Among other unsurprising things yesterday… The NatSec Regime bans Hong Kong’s once-annual 6-4 vigil (no word on whether people can go to Victoria Park alone to sit and look at a flickering candle on their phones). And the (now all-patriot) legislature votes to abolish free elections to itself – all thanks to the CCP. You’ve heard of turkeys voting for Christmas; this is shoe-shiners voting for being swamped by patriot-zombie appointees
Slightly less predictably, the Secretary for Security threatens HSBC and Citibank management with prison if they do business with Jimmy Lai’s accounts in Hong Kong. I’m a bit skeptical of forecasts that regional headquarters will flood out of Hong Kong in a panic – the most noticeable exodus in the years ahead will be that of middle-class families. But the NatSec officials clearly don’t care if they do scare businesses away.
Another prediction: the Democratic Party – or at least a rump of it – will end up participating in the ‘elections’ for LegCo later this year. Chairman Lo Kin-hei has said that pro-Beijing elements want the party to help legitimize the charade, while his own supporters do not – and he is therefore (incredibly) undecided. The Dem Party has long been prone to occasional bouts of ‘self-important nonentity syndrome’, and it looks like it could easily suffer a fatal attack of it.
As Kevin Carrico points out in the RTHK item, the only credible stance on this ‘election’ system is to boycott: don’t run, don’t vote, don’t even watch. If you need a clue, the government itself is talking about making it illegal to call for a boycott. What more do you need to know?
Some weekend reading for the gentry…
The Diplomat on the gutting of RTHK…
For journalists, news consumers in Hong Kong, and others familiar with RTHK, each development brings a renewed sense of pain and loss as another of the territory’s once renowned institutions becomes a shadow of its former self.
From Transit Jam: after cornering sports-centre bookings and parking spaces, gangsters are now making HK$200,000 a month trading in motorbike inspection slots. (Doesn’t the system use ID card numbers to ensure users are genuine? Guess not.)
ABC presents a long story on China’s proposal to create a massive hydroelectric plant on the Yarlung Tsangpo. ‘Completely nuts’ says one overseas expert. Worth reading just for the graphics.
A (slightly geeky) case-study in social-media forensics tracing the online origins of China’s boycott of H&M.
A Beijing-sponsored art competition for Turkish schoolkids backfires as the youngsters include East Turkestan flags in their paintings.
For language fans, a Taiwanese betel-nut vendor’s sign uses written Chinese, Japanese and the Bopomofo phonetic script to render an indigenous Paiwan word.
Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia: an article on Thai King Vajiralongkorn’s bizarre upgrading of his Bangkok palace, including underground tunnels and the installation of a Boeing 737 in the garden – with some detail on the aircraft itself (it might not be the one His Highness thinks it is).
What were you expecting? For months, the busy parts of the city had hordes of kids charging around, smashing the place up demanding “Independent HK”, “Five demands, not one less” and the rest of it. Which bit of “HK is a small city within a country that is governed by the CCP” did they not get?
Then you had the foreign “journalists” stirring things up and egging on the kids , most of whom didn’t understand why they were doing what they were doing (practically all teenagers, everywhere, are 4ckin stupid – that we let only the oldest ones vote and drive cars is telling).
I bet that 90% of the people who participated in or supported the riots wish they could turn the clock back. What we have now is a right bloody mess.
I hope You Lot are satisfied. Idiots.
To return to something mentioned earlier this week, the centenary of the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party:
In their biography of Mao, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday write that the Party was founded in August 1920. A meeting that began on 23 July 1921 was the Party’s 1st Congress. Mao was not present at the former but was at the latter and so, with a bit of finesse, the latter is said to be the foundation meeting.
I don’t know whether this is accepted by other historians.
Rather than a few hundred thousand people sitting in a park staring a candle movies waiting to be clubbed like baby seals, it would be a lot more meaningful to engage diaspora, artists, activists, humanitarians, persons with vertical occipital bones, nasal breathers, etc. around the world in the largest Zoom webinar ever held to commemorate the brutality of that day.
If two million marching in the streets is an embarrassment, multiple times the HK population engaged in remembrance and perhaps even something proactive (like condemning further genocide or coming up with new places to idle waiting cars in Central) should be humiliating. With all the friends the emperor has made over the past few years, it would be quite a big party indeed…
I need to add that I’m pretty 4ckin stupid as well.
@YondenuphisRectum – Where were you when the kids were being brutalised by thugs for doing nothing more than a peaceful vigil or standing by a Lennon Wall? Bet you loved it. And this was way before they took on this ‘burn with us’ malarkey which I believed at the time was baloney, but they took shitloads of beatings and a certain ilk uttered sweet FA but rather revelled in these episodes.
You’d have worn the blackshirt and swastika had Hitler made it over to Blighty in the 1940s.
Pretty sure the kids regret participating or supporting the so-called “riots” in a similar way that you would regret forcing your way into your neighbour’s house when their creepy kid progresses from pulling the legs off of bugs to crapping in your yard to luring the neighbourhood ethnic kids over to do his homework and harvest their organs.
@Arsehole #4 – who exactly do you mean by “You Lot”? Those who give a shit? The 2/3 of the Hong Kong population who oppose the government? Or what?
@Fish – well that escalated quickly…
I didn’t realise until I saw that horror photo in HKFP that the Hanging Judge is sailing under false colours so with her name it’s not so surprising she is one of so-called Carrie’s Chosen.
It sure pays to be a loyal trash. Chris Ip lost YTM DC seat to a rookie, and the then salary of chair of DC of around $65,000pm, plus lots of ‘sweeties’, has been working as an editor at Wen Wei Po, so remuneration would not be extravagant.
Now he is to be appointed undersecretary for Constipational Affairs, salary $200,000++ per month.
On the plus side Kowloon West residents can breathe a sigh of relief that he will not be misrepresenting their interests in a political role going forward. Phew.
Do not boycott the ‘elections’.
Go there.
And if you cannot really make up your mind who to choose, or you have no preferences, vote for everybody!
#4
Why do you use coy little euphemisms like “4ckin”?
Are you a fucking Quaker or what?