Hong Kong judicial independence in action

While an SCMP editorial wonders why the young have lost confidence in Hong Kong’s rule of law, some NatSec creepiness to round off the week. An Apple Daily executive is denied bail because overseas officials had voiced support for him after his arrest (‘conspiracy to collude with foreign forces’), thus proving ‘close association’. And Ma Chun-man is sentenced to five years nine months for shouting slogans…

The judge said Ma had evolved from a person being incited to someone who incited others, and this evolution from incitee to inciter shows it’s possible that people the defendant incited could turn into the next Ma Chun-man…

Immediately after the prison term was handed down, a woman in the public gallery shouted, “Too long!”. The judge then asked the security guards to record the woman’s ID card number.

More from Judge Chan here…

Ma was said to have a “layered” plan to incite other people to seize Hong Kong’s sovereignty from the hands of China. He proposed starting at school level and gradually expanding to all social classes to “prompt the next revolution,” the judge ruled.

The SCMP editorial sees job opportunities as the problem. Samuel Bickett remarks… 

Real laws are clear in what they prohibit. The NSL is, by design, so vague as to be meaningless. By leaving what it actually restricts wide open, the NSL is designed to dismantle rule of law, not buttress it. It is less a law than an anti-law, a declaration that laws are irrelevant.

Following several departures, it seems every university head from now one will… 

…have to be a Chinese national deemed loyal to Beijing … foreigners or those with ties to Taiwan or the United States would not be considered.

Some reading and viewing material for the weekend…

HKFP op-ed on that strange way so many patriotic officials’ spouses have foreign passports…

I have banged on about this passport hypocrisy before in these columns and apologise for once again being so impolite as to point out how extraordinary it is that the overwhelming majority of Hong Kong’s elite find it necessary to secure the insurance policy of the right of abode overseas.

A thread in which epidemiologist Ben Cowling does quarantine.

And one from royalist Alice Lai, boldly hoping to run for election on the Hong Kong-UK Reunification Campaign ticket. (She has apparently since been barred, and is trying to lodge an appeal. Today’s guest star pays tribute to her.)

David Bandurski on the Sixth Plenum and the forthcoming (third) ‘resolution of CCP history’…

…all previous top leaders, including Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, will be phantoms (都是虚的, as one knowledgeable observer explained), and Xi Jinping’s achievements and experiences will become the overriding facts of Chinese politics.

More on this from Asia Times.

Another (quite detailed) research piece on Beijing’s attempts to extend overseas online influence through hiring Facebook and other ‘opinion leaders’.

Atlantic looks at how the world increasingly finds China annoying…

Where the word Beijing once conjured the image of a confident, rising power, today it represents a frowning, finger-pointing, never-erring crank, its constant stream of vitriol diminishing the effectiveness of Chinese anger.

And is becoming more accepting of Taiwan – the NYT reports on Europe…

…an unusual flurry of diplomatic activity suggests a subtle shift may be underway in Europe, driven in part by the region’s growing frustration over China’s aggressive posture.

And Mother Jones on how US Democrats and progressives struggle to get their heads around Taiwan.

Slate asks whether China really would try a military invasion of Taiwan. Mostly reasonable, despite the slightly odd remark: ‘The subjugation of Hong Kong has shown that China can dominate a small island power without resorting to military force’.

Bitter Winter reports on Chinese Buddhist monks being forced to watch CCP-approved movies.

Simon Rabinovich comparing China and Biden-era US infrastructure trends (some surprises).

And in case some people out there still haven’t realized that the CCP’s China has jumped the shark and its leader is making it up as he goes along – here’s an article for them.

Finally, a WW2 history vid: the true story of the Jewish commandos who inspired Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. Includes a few re-enacted scenes, which I normally don’t like – but they fit in fairly well here.