An HKFP op-ed on the new national-security rules included in restaurant licences…
…one theory is that the government wishes to increase its options to suppress businesses that supported the wrong people in 2019.
Asked if this was the case, Ronnie Tong, a government adviser, replied last year that it was “hard to say”.
Another theory is that the unstated purpose is to reinforce the existing routine practice under which food outlets that have accepted bookings from organisations the government does not like tend to cancel them at the last minute.
Maybe it is just that the “public interest” is one of those elusive philosophical concepts like “soft resistance” which puzzle the public but are perfectly clear to recycled policemen and the people who write the front page of Ta Kung Pao.
It could also be used to suppress businesses that hire people with the not-to-be-liked opinions, or perhaps even just serve such individuals as customers.
Hoper’s Base restaurant in North Point (which I think is relocating to the UK in a few months) reports that it has had multiple Fire/Health/Immigration visits in one day.
From RSF – French journalist Antoine Vedeilhe’s story…
On 2 November 2025, he was detained for three hours upon arriving at the Hong Kong International Airport airport from France, during which he was questioned and subjected to a full-body search before being deported from the territory. In the journalist’s view, his detention was a reprisal for his work on a documentary examining Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong. It is one of many accounts of visas being weaponised in Hong Kong, which remain underreported due to pressure and sophisticated surveillance by the Chinese regime.
Kevin Yam says…
This is a brazen attempt by Hong Kong authorities to bully international media into not speaking to those of us in exile. It’s not just an attempt to curtail press freedom, it’s also an act of transnational repression to silence the likes of @carmenkamanlau and me.
It’s all gone Ronnie Tong!!!
“Ahead of the May 2026 release of French journalist Antoine Vedeilhe’s latest documentary for French public broadcaster France Télévisions, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is publishing an exclusive, first-hand account of his detention and deportation from Hong Kong in November 2025 due to his work on the film.”
That’ll tie in nicely with French May, eh?
It’s the Age of Mediocrity and Shoe Shiners Inc. I fail to see how this improves our lives. But it does control our access to public places and reminds us that our Government is not so laissez faire and practical. I await with languor the result of these latest endeavours.