Hong Kong civil servants are attending study sessions on the spirit of Xi Jinping’s ‘important speech’…
[CE John] Lee said that President Xi’s speech was an important milestone of high significance and serves as crucial guidance on governance by the HKSAR Government in the coming five years. It is incumbent on the top echelon and civil servants of the HKSAR Government to grasp in full the core essence of President Xi’s important speech and build it into their own work.
… Various bureaux and departments will also conduct sessions on the President’s important speech for their staff so as to enable more colleagues from different ranks to grasp the core essence of President Xi’s important speech, build the spirit of the speech into their own work, and see to its manifestation in the policy objectives and initiatives under their respective purview.
Poor bastards.
Positive energy from the Standard: emigration boosts job opportunities for those left behind.
The government’s Covid experts are to ‘unite views to avoid confusion’. Why does this sound more like enforcing a line-to-take to promote unscientific policies rather than seeking ideas for improving the measures themselves?
Cue an anguished farewell message from the proprietor of a Disco Bay bar.
First they came for the Taiwanese mangoes… Macau orders daily Covid tests – for all Philippine citizens in the city…
“Our epidemiology research found they tend to have more gatherings, like meetings among friends,” Leong said. “It’s likely that they have more interactions within their own ethnicity, so we need to find out whether there are hidden sources of infections among them via frequent testing.”
Holmes Chan on Hong Kong’s Anglophone poets…
The massive citywide democracy protests three years ago — and Beijing’s subsequent crackdown — proved a watershed.
The movement included violence that some experts say left many quietly traumatised, while solidarity between protesters gave rise to outbursts of creativity.
I don’t think anyone has been jailed for poems. Yet.
What does Hong Kong have in common with North Korea, Afghanistan, Burma and other regimes? It’s on the US Do Not Travel advisory.
From Politico, activists in the US target the Smithsonian for its partnership/sponsorship deals with the Hong Kong government’s trade office…
And those D.C. efforts are just a warm-up for a nationwide drive to brand official Hong Kong tourism, business and cultural outreach as propaganda for a repressive regime. Those activists point to HKETO as the chief lobbyist against the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which stalled after passing the House in 2019.
Willy Lam on the economic challenges facing Xi Jinping…
Over the long term, whether Xi can extend his tenure matters less than the sustainability of the Chinese way of running the economy and the country.
China Media Project on the China Press Awards – sort of Pulitzers for glowing Xi Jinping coverage…
The “Award Goals” also specify that works should serve to “enhance the ‘Four Consciousnesses,’ firm up the ‘Four Confidences’ and achieve the ‘Two Protections.’”
No word on whether the SCMP is a contender.
Also, CMP examines how ‘global credibility still eludes’ the World Internet Conference, set up by Beijing as a quasi-international body to legitimize state censorship. Watch for international useful idiots joining up. (On a similar but more techie note, Oiwan Lam on Chinese authorities censoring documents on cloud-based co-editing platforms.)
In a move likely to anger… the Czech Republic hosts a Taiwanese legislative delegation.
Time on China’s mortgage boycotts.
And an entertaining US law professor on why you shouldn’t talk to the police. (Advice applies mainly in places with rule of law.)
“Core essense”? Think I last saw that phrase on a poster advertising skin whitener.
Reading the latest about Hong Kong, would people get arrested for wearing cable ties as wrist bracelets? Looks cool!
Gives you an idea?
Last night I dreamed that I was arrested in front of my house by a swarm of PTU randos. Because of something I had written.
The video with the law prof is fascinating, actually. And to think Supreme Court justices of the right are now threatening to do away with the Miranda rights of arrestees.
America’s slow slide towards totalitarianism has a stacked Catholic centric court to help lube things along.
Well, maybe I deserve jail for this execrable poem-
The Great Helmsman Jumping Xi-ty
Out to wreck Asia’s World City
We study his words
And eat all his turds
Tell me, do we deserve pity?
@Chinese Netizen – I think it’s more evangelicals than Catholics. America’s two Catholic presidents have been among the more progressive denizens of the Oval Office.
The curious thing about evangelicals is that they call themselves Christians, but seem to have read only the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation, and skipped over all the bits in between that actually lay out Christ’s teachings – you know, all that stuff about love, peace and forgiveness.
@ Low Profile
The engine of the culture wars in the US is manned (deliberate word choice) by a coalition of evangelical Protestants and conservative (as in Opus Dei is scared of these people) Catholics. Six of the Supreme Court justices are Catholic, with Coney Barrett as a member of an odd Gilead-style offshoot. Sotomayor is Catholic, but decidedly not in the self-flagellating mode. Gorsuch is Episcopalian these days (and in the US that boring-as-cardboard sect does have an eye-rolling evangelical wing) but was raised Catholic. In any case, the Republican Catholics are fanatics, and sing in close harmony with evangelicals.
@steve: Thanks. Well summarised.
@Low Profile: “…skipped over all the bits in between that actually lay out Christ’s teachings – you know, all that stuff about love, peace and forgiveness.” Yes, I’m reminded of that regularly whenever I see a post online or listen to a podcast by John Fugelsang, whom I’ve only discovered recently. And enjoy.
According to a June 2022 Gallup poll, 81% of U.S. adults believe in God.
A word of advice for the 19% minority: Adjust.
@Joe Blow — Was that the first time you dreamnt that? If so, was it because yesterday was the 1st anniversary of the arrest of the speech therapists for having produced those sheep and wolf children’s illustrated books — or reading of the government’s plans about computer data that sounds like cyber censorship is seriously on its way to being implemented here?
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/hongkong-cybersecurity-07212022125430.html#.YtogGkISkwU.twitter
Revealing evidence of foreign forces undermining Hong Kong’s national security is not needed, just as proof of coronavirus is not shown to require wearing of face masks: CY Leung SCMP
Pfft – evidence. What is it good for? Lies are perfectly satisfactory.
@Father Sean O: It’s not that people believe in “God”. Rather it’s weaponising “God” to advance one’s own political agenda. That is definitely NOT 81% and most “God” believers aren’t activist dickheads trying to make life miserable for others.
Religious “belief” is a form of insanity.
Once you grasp that, everything becomes clear.
@Sean O’Herlihy:
According to a 1422 Gallup poll, 81% of adults believe the earth is flat and sits at the centre of the universe.
A word of advice for Galileo and Copernicus: Adjust.
And anyway, which God?
@YTSL: I took part in the democracy protests in 2019 in an active way. Although I was not beaten up or pepper sprayed, I did have some harrowing experiences with the PTU. Ever since, I have recurring dreams of green clad riot police chasing me through the streets. I can’t even imagine how it must be for those kids that were beaten to pulp or had their arms broken; their trauma will never go away.
Trolling non-believers is probably going to cost me at least one Our Father and one Hail Mary when I confess my sins on Saturday, but it will have been worth it.
Mr O’Herlihy
The poll you cite tells you an awful lot about the good old U-S-A.
Are you of Roman Catholic tendencies, by any chance?
@Joe Blow — You are not alone. I’m sure you already know this, after having been out there protesting with millions of Hong Kongers, and probably on multiple occasions at that. But here’s letting you know that it was not an illusion that those who sought/seek democracy for Hong Kong were/are the majority.