Looking unmistakably slightly like a mummy staggering out of the crypt, Tofu-for-Brains appears on stage to announce that people wanting to leave Hong Kong ‘lack foresight’, and the city ‘has what it takes to become the place where everybody wants to be’, and ‘the best is yet to come’. For full effect, imagine the words coming from the captain of the Titanic. If you get the impression that, despite all the finger-wagging, he is not absolutely convinced himself, you’re right – the guy always was too guileless/nice/simple to bang the table with total resolve while spouting brazen lies like a CCP professional.
(By the way, fans of useful idiots will like the ‘righteous foreigners’ section at Tung’s HK Coalition group website: an Eric says Hongkongers must embrace Bay Area common identity, while one Oriol says hooray for the Five-Year Plan and Fintech hub! HK Coalition theme song? You’re welcome!)
On a more serious note, the HK and Macau Affairs Office is expanding its capacity to include a new propaganda department to ‘weed out incorrect viewpoints’, and some sort of national security function – which will presumably coordinate seamlessly with the existing NatSec Office. And RTHK is resolutely crushing internal resistance.
Some mid-week China-watching reading…
Willy Lam on how Xi Jinping plans to mark the CCP’s 100th anniversary.
CMP explains how Beijing sorts out unruly government social-media accounts.
In Lowy Interpreter, the Oz vs NZ laboratory experiment: is it worth being nice to China or not worth the bother?
J Michael Cole argues for defending Taiwan…
Many who argue for abandonment tend to have a very weak understanding of Taiwan, the history of the conflict in the Taiwan Strait, and the increasingly important role that this vibrant economy and successful democracy plays in the 21st century. Most of them write as if they’ve never set foot in Taiwan – and indeed, some never have.
A (long) Hollywood Reporter piece on the US movie industry’s relationship with China following the hoo-hah over Nomadland.
Critics … argue that China has cannily leveraged its market heft to co-opt Hollywood’s global pop culture machine into effectively carrying the water for one of the country’s most important lines of strategic global messaging: that China’s rise as a global superpower is a benign or stabilizing phenomenon.
In SupChina, All you want to know about China’s mega-’bad bank’ Huarong.
How the 1942 Battle of Midway informs China’s military thinking.
This is supposed to be the beginning of a rejuvenation of Chinese thinking and creativity. Then why does a painting by the apparent “master of Modern Chinese painting” fail to reach the trigger bid level at Christie’s yesterday? And nobody is really talking about it. You can bet they would if it had sold. Personally, it looks utter crap to me.
https://www.dimsumdaily.hk/highest-estimated-asian-artwork-in-hk-worth-hk350m-hk450m-fails-to-sell-at-christies-auction/
Eric Stryson sounds like an inarticulate, insubstantial (marginally) useful idiot:
https://youtu.be/ySyl2K6mDKc
It’s amazing how the HKMAO won’t take yes for an answer. There is no need to “weed out ideological view points.” We’ve heard, and we’re getting the fuck out as fast as we can.
Donkey
Just worth noting somebody bid 320m for the painting. Not chickenfeed, for what as with all paintings is essentially a piece of painted canvas.
Eric Stryson’s lightweight article focuses almost entirely on the purported economic benefits of the Greater Bay Area. Without any serious analysis of cultural and political factors, he appears mystified that Hongkongrs can resist its supposed charms.
Donkey: Yes, I’m surprised some HK tycoon or CCP connected “businessman” from the mainland wasn’t…uh…encouraged to win the painting and then hand it in to a resolutely glorious private museum like Peiping’s Poly Group Museum of Repatriated Metal Animal Heads.
Dimuendo – there was no real bid for 320m. The auctioneer started there since the next bid would have been 350m, the reserve price. The bidding would have gone 350m, 380m, 400m, 420m, etc. At some point the auctioneer would have accepted a raise of 10m or even possibly 5m.
@Low Profile: It appears to be an occupational hazard among a certain class of business person to be perpetually baffled as to why people would care about anything other than money. “Why are Hong Kongers so stupid? Don’t they know they’re just hurting the economy?” they ask not especially rhetorically, “Look at Singapore. Nobody there cares about freedom!” This is said with an expression intended to convey the imparting of great insight.
A poor man
Thank you. Fortunately I have managed to stay away from auctions.
Indeed, by about 2010, after China provided a welcome anchor of stability to overcome the 2008 mess, we really thought that the best was yet to come, only to witness from 2012 onwards how a certain chemical engineer, who had read a few books about Marx and Lenin while dwelling in a cave in Shaanxi, getting onto the path of becoming the president forever of everything in China, and allowing the CCP to hijack, and re-write the history of the past 40-years of successful development of China, in order to cement the position of a new, fat, and filthy rich bourgeoisie
And the way they are going, I am afraid, the worst is yet come.
An example of how the same laws can be tweaked to suit the outcome:
“Four vehicle owners convicted for illegal disposal of waste from vehicles
25th May 2021 – (Hong Kong) Four vehicle owners, whose vehicles were involved in illegal waste disposal in Ping Che, New Territories, were convicted and fined a total of HK$8,000 at the Fanling Magistrates’ Courts today for contravening the Public Cleansing and Prevention of Nuisances Regulation.
In December last year, the EPD installed two sets of surveillance camera systems with a night vision function at a fly-tipping black spot at the roadside of Ng Chow Road in Ping Che, North District, in order to step up monitoring and deterrence against illegal waste disposal, and to assist in evidence collection and prosecution. The waste deposited at this site, including some large-sized commercial and industrial (C&I) waste, not only created obstruction to passages, but also caused environmental hygiene problems.
According to the Public Cleansing and Prevention of Nuisances Regulation, it is an offence to dispose of waste on the streets or in public places from vehicles, including goods vehicles, private cars and motorcycles. The registered vehicle owners concerned may be prosecuted. Offenders are liable to a maximum fine of HK$25,000 and six months’ imprisonment on first conviction.”
So despite the considerable public revenues and man hours devoted to nailing the serial fly-tipping bastards they get fined $2,000pp!!! Compare this to the $5,000 littering fine if you drop a tissue on the pavement and years in the nick if caught upending a garbage bin during a protest.
@Kwun Tong Bypass: you were more optimistic than I. Back in 2010, I already saw trouble on the horizon.