Big Lychee, Various Sectors

The Court of Final Appeal denies an appeal by pan-dems Martin Lee, Margaret Ng, Jimmy Lai, Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan, “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho to overturn their convictions for unauthorized assembly on August 19, 2019 – when 1.7 million people turned up at Victoria Park…

…A panel of judges unanimously rejected the democrats’ argument that their conviction was disproportionate to the protection of their basic human rights.

“The defendants’ proposition is unsustainable. It is contrary to all established principles governing constitutional challenges in Hong Kong and especially contrary to accepted principles for assessing proportionality,” the judgement read.

The defence had submitted that prosecution or conviction over an unauthorised assembly that did not lead to serious public disorder or violence would be a disproportionate restriction of the freedom of assembly.

Two UK Supreme Court decisions were cited in the bid to argue that the lower courts had failed to verify whether the democrats’ conviction would be a proportionate restriction of their fundamental rights.

Chief Justice Andrew Cheung and Permanent Judge Roberto Ribeiro held that the two Supreme Court decisions should not be followed in Hong Kong.

“Their Lordships noted that those decisions were made in contexts which do not arise in Hong Kong and incorporate features of no local relevance,” a summary of the judgement read.

The panel included non-permanent overseas judge David Neuberger. The Guardian quotes Chris Patten as saying the verdict,,,

…“reveals the rapidly deteriorating state of the rule of law in Hong Kong”.

He said: “This unjust verdict is made worse by the fact that Lord Neuberger, a former head of Britain’s supreme court, was a party to this decision. This is particularly surprising since when he was a member of the judiciary in Britain, Lord Neuberger was keen to establish that the English common law could accommodate fundamental aspects of human rights protection.

“He was also always keen that judges should be keen to explain their reasoning. In this case, perhaps some of his views on the law changed between the first-class waiting room at Heathrow and the arrival terminal of Hong Kong international airport.”

…Mark Sabah, the director of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, said it was “shameful and disgraceful” that Neuberger still sat in the court.

The government is further expanding one of its overseas talent schemes.

These schemes have, in practice, topped up Hong Kong’s population following an exodus of several hundred thousand middle-class local and expatriate residents prompted by Covid restrictions and the NatSec clampdown. Most beneficiaries are Mainlanders, and one encountered over the weekend explained that he and several others were working – a bit, to satisfy ‘talent’ visa conditions – as insurance agents selling products mostly to clients over the border. He said their plan was twofold: get their kids access to Hong Kong schools, and later use the city as a stepping stone to emigration to the West.

The Diplomat reports that some Hongkongers without BNO passports are being denied access to their MPF savings. This is the first coverage of the issue I’ve seen that labels it as ‘transnational repression’… 

After Bloomberg published a piece on how Hong Kongers with BNO passports were being denied access to their savings, Hong Kong Watch and The Guardian identified two cases in which exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were denied access to their savings due to their MPF accounts being “under investigation.” These Hong Kongers’ accounts are most likely being investigated following the Hong Kong government issuing HK$1 million (US$128,250) bounties for their arrest for peacefully advocating for democracy in Hong Kong and around the world. 

Yet, neither of these individuals has a BNO passport, clearly demonstrating that the withholding of savings is not just an issue for Hong Kongers with BNO passports…

…representatives from HSBC and Standard Chartered will be invited to discuss the [BNO-related] topic in the British Parliament this autumn. In the meantime, parliamentarians old and new must continue to place pressure on the U.K. government to issue guidance to HSBC and Standard Chartered regarding the use of BNO passports as valid documents.

Again – if the authorities feel entitled to do it to BNO holders and overseas dissidents, who else in future might find access to their MPF funds denied?

In the SCMP, Mike Rowse looks at the Hong Kong government’s recent decision to allow the formation of new taxi fleets offering on-line hailing, electronic payments, some more modern vehicles and other supposed attractions…

…not a single new taxi licence is being issued as part of the exercise. The current number of 18,163 taxis is being maintained… All 3,500 vehicles covered by the new fleet licences will come from cannibalising existing taxi licences.

So this is not provision of additional resources. It is a reshuffle of those we already have. Taking into account also that all selected five fleet operators are players in the existing market, it is plain to see that for all the talk of a new era in taxi matters, this is largely a case of old wine in new bottles.

…if this is just a device to prolong the privileged position of vested interests [eg legacy investors in tradable taxi licences] and delay regularisation of Uber and similar services, then the public will not easily forgive them.

If this is just a device? And does the government care whether people ‘forgive them’?

In the SCMP – China gets angry again about the NED… 

China has accused a US-based group of “ideological infiltration”, including funding anti-Beijing forces in Hong Kong and supporting separatist forces in Taiwan, in a lengthy report aimed at “unmasking” its operations.

In the report published by China’s foreign ministry on Friday, Washington was accused of “subverting state power in other countries” and “conducting ideological infiltration” through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

…“The NED has long been colluding with those who attempt to destabilise Hong Kong by providing funds and public support,” the report said, naming organisations including Hong Kong Watch and Amnesty International, as well as “anti-China lawmakers” in the US, UK and Germany.

…The latest report also accused the NED of working with Taipei’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party “to mobilise ‘democratic forces’ to open up the ‘front line of democratic struggle in the East’ and hype up the false narrative of ‘Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow’.”

Mehdi Hasan interview with former Chinese diplomat Victor Gao on, among other things, Xinjiang, Tibet and dictatorship. Gets quite brutal. Gao perhaps deserves some credit for getting into the ring with a more-than-averagely hard-hitting journalist…

Hasan: How many [Uighurs] are in detention?

Gao: Let me be philosophical…

Hasan: No, don’t be philosophical. Be numerical. How many people are in detention?

Secretary for Security Chris Tang turns alliterative – in translation via the Standard, at least – in identifying a new enemy of NatSec-era Hong Kong: Vivian maligners. Never be a Vivian maligner. We are all Vivian maligners now.

He denounces as ‘villains and morons’ people who mock the city’s Olympic fencing medalist Vivian Kong for her 2021 Renmin University thesis pushing the government line on ‘patriots-only’ elections.

An SCMP report a few days ago says…

Kong also argued that some “anti-China disrupters” had misinterpreted the concept of “one country” and exploited the city’s elections to enter the political system, resulting in a possible constitutional crisis.

…She wrote that the protests revealed misconceptions about the constitutional order among some Hongkongers who prioritised “two systems” over “one country” in the “one country, two systems” governing principle.

…Other misconceptions included Hongkongers’ tendency to place international human rights covenants and laws above the Basic Law, the fencer said.

…She dismissed the notion of “genuine universal suffrage” – as demanded by activists in the Occupy movement and the 2019 protests – as a “pseudo-proposition”.

…“Hong Kong’s chaos and illegal acts in recent years to pursue so-called genuine universal suffrage had already posed a threat to national security,” she wrote.

This was followed by Regina Ip…

…who condemned “rabid attacks” on the gold medallist as the work of “fawning puppets” of external powers.

Does anyone mention that the épéeist (SCMP’s word) seems to have drawn rather heavily on official press and other statements in her academic work? 

Will the authorities launch a ‘Vivian Maligner Reporting Hotline’? Vivid motto: Virulently mistrust vaguely muttering vapid malcontents maliciously vexing various miffed ministers.

Chief Executive John Lee asks everyone to visit a new National Security exhibition at the HK Museum of History, promising an enhancement of their ‘sense of safeguarding national security and a boost to patriotism’…

“We must strengthen our crisis awareness… in the face of fast-changing international situations, constant geographical conflicts and collective suppression by foreign forces,” Lee said.

RTHK adds…

“Safeguarding national security is always a work in progress. There is no completion. Given the ever-changing international situation, it is necessary to maintain a sense of crisis,” he said.

David Webb comments…

“It is necessary to maintain a sense of crisis” – CE Lee. Maybe not if there isn’t actually a crisis? How can we promote trade and tourism while simultaneously pretending that there’s a crisis? 

A subsequent RTHK story reports ‘dozens’ of visitors…

A woman at the front of the queue said that as a Chinese person, she should know more about national security legislation.

She expressed concern about the limited sense of national identity among Hong Kong’s youth compared with their mainland counterparts, and stressed the need for more education.

The Standard says ‘hundreds’…

A 27-year-old woman from Foshan, Au, visited the gallery with her mother and found the section explaining different perspectives of national security to be particularly enriching.”I learned that food and outer space security can also contribute to national security,” she said.

However, an Italian tourist in his 40s, Homel, who came with his wife and two children, found the exhibition to be overly patriotic and not particularly interesting.

Hey – there’s always the inflatable Leaning Tower of Pisa just across the harbour.

HKFP mentions…

…installations dedicated to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ideas of governance, and a lunar soil sample collected during a China National Space Administration mission.

And the Standard finds

…a replica of the oil painting “The Founding Ceremony of the People’s Republic of China,” which is being displayed outside the mainland for the first time … and a six-meter-tall, 1:9 scale model of the Long March 5B carrier rocket.

But apparently nothing about any actual ‘crisis’.

(For a real national security story, the SCMP looks at corruption in the PLA.)

If you want to escape the NatSec panic and go somewhere relaxed, more Shenzhen border checkpoints are on the way. (Didn’t the Standard get the ‘call it the boundary’ memo?)

…Governor of Minnesota, Warren Zevon fan, mocker of Trump’s people as ‘weird’, and possible next Vice President of the US…

Thread by Jeffrey Ngo on Walz’s connections with China and Hong Kong. China Talk on his China experiences, including his pick of the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre for his wedding…

“He wanted to have a date he’ll always remember,” said his wife.

The SCMP manages to find quotes claiming he is pro-Beijing…

Numerous social media posts, including those from accounts followed by members of Trump’s inner circle, with some suggesting he could be a Communist Party agent.

“Communist China is very happy with @GovTimWalz as Kamala’s VP pick. No one is more pro-China than Marxist Walz,” Richard Grenell, a former acting director of National Intelligence in the previous Trump administration, posted on X, the social platform owned by Trump supporter Elon Musk.

Jimmy Lai’s trial is postponed yet again, to November 20. The WSJ says…

…Delay is beginning to look like a feature and not a bug—especially given that Mr. Lai is being kept in solitary confinement.

Mr. Lai was arrested in 2020, and his trial was set to begin in 2022 but started a year late largely because of the government’s repeated challenges to Mr. Lai’s attempt to choose his own lawyer. He’s been charged with colluding with foreign forces and conspiring to publish seditious materials.

But the head of Mr. Lai’s international legal team, King’s Counsel Caoilfhionn Gallagher, says that after seven months of trial all the prosecution has done is reveal how flimsy its case against Mr. Lai is.

“Basic actions which are essential for any successful newspaper owner,” she says, “are described as criminal, such as asking respected public figures to write op-eds on newsworthy topics, widening the pool of readers, securing advertisers.” Ms. Gallagher adds that raising concerns about Hong Kong’s freedoms under the national security law has now become criminal. And a trial that should have been over by Easter may not be done by Christmas.

Some more on the forthcoming Taiwan TV series Zero Day, from CNN…

The 17-minute trailer hit close to home in Taiwan, making headlines in local media and garnering more than a million views on YouTube.

“As a 21-year-old, I almost burst into tears when I watched it. Every scene in those 17 minutes felt so close to us. Maybe one day in the future, these scenarios will become the reality around us,” said a top comment with more than a thousand upvotes.

…and the Guardian…

“The feeling that war is imminent is something that most people in peaceful countries find hard to relate to. In Taiwan, everyone thinks about it, but hardly ever talks about it,” the director, Lo Ging-zim, tells the Guardian in his Taipei studio. “But if we don’t make that fear tangible, if we don’t turn it into drama, we’re going to have a hard time getting people to start a dialogue quickly.”

The plot begins with a Chinese warplane disappearing in the Taiwan Strait, and China using the search as a pretext for enacting a military blockade. Over the course of seven days it chips away further. The financial system crashes, communications are cut, foreigners and dual nationals flee. Fake news and fifth column sabotage spreads, and Beijing hacks public screens with a smiling, pink-jacketed Chinese news anchor urging Taiwanese to accept the “peaceful reunification of the motherland”.

A couple of items that may or may not warrant forthright responses from the government press-release writers…

Washington Post op-ed co-authored by Samuel Bickett calls for sanctions to cut off banks and other companies involved in illicit trade off from the US financial system…

Once a trusted global financial center aligned with Western democracies and governed by the rule of law, our new report with the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation details how Hong Kong has become the world’s leader in such practices as importing and re-exporting banned Western technology to Russia, forming untraceable front companies for the purchase and sale of barred Iranian oil, and managing “ghost ships” that illegally trade natural resources with North Korea.

Hong Kong’s business-friendly policies, which make it easy to conceal corporate ownership and quickly create and dissolve companies, allow illicit actors to make a mockery of U.S. and Western sanctions. At the same time, slow and inconsistent enforcement by Western governments has allowed those actors to continue their operations with relative impunity. The United States can and should address this situation without delay.

…Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee’s statement in October 2022 confirming that the territory would not enforce U.S. sanctions offered a green light to illicit operators who had set up shop in the city. Since then, many more have done so, from Russian tanker owners to Iranian exporters of drone technology. 

…other jurisdictions in places such as Central Asia and the Middle East play a significant role in sanctions evasion. Yet Hong Kong stands out for the sheer volume and breadth of its involvement with rogue nations. In 2022, only mainland China shipped more integrated circuits and semiconductors to Russia than Hong Kong did — and the difference between them was small. 

BBC radio documentary – Erasing Hong Kong…

Authorities are attempting to erase and rewrite history – both the recent history of pro-democracy protests, as well as Hong Kong’s 180-year history as a British colony … and how ordinary people are trying to resist.

Includes the disappearance of Luisa Lim’s Indelible City from public libraries and the wiping of RTHK’s archives.

An obituary of barrister Alvin Cheung, who spotted what was happening 10 years before everyone else…

A Canadian citizen of Hong Kong descent, Mr. Cheung, 38, was a Hong Kong barrister in 2009 when he noted the insistent and steady encroachments by Beijing on the former British colony, especially through the city’s supposedly independent common law courts. As he studied how authoritarian governments manipulate law to seize and retain power, Mr. Cheung wrote tirelessly about the coming downfall of legal and civil rights in his hometown years before Beijing seized control.

Mr. Cheung was not satisfied just with sharing his concerns among fellow lawyers and academics. With his characteristic, even caustic wit — he once described Beijing’s intervention in a Hong Kong decree as a political “temper tantrum” — Mr. Cheung told journalists and his social media followers that the Chinese and Hong Kong governments had weaponized law to undermine the city’s autonomy and degrade civil rights.

The Hong Kong government reports that the number of registered voters in the city has fallen for the third year running… 

…around 18,900 new registration applications were received for the geographical constituencies in the 2024 voter cycle… A total of 142,400 voters were provisionally removed from the electoral register [about 29,900 due to death and about 112,500 as a result of other inquiry processes].

The number of deaths in Hong Kong in 2023 was 54,400, so about 54% of them were registered to vote (presumably, their names are automatically taken off the voters’ register). But what about the other 112,500 missing voters?.

If my experience is anything to go by, the ‘other inquiry processes’ include attempts to update addresses when people move to a new home and don’t update their particulars with the Registration and Electoral Office. When a voting card or other communication is returned as undelivered, the authorities can send an email or SMS, if they have those contact details. And you get a stream of reminders (see right).

It’s not especially onerous to update your details, so if you don’t do it, it either means you’ve emigrated, or you’re making a conscious decision not to be on the electoral roll any more. Why would you decide not to vote in future? Perhaps because you don’t see any point. For example, maybe the candidates you used to support are now in jail, and today’s ballots have only a handful of unknown names with similar platforms. 

The Education Bureau releases curriculum guidelines for a new Citizenship, Economics and Society subject in Hong Kong secondary schools…

“[Patriotic Education] helps students understand the development of our country and the importance of the close relationship between the Mainland and Hong Kong to the development of our society, thereby cultivating students’ sense of nationhood, affection for our country and sense of national identity,” the document reads.

…Xi Jinping Thought is recommended for third-year secondary students as part of a module called “Our Country’s Political Structure and Its Participation in International Affairs.”

When asked how much students should learn about Xi Jinping Thought, Ranny Yau, the principle of TWGHs Kap Yan Directors’ College and chairman of a committee responsible for reviewing the new subject, told Ming Pao on Thursday that junior secondary school students were expected to know more about China.

“It is unnecessary to single out and highlight some content that may worry teachers,” Yau said in Cantonese.

What exactly is ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’? Some observers see its aim as the ‘great rejuvenation of China’, or to enable the CCP to avoid the fate of the USSR. A recent ASPI Strategist article says…

It is a totalising ideology that enshrines the absolute leadership of the party over the state constitution. There is no state separate from the party. The decisive function of the market, a key aspect of the reform era, is now subservient to XJT and the party cells that are embedded in businesses and required to guide them.

In the Mainland, it is taught in primary schools – and many adults are expected to attend workplace seminars on the subject.

Some reading from the weekend…

Oz ABC on the remaking of Hong Kong…

In the past couple of years, more than 100,000 people have moved to Hong Kong, and the majority have come from mainland China. It’s not by accident. Hong Kong’s Beijing-controlled government is offering a raft of incentives to lure people to the city, after an exodus of skilled workers in the wake of the COVID pandemic and China’s ruthless crackdown on political dissent following the 2019 pro-democracy protests. 

PBS interview with the co-owners of Bleak House Books, formerly of San Po Kong, now in a village near Rochester, NY.

If you’re on Twitter: illustrated thread by @bauhiniacapital who’s renovating a smallish Hong Kong fishing boat as a leisure craft (presumably – though he also gets a gill-net commercial fishing permit as part of the deal)…

Decent-sized cabin. Sits 8-10 pretty easily. Not what one would call callipygian, but she’s got good bones.

Michael Pettis on Beijing’s difficulties in stimulating consumption…

Beijing’s reluctance to support consumer demand might not be as bizarre as it seems. Other countries in similar positions—most famously Japan in the 1980s—also said they wanted to boost the consumption shares of their economies but struggled to do so. Raising the consumption share of the economy is much more difficult than it may at first seem.

…direct and implicit transfers meant that China’s global competitiveness in manufacturing was the other side of the coin of China’s very weak consumption … China’s extremely competitive manufacturing—and the world’s best transportation and logistical infrastructure—should not be thought of as separate from the country’s extraordinary low domestic consumption. The former exists because of the latter, and one requires the other. 

Taipei Times op-ed on one way President William Lai is different from his predecessor… 

Lai’s speech touched on issues of Taiwanese nationality and identity, and vision for the future that he expects the (DPP) to take the lead. Meanwhile, at around the same time, his administration announced plans for a change in national linguistic self-identity.

The two moves are almost certainly connected. One is the Ministry of Education (MOE) announcing plans to change the labelling on language teaching materials from “Southern Min” (閩南語) to “Taiwan Taiwanese” (台灣台語). The other is Lai’s decision to give his entire speech at the DPP National Congress in “Taiwan Taiwanese.”

Lai was taking some political risks in his language choice. On one hand, it is quite likely that younger audience members and some older ones couldn’t understand his speech. The other is that traditionally the party has been dominated by Taiwanese speakers and distrusted by those who came to Taiwan from China after the Chinese Civil War, Hakka and indigenous peoples.

Mainlanders traditionally distrusted the DPP because they identified as Chinese, while Hakka and indigenous peoples had historically suffered at the hands of the numerically superior Taiwanese-speaking peoples who originated in Fujian. Tsai had actively tried to court those groups and de-emphasize any link to any specific group, with some success. For example, the DPP went from zero indigenous legislative seats to two out of six now.

The Court of Final Appeal will consider the HK Alliance case in January. Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngok-kwan and Tsui Hon-kwong were convicted of not handing over information to NatSec police in 2021…

Representing herself on Wednesday, Chow, who is a barrister, called her conviction “wrongful” and said there was uncontested evidence in the trial that the Alliance was not a foreign agent. By categorising the Alliance as a foreign agent, police were able to use powers granted under Article 43 of the national security law to demand information.

Robert Pang, who represented Tang and Tsui, referred to the fact that some of the documents used in the trial were heavily redacted as the prosecution said disclosing them could harm public interest.

“There were allegations that the Alliance was a foreign agent of various organisations. The organisations are not named,” Pang said.

In response, government prosecutor Jonathan Man said that if the prosecution were required to prove that a certain party was a foreign agent, it would “seriously hamper the effectiveness of the whole regime.”

After the appellants and the prosecution presented their submissions, Justice Roberto Ribeiro said the court would grant the appellants leave to appeal.

The appeal might in theory involve one of the overseas judges. Either way, it will be a chance for the top court to show some ‘soft resistance’.

Good title for a noir film: Another Miserable Night In Paris – a tale of hunger, fatigue and defeat. About China’s female gymnasts…

The women’s team came in sixth on Tuesday and left the venue in tears, while a star-studded US team, consisting of Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera, clinched gold, followed by Italy and Brazil.

…Another [social media user] said: “I suspect they were malnourished during puberty and lack proper rest. They look like they are working hard but are so exhausted.”

Barring anything interesting happening tomorrow, I will declare an early weekend – for which, some reading…

RFA reports on Beijing’s problems with Burma’s latest military dictators…

Frustration with the junta’s military and economic incompetence is mounting.

To be clear, Beijing has never trusted Min Aung Hlaing, whom they are said to view as incompetent and an embarrassment. 

Chinese leaders have consistently denied him an invitation since the coup, including to the sparsely attended third Belt and Road Initiative Forum in Beijing in October 2023.  

Beijing appears more convinced that Min Aung Hlaing is unable to stabilize the country, no matter what, and has been more vocally pushing for elections as an off ramp to the military’s self-made crisis.

War on the Rocks asks why Beijing is going easier on Vietnam than the Philippines in the South China Sea…

…while China has been escalating with the Philippines at unprecedented levels around Second Thomas Shoal, it has exercised striking restraint toward Vietnam’s far larger and more militarized expansion of its South China Sea outposts. 

The article offers five possible reasons why Beijing is less aggressive on Hanoi – all of them sort-of possible – plus some good background on China’s vaguely ambitious claims on the area.

Carried in the Macau Times, a Xinhua editorial on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s visit to Beijing…

As two major countries with ancient civilizations that stand at the two ends of the ancient Silk Road, the time-honored friendly exchanges between the two countries have made significant contributions to the overall exchanges and mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilizations and to the progress of humanity.

…Marco Polo’s journey underscores the timeless value of cross-cultural interaction. His detailed descriptions of China’s innovations, governance and societal structures sparked curiosity and admiration in Europe, fostering a spirit of exploration and a quest for knowledge that transcended borders.

Today, Marco Polo’s legacy is a crucial reminder that mutual learning can break down barriers, inspire progress, and build a foundation of trust and respect.

Note adroit omission of longstanding spaghetti/noodles controversy. But it was the Mongol Empire, with Kublai Khan sending Polo on missions to various domains, such as what is now Iran.

Flicking briefly through the RTHK and other news sites this morning, I get the impression Hong Kong media are grateful for having the city’s fencing, swimming, badminton and other feats to occupy the space normally devoted to trials of pan-democrats, retail closures, falling property prices, moaning about insufficient millions of tourist arrivals, and the government saying everything is amazingly good. 

We do have a cheery Mainland official. Cui Janchun, the little-heard-from Commissioner of the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs outpost, says Hong Kong’s political system ‘will be an example for the rest of the world in five to 10 years’. (Meanwhile, presumably, it’s not.)

And a NatSec-type trial: the ‘Dragon Slaying Brigade’ alleged bomb plot. Unusual in that there is a jury, which may account for the prosecutor’s measured tone…

“When you examine the evidence [alleged mastermind and prosecution witness Wong Chun-keung] gave in court, you may believe in some part of it and not believe in other parts,” [prosecutor Juliana] Chow said. “You do not have to believe in everything he said, but meanwhile you do not have to dismiss him completely.”

…The group has denied involvement in connection with the thwarted plot to plant two bombs in Wan Chai on December 8, 2019.

…During the trial, the defence lawyers tried to attack Wong’s credibility by pointing to financial records that showed he had spent about HK$300,000 (US$38,400) on football betting.

Some viewing and listening for non-sports fans…

A CBS TV report on Hong Kong five years after the big protests. Includes interviews with the inevitable Regina Ip, plus LSD’s Chan Po-yin and (from a few years earlier) Jimmy Lai, his son, and Nathan Law. ‘A once-vibrant Hong Kong hollowed of its people and its soul.’

An Oz ABC podcast on Jimmy Lai, including comment on the effect of 23 hours a day of solitary confinement.

Owen Chow, who faces possible life imprisonment as part of the Hong Kong 47 case, and his lawyer are found guilty of removing an ‘unauthorized article’ from Lai Chi Kok, where he is currently in jail. The item was a…

…complaint, intended for the government watchdog the Ombudsman, related to officers allegedly intercepting two books that were meant to be delivered to Chow.

Damon Wong, senior editor at InMedia (the last pro-dem media outlet still going), describes (in Chinese) how he was delayed and searched by immigration and customs at Hong Kong airport after returning from a vacation in Japan with his family. They experienced long delays for baggage retrieval, close inspection of the baggage, and a search of his body, leaving his children in tears.

Article 19 looks at the Hong Kong government’s ‘Proposed Legislative Framework to Enhance Protection of the Computer Systems of Critical Infrastructure’…

Cybersecurity provisions to compel critical infrastructure operators to boost cyber resilience and hold them accountable for non-compliance are important to securing essential services. However, the same legislation imposed to protect national security or cybersecurity can also supercharge violations of international human rights law and the right to freedom of speech and expression online.

Among the problems identified are loose definitions of critical infrastructure and excessive information disclosure and investigative powers.

The UK-China Transparency organization releases a report on the Lau Institute at King’s College, London. Among the findings…

99.9% of the Institute’s funding comes from a single donor from Hong Kong in the People’s Republic of China, Mr Lau Ming-wai. Lau has given at least £11 million to King’s to date in support of the Institute. In 2017, Lau was made a fellow of King’s…

Lau has served as an advisor to the government of Hong Kong … on … “integration” with China and … United Front work targeting young people from Hong Kong. He was also given a formal role at a body overseen by the CCP’s United Front Work Department…

…The Institute’s director, Professor Kerry Brown, in 2020 received an award from a Chinese government think-tank for “telling a good story about China and disseminating China’s voice well”. Brown has been a frequent contributor to Chinese state media outlets.

The organization has made a freedom of information request to find out what conditions are attached to Lau’s funding.  (Lau Ming-wai is son of developer-tycoon and, let’s say, character Joseph Lau.)

The answer to yesterday’s little quiz (inspired by a juxtaposition on RTHK’s news page): the two stories were the death of Edna O’Brien and Hong Kong swimmer Siobhan Haughey’s progress at the Olympics. The Irish justice minister (later PM) Charles Haughey was responsible for banning O’Brien’s The Country Girls in the early 1960s and was Siobhan’s great uncle. There was a winner.