For anyone keeping count, Hong Kong has scored another couple of banana-republic-dictatorship points: Beijing is already looking to stitch up Jimmy Lai, Long Hair and Joshua Wong on spurious ‘national security’ charges, and Mainland teachers are coming to show Hong Kong educators how to indoctrinate the kids correctly.
The Hong Kong Police devoted yesterday to the tireless pursuit and heroic mass arrests of highly dangerous 14-year-old schoolgirls. They also found time to fire pepper balls at office workers in Central at lunchtime, and engage in assorted rampaging around Kowloon, detaining over 360 people. This was apparently in response to LegCo’s debate on the National Anthem (Compulsory Veneration) Bill, though it looks more like an opportunity to test a new tactic – arresting the entire public.
One theory is that the cops are compiling a database of protesters/dissidents/schoolgirls for Mainland security agencies to use in future. Cue a suggestion that the US offer refugee status to Hongkongers – something Taiwan is looking into.
This morning we wake to find that the US government has determined that ‘Hong Kong does not continue to warrant treatment under United States laws in the same manner as U.S. laws were applied to Hong Kong before July 1997’. A State Dept press briefing confirms that a variety of sanctions are possible.
The White House will also now consider sanctions against China for human rights violations against Uighurs. Euro-weenies tentatively join in the criticism of China’s suppression of Hong Kong. And a Canadian court dashes Beijing’s hopes that Huawei’s Ms Meng will walk free soon. You’d almost think Xi Jinping is massively screwing up everything. There’s so much to go berserk about, Beijing’s wolf-warrior panda-tantrum department doesn’t know where to start.
Annoyingly, the Hong Kong government has not (as of 10.30am) issued its own inevitable whiny defensive press release accusing the US of ‘interfering’ in local affairs. Presumably Mainland officials are dictating the wording to ensure it meets their exacting standards of idiocy and petulance.
The State Dept’s notification (to Congress) that Hong Kong no longer qualifies for its separate status is in the short term perhaps mainly symbolic. We must drool over wait to see if sanctions against local leadership materialize. But even if they can still get visas to visit the US, our local bureaucrats will see this as a further humiliation.
For reasons of self-preservation, these officials are having to give themselves a drastic image make-over. They have always been pro-business and cosmopolitan, at ease among the Davos types, reassuring the globalist titans of their commitment to the market, small government and an open economy. Now, nearly every day, they must learn a new, insular language about ‘our motherland’ and ‘foreign forces’, and at least be seen to mimic the CCP’s attitude of hypersensitivity and mistrust, if not hostility, toward the international community they once swanned around in.
Seems like both sides are making their lists. Here’s details for a list of 30 Hong Kongers for those governments that “stand with Hong Kong” to sanction: https://twitter.com/hkgetv/status/1265282328831512579
P.S. Hemlock, thanks for the “Euro-weenies” term! 😀
Oh great, what’s next…a VISA to enter HK? Thanks a lot CCP and Mike Pimpeo (while distracting from his own ethical and leadership issues)…
“2020: The year the CHINESE Communist Party shat on the world”
How’s THAT for your “China Dream”?
Three little maids from school are they
Neat in their uniform white and grey,
Walking in Mongkok streets today.
Three little maids from school.
Three little maids who all unwary
Middle school students or primary,
Never expected scenes so scary.
Three little maids . . .
One little maid in the dirt must sit,
Cop takes her rucksack, searches it.
One little maid in a shopping mall
Ordered to turn and face the wall.
One little maid in a group is caught,
Taken away by police escort.
Three little maids . . .
Ever so dangerous and unlawful,
Terrorist threats so grim and awful.
See how the cells are getting more full.
Three little maids from school.
– – – –
with acknowledgement to W.S. Gilbert (‘The Mikado”)
A phrase we will be seeing much more of:
“who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.”
@Michael Schuman
“If HK had been left alone……”
No. No. No. A select group of HKers had to keep sticking it to Beijing – the Pan-Dems/Pro-Indies simply cannot help themselves. What a bunch of self-entitled, moaning bloody minnies? Sometimes in life, to achieve your long-term goals, you have to occasionally take one up the rear end, or do something you really would prefer not to. It’s never good, but I don’t know of any person, or indeed group, of any standing that has ever gotten a pass on this.
Another issue is that for the last few decades foreigners and Hong Kongers have been engaging with the Chinese simply because it made them easy money (cheap wages, screw the environment etc.). Consequently, a whole slew of background issues were very conveniently overlooked. Hence, they were complicit in creating the situation we find ourselves in – they fed the animal that has now grown into a beast. In this context, I find all of this high-and-bloody mighty crap really rather tiresome.
Knownot
Spot on. The situation makes me want to cry.
To any solicitors among the readership, please vote in today’s Law Society elections. If you have been blank proxied, or worse required to fill in your proxy or postal vote, be aware that voting in person negates proxy and postal votes. Doors open 5-15pm Will close as soon as the President thinks she can get away with it. VOTE, while you still can.
Rectum no.4
You live up to your nickname on here, with your suggestion all (thus including you) “take one up the rear end”
In your case I nominate a 4 feet steel crowbar.
Re: US giving Hong Kongers refugee status. Read the article, they propose no such thing. They’re proposing giving Hong Kongers temporary status with permanent residency contingent on requiring them to “invest financial capital in the U.S. or to demonstrate educational qualifications that would ensure that an applicant is readily employable.” They only want the rich and the degreed, i.e. the very people with the greatest ability to emigrate without help, to avoid upsetting the anti-immigrant right; bus drivers and shop clerks can go hang.
Incidentally, John Yoo is the author of the Bush administration’s torture memos and believes presidents are not answerable to Congress or anyone else. Go suck a bag of d**ks, Yoo.
@Reactor #4
“Take one up the rear end…”
Very pragmatic but there’s death, there’s ruru, and there’s death by ruru.
@Reactor #4
We just want to elect our own mayor. Is that too much to ask?
@Rear End #4 – you do know what the number 4 symbolises in Cantonese, right?
Now, nearly every day, they must learn a new, insular language about ‘our motherland’ and ‘foreign forces’,..” .
This was a point I made an earlier comment weeks ago, it’s quite jarring to see in Hong Kong the government press releases which I have read for some 10 years now (did anyone notice when this changed, it cannot have been before June of last year to my recollection, anyone let me know if they have noticed it before this time) include references to the motherland and the government’s degree of commitment to doing something (say, for example, stopping “terrorists”, ending filibusters, educating children, compelling respectful behavior (but not respect) for national symbols) described as variously, “firmly”, “resolutely”, and “unswervingly”. This stilted language leads one to believe that they have had a change in writers who probably did not learn English in Hong Kong or the West, or perhaps their Hong Kong native writer was sent to the Motherland for a course of Central Government English Press Release Writing with Chinese characteristics.
Not to make light of a tragedy, and out of respect to the individual and his family’s loss, one can see this is not a job with long-term prospects except for the most strong-willed and stouthearted.
See this link: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3080159/hong-kong-civil-servants-death-prompts-complaints-about
I think going forward when putting these comments up I’m going to use my VPN. I would recommend everyone else do the same. I hate to be a pessimist but ultimately I think big lychee’s days are numbered once the new laws kick in. I have enjoyed this since the Hemlock days.
What’s the betting the next CE will be a CCP functionary from BJ (after suitable “interpretation” of the Basic Law?
@Conference: don’t forget, EVERYTHING the commie thugs do (such as holding Canadians in black jails indefinitely – in retaliation for Ms Huawei, who btw is living in opulence while awaiting her fate) is “according to law”.
They do love that line.
One way the U.S. can hit the CCP is to cancel the visas of hundreds of thousands of Chinese university students studying in the U.S. Make the party elite and their families pay for the actions of their government. They will have to grin and bear it. But it will make them less happy regardless.
For the first – and perhaps only – time, Reactor #4 has made a not unreasonable point: ‘for the last few decades foreigners and Hong Kongers have been engaging with the Chinese simply because it made them easy money (cheap wages, screw the environment etc.)… fed the animal that has now grown into a beast.
And now those who have made their fortunes doing that will fuck off out of harm’s way.
@asiaseen:
“What’s the betting the next CE will be a CCP functionary from BJ (after suitable “interpretation” of the Basic Law?”
it would not be a bad idea if they are going to send someone with enough wits to start removing the old cruft remaining after last week decisions, namely dismantling all the cartels created by the shanghainese rabble since 1949 and tackling headfirst the housing and land problems. There is still a small window of opportunity that can be exploited to give some respite to an embittered populace.
Having said that, and knowing what kind of ball lickers Xi has appointed to handle the city affairs, the more likely outcome is the arrival of another northerner close friend, hell bent on beating into obedience an alien crowd.
Feilo
“hell bent on beating into obedience an alien crowd.”
Exactly, these people are a broken record and have no ability to think outside of their “programming”. It’s the old story:
Beatings will continue until morale improves.