Guardians of national security in Hong Kong’s education sector punish a couple of teenage students for performing the love song Galactic Repairmen by Dear Jane at a high-school music competition, because administrators deem the lyrics a threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s monopoly of power. Meanwhile, valiant police protecting the nation from flowers outside Sogo thwart an evil counter-revolutionary plot involving chives. The 217 cops involved will be recommended for Silver Bauhinia Bravery Medals.
The trials of 47 pan-dems rounded up in February are postponed until late September, leaving the majority not granted bail in (sweaty, non-air-conditioned) detention. The 47 were arrested for ‘conspiracy to commit subversion’ – otherwise known as participating in the pan-dem primary election a year ago.
It sort of seems the NatSec regime is claiming a need to assemble large quantities of documents to keep the defendants in jail and their lawyers from seeing evidence for as long as possible.
The eradication of pan-dems from public offices is nearly complete, as dozens of the camp’s district council members resign ahead of being disqualified (an attempt to avoid possibly being forced to pay back their salaries). Hong Kong’s once-representative political bodies will henceforth be rubber-stamps stacked with NatSec regime loyalists. There will be nothing to vote for.
On the subject of dismantling things, New World are to rename their Pavilia Farm residential development Fawlty Towers. (There’s also a Pavilia Hill, Pavilia Bay, Mount Pavilia and Fleur [not making this up] Pavilia – so that’s a ton of housing complexes now with a name that’s not only inane, but cursed.)
Some weekend reading…
A (big) paper by Minxin Pei in Journal of Democracy on China’s course towards neo-Stalinism under Xi.
North Korea attacks Apple Daily.
A new think-tank ‘dedicated to a slogan’ – CMP on the Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Rule of Law set up in Beijing a week ago.
Why do so many of China’s new modern art museums have white males in their top jobs? The Art Newspaper (kinda heavy on white females, but anyway) has found four of them (including Hong Kong’s M+), on fat salaries.
And a detailed but interesting account of Ketamine in China, from a basic military anaesthetic to recreational drug among nightclubbers to more recent decline in use – mirroring the social changes in the (ahem) ‘party-state’.
Isn’t it convenient that the jailed (without charges) district councilors are to have their incarceration extended until after the first “elections” in September.
The descent of the overly sensitive, thin skinned macho cops and their handlers into utter pathetic (but still dangerous) joke accelerates at a pace in which even the best satirists would find difficult to keep up with.
Just give them all black uniforms with red armbands and 警 stitched in the centre of the single white circle on the band.
I’m waiting for ALL government departments and even Legco members to go the way of uniforms soon. HKers do love their LARPing.
The video of the kindergarten flag raising ceremony that appears below the picture of the woman with the chives is very scary. None of the kids seem to be having fun.
The privileged scion who heads up New World Development these days revels in a pseudo hipster view of himself and the toys he has inherited. “We Are Artisanal” adorns the hoardings of NWD projects as if what he does has any meaning other than screwing Hong Kong over and toadying to Beijing.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Sunday that she does not expect the new Chief Secretary, John Lee, to have to do much
That’s lucky – so why have a Chief Secretary and will his salary be cut accordingly?
Jet Plane: even more intriguing is that while John Lee insisted that he is more than capable of handling the various policy issues that should come under the supervision of CS because of his 44 years of experience in government, Superwoman Lam publicly acknowledged her deputy’s lack of experience in areas other than NS, but no worries, she will do a double shift as both CE and CS.
Dysfunctional governance and back stabbing at a time when every jurisdiction is in urgent need of wise. qualified and above all united administration.