…while we’re waiting for the next eruption of horror.
Professor Michael Davis in HKFP on Beijing’s plan to bring the courts into line, and some grim thoughts for the future.
“Hong Kong people have been demanding democracy, because they want a government that has a voice… [to] explain to Beijing officials why certain core values that are important in Hong Kong are missing here.”
“Instead, you get Hong Kong officials doing the opposite: explaining to Hong Kong people why their core values don’t matter.”
Hong Kong’s David Webb gets a name-check in a new book about virtue in the finance industry. The fund managers and others mentioned are not heroes, the author says, but they are proof that not everyone in the industry is a scumbag.
Which brings us rather neatly to formal announcements that Jack Ma’s Ant Financial will go ahead with its dual Hong Kong/Mainland mega-listing. From a few weeks ago, Deep Throat IPO, scourge of Alibaba, turns his unique spotlight on this fintech giant – it’s not pretty.
An in-depth feature in New Bloom about the (mainly ethnic Chinese) pro-Beijing leftist tankies who would sooner back a totalitarian state than take a position that overlaps with the evil capitalist West. Looks more like a sort of offshore Chinese nationalism wrapped in ‘progressive’ clothing.
Michael Cole analyzes how supposedly modern superpower China’s paranoia leads it to pursue hostage-taking and forced confessions more befitting a minor dictatorship or terrorist group – the tactics serve to feed the paranoia itself.
The Diplomat tells you all you need to know about Beijing’s anti-Mongolian-language campaign in Inner Mongolia, plus some interesting stuff on the Mongol alphabet (which has its roots in ancient Aramaic, the author says).
A big piece from the Intercept on the Eric Branstad saga, ‘epitome of white privilege’ and son of a former US ambassador to China.
Re: Branstad – “Drain the swamp” just meant getting rid of the old guards and re-populating it with your own slime creatures.
Wouldn’t it be a wondrous existence to have time on one’s hands to pen long essays on twats known as tankies. Most of the western ones are bedsit dwellers or residing with mum while picking their acne. It’s only Twitter that has given them any platform of scale.
I know a couple of middle-aged commies who get irritated when one rips the pish out of Stalin. So New Bloomers should ease up on the analysis paralysis and start ripping the pish out of the useless idiots.