Big Lychee, Various Sectors

Further to SCMP going behind a paywall… I know journalism isn’t free. But I’m never going to read more than roughly 5-10% of any publication’s content, so I don’t get great value for money from most subscriptions. And paying for every worthwhile source (FT, WSJ, Bloomberg, Economist, Apple Daily, NYT, New Yorker, Atlantic, Quartz and a dozen or so more) wouldn’t just become expensive – it would be a mess of different accounts (and don’t get me started on the passwords). If you could buy one-stop access to a bundle of chosen sites and get billed just for content you want (no sports/fashion/celebs/Alex Lo) with just one monthly payment (flat rate or metering system) I’d do it. US$50-100 a month? Maybe media groups are too proud or, more likely, jealous of revenue to cooperate. Or perhaps the monetizing disintermediating aggregating app-creating geniuses of the tech world are too busy pushing bluetooth-enabled Internet-linked smart toasters.

I declare Tuesday open with some (free-to-read) links…

While the government continues its disqualification inquisition to keep pro-dems off the ballot, some decidedly scummy Beijing loyalists try to get Benny Tai fired from HKU. Jerome Cohen says this. (The cops are also now arresting people for spoof DAB posters. Since false information about government policy is now a crime, I will play safe and stick rigidly to stating the indisputable fact that government policy is mostly total crap.)

Antony Dapiran’s latest newsletter – on the NatSec Law.

This is as close as Reuters gets to tear-jerking – the story of newly-wed first-aiders Henry Tong and Elaine To, who faced multi-year prison sentences until being cleared of riot charges by an unusual judge who believes in the presumption of innocence.

Richard McGregor at Lowy Institute: How China’s deep state with wartime-style powers both plunged the country into the Covid crisis and ruthlessly suppressed the pandemic. 

The Dummy’s Guide to the same subject from the Guardian (reporting a BBC documentary).

War on the Rocks goes over the options for countering China in the South China Sea. And John Oliver does Uighurs.

China Media Project gets heavily into the importance of wording in the imperial court. In CCP-speak, the shortening of long-winded titles denotes a raising of their stature. Thus it will be a momentous occasion when ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era’ becomes plain ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ – but it hasn’t happened yet. Managers of the personality cult have been too hasty in trying to elevate variants of Xi Thought (on education, the press, Taiwan and much more) and in some cases had to disabbreviate the slogans. Now Foreign Minister Wang Yo is tentatively trimming ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era’. CMP’s survey of the process is so thorough it even includes bar charts on media usage of the buzzwords. Worth reading as a reminder of the inanity of the CCP.

For economics geeks, Michael Pettis on how China’s national accounts exaggerate GDP and why the country needs to upgrade political, legal and other institutions – rather than inputs like labour, capital and technology – to raise productivity. The CCP can’t make these reforms without losing control. That said, few other developing countries have ever managed to escape the ‘middle income trap’ either.

Know your China-bores, courtesy of the Miss Manners of Sinology: the Mystic China-Knowers, the Death-to-the-CCP Squad, the tankies and the exceptionally annoying CCP bootlickers… 

…who are usually avid proponents of China’s 5,000 years of history. Maybe this Radii China article would enlighten them. (In brief: some 3,500 years of recorded/non-mythological history are real, the ‘China’ isn’t.) 

SupChina explains why that bus driver in Guizhou deliberately drove into a reservoir and killed 20 passengers.

Wired on Audrey Tang, software/open-data geek and Taiwan’s youngest-ever minister who played a key role in fighting Covid and is working on using digital tech to reinvent democracy. Compare and contrast with Hong Kong’s tech bureaucrats.

Thread explaining the background and mechanics of political screening of wannabe candidates ahead of disqualification. More here. The government reshuffles civil servants to put compliant ones in place, and the targeted politicians get 24 hours to respond to ‘gotcha’ accusations of thought-crimes. More here about the sheer creepiness of the hunt for evidence. 

It’s understandable that people are angry at the blatant cheating and the shredding of civil service impartiality. But that’s at least partly the intention. The CCP – of monopoly-of-power fame – is now in charge. Joshua Wong is kidding himself when he maintains LegCo still has a vestige of Hong Kong’s autonomy. The body is purely ceremonial, whatever happens in the election. 

I do not understand why pan-dems want to lend legitimacy to this farce by participating (or trying to participate) in it. What’s the point of playing by such corrupt rules? Boycott. Let the government have a 20% election turnout. Do something else that day to prove their lack of legitimacy. Elect a government in exile, or a functional constituency whose members are imprisoned activists – with a bigger turnout. Maybe hold a city-wide ‘Design a Better Hong Kong Flag’ competition for kids in public parks. Whatever makes the CCP even angrier. (A multitude of opportunities.)

An interesting test of reader loyalty: the SCMP to go behind a paywall. Very ‘bold’. Good news for free-to-view alternatives.

There are three main responses to the UK’s decision to admit any Hongkonger eligible for a BNO passport.

First, there’s China’s official, ever-charming ‘Immediately Correct Your Mistakes!!’ panda-tantrum, denouncing the move as breaking an (unspecified) international law. (Not a bad spouting of mouth-froth considering the amount of freaking-out Beijing has just been through with the UK’s Huawei and extradition decisions.)

Second, there’s grumbling among many supporters and sympathizers of Hong Kong and the protest movement. The package could have been better….

It is true that the process is bureaucratic (full details here) and lengthy, plus there are quite a few fees, and anyone born since 1997 doesn’t qualify as BNO (though they can be a dependent). So it’s not exactly frontliner-friendly. They could just convert BNO into full citizenship automatically – but feel more comfortable erecting hurdles to encourage serious applications only, please.

The third response is to faint in amazement.

Roughly 30 years ago, back in the Thatcher era, this plan would have been unthinkable. Immigration was a toxic vote-losing subject in Britain in those days. The venerable hong I worked for joined a campaign to lobby London to give full citizenship to Hong Kong workers who would otherwise leave for Canada or Australia. The big selling points for UK politicians were that recipients would probably not sully the green and pleasant land with their presence – they just needed an  ‘insurance policy’ – and it would help British-owned businesses in Hong Kong. The UK eventually grudgingly granted this right of abode to 50,000 people plus dependents (was Carrie Lam one?), and everyone agreed this was jolly decent of the chaps in Whitehall.

The 2020 scheme, from Home Secretary and latter-day Thatcherite Priti Patel, could in theory cover some 3 million people – and the Great British public and populist-alarmist media couldn’t care less. That’s almost as hard to take in as the concept of a British (or any) government doing something primarily on the grounds that it’s morally right. There’s even talk of Priti, who I suspect is not usually very keen on anti-establishment teenagers, setting up a separate immigration route for Hong Kong’s under-23s.

Obviously the British are not acting out of pure principle. An influx of Hongkongers would reputedly do wonders for the economy. And the UK wants places like Canada to open their doors to Hong Kongers too. (Similar calculations came into play when the UK admitted South Asians expelled from East Africa 50 years ago. And, acting on a hunch, I check Wikipedia and find Patel’s parents were Ugandan Indian.)

Still, of all the shocking things happening in 2020, this is probably the least horrible.

But best of all – Beijing is massively miffed. The Hong Kong government is of course required to join in with one of its special CCP-ized press statements…

…it is hypocritical for the UK to deliberately violate its pledge made in the British memorandum associated with the Sino-British Joint Declaration paying no regard to the Chinese firm opposition and repeated representations, and insist on using the BN(O) passport or status which some people in Hong Kong still hold for political maneuver on the pretext of changing the policy to provide a route for relevant persons to reside and obtain citizenship in the UK.

Took me a few-re-readings. In essence: ‘it is hypocritical of the UK to change its immigration rules this way as a political maneuver’. (Read the whole thing for an idea of how much the HK Govt Information Services people are taking dictation from the National Security Office – from warped non-logic to overlong blathering to shrill hectoring diatribe to crummy grammar, plus Mainland-style US spelling. Out of either deference or defiance, they are not cleaning up the junk copy.) 

We don’t declare weekends open around here now; in the world of retirement, every day is the weekend. But a little light reading for the next few days. 

From Transit Jam, the anti-pedestrian psychos strike again. A minor thing as the city lapses into totalitarianism. But if there was ever a good time to give a damn about Hong Kong’s quality of life, this is surely it.

Which leads us neatly to the question of how finance, arbitration and other industries will weigh up the pros and cons of staying in Hong Kong versus moving to authoritarian SIngapore – in terms of restrictions on freedom of information and weak rule of law. On balance, a Bangkok Post column says SIngapore could be safer. Hong Kong, you could incur the wrath of the CCP and its huge secret police state by voicing any criticism of the world’s last remaining empire. Little Singapore, on the other hand, will persecute you only if you upset the Li family by disputing their genetic predisposition to wonderfulness – an issue most bankers can happily ignore.

From Christopher Balding, the China doves have turned into China pigeons.

ECFR detects signs that even the Euro-Weenies are going off China. 

A foreign policy-wonk think-tank thing about how Japan should join the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance. You might shrug – but Beijing would go nuts. Now add Taiwan too.

The US has closed China’s Houston consulate – is it true there’s a wanted person holed up in there? A noticeable increase in talk of China’s looming war with Taiwan. Beijing threatening to retaliate against everyone for everything – you give passports to the emperor’s subjects, we ban your soccer from TV.

A relatively parochial question: what happens when the Hong Kong government wants to maximise land valuations/revenue, while also ensuring property developers continue to make bloated profit margins? Answer: liveable and affordable housing becomes the lowest priority, and policymakers actively create a spiral of ever-pricier-but-tiner apartments. Full details here. As Marie Antoinette said, ‘Let them do their cooking in the toilet’.

Prize-winning SCMP film about the Protect-the-Kids elders at protests.

This week’s Why Didn’t I Think of That Award goes to the geniuses who marked Yuen Long 7-21 yesterday by tying banners onto helium-filled balloons and let them drift up to the utterly inaccessible ceiling of the shopping mall – while cops ran helplessly around below with their purple anti-thought-crimes banner…

A good thread on whether Beijing’s foreign-policy aggressiveness is offensive or defensive – or a self-fulfilling prophecy: the world is out to get us, therefore we must be obnoxious. [Update: account mysteriously vanished.]

Much of the world is now actively turning against Xi Jinping’s China, with Hong Kong and Covid the tipping point. (The two are linked if, as many suspect, the emperor-for-life saw global distraction over Covid as an ‘opportunity’ to impose formal direct rule over Hong Kong.) 

Germany and the Euro-weenies are still besotted with China as a lovey-dovey trade ‘partner’ deserving of kowtows. Canadian leaders seem to enjoy being kicked in the teeth by their CCP counterparts. And even some anti-Trump liberals are nervous about a Biden administration doing a ‘reset’ back to Obama-era indulgence of Beijing. But apart from some riffraff client regimes (Cambodia, Pakistan), China faces a distrustful and even hostile world.

The US leads the international reaction with ‘normalization’ of Hong Kong trade relations and signing of Hong Kong Autonomy Act. Mostly symbolic so far (the stock market shrugged), but it could cover things like air services and double-taxation agreements. Most of all, the possibility of sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials (and their families, and their banks) is, let’s say, mouth-watering.

US Attorney-General William Barr slams Disney, Google and other US corporate giants for kowtowing to the CCP. And the US issues a long-overdue statement on the South China Sea, essentially backing the internationally recognized convention whereby countries have 200-mile EEZs and no nation can claim sovereignty over the high seas beyond. US officials in the region also accuse China of undermining its neighbours’ sovereignty. You know you’ve done something right when Chinese diplomats say you’re doing disgusting things and showing a selfish, hypocritical, contemptible, and ugly face. 

A few months ago, one pro-Beijing business type told me post-Brexit Britain would have no choice but to grovel to China for economic ‘cooperation’. He is now puzzled about what is happening. The UK seems to have finally decided to extricate itself from Huawei-infested 5G networks (and anyway Taiwan’s TSCM will no longer supply semiconductors to the Chinese firm). London is opening immigration routes for Hongkongers. And the UK government is talking of sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials in response to the Xinjiang genocide (or whatever) and the NatSec Law. 

As I say, sanctions on local establishment figures would be a delight to behold. By all accounts, some of them are nervous (they all have family and property in Western countries). Couldn’t happen to a nice bunch of people.

Ultra-detailed and exhaustive list of recommendations on how the West can punish the CCP from research group China SignPost – this is hardcore Panda-persecution porn.

On a more relaxing note – ever tried painting in watercolours? It’s seriously tricky. Here’s a ‘quick sketch’ the SCMP’s graphics guy dashed off at Pui O beach recently (including 30-second time-lapse version).

No, I don’t mean the menu at the Guizhou lamb noodles restaurant in Tung Choi Street – I mean the barrage of Mainlandization and related horrors hitting Hong Kong while I was on ‘staycation’. I count eight or so.

1. Beijing and Hong Kong officials orchestrate mass-freak-out over pan-dem primary polls (here, here and here). 

Behold the CCP’s extreme phobia about civil society. From a Leninist point of view, what citizens did here was usurp powers that belong solely to the government – holding a plebiscite or similar means of determining the popular will (remember the freaking-out over a ‘referendum’ on strike action). 

Amusingly, they don’t know how to frame their loathing of the exercise – so they rant about it as: cheating ahead of the actual LegCo election in September; a flagrant attempt to, er, win more seats; a ‘provocation’; an attempt to subvert the government through paralysis of LegCo; illegal because not specifically mentioned in the electoral laws; a Covid-transmission risk; and/or something to do with foreign interference.

All five electoral districts have new – and, you’ll surely agree, obedient-looking – officials with the power to disqualify candidates suspected of thought-crimes. Assuming they dutifully DQ the lot, can the pan-dems get their acts together and arrange a voters’ boycott of the LegCo election? Perhaps they can hold a parallel vote on the same day for a people’s assembly. (Cue the sound of total Panda-tantrum. It’s easy to torment people with extreme phobias.)

2. The NY Times’ Chris Buckley is expelled, and international news media start to look for alternative locations. 

The CCP couldn’t care less, but this inevitable trend conflicts with the long-held position of Hong Kong officials who felt the city’s status as a media hub was worth boasting about. 

Our worldly bureaucrats are going through more culture shock than many of us realize. The US measures against Hong Kong (more on that in a day or two) include the ending of cooperation in police training. Some impressionable young folk are shocked that this was even a thing. The reality is that, up until the last few years, Hong Kong was exempt from projecting a Glorious Motherland identity and free to be an honorary part of the Western/free world. Local officials took pride in this and relished the friendly hob-nobbing with overseas counterparts. No more. To make our bureaucrats sweat and squirm even more, the US measures also potentially include sanctions against them personally.

3. Facebook, Google and others suspend accepting government requests for user data, and VPN providers are pulling servers out of Hong Kong (or high-mindedly not doing so).

4. Hong Kong’s top Taiwan compatriots representatives are sent packing for (shockingly) not signing a ‘one China’ statement.

This is presumably not just bloody-mindedness but due to Beijing’s suspicions that Taiwan is among the evil forces masterminding Hong Kong’s rebellion. The envoys would be – perhaps uniquely – exposed to collusion or other charges under the NatSec Law.

5. Carrie Lam agonizes over social media’s negative influence on vulnerable youths. And a NatSec Law/all-purpose patriotism study centre for young Hongkongers will open in Shenzhen. More such ‘bases’ will follow.

Full marks to the Hong Kong industrialists and other eager United Front shoe-shiners of SOFA (the Shenzhen Overseas Friendship Association, duh) for being first off the blocks in setting up a national education camp. Rather like the hasty establishment of Belt and Road Research Institutes a few years ago. 

6. RTHK is heading for rectification in style – just ahead of the first anniversary, a documentary shows more evidence that police colluded with gangsters in Yuen Long 7-21. Summary here.

7. Amid all this, Hong Kong succumbs to a new wave of Covid.

We will look back one day and remember these times. In fairness, with such a frenzy of Mainlandization to implement, it’s a wonder the government has even remembered to pay hospitals’ electricity bills, let alone actually keep up all the testing/tracking/tracing.

8. This is just the beginning: Xi Jinping strengthens Party-centric ideology.

On other NatSec matters…

Donald Clarke in SCMP: it doesn’t matter what the law’s wording says – it’s all in the new all-powerful, unaccountable institutions. (There’s an echo of Beijing’s 2014 ‘universal suffrage’ proposal here. Endless detailed fuss about the complex multi-stage nomination process, yet it was all irrelevant because the end result was that the CCP would choose who was on the ballot – and thus who would be the next Chief Executive.)

Amnesty offers 10 things you should know about the law.

Speaking at a Law Society gathering (stacked with pro-Beijing figures), former Director of Public Prosecutions Grenville Cross ventures to raise some slight problems issues with the technicalities of the NatSec Law.

And State TV cheerfully reassures viewers that all that extreme stuff you heard about how anyone in the world could be liable under the Hong Kong NatSec Law is, um, correct!

Some leftover reading material while I catch up…

In ASPI Strategist, Minxin Pei on why China is engaging in such a self-destructive foreign policy. Among other things, the CCP believes the West remains so desperate for Chinese business that it will tolerate anything…

Until recently, the West’s acquiescence in the face of Chinese assertiveness appeared to have vindicated the CCP’s Hobbesian worldview. Before the rise of Trumpism and the subsequent radical shift in US policy towards China, Chinese leaders had encountered practically no pushback, despite repeatedly overplaying their hand.

But ….

The SCMP carries a comparison of Hong Kong and Northern Ireland. Maybe there are some interesting similarities – but Northern Ireland was more-or-less sorted out when two democratically elected governments in London and Dublin put differences aside and got  pragmatic. That’s not going to happen with the CCP calling all the shots. Still, if you want to be dreamily naive… 

Now that there’s draconian legislation that keeps Beijing happy, the atmosphere is surely ripe for Hong Kong to show that, as its leaders repeatedly argue, it has lost none of its ability to debate, protest and openly criticise [so] Beijing’s new leaders in the territory [will] open themselves up for regular scrutiny and rigorous questioning … Back-channel discussions on conflict resolution in private between government and its opponents were also crucial; one hopes these are actively going on right now in Hong Kong.

Doesn’t quite sound like the CCP’s style does it?

Quirky ‘thought experiment’ about how the US could help Hong Kong residents protect their savings while undermining the HK Dollar peg – without resorting to a nuclear option. (Assuming anyone would want to do this.) Essentially by providing incentives for residents to move cash offshore into US accounts.

Relax! Hong Kong’s Mainland NatSec Office boss Zheng Yanxiong has written books on making Australia’s cities livable.

How Shandong demolishes villages and, eventually, puts everyone into neat and tidy apartment blocks.

And, led by Xi ‘Rick’ Jinping, the NPC sings a special song to Hong Kong.

Will get over jetlag by Monday, probably.

Oh to be a fly on the wall of the Resolutely Safeguarding National Security Office this morning as the Mainland goons ponder why – after whiny foot-stamping threats and oh-so original police raids of a pollster – 600,000 people turned out to vote in pro-dem camp primary polls. (Hint: it’s not the mainly-inconsequential primaries – it’s the chance to say Screw You CCP.) 

The lack of police and other harassment of the polling stations was surprising. Did the sheer number of premises confuse the cops? Or did someone higher up the chain of command have enough brain cells to realize the authorities had already messed this one up enough?

Today is taking place over here. 

(Struggling to find anything new to say on all this. From now on, this is an experiment in (re)colonization by a regime that, it seems clear, is as deluded and clueless about the outside world – including Hong Kong – as the most insular Ming and Qing emperors. If there is a clean way to curtail a community’s longstanding rights and freedoms, it would involve stealth, subtlety and patience. You can be sure the CCP will use none of them.)

For the next few days I will be on vacation. After considering various options – from exotic Cheung Chau to the Sai Kung riviera – Mongkok it is! Hotels are cheap. Huge range of restaurants. No tourists. Glorious mountain views to both the north and south. 

Something to listen to…

Is it Friday? One of the strange things about retirement is that you don’t track these things.

Your weekend treat: a juicy PRovoke piece on the Hong Kong government’s new PR company, Consulum. Reading between the lines, it seems the firm lives largely off its Saudi government account. It is also extremely secretive, in an industry whose practitioners are nowadays increasingly aware of the need for transparency and ethics in general. (You learn something new every time you read this mag.) Consulum – a PR company, remember – makes a point of not answering reporters’ questions.

Hong Kong needed a PR agency far more than a PR firm needed Hong Kong.

…If Hong Kong really wanted to build a more positive narrative, hiring a firm that carried [Consulum’s] kind of baggage … seemed like an odd way of going about it. 

One communications guy says… 

“…by selecting Consulum, the Hong Kong government has indicated it’s in the same boat as Saudi Arabia, Djibouti and Bahrain…”

Reuters on the Hong Kong Police under Commissioner Chris Tang. Shortly to be re-titled Commissar. Some more about his New Territories connections might have been interesting, but we understand. I’ve said it before: prepare for him to be Chief Executive (not that it matters who sits in that chair).

Times Higher Education on academics avoiding Hong Kong quoting Steve Tsang of the SOAS China Institute…

“This law is extraterritorial, which means it applies to anyone writing about China, whether they are in Hong Kong or London,” said Professor Tsang, who added that he would no longer feel safe travelling to Hong Kong. “I would absolutely consider it a risk,” he said.

While Professor Tsang maintained that his academic output on China was “critical commentary” as opposed to “advocacy”, which could be prosecuted under the new law, he said he was not confident that Chinese authorities would see the situation in the same way.

Pro-democratic party activists are grateful to Constitutional Affairs Secretary Erick Tsang for publicizing their otherwise low-key ‘primaries’ to decide candidates in the LegCo elections in September. Maybe if they called it a ‘survey’ it wouldn’t get officials so agitated – as with ‘referendums’. The idea of course is to ensure a multitude of tiny pan-dem parties don’t split the vote. Here’s the details. And a stand-up offers a zippy explanation.

Given that many candidates will likely be disqualified, it will probably send a louder message if pan-dems boycott the election. Let Beijing explain a 20% turnout.

New Republic on the Left’s aversion to criticizing China’s human-rights violations in Xinjiang. (I’m in the who-cares-what-they-think camp, but it would be nice if the article did more to explain why the tankies think like they do.)

At the other end of the spectrum – just because John Bolton says – it doesn’t mean it’s nuts. A proposal that the US recognize Taiwan. Yaay.

A bit dated now Canberra has done the deed, but why Oz (and anywhere) should scrap HK extradition arrangements.

Atlantic on collaborators and why they do it – from East Germans devoted to the Soviets to Republicans going along with Trump. 

…“voluntary” collaborators [were placed] into two additional categories. In the first were those who worked with the enemy in the name of “national interest,” rationalizing collaboration as something necessary for the preservation of the French economy, or French culture—though of course many people who made these arguments had other professional or economic motives, too. In the second were the truly active ideological collaborators: people who believed that prewar republican France had been weak or corrupt and hoped that the Nazis would strengthen it, people who admired fascism, and people who admired Hitler.

Insert the names of the Hong Kong CCP shoe-shiners of your choice.

And the perfect gift for the man who has everything except a 10-year prison sentence for possession of illegal secessionist materials, the Glory to Hong Kong music box.

…to highlight a report on how conservative media outlets accepted op-ed pieces by fake writers with Twitter accounts. (Middle East connection – not PR firm Consulum’s work by any chance?) Complete with an interesting Hong Kong angle that doesn’t reflect very well on the SCMP’s (mainly) awful op-ed pages. 

I assume that SCMP doesn’t pay for opinion pieces from non-staffers. At the same time (for Alibaba’s sake), editors have to avoid having too many spicy or punchy columns. So they’re particularly receptive to contributions that are both free and bland. Is there a better explanation for the Alice Wu ramblings, and the barrage of David Dodwell in the Business section?

But that’s the strangest part of this story, judging by phony contributions wisely rejected by HK Free Press: the phantom writers’ output – while pushing particular agendas – is so boring. Still, better the world has fake journalists than fake brain surgeons or airline pilots.

If you want to make one at home – here’s how.