A telling tale of two cities: Singapore follows science and eases Covid travel restrictions and mask-wearing, while Hong Kong imports Mainland Chinese folk medicine ‘experts’. After consulting some oracle bones, I wonder whether public acclaim for the voodoo stuff is a patriotic face-saving quid-pro-quo for letting Hong Kong deviate from some of Beijing’s more pointless zero-Covid obsessions like compulsory mass-testing. These are quite charitable oracle bones.
Remember when Hong Kong used to laugh at Singapore?
So what are the chances that within one month we will get reports of people being rushed to hospital with liver problems after taking the Traditional Chinese Medicine?
For a hard-hitting account of how Mainland-imposed politics has cost Hongkongers’ lives, see this Bloomberg piece…
Hong Kong’s situation is the product of several specific policy failures, which stem partly from Beijing’s decision to take greater control of the financial hub after 2019’s pro-democracy protests.
More from Vice…
…more than its ferocity, this wave of outbreak has stood out for how preventable it was, experts say.
An HKFP interview with newly released/expelled Samuel Bickett.
Regina Ip is going full tankie these days – the US made Putin slaughter thousands of Ukrainian civilians because evil West something something.
An HKFP op-ed on China’s problem with winning trust.
“Remember when Hong Kong used to laugh at Singapore?”
Indeed. The sheer arrogance in HK over the never ending alleged competition over “who’s the best”. Looks like the game’s finally ended and the outcome is clear.
Hong Kong’s chickens have come home to roost.
Well would you believe it. My landlord rang up today:
“Reductio, how’s it going mate? Have you heard the news of late?”
https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3171749/hong-kong-holds-third-place-global-financial-centre
“I would like to share this good fortune with you. How’s a 50% rent reduction sound for the next few months? What with Chan sing sang’s vouchers you’ll be flush now! And we’re still higher than Singapore! It’s all good. Enjoy!”
So, not all gloom and doom, fellas.
I still can’t get my head around pro-China supporters of Russia who insist that Ukraine “deserves it” for all the help the US gave it for being a democracy.
I keep reading these claims. I still don’t understand how a country of people ruled by a government that allegedly “wants world peace and stability” are completely okay with the slaughter of innocent people, including infants.
Unless… no…
What’s that?
Unless…. maybe they really do not want peace. Maybe they are mired in their own subconscious self-hatred to the point that the rest of the world is due intense suffering to pay them back for all of the burden they’ve heaped upon themselves for supporting a blatantly uncaring, unfeeling, miserly and wretched dictatorship?
Maybe that’s easier than trying to overthrow their own totalitarian regime?
@donkey: Yes…for the CCP the embers from the Opium Wars and a “Century of Humiliation” are still smoldering.
Sans “Great Leap Forward” and “Cultural Revolution” of course.
@donkey
CCP China wants to unite Taiwan – a common discussion with Chinese about this will go…
‘We will unite with Taiwan we will make a stronger China with a better future, they can move to China even and have more land!’
‘Maybe they are happy being Taiwanese in Taiwan?’
‘We will kill them and destroy Taiwan!’
– I’m not joking – that is the logic, that is the morality.
As a patriot Vagina Yip Yau Suck Yee should be happy to have Europe buy as much oil and gas from the US as possible. That will free up more Russian oil and gas for Chinese companies to buy at greatly discounted prices.
The chief executive added that Beijing’s interventions … showed the success of One Country, Two Systems: “How the Hong Kong Special Administration Region has tackled this fifth wave of Covid-19 is a perfect illustration of Hong Kong’s unique strengths.”
– HKFP, 21 March
A cruel fate
Has laid the weight
Of office on your tender frame.
By what you’ve done
The place you run
Is ‘Hong Kong’ only now in name.
Time and tide
Have swept aside
Old meanings, so that ‘more’ means ‘less’.
We ‘praise’ each day
The ‘humble’ way
You bear the burden of ‘success’.
The emotional response of mainlanders when it is noted that if Taiwan wished to rejoin the mainland they could simply vote to do so is similar to the rage of a drunkard being rebuffed repeatedly by the object of their desire, only amplified to the national level.
@Load Toad – the same logic as Russia’s: https://ourprivatebeach.blogspot.com/2022/03/blood-ties.html
@Chinese Netizen:
The agony of HK doesn’t make Singabore any less dull
So now we are to be fobbed off with ‘goodie bags’ while every second pop up shop is flogging masks and meds. Remember the previous handout of granny knicker masks?
Apart from the patriotic element, a lot of money is being spent on constructing the large Chinese Medicine Hospital in TKO so there is now an urgent need to ween folk off western meds to ensure that there is sufficient interest to make it a viable operation.
As if there is not enough waste being generated, thousands of homes are to have unwanted supplies in plastic bags foisted on them. Unfortunately not many are diligent enough to trek to one of the NGOs helping the homeless to drop off the unsolicited items.
There is urgent need that an opt out measure be provided on both enviro and prudent fiscal grounds.
What do you say we hold off on Singapore’s competent governance victory lap until the day they stop jailing and/or suing into bankruptcy even the mildest dissenters to the ruling business junta, and develop more progressive policies with regard to sexual minorities.
@Casira: No disagreement at all there. Sing is full of pretentious, often pretend toffs about as deep as a sidewalk puddle. But now they have bragging rights in the perennial Tiny Dick Measuring Contest.
Looking at the developments in Hong Kong since about 1995 one is not sure whether this is all part of a deliberate strategy or more likely opportunistic (re-)actions by the backward Marx-Leninists led by the ex cave dweller from Shaanxi: Fkucup Hong Kong completely, economically, politically, socially, plunder the piggy banks with all kinds of crazy schemes, paid to mainland companies and suppliers of course, and bring the whole city down
And the mahfan people who have not been jailed, would they please leave.
And then, after 20025 or so, the city will reemerge as the shining commie polished Pearl of the Orient, all and exclusively thanks to the great support of the CCP and the Central Government – still led by the cave dweller from Shaanxi. And everybody will have been properly reprogrammed with the XJP operating system, and happily live ever after. And Ragaina may even have another shot at the CE!
Dig, boys and girls!
Chinese medicine for the CHINA VIRUS, I guess.
Don’t be too hard on the SingaBorean ROBOTS. They are still running on LKY-001 software, and no update in sight – lah!
Singapore locked hundreds of thousands of migrant workers up in their dormitories for over a year as part of their Covid suppression measures. In any normal country this would be considered false imprisonment. Singapore is evil but not stupid whereas the HK government is both evil and stupid.
@casira,
I’d happily take ‘dull’ over this clusterfuck of destructive, incompetent shite (with Staunch Support)
The tons of unwanted TCM may be fodder for an imaginative protest gesture.
“So now we are to be fobbed off with ‘goodie bags’ while every second pop up shop is flogging masks and meds. Remember the previous handout of granny knicker masks?”
Mary – send them back via HK Post. Just feed the unwanted and unneeded items into your nearest post box.
@Penny – posted back the unsolicited knickers to Tamar with abundant stamps but was not confident that HK Post delivered to destination.
I wouldn’t have bothered with the stamps, Mary! Nor would I care whether HKG’s unsolicited goods are returned to source – up to HK Post to decide how to deal with them.