Lai trial ‘a test for judicial independence’

More on Jimmy Lai, this time from Reuters…

Lai, 77, who founded the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious material. He faces a maximum life sentence.

The trial is widely seen as a test for judicial independence in the financial hub under national security laws that were imposed by China in 2020 in response to mass pro-democracy demonstrations.

…Lai’s lawyer Robert Pang, who began his final legal submission on Wednesday, said Lai had been defending and exercising basic rights.

…”It is not wrong to try to persuade the government to change its policy. Nor is it wrong not to love a particular administration or even the country, because … you can’t force someone to think in one way or another,” Pang added.

One of the judges, Esther Toh, said that this was not what the prosecution argued.

“It’s not wrong not to love the government, but if you do that by certain nefarious means, then it’s wrong,” Toh said. Pang also disputed the prosecution’s citing of 161 articles published by the Apple Daily between April 1, 2019 and June 24, 2021 as seditious, saying they were “insufficient to draw any inference” of a conspiracy.

The prosecution repeated its thing about how Lai ‘had done nothing to stop illegal activities’ of others. Trying to work out ‘not loving the government by certain nefarious means’.

More from Esther Toh here.

Not a huge fan of people’s malodorous, slobbering dogs rubbing their slimy noses against my nether regions, but even I could think of less unwieldy rules for pets than those proposed for the MTR, as HKFP reports…

…passengers may only bring their pets aboard on weekends and public holidays. Their pets must be placed inside a carrier, with no body parts of the cat or dog exposed.

There are also size restrictions on the carrier’s size – its combined dimensions cannot exceed 170 cm. Pet strollers or carriers with wheels are not permitted.

Pet owners must use designated doors when boarding and alighting the train, and must keep their pets at the rear of the compartment.

They will first need to purchase a monthly HK$99 carrying pass, which allows them to bring one pet on board at a time. Each passenger can only have one carrying pass.

And it only applies to the Light Rail system up in Tuen Mun-Yuen Long, not the ‘real’ MTR network. File under ‘Why bother?’

Surely, all they have to say is: ‘dogs must be in a suitable carrier within standard baggage size limits’. None of the other rules are necessary. (Separate doors?)

Some weekend reading…

Is Xi Jinping funny? You will have to read the Ramble Substack to find out. To keep you on tenterhooks, here’s a sample…

After some complaints from the Maldives about Chinese tourists not eating out at local restaurants enough, Xi Jinping snuck in this laugher: “Our citizens must model civilization while abroad. Don’t litter plastic water bottles and don’t destroy their coral reefs. Eat instant noodles less, eat local seafood more.”

For cartography geeks – an Asia Times item on a Korean map based on Yuan-era Chinese sources. The Koreans involved appear to have made their homeland look bigger. More interestingly, the author says it shows the Persian Gulf area, Africa and even Italy and Spain, which in theory would not have been known to the map-makers. Indeed, the outlines of Africa, Arabia and the Mediterranean are recognizable. But there is far less detail, a different ‘hand’ or style of draughtsmanship, the scale is obviously inconsistent, and Southeast Asia, India and Sri Lanka seem to be overlooked. 

My theory: it looks like someone doing quite an impressive map of the East Asia region added material copied from a chart from Middle Eastern sources (for example, Omani traders would have known the East African coast). The Yuan dynasty was of course Mongol, and the Mongols had contact with – indeed took over parts of – the Abbasid empire that included much of the Gulf, Middle East and North African region (and knew of ancient Greek and other texts). 

Hardcore fans of this sort of thing can see a larger version of the article here.

Nice article on the Filipino community in London, complete with a restaurant menu. I now have a hankering for adobo fried rice.