Samuel Bickett’s NY Post piece (here) on conditions in Hong Kong prison’s doesn’t go down well with the city’s Corrections boss, who says it is ‘completely false, baseless and malicious defamation’…
In his letter, Wong [Kwok-hing] stated the department is committed to ensuring a safe, humane and healthy custodial environment while providing appropriate rehabilitation programs to help offenders reform. He said allegations of widespread abuse, medical negligence or poor living conditions in correctional institutions were entirely unfounded.
Wong emphasized that Hong Kong has no so-called “political prisoners” and all persons in custody are treated equally without discrimination based on background, political views or nature of offenses. The department strictly adheres to fairness and professionalism in all operations, with any illegal acts by persons in custody or staff dealt with seriously and referred to law enforcement agencies for investigation.
…Wong explained that in recent years, some radical offenders convicted of serious crimes have entered correctional institutions, many influenced by extremist ideologies or misconceptions. To address their rehabilitation needs, the department launched the “PATH” program to help persons in custody understand Chinese history and culture, develop national identity, rebuild positive values and restart their lives. All persons in custody may participate voluntarily, and the department condemns any demonization of rehabilitation programs as “indoctrination.”
No angry government press release about the Committee for Freedom in HK Foundation report itself. But there is one on the European Commission’s ‘so-called’ annual report on Hong Kong, which apparently disputes every point in detail…
“As regards the interim injunction relating to a song granted by the Court of Appeal, the HKSAR Government reiterates that the interim injunction covers four types of specified criminal acts in relation to the concerned song. The injunction pursues the legitimate aim of safeguarding national security and is necessary, reasonable, legitimate, proportionate and consistent with the requirements of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights. Internationally, many jurisdictions also have legal mechanisms in place to prohibit the dissemination of information that is illegal, offensive, incites violence, incites hatred or harms the public interest. For example, the EU’s Digital Services Act stipulates that upon the receipt of an order to act against a specific item(s) of illegal content, providers of intermediary services shall inform the authority of any effect given to the order without undue delay ; it also requires providers of hosting services to put mechanisms in place to combat illegal contents and respond to notices received in a timely manner, including removing and disabling access to the relevant content. The unreasonable criticisms made by the EU against the legitimate legal actions taken by the HKSAR Government shows clearly the double standards held.
An SCMP op-ed complains that the West deliberately ignores the Nanjing massacre…
[The reason] Chinese scholar Dai Jinhua has observed, lies in Western discourse itself.
To Western scholars, the Nanking massacre was just “not technically sophisticated”, she said. “It’s not special, not surprising, not worth writing about, while Auschwitz represents that kind of efficiency, order, modern technology that is truly terrifying. And Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where a single bomb destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives – that’s worth writing about.”
Every country focuses on its own World War II experiences. So, where Europe is concerned, the UK and US focus on D Day as the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler, while overlooking the fact that 90% of the soldiers killed fighting the Germans were Soviets on the Eastern front. Similarly, people in Manila, Singapore, Borneo and Burma no doubt remember the Japanese massacres of civilians in those places, which many of us probably know little about. When did we last hear Chinese academics or politicians mention those Nanjing-type slaughters in Southeast Asia? If you don’t hear Southeast Asians mention them that much, it’s probably because they do not use those atrocities to stir up hatred of present-day Japan.
A Brookings Institute essay on Beijing’s World War II narrative…
Russia uses a generous interpretation of the Soviet role in defeating fascism to bolster the assertion that it is entitled to a say in NATO and European Union expansion.
…The PRC has jumped onto this “memory war” wagon with its increasing attention to the commemoration of the victory over Japan that occurred not merely in the Pacific Theater but also in the land war fought in China proper.
…The implications of … reinterpretations [of diplomatic history] are far-reaching. Recentering Cairo and Potsdam as legitimate international agreements bolsters the PRC’s justification for its sovereign control of Taiwan [and] a springboard for broader discussion in China of “international order.”
Modern-day officially sanctioned Chinese ‘discourse’ sidesteps the fact that the PRC did not even exist during World War II, and that China’s military effort was largely marshalled by the KMT-run ROC. And (as with the USSR and the UK), the ROC depended on one key contribution that probably did more than anything else to defeat Germany and Japan: the USA’s astounding industrial mobilization, which produced, among much else, 300,000 aircraft in a roughly three-year period.
It was the CCP wot won it.
The Yanks just did the mopping up after us.
They were lucky we Chinese invented the A-bomb.
And air conditioning, too.
“ the USA’s astounding industrial mobilization, which produced, among much else, 300,000 aircraft in a roughly three-year period. ”
I hope US is still actually capable of doing that, particularly being able to pump out drones as fast as PRC can.
While there are a lot of question marks on China’s military capabilities, I think it is likely extremely capable of industrial mobilisation and can pump out enough drones to blot out the sky.
I’ve always wondered about how Donald Tsang was treated during his stay in prison.
Sure, he would have probably been segregated for certain things from the rest of the population, but was he in a standard cell?
Did he have exactly the same facilities, food, access to information and visitors as everyone else?
Or as a former CE did he recieve slightly different treatement?
I never heard any discussion of this, but I find it hard to imagine that he was in with everyone else.
Well, they sure helped Bickett “understand Chinese history and culture, develop national identity, rebuild positive values and restart their lives.”
@Paul Lewis
I think he spent a significant part of his incarceration in a hospital bed.
@Mark Bradley
I fear you’re right.
The U.S. was woefully under-prepared for war when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. In the fullness of time and only at great cost in blood and treasure, the U.S. and its allies defeated the Axis powers and liberated hundreds of millions of people from the fascist yoke.
It is entirely foreseeable that, in a conflict with the Axis of Assholes, the U.S. and its allies would again emerge victorious, but likewise it would undoubtedly come at a very high cost.
A key variable that is often overlooked and under-reported is what new technologies are being developed by the hundreds of billions of dollars in secret military expenditures in the U.S. defence budget each year.
It is worth reflecting upon the fact that stealth technology and highly accurate laser-guided munitions were a breathtaking when they were revealed to the world during the Gulf War in 1991. It woke up the world to how far advanced the U.S. was compared to its military adversaries.
One hopes that 35 years later, the Pentagon again has a few new game-changing tricks up its sleeve in the event of another conflict that threatens the post-World War II order and Western civilisation.
If, instead, it is Communist China that has the dominant game-changing tricks up its sleeve, then another very dark period for the world will undoubtedly ensue.
“One hopes that 35 years later, the Pentagon again has a few new game-changing tricks up its sleeve in the event of another conflict that threatens the post-World War II order and Western civilisation.”
Yeah…the Pentagon does have a new game – or name – changing trick. The “Department of Defense” has been renamed a more macho “Department of War” by a draft dodging chickenshit. Surely this new, more “alpha” naming will strike fear into the hearts of anyone thinking to bring harm to Murika. Especially civilians in boats off the shore of Venezuela.
Perhaps in her new self-appointed role of Saviour of Unmentioned Atrocities in Chinese History, Audrey Jiajia Li can muster her cohort of academics* to dive deeply into why the CCP, the PLA and PRC historians have deliberately ignored the Siege of Changchun.
You know — the one where the PLA killed between 150,000 and 330,000 Chinese civilians, just ten years after the Nanjing massacre. You know — when the PLA started fighting for real, after the Japanese had surrendered to the US and it was safe.
I doubt Audrey or her ‘history-adjacent’ scholars have heard of it. This may be because thus far the first and only book published in China that mentioned it — “White snow, Red Blood” (1989) sold 100,000 copies before it’s author, Colonel Zhang Zhenglong, was arrested in 1990 and the book was banned. Although, given her academic sources, I suspect it’s most likely they’ve never heard of it because — for some reason — the CCP hasn’t made a big jingoistic blockbuster movie about it.
Perhaps to Mainland scholars, the Siege of Changchun where the PLA killed between 150,000 and 330,000 Chinese civilians was just “not technically sophisticated. It’s not special, not surprising, not worth writing about.”
Yet, strangely a book reminding everyone how the PLA had killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians in 1948, just after the the PLA had killed thousands of Chinese civilians in 1989 was very much worth banning and arresting the writer over.
I wonder how that all squares with her erudite TS Eliot quote conclusion: “A people without history is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern of timeless moments.”
Perhaps a more useful quote on the state of Chinese modern history would be from Orwell’s 1984:
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
*(I love how she omits that “Chinese scholar” Dai Jinhua is not a historian but a professor of popular culture, film and gender studies at the Institute of Comparative Literature and Culture in Beida. Is this also “not special, not surprising, not worth writing about”?)
@Steve another very dark period for the world will undoubtedly ensue (again) due to fascist ideology run amok. to a student of history, the surprise is that it’s emanating from the former cradle of western capitalist democracy this time
A sky blotted out by drones sounds horrendous but in reality it is an expensive, inefficient and unsustainable form of warfare. It’s not like a drone swarm making a pretty, pretty entertainment show piece (and we’ve already seen how easily they can go wrong). First, the attrition rate is going to be very high, not just from defender’s actions but also attempting to recover the vehicles after an attack. The loss rate from inadvertent collisions will be high and even if they are regarded as dispensable, the replacement cost will be high in terms both of money and capacity. WW2 flak was not particularly successful against bomber raids but in a drone swarm with the right ammunition it will be effective.
Second, a military drone is basically a hunter. It has to look for targets of opportunity and get permission to engage – and that means a human has to be there as a controller. Where does the manpower come from? Sure, you can quote the US carpet bombing in SE Asia as a parallel, but that was less than efficient and the loss rate of delivery vehicles (B52s) was not high.
To those who are going to say “You don’t know what you’re talking about” I do have practical experience in air defence matters.
During the Gulf War, and again in the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, all those miracles of modern warfare killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of innocent people. The US military establishment is the most bloated and corrupt such institution in the history of the planet, and it hasn’t done anything worthwhile in 80 years. That the “Department of War” is now headed by a Fox News moron and falling down drunk is the best possible metaphor for the whole operation.
And the allegiances in any coming conflict are potentially very messy. The US is more likely than not to be on the side of whatever the new Axis powers are–fascists do love their strongmen, and while FDT has been fellating Putin for years, he’s also been quite admiring of Xi and the CCP’s hard line against the slightest dissent.
@asiaseen
Mayhaps I’m teaching granny to suck eggs, but I’d suggest it’s probably time you took a refresher course to update that practical experience of yours, because drone warfare has moved on at breakneck speed in the last three years. Think aircraft in WWI — 1914’s practical experience was not much chop by 1918. To be brutally honest 2023’s practical experience is probably not much chop today.
1) Drones can be a lot cheaper and easier to make than you seem to think. Starting price is down to around US$500 a unit for a gucci FPV drone.
2) Drones are more capable of autonomy than you seem to think, so a single operator can run multiple drones.
3) Whilst drones can be recoverable, they’re now employed primarily as one-way single-use — like artillery rounds, or cruise missiles (although they’re much cheaper to make [and with FPVs that includes arty rounds]).
Here’s a fairly balanced starting point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJnuTtUFiWM