Didn’t have ‘Ronny Tong does something useful’ on my 2026 bingo card, but there you go. Far less shocking (you sort of suspected it even if you didn’t know for sure): the sort of bid-rigging that went on before the Wang Fuk Court tragedy is pretty much legal…
According to the report, titled “Combating Collusion,” published in the wake of the Wang Fuk Court fire that killed at least 161, Hong Kong’s legal framework contains “significant loopholes” in tackling bid-rigging.
Bid-rigging is labelled as “serious anti-competitive conduct” in the Competition Ordinance, but it is only punishable by financial penalties and disqualification
Although bribery in public and private tenders may be prosecuted under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance, it said, the legislation mostly targets bribery rather than bid-rigging.
And some hazy Competition Ordinance memories come back. Dating back to Donald Tsang’s time? Carefully drafted to make sure certain common practices weren’t really included, so local upstanding titans of commerce wouldn’t be unduly inconvenienced in how they ran their property and retail empires. Then again, you didn’t go to prison for wearing the wrong T-shirt either. Happy days.
Working my way through tech/economist Dan Wang’s (overly) sprawling annual letter – his first in two years…
That task is more challenging as Europe and the US grew more apart in 2025. This year, both regions were able to look upon each other with pity. And both were correct to do so. America’s global trust and favorability measures have collapsed in Trump’s second term. Meanwhile, Europe looks as economically stuck as it has ever been, pushing its politics to increasingly chaotic extremes. But I am still more optimistic for the US.
I don’t need to lament the damage done by the Trump administration this year: the erosion of alliances, the cruelty towards the weak, the wasting of time. Manufacturing and re-industrialization, which I spend most of my time thinking of, have been doing worse. The Biden administration tried to fund an ambitious program of industrial policy; but it was so plodding and proceduralist that it built little before voters re-elected Trump. Since Trump imposed tariffs in April, the US has lost around 65,000 manufacturing jobs.
His administration shows little interest in capturing electromagnetism before China overruns that field. Trump is more interested in protectionism rather than export promotion, which risks turning American industries into fossils like its exquisitely protected and horribly inefficient shipbuilding industry.
One of the Trump administration’s biggest blunders was its decision to raid a battery plant in Georgia, which put 300 Korean engineers in chains before deporting them. I suspect that any Korean, Taiwanese, or European engineer would ponder that episode before accepting a job posting to the United States. What a contrast that looks with China’s approach, which for decades has been to welcome managers from Walmart, Apple, or Tesla to train its workforce.
I’ll never forget seeing it in West Virginia when it first came out in… 1980 (jeez). I was so scared afterwards I had to check inside the little walk-in closet in my relatives’ creaky wooden house before going to bed. Kubrick’s The Shining will finally be shown in Chinese cinemas.
Weren’t these two girls the stars of Hong Kong Cantopop’s much beloved “Twins” duo?
On a related note, I hear Edison Chen is a much sought after target of the Chinese celebrity spotter tourist set in Tokyo’s celebrity populated Meguro district. Apparently he’s also doing some “designing” with Adidas as well. He and Hunter Biden should collab on a podcast warning people about taking personal laptops to dodgy little freelance computer repair shops.