WaPo op-ed lamenting the DC ‘improvements’…
One might wonder why the government doesn’t just scrap the District Councils altogether, or simply appoint all the members, instead of staging an elaborate pseudo-election. Hong Kong’s leaders, and the real rulers in Beijing, clearly want to maintain the fiction that citizens still enjoy some of the freedoms they were promised when China regained sovereignty over the territory in 1997. But it’s not an election, and it’s certainly not democratic. It’s a farce and should be called out as such.
No response yet. But a similar editorial in the WSJ prompted a touchy reaction from Chief Secretary KK Chan…
The all-patriotic Legislative Council gets slightly non-rubber-stamp for a moment, as several members from the FTU criticize the government. As well they might: the administration will hire no fewer than three directorate-grade officials to oversee something called the 2025 National Games – at salaries and other costs totalling nearly HK$4 million each (not counting a support staff of 40)…
…Under Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, Raistlin Lau, described [the] comments as “unacceptable”.
Other patriotic politicians get uppity over former minister Frank Chan’s likening of District Council members to easily-fired domestic helpers. It doesn’t help that they must undertake the thankless task of manning street booths promoting the new-look election-light DCs to an unenthusiastic public.
Cynics might wonder if the pro-establishment types were allowed/urged to speak out in order to make the ‘improved’ legislature look less toothless. But there’s a tradition of some relatively aware pro-Beijing figures resenting pressure to support unpopular policies – and the current government clearly struggles to be loveable.
Life in HK is getting back to normal: the Indian “fakirs” have returned. I saw one today in Great George Street in CWB. He had cornerned a white tourist woman and played his “guess a color” game. So he earned his $ 20- lunch money. He is lucky that the GestaPopo is too busy harassing school kids wearing black T-shirts.
The irony of Frank Chan’s ‘sack the amah’ saga that appears to have been overlooked is that he himself was effectively sacked from the government for failing to deliver on both transport and housing.
I feel certain today’s Hong Kong patriots filling the patriotically elected seats are prettier than the patriots of previous years?
Hurrah!
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oY639JVcHHw/XSiaod3YvcI/AAAAAAAAKZQ/tzEuyv4OoRA1m7k0DS5b1tl_NCoDRtWUwCLcBGAs/s1600/PatriotsLookalike.jpg
Sad, but not particularly surprised, to see that Transit Jam is the latest journalistic website to be hounded into closure.
The Cheif Executive’s claims that we have a free press are more laughable by the day.
According to the Guardian, former British PM Lizz Truss will soon visit Taiwan, presumably to do some shit stirring.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/09/liz-truss-to-visit-taiwan-and-give-speech-that-could-upset-uks-china-strategy
Although senior Mainland officials will likely adopt a full-strop mode response, I suspect that behind closed doors they’ll be chuckling their heads off, a bit like in the the old Cadbury’s Smash adverts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPoycMLEDC0&ab_channel=DJ3lectrical
The hounding of Transit Jam was probably at the behest of the concrete batching cabal.
https://transitjam.com/2023/01/21/bandit-plant-still-running/
Now they can continue to pollute our streets and air safe in the knowledge that there is no media around to remind folk that EPD has not taken action and that the plants are allowed to continue to operate even when permits are revoked.
Residents of Yau Tong and TKO will certainly see no support from the incoming appointed and “Yes Ma’am” DCs in any fight for their rights to a clean and healthy environment.
We know that things are getting lucky for HK again when the fakirs are back.