Big Lychee, Various Sectors

The asphyxiation of Apple Daily nears its end, now the Hong Kong authorities have frozen its assets and left it with no funds to pay staff or suppliers. An editorial. Ramy Inocencio livestreams the last night of the live news broadcast. A couple of articles that didn’t make it, from Kevin Carrico and Laura Harth. Not everyone liked the paper, but a tabloid that is often tawdry and in bad taste is a mark of a free, pluralist society. (As is often the case, many of those who found it offensive needed to have their sensitivities tweaked occasionally.)

What has happened here is that the CCP is deliberately destroying a successful business – one of Hong Kong’s more vibrant brands, hundreds of jobs, hundreds of millions in shareholder value – purely out of vindictiveness. Jailing boss Jimmy Lai is not enough: all must feel pain for being outspoken and critical. 

Not a peep, predictably, from the rest of Hong Kong’s corporate sector. Even other local media outlets are downplaying the press-freedom side of the story (their owners being pro-Beijing shoe-shiners – and glad at the removal of some competition).

What will happen to the paper’s online archives? Especially the brilliant animated news stories with the panda bear bursting into tears all the time?

And of course, who or what next? So far, the NatSec regime has tried to locally block (or have taken down) only a handful of websites. But a broader, semi-Great Fire Wall system of Internet censorship – notably police raids and other harassment of independent online media and social-media account owners – must be on the way.

In the background, the recent steady neutering of RTHK, and the end of Tiananmen vigils and July 1 marches. Hanging a ‘Liberate Hong Kong’ flag from your apartment’s washing rack now results in police breaking into your home. And then there are water bottles with slightly edgy slogans expressing love for Hong Kong. Still some around at a nearby 7-Eleven. Must dash – someone banging on the door…

The Hong Kong community is currently devoting millions of man-hours to working out the clunky registration, multi-stage collection and relatively straightforward but restrictive expenditure details of the government’s Consumption Voucher Scheme, which was originally intended to boost the economy during Covid, but somehow morphed into an attempt to force people to adopt digital payment systems. 

HKFP bravely attempts to explain how to get your HK$5,000 (unless you’re an overseas domestic helper, of course). 

The bureaucrats designing this mess are clearly trying to torment the elderly who don’t have smartphones or home PCs, and can’t get out much. More generally, the aim seems to be to force people to spend on goods at tycoon-owned supermarkets and convenience stores, rather than buy from market stalls – or just save the money.

Despite the bureaucrats’ best efforts, most recipients will spend the hand-out in ways that offset other income; the amount of normal Octopus card top-ups will plummet as people leave money in the bank. Hongkongers’ natural cunning in such matters will no doubt enable them to find ways to convert voucher ‘purchases’ into plain cash.

Among forbidden uses of the hand-outs: donating it to charity. We can’t fritter away good sound wealth on the underprivileged when we have starving property plutocrats to look after.

This is a purely autonomous non-CCP-dictated scheme – a reminder of how, even pre-NatSec Regime, we were truly being run by malevolent morons. 

Whose money is it, anyway?

On the subject of good sound wealth… This is off-topic and for masochists only, following some earnest debate about cryptocurrencies in the comments section. 

(Background: my curiosity about crypto extends from a general fascination with the wacky world where mental-health issues, conspiracy theories and grift overlap, from QAnon to anti-science health fads to End Time preppers to Scientology. Maybe gawking at these people gives me the entertainment thrills Victorians got from viewing the inmates in asylums.)

My humble advice: how ever much you might find today’s monetary policies annoying, avoid crypto – it’s just digital Monopoly money manipulated by scammers. These are not currencies. Many of us in Hong Kong would love a way to place our cash out of the CCP’s grasp, but a magic-beans Ponzi scheme isn’t it. Nor is crypto an investment. It has zero fundamental worth or connection to the real economy. (And can you imagine proponents of, say, emerging-markets bonds reacting so defensively, or at all, the second anyone criticizes their pet asset class?)

For anyone tempted, Stephen Diehl’s threads are quick reads: How crypto is like a pyramid scheme and how they end; what ‘stablecoins’ like Tether are for, and why they’re a scam; and some examples of how blockchain makes simple financial processes absurdly complicated. He actually proposes a ban on crypto to protect gullible investors and gambling addicts. Fanatical HODLers will rail at these. Just smile politely and walk on. 

We’re not touching on: ransomware/money-laundering; the utterly deranged ‘proof of work’-type processes through which miners gobble up vast resources solving pointless puzzles to compete to log transactions; the Elon-worshipping, proselytizing and cult-like aspects of the crypto movement (a feature of some other pyramid schemes); or the stale far-right conspiracy theories about central bankers and ‘fiat’ that lurk in the background. As entertainment, it’s brilliant.

Highlight of my ‘staycation’ was watching online – along with everyone – Apple Daily being raided again, and top management arrested (and later of course denied bail). 

For extra added creepiness, Security Secretary John Lee threatened others to keep away from the Apple Daily staff, or they’ll regret it. Does this apply to the suspects’ legal counsel? Do Lee’s comments (‘cut ties with these criminals’) potentially prejudice a future trial? Would/should a court accept that his and other officials’ sanctioning by the US casts doubt on their impartiality in the case? His warnings about not spreading articles – which he won’t identify – are similarly sinister. Is it illegal to buy or read Apple Daily, or to pass a copy to someone else? The whole premise of the alleged crime of ‘collusion with foreign forces’ seems to suggest it might be illegal for reporters to talk to foreigners, or for media to merely address overseas governments in op-ed columns.

Looks like Apple Daily will cease operations pretty soon – at least as a print publication, and in Hong Kong. Either the paper will run out of funds, or the NatSec Regime will find a pretext to shut it down by force. I bet they time it so there’s no chance to print 500,000 farewell copies. Will the regime block the company’s website? The CCP celebrates its 100th anniversary by silencing anyone who doesn’t bow to it.

And the key question: will a Hong Kong court now seriously declare that writing/publishing an article urging an overseas government to impose sanctions on local/Mainland officials threatens national security?

On a related note: Antony Dapiran’s latest procrastination, on the recent extensions of censorship (Claudia Mo denied bail for speaking to overseas press, documentary film censorship, etc), and the reality of ‘self-censorship’ – that it is in fact active censorship. 

It’s been 18.5 months since I was last out of Hong Kong, and over six weeks since my second – but to the government, apparently pointless – vaccination. So on another ‘staycation’ for the next few days. Some artisanal hand-curated links for the gentry…

An HKFP op-ed argues that we should not always blame Hong Kong judges for the Justice Dept’s vindictive prosecuting work. (But surely judges are supposed to protect citizens from just such abuses of government power, and often mysteriously don’t – so are they not culpable?)

From hkcnews.com, English-language mega-graphics explaining the events of June 12 and July 21, 2019. 

In the Guardian, an academic explains how the CCP went from all lovey-dovey to ultra-oppressive towards ethnic minorities…

Three reasons, primarily: growing inequality, the forces unleashed by China’s experiment with capitalism, and the rise of ethnic scapegoating, fuelled by rampant Han Chinese resentment.

The Diplomat asks whether Taiwan was ever a part of China… 

The ROC … successfully continued Taiwan’s condition of political separation from China, a fact that has been in existence now for almost all of the past 126 years, and it has maintained full sovereignty for about seven decades. Chinese insistence on the idea of Taiwan as a part of China has failed to convince the roughly 23 million Taiwanese.

…Chinese views have been much more effective in shaping international opinion, but they do not change Taiwan’s modern history or the reality that Taiwan is a country. Individuals, countries, and companies can make their own choices about how to interact with China and its citizens, but they should do so with an accurate understanding of the underlying history.

A useful reminder from American Taiwan blogger Lao Ren Cha on why Beijing will not attack because someone ‘provoked’ it, but because it simply decides to. And another on why Taiwan’s attempts to get vaccines do not ‘inflame tensions’. 

Michael Cole on China’s quandary as other countries give more recognition to, or develop relations with, Taiwan (eg by supplying vaccines)…

The regime in Beijing, which continues its effort to isolate Taiwan internationally, is now in the difficult position of having to express its discontent over these developments while avoiding overreaction that could create the rationale for even closer relations between Taiwan and other countries…

…it is conceivable that Xi Jinping could call for a more confrontational stance in the coming weeks and months, aimed principally at Taiwan, not so much as a signal of a new policy or preparation for war, but rather as a way to appease an angry public.  

On out-of-area affairs – who can resist some cryptocurrency weirdness? A few worthwhile articles on the El Salvador regime’s wacky Bitcoin-as-legal-tender idea: the essential David Gerard, a quick Doomberg explainer, and a (perhaps more technical) thread. These spare you the powered-by-volcanoes angle.

Of all the terrible things happening in Hong Kong today, the impending demolition of the General Post Office ranks pretty low. By 1970s standards, the architecture isn’t too horrible. Obviously it’s a familiar landmark and widely used public facility. Who can forget the huge portrait of the Queen in the main hall? And the cool government bookshop with all the maps at street level? But the main loss will be the empty space and light around the building, as it will of course be replaced by a monster office complex. 

The redevelopment plans presume that demand for top-grade office space in Central will be booming in the 2030s like it was in the 2010s. And will there be a luxury mall or two? Can’t believe the bureaucrats and developers will miss the opportunity to cram at least one more vast marble emporium full of shops no-one uses into the area.

At the other end of the retail scale, the Graham Street Market, amazingly, lives on. It’s smaller than it was, and no longer features frogs in cages and the raucous live abattoir action that made it such a fun place to show vegans passing through town. But the remaining stall-holders seem to have adapted to gentrification and redevelopment, and the quality of fruit and veg is, if anything, better than it used to be. The HKFP piece says there’s now a hipster food court – which has escaped my notice (and I shop here at least twice a week). It’s the rare things that don’t change that stand out.

Beer of the Week is this French stuff ‘Sombrero Red’, pretending to be an exotic Mexican concoction infused with a rare sacred guarana fruit. But here’s the thing: it tastes surprisingly like Pimms. HK$12.90 at U-Select. You’re welcome.

Some new interpretations of the ‘Last G7’ art are in yesterday’s comments. In particular, ‘the wolf seems to represent Italy, while the eagle on the left represents Germany.’ That makes sense: Italy (she-wolf of Romulus and Remus fame) tempted by the EU-Beijing FTA, and Germany despairing at the demise of the US/West while anticipating more car exports to China. (Germany as Judas Iscariot? Discuss.) Also, I see a rotting piece of fruit on the table – presumably representing democracy.

Or maybe the local film industry. Taking effect on the day they are announced, the Hong Kong government issues new orders for the city’s film classification authorities to consider ‘national security’ in their work. Variety carries a full explanation of the changes (the same writer discusses Hong Kong film censorship in the last year or so here).

The wording of the amended guidelines directs the censors to consider the need to safeguard China’s ‘sovereignty, unification and territorial integrity’, so any hint that Taiwan is a country or Tibet used to be could be grounds for a ban.

It also makes clear that recent film journalism about the protest movement has seriously pissed off Beijing officials, stating that censors should pay special attention to documentaries (or ‘purported’ documentaries). This suggests that the CCP wants to ban not just overtly critical works but any content that does not follow the official line. So, if a director includes comments from Regina Ip, that would be fine – but if he also includes some from Joshua Wong, that would bar the movie from screening. This is essentially where RTHK current affairs is heading. Indeed, the film guidelines probably reflect Beijing officials’ demands for restraints on Hong Kong’s overall media/speech freedoms. Perhaps they saw movies as a loophole.

To give an idea of how far-reaching the thought-police are: the government has reportedly warned district councillors that they might have threatened national security by uploading pictures of candles on June 4.

Reuters quotes the US consul-general in Hong Kong trying to get his head around the NatSec Regime…

“You can’t have it both ways,” he added. “You can’t purport to be this global hub and at the same time invoke this kind of propaganda language criticising foreigners.”

…Private investigators say demand is surging among law firms, hedge funds and other businesses for security sweeps of offices and communications for surveillance tools, while diplomats describe discreet meetings with opposition figures, academics and clergy.

A little reminder: the CCP sees no value in an ‘international hub’ in Hong Kong. It’s the local officials, out of habit and/or wishful thinking, who insist the city still is one.

Artwork of the Week is – for a change – some pro-China propaganda from Weibo (see large version). The G7 meeting (with Australia and India as special guests) rendered as the Last Supper, attendees being animals representing nations. Rather than eternal life, the theme of the party is eternal global hegemony. 

The details are fascinating: oxygen tanks in background; a yet-to-be-carved cake with a map of Greater China on it; Japan (the fox) serving radioactive drinks; Germany (wolf) wisely preferring a free-trade agreement; toilet paper being turned into dollars; a frog climbing a turtle onto the table, clutching Yuan (representing superior Chinese long-term economic prowess?); and an oh-so subtle begging bowl for India (the elephant). Shades of Hieronymous Bosch. The hard work of an ultra-nationalist, not your average Global Times cartoon.

Update: more symbolism I missed: 

India on IV drip with cow poo and Ganges water (seriously offensive), and Australia on IV drip with China money and reaching for US dollar – trying to have both worlds.

Not subtle, but quite impressive in its own way.

More levity, from the Queen’s Birthday Honours. We in Hong Kong haven’t heard much about them since 1997, but apparently it’s still a thing here. Seems there were three local recipients of the Grand Order of the Imperial Bathtub this year: HKU epidemiologist and voice of Covid-19 sanity Ben Cowling; a Cathay Pacific staffer who helped repatriate Brits; and a consular official. Also, Clifford Stott (policing expert whose advice was not welcome here). And – quite right too – Lulu.

The Diplomat on Beijing’s ‘improvement’ of Hong Kong’s election system. It’s not a reform or even regression – it’s an old CCP practice of… 

…sociopolitical surgeries, which swap out the essence of established concepts or institutions but keep their names…

Louisa Lim, author of People’s Republic of Amnesia (and not happy after learning of this), about Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong and the attempt to make 6-4 disappear from the city’s consciousness.

From ASPI Strategist – why Beijing thinks it can get away with being heavy-handed on the world stage…

The answer seems to be Beijing’s ‘Tiananmen calculation’—a brutally cynical assessment that the Chinese Communist Party can use its growing military, technological and economic power as it wishes because the consequences are low and the benefits high.

On the other hand, Bloomberg argues that the wolf-warrior diplomacy thing is backfiring. 

…they have picked fights everywhere from Brazil to Papua New Guinea. In March of last year, Zhao Lijian, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, prompted outrage in the U.S. when he repeatedly promoted an unsubstantiated—and absurd— theory about the origin of Covid-19, claiming it had been brought to Wuhan by visiting American athletes.

Before Xi Jinping took power, China had a lot of friends in foreign think-tanks, universities, governments and other quarters where being well-disposed towards China was considered modern/sophisticated/enlightened. Now, the ‘Panda-hugger’ mindset is in retreat (except, as the ASPI story says, among Western businesses besotted with ‘opportunities’). It doesn’t help that Xi-style rule discourages moderation in the hierarchy. In a top-down dictatorial environment, a policy advisor or administrator who urges or exercises caution is liable to be criticized by rivals (‘being soft on hostile foreign/splittist forces’) and penalized. No Beijing official ever got denounced for being too obnoxious to foreigners or (say) too psychopathic towards Hong Kong.

For armchair generals, National Interest discusses possible responses to Chinese plans (if any) to invade Taiwan.

Forbes on Beijing’s ‘rectification’ of Jack Ma, including the transfer of business to Huarong…

It’s as though the U.S. government had said to Facebook, “Mr. Zuckerberg, say Hello to your new partner, Bernie Madoff.”

Quartz mentions another example of a tech company blotting its copybook – a shopping app innocently wishing everyone a nice Friday, June 4.

If you’re trying to get My Little Airport tickets – they sold out almost instantly. Of course, you can still get them.

Alternatively, you can watch a documentary about peroxide-blond David Bowie’s tour of Asia in 1984, including a junk trip next to the Jumbo floating restaurant (12 mins 30) where he shares his thoughts on Hong Kong’s fate in 1997 – ‘the media say it’s going to be a catastrophe’. (Sound quality not great, but the Spanish subtitles might help.)

The Hong Kong government is perplexed about whether and how to support the 2022 Gay Games. Some pro-Beijing lawmakers, including the rabid Junius Ho and the embarrassingly dim Holden Chow, are against the whole thing on some sort of Neanderthal or Victorian principles (Carrie Lam referred to it as the ‘same-sex games’ because she couldn’t handle the ‘g’ word). Regina Ip, on the other hand, displays her worldly sophisticated savoir-faire by supporting the event. 

On top of that, of course you have Covid. If the games go ahead, what’s the betting they take place in Taiwan?

On the subject of Reg – if you’d like a Rolex 1991 Cellini ladies’ gold watch encrusted with solid genuine diamonds, she’s your gal. Just get vaccinated and join her political party! But wait! There’s more! The lucky winner gets free, no extra charge, bonus fresh juicy tourmalines! Who can resist? (She’s also offering a metric ton of tea or something as a consolation prize. You still have to join her party, though.)

Elsewhere on the pro-Beijing front, we have some tycoon news…

Ronnie Chan, who inherited one of Hong Kong’s biggest property developers and turned it into one of the city’s medium-size ones – and who is American by citizenship, hangs out with Asia Society/Ivy League/retired-diplomat types, and whose kids are US-educated – tells Hong Kong people to educate their kids in Mandarin. 

And ‘Dr’ Philip ‘finger’ Wong dies of cancer in a US hospital – because who would trust a Mainland one? (OK, the finger incident: he was pretty drunk, having been barricaded in the Legislative Council bar for ages while protesters surrounded the building. Don’t ask how I know.) 

While undeniably assholes, both these shoe-shiners – if you met them – are/were quite amusing company. In contrast, I suspect, with the knuckle-dragging opportunist Junius/Holden brigade, or the humorless self-important Carrie/Reg-type bureaucrats.

More stories in the FT and Wall Street Journal about international businesses and expatriates moving away from Hong Kong because of the National Security Law.

The NatSec ‘Law’ is in practice a new regime: the imposition of direct rule by Beijing. The new bosses in the HK & Macau Affairs/Liaison Office and National Security Office do not know or understand Hong Kong – and they don’t wish to. All they see is institutions, people and ideas that are out of CCP control and are therefore threats. 

They aim to turn Hong Kong into something they do recognize – something ‘normal’ that the CCP can feel comfortable with, absorbed into a Greater Bay Area, etc. The possibility that they might damage Hong Kong as an ‘international hub’ doesn’t register. Indeed, the features that make an international hub are the very things that make the CCP insecure. To them, dismantling rule of law and freedom of expression is vital repair work, to rid the territory of dangerous alien forces that obstruct the Party’s rule. We already see the signs in politicized or compliant police, public prosecutions and judicial functions, in the new patriots-only election system, patriotic lessons for school kids and elsewhere. 

One soft target is universities, which depend on the government for funds and fat staff salaries. Atlantic reports on the clampdown on dissent as it spreads across campuses…

The marching orders to suppress freedoms are being dutifully carried out not by police or the authorities, but by fellow colleagues, and even students. One postgraduate student at HKU has reported at least two faculty members to the tip line…

And Chief Executive Carrie Lam warns that the city’s universities have been infiltrated by ‘external forces’ aiming to undermine the nation and brainwash students – and university administrators must be on the lookout for them. (As the HKFP report explains, pro-Beijing media have pounced on a research study on protest crowd sizes. Students were ‘paid’ to participate, and the work involved overseas-based academics, and thus an evil foreign plot is unveiled.)

Foreign students and academics can only feel nervous about this. For decades, local officials have celebrated Hong Kong’s cosmopolitan character, but now they spout lines that might give outsiders the impression they are not particularly welcome. In time, especially as China’s relations with the West deteriorate, foreigners in the private sector will start to get the same feeling that they are seen as part of a hostile presence.

The rectification of Hong Kong to suit the CCP’s Leninist/paranoid outlook must, by definition, involve removing things that are ‘foreign’. Beijing demands a CCP-run city, not an international ‘hub’, or international anything. If it’s any help, it’s nothing personal.