuing reminders about the piles of unfinished homework that will need to be handed in a couple of weeks’ time.
#Reactor 4 is an extremely bored, unemployable Englishman who has nothing better to do but write trite crap on message boards, trying to provoke reactions to his dim observations. I know who he is. Just leave him alone.
“little brown lady helpers” – really, Reactor #4? What century are you living in, you patronising racist sexist ignoramus?
Leave him alone….
So four men and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of desecrating the national flag. As they wore masks it must have taken many man hours viewing images to track them down.
So how come it has not been possible to determine the circumstances surrounding the
eye injury sustained within meters of TST Police Station?
Just asking
Replacing out-of-touch, corrupt, incompetent elites with out-of-touch, corrupt, incompetent autocrats – what could possibly go wrong?
stan3
Why?
As we well know it is now an offence in HK to utter sentiments that may be diasapproved of, or alternatively put, to incite others or to incite others to incite the doing of criminal acts. Reactor#4 views certainly have the effect of inciting several of our fellow respondents.
If Donny Almond does truly know who is Reactor #4 then perhaps tell him to keep his objectionable views to himself, including even in the pub or club as I suspect they are increasingly in the minority as evidenced by Michael Chugani’s column in Economic Journal seemingly on the 15th. If CL has lost such as Chugani basically she is left with the hard core and those economically dependent, nobody else. Whatever you may think of some of the antics of the demonstrators, the (vast?) majority of the populace are now protestors (in the sense of objectors).
Apologies for paras 2 and 3 but the site will not let me post simply “why?”.
@ reactor4 – “reduced cash flow is beginning to bite and the monthly financial obligations are casting an ever-growing shadow..”
That has always been the case in HK and elsewhere. A shame that a nasty mesh of expats are betting on the aspirations of these youngsters being broken and crushed in favour of the suffocating darkness of the CCP/United Front.
You people are FAR too sensitive. Reactor 4 makes valid points.
The protests will certainly start to trail off very soon.
School’s going back.
Maybe, Bob, but going back to school didn’t stop the students from initiating Occupy in September 2014.