Big Lychee, Various Sectors

An interview with the Democratic Party chair Lo Kin-hei, who wonders whether his group should continue taking part in elections – assuming the CCP’s ‘improved’ election system actually allows them on the ballot. He cites Taiwan and Czechoslovakia as examples where the opposition participated even in unfair systems, and believes the majority population ‘needs a voice’ in a rigged legislature. His main worry about taking part is not that the DP might lend legitimacy to a corrupt system, but that the public might think the DP was doing so, and thus lose trust in the party. This of course assumes they are still thinking much about it at all. 

You’d have thought that, having been arrested for the usual unauthorized assembly BS, he would have worked out what’s happening and be screaming ‘boycott’ from the rooftops. But he can’t resist the temptation of offering his party’s services to the NatSec Regime, should it feel a need for some useful idiots in the new massively enlarged, mostly unelected, LegCo. The DP’s long tradition of insular, self-indulgent navel-gazing lives on, even if nothing else does.

For some robust realism, try William Pesek at Nikkei Asia…

Xi had a once-in-lifetime opportunity to grow Beijing’s soft power at America’s expense. While then-President Trump waged trade wars, mean tweeted about Germany, shook down Japan for $8 billion in protection payments, palled around with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and hung up on Australian leaders, Xi had a chance to be the adult.

He blew it.

…Xi’s exploits are bewildering to those who thought he was anxious for international respect and acclaim. Instead, a bull market in missteps has set things up almost perfectly for the Biden era.

…[He] may just increase the odds Biden makes the globe soft on America again.

With all the misery in Hong Kong right now, we need a sign that God exists and wishes us to be happy. For a brief moment we had it: a gwailo pilot in quarantine publicly freaking out on Twitter because he had pasta, cabbage and spicy chicken for breakfast – when he apparently expected Marmite, instant spotted dick and deep-fried Mars Bars. Sadly, the potentially rivetting real-time anguish seems to have been deleted. I guess you had to be there. (There were some similar examples, like a family horrified at receiving/seeing for the first time congee. I know it’s cheap, but we need the amusement.)

Instead, some intriguing reading on the possible origins of Covid-19 from science writer Nicholas Wade. Pinch of salt: Wade is a journalist rather than a scientist, and authored a controversial book on race. But let’s say that if you are suspicious or skeptical about Beijing’s denials that the virus escaped from a lab, this won’t make you feel any better. (Retraction Watch meanwhile has a report about a leading Mainland scientist’s conflict of interests involving Covid-19 research.)

Just occurred to me, reading this, that the Hong Kong government managed to procure both the most effective and least effective vaccines. And clearly pushes the latter.

Kevin Carrico watches Carrie Lam’s ‘sudden and quite creepy occupation of RTHK airtime, which seems to have abruptly emerged out of nowhere’ so you don’t have to. Or perhaps, because no-one else is going to. It sounds even more dire than you expected – as well as Bunny Chan, there’s a guest from the Taoist Association, much talk of Jiangsu snacks with Henry Tang, and of course endless ‘interviews’ in which both sides of the conversation agree with each other about everything. 

For those of us manly enough to ignore sell-by dates – or donating to Penny’s Bay emergency food parcels – bargain of the week at Green Price is HK$5 for 600ml of Yanjing beer. A pretty acceptable-if-chilled light-but-not-quite-insipid slightly-dryish lager. Hey, it’s five bucks for more than an Imperial pint. A good way to get rid of surplus change.

The CCP’s NatSec Regime ends the week with a burst of hearts-and-minds initiatives to convince the people of Hong Kong of its loving generosity. 

Joshua Wong (already in prison) and three others get prison terms for sitting in a park with thousands of other people and lighting candles. The judge said that the situation could have turned violent (though it did not – some sharp comments here). More high-profile activists, many also already in jail, will be sentenced for participating in (or inciting others to do so, etc) the same June 4 vigil last year.

A large detachment of National Security police surrounded and cordoned off premises in Tsuen Wan, checking people’s IDs and questioning the owner. A bomb-making factory? No, a kids’ clothing shop that uses yellow umbrellas in its decor.

The chain can expect a surge of sympathetic customers in the next few days. While waiting in line, they may well be considering going to Victoria Park on June 4 for a stroll or a picnic.

There are also reports that the NatSec police have arrested several people for on-line thought-crimes of some sort. 

And one of RTHK’s top current-affairs producers quits after being told to stick to ‘human interest’ (ie infantilized) stories rather than anything serious. On a brighter note, RTHK does well at the Human Rights Press Awards – no doubt much to the distaste of the broadcaster’s Party Commissar, who will be desperately assuring his bosses that the station won’t win any journalism prizes again. 

Maybe historians of Hong Kong’s resistance will one day note that the revolution started in Pokfulam. Residents of a luxury apartment block revolt against the government’s ambush/lockdown/quarantine charade by refusing to leave. The expat boss of a trendy-sounding multinational says that being sent to a camp would affect his ‘day to day’.

David Webb adds…

The madness of HK Govt policy: the larger the building you live in, the greater the chance at least 1 person who lives there gets variant COVID-19, forcing all of you into 21 days quarantine, but the smaller the chance that you actually had any contact with that person.

Hong Kong’s quarantine rules and travel bubble explained in two simple diagrams. 

When the CCP was a toddler, did it pull legs off spiders for fun? A little glimpse of the Party’s irresistible charm and humanity comes with the news that Hong Kong’s prison officials have barred former Democratic Party chair Wu Chi-wai from attending his father’s funeral. 

The authorities cite ‘risks’. The 58-year-old former chair of the moderate and almost semi-establishment Democratic Party is in jail after being arrested and denied bail for taking part in a primary election.

Others are given four-year-plus prison sentences for not taking part in a riot. The judge (who ‘acknowledged there was no evidence they had any actual role in the riot’) is apparently keener on ‘joint enterprise’ than ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’. 

And one to watch: journalist Bao Choy will appeal her conviction for accessing public vehicle licensing records for the ‘wrong’ reasons. This could be risky if the prosecutors take the opportunity to get her sentence increased. No vindictiveness is too much trouble.

On related matters…

A Georgetown Law study of NatSec law/NatSec police arrests finds patterns – for example, none of the arrestees are actually threats to national security but are peaceful critics of the government. 

Hong Kong Watch’s latest list of those arrested for protesting. 

A new website Know Your Rights HK offers legal advice. (Background in news report here.) The site seems to assume that we have a rule-of-law system in which your rights exist in practice and independent courts will check politicized law enforcement and prosecutors.

A back-up of some RTHK content (will the newly ‘patriotic’ broadcaster try to use copyright to take these items down?)

Al Jazeera on Mainlanders who moved to Hong Kong for its freedoms and now see those freedoms slipping away.

I am delighted to round the week off with an announcement that, for the second year running, the Annual Best Annual Award Award goes to the John McCain Prize for Leadership in Public Service. Last year, the Prize provoked prime Panda-petulance when it went to the people of Hong Kong. And this year – in a move that ‘could infuriate/likely displease’ China – it goes to President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan. 

What do a broadcasting organization, patriotic (and desperate-to-seem-patriotic) uniformed youth groups, CY Leung’s wife, and a banner saying ‘cultural revolution launch’ have in common? The answer: RTHK’s flag-raising ceremony to celebrate the May 4th anniversary. 

The scene looks to have been contrived to the point of surrealism – so absurd you could almost suspect the idea was a clunky and amateurish attempt by locals to demonstrate ultra-loyalism rather than something imposed by Beijing officials. (Did any other government departments mark the occasion?) 

The May 4th Movement arose from student/intellectual protests against weak and inept government, exemplified by Chinese diplomats’ failure in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference to resist the Versailles Treaty’s transfer of the German concession in Shandong to the Japanese. The movement’s leaders argued for the Chinese people to modernize and embrace ‘Mr Science’ and ‘Mr Democracy’. But today, the CCP accentuates the anti-imperialist angle – a typical little example of the Party airbrushing history.

Which brings us rather neatly to ‘Red’ ‘fair and objective’ RTHK’s deletion of large amounts of programming posted online. This is the equivalent of a venerable newspaper burning its collection of back-issues. One of many reasons the CCP and its underlings want to erase the historical record is to wipe out evidence of collusion between the authorities and gangsters at Yuen Long on July 21 2019. The next step will no doubt be to accuse anyone recalling the truth of spreading ‘fake news’.

It will be interesting to see what the cops make of another awkward piece of history: they had good relations, back in the old days, with march organizers the Civil Human Rights Front, now on the CCP’s ‘to purge’ list. 

Hong Kong’s public-turned-CCP-service broadcaster celebrates World Press Freedom Day by firing a reporter who asked Carrie Lam to speak like a human and removing its on-line archives. (If everyone who wanted Carrie to speak like a human got fired, Hong Kong’s offices would be empty.) An illustrated thread on Nabela Qoser. A HKFP interview with journalist Bao Choy. 

Writing in Foreign Policy, PEN America’s CEO argues that the muzzling of the press will undermine the city’s economy. If that sounds melodramatic, it’s probably better to see the clampdown on the press, plus the politicization of police/prosecution services, plus the creeping meekness of the courts, plus ideological enforcement in education as all much the same thing – a transition from a pluralist to a Leninist system. Many businesses that once valued Hong Kong for the quality of its institutions will ask why they are paying such high rents to stay in what is now a sub-premium location.

Speaking of the bigger picture, is this piece naive or visionary? Some excellent observations of the emperor’s lack of clothes by a former diplomat arguing that regime-change in China is thinkable. Under the CCP, China is stuck in mid-reform because the party-state cannot countenance independent institutions necessary to a more productive and trust-based economy and society. At the same time, Beijing’s structural inability to understand open, pluralist societies has provoked a once-benign West into hostility – while the CCP convinces itself that the West’s own fear of China’s might is the reason for Western disillusionment and mistrust. 

…the U.S. and its allies must make regime change in China the highest goal of their strategy toward that country. 

If that article is too long, try this delightful Tweet from Philippine Secretary for Foreign Affairs Teddy Locsin…

Apple Daily (Chinese) reports that the new ‘Red’ RTHK is deleting much of its older content from the Internet – presumably an attempt to cover up the fact that they used to do quality independent programming. “We have always followed the patriotic line and never ever interviewed any pan-dems – indeed, what’s a pan-dem?”

Fast-forward three years: the entire official RTHK archives comprise 9,000 hours of the Carrie Lam Weekly Today Show This Hour. Plus some Ronny Tong calling for a government unit to fight fake news (link via Jerry C’s comment here).

And yes, someone has backed them all up. (Can someone do the same for all the hilariously sarcastic headlines and Tweets from RTHK English?)

Some slightly amusing media-related snippets to start the week… 

The US cartoonist whose work was plagiarized (badly) for a Hong Kong NatSec-compliant textbook is not happy about it.

A former Registrar of Companies criticizes the government’s plans to allow company directors to obscure their identities and contact details. 

And for statistics fans, a graph showing the frequency of certain phrases in Hong Kong government press releases in recent years. Usage of all your favourite panty-wetting words are here – ‘so-called’, ‘internal affairs’, ‘foreign forces’, etc – has shot up.

The HK Immigration Dept has a mini-tantrum over their non-uniformed and unarmed colleagues in the Audit Commission, who uncovered suspected fraudulent marriage cases that date back over a decade. As RTHK notes, the passport-stampers had a panty-wetting fit a few months ago over… RTHK. 

Oddly, the Audit report records the Immigration Dept officially replying in the standard contrite tone. This suggests the whiny freak-out is partly for the benefit of Immigration staff, whose public standing and morale have no doubt declined sharply since the Security Bureau took a more ‘patriotic’ turn under CCP supervision over the last 18 months or so.

The Audit people issue a statement of their own, smugly quoting an official circular saying that departments caught being crap should shut up until the public accounts committee holds its regular hearings into the latest audits. Fun for all! Even so, the days when the Audit Commission provided an often-entertaining washing of bureaucrats’ dirty linen are probably numbered: there’s no place for independent scrutiny and transparency in the NatSec Regime, where everything the government does is wonderful.

The CCP knows how to deal with auditors.

On the subject of arrogant, thin-skinned disciplined services, former government official Liz Bosher writes to the SCMP protesting Police Commissioner Chris Tang’s attitude problem…

When reasoned and justifiable concerns are voiced by members of the public or the press, he and his staff should be prepared to address them fair and square, instead of falling back on patronising clichés which are frankly beginning to sound like thinly disguised threats.

In short, a little more humility would not go amiss Mr Tang, together with a heap more respect for the intelligence, common sense and passionate commitment to the freedoms of the people you are paid to serve.

For a taste of the North Korean future, see the new (possibly not yet vetted) textbook for the school course formerly known as Liberal Studies – now cleansed of critical-thinking content. This illustration will teach Hong Kong kids about Disney characters and McDonalds invading foreign countries to impose evil capitalist American culture, complete with WWII fighter aircraft dropping hamburger-bombs. 

This screams of someone trying desperately to appease the CCP and do the patriotic correct thing. Not just desperately, but badly. As others have noted, Hong Kong Disneyland is partly government-owned, and McDonalds here is partnered with state conglomerate CITIC. And of course the cartoon is copied: scroll down the thread to see the original and far superior artwork by – oh the irony – American Andy Singer.

(Update: the book is ‘transitional’ and not yet cleared by the relevant organs. But it’ll be all over the news now, anyway.)

Meanwhile, a genuinely talented cartoonist is being purged as unfit to teach.

A big choice of links for the days ahead…

The Hong Kong Uprising in song – protesters’ greatest hits.

In the Wilson Quarterly, a comparison of China’s Covid cover-ups and censorship and the equivalent phenomena in the US. The equivalences are obviously nowhere near exact, and the whole exercise feels slightly contrived – but still interesting.

Ten questions to Chinese officials on the origins of Covid-19.

An interview with Scott Rozelle, an expert on ‘low-income China’. Otherwise known as ‘Is China the next Mexico?’ – low education standards, low productivity, middle-income trap, etc.

Andrew Batson on how an aging population will – or won’t – change Chinese officials’ mindset on economic policy. Beijing’s planners instinctively prefer a high savings/investment model, out of deep-rooted mercantilism/nationalism, and also because the CCP can control it. They fear a low savings/high consumption model, even though the demographics demand it. A sample of official thinking…

…we must recognize that consumption is never a source of growth. We must understand that it is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. The high consumption rate of developed economies has historical reasons; once you switch, there’s no going back, so we should not take them as an example to learn from. 

Carl Minzner on Beijing’s all-male leadership’s about-turn from a one-child to a lots-of-kids policy…

…China’s once-revolutionary Communist Party is increasingly wrapping itself in faux-Confucian ideological robes and topping it off with a heavy dose of male chauvinism.

In China Heritage, translations of Lee Yee’s biting analysis of the nature of the CCP’s regime and its effects on Hong Kong – On Reaching 85 and The Sweet Sorrow of Parting (on quitting his Apple Daily column). Coins the phrase ‘collective patriotic afflatus’. 

…a country that boasts about its crowds of ‘patriotic masses’ is but a pitiable place and a most unfortunate nation!

Michael Cole on how the CCP’s rewriting of the past – notably the Cultural Revolution – increases the chances of history repeating itself. 

Extract from a book about how Australian Financial Review correspondent Michael Smith fled China after the Ministry for State Security came for him.

From Vice – a bio of a politician in a real democracy: Taiwan’s 29-year-old cosplaying legislator Lai Pin-yu. In the words of one voter: “I find her more authentic than other politicians.” 

The government’s immigration amendments are officially designed to stop asylum-seekers getting on planes at their embarkation port. But the wording (or lack of it) could also enable the authorities to bar specific residents from leaving Hong Kong. A quick Google search shows Reuters, Bloomberg, FT, SBS, Al Jaz, Japan Times, Taipei Times, UPI and more all reporting about possible ‘exit bans’. No doubt we can believe official assurances that there is nothing to worry about – assuming the CCP can be trusted not to use a new ‘rule by law’ power to intimidate, torment or trap critics and dissidents.

Finding it very hard to get enthused about a ‘travel bubble’ between Hong Kong and Singapore. I was last in Singapore in (flicks through mental passport)… 1996. Main memory: SU-27 thrust vectoring at air show. Since then, I’ve been to the US and UK probably a dozen times; the Mainland at least as often; Taiwan maybe eight to 10 times; Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia multiple times; Thailand, Philippines, France, blah blah blah, even Cambodia, at least once. But not Singapore. Nothing personal, just no compelling reason to go there.

Even a bubble with Macau is apparently too difficult to arrange.

How about fixing the whole mess? As David Webb says, the Singapore ‘bubble’ is not a real free-travel zone. He also points out that Hong Kong’s three-week hotel-quarantine requirement actually increases the spread of Covid-19. (Has anyone told the government this? I mean anyone they haven’t put in jail yet?)

Even going out in Hong Kong seems more trouble than it’s worth. The new ‘domestic bubbles’ regime creates four four categories of restaurant – bewildering permutations of customers per table/operating hours/tables occupied, depending on whether staff and customers are vaccinated/whether location uses the widely-shunned official tracking app/whether the TV is tuned to the All Carrie Lam, All Day Show with special guest star Bunny Chan. (Table here.)

If I’m reading it right, the unvaccinated have to go to bed early, while the vaccinated are allowed to stay up late as a special treat.

It’s hard to tell whether the government is coming up with ineffective solutions on purpose or just through ineptitude. I would guess officials are partly torn by the CCP’s demand to find excuses to ban protests, but otherwise it’s mainly just bureaucratic idiocy. Hong Kong civil servants have a long history of focussing on elaborately detailed process rather than plain outcomes. It helps pass the time before collecting the huge pension.

RTHK looks for fresh new patriotic talent to replace the ideologically unacceptable old-style journalists with their boring insistence on factual and even critical content. The broadcaster’s latest recruit is renowned liberal Carrie Lam, who will present the Carrie Lam Daily Show, starring charismatic Carrie Lam hosting a wide range of interesting and exciting guests in the studio – including friends from the Toilet Paper Retail and other Election Committee sub-sectors. 

Among the topics under discussion: Belt and Road Opportunities, Bay Area Opportunities, housekeeping tips on how to improve your election system, and recipes for authentic traditional organic artisanal Hainan chicken rice, as passed down by generations of happy smiling poultry-loving Hainanese from the tropical island paradise of palm-fringed golf-courses, sun-kissed duty-free outlets, and boundless opportunities for our city’s youth. The first episode will also feature a highly meaningful National Security quiz with prizes of souvenir Octopus cards (with instructions on how to use them).

This is part of RTHK’s new commitment to ‘equal time’ – guaranteeing viewers equal amounts of Carrie Lam whether they tune in at midnight, dawn or noon.

Update: an audio feed of the rolling, non-stop, on-the-hour-every-hour, seven-days-a-week Carrie Lam In Your Face Every Day Show will also replace station announcements on the MTR and the ‘Yuu’ jingle in Wellcome supermarkets.