So the HK Police have convinced ISPs to block a site that doxes their men. (Apple Daily story here.) Pretty sure they’ve done this before. It’s something they are hypersensitive about – presumably a reflection of concerns over morale in the ranks. Not strictly the same as a Great Firewall. The ‘GFW this year’ prediction stands.
Tim Hamlett in HKFP on the NatSec Gestapo’s brazen bullshit reasons for arresting candidates in the pan-dem camp’s primary elections. Expect a Basic Law ‘interpretation’ to declare a new meaning to the relevant part of the BL – and make the innocent guilty.
On the subject of bullshit, this week’s Quiz… Which of these two SCMP contributors is spouting more of it: lawmaker (sorry, “lawmaker”) Regina Ip attacking Hong Kong people’s divided loyalties/dual citizenships; or the Colliers International boss waxing orgasmic about the Lantau Tomorrow Mega-Sandpit Vision as a huge boost to property prices? A tough question (of course, we’re not talking cumulatively, or Reg would beat even a real-estate salesman hands down).
A parting gift from the Trump administration – assuming no last-minute unspeakables: the US State Dept ends the no-publicly-talking-to-Taiwan-officials (more or less) rule it has long imposed on itself out of outdated/naive/unrequited deference to Beijing. (Official statement here.) An avalanche of ‘likely to anger China’ headlines ensues, as does the inevitable Panda-tantrum. Sorry for not being distressed at the thought that it might tie Joe Biden’s hands (more here).
Advocates of China: “China is a great nation that belongs in the global dialogue of democracy and peace, liberation and world trade. Its people are free to pursue their dreams and their mission to live a better life.”
Also advocates of China: “Hong Kong people need to stay in China, WHERE THEY BELONG!”
China’s political visions and ideology will never escape its archaic backward “third world” mentality. It is always a fundamental paradox. But that is what happens when you have a dictatorship with a single man bent on holding power. Kind of like Washington, D.C.
Re Bullshit contestants:
I’m thinking the award still has to go to Rejayjay, for her English-language pro-China, anti-British rant of: “Real Hong Kongers shouldn’t want the right to live in other countries like I did for my Masters degrees at Stanford” in an English language only Newspaper. So much existential confliction and projection. Where to begin? Probably with the fact that as the Director of Immigration implementing the “British Nationality Selection Scheme” she no doubt secured herself a spot immediately.
Nigel is just writing a cheesey real estate sales pitch with no actual malice or psychological angst in comparison: He doesn’t believe a word of it, she’s been surrounded by her excessive bullshit so long she has taken to eating it and believing it’s nutritious.
Today I am in Twitter prison because of incitement of violence against Jared Kushner. So I decided to clean out a closet. At the bottom of a box I found my long-lost Suzanne Clip from 1998. This goes to illustrate that every cloud has a silver lining.
Essentially Regina Ip’s argument is that you can’t love both your father and your mother; you have to choose between them. Of course there is no place in her worldview for the two thirds of Hong Kong people who love Hong Kong but don’t love Communist China – the nation, she claims, where they belong. The reality is that in today’s mobile and connected world there are millions of people whose loyalties span more than one country – and nothing wrong with that.
Nigel is just writing a cheesey real estate sales pitch with no actual malice or psychological angst in comparison
Or even understandable English
“The reality is that in today’s mobile and connected world there are millions of people whose loyalties span more than one country – and nothing wrong with that.”
@ Low Profile: Hear, hear! But I’m guessing that Regina’s mind is too simple to be able to understand an idea as complex as that which you outlined.
Ms. Ip’s proposal to end dual citizenship is a classic from the quisling handbook: Come up with something awful your colonial lords and masters haven’t thought of yet in order to curry favor and show your initiative. Sorry, Regina, they’re still not going to let you be CE.
Regina effectively scored an own goal that has certainly lost her considerable support. Her constituency is conservative, middle class, kids at school and investments overseas, in other words families of dual or multiple passport holders.
Her Legco tenure is no longer secure and with it goes seat on Exco and any other pulpit.