Meaningful retail space to bless community

The Sunbeam Theatre in North Point is famed for a gloriously garish foyer that delights passers-by and Cantonese opera performances that few under-70s find appealing. The site was on offer a few years back for HK$1.2 billion. Now prices have fallen to something more like just one ‘bil’ (been watching Succession), the Island Evangelical Community Church is buying it. Pastor Brett says the property…

will … provide fantastic opportunities to bless the community with meaningful retail space, some limited housing, and great space for ongoing ministry 24/7.

(I know a few members of this congregation. It is evangelical in the religious rather than political sense, but obviously well-heeled.)

‘How can we ask tourists to believe us when Hong Kong holds another major event?’ asks lawmaker Doreen Kwong after the government spends HK$16 million to attract the Inter Milan soccer team to play here, and mega-star Messi sits on the bench the whole game.

[Correction: Inter Miami. Never heard of them.]

Officials seek to reassure that the Article 23 NatSec Law will not infringe people’s rights…

The government is also looking into ways to delay or stop suspects from meeting their lawyers, as [Justice Secretary Paul] Lam said this is to prevent lawyers from being a channel of communication for suspects to continue their behavior to endanger national security.

“The principle of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is that we cannot unreasonably delay,” Lam said.

“We will balance defendants’ rights to consult a lawyer, but also prevent defendants from abusing this right.

…Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung said exaggerating legislative or district councillors’ performance to incite hatred might also breach the future Article 23 legislation.

“Whether or not a behavior breaches the law will depend on their intention and consequences,” Tang said.

“It is very reasonable to provide an opinion on people taking public office, but if they exaggerate things, only illustrate one side of the truth or even make up information and are intended to incite hatred, then he or she will breach the law.”

…Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said the enactment will be beneficial to “maintain a good business environment” in Hong Kong.

(So you can be arrested for ‘only illustrating one side of the truth’?)

Standard editorial notes…

In the blink of an eye, roughly a quarter of the public consultation period promised for the Article 23 legislation is gone.

From David Webb…

Thought on Sunday from an atheist: if Christians in HK pray to their God that NSL defendants are acquitted & freed, does that constitute requesting a foreign individual to interfere & endanger NatSec, thus a breach of NSL? Will God be at risk of conviction and punishment? 

What if the prayer is spoken in a church?  Does that constitute an NSL offence? Or will there be no case to answer because the Govt cannot prove that God exists, therefor no foreign force is involved?

Some links from the weekend, starting with two from the (paywalled) Economist…

On the Article 23 NatSec Law…

After a four-week public consultation, the new measure is expected to be swiftly passed by the city’s legislature, which is packed with Communist Party supporters. The statute will cover acts such as treason, insurrection and sabotage. The government says it will complement the one imposed by the central government. Some of the acts the new law will proscribe are distinct, such as espionage. Nevertheless, given that the existing law is so broad and ill-defined, it is difficult to conceive of an activity that would fall foul of the new law and not already be covered by the old one, says a barrister in the city.

And on the government’s plans to close the HK Heritage Museum…

[Aruist Kacey Wong] organised a petition calling on the government to keep the Heritage Museum as is and expected around 60 signatures. Some 700 Hong Kongers signed it; many are associated with the pro-democracy movement and so have left the city. He does not expect the government to take any notice of their anger. Hong Kongers living abroad will preserve the city’s culture, he says. But “if you’re staying in Hong Kong then you have to endure.”

The Spectator reviews The Political Thought of Xi Jinping by Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung…

Xi and the CCP are solipsistic in the vulgar rather than true philosophical sense. They are supremely self-centred in their belief that the external world should exist or conduct itself only in so far as it reflects the CCP’s reality.

…Tsang and Cheung have done the hard work for us by ‘munching rhinoceros sausage’, as the sinologist Simon Leys described reading CCP documents. They have read the corpus of Xi’s books and speeches and ‘swallowed bucketfuls of sawdust’ (Leys again). 

From China File, an interview with journalist Chun Hang Wong on why Xi Jinping is not a ‘second Mao’…

[Mao’s rival Party leader] Liu Shaoqi, who was the arch Party-builder. Liu really believed in internal discipline, internal propaganda, internal political education. Liu wanted to ensure the Leninist hierarchy of the Party remained strong. Mao, by contrast, mobilized normal people to destroy the Party from the outside. This is something Xi Jinping would never do. The Party is his one true vehicle of power, the one instrument he has for implementing his vision. Xi is only powerful if the Communist Party is powerful. Xi’s internal purges, the internal Party inquisitions, emphasis on discipline, that’s from Liu Shaoqi. Xi Jinping doesn’t proclaim that theme loudly in public, but you can tell from the way he does things. Mao wouldn’t have done it that way.

And from a week ago – Gavekal Dragonomics’ Dan Wang’s annual letter. Parts II and III are about young Chinese ‘running’ overseas and related matters. Long, but worth it…

2023 was a year of disappearing ministers, disappearing generals, disappearing entrepreneurs, disappearing economic data, and disappearing business for the firms that have counted on blistering economic growth.

No wonder that so many Chinese are now talking about rùn. Chinese youths have in recent years appropriated this word in its English meaning to express a desire to flee. For a while, rùn was a way to avoid the work culture of the big cities or the family expectations that are especially hard for Chinese women. Over the three years of zero-Covid, after the state enforced protracted lockdowns, rùn evolved to mean emigrating from China altogether.

…The Chinese who rùn to the American border are still a tiny set of the people who leave. Most emigrés are departing through legal means. People who can find a way to go to Europe or an Anglophone country would do so, but most are going, as best as I can tell, to three Asian countries. Those who have ambition and entrepreneurial energy are going to Singapore. Those who have money and means are going to Japan. And those who have none of these things — the slackers, the free spirits, kids who want to chill — are hanging out in Thailand.