First batch of spiritual pedigree now out!

In case you haven’t heard: the first batch of the CCP’s spiritual pedigree (you know – the one forged during the Party’s century-old endeavor) was officially released on Wednesday. It says so here.

Today’s local sub-batch of spiritual pedigree…

Hong Kong NatSec police charge a 16-year-old girl, and six others, with ‘conspiracy to incite the commission by other persons of the offence of subversion’. Assuming you can’t incite yourself, I guess we can strip this down to ‘conspiracy to incite subversion’. Or is the ‘by other persons’ part there to make clear the seven were not conspiring to incite one another? (Or can you incite yourself?)

Meanwhile, a 19-year-old is in jail and denied bail, accused of ‘inciting other persons to organise, plan, commit or participate in overthrowing or undermining the basic system of the People’s Republic of China’.

I hope these two young women one day make it to a free society and put these charges right at the top of their resumes. If ‘Aged 16: charged with conspiracy to incite subversion’ doesn’t get you an interview, what will?

The trial begins of Captain America 2.0 – Ma Chun-man – for shouting and displaying slogans in public places with intent to incite secession on 20 occasions last year.

RTHK issues new editorial guidelines – full of NatSec blah blah blah, must cultivate national identity, uphold constitution, blah blah, but steer clear of involvement with foreign organizations or inciting hatred against the government, and much else. Guideline-compliant story here. Some extracts from the (apparently 100-page) rules here – how to deny Taiwan’s relations with other countries and when to pull material from online archives.

By a startling coincidence – or is someone obsessed with these things? – involvement with foreign organizations and inciting hatred will also crop up in the Article 23 NatSec legislation, which will fill gaps left (carelessly? in haste? deliberately?) by Beijing’s own NatSec Law. The hang-up about ‘inciting hatred of the Hong Kong government’ seems specifically driven by cops who get upset every time someone mocks them.

Lawmakers in the all-patriot Legislative Council take turns – the line goes on and on – to demand more respect and protection for the national flag.

Ten district council members are disqualified for not sounding sufficiently deep and meaningful when reciting their oaths. They include some from the Democratic Party, which is still debating whether to participate in the forthcoming LegCo quasi-elections. It’s hard to believe they will be so self-absorbed and obtuse as to participate now. Actually, it isn’t.

Some reading for the long weekend…

Columbia Journalism Review on what’s left of a free press in Hong Kong, and how they plan to keep going.

CNN on China’s new quarantine mega-facility, reflecting the zero-Covid approach to which Hong Kong must defer, even though the rest of the world is opening up again.

David Webb finds that, as a percentage of government annual revenue, the value of the land occupied by the Hong Kong Club is the same today (2.42%) as it was when the Club bought the plot in 1894. Who says markets are not perfect? 

Stand News (In Chinese) interviews a Hongkonger who works as a truck driver in the UK, and can’t handle all the enquiries he’s getting from goods vehicle licence holders back in his hometown.

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28 Responses to First batch of spiritual pedigree now out!

  1. Joe Blow says:

    One day before the National Day of the Glorious Motherland Fiesta, all the outdoor recycling bins in CWB have been removed again (the glass containers were never returned after the street festivities of 2019). Does the Gesta-Popo know something we don’t?

  2. donkey says:

    Well they are of that age, inciting each other, inciting themselves. I remember having “the talk” with my parents about inciting myself. IT’s okay to do it in your room or when you are alone, but definitely don’t incite yourself in front of anyone, or incite anyone else, unless you ask first, and only if they say yes.

  3. Big Al says:

    It is possible that at some point in the future, the Hong Kong government will come to the realisation that the only entity that is actively inciting hatred of the Hong Kong government … is the Hong Kong government, specifically Ms LAM and Mr TANG. It would be glorious to see them arrested when the new Article 23 legislation is enacted.

  4. Chinese Netizen says:

    “By a startling coincidence – or is someone obsessed with these things? – involvement with foreign organizations and inciting hatred will also crop up in the Article 23 NatSec legislation, which will fill gaps left (carelessly? in haste? deliberately?) by Beijing’s own NatSec Law.”

    So I take it the Basic Law is lining Shit Jumping’s bird cage by now? And any future reference to it would be…inciting subversion?

  5. Chinese Netizen says:

    The CNN “Covid mega quarantine center” story reads like THE perfect recipe for graft, kickbacks, favored contractors or relative of official, shoddy workmanship/materials and the usual China construction story stuff.

    I guess with blueprints from Xinjiang “Job Skills Training Centers” still fresh, it was easy peasy.

  6. Mary Melville says:

    When conservative and well behaved James To is not tolerated, any illusions on the part of potential contenders are risible.

  7. A Poor Man says:

    When was the last time any government official publicly commented on the mental health crisis and epidemic of suicides that Hong Kong is experiencing, and offered to try to do something? Hong Kong must be one of the few places in the world where the po po have a supply of tents to cover the bodies on the pavements. I don’t get out to the housing estates in the new towns where many suicides occur very often, but even I have seen a couple of these green tents in the past year.

  8. justsayin says:

    @Mary Melville. nonono, I think you mean ‘wisible’ Throw him to the floow!

  9. Formerly known as... says:

    Another, I really don’t know the right word. Tankie? Chicomsymp? Useful idiot? Traitor?

    Maybe some of those are too strong. For some reason people who have grown up and benefited from western democracy who come up with this garbage really piss me off more than those who were born in to it.

    https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202109/29/WS61540c24a310cdd39bc6c5f9.html?fbclid=IwAR3y-TxarHSvGJmguxIMyw33miFoOs-OIydOXMFfdSGletN7Z7LSYWkoMic

    Meanwhile, some of Hong Kong’s most caring and idealistic youth are rotting in prison.

    Shame.

  10. Mark Bradley says:

    Is there a list of all of the website blocked by the NSL? Is anyone keeping track? HK Chronicles was the first. What were the others?

  11. reductio says:

    @Formerly known as…

    Reads like it was ghostwritten to me, what with the clunky phraseology an’ all. Still, otherwise quite intelligent people can make themselves believe all kinds of weird things for the right price.

  12. Jimmy Carl Black says:

    @Formerly known as…
    I think the correct nomenklatura is “entitled old gammon living in fear of his enormous HK government pension being stopped” or “CCP sellout” for brevity.
    Cue Frank Zappa’s “We’re only in it for the money”

  13. where's my jet plane says:

    @Formerly known as…
    Reads like it was ghostwritten to me

    Don’t forget DeepRedstone is a former chief information officer for the Hong Kong government so the clunky style is innate.

  14. Gromit says:

    The HK truck drivers should get a hero’s welcome in the UK. I have watched in awe on countless occasions, in HK and at remote factories in Guangdong (especially in the Wild East days of the late 1980s-end 1990s), as they have manoeuvred 40′ containers into narrow entrances at angles and on inclines that a mere car driver like me would have had difficulty with. Real HK ‘just get it done’ mentality.

  15. Gromit says:

    @Jimmy Carl Black: interesting use of the old Eastern Bloc word ‘nomenklatura’ (which in the DDR basically meant the bigwigs, or anyone you had to be very careful with). I like it – it could easily catch on here.

  16. Chinese Netizen says:

    @Formerly known as…

    “Sellout” works.

  17. Stanley Lieber says:

    @Gromit

    More Soviet terms likely to gain new life in Hong Kong:

    – agitprop
    – apparatchik
    – gulag
    – intelligentsia
    – samizdat

  18. Pope Innocent says:

    One of the first priorities of the masters after the handover was to push out the “foreigners” in the employ of the HKSAR government. In those days they were more subtle and relied on sidelining and lateral promotions to less interesting posts, of course, but it worked for the most part. Those thick-skinned and unprincipled enough to hang on until full retirement are naturally unlikely to risk their iron rice bowl for the sake of a bit of morality, especially if they can stomach to continue life in their gated communities as if nothing was happening outside. After all, that’s why the entire patriotic population of the city carries on – not a one actually has a moral compass as such, so free money is really their only guiding principle.

  19. where's my jet plane says:

    Police said on Friday that they have found a burnt national flag at Wong Tai Sin, and suspected that it was set on fire.

    With police forensic skills like that we can all sleep easy knowing we are protected from evil-doers.

    On other police matters, 8,000 cops on duty for 4 demonstraters may have been a bit of an overkill.

  20. Chinese Netizen says:

    @where’ my jet plane: “suspected that it was set on fire” as opposed to spontaneous combustion.

    Waiting for the next spectacular “bomb making lab” bust.

  21. Hammy says:

    I have heard that, upon retirement, senior Chinese politicians are banned from leaving the country, and may be more or less under constant surveillance.

    Perhaps Carrie Lam et. al were informed that they are now subject to the same restriction, hence their 180 shift on so, so many issues large and small alike.

    In this case, it’s not merely about money, but an existential threat to their futures, which are now fully bound to their service toward the CCP. There may literally be no escape for them.

  22. Mary Melville says:

    The weird bit is the complete absence of flags and banners ….. anywhere. I bussed up and down to Sham Sui Po and expected displays along the way. Thought I had finally spotted one but it turned out to be the MacD signage.

  23. Red Dragon says:

    Cor Blimey! Hammy. That’s a relief.

    The good burghers of Esher can now lie easy in their beds.

  24. reductio says:

    @Chinese Netizen

    Now now, no need for sarcasm. It could have been a lightning strike.

  25. where's my jet plane says:

    There may literally be no escape for them.
    Oh Happiness!

    BTW anyone heard anything of Bowtie Donald recently?

  26. YTSL says:

    “The weird bit is the complete absence of flags and banners”.

    @ Mary Melville: I take it that you didn’t visit the likes of North Point, Fortress Hill, Lee Tung Avenue and/or even Wyndham Street this past weekend?

    https://twitter.com/HKBigLychee/status/1442017366167093253

    Though, yes, it did seem like certain places that you’d expect to see tons of flags and banners didn’t have them — or, at least, as many of them as the areas I mentioned above!

  27. Penny says:

    Numerous flags around the outside of the Dorsett Hotel in Happy Valley – formerly Xinhua News Agency’s HK HQ.

  28. Mary Melville says:

    I saw the images of displays earlier in the day and the gathering at Star Ferry, so the complete absence of patriotic fervour along Nathan was unexpected. And without dropping anyone in it, local malls were not exactly decked out either.

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