Policy Address excitement

The forthcoming Policy Address will announce ‘a new office promoting Chinese culture … to enhance Hong Kong’s soft power and show the world the force of Chinese culture’. And behold a new facility to commemorate Hong Kong’s Role in the Communist Forces’ Defeat of Japan…

There are also plans to build a museum to commemorate the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941, which led to a Japanese occupation that lasted three years and eight months until Tokyo surrendered in August 1945.

Authorities put great emphasis on the battle and hope to educate people, especially youngsters, about its historical facts.

Hong Kong has no government-led museum designated for the battle. Historical materials are stored separately in the Museum of History in Tsim Sha Tsui, the Museum of Coastal Defence in Shau Kei Wan and the privately-funded Hong Kong Sha Tau Kok Anti-war Memorial Hall, which opened last September.

It is understood one proposal is to redevelop the Museum of Coastal Defence as a center.

…Beijing supports the SAR becoming an art and cultural exchange center while stressing Chinese culture, [Lau Siu-kai] said.

…He also said Hong Kong’s anti-Japanese war history is related to the mainland and authorities could also include mainland history, including the Mukden Incident, to enrich the museum’s content.

Looks like the Museum of Coastal Defence may get a more patriotic makeover. It is currently focused on the colonial era, with a nod to pre-19th Century times. Must-see exhibit: the near-steampunk Lei Yue Mun Brennan Torpedo station.

From HKFP, a quite vivid example of how the government’s prioritizing of revenues deliberately deprives Hong Kong of housing – in this case by leaving a plot of land at Yau Tong vacant for decades. (It will be interesting to see how long the Liber Research Community NGO can keep going.)

The SCMP solves the mystery of Hong Kong’s plummeting birthrate…

Hongkongers in England and Wales had almost 2,000 babies last year, a rising trend since Britain introduced a bespoke migration pathway for city residents.

Population expert Paul Yip Siu-fai said he regretted the loss of “fertile couples” and young families at a time when the number of births in Hong Kong had dropped to a record low.

…the number of births in the city nosedived from 52,900 in 2019 to 43,000 in 2020, 37,000 in 2021 and only 32,500 last year – a decline of almost 40 per cent over four years.

…Chiu said she also liked how people offered seats on public transport to those in need in the UK as that created a friendly atmosphere for pregnant women.

“Sometimes when you wear a coat, others will not notice you are pregnant. But in London, you can apply for a badge to show you are pregnant and everyone is willing to give up their seats to you,” she said.

Some other links from the weekend…

CMP explains China’s newly unveiled ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Culture’…

In the Party’s flagship People’s Daily newspaper, a front-page tribute on Wednesday deemed the phrase a “significant milestone” (里程碑意义), suggesting excitedly that the general secretary had “accurately grasped the trend of mutual ideological and cultural agitation worldwide.” What does all of this nonsense mean? Why is China building the rhetoric over culture and civilization to such dizzying heights?

If we avoid becoming distracted by the monumentality of the cathedral of language before us, and gaze past its gothic flourishes, the answer is deceptively simple. Xi Jinping’s obsession with culture is about the need to disguise basic questions of power and legitimacy behind the elaborate stonework of political discourse.

Plus all you need to know about the ‘nine adheres’. (Commenters at Sinocism debate whether ‘uphold’, ‘insist’ or ‘persist’ would be better translations for ‘adhere’.) 

An article in the Diplomat claims it is wrong to assume Beijing elites see the US in decline…

The political scientist Zheng Yongnian emphasized in 2022 that while “China has risen rapidly, the West has not fallen; it has just risen a little slower. Many people have not understood this point.”  Sun Zhe, the director of the Center for U.S.-China Relations and professor of International Relations at Tsinghua University, has similarly warned that “discussion underestimating the U.S. and thinking that the importance of the U.S. has declined has restricted China’s objective judgment of the U.S. and the healthy development of U.S.-China relations.” 

…Wu Guosheng, professor and chair of the Department of the History of Science at Tsinghua University … lamented what he sees as China’s “rigid, old-fashioned” teachers and a restrictive “scientific culture,” which he believes obstructs efforts to foster a culture of true innovation akin to that of the United States. 

Finally – how’s this Taiwan wedding photo for a load of garbage?