Yippee! More overtourists!

Hong Kong is set to receive 53.8 million tourists this year.

HKFP reports…

Hong Kong authorities are exploring the introduction of a real-name reservation system for a popular hiking trail in Sai Kung to curb overtourism. 

Speaking at a Legislative Council (LegCo) panel meeting on Monday, Dianne Wong, under secretary for environment and ecology, said the registration system could prevent excessive arrivals at the Po Pin Chau section at Sai Kung’s East Dam during holidays, allowing better visitor flow management and preventing overcrowding. 

…Monday’s proposal comes after excessive tourism caused environmental damage to Sharp Island during China’s National Day Golden Week in October, with some tourists seen trampling on corals and digging up marine life. 

Maybe the next step will be to offer the overtourists an AI Immersive-cum-Geopark Experience, whereby they sit in a hall in Fanling with huge goggles strapped to their heads that give them a 3D 360-degree virtual reality day out. They can even fall off a cliff taking selfies and come to no harm. Then the authorities can offer the exciting package at a location in Shenzhen, to save the ‘visitors’ the trouble of actually coming here.

RTHK tells us…

Chief Secretary Eric Chan said on Wednesday the government would transform Hong Kong into a world-class tourist destination, amid solid growth for inbound tourism this year. 

…”We’ll fully utilise all policies that are beneficial to Hong Kong from the central government to transform the city into a world-class tourist destination preferred by global travellers,” he told event participants. 

“We’ll also leverage Hong Kong’s unique advantages of linking the mainland with the world to become an important window for cultural exchanges between the East and the West.” 

I take the phrase ‘utilise all policies’ to mean ‘virtual reality headsets in Shenzhen’.

The SCMP says that the new procedure for turning non-NatSec criminal charges into NatSec ones could be retroactive…

Hong Kong’s new legislation enables certain criminal cases to be retroactively brought under national security procedures even if the alleged offences occurred before the 2020 national security law was enacted.

The subsidiary legislation, which introduces a classification mechanism for “other offences endangering national security” under the city’s domestic national security law, was gazetted and came into effect on Tuesday.

Under the new law, any case certified by the chief executive will be classified as a national security offence, even if the act or the prosecution occurred before the national security law came into force in 2020.

What if you’ve already been tried and found not guilty? Or found guilty and already served your sentence? Do they re-arrest you and send you to a NatSec court for a second trial for your newly NatSec-ized offence?

A Tweet translates a Pulse HK article…

A current affairs commentator has questioned that the new subsidiary legislation effectively grants the administrative authorities powers akin to the mainland’s “criminal detention” system; scholars have also criticized the administration for stripping the courts of their judicial interpretation rights, while the legislature turns a blind eye, calling it “Hong Kong’s tragedy.”

Current affairs commentator Lam Siu-pan [describes] the “certificate” empowered by the new subsidiary legislation—which allows the Chief Executive to deem other offenses as “endangering national security crimes”—as akin to a “magic wand,” enabling the administrative authorities to easily bypass judicial thresholds. With a wave of the Chief Executive’s “magic wand,” investigations and trials in relevant cases can align with “national security standards,” allowing for no jury, decisions by “designated judges” alone, and he is particularly concerned about the detention period for arrestees.

Lam Siu-pan gave an example: If a citizen “jaywalks” near Victoria Park on a “sensitive day,” and police suspect the motive for the illegal crossing is to participate in some form of “illegal assembly” that “endangers national security,” as long as the Chief Executive issues a “certificate,” it triggers a mechanism to detain that jaywalking citizen under national security provisions for up to 16 days before formal charges. 

Someone Tweeted yesterday that it will be interesting to see who this procedure is first used against. It was introduced and enacted quite suddenly; do the authorities have someone in mind?