Know, understand and recognize our edges

The Hong Kong government sets up a ‘good stories’ task force to…

…[devise] narratives for the new situation, new potentials and new opportunities in Hong Kong under its new development stage. …the Task Force aims to allow friends and stakeholders in Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas regions to have a more comprehensive understanding of Hong Kong’s advantages and opportunities so that the city’s edges can be fully known, understood and recognised.

Interestingly, the new new new normalcy is all of the post-Covid variety rather than anything icky following the 2019 ‘social events’, ‘terrorist attacks’ or whatever it’s called now – but telling stories well is hard with the NatSec complex’s arrests and show-trials apparently becoming a permanent ongoing facet of Hong Kong’s image.

Along with an array of Bureau heads, the task force includes the usual property developers, other business types, government-friendly academics, token ethnics (with two Germans) – and media figures Li Ruigang of CMC and the SCMP’s Tammy Tam. Also, ‘partner organizations’. It sounds like a pretty unwieldy line-up, but this exercise is probably more about telling task force members what line to push at conferences rather than gathering their advice on how to spin contemporary Hong Kong. 

Prepare to be amazed. Or something.

On the subject of NatSec – HKFP’s monthly update on the crackdown. And eight more people were imprisoned for 11-45 months for being at a protest…

Now, in all, 892 #HongKongers have been sentenced to a total of 1,432 years in prison for political crimes. Hundreds of others have been sentenced to non-fixed terms in juvenile detention or remanded in custody pending completion of trial, for a total of 1,325 #PoliticalPrisoners

Fancy your skills at serious heavy-duty spin? Try helping Wang Huning craft Beijing’s replacement for ‘one country two systems’ as a Taiwan policy.