The WSJ reports on exiled activist Elmer Yuen and the authorities’ questioning of his family members, including pro-Beijing Eunice Yung. The paper talks to Yuen…
…He said he wouldn’t be deterred “even if they arrest my entire family.”
Which raises an interesting thought. What if you’re overseas and wanted by Hong Kong, and the authorities are raiding and questioning your locally based relatives – and you hate your family? Doesn’t this just give you a greater incentive to engage in subversive or whatever activities?
(Yuen is of course different in several ways from other dissidents – an older-generation, somewhat maverick figure who once owned Mainland-linked businesses that ran into legal and financial problems, and who now has plans for a Hong Kong parliament in exile. In a PBS interview, he considers the possibility that his family members in Hong Kong could be detailed for lengthy periods ‘like to two Michaels’ from Canada.)
Daughter-in-law Eunice meanwhile declares that the recent court rejection of the government’s attempted Glory to Hong Kong injunction shows that…
…some people “lacked basic understanding” of the importance of safeguarding national security, therefore the government should consider conducting “legal reform” and reviewing the implementation of the national security law.
Some more reading from the weekend…
The Daily Beast on China’s purge of top officials…
There may be “short-term cost to readiness and force development,” particularly with two new leaders without relevant background, noted Bruzzese. “This is also terrible for morale. If you’re a senior PLA [Rocket Force] officer, the fact that they’ve very publicly sent outside babysitters to look after your service because they don’t trust you has to be quite embarrassing.”
On the subject of top leadership’s lack of faith in the military, one analyst speculates that Beijing might seize Pratas/Dongsha Island (less than 200 miles southeast of Hong Kong). In, um, a couple of weeks’ time…
What can [Xi] do to get the US to stop the lethal training [of Taiwan forces]? He needs to create leverage. By ordering the PLA to take an island(s), he can make the cessation of US military training a pre-condition for negotiations. He also might try to use this leverage to reduce or stop future weapons sales and transfers.
It would presumably have the opposite effect. Not to mention play havoc with China’s broader foreign policy and the markets.
New Left Review on China’s economic woes (better than the same author’s Jacobin piece linked to a while ago)…
…The illusion of limitless high-speed growth thus ruled the day at the very moment when the economy entered its most serious crisis since the outset of the market reform era.
…Beijing has long known what must be done to alleviate this crisis. An obvious step would be to initiate redistributive reform to boost household income and hence household consumption … But the weight of vested interests … and the powerlessness of social groups who stand to benefit from such rebalancing policy … meant that reformism did not take root…
The party-state has been bracing itself for the social and political repercussions of this dire situation. In official policy speeches, ‘security’ has become the most frequently uttered word, eclipsing ‘economy’. The current leadership believes that it can survive an economic downturn by tightening its control over society, eradicating autonomous elite factions, and adopting a more assertive posture on the international stage amid rising geopolitical tension…
Teenage girls dressed as maids with pink hair – entertaining HKFP pictures of cosplay at Hong Kong’s annual anime fair.
The Diplomat reviews a new book on the ‘glory days’ (or some of the more recent ones) of Chinese indie rock. (Preview of book author Andrew Field’s documentary on the subject here.)
For fans of feisty op-eds – A Taiwan Times column…
Jeffrey Sachs has used Taiwan’s Tang Prize as a platform to lick the CCP’s boots and spread Kremlin propaganda.
The Tang Prize speech by Jeffrey Sachs was an enthusiastic love letter to the CCP, a masterclass in Kremlin propaganda, a 55-minute diatribe against the West, but worst of all, an insult to Taiwan, and its taxpayers, who funded the Tang Prize event. His press conference comments were not much better.
On different matters entirely – from something called N+1, a ‘symposium’ on the Barbie movie. Contains words/phrases ‘fascist’, ‘plunderphonics’, ‘XX chromosomal high’, ‘extradiegetic’, ‘transmasc’, and ‘engineering missiles for Raytheon’…
The core of the conflict between Barbie and Ken comes down to property ownership.
…The first thing that struck me about Barbieland was its incessant dryness. No water springs from Barbie’s showers or sinks, no milk flows from her carton. This state of unwetness reflects the chaste relations between Barbies and Kens…
Something tells me Barbie is going to join Sound of Music and Titanic as movies everyone except me has seen.
An article has appeared on The Economist’s website on the increase in dark mutterings about ‘soft resistance’ from government officials and local media. Worth a read: it’s pretty balanced, so a govt press release is likely to be a corker.
One interesting point from the article: ‘Chinese officials say grievances over Hong Kong’s acute shortage of affordable housing were a leading cause of the unrest in 2019.’ Surely a mistake: isn’t the correct narrative that it was all down to foreign lurkers?
I suppose it’ll take the likes of Eunice being jailed, deprived of all civil rights, maybe a soft beating here and there while in custody and the threat of never seeing daylight again to get them to finally stop parroting the party line, feigning outrage at the hurt feelings du jour and clamoring over the next patriot to prove that you’re more patriotic. It can always happen at the change of the wind with the CCP.
The positive takeaway from the fawning over of the CCP by Sachs in Taiwan, is that their democracy and freedoms allow it. Try doing the opposite in Hongkers or the mainland. I wonder if Sachs has to register as an agent of a foreign government in the US and Taiwan? Though I suppose having really stupid and asinine views and opinions does not an agent make.
Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. How dare you.
He’s done more deals with Peking than anyone – including wenches like Wendy.
As for China’s economic woes, there’s a big spike in very Western newspaper now for articles saying China is doing just fine. Which it is.
We used to have self-censorship, now we have self-dog-whistling.
I’m going to check on every car in the street. They could be Chinese and spying on me. The Daily Telegraph says so.
Hurrah!
Came across a vid recently that auto-captioned the speaker’s words – when the audio clearly mentioned an influential man with a lot of thoughts – as ‘seizing pain’.
Such stuff should be firewalled.
The cosplay photos are terrific. The NSL implications are unmentionable.
It’s quite the tad sad to see Hemlock’s commentariat diluted into a token camouflage white race hater, Chinese Netizen, and NTSCMP vintage pap, played for decades by Joe, unrelenting. When, oh well, will they move on with their lives?
Not much left, Hemmers? Bare bones.. once you relocate nobody will remember…
“It’s quite the tad sad to see Hemlock’s commentariat diluted into a token camouflage white race hater, ”
I have no idea what this means.
@Mark Bradley: Obviously a lonesome 2am single drinker. Quite Sad to see, indeed.