Some mid-week links

Outgoing Chief Executive Carrie Lam warns of radicals and lone wolves lurking and plotting, and ‘very likely to use large-scale events or sensitive days to incite others to come out and do damaging things’. And the HK Police announce a counter-terrorism hotline, with cash rewards. July 1 is the Big Terrorism Freak-out day, apparently. (Will they ever find a convincing bomb-making plot?)

Samuel Bickett’s lawyers present ‘irrefutable evidence of his innocence one last time’ to the Court of Final Appeal (includes link to full filing).

Two European analysts on John Lee’s appointment to Hong Kong CE…

Compared to other names that were in the speculation as to potential followers of Carrie Lam, John Lee was the most light-weight and his nomination represents the decreased importance of the Chief Executive’s role. Beijing clearly wanted someone who follows its orders without feeling the need to balance between the untrustworthy Hong Kongers and the orders from Beijing.

A review of Revolution of Our Times. (If you are unsure of the potential legal risks of reading this piece, best refrain from looking at it.)

Once domesticated, now feral – Peng Chau’s semi-public chairs, and their ‘mysterious choreography’.

Kevin Carrico reviews Louisa Lim’s Indelible City.

Some interesting quotes in Andrew Batson’s blog on whether the CCP’s intolerance of opposing views and independent business empires is ‘unprecedented’.

George Magnus and other economists offer brief answers to the question: is China’s economic miracle over? (One, Nancy Qian, wins extra points for stating it wasn’t a miracle.)

HKFP op-ed on China’s Covid policies as a sign of governance weakness.

From ASPI, female ethnic Asian journalists and activists are being attacked by online dummy accounts presumably run by Beijing…

…These accounts attempt to attack their physical appearance, question their credibility and the quality of their work, often in response to specific content they’ve written or produced. These parts of the campaign are characterised by high levels of personal abuse including sexist, misogynistic and racist attacks that include messages such as ‘traitors don’t die well’ and ‘traitors often come to a bad end’. 

China blocks moves to protect emperor penguins in the Antarctic. (Oh please – don’t tell me the beasts’ private parts are in my anti-heaty pills…) 

From gas exports to arms sales to India – Beijing has Russia over a barrel

Xi shares Putin’s hostility to the West and NATO, but that doesn’t mean he will be offering unalloyed charity. 

Probably paywalled, but amusing Economist article on shortcomings of PRC spies – good at IP theft and harassing dissidents, but lousy at routine intel-gathering and analysis. Back 100 or so days ago…

…at the United Nations, Chinese diplomats squirmed as their government struggled to formulate a coherent position. China seemed surprised … at Ukrainian resistance to Russia and at Western support for Ukraine. In the days after the invasion, Chinese officials quizzed foreign counterparts about the situation on the ground. Before the war, a foreign diplomat in Beijing recalls Chinese interlocutors confessing that they had limited understanding of central and eastern Europe, but were fortunate to have the Russians to explain it for them.

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10 Responses to Some mid-week links

  1. FeiLo says:

    “Beijing recalls Chinese interlocutors confessing that they had limited understanding of central and eastern Europe, but were fortunate to have the Russians to explain it for them.”

    the triumph of 差不多 all over

  2. Kwun Tong Bypass says:

    Well, if you do not have any real enemies, then you have to create them. At least you must find some justification for all the new toys the police has got, and now shows them off on every possible occasion! And why we must start burning books, and be careful what movies we watch at home.

    By the way, I have now bought an old “wireless”, so that I can listen to Radio Free Asia should the terrorists shut down the Internet.

    The whole era reminds me of LKY and his preaching about the omnipresent threat to SingaBore from its neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia. To keep a couple of fighter jets, a couple of tanks, and all the boys for two years in the army for a non-effeminate national education.

    Obviously our ‘old dear leader’ was and is not intelligent enough to differentiate between hooliganism and terrorism, and I wonder if our ‘new dear leader’ – during his 35 years of honing his ‘governing skills’ in the service – has ever asked any police force in the dreaded West how they deal with the obligatory hooliganism on the fringes of almost any demonstration. Did they tell him that the only way to deal with this is to turn the whole country into a police state??

  3. Mark Bradley says:

    From yesterday’s comment:

    “Hamantha says:
    June 8, 2022 at 10:58 am
    Is the Secretary for Justice not sanctioned by the United States, if not the UK?

    Regardless, @Hemlock, this was an amazing bunch of links that will undoubtedly clog my open tabs for hours to come.”

    The spineless cowards in the UK have sanctioned nobody. It’s pathetic considering they have a Magnitsky Act and should have used it liberally on HK officials, including NSL judges.

    The best that they’ve done was made some modest concessions for BNO holders and even those didn’t go far enough. The spinelessness absolutely sickens me.

    I’m somewhat relieved that at least Russia is feeling the full force of sanctions, but Russia isn’t a superpower and falls far far short of China’s economic might.

  4. Stanley Lieber says:

    It’s comical to refer to Ms. Lam or Mr. Lee as “Hong Kong’s leader” when Hong Kong’s true leaders are in jail or in exile, and everyone knows it.

    It’s remarkable that these horses’ asses appear oblivious to the day of reckoning that inevitably will come for them.

  5. WolfLikeMe says:

    Our tleaders are 1,000 miles north, whether we like it or not.

  6. ccpwingnuts says:

    Memo on desk of Carrie Lam:

    Dear Sir, before you leave your position as CE of this fine city, do your best to make everyone resent you and China by demanding that the population be afraid of itself. We think that this will indeed ensure that people will not only hate you more, but deepen their love of their country, since you are doing your best to drive resentment at being called a terrorist when not a single one even has thought about doing so. This kind of chaffing and roughing up of the psyche will help us to deepen our desire to be the only government worth considering.

    Love,

    Peppemint Patty

  7. Just Following Orders says:

    @Mark Bradley … Perhaps the UK government doesn’t want to scare the likes of Carrie and the S of J away from the UK.

    Whilst I share much of your outrage at Perfidious Albion’s behaviour towards HK, I doubt very much that simple spinelessness dictates present action (or perceived inaction). There will be a game afoot.

  8. Mark Bradley says:

    “It’s remarkable that these horses’ asses appear oblivious to the day of reckoning that inevitably will come for them.”

    When do you think it will? I badly want this to happen. I seriously can’t stand these shit for brains muppets

  9. Chinese Netizen says:

    “When do you think it will? I badly want this to happen. I seriously can’t stand these shit for brains muppets”

    Even if the weak, befuddled UK government won’t do anything about these patriotic traitors to their own people (who at the same time maintain strong links to their investments in the west) all in the name of currying favor with the shoe polish heads in Beijing, I have confidence that the good old “grassroots” folks abroad will never let them forget and will, hopefully, make their lives in the west a living pain in the ass on a daily basis. Databases are already compiled.

  10. Mary Melville says:

    Strewth, now one cannot even have sex on the balcony. Given the nano size of most units on the market, by the time one cleared and moved the IKEA coffee table and pulled down the bed the moment of lust would have evaporated.
    And being Honkers you can always depend on some perv having nothing better to do with his time than to spy on his neighbours. Probably hoping for the just announced ‘Judas’ cash handout. After all sex is something only the ‘black clads’ engage in…….

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