Big Lychee, Various Sectors

Packing my bags for a trip to Taiwan for a few days. My fingers have a compulsive urge to type out: ‘I will buy an apartment there and not be coming back’. But that would be premature.

For the time being, a few links to stimulating and enlightening reading matter you might have missed…

Some thoughts on the Hong Kong government’s rather feeble full-page ad in the international press – stressing repeatedly that the city’s freedoms are intact. (Could these be freedoms Beijing officially abhors? Yes they could!)

In a similar vein, the BBC looks at Beijing’s allegations of foreign interference in Hong Kong, finds no evidence, but notes that:

The very institutions – independent courts and a free press – that are supposed to be protected by the “one country, two systems” formula, are derided by the ruling Communist Party as dangerous, foreign constructs.

From HK Free Press: What Carrie Lam doesn’t get about ‘freedom’; and Hong Kong’s rare experiment in government without legitimacy.

The Diplomat on the economic arm of the Hong Kong protest movement…

Supporting Yellow Shops is not simply sympathy, but an act of solidarity and part of a struggle to democratize the economy.

American Interest offers a long-term, semi-game-theory view…

The Hong Kong people are not afraid of not winning in the short term, but the CCP is afraid that the Hong Kong people are not losing.

Hong Kong’s colours of 2019.

So it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, but an SCMP op-ed looks at how China is losing the propaganda/soft-power fight…

As long as China stands for neither equality nor freedom, its communication strategy is unlikely to work on any democracies. 

On which subject, Quartz explains how a soccer-player in Europe has hurt the feelings of the Chinese people – but they’re not allowed to know exactly how…

Most Chinese media outlets, for example, only describe Özil’s remarks as “highly inappropriate” and “concerning Chinese sovereignty” without elaborating or referencing excerpts of the poem he posted. 

For linguists, HKFP looks at how imperial rulers’ dislike of foreign languages gave foreigners a key role in translating religious and political texts into Chinese, and how this has distorted China’s understanding of concepts like democracy. 

SupChina translates a state-media report on the ‘swine stir-fry’ syndicates – gangsters trafficking diseased pigs around China, using drones to spread African swine fever virus to manipulate prices, and other heart-warming tales of country life.

Also for fans of Mainland gruesomeness, China File on the Mainland’s ‘pickup artists’ who train men to find a wife or girlfriend, complete with pictorial.

Losing count of the opportunities our leaders have had to do something… There was the Policy Address – a grand occasion on which the Chief Executive could announce attention-grabbing, earth-shattering radical initiatives, but didn’t. There was the District Council elections, which was the perfect reason (or excuse) for a major wake-up call that changes everything, but passed by unnoticed. And now Carrie Lam is making her annual high-profile photo-op/visit to China’s top leaders.

Chairman Xi Jinping lavishes implausible praise upon her. He also urges her to hurry up and quell Hong Kong’s violence, while forbidding any method but force to restore the local government’s legitimacy. Premier Li Keqiang brilliantly expresses the impossibility of this task through his renowned gift for emotional mime.

Back home, yet another frustrated and increasingly anxious business type says Hong Kong needs to ‘restart talks on universal suffrage’.

Phrasing is important here. ‘Restart talks’ implies that they began in the first place. ‘Universal suffrage’ is the wording Beijing insists on, as it allows for a system in which the CCP chooses the winner, and everyone has a vote in a subsequent ceremonial or rigged election that produces the required result. There is no point in going through that again – indeed, after 2019, it would be even more absurd.

It should also be clear after 2014 that the CCP’s Leninist outlook will not allow a democratic system that requires it to, in effect, share power with the people. (See also, while we’re at it, this piece on the recent District Council polls.) Under Chairman Xi Jinping, it is certainly not an option.

What is, theoretically, possible is the appointment by Beijing of a loyal Hong Kong administration with instructions to govern as if it had a mandate from the people, and were accountable to them (subject of course to paranoid-CCP ‘red lines’ like ceding the territory to the CIA). That way, the local government gains at least some legitimacy by delivering policies that are vaguely responsive to public opinion. And Beijing can (in theory) relax and stop trying so desperately to Mainlandize the place.

That look on Li’s face is not just because Carrie has that effect on people. The great news she will bring back from her annual work report/kowtow is that Beijing has no idea what to do.

For a couple of weeks after the District Council elections, and the appointment of a new Commissioner, it seemed the Hong Kong Police were sort-of mellowing out. But they returned to mall-rampaging/‘hardcore protesters smashing glass panels’ and rounding up kids on tear-gas-filled streets over the weekend, so maybe it was just a pause for breath.

Or maybe they had been busy with their curious rapid succession of multiple exciting terrorist weapons finds. Here’s a discussion on this, and here’s another, mentioning how it all looks rather too neat and easy and not-hugely-convincing. There is something unreal about how the authorities themselves seem unmoved about what is purportedly a possible campaign of mass-slaughter in the making.

On the subject of ‘neat, easy, and not-convincing’, we should also mention another recent development: the HK Police’s new-look cool-and-hip Twitter presence. If a PR company is involved, they are keeping it quiet. Out with the old clunky officialese, and in with trendy memes, jocular aren’t-kids-terrible stuff, and mawkish mock-heroics and self-pity. Plus of course, lots of bomb seizures.

It suddenly occurs to me that maybe the announcements about finding terrorist caches are not aimed at us at all, but are designed to boost the cops’ own morale. By Jove, I think I’ve got it!

Unfortunately, no-one told them that Tweeters can reply.

Buzzfeed News gets hold of MTR reports to transport officials on service interruptions, and – surprise, surprise – the rail operator has been shutting stations at the request of the Hong Kong Police to make citizens’ lives difficult. (Reports here.)

The police, rather than ending Hong Kong’s protests, have replaced the extradition bill as the biggest and most pressing cause of anti-government sentiment. But they are also a symbol, perhaps example, of the underlying problem: Beijing’s increasingly direct and oppressive role in Hong Kong.

The Beijing-friendly SCMP today gingerly supports an independent inquiry into the police as the only way forward. Mary Hui at Quartz asks why the HKPF seem untouchable and adds some comments in a Twitter thread, including the question of whether the HK government really has ultimate authority over the force.

Some establishment insiders claim that the government is resisting an independent inquiry for fear of damaging police morale, or even (reading between the lines) provoking a mutiny. Meanwhile, the government seems curiously unalarmed by the recent police discovery of a Glock pistol and ammo and an apparent nail-bomb-making operation – events that should at least prompt public anti-terrorist alerts and other contingency plans. The impression is that civilian officials do not take the seizures of weapons seriously (ie, the cops planted them).

This all suggests that the HK Police are in practice somehow now under Beijing’s guidance and protection. If so, to the CCP, a genuine independent inquiry into the force would be an intrusion and challenge to its own power. In which case it obviously cannot happen.

I declare the weekend open with more-riveting-than-average links…

A tale of two sieges: HK Free Press talks to protesters who escaped from Poly U when it was surrounded by the police; and an account covering the time a few dozen folk blockaded Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s dismal ‘dialogue’ session for hours…

Her bumbling radicalized a famously apolitical city, destroyed the Hong Kong police force, and welded an amorphous and diverse set of interests into something like a national identity.

Merics sums up the state of things now…

The impression is left of a government that is out of touch with the population, unable or unwilling to represent Hong Kong’s interests against China and, most of all, without a game plan… The Chinese authorities … seem to have little interest in a genuine understanding of Hong Kong or finding ways to allay the apprehensions about China among large sections of the population.

Also from HKFP, more on how female frontliners confound the HK Canto-princess bimbo stereotype.

The big impressionistic report from the (much-bitched-about at the time) writer Jiayang Fan New Yorker parachuted in for the protests over the summer.

The SCMP runs a column by a self-described ‘expat’ editor on why he supports the protests. Not the most raunchy writing on the subject, but surprising to see it at all.

The (apparently) first big academic survey of Hongkongers on the protest movement, bursting with interesting statistics (I expect).

Simon Cartledge on Hong Kong’s economic stagnation since the handover. Comparisons with Shenzhen are futile (the city wouldn’t exist without Hong Kong or CCP Internet censorship). But the post-1997 administrations’ short-termism, laziness, self-indulgence, cronyism and distortion of the local economy – and the power structure that enabled them – are inextricably linked with the situation today.

For cartoon fans, from LIHKG, a LinPig for every district in Hong Kong.

A tabloid view of Beijing’s predicament in Hong Kong from the somewhat excitable (but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong) Gordon Chang.

The Diplomat on China’s problems arising from its increasingly wearisome victimhood/nationalist freak-out thing.

Reuters on how its own distributor censors its Hong Kong and other coverage.

If you’ve got nothing to do next week – the CCP Watch 2019 Report, pondering ‘The evolution of elite economic priorities’ and asking such questions as ‘Can tighter cadre control produce better governance?’

More on Chinese netizens turning against Huawei, and a deeper analysis of this phenomenon as a sign of growing disaffection among China’s non-elites.

On the subject of growing disaffection, Merics looks at grassroots opposition in Belt and Road countries.

And a public health warning: keep away from Chinese quack pseudo-science ‘medicine’.

To mark the UK election: 12 people and things that ruined British politics.

So you thought the overseas experts advising Hong Kong’s Independent Police Complaints Council had quit? (They called it ‘stepping aside’.) The body’s boss Anthony Neoh says they have simply ‘completed the initial phase of their work’. The IPCC is gushing – rather a lot, indeed – about the experts’ past and possible future participation.

And Global Times quotes a Mainland authority as saying that using the phrase ‘stepping down’ is a ‘typical trick’ of slimy evil Western media. (Good to see GT not merely defending untrustworthy foreigners’ involvement in Hong Kong’s intimate internal affairs, but staunchly insisting that they are still there, whatever they themselves might say. There is hope for interfering gwailos yet.)

Consider yourselves corrected.

Meanwhile, the police arrest someone else for having weapons (or at least a slightly dangerous toy) planted on them – or whatever’s going on.

[Memo from Standard to Global Times: How about ‘Jump Ship’? Does ‘Jump Ship’ work for you?]

On a totally different scale of time and space, I happened upon this little thing noting that Petrochina shares are below HK$4. I bought it at HK$1.63 and sold at around HK$17 – the only share I ever had that went up 1,000%. Long ago. Moral of the story is: it’s over. Another little reminder for those who still, amazingly, need it that the once-in-a-lifetime China Zoom Boom mega-uplift thing is history.

The international experts appointed to give Hong Kong’s Independent Police Complaints Council some sort of legitimacy have all quit. Unlike Justice Secretary Theresa Cheng, they will not – it seems – be bundled onto a plane to Beijing for reprogramming.

They wanted (it says here) to ‘start the process of getting the IPCC to “begin to meet the standards” that Hong Kong citizens would need of a police watchdog that met their rights and freedoms’. IPCC boss Anthony Neoh told a Shenzhen TV outlet that the experts were actually dumbasses who ‘did not understand the situation in Hong Kong’.

This isn’t the Hong Kong government’s only headache.

The Court of Appeal has (in a roundabout way, and not-very-enthusiastically) ruled that the mask-ban is unconstitutional for now.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam finds herself having to give sympathy and consolation prizes to the pro-Beijing candidates clearly rejected by voters in the District Council elections. The zombies lost because, out of blind obedience, they didn’t question her staggering ineptness. Most will probably get silly non-remunerated posts on sham advisory boards – but what better way for the administration to remind us of its contempt for public opinion?

On the subject of which, Carrie’s own PR people issue a statement that leads with her insistence that ‘the government will not deviate from the law to meet people’s expectations’. The people’s expectations are illegal?

And, presumably under pressure from Beijing, the authorities are acting tough on pro-democracy teachers, which is probably to say a significant majority of teachers.

The mid-week read is this on the apparent shift in the climate since the district elections, like the semi-de-escalation by the police. Includes Metaphor du Jour ‘Carrie Lam as radioactive bag of dog shit’. A nicer way of putting it would be that, as the government’s many problems suggest, Beijing is not doing well in this asymmetric struggle.

The problem with being a police force that says officers don’t display ID because the uniforms have insufficient space is that people don’t believe anything else you say. So excuse the public if they don’t take the Glock find and the nail-bomb find all that seriously.

Presumably, we are supposed to think elements in the protest movement hope to further their cause through mass-murder. Even if such a deranged fringe existed, could it acquire such apparently high-grade and illegal materials? (Hint: you are invited to suspect evil AmCham/CIA foreign forces of supplying them.)

Another possibility is that pro-Beijing extremists were plotting to use the weaponry – say, against marchers. That would be so counterproductive that only lone nuts – again, probably without access to sophisticated munitions – would consider it.

At the other end of the scale, we might wonder if cops acting under authority planted the stuff in order to smear the opposition. (Note ‘under authority’.) At the risk of sounding naïve, let’s be charitable and doubt they’re that dumb. (In a nice mood today.)

Assuming the seized items are real (and not like the ‘Molotov cocktails’ that turn out to be unopened beers or plastic bottles of cooking oil), who would benefit from these finds? That would obviously be the government and Beijing, in terms of PR. This points to some of the real nasties out there (‘patriotic’ Triads, possibly rogue cops, maybe Mainland spooks) who could get their hands on a classy handgun, ammo and high-explosives. One anonymous tip-off later – and the police are gleefully parading evidence and showing off their intrepid sleuthing.

This could be uber-patriots acting alone, or someone in the Liaison Office getting desperate – assuming there’s a clear distinction. It seems the likeliest explanation, anyway. (Or second likeliest if you think cops are that dumb.)

Unlike the SCMP, the government hasn’t gone into an outraged panty-wetting mega-frenzy over this – which it would (rightly) do if it genuinely believed someone was planning a terrorism campaign.

To celebrate six months of the anti-government uprising, Hong Kong people miss yet another opportunity to stay at home, let the protests fizzle out and accept the CCP into their hearts (pics here).

It’s hard to tell what’s weird and what’s normal where the Hong Kong ‘government’ is concerned these days, but the highly sensitive among us might have detected a shift since the pro-dem landslide in the District Council elections two weeks ago. The tone has perhaps, if barely, moved slightly away from contemptuousness and towards self-pity.

A recent HK Police press conference actually acknowledged the force’s disastrous public image, bitterly complaining about smears. In the days leading up to the big march there were several passive-aggressive police statements along the lines of ‘please don’t make us use tear gas’, including a vow of flexibility from the new Commissioner. You could (sort of, in theory) interpret these as a face-saving attempt to wind down the aggressive tactics. (As it was, the cops – after producing a mystery Glock allegedly intended for use against themselves – were fairly restrained yesterday.)

The government itself late on Friday issued a tantrum-packed statement – unmistakably using Beijing-style terminology – blasting local elements supporting US ‘interference’ in Hong Kong and pleading with Hong Kong people to ‘voice their discontent against violence and to take photos of rioters’ destructive acts’. The next morning (with the Liaison Office minders presumably elsewhere), it sent out a far whinier press release blathering about calm and promising to ‘humbly listen and accept criticism’.

There are other signs that, behind the scenes, things are not going well.

Independent Police Complaints Council boss Anthony Neo has apparently told Mainland media that the independent overseas experts brought in to advise his fake-watchdog don’t understand the situation in Hong Kong. Leaving aside the question of why he was talking to Shenzhen TV, this looks messy. The experts are/were the IPCC’s one hope of legitimacy, and the government’s main excuse to reject a serious independent inquiry.

And then there is the glorious Theresa Cheng escapade. The FT reports (link here):

A company linked to Hong Kong’s controversial justice secretary, Teresa Cheng, an architect of the now withdrawn extradition bill that has sparked anti-government protests, is being investigated by the city’s antitrust watchdog.

The announcement came just days after Ms Cheng returned to Hong Kong from London, where she had wanted to remain and resign from her government post until she was ordered home by Beijing, according to three people familiar with the situation.

The FT adds that the company, Analogue, worked on the HK-Zhuhai Bridge – but (thank heavens), the report does not mention ‘Beijing leverage over Cheng’, ‘corruption’, ‘sub-standard work’ or anything icky like that. But suspicions that Hong Kong officials are essentially being held captive are not going away.

One explanation after yesterday’s turnout  for Hong Kong protesters’ resilience and determination is that they have come this far; as Ben said, we must hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately. Another is that they smell blood.

Did Theresa Cheng try to defect in London? Sounds unlikely, doesn’t it? Even assuming Hong Kong’s Beijing-friendly Justice Secretary felt a need to flee, why would she ‘defect’ like some Soviet chess player in the 1970s, when – so far as we can tell – there’s nothing stopping her from just walking?

Then again, Chief Executive Carrie Lam is by many accounts kept in office against her will. Indeed, all her fellow top officials look near-suicidal on their rare public appearances, yet mysteriously never resign. And we all know the CCP uses the most devious and callous means (blackmail, threats against family) to keep people in line.

On the face of it, the fuss over Cheng’s wrist looks like a lame stunt to elicit sympathy and demonize nasty protesters. But there’s a conspiracy theorist’s delight there: the long absence after her ‘fall’ in London, trouble at her husband’s company, then she turns up, having been in Beijing for two weeks – and looks absolutely, utterly frightful.

You be the judge.

The fact that we are even talking about this is a mark of how far we have come from normality.

I declare the chilly weekend open with a rich array of diversions to stimulate the mind…

Further to some subjects mentioned earlier this week: Why HK won’t be like Macau, and some more on the claims of self-censorship in Hong Kong’s financial sector.

Remember how Theresa Cheng was in London to promote Hong Kong as an arbitration hub? Reuters looks at how such work is moving to Singapore. One reason is that the lawyers have been reading things like this Time feature on Hong Kong as a tear gas hub.

China Daily produces a timeline on evil foreign interference in Hong Kong. Prepare to be disappointed: Canada issues statement, Belgian official meets Joshua Wong, etc.

On the culture side of things, a fetching protest-themed music video of a song by Charmaine Fong. And the pro-Beijing side finally does something creative that’s interesting: a grotesque series of caricatures of opposition figures, presumably by a Mainlander who knows Hong Kong. Artistically quite eye-catching, except (as the link points out) for the racism, sexism, other bad taste and unclassiness, and the fact that it copies a Japanese artist. Eddie Chu Hoi-dick should get the original of his and frame it.

On Mainland affairs, all you want to know about Aunty Xianglin – to whom a Chinese spokeswoman likened US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. As puzzled netizens point out, the fictional character who constantly prattles on about things is a victim of an oppressive feudal system.

Another example of Mainland public opinion not following the script: once-popular national treasure Huawei’s backlash from the Chinese public.

An interview with Jude Blanchette on Xi Jinping, with implications for Hong Kong and the whole planet…

…it is not surprising that Xi believes he has the power to control China’s destiny. But the limitations of this worldview are increasingly on display, and the question then becomes, how much longer and at what costs will Xi be able to push the country in the direction of his vision before he relents.

Carl Minzner goes into detail on Xi’s ideological rectification campaign in China’s academia and research fields. This trend potentially undermines innovation and productivity growth. Which brings us to…

How economic and technical challenges are limiting China’s aircraft carrier expansion plans. Which brings us in a roundabout way to…

Ancient 70s-throwback leftist John Pilger’s documentary on the Coming War with China, otherwise known as ‘Any regime that opposes the US is harmless and wonderful’. (Must confess I couldn’t handle the leaden, life-sucking narration and the self-parodying joylessness for more than five minutes. If Michael Moore had done it, maybe… If anyone manages, let me know if he mentions Hong Kong.)

For fans of ‘Belt and Road’ win-win positive energy: a video on rural Chinese men being ripped off trying to get mail-order brides in Pakistan.

Frank Dikotter does a hatchet review job on a book about the Opium War. His (not new) revisionist angle will go down like a cup of cold sick in Beijing (let alone with the volume’s author). Basically, the ‘drug trafficking’ side of it was less tawdry than we might think. Dikotter only briefly mentions the Qing regime’s mercantilism, but quotes John Quincy Adams as saying opium was “no more the cause of the war than the throwing overboard of the tea in Boston harbour was the cause of the North American revolution.”

And three cheers to plucky little Prague!

Just some quick links… My basic traffic analysis of the stories, columns and reports rushing by suggests that the Hong Kong Police are not doing well in the struggle for hearts and minds.

Cops themselves despair at the dismal performance of the force’s spokesmen at press-conference time. Among the latest cringe-making claims: a police motorcyclist’s attempt to run over protesters is classified as a traffic accident, and a woman shoved to the floor was ‘unintended contact’. How difficult is it to do at least a half-baked spin job on these things? And they spokescops say kids and old folks who get tear-gassed shouldn’t be out in the first place. A rights expert offers some interesting thoughts.

The police are not just losing the PR specialists and the wimps who think kids should be allowed out. Doctors and environmentalists are starting to worry about chemical weapons as a public-health issue. And then there are the art fans: did you know tear gas is bad for paintings? The stuff might even resonate with the blue-ribbons.

Hong Kong’s mainstream media – mostly owned by pro-establishment tycoons – try hard to maintain breezy support for the boys in blue. But Now TV does a piece on lawyers battling with police to see arrestees.

For a mega-read on the whole mess: the Neutral Legal Observers Group’s First Periodic Report (on police and non-police issues). It’s depressing that feel a need to call it the ‘first’.