After a smear campaign in Beijing’s propaganda sheets (hurriedly endorsed by local officials), the Professional Teachers Union disbands. The sudden move is presumably to pre-empt police raids, arrests, asset seizures and other Jimmy Lai-style lawfare bombardment. In snuffing out Hong Kong’s biggest independent union – founded 49 years ago – the CCP is dismantling an extensive social/retail/health network employing some 200 staff. Vandalizing civil society. (Quick thread on the pros and cons of disbanding.)
This comes soon after the Progressive Lawyers Association and other pan-dem groups have shut down. (If only the prima donnas at the Democratic Party would get the message and vanish – these guys will still be bickering with each other after they’ve been rounded up at bayonet-point and sent down to the countryside to clean out pigs.)
For all their newfound overt patriotism, our bureaucrats seem nervous about what a Leninist regime headed by an apparently devout Marxist might do to the local markets. Hence uncertainty about whether Beijing’s anti-sanctions law should be applied in Hong Kong delicately via the rubber-stamp legislature or bluntly via a Basic Law annex/imperial edict. The real issue is whether the CCP ever wants to actually use this device to penalize companies (like HSBC) that simply cannot refuse to comply with US sanctions. Carrie Lam, apparently feeling no ill-will at being a sanctions target herself, says it will be an ‘inactive law’.
An RTHK TV channel will go Full CCTV, with patriotic Mainland shows galore. More here if you’re addicted to binge-watching CCP historical dramas.
Is China using the BNO migrant system to infiltrate the UK with CCP spies? Some fear pro-Beijing folks sneaking into the lifeboats and intimidating pan-dem sympathizers in the UK; others fear tabloids stirring up suspicions about all Hong Kong migrants. The thing is, more than a few ‘blue’ households are probably getting out of Hong Kong for the same reasons as anyone else. Hypocritical, but toadies don’t want their kids brainwashed either.
There is, of course, a long history of sleeper agents from despotic regimes infiltrating free societies and deciding they rather like it, going native, and living the good life while sending meaningless reports back to HQ for decades. Don’t be surprised when a Yuen Long white-shirt thug ends up joining a fox hunt in Shropshire.
If you like seeing garbage about RMB internationalization being torn (politely) to shreds – a Michael Pettis thread.
Beijing semi-breaks diplomatic relations with Lithuania as the latter hosts a Taiwan office that uses the name ‘Taiwan’. Globular Times goes gloriously, deliciously nuts.
Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Professional Teachers Union?
Years ago the late Szeto Wah, PTU founder/head and elected LegCo member, sat opposite me on the MTR one evening. When was the last time any of our current ruling class was seen on public transport (except for carefully staged photo opportunities with bodyguards on hand)?
What a giveaway! Writing your autobiography?
“There is, of course, a long history of sleeper agents from despotic regimes infiltrating free societies and deciding they rather like it, going native, and living the good life while sending meaningless reports back to HQ for decades.”