A raucous fanfare of barrel-bottoms being scraped heralds the announcement of Hong Kong’s new cabinet. The daunting task was to find 21 people unlikely to outshine the new Chief Executive in terms of charisma or other qualities. It seems they pulled it off!
Full line-up here (some cool English names: Horace, Algernon, Ingrid).
Carrie Lam’s stalwarts are out. The new Health Secretary is ‘falling and clutching his knee’ guy from 2015 – and a zero-Covid fan. The new Justice Secretary was ‘voted out as Bar chair’. The new Chief Secretary is yet another longtime Security Bureau guy (Immigration Dept) and was formerly chair of the local ‘Committee for Safeguarding National Security’, which reports to Beijing officials. The new Education Secretary is a Putonghua fan and former head of the patriotic teachers’ union (more on her and the new Tech-Innovation guy here). The new Commerce Secretary left the Cathay group to run Mainland-owned rival start-up Greater Bay Airlines (and is of Qing-era patriotic stock). Others have been plucked from LegCo (Alice Mak for the Home Affairs and Youth portfolio) and/or obscurity.
It’s not hard to suspect a broad common theme here: nationalism and chips on shoulders against pro-democrats, foreigners, the West, and colonial-era institutions. These people have been picked to carry out an ideological mission handed down from above. Note that the transport, housing, lands and works bureaus, which deal with key quality-of-life issues, are all going to bland technocrat civil servants – so those functions can just continue on auto-pilot. The only policies that matter are NatSec and ‘integration’.
Quite a few commentators desperately cling to the idea that the incoming John Lee administration will magic away the Covid restrictions. As it is, we see pubs’ business down 60%
Lan Kwai Fong landlord Allan Zeman is sorely vexed at the heavy-handed enforcement of new Covid rules in his nightlife district, including at ‘upscale’ establishment Carbone (Catbone? Dogbone? Ratbone?). As he points out, only a tiny proportion of Covid cases come from bars, so the new RAT test system for them (but not pure restaurants) is absurd. But did the fervent government loyalist expect to be immune from Hong Kong’s NatSec/Covid-era priorities and style of policing?
I am disappointed that not one single member of boyband Mirror has been selected for the new Administration.
Q: How can you tell plain clothes cops standing in MTR stations and near shopping malls and such, on the look-out for “kids in black T-shirts” (sorry! I meant “seditious terrorists”?)
A: They are the ones who stare intently at the crowd emerging from the turnstiles and exits. Normal Hong Kong people all stare at their smartphones.
Re Carbone: I have heard that the staff RAT connected fixed penalties were issued for the restaurant’s failure to properly record staff routine testing, not as claimed in Twitter.
I missread the Standard’s headline as “Leeds United loyal team” and had to do a double take. Mind you, the Peacocks’ first XI would no doubt inject a level of governance competence we’re unaccustomed to here in HK.
Al Demon hasn’t realised yet that he’s just a useful idiot – they don’t care about him, his profits, his business, his investments or what happens to him in the future. Once he’s served his purpose, well, he’s mere chattel too
@Load Toad: Not only is Semen not really that useful an idiot anymore, but if they must have a long nose, white toady, they want a more value added one along the lines of a Musk that can be forced to hand over IT, IP, AI etc to the cause of the great motherland (that can be applied militarily as well).
Semen’s just a rent collector whose main line of business doesn’t fit in with the China Dream or BRI.
@Load Toad @Chinese Netizen
There really is nothing more wonderful to see these toady’s get a proper kick in the teeth to start the week off
@Chinese Netizen,
The CCP do not view any person or group of people in Hong Kong as being indispensable to the achievement of their goals. None of the tycoons or old Hong Kong families matter a jot to them, either. The CCP will steamroll over them or anyone else at the drop of a hat without a backwards glance.
Very un-PC of me to say so, but if Alice Mak didn’t have such detestable political views, she could be quite an attractive woman – unlike most of the females on that side of the political divide.
Re Reactor – Why does the expression of ‘Lipstick on a pig’ come to mind?????
Hahaha! I love the video link. I think her room on the 2nd floor was only for her piles of cash.
Feel so sorry for Allan. Did he became a Chinese national for nothing now?
“Did he became a Chinese national for nothing now?”
He can go buy a more credible password from Nevis to compliment his HKSAR passport.
Coronavirus: hotel quarantine for top Hong Kong officials, advisers and lawmakers cut to 1 day ahead of July 1 celebrations
So, at an educated guess, no Mr Eleven…
@wmjp
and if Mr Eleven does show up, my educated guess is that he is quadruple Pfizer vaccinated! The one with Chinese Characteridtics…
@wmjp: Shit Jumping might not dare leave the power centre these days for fear of a coup whilst he’s out of town…
(wishful thinking)
So the Jumbo capsized in the West Philippines Sea, I saw. That has GOT to be an environmental nightmare of epic proportions!