Christmas comes early to the people of Hong Kong this year as the US slaps sanctions on Carrie Lam and the gang.
Here’s the actual Official Treasury Dept Naughty List Update. Amusingly, the Feds drop some African torture squad leader among all the Hong Kong and Mainland names – as if to say, hey, they’re all tinpot banana-republic scumbags to us.
The targets, like Police Commissioner Chris Tang, put on a brave face and say it makes no difference to them. The official responses tell a different story.
In its predictably over-lengthy and over-whiny press release, the HK government ‘vehemently criticizes the so-called “sanctions” as shameless and despicable’. The statement uses the petulant phrase ‘so-called’ four times. It also complains about the Treasury Dept releasing addresses and ID details – as it must to inform banks – as ‘state-sanctioned doxxing that is a serious breach of privacy and personal safety’. The bitterly indignant tone of the whole thing suggests that someone is unhappy.
Commerce Secretary Edward Yau calls it ‘savage, disproportionate and unreasonable’. He’s still learning how to do this sort of thing. Mainland officials in Beijing’s Liaison Office – who are experts at being pithy when pissy – denounce the move as ‘barbarous and rude’.
The Hong Kong public eagerly awaits gory details of the inconveniences and humiliations awaiting Carrie and friends, who will never visit the US again and perhaps find their credit cards being swallowed up by ATMs wherever they go. Here’s an intro to the system.
As some day it may happen that some sanctions must be made
I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of Hong Kong’s worst offenders who have yielded and betrayed,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There’s the so-called Chief Executive, responsible no longer
For government – a robot now – not really a Hongkonger;
Teresa Cheng for Justice, for Security John Lee,
Creators of this happy land, the home of you and me;
Erick Tsang for Constitution, a paragon of purity;
Eric Chan, who loyally helps, Safeguarding our Security;
Chris Tang, the chief policeman, Stephen Lo, his good old buddy:
Crackers-down the pair of them, their teeth and hands are bloody;
And four big mainland fellows too, I don’t know who they are,
Their names in pinyin written, looking foreign and bizarre.
If you can think of other names, then put them on the list –
They’ll none of them be missed, they’ll none of them be missed!
– – – –
with acknowledgement to W.S. Gilbert
The repeated use of ‘so-called’ is a dead giveaway that the release was penned elsewhere. Either that, or a non-HK native has been drafted in to make sure the HK government’s press releases demonstrate ‘correct thought’.
Other, rather obvious, linguistic clues include: ‘barbaric interference’; HK being used by the US as a ‘pawn’; and ‘One Country, Two Systems’ represents…the shared aspiration of all Chinese people’.
” the release was penned elsewhere”
And it wasn’t knocked up overnight. They knew it was coming.
Pity the list doesn’t include the White Cliffs man and his fellow mercenaries.
The boys (currently ) in blue are busy handing out mask enforcement (and dstance) tickets to domestic helpers, hkd2,000 each or two weeks wages. parking and other tickets etc outside Princes Building and elsewher, of a few hundred dollars and not noticeable to the vehicle owners, remain absent.
I guess Lam and her buddies also can’t use Visa, MasterCard and Amex anymore because of the ‘so-called’ blacklisting. It is Unionpay from now on. And what about her Netflix account? Good thing there is CCTV.
Reports say that CY and Regina are pissed off because they were not considered ‘important enough’ to make the cut.
Then Maria Tam, Elsie Leung et al must now realise that they are truly consigned to the dustbin of history
Not “resolutely” criticizes? They really have been loving the “R” word once the CCP officially moved in, parked Party Secretary Luo’s desk where Curry’s used to be and ordered her to answer every order with “Yes, Mister Secretary”.
“serious breach of privacy…”
Let me see if I understand : When the resident drug abuser at the EdB NET Section (scary night!) shares personal work email on a public forum, that’s fine.
When governments distribute identification details to assist businesses to comply with regulations, that’s “doxxing” and a “serious breach of privacy”.
Okay. Sounds about right.
The good news: the drug addled ‘advisor’ from the NET Section is retiring this month! Scary night! How will Disco Bay get on without the stoned rollerblader?
I have made comments to the art of HKSAR press release writing in an earlier post. The quick way to determine the origin of the press release is to do a quick ctrl-F search for any of the following stilted adjectives which clearly come from mainland minds: “firmly”, “resolutely”, “ unswervingly”, “inalienable”, “ seriously”. You can also look for most of these adjectives to be employed in the same sentence with “One Country 2 Systems”.