Latest news from the new improved election system where we never forget you don’t have a choice: veteran lawmaker Abraham Razak stands down to make way for the son of the Legislative Council president. Patriotic obedience plus filial piety – the chamber looks set to hold the executive branch to account with a very light touch.
And the Court of Final Appeal finesses a ruling on people being prosecuted for rioting when they were somewhere else. The oh-so important foreign judges can stay on for a while longer without too much embarrassment, but will the government/Beijing kick up a fuss?
Some weekend reading and viewing…
It’s Al Jazeera’s turn to do the Hong Kong-sinks-into-isolation-and-despair story…
“The selling point of Hong Kong for China, or value of Hong Kong for China, is the ability to be open to the rest of the world when China cannot for policy reasons[,] and Hong Kong is destroying its value to China by being closed.”
From Tim Hamlett – the vandalizing of Hong Kong’s legal aid system.
Quartz on how the US defines a Hongkonger (for purposes of giving visa extensions to those in danger of arrest for political reasons)…
“…we didn’t want a situation where – and this is just one scenario – if they only accept the Hong Kong SAR passport, that would’ve been fucked up because everyone who has a BNO would have to go to the Chinese embassy” to apply for the passport.
Alice Poon’s early 2000s classic incitement to sedition Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong has been translated into Korean. It is Hong Kong’s Shame of the Cities or History of the Standard Oil Company – still worth reading as a work that changed people’s thinking.
If Lulu Wang wants to shoot a Hong Kong movie called Expats 2 on the gritty hell that is housing allowances, here’s the outline of the screenplay.
Panda Tantrum du Jour: European Parliament members visit Taiwan. When Chinese officials say you will ‘pay a price’ for having better relations with an overseas people, how can you not be tempted to book the first flight to TPE?
Idiom of the Week Award goes to one I learnt watching series 2 of Korean TV drama Let’s Eat: ‘Sucking soybeans out of a beggar’s butt’ – meaning to demand help from someone less able to provide it than you are.
And for anyone complaining about the food in quarantine, here’s a taste-test of 1944 British Pacific Forces rations.
Forbidden Country
In distant days,
Tourists went to Lok Ma Chau to gaze
At foreign land.
Forbidden China – closed – and all were banned.
But Mao no more
Was living. Then there was an open door
And all were free
To go and buy and sell and tour and see.
In 2021,
The border’s closed to (nearly) everyone.
In Tin Shui Wai
Let’s climb the tallest block of flats and try
To get a view
Of mighty Shenzhen. The best that we can do.
We all today
Desire to go back to the GBA.
And, even more,
We wish to welcome tourists, as before.
With the DCs frozen in time for another 2 years and a track record required to secure a seat on the ‘improved’ Leggers, DAB had to find some way to direct tax payer funds towards its foot-soldiers, a number of whom are attached to small and mediocre law firms operating on the fringes. Solution, re-engineer the Legal Aid mechanism to ensure that lawyers nobody would willingly choose get the cases.
This has the additional advantage for DoJ of ensuring that defendants are dependent on inept and, at best, indifferent representation.