Conspiracy Corner

Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong, when not increasing its ‘supervision’ over the local administration, has been amassing property in the city. The pro-dem Demosisto group’s research into this is not new, but the update is timely enough to annoy the government.

Not unreasonably, the activists equate the number of apartments in the portfolio with the size of the Office’s staff. What is interesting is that the purchases of the flats go back decades. The conspiracy-theorists among us might ask whether Beijing’s local officials anticipated the land and housing policies that contributed to the huge uplift in property prices during that time, and took steps to insulate their organization from the results. By ‘anticipated’ we mean ‘had advance knowledge of’ or ‘actively engineered’.

A less suspicious mind would point out that it would be standard practice for a Mainland public-sector employer to provide its expatriate staff with housing, not least to keep tabs on them.

That would score a 1 or 2 on the Conspiracy Theory Scale. Here’s something that would rate a lot higher…

This article in The Diplomat begins with the sentence: ‘We often ascribe a basic level of humanity to even the cruelest leaders…’ Personally, I don’t, so this isn’t a very promising start. But it gets better. The author postulates that at some point between the original cover-ups and the eventual semi-transparency over COVID-19, Beijing knowingly allowed the virus to spread from Wuhan out into the big wide world.

The suggestion concerns the CCP leadership’s crude, zero-sum attitude to international relations…

Why should China suffer the effects of a pandemic while others stayed safe — and increased their strength relative to China…?

If we are going to take a massive economic hit in the first half of 2020, foreign countries can damn well do the same.

It is an appalling accusation. But – to anyone who has even passing knowledge of the CCP’s cold thuggery – it makes disturbing sense.

Daniel Bell (a fan of China’s ‘meritocratic’ model) quibbles about details on flights. And of course China doesn’t exactly benefit from a collapse in Western consumer demand. Sinocism’s Bill Bishop says in his daily newsletter that overdoing the finger-pointing…

…ultimately will only hurt the efforts to hold Xi and the CCP accountable. Do people really need to embellish their bad behavior? I think a much more effective approach is to sit back and let the CCP and its wolf warrior diplomats torch their reputation in many countries around the world. 

On the other hand, Beijing is not exactly keen on the idea of an independent inquiry. And isn’t there something hard-to-imagine about Xi and pals putting humanity first?

With Trump and Biden preparing to compete on who can blame China most, perhaps the truth doesn’t matter.

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12 Responses to Conspiracy Corner

  1. Chinese Netizen says:

    Re: Properties owned by the CCP/HKCCPSARG/香港市人民政府. At this point, does anything really matter anymore?

  2. donkeynuts says:

    1. The fact that wolf warrior diplomacy is becoming a thing is symptomatic of trouble at home, if there ever was a clearer signal. To project this kind of idol-worshipping and frankly illogical diplomacy is mind-boggling stupid.

    2. We will never know the facts on the ground. But we will continue to see the results of how much destruction has leeched China of its vitality. It shows every day.

    We should be confident in knowing that China is imploding.

  3. Hong Kong Hibernian says:

    I’d be curious to know more details about the Liaison Office property acquisitions. Did they buy at market prices? From who/which groups did they purchase? Which real estate agencies/service providers did they use during the transactions? And more questions. This would be a great project for some journalism students to take on.

    As I wrote the other day on another thread, I’m quite ignorant about many things, but particularly so about the need for the Liaison Office to own so much property here. Perhaps this is common practice for the Cult of Xi around the globe?

    On a positive note, I found this wonderful compilation of faux mourners in North Korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJebDxHElZ8&feature=emb_logo

    One imagines that the mourning tips shown in the video can be used by United Front groups as they are presented with the FACT that the international community has zero trust in the Glorious Motherland.

  4. Mark Bradley says:

    “We should be confident in knowing that China is imploding.”

    I want this so badly to be true! Please!!!! I want the CCP to implode so bad plus fast!

  5. A Conspiracy of Dunces says:

    I think Hanlon’s razor applies — “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”. Just the usual “nothing can go wrong here in Xi’s perfect country” cover up.
    “Hey, boss: something bad is happening!”
    “I’m sorry comrade what was it you were saying about our perfectly engineered socialist utopia?”
    “Oh. Err… everything appears to be … nominal?! … er comrade secretary.”
    “That’s what I thought you said.”

  6. Knownot says:

    donkeynuts –

    “trouble at home . . . frankly illogical diplomacy . . . mind-bogglingly stupid . . .”

    “29 August 1967 – Armed Chinese diplomats attack British police guarding the Chinese Legation in London”
    – Wikipedia

  7. A Poor Man says:

    I’m guessing that there were probably only a dozen or so people responsible for the initial coverup of WuFlu that delayed the central government’s response by a month or so. Perhaps just a few officials in the Wuhan city government and some more at the provincial level that didn’t need to be told what to do in order to please the Pooh and ensure their next promotion. The police and the censors that got involved were just mindlessly following orders as usual.

    If this was really the case, it shows how just a handful of people can cause such havoc around the world.

  8. Knownot says:

    ‘We often ascribe a basic level of humanity to even the cruelest leaders…’

    This is just by the way.
    The words of Polina Malinkova, a cleaning-lady at the Kremlin, who was 80 when she spoke to ‘The Times’ in 1997:

    Stalin was so small and kind. I used to weed the flower beds. He would come out and sit on the steps and smoke a pipe. The security people would try to shoo me away. But Stalin would say, “Do not bother Polina. Let her get on with her weeding..” He looked at me in such a kind way. Sometimes there were tears in his eyes.

  9. dimuendo says:

    Know not

    About the same time the British consulate in Beijing was sacked and the diplomats therein roughed up, including Percy Craddock. 15 years later he in de facto charge of the British negotiating team leading to the Joint Declaration. Among the chinese team were individuals who had roughed up Craddock personally.

    V bad decision to let him be involved.

  10. Casira says:

    @Hibernian: I’ve attended funerals in South Korea, this is not very different from genuine mourning on the peninsula actually.

  11. Michael Godwin says:

    Hitler was an animal lover.

  12. Red Dragon says:

    Dimuendo.

    Craddock was an arrant fool, and deeply compromised. He couldn’t be trusted to go anywhere near a Chinese arse without licking it.

    Absolutely the very worst sort of FCO “mandarin”, and one who was not only willing, but genuinely eager to sell out his country for an ounce of tawdry Chinese approbation.

    An appalling, cynical little squirt of a man.

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