Integration in practice

The SCMP reports that Hong Kong might use Mainland construction standards for a future rail project…

A new arrangement for building a major rail link in Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis mega development can reduce costs by up to 40 per cent through leveraging mainland China’s lower wages and construction standards, lawmakers have said.

Well, so long as we’re just going to ‘leverage’ them, that’ll be fine.

…[Lawmaker Michael] Tien said he believed that authorities could reduce costs by 20 per cent from the HK$70 billion if they opted to use mainland construction standards, with a further 20 per cent savings achievable if they adopted cross-border wage practices.

…Authorities have also proposed adopting mainland standards and construction methods for the project, which would reduce costs.

Tien noted that the Hong Kong standards were “unrealistically high”, which would complicate the construction process.

“This would mean longer construction time and higher costs,” he said. “Hong Kong will need to change its standard eventually, as we cannot afford the current standard. First, it takes too long. Second, it is unnecessarily ultra safe.”

Industry leaders have previously told the Post that the city could adopt mainland standards for construction materials, rather than use European benchmarks, to help reduce building costs that are the highest in Asia.

Tien also said he believed that the new arrangement on the construction of the railway would meet the demand of Xia, the director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, to speed up the development of the Northern Metropolis, as the project would be completed sooner than originally planned.

Three types of integration going on here. First is the perceived need to speed up a project to please a senior Beijing official. Nothing wrong with trying to meet deadlines, but…

Second is the potential to cut costs by using Mainland standards. I’m not an expert in construction methods. Maybe current ones are ‘unnecessarily ultra safe’. (This could be applied to all sorts of things, like medical practitioners’ qualifications, water quality, pollution controls, food safety, etc.)

Third is the adoption of ‘cross-border wage practices’, which presumably means paying significantly lower Mainland wages. No-one talks about this much, but if Hong Kong landlords have to accept that restaurants need lower rents to remain competitive with Shenzhen outlets, it follows that workers’ pay might need to come down as well. What else can integration mean?

From HKFP – the government plans to make it illegal to use someone else’s SIM card…

Selling or buying, leasing or renting, lending or borrowing, and supplying or acquiring a SIM card already registered with someone’s personal information will also be illegal.

The authorities are also seeking to criminalise possession of a SIM card with another person’s information, unless done with reasonable cause or excuse.

Someone who possesses 10 or more SIM cards registered with another person’s information will be presumed to have the intent to use those cards to “commit a crime or facilitate the commission of a crime.”

And to think that just a few years ago you didn’t even need to register any personal details.

Bloomberg reports that the HK Jockey Club is selling US$1 billion worth of Blackstone and other private equity funds. (When a Bloomberg article says ‘$’, it means ‘US$’, right?) Many sovereign and private investors have been ditching US holdings in order to reduce exposure to Donald Trump’s whacko trade and economic policies. But why is the Jockey Club sitting on such huge wealth in the first place? It has a monopoly of legal betting in Hong Kong and could be seen as an extension of Hong Kong’s own sovereign wealth fund-type reserves. But in return for the monopoly, it is supposed to subsidize welfare expenditure.

Maybe it can’t find enough good causes to finance. Single parents have no problems feeding and clothing their kids. Elderly poor people’s teeth are fine. The homeless love the fresh air.

The Guardian on Hong Kong’s ever-so-reluctant recognition of gay marriage…

“Any protection is better than none. But the proposal, as it stands, falls well short of providing the full and equal recognition that all couples and families deserve,” [advocacy group Hong Kong Marriage Equality] said, and raised specific concern over the “unfair” requirement that eligible couples must be registered in another country.

“We’d be in this peculiar situation where in order to enjoy a right we’d need to go through this extra step of having a relationship recognised overseas first, which is contingent on the sovereignty of another nation,” the group’s co-founder Jerome Yau told the Guardian.

…Nevertheless the legislator Holden Chow told a committee discussion on Thursday that while his pro-Beijing DAB party opposed discrimination, they felt the proposed system threatened Hong Kong’s traditional family values, RTHK reported.

“Textbooks would then need to teach the next generation that Hong Kong allows the registration of same-sex marriages,” Chow said.

The pro-Beijing legislator Priscilla Leung called it a “dark day” for traditional values, and warned against Hong Kong following “the so-called LGBTQ trend” of other countries, calling on the government to ask to courts for a deadline extension.

Holden Chow still around? Jeez.

Following the adoption of Mainland standards for legislative bodies, is it ‘unnecessarily ultra safe’ to use the phrase ‘pro-Beijing’ when describing Hong Kong lawmakers?

Today’s guest star (here if you missed it) is a rapper. Ultra unusual, but the God of Henan’s Factory video is outstanding. More info.