Today’s headlines: journalist Allan Au arrested (translation of journalism students’ statement), pro-democracy local brand Chickeeduck to close, Yeung Sum out of prison. Also a rumour that another veteran journalist has had his passport seized. There are no passenger flights today into Hong Kong from the Americas, Europe, Australasia, the Middle East or Africa. That leaves Asia and Antarctica.
Writing in China Daily, often-candid academic and think-tanker Lau Siu-kai perhaps unwittingly conveys the extent of Beijing’s paranoia about Hong Kong and the world in general…
…the new CE must be able to unite, strengthen and empower the patriots so that the patriotic camp can function as a cohesive combative army in support of the HKSAR government and against the offensives of the internal and external hostile forces.
Doesn’t sound much like Asia’s world city/international business hub.
Reading between the lines (a bit), Lau indicates that Beijing has picked John Lee as someone who will obey its directives without being distracted by outdated policies, tycoons, foreigners, and similar Administrative Officer foibles. Priorities are National Security, then integration with China, and – if there’s any time left – maybe sorting out those ‘deep-rooted’ housing and social problems.
Note the repeated references to ‘Eurasia’ – presumably a Sino-Russian anti-Western sphere Beijing’s visionary foreign-affairs fantasists expect to see forming. And take a very deep breath before embarking on the exhaustive, tortuous final sentence.
If you haven’t seen it – Parts 1 and 2 of the video One Way, about the Chow family’s relocation from Hong Kong to grimy-looking Crewe, England. They look like the sort of people who rush to do something largely because others are doing it. Nonetheless, they are adapting, and their kid is enjoying a less high-pressure school life. Story here (includes links to YouTube).
I saw a report that some emigre Hongkongers are shocked to find that harsh discipline of kids is frowned on in the UK, so they are resorting to threats to go back to Hong Kong’s schools and housing to keep the little ones in check.
If you will allow me a bit of musing this morning:
1. If you know anything about the Global South movement, it wouldn’t surprise me at all that at the very top of China’s political food chain is a semi-fascist, hybridized kind of Leninism that wishes to align all of the “non-aligned” countries of the world (read: India; Bolivia; Cambodia; Myanmar, etc.) with China and Fascist Europe to finally get that pesky democratic spirit out of the world altogether.
2. I bring this up again, because I don’t even know where to look for it, but is Xi just anti-capitalist now? Is he grouping the same capitalism that he urged China to represent with Chinese characteristics now with decadence and selfishness that keeps the poor people of the world poorer? In so doing, is he really now embarking on the scaling of a militant campaign to rid China of finance, tech and all sorts of world innovation as long as it smacks anything like decadence and the West? Is he doing a Hun Sen on us? Brother Number One is going to eradicate China of all Western poison? If he does, is he forgetting history?
3. It’s quite odd that there seems to be ZERO sensitivity to how this makes the rest of the world perceive places like Hong Kong. At some point, it became clear it wasn’t about health that Hong Kong would be removed from the rest of the world and money-making businesses be punished for simply existing and doing what they do: carrying people from place to place; feeding people; eradicating loneliness; uniting people… wait a minute….
It does seem more and more to look like Xi is afraid of something. Something, almost Putin-like has snapped or clicked for him. The real danger of the world is that things that might otherwise be Chinese might have the genetics of the West in them. Remember when the first waves of covid were happening and Carrie Lam kept talking about mainly Westerners out drinking being the root cause?
Then remember it was Cathay’s fault for causing the fifth wave, even though scientifically this was not true.
This seems a bit scary to me. Am I alone in thinking that there’s a strange and undignified paranoia creeping into things almost to the point that things that otherwise would be just normal things are now targets that need to be eradicated forever? What happens to Hong Kong in that case? I don’t think it will be a good thing at all. IT will go on well past Covid, if this is what I think it is.
How ironic would it be that we would come full circle in China to holding up red books and all dressing the same? I honestly don’t think it’s impossible.
@donkey
Not only not impossible, but increasingly inevitable.
@donkey
Your #2 paragraph describes pretty well what has been happening for some time now. Mr. Xi is deliberately and systematically dismantling all of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. The gear box in Mr. Xi’s time machine has only one setting and it is labelled “Reverse”.
“How ironic would it be that we would come full circle in China to holding up red books and all dressing the same? I honestly don’t think it’s impossible.”
With a complete imbecile like Shit Jumping at the helm, it’s definitely quite possible
@donkey
Check out this article on Document number nine from the Third Plenum of the Eighteenth Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2013:
https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation
Has there been any change in the CCP’s direction on such matter since the date of this meeting in 2013? I am guessing not.
inevitable +1. I’ve been convinced of it since the common prosperity crackdown moved beyond new media companies to encompass education companies.
Donkey: “Am I alone in thinking that there’s a strange and undignified paranoia creeping into things almost to the point that things that otherwise would be just normal things are now targets that need to be eradicated forever?”
No, you’re not. Also, while I used to think that Xi/Beijing was intent on punishing Hong Kong, I look at what’s been happening in Shanghai and think that there seems to be a genuine paranoia/fear on his/their part re their — versus actual national — security.
Eurasia was one one of the continuously warring interchangeable states in 1984 so clearer to their reality than the CCP
Foreign Ministry may realise
The Americans have Ted Cruz as one of the most punchable faces in the nation…I’m already thinking this John Lee is HK’s edition with that perpetual hang dog look with fake concerned (or supremely smug depending on how you read it) eye brows. Nauseating.
I doubt Xi’s going to drag the country back to nationalised industries and collective farming but he’s made it clear that he tolerates capitalists only as long as they remain subservient to the Party and his ideas of the state interest. These have taken on a creepy puritanical vibe, what with his banning effeminate pop stars and children playing videogames on weekdays.
His concept of “common prosperity” notably shuns any notion of a social welfare state; it seems to involve bashing the rich who get too big for their boots or offend his sensibilities but the poor appear expected to put their noses to the grindstone for the greater glory of the nation.
It all sounds pretty fashy to me.
Donkey – Don’t over think the situation. It is all about the Emperor remaining in power. Nothing more, nothing less.
What is this “public consensus” of which Lau Siu-kai speaks? Or are 70% of Hongkongers no longer counted among the public?
While we’re on the topic of dystopian novels, I’d imagine that they’re working doubletime up north to lace the water supply with soma ala ‘The Fat Years’ at this point so that everyone will realise that they love Shit Jumping and his lockdowns
@penny
I took a cursory look at that document, and I found the second point, here, quite illuminating. The penny dropped, so to speak.
“[The people who espouse universal values] believe Western freedom, democracy, and human rights are universal and eternal. This is evident in their distortion of the Party’s own promotion of democracy, freedom, equality, justice, rule of law,”
And it goes on and on.
This reminds me of how other “revolutionary” governments or movements used Marxist thought to combat the miscreant aims of Rousseau. This is all ideological cover for a hatred of / fear of Rousseau’s portrayal of the people’s will. The Chinese fear western democratic ideas have gotten into the water and that will make the Chinese populace go mad, and if that happens, the target is on the CCP leadership’s back. They must NOT learn that these inalienable rights are self-possessed. IF they do, then they will have demands. This is not “democracy” but chaos and mob rule. I think we have always known this was the undercurrent of Chinese capitalism.
We can go back in time, even a decade before this and see this awakening. But what is peculiar to this is the similarities to the Russian reaction about Ukraine. If you read the comments from Boris on the street, they have learned to think that Ukraine has been poisoned, taken over and all Russian allegiances and familial ties have been stained by a refusal to accept Russia.
Notice how in both states, China and Russia, the thinking is an overreaction, not an address of issues or a discussion.
This is the thing that I don’t understand. I would guess that you have to really narrow down the thinking subjectivities and ability to analyse for years, but is the overreaction the goal, or is it simply the result? Is it like they say in other histories that revolutions sort of taken on a mind of their own and they just turn into juggernauts that keep building momentum and they finally give way and get away from their leaders? I think that’s what is happening in Russia and China, and for Russia, the way to handle it is to find an Other and attack it, destroy it, punish it.
What will China do? They seem to be rolling, not walking, or marching, down the same narrow ravine.