RIP, Apple Daily – and Hong Kong as a whole

Reasons for the killing of Apple Daily (it says here): to scare all HongKongers; to silence all independent media; and to make everyone forget history. We could also add plain personal vindictiveness – a desire for revenge dating back to Giordano’s pro-student T-shirts in 1989.

By pulling the Next media group down, the CCP also makes Hong Kong a different place – as, say, demolishing the old Star Ferry pier for reclamation did in the past, and imposing simplified characters will in the future. Tian Feilong switches on the charm on this theme in Globular Times.

Apple Daily‘s demise attracts a lot of international media attention – along the lines that Beijing is breaking its promises to preserve Hong Kong’s freedoms and is endangering the city’s role as a business hub.  

This overlooks two things. First, the Leninist leaders in Beijing would consider it absurd that they must be subservient to independent players – the media, courts, the law, principles of human or civil rights – in order for Hong Kong to maintain an ‘economic status’ defined by foreigners. CCP control is the only consideration. Second, it underestimates the motivation and determination of businesses to ignore degraded institutions so long as they are still making profits.

‘Both a celebration and a funeral’ – the scene outside Apple Daily HQ last night. Photos here and here.

The persecution of Apple Daily does not stop here. NatSec Police arrested its lead opinion writer on suspicion of ‘conspiracy to collude with foreign forces’, presumably through his opinions.

A small sign that establishment figures are finding all this a bit too creepy – Bank of East Asia patriarch David Li sends his sympathies…

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18 Responses to RIP, Apple Daily – and Hong Kong as a whole

  1. Chinese Netizen says:

    So many black dates that’ll live on in infamy: 6-4, 7-21, 8-31, 6-24……..

  2. Gooddog says:

    Every significant Hong Kong institution is being degraded, corrupted, destroyed.
    The press
    The judiciary
    Universities
    Schools
    The legislature
    The police
    Our civic society is being dismantled and destroyed.
    There is a special place in hell for those Hong Kongers who worked with Beijing to destroy their own hometown. I hope their bags of silver keep them warm at night.

  3. Reactorul Numărul Patru says:

    @Chinese Netizen

    For me, the most memorable black date was 44-24-38. So curvaceous was Shanice, I’m sure that if she’d lived in the SAR members of Jimmy Lai’s Apple Daily crew would have offered her large amounts of money to get out her titties for the amusement of its readers.

  4. Ho Ma Fan says:

    @Gooddog the collective heat of burning injustice within the hearts of Hong Kongers ought to do the trick. Silver, as Judas discovered, is a particularly cold metal.
    Fuck them all, and their Quisling enablers.

  5. Reactor #4 says:

    @Gooddog

    Your problem is that you hold high expectations – you seem to have forgotten that you live in a medium-size city within the People’s Republic of China. Granted, your upbeat outlook might be viewed positively if you are interviewing for a job, or are trying to get your filthy mitts into someone’s underwear. Generally, though, it’s best to assume that everything will turn to rat-shit. The odd times when things do go your way, you should enjoy them, but at the same time remind yourself that your state of happiness will be fleeting. Could I also suggest that you need to start planning your departure.

  6. Joe Blow says:

    One would have thought that the resident troll, an Englishman named Simon, would have had the decency to keep his fucking mouth shut for just one day.

  7. Mark Bradley says:

    @reactor # 4

    Stop projecting your misery onto others you insufferable washed up sack of shit

  8. Chinese Netizen says:

    “Englishman named Simon”

    THAT narrows it down…

    Reactorul: Was she under 15 yrs old? Seems that’s the demographic that tickles your proclivities.

  9. Mike Oxlong says:

    That’s enough Hong Kong.(Ed.)

    Time to go you expat whingers!

  10. HKJC Regular says:

    Yep, Rectum Simon must would’ve been a right hoot crawling amid the occupying forces in wartime Jersey n’ Guernsey, offering his quips of pure shite to the islanders.

  11. David Price says:

    Apple Daily closure: lead story on BBC TV news last night.

  12. Mark Bradley says:

    @Mike Oxlong

    “Time to go you expat whingers!”

    Go where? Many of us have right of abode here. And if you think WE’RE complaining then you are clearly oblivious to the boiling blood of local HKers that is just underneath the “peaceful” surface that Cunt Carrie thinks was achieved with NSL.

  13. David Price says:

    @Mike Oxlong

    “Time to go you expat whingers!”

    Suggest you pay a visit to check-in aisle J at the airport any night around 10.00.

    There BA agents are wrestling with groaning trolleys of luggage as passengers present their one-way tickets. The flight I was on was heaving with the great and the good of this once remarkable city.

  14. Mary Melville says:

    Only 5 days prior to the abrupt land seizure of Apply Daily’s headquarters, five individuals (including one DAB legislator) were suddenly appointed/re-appointed as Science Park’s board of directors with no rationale given.
    The Dabber is Quat. Smell a RAT?????

  15. Red Dragon says:

    Hey, Hemlock.

    Why not take a leaf out of the Nat Sec gang’s book and shut down Reactor #4 in all his guises?

    Keeping up outdated principles like freedom of speech is surely not worth the candle in his/her/its case.

    The snuffing out of Apple Daily is Hong Kong’s loss; the snuffing out of Reactor #4 would be everyone’s gain.

  16. Gromit says:

    @Mark Bradley: indeed; people queuing from the middle of the night, and a million copies sold out in a few hours would seem also to be some sort of indication of the strength of local sentiment. The quislings must hate that kind of tangible show of feeling: a big middle finger.
    Not that the North will care, or care about a mass exodus: as Hemlock has often pointed out, there are plenty of more ‘suitable’ people over the border to come and take the place of anyone who leaves.

  17. Gooddog says:

    Reactor #4 – your world is dark. I hope you can move on.

  18. Hugo Maxwell-Mahon says:

    @ Gromit

    Indeed, Beijing would be quite happy with a mass exodus. Its local acolytes will just dismiss anyone who leaves these shores as a loser, foreign force, or both.

    Cue the triumphant return of CY Leung (yesterday’s choice quote: “scum from foreign countries”), which will do wonders for CX’s outbound load factors.

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