Was Choi on mission to rescue fallen women?

An ever-so thorough internal inquiry exonerates National Security Police hero Frederic Choi after his caught-in-illicit-’massage’-place-raid embarrassment. While his fellow cops state that he did nothing illegal or immoral, six women at the scene were arrested. So it’s one rule for bystanders in a bordello, another for those at protests. Allegedly one ‘Vietspa’ in Wanchai. OK, I looked up ‘nuru’ – sounds a bit… distracting. (Update: more sordid details in Chinese Apple Daily.)

Remember – the CCP are in charge, so they will decide what happens and what you see happen. Either they did the framing/leaking (for whatever reason), or someone else who did is going to be in major trouble if they identify him.

Elsewhere in Hong Kong…

David Webb on what Jimmy Lai’s lawyers could argue (in theory) in order to unfreeze his assets.

After a long period of indecision, the Catholic Church names a new Bishop of Hong Kong  – Stephen Chow. (No, not that Stephen Chow.) He claims not to know whether the Vatican and CCP agreed on his appointment, and delivers this insipid, hand-wringing gem:

The question is how to walk with young people, to keep them company with empathy, so we could walk closer together again.

And…

In response to a question about whether Catholics are facing suppression in the mainland, Chow said the removal of crosses by the authorities there “is not something we are happy to see”.

“Removing crosses I think is not nice, but we need to understand the reason behind it. I don’t like to use the word ‘suppression’,” he said.

However, he is a Jesuit and probably a lot smarter than he wants us to think. A Catholic publication goes into the politics here. In the background lurk the Vatican’s unseemly Panda-hugging impulses.

The court revokes bail for – and jails – six activists after they plead guilty to the usual ‘unauthorized assembly’ BS from 2019. Among them are Albert Ho, Yeung Sum and Sin Chung-kai – almost stereotypical peaceful, moderate and reasonable Democratic Party members. Which brings us to…

A lengthy essay on whether non-radical pan-dems should continue trying to work within the system and participate in the Legislative Council. The determinedly hyper-moderate author thinks they should, though this assumes not only that they are not in jail, but that the CCP would allow such semi- (or any) shoe-shiners input into policy-making – which is a joke. The NatSec Regime means a system with no open ‘politics’, just rituals crafted to reinforce obedience.

The Art Newspaper reports on the slimmed-down Art Basel HK taking place over the next few days. Organizers think that the NatSec Regime will not impose censorship like it does at M+ in years ahead as theirs is a private-sector event. Presumably meaning it’s about money, not art. Even so. good luck with that.