Big Lychee, Various Sectors

Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng jumps to agree with a People’s Daily op-ed warning that Hong Kong’s legal bodies should not get ‘involved with politics’. 

What does ‘politics’ mean here? The Beijing-backed paper specifically advises the Law Society not to embrace ‘anti-China’ activities or become another ‘street rat’ like the Bar Association. So ‘politics’ essentially means issuing press statements expressing concern at government measures that might infringe human rights or threaten the integrity of the legal system. When a foreign government does it it’s called ‘interference in Hong Kong’s internal affairs’. If a Hong Kong person does it by communicating with an overseas politician, it’s called ‘collusion with foreign forces’. In short: shut up (as the Bar seems to have done).  

Beijing’s ‘improvements’ to Hong Kong’s elections – announced some six months back – remove opposition and indeed most popular representative elements from what was already a rigged and weak system. Among much of the inexplicable overkill is an increase in the number of Legislative Council seats through the addition of 20 (essentially appointed) lawmakers. 

The whole election/assembly will be a charade but it will be interesting to see what sort of shoe-shining/patriotic dregs fill these seats and who or what they will claim to represent. They could even, in theory, be slightly amusing.

Until you find out how much the extra office space will cost taxpayers: HK$1.17 billion…

…the project is expected to get underway in mid-2022 and should be finished by mid-2025. Four storeys will be added to the existing building and a 10-storey-high structure will be built in the garden.

Because, hey – that’s what gardens are for, right?

And let’s not forget the salaries and expenses. According to this, we’re looking at a monthly salary (plus gratuity) of around HK$115,000, plus some HK$3 million a year in office and other expenses – around HK$4.4 million a year per lawmaker. (Much of the office expenses pay staffers and other hangers-on – indeed, I am among the countless thousands of people over the years who have received a monthly cheque from LegCo.)  

So that’s another HK$88 million a year for 20 people (with lots of bright young assistants) with no obvious function, given that the other electoral ‘improvements’ already make LegCo into a rubber stamp anyway. I guess LegCo will also need to hire more ushers, security guards, researchers, interpreters, canteen staff, etc, etc. You would have thought an essentially ceremonial body with no legitimacy or credibility could be more economical.

The Civil Human Rights Front disbands in the face of an ‘unprecedented severe challenge’ – that is, before the police break the doors down, arrest everyone and freeze the bank accounts. As with the Professional Teachers Union, CHRF has for years had cordial relations with the authorities. But that was under One Country, Two Systems. Now, all it takes is an op-ed in a Beijing-backed newspaper, and an organization instantly becomes a ‘threat to national security’.

People’s Daily warns the Law Society to ‘stay professional’, out of politics – that is, start sticking to the party line and nothing else. The Bar Association is apparently keeping silent in the hope that this might persuade the CCP not to crush them. Good luck with that. Both legal bodies have regulatory-type roles, so the NatSec regime can’t just snuff them out of existence overnight. Whatever happens, the regulatory powers will end up under the control of pro-Beijing – presumably Beijing-picked – people.

Wen Wei Po accuses the HK Journalists Association of ‘five evil deeds’ and demands government regulation of the body. (Quiet word of advice to the HKJA: you can be snuffed out overnight.)

A good thread on this purging of Hong Kong’s civil society…

The police, in concert with the Liaison Office, the government, the pro Beijing parties and state-controlled media are all working together to go after one civil organisation after the other, until none of them stand in the way of authority.

With a 97% fall in the number of voters eligible to vote in Election Committee primaries (or whatever you want to call them), it is clear that most candidates for seats on the rubber-stamp body will be returned unopposed. And this is before the vetting procedure screens out any wannabes ‘pretending’ to be patriots. HKFP explains the elaborately rigged process. The Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Stuff urges the public not to focus on ‘competition’ at these polls but on ‘quality democracy’. Does he imagine the public are even paying attention to this farce?

(As ever… Even the best-informed media outlets describe the EC as ‘electing’, ‘deciding’ or ‘choosing’ Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, not to mention many legislators. This is partly because that’s the official definition of its role. In reality, the Politburo does not delegate such a decision to 1,500 Hongkongers, however obsequious they may be. Like any supposedly political process visible to the public under the CCP, the EC is ceremonial.)

Also from HKFP, an op-ed on the equally farcical Tong Ying-kit NatSec trial…

The judges seem to have accepted the official meaning of secession and then defined the crime committed to fit the charge…

The designated judges’ “copy-paste” application of mainland definitions for separatism and terrorism emerged as the trial’s most alarming feature. The accused became a passive witness while academic experts debated the historical context of his slogan and prosecutors sought to adapt his actions for use under mainland law.

Cue another slightly depressing story on emigration, in the Guardian.

Not a new debate: should Hong Kong voters angry at being deprived of worthwhile candidates stay away in December, or should they go to the polls only to deface ballots? While scrawling rude comments on the ballot paper may be gratifying, only a few lowly civil servants will see the spoilt paper – top officials do not sift through them. In an effort to minimize the scale of such protests, the government will possibly categorize ‘spoiled’ ballots as ‘incorrectly completed’ or something. They might even (cue creepy violins) trace the voters responsible and put the names in a special Black Book.

More to the point, everyone casting a blank or spoilt ballot counts as turnout. And it is the headline figure of what percentage of the population entered a polling station that worries Beijing and local officials. The key figure will be the difference in turnout from that of the 2019 District Council elections (a record 71%). The bigger the drop since 2019, the more resounding the public rejection of rigged elections.

Or – you can go along and vote for Holden Chow and Co. The choice, of course, is entirely yours.

More numbers are making the government nervous: an official statement loudly insists emigration accounts for just a small part of the decline in population. It might be right. But it might not be. The data are not sufficiently ‘granular’ to say either way. All we have is anecdotes of leaving parties, lines of families at the British Airways check-in, and a 27% increase in emigration-related MPF withdrawals (even though BNO holders have been barred from claiming theirs). 

Some weekend reading…

Hong Kong to outlaw desecration of the Chinese flag online. How will they enforce this? Will linking to an offending web page count? (Presumably it will.)

Long thread on how Chinese media spread disinformation about origins of Covid-19 (‘US soldiers at Wuhan military games’) overseas, then re-cycled it as quotes from overseas disinformation.

In Forbes, Anne Stevenson-Yang on the Evergrande nightmare…

…as a default would be cataclysmic for China’s financial system, and the optics would be catastrophic for China’s residential property market, it is much more likely that there will be a bailout, perhaps by forcing government-connected entities to overpay for assets that the government would mandate Evergrande sell.  A default, after all, would be an unimaginable sign of weakness, kind of like Xi Jinping crying in public.

Great moments in switching-on-the-charm ‘soft power’: a Globular Times editorial on how Russia and Belarus should join China in bullying Lithuania – interesting for the condescending language about the ‘little’ Baltic state…

This European country has nearly nothing to do with the island of Taiwan…

It may not even know what it has been doing…

China and Russia [should] jointly deal a heavy blow to one or two running dogs of the US to warn other countries…

Lithuania, one of the countries that has gone the farthest in simultaneously provoking China and Russia … needs to be taught a lesson by the two… 

European countries must not think about using the Taiwan question as leverage against China. 

You may feel that ‘must not’ here means ‘really should’. but I couldn’t possibly comment.

The regulation (as in imminent re-licensing) of Macau casinos will be a national security issue. The report dates to August 2. Then…

A day later, Galaxy Entertainment Chairman Lui Che-woo:

“The CCP has successfully guided China on a path of sustainable development, having achieved admirable success that has earned global respect. GEG would like to deliver our congratulations on its 100th anniversary”

That centenary was on July 23rd, and shoe-shiners should have handed their grovelling in several days beforehand, but still – better late than never.

As state media demand more law-enforcement investigation into the disbanded Professional Teachers Union, the Civil Human Rights Front prepares to wind up. It looks like the purge of non-CCP-approved civil society will move on to the pro-democracy Confederation of Trade Unions. 

Then it will be the turn of the HK Journalists Association. Other groups, like the HK Society of Bird Watchers, the Chess Association and the Photography Club can’t be far behind. (Sounds crazy? In the Mainland, all such groups come under state bodies.)

Signs of a few problems the NatSec regime is facing: Mainland thin-tanker Tian Feilong says proposals for election boycotts are equivalent to sabotaging the ‘improved’ elections and creating an impression that Hong Kong does not now have true democracy; and a government circular urges NGO-type institutions including the Jockey Club not to hire Administrative Officers who have quit the civil service. (In Ming Pao, in Chinese, here and here.)

Official fears of an election boycott look well-grounded given that many voters will be offered only candidates they dislike thanks to elaborate measures to bar independents from the ballot (‘…a long-winded way of saying active support of one-party rule is a must’). 

It would be terrible if someone started a rumour that the government will also be checking cast ballots to see how everyone voted: it would strike many citizens as credible, and further decrease the turnout. Let’s hope no-one starts spreading such a scurrilous idea. 

After a smear campaign in Beijing’s propaganda sheets (hurriedly endorsed by local officials), the Professional Teachers Union disbands. The sudden move is presumably to pre-empt police raids, arrests, asset seizures and other Jimmy Lai-style lawfare bombardment. In snuffing out Hong Kong’s biggest independent union – founded 49 years ago – the CCP is dismantling an extensive social/retail/health network employing some 200 staff. Vandalizing civil society. (Quick thread on the pros and cons of disbanding.)

This comes soon after the Progressive Lawyers Association and other pan-dem groups have shut down. (If only the prima donnas at the Democratic Party would get the message and vanish – these guys will still be bickering with each other after they’ve been rounded up at bayonet-point and sent down to the countryside to clean out pigs.)

For all their newfound overt patriotism, our bureaucrats seem nervous about what a Leninist regime headed by an apparently devout Marxist might do to the local markets. Hence uncertainty about whether Beijing’s anti-sanctions law should be applied in Hong Kong delicately via the rubber-stamp legislature or bluntly via a Basic Law annex/imperial edict. The real issue is whether the CCP ever wants to actually use this device to penalize companies (like HSBC) that simply cannot refuse to comply with US sanctions. Carrie Lam, apparently feeling no ill-will at being a sanctions target herself, says it will be an ‘inactive law’.

An RTHK TV channel will go Full CCTV, with patriotic Mainland shows galore. More here if you’re addicted to binge-watching CCP historical dramas. 

Is China using the BNO migrant system to infiltrate the UK with CCP spies? Some fear pro-Beijing folks sneaking into the lifeboats and intimidating pan-dem sympathizers in the UK; others fear tabloids stirring up suspicions about all Hong Kong migrants. The thing is, more than a few ‘blue’ households are probably getting out of Hong Kong for the same reasons as anyone else. Hypocritical, but toadies don’t want their kids brainwashed either. 

There is, of course, a long history of sleeper agents from despotic regimes infiltrating free societies and deciding they rather like it, going native, and living the good life while sending meaningless reports back to HQ for decades. Don’t be surprised when a Yuen Long white-shirt thug ends up joining a fox hunt in Shropshire.

If you like seeing garbage about RMB internationalization being torn (politely) to shreds – a Michael Pettis thread.

Beijing semi-breaks diplomatic relations with Lithuania as the latter hosts a Taiwan office that uses the name ‘Taiwan’. Globular Times goes gloriously, deliciously nuts.

In case you’re wondering what he’s doing all day – new Chief Secretary John Lee says all hopeful Election Committee candidates will have their past words, deeds and interviews scrutinized. He and his Vetting Committee will thus make sure only sincere patriots take part (even though they don’t have enough time to do thoughts). 

This will worry hundreds of businessmen and other ‘secular’ pro-Beijing shoe-shiners who want to win seats on the (essentially) rubber-stamp body. They want to do this for the same reason they have sucked up to the CCP since becoming ‘instant-noodle patriots’ in the 1980s: it served their personal interests (not to mention their vanity). The pre-Xi national leadership was happy with that, but it is no longer good enough. Chances are that no big names will find themselves rejected, but they will understand the message – and realize that they are in a trap.

By contrast, the devout and faithful can face the inquisition with a clear conscience. A CCP-friendly union boss talks of getting on the Election Committee as a way to fix the problems caused in Hong Kong by ‘capitalists’, including housing – the main source of profits for the tycoon shoe-shiners.

Meanwhile the Justice Dept decides that Frederic Choi – NatSec cop found at an illicit ‘massage’ place in Wanchai – is innocent of any crime. (“Is he a speech therapist?” “No, Mr Prosecutor SC, he’s a Senior Assistant Deputy Chief Vice [wink] Sub-Inspector.” “Oh well, that’s OK then!”) The really cool thing: he’s made HK Police director of personnel and training – which (you know it’s going to get better) covers discipline.

Some recommended reading for the next day or two…

Steve Vines in the Guardian on why he left Hong Kong. (Democratic Party leader Lee Wing-tat has also gone.)

SCMP op-ed: increasingly ‘uninvestible’ Hang Seng Index (ie Tracker Fund) as metaphor for Hong Kong as it is absorbed into Bay Area concept and Mainland governance.

The Globe and Mail on the decline of Hong Kong’s anti-corruption service…

…“the perversion of institutions is now so blatant that there are no longer any respectable excuses to pretend otherwise.”

A few HKFP pieces: an interview with film director Kiwi Chow; former district council members try to stay active as the NatSec regime squeezes out civil society; and how the government disregards the law in that process.

On Mainland affairs, an SCMP article on household debt in China: a Shenzhen couple struggling to pay mortgages on apparently three or four unsellable investment properties, while (presumably male) migrant workers are borrowing to pay big wedding dowries.

“Everyone’s loans and leverage are piling up. If you don’t increase yours, you will lag behind in wealth. Of course the risks are growing like crazy, but no one dares to lower leverage, neither the rich nor the government.”

Plus comment by Michael Pettis.

Willy Wo-lap Lam on Xi’s struggle to keep himself at the top (the second half has the meat)…

In the run-up to next year’s 20th Party Congress, Xi and his supporters are tipped to promulgate more internal and public regulations affirming the imperative of the leadership core staying in power as long as his health permits. 

Project Syndicate on Beijing’s apparent fiddling of its population stats…

…an analysis of the country’s age structure suggests that it has far fewer citizens than the census reported and that its population is already declining…

Western leaders are overestimating [China’s] economic and geopolitical prospects. They see a fire-breathing dragon when what stands before them is really a sick lizard. This raises the risk of strategic miscalculation on both sides.

Kevin Caricco’s latest on…

…a toxic bottom-up nationalism masquerading as official, while at the same time being intertwined with top-down official nationalism’s targeting of “foreign media.”

A Spectator column by a former UK diplomat on Chinese Olympic cyclists wearing Mao badges, and the IOC’s kowtowing to Beijing. Worth reading for the final para.

Obviously, the young Hong Kong woman who can hurl you to the ground and kick you senseless barefoot is called Grace.

By the same token, the guys running Hong Kong’s Justice Dept must be called Dick. Prosecutors change their minds and let Anthony Wong go (conditions apply, and alleged accomplice Au Nok-hin is in jail for various other spurious reasons). 

Why arrest Wong and drag him into court in the first place? Is there a scriptwriter/choreographer masterminding things behind the scenes, who thought this charge was too ludicrous to bother with? Specifically, did the overseer realize that far more pro-Beijing election candidates are guilty of having singers help with campaigning? Is the US$1 billion-a-year NatSec enforcement force running ahead of itself and becoming (by authoritarian-regime standards) an embarrassment? Will they drop broadly similar charges (buying ads) against Benny Tai? Should the once-independent ICAC investigate itself for becoming corrupted as a tool of political oppression?

In other shocking we-might-still-have-rule-of-law news, Chow Hang-tung is released on bail (HK$100,000, but better than months in jail).

Whenever there seems to be a tiny sign of a return to sanity, it’s tempting to think we’ve reached peak NatSec malevolence. But more likely, the NatSec beast is choking as it gorges itself on people with the wrong opinions. 

You can try and be nice, but good luck: a lame-sounding ‘centrist’ party wants to join in Hong Kong’s rigged all-patriot elections, but finds it’s not well-connected enough to find people to nominate its candidates. If you want to be a quisling, you’ve got to earn it.

Canada warns citizens that Hong Kong’s NatSec regime can trap you here. Ask the two Michaels how much help Ottawa will offer.

Weekend reading…

Hong Kong’s car-centric urban planning philosophy rushes headlong into the 1970s.

A HKFP explainer on a BBC explainer that annoyed the Chinese embassy.

Hyper-nationalist curses against the US. (Can we send Grace to sort her out?)

Will China adapt to Covid, since it can’t seal itself off from the planet, and its vaccines are kind of crummy?

“It may take them forever to reopen the border. They have no self-confidence and they don’t trust others. They know that their vaccines are not doing a good job in preventing infection,” Jin said. “They should have opened the border to Hong Kong [a long time ago] … However, they did not do anything even when we had zero cases for 50 days.”

Academic treatise on how Vitasoy became a national (or whatever) icon of Hong Kong.

How Xi Jinping became God.

Like trying to be accepted to an exclusive religious order – young Chinese people’s efforts to join the CCP. 

Why would you invest in a country run by a Marxist-Leninist?

It’s hard not to conclude that Xi has decided capitalism just isn’t for China. The country’s leadership is effectively nationalizing certain thriving sectors—or leaping in that direction—and dictating what can be done with profits. Adam Smith has left the building when Xi’s team are telling Alibaba Group and Tencent how to reinvest their earnings. Or, strong-arming food-delivery giant Meituan to hike wages.

It’s over. The best stock investment I ever made was Petrochina at HK$1.46 – sold it for above HK$15. No more.

Why does Shenzhen have (by China standards) San Francisco-level housing prices? (Clue: they borrowed Hong Kong land policy.) Instead of ‘fishing village’, we get ‘sleepy swamp once populated by farmers’ for a change.

Another contribution to the debate on where Covid-19 came from. Mojiang. Phylogeographic. Something to do with bats. (For enthusiasts only.)

Some totally off-topic YouTube stuff…

Japanese TV show Wall of Boxes – probably the stupidest thing you’ve seen for ages, or at least since the HK Justice Dept last prosecuted an activist. I was riveted.

One of Ronald Reagan’s last TV roles – Kraft (yes, it’s cheesy) Suspense Theatre, from 1964. Reagan plays a judge held hostage by a prisoner he convicted and sentenced to death. 

A bit more highbrow – a documentary on the intriguing Brendan Bracken.

And that time Prince Charles appeared as guest vocalist (‘Hong Kong people know best what is good for Hong Kong’) on a My Little Airport song.

RTHK English News Twitter gets rectified. Comments are no longer allowed, and all previous tweets – long universally adored for their high-quality and finely-gauged snark – deleted. Judging from one response, it seems someone new has moved in to handle media inquiries…

As HKFP puts it…

It is unclear if the broadcaster is aware that users may still screenshot their tweets or use the “quote” function to comment on them.

Someone has set up an alternative RTHK Twitter account that automatically posts all the headlines, just like the original – except readers are free to comment. (Until the site gets taken down for copyright infringement in – let’s guess – the next three working days. Of course, there is also a way to prevent people from using the screenshot/’quote’ fixes to comment on Twitter: imprison them for inciting hatred of the government, or blocking the whole Twitter website. Easy.)

The deleted tweets should all be archived here. RTHK Snark Greatest Hits compilations are already being compiled.

Enjoy things before they disappear.

On the subject of things vanishing, must-read of the week: Howard French on the ‘asphyxiation’ of China’s most cosmopolitan city as part of Xi Jinping’s vision of a nation that can live without foreign people and ideas.

Time for a quick horrors update… Having cleansed Hong Kong of the deadly speech therapists/cartoon sheep menace, police arrest pro-democracy activists for releasing a balloon. And, in what looks like an overly elaborate performance to reassure NatSec enforcement forces, HK University bars students who attended a union meeting from the campus. Apparently this will help preserve the institution’s reputation, or something.

A couple of good reads on the verdict in the Tong Ying-kit national security trial: Aaron Mc Nicholas and, in the SCMP, Michael Davis…

Pursuing the easier charge of causing grievous bodily harm by dangerous driving would have been supported by the court’s findings in this case and would not have caused grave concerns over the security of human rights in Hong Kong. We can only hope these issues will be addressed in the coming appeal.

I went to my first NatSec-era ‘leaving party’ a couple of weeks back – a farewell gathering for someone who had decided to get out of Hong Kong sooner rather than later. A small sign at the door stressed that the proceedings would remain confidential, but let’s say that among topics of conversation were: Are we being paranoid? Are we being paranoid enough?

Everyone has their own red lines. For some it is obviously personal or family safety. For many (maybe the majority of emigres so far?) it is kids – their education and their long-term happiness. For a fair number of us, it might be creeping Internet censorship and surveillance, or the nagging possibility of asset-seizure or a summary exit-ban. For some, maybe a fall in rents, or lack of an attractive alternative location, might tilt the balance in favour of staying in the only place they call home. At least until things get worse.

Online news outfit Initium is moving to Singapore, which is an odd, but maybe telling, choice. It is not a rabid anti-CCP operation.

Veteran journalist Steve Vines is moving to the UK after reportedly receiving threats – probably as a result of outspoken hosting of RTHK TV current affairs shows.

And artist Kacey Wong is off to Taichung (probably the coolest city in Taiwan, though I’d be tempted by Tainan). This time last year, he was optimistic about the future. Things are changing fast.

For context – Simon Cartledge’s diary in LRB…

Beijing knows it doesn’t have the support of most of the population and that the only way forward is coercion…

Trust between the government and the population is in tatters. This will take decades to play out. It’s too early to say who’s fucked.

When speech therapists were being led away for creating seditious cartoon sheep, you might have imagined that things can’t get any more stupid. But you would be wrong. The NatSec regime’s once-respected ICAC charges singer Anthony Wong and activist Au Nok-hin with an electoral offence. By singing at a 2018 campaign rally, the former Tat Ming Pair star ‘induced’ others to vote for Au. Electoral law forbids bribing someone to vote a particular way by providing ‘food, drink or entertainment’. 

You can witness the dastardly crime taking place here (singing starts at 2 mins). That thread  goes on to show numerous examples of celebrities and others singing for pro-Beijing candidates.

As with Benny Tai’s ICAC charge – buying newspaper ads urging the public to vote a particular way – Wong’s performance took place years ago, and no-one in law enforcement thought anything of it. That’s because buying ads and appearing at campaign rallies are perfectly legal and unexceptional ways for people to show support for parties or candidates. Activists in the pro-Beijing camp have long ‘induced’ voters with T-shirts, lunch-boxes, transport to polling stations and so on.

Up to now, it has seemed that the CCP’s aim is to use whatever means it can to persecute opposition figures, and the shredding of the ICAC’s, police and courts’ reputations has been a tragic side-effect. Now, it almost looks more the other way round: the plan is to destroy any integrity that remains in the law-enforcement, prosecutions and judicial systems through the bringing of almost-joke charges – and it’s the speech therapists and politically active Cantopop stars who are the collateral damage. 

Hong Kong’s hapless officials must keep a straight face as the CCP starts to look not just determined and ruthless, but nuts.