An interview with the Democratic Party chair Lo Kin-hei, who wonders whether his group should continue taking part in elections – assuming the CCP’s ‘improved’ election system actually allows them on the ballot. He cites Taiwan and Czechoslovakia as examples where the opposition participated even in unfair systems, and believes the majority population ‘needs a voice’ in a rigged legislature. His main worry about taking part is not that the DP might lend legitimacy to a corrupt system, but that the public might think the DP was doing so, and thus lose trust in the party. This of course assumes they are still thinking much about it at all.
You’d have thought that, having been arrested for the usual unauthorized assembly BS, he would have worked out what’s happening and be screaming ‘boycott’ from the rooftops. But he can’t resist the temptation of offering his party’s services to the NatSec Regime, should it feel a need for some useful idiots in the new massively enlarged, mostly unelected, LegCo. The DP’s long tradition of insular, self-indulgent navel-gazing lives on, even if nothing else does.
For some robust realism, try William Pesek at Nikkei Asia…
Xi had a once-in-lifetime opportunity to grow Beijing’s soft power at America’s expense. While then-President Trump waged trade wars, mean tweeted about Germany, shook down Japan for $8 billion in protection payments, palled around with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and hung up on Australian leaders, Xi had a chance to be the adult.
He blew it.
…Xi’s exploits are bewildering to those who thought he was anxious for international respect and acclaim. Instead, a bull market in missteps has set things up almost perfectly for the Biden era.
…[He] may just increase the odds Biden makes the globe soft on America again.
“
You’d have thought that, having been arrested for the usual unauthorized assembly BS, he would have worked out what’s happening and be screaming ‘boycott’ from the rooftops. But he can’t resist the temptation of offering his party’s services to the NatSec Regime, should it feel a need for some useful idiots…”
Is this not the pragmatic Hong Kong way? Not really to just be practical, but if you can find some way to benefit from the system, even if it harms you, to go for the short term benefit and worry about the long term later, when you likely won’t be the one who has to fix anything. Just look at the way the city thinks about heritage and buildings from historical periods, or pedestrian vs cars. No long term thinking and the thinking that is relevant is largely so selfish that it’s impossible to see it’s outcome being positive.
Lo Kin-hei usually speaks sense but his mulling whether the Democratic Party should take part in elections really makes me disinclined to support them (e.g., by doing such as not buying those fundraising lottery tickets they’ve been hawking in recent weeks).
Also, don’t know if it’s robust realism but here’s this thread re Xi, etc. from Christoph Rehage that seems to go along similar lines as William Pesek’s piece:-
https://twitter.com/crehage/status/1391447924954050564
@YTSL – Christoph Rehage is one of those invaluable finds on Twitter, especially as the platform has been inundated with wumao, CCP bots and wanky tankies of late. The journeyman really delivers a kick in the balls to Xi and his cu*t personality.
If we learned anything from 2019 is that the only way for the pan-dems to stop bickering among themselves is to be a big tent where any and all methods are accepted. The strategy has to be “all of the above”. Do all the things.
It might be worthwhile to test the natsec regime’s gatekeeping in any case. They might DQ even the mildest of pan-dems.
(In this insane Kafkaesque timeline we now live in, the natsec cops might arrest the Democrats for _not_ running for election: that’s promoting an illegal boycott, see?)
Love the ‘Half a Person’ link. Slightly too flattering for Xi though.
You don’t scream boycott now. And get exterminated. You play nicely along – and you scream “vote for everybody on the ballot paper” 48 hours before the Selection day.
BTW, I have been saying this before:
Never has the world been so ready for a counterweight to the overbearing Americans – but it certainly cannot, and never will be a backward, authoritarian Marx-Leninist dictatorship. Xi Jinping had a unique chance to use Hong Kong as a window to show the world how China could look like in the future. Now he uses Hong Kong to remind the world of China’s ugly past!
“Never has the world been so ready for a counterweight to the overbearing Americans.”
Pace Churchill, America is the worst leader of the world except for all the alternatives.
The only sensible strategy for any pandem parties now is to deliberately choose only candidates that the CCP absolutely have to DQ.
There’s absolutely no point in trying to play the game: it’s rigged and playing just gives it a veneer of legitimacy, and anyone not DQ’ed is demonstrably not worth voting for in the first place.
So all that’s left for the non CCP parties is to remind everyone the game is totally rigged, and that the emperor has no clothes.
“Xi Jinping had a unique chance to use Hong Kong as a window to show the world how China could look like in the future. Now he uses Hong Kong to remind the world of China’s ugly past!”
Well said.
“Xi Jinping had a unique chance to use Hong Kong as a window to show the world how China could look like in the future. Now he uses Hong Kong to remind the world of China’s ugly past!”
Makes me think that the CCP will do whatever it takes to ensure HK looks outwardly successful