According to the official narrative, with no more dastardly pan-dems in LegCo mysteriously forcing the government to push housing prices up, Hong Kong can now finally enjoy better governance. It should be interesting to see how the all-patriots system delivers new improved policies in the coming year or so. For example…
The latest batch of subsidized homes for sale include units as small as 186 sq ft – or 1.5 car parking spaces. Hong Kong can have affordable, decent-sized homes any time the government allows land to be used for residential housing rather than for revenue-raising. Don’t hold your breath.
In an (apparent) state of panic after the death of a pedestrian when an illegally parked car rolled into her, the ever-more malignant Transport Department (apparently) deletes online material about (apparently) previously abandoned pedestrianization plans. Transit Jam reported the deletion earlier; the damning timing is new (apparently). Key words: ‘agitated’ and ‘prickled by criticism’.
(More transport-related misgovernance here – drivers use cycleways to park cars.)
And an artist goes undercover to reveal conditions for outsourced cleaners on minimum wage at the MTR. Maybe labour activists should step in – except they’re in jail and their unions have been closed down.
So much scope for ‘better governance’. More likely, ongoing NatSec horrors (jailings under fake-news laws, extra brainwashing for kindergartens, etc) will distract everyone’s attention from continued failures in basic quality-of-life and livelihood issues.
Some mid-week links…
From SCMP, an interesting – not to say telling – breakdown of the collapse in voter turnout in individual polling stations…
Chi Fu Fa Yuen polling station in Pok Fu Lam recorded a decline of 43 percentage points, down from 2016’s 70 per cent to 27 per cent…
[At] Tai Koo Shing Post Office, only 1,049 voters cast their ballots on Sunday, down by 69 per cent from 2016’s 3,333.
…turnout at the polling station in Lai Chi Kok Community Hall, which covers four major middle-class residences including Liberte and the Pacifica, also dropped from 66 per cent to 28 per cent, marking a decline of 38 percentage points.
A nice succinct thread by Michael Pettis on China’s overvalued housing…
…the price of real estate in China is probably 2-3 times higher than what can be economically justified, which implies that there is RMB 200-230 trillion of fictitious wealth collateralizing loans and propping up spending.
Business Insider on how the latest in the Peng Shui saga follows Beijing’s celebrity-disappearance playbook.
Linking to Teen Vogue is no biggy, but how about Sports Illustrated? Why did the WTA risk everything for Peng Shuai?
More on sport: for at least ten thousand years, humans have crafted footwear to make their lives better. A Hongkonger decides they were wrong.
CMP on Beijing’s new restrictions on online vids…
There is no room for latitude or a sense of humor in the CNSA rules.
Amazon deletes reviews of Xi Jinping’s fab book.
George Magnus on the disappearance of Chinese companies from the global top 10 market-cap chart.
For nostalgia buffs, a glowing documentary (in Mandarin) on the prosperous modern ‘high-tech’ Republic of China in the mid-70s, at the height of Taiwan’s grimy, polluted sweatshop-era glory. (Basically about infrastructure and industry – no food or people. Aviation fans can jump to 23.10.)
Referring to that Audi SUV parked uphill, unblocked on a slick, rain soaked road on the Transitjam website: Blocking your wheels when parking, especially in a very hilly city, is the law in a place like San Francisco and they’ll happily fine you for not doing so. Not sure what the regs are in HK but apparently there must be different driving schools for those that own the vehicles and those that drive for them?
An additional midweek link, if I may, on the possible future for HK kids, the PLA and living under the CCP?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/world/europe/russia-military-putin-kremlin.html
Beijing has chosen all the Chief Executives. They have all been failures ushering in protests on a massive scale or ended up in prison.
If Hongkongers had been allowed to freely nominate and vote for their CE, then when they had screwed up, we would only have had ourselves to blame. They might have been an idiot but they would have been our idiot.
Now fortunately, in the patriots only Legco, we know who to blame for any future misgovernance.
Sheer vindictiveness:
Four of the defendants, however, were found guilty of violating the anti-mask law, while Lee earlier pleaded guilty to this charge.
The five were remanded in custody before sentencing on January 11 next year.
The judge made clear that he was considering a custodial sentence for So, Tse and Chan. The other two were minors at the time of the offence.
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1625501-20211222.htm?spTabChangeable=0
The Council of the University of Hong Kong (HKU Council) made a decision at its meeting on December 22 (Wednesday) to remove a statue, widely known as the Pillar of Shame, from campus. The decision on the aged statue was based on external legal advice and risk assessment for the best interest of the University.
No party has ever obtained any approval from the University to display the statue on campus, and the University has the right to take appropriate actions to handle it at any time. The University is also very concerned about the potential safety issues resulting from the fragile statue. Latest legal advice given to the University cautioned that the continued display of the statue would pose legal risks to the University based on the Crimes Ordinance enacted under the Hong Kong colonial government.
The HKU Council has requested that the statue be put in storage, and that the University should continue to seek legal advice on any appropriate follow up action.
Communications and Public Affairs Office