After Hong Kong starts allowing up to 100 private cars a day to enter the city from the Mainland, a lawmaker complains that some are breaking local rules on tinted windows. That’s not the worst of it. Social media now feature videos of these vehicles (identifiable by special plates) parking illegally and driving badly around town.
A drop in the ocean, perhaps. But you have to ask why we should add to the city’s existing traffic mess at all. Is the idea to get more vehicles onto the HK-Zhuhai Bridge? Is it just about symbolism – a contrived display of ‘integration’? Or, like the mass-tourism obsession, could it be a form of punishment? (And why on earth would any Mainlander want to go through the hassle of driving here?) The lateral thinker in me wonders if the idea comes from Shenzhen, eager to encourage Hongkongers to spend leisure time over the border, away from their overcrowded and overpriced home?
How long before there’s a fatality involving one of these cars?
The Guardiantalks to director Kiwi Chow about the Tai Po fire and the banning of his latest movie.
“With collusion between officials and businesses, shoddy workmanship, lax oversight, rampant corruption and an unbalanced system, Hong Kong could not uphold professional standards,” he has said. “How long must Hong Kong endure this?”
The construction company that was doing renovation work on the compound at the time of the fire has not commented publicly on the tragedy. The consultancy in charge of the renovations reportedly closed down in the weeks after the fire. Directors from both of the firms have been arrested.
A Hong Kong government spokesperson said authorities were “going all out” to investigate the cause of the fire, and that several people had already been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.
The fire was the biggest test of Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong since the 2019-20 pro-democracy protests, which were ultimately quelled by the imposition of a fierce national security law. The first sign that Chow was not going to be silenced by this came in 2021, when he released Revolution of Our Times, a two-and-a-half-hour documentary filmed from the frontlines of the protests.
The film, which premiered at the Cannes film festival, took its name from the banned protest slogan: “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time”.
Now Chow’s latest film, which stars the legendary Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong, has in effect been banned from public screening.
In theory, Deadline, which was filmed in Taiwan and partly funded by the government there, isn’t as politically sensitive as his earlier works. Set in an unnamed Asian city, it tells the story of an elite private school where students buckle under the heat of intense academic competition. It was released in Taiwan on 7 November.
But Chow believes the authorities are trying to make an example of him personally by refusing to grant approval for the film. “They don’t want to arrest me, but they want to destroy my creative career,” he said.
In answer to the obvious question…
…Chow remains undaunted. He thinks the authorities are unlikely to arrest him, lest they bring more attention to his films. He concedes it could still happen, though. He’s discussed the possibility with his wife and says he would rather use his freedom to speak out while he can.
“Even if we left Hong Kong, the fear would linger,” he says, referring to Beijing’s increasing practices of targeting critics overseas. Instead, he says, “I want to stay in Hong Kong and get used to living with fear.”
Anime Festival Asia (‘Japan Pop Culture Now!’) cancels its planned February convention in Hong Kong. No explanation, but its annual and other activities in Singapore, Jakarta and elsewhere seem to be going ahead with no problem, while Mainland and Hong Kong authorities have been on an anti-Japan kick recently. (No Japanese costumes allowed at a Hangzhou manga exhibition, for example.)
Hong Kong – Asia’s (Non-Japanese) Events Hub.
The Hong Kong government releases a mildly phrased press statement objecting to the World Bank’s Business Ready 2025 Report, in which the city falls out of the top 10 locations. (Report here. Haven’t read it. Looks like a big snore.)
Not a great holiday season for the man in his 70s who was badly injured in Yuen Long on Saturday when – walking on a sidewalk separated from the road by railings – he was hit by a car. The car was a Porsche, complete with tacky spoilers on the back. (Spoilers help keep specialized sports cars in contact with the road surface at high speeds; on city streets, they are also a sign that the vehicle owner might just be an asshole.)
There’s more. The driver, who was arrested ‘on suspicion of dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm’ turns out to be a cop.
Two questions. The car looks like one of these models, costing in the HK$1.5 million range. How can a policeman afford one? Given the generosity of public-sector salaries in Hong Kong, the answer is probably ‘quite easily’. (Online chatter considers it possible that he rented it, or borrowed the thing from a friend of some sort.) More puzzling: why do the Hong Kong transport authorities – which ban e-bikes on public highways – allow cars with top speeds of around 280kph/170mph on the streets of this crowded city?
You won’t see it in Sing Tao or the SCMP – a big investigative piece on the corruption behind the Tai Po tragedy, from the NYT…
…residents of the Wang Fuk Court estate spent years warning Hong Kong officials about a renovation project they feared was becoming dangerous.
The government had ordered repairs on the eight aging towers in the complex. But residents complained they were paying extortionate sums for shoddy work that used flammable materials, and they suspected it was because a corrupt syndicate had taken over the project.
They told the authorities that the leaders of the owners’ board and the construction firms were acting at times against residents’ interests and safety. They told local news media that a politician was most likely working with the board’s leaders. At least one resident burned a piece of the polystyrene foam used in the renovation to show how easily it caught fire.
Their complaints led various government agencies to conduct inspections and to issue warnings, notices and citations to the contractor. But there were also mixed messages, and no one stepped in to address the dangers on the whole. In an email to residents, one official described the fire risk from netting on the scaffolding as “relatively low.”
Now, 161 people are dead and thousands are displaced.
…regulators also failed to act decisively on repeated warnings about potential corruption in the renovation project, which may have contributed to the use of the materials.
The Hong Kong authorities have long acknowledged corruption in the construction industry. Activists have warned that some companies inflate costs while using cheap materials. Those same practices went unchecked at Wang Fuk.
Residents’ emails and official statements suggest that multiple government agencies played down concerns, performed perfunctory inspections or relied on reassurances from contractors. Officials also missed other lapses, including fire alarms that failed in seven buildings.
…A local politician, Peggy Wong, who did not live on the estate, got involved in key decisions, residents said. The Wang Fuk homeowners board had long encouraged residents to vote for Ms. Wong, a district councilor for the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong since 2003. (She briefly lost her seat during antigovernment protests in 2019.)
She served the board as an adviser while in office, according to records of the board’s meetings.
She generally urged residents, many of whom are retirees, to back the board’s decisions and sometimes went from door to door, persuading people to sign letters authorizing her to vote on their behalf, according to seven residents who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Following the Jimmy Lai verdict, an op-ed on NatSec-era Hong Kong In the American Spectator…
National Security Law on June 30, 2020. The measure proved to be the perfect toolkit for the CCP, criminalizing “secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security, and stipulates the corresponding penalties, which in the most serious cases, could result in life imprisonment.” This effectively banned opposition to and even criticism of the CCP as well as the local, Beijing-imposed authorities. No resistance has been too minor to punish. Amnesty International reported that people “have been targeted and harshly punished for the clothes they wear as well as the things they say and write, or for minor acts of protest, intensifying the climate of fear that already pervaded Hong Kong.”
…The conviction rate [for NatSec trials] is 95 percent. The abuse rate is similarly high. Reported Amnesty International: “(1) 85 percent of concluded cases involved only legitimate expression that should not have been criminalized; (2) the courts denied bail in 89 percent of national security cases; and (3) the average length of pre-trial detention is 11 months. Taken together, these findings show that the implementation of national security legislation in Hong Kong has violated international human rights law and standards, including freedom of expression and right to liberty.”
The largest NSL trial was of 47 Hong Kong legislators, academics, journalists, union leaders, and other activists, prosecuted for organizing a political primary, which was legal at the time. Forty-five were convicted and sentenced to prison terms varying from four to ten years. Why? The defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion since their purpose, in what officially remained a free election, was to elect candidates who would oppose the SAR’s chief executive and other Beijing factotums.
[Jimmy Lai] chose to remain in Hong Kong after passage of the NSL. He was thrice arrested, starting in August 2020, held in solitary confinement (for more than 1800 days, and counting!), and subjected to seven different trials, starting in 2021, which resulted in collective sentences of nearly ten years. His NSL trial ran for 156 days and was anything but fair. Detailed HRW: “Lai’s prosecution was marred by multiple serious violations of fair trial rights, including being tried by judges hand-picked by the Hong Kong government, denied a jury trial, subjected to prolonged pretrial detention, and barred from having counsel of his choice.” The three jurists issued an 855 page opinion, which claimed that Lai was the “mastermind” of a conspiracy against the PRC. Added Judge Esther Toh, who was chosen to convict, he “had harbored his resentment and hatred of the PRC for many of his adult years.”
…Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (Ka-chiu), the SAR’s top security apparatchik before being selected by Beijing to replace the stumbling Carrie Lam in 2022, has been regularly praised by Xi. Lee denounced Lai: “Some organizations, particularly foreign media organizations, deliberately mislead the public and deliberately whitewash the criminal acts of Lai under the cloak of a so-called ‘media tycoon,’” and seek to “obscure Lai’s shameless acts and subversive actions as an agent of external forces to infiltrate and brainwash young people, through manipulating the media to incite the public and betraying the interests of the country and the people.”
Lai’s conviction offers further evidence, as if any more was needed, to Taiwan that the “two systems, one country” model inevitably means only one, very authoritarian system. Although Hong Kong remains distinct from the mainland — more open to foreigners, foreign commerce, and information — there is no meaningful difference in the totality and brutality of CCP rule.
A letter in the WSJ from Mark Simon on the Jimmy Lai trial…
Under China’s national-security law, the proceedings were a farce: hand-picked judges, no foreign lawyers, no jury. The city’s common-law heritage—which nominally rejected retroactivity in criminal law—was junked. Mr. Huang would certainly cite an internationally recognized legal body, the United Nations or an English law expert who would praise the trial. None exist.
Describing Mr. Lai as someone who colluded with “external forces” is a transparent whitewash. His primary “offense” was having Western friends, running Apple Daily and being resolved to “fight,” not for America but for values inimical to the Chinese Communists. He was a newspaperman, and a successful one, which makes him a threat to a regime that can’t coexist with a free press. It’s nearly impossible to overstate the fixation of the city’s pro-Beijing political elites on Apple Daily, Mr. Lai and those in his orbit. I’m well-aware: I worked with Mr. Lai for more than 20 years and was mentioned more than 900 times in the verdict statement.
Reading Mr. Huang’s screed, one concludes that the government is trapped in a mess of its own making. Beijing finally seems to realize that it is the one forced to cash the reputational checks that Hong Kong has bounced through its own incompetence and authoritarian overreach.
From HKFP – China’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong called in foreign diplomats…
In a statement published on Monday, the Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong SAR said it had lodged “solemn representations” and summoned representatives of “several” consulate generals, including the US and the UK.
…During the meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, the office expressed “strong concern and firm opposition” towards officials and politicians from those countries and the organisation over comments they made about Lai, who was found guilty in a national security trial earlier that week.
The office “urged those countries, organization and politicians to abide by international law and the basic norms of international relations, respect China’s sovereignty and the rule of law in Hong Kong, and refrain from interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs in any form,” the statement read.
Also from HKFP – HK University bars students from holding a vigil in memory of the Tai Po fire victims…
Undergrad, the official publication of the now-abolished Hong Kong University Students’ Union, reported on Monday that HKU had refused permission to use a campus venue and had urged student societies not to organise memorial events.
The first known case of political force majeure occurred in March 2023, when a screening of the British independent horror movie Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was cancelled. Winnie the Pooh is often used to satirise Chinese leader Xi Jinping. When announcing the cancellation, the organiser, Moviematic, initially wrote on Instagram: “I believe you understand that in Hong Kong nowadays, many things are force majeure.” This line was later removed and replaced with “technical reasons.”
The Diplomat on China’s recent concern over pregnant women sending blood samples overseas for fetal sex-testing…
…Reportedly, the gang used social media to explicitly advertise “risk-free” genetic screening and fetal sex identification. The latter service is banned in China – begging the question as to why social media sites allowed such ads to proliferate in the first place. After the blood was sent to the gang, the blood-filled test tubes would be taped to the abdomen or inner thighs of couriers, or stuffed into suitcases or boxes of tea. With fees ranging from 2,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan, the gang’s revenue likely exceeded $30 million.
While the authorities didn’t confirm where the blood was eventually sent to, many news bloggers have speculated the destination was Hong Kong, which has long been a destination for fetus sex identification services. The location of the bust – Guangzhou, Foshan, and Shenzhen, all close to Hong Kong – adds some weight to this speculation.
…China’s 2020 Biosecurity Law makes it clear that the “state enjoys sovereignty over our country’s human genetic resources” and says the government must “strengthen the management and oversight of the collection, storage, use, and external provision” of these resources.
In 2023, the Ministry of State Security was blunt about what it believes the risks are of foreign entities getting their hands on Chinese genes. In an article shared on its social media accounts, it warned that “genetic weapons can be developed to kill targets of a predetermined race, so as to selectively attack targets with specific racial genes.”
While the genetic difference between individual humans today is minuscule – about 0.1%, on average – study of the same aspects of the chimpanzee genome indicates a difference of about 1.2% … [measuring] only substitutions in the base building blocks of those genes that chimpanzees and humans share.
I am fairly sure that the tiny differences in DNA among humans do not correlate neatly with ‘predetermined races’, and certainly not with modern national borders. Does this reflect official Chinese thinking on science? On bioweapons research? And will Hong Kong now clamp down on this weird smuggling operation?
Twitter keeps switching to its algorithm as its default feed, as a result of which I accidentally saw this halfway decent joke. Took me a moment to get it…
A priest, a pastor and a rabbit entered a clinic to donate blood. The nurse asked the rabbit: “What’s your blood type?”
“I’m probably a type O,” said the rabbit.
A deliriously merry Christmas to everyone. Alan Leong (Civic Party, etc) points out that the date 25-12-25 only happens once a century. Cosmic.
From the comments – a past seasonal airing of the genius that is Knownot.
In the New Statesman, Jonathan Sumption – former overseas member of the Court of Final Appeal – on the Jimmy Lai verdict. He blames the law, not the judges…
Reading through this very long judgment (it runs to 855 pages), one is constantly struck by the critical references on nearly every page to Lai’s hostility to China and the Chinese Communist Party, his criticisms of Chinese and Hong Kong officials, his objections to the national security law, his support for the pro-democracy movement and his preference for western over Chinese values, as if these things were self-evidently wrong and presumptive evidence of criminality. That is the abyss into which basic political freedoms have fallen in Hong Kong. In the end it does not matter whether it is the law or the judges who have suppressed basic political liberties in Hong Kong. The essential point is that those who criticise China or the Hong Kong government or organise themselves to press for a greater measure of democracy are liable to go to jail. These are the hallmarks of the totalitarian state which China has always been and Hong Kong is in the process of becoming.
The three judges who heard Lai’s case are excellent lawyers. Esther Toh Lye-ping, who presided, is an experienced and independent-minded criminal judge. So what explains the palpable judicial hostility to defendants in politically sensitive trials and the paranoia which equates political dissent with treason and subversion? To answer that question, it is necessary to understand the oppressive atmosphere which has prevailed in Hong Kong since 2020. It isn’t just the jailing of dissenters. Libraries have been purged. School syllabuses have been modified. Rights advocates have been aggressively interrogated by the police. Trade Unions and political organisations have been forced to close their doors. Broadcasters have been edited or jammed. The rare acquittals or grants of bail in politically sensitive cases have been followed by bellows of rage from pro-Beijing legislators and editorial writers. “Patriotism” according to China’s definition has been required of every public servant, including judges.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China with its own legal system based on English law, but no longer on English legal values. China is an enormous presence. Politically, it holds all the cards. Legally, it can and does redefine the meaning of the Basic Law or the national security law through “interpretations” from Beijing’s standing committee. Of course, the rule of law applies in principle, as Hong Kong government representatives never cease to tell us. But it does not apply to issues on which the Chinese government has a political agenda. The unity of the Chinese world matters too much to Beijing for that to be allowed.
On one of my last visits to Hong Kong, I discussed these matters over a meal with a senior judge of the Court of Appeal whose wisdom I have always respected. We cannot conduct a guerilla war against the Chinese state, he said. We are part of China. It is the dominant regional power. Our roots are in China and Hong Kong. We don’t have an exit route as you do. We are pressed by the West to uphold Western values as if we were a democracy, but what can the West offer Hong Kong except moral lectures and second passports? It is a good question.
…the Lai verdict reveals something … troubling: local courts are endorsing authorities engaged in information manipulation about Lai and Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The ruling represents more than just another conviction in a city where dissent is no longer tolerated. It is a capstone in the ongoing effort to rewrite the history of Hong Kong and its pro-democracy movement – using the once-respected courts as the final word in this narrative revision.
For years, China’s cognitive warfare against Hong Kong has operated on several fronts. First, it promotes the narrative that Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement was merely foreign interference. This is the “mastermind” theory, portraying activists as foreign proxies rather than citizens exercising collective political agency. Second, it advances political relativism, suggesting that Chinese authoritarian governance deserves equal respect as Western liberal democracies and that authoritarian regimes deserve leadership. Third, it insists that human rights must yield to nationalistic conceptions of regime security and that the international system does not necessarily promote the established human rights norms and practices set by the United Nations.
…The Lai verdict represents … a new low [in courts’ involvement]. The Court of First Instance departed from political impartiality by adopting politicized language against Lai – and by extension, Hong Kong’s entire pro-democracy movement.
The verdict claims Lai’s trial is not a “trial for his political views and he is free to hold whatever views he likes on politics.” Yet its substance overwhelmingly associates his guilt with political speeches and actions. The opening paragraphs stigmatize Lai’s character with loaded language: his “rabid hatred of the CCP” (Chinese Communist Party), his “deep resentment,” his “obsession to change CCP’s values to those of the Western worlds and counterbalance China’s influence.” The court describes him as “poisoning the minds of his readers” through “venomous assertions” in the Apple Daily. The verdict traces Lai’s origins in Hong Kong – a story of displacement from mainland China shared by many Hong Kongers – to paint a picture of a man motivated by hatred rather than principle.
The 2019 pro-democracy movement – which at its height saw 2 million people take to the streets – is reduced to violence and chaos in the court verdict. The court portrays Lai as both the “mastermind” of the movement and a foreign proxy, reinforcing Beijing’s preferred narrative…
Most troubling is the verdict’s treatment of post-National Security Law conduct. The court acknowledges that after the law took effect, Lai made no explicit public requests for sanctions. Yet it concludes his “implicitly disguised and subtle approach” to communications still constituted collusion. This reasoning – finding criminality in the unspoken – approaches the Chinese concept of “誅心” (punishing thoughts), criminalizing intentions rather than acts that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. This veers into thought crimes incompatible with freedom of conscience.
…The verdict’s release triggered an immediate government response. Within hours, official statements from various official agencies in Hong Kong and China cited the court’s findings to justify their usual narratives depicting Lai as a foreign agent, anti-China troublemaker, and a media mogul spreading misinformation. Calls for heavy punishment by government agencies were widely publicized – even before Lai could present his argument for mitigation.
Most of these accusations stemmed from facts that predate the promulgation of the NSL, and the verdict says they serve only as “a background.” Nevertheless, these pre-NSL facts in the verdict now endorse state-led political narratives and discourse. This rapid adoption of propaganda, followed by counterattacks against foreign media, reveals how judicial decisions now serve as ammunition in a broader information war.
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) today (December 18) strongly disapproves and objects to the slanders and smears by the foreign ministers of the G7, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US), as well as the High Representative of the European Union, after the court of the HKSAR found Lai Chee-ying guilty of offences of endangering national security in strict accordance with the law and evidence.
Etc.
A couple of YouTube vids for anyone interested…
WSJ staff undermine an experimental AI-managed vending machine in their office, while an Anthropic guy afflicted with vocal fry grins and makes glib excuses. The problems will help improve the model so everyone will be able to trust AI to run their business!
Bart Ehrman on how the virgin birth became a Christian belief. (Recall David Hume’s supposed question about whether it was more likely that the laws of nature were suspended or that ‘a Jewish minx lied’.)
Probably should have tried one, but didn’t: bright and shiny Christmas donuts seen recently in Taipei…
If Hong Kong law enforcement agencies were a small plumbing/electrician business, their motto would be ‘no job too small’. From HKFP…
A Hong Kong man has pleaded guilty to one count of criminal damage after being accused of vandalising election posters, saying that he had only torn off a piece of a poster the size of his fingertip.
…On November 19, he allegedly damaged two official government posters that bore a slogan calling on residents to cast their ballots in the “patriots only” Legislative Council (LegCo) elections.
A police officer discovered the damaged posters on November 22 on a footbridge in Mong Kok, The Witness reported. Mo was identified as the suspect after surveillance footage showed him in the act three days earlier.
He was accused of damaging the two posters without lawful excuse, with the intention to damage the property or acting recklessly as to whether it might be damaged.
The court heard on Tuesday that Mo admitted under police caution that he only damaged the posters “for fun,” while the defence argued that Mo had only torn off a piece from one of the posters about the size of a fingertip, while no text on the poster was damaged.
These were not candidates’ banners – just two of the zillions of government ones featuring kiddy-cartoon character ballot boxes in an attempt to get people to vote. The cops went through ‘surveillance footage’?
A 16-year-old boy has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for conspiring to commit secession by “actively participating” in a Taiwan-based group that advocates Hong Kong independence.
…He had earlier pleaded guilty in October to the charge in relation to his involvement in the Hong Kong Democratic Independence Union, which was declared a “prohibited organisation” by local authorities earlier this month.
…The court did not accept the teenager’s autism as a factor to reduce his sentence. He was given a one-third discount for his guilty plea and an additional two-month discount for his young age.
He was eventually jailed for 42 months.
Is the Hong Kong DIU a real organization or (as some might think the acronym suggests) a joke? Can a 16-year-old meaningfully threaten national security? Is this sentence a good use of taxpayers’ money?
On the subject of his neurodivergence – RTHK reports that Chinese U is launching a ‘pioneering technology’ that tests for autism in children…
Developed in collaboration with the CUHK spin-off MicroSigX Biotech Diagnostic, the world’s first “AI-Powered Multikingdom Microbial Biomarkers Technology” aims to enable earlier intervention and support for at-risk families.
…Siew Ng, associate dean of research at CU Medicine and Croucher Professor of Medical Sciences, said that there has been no simple diagnostic tool for ASD until now.
She said the new technology offers a non-invasive method using a stool test, with results available within two to three weeks.
Is this the moment Hong Kong gets to be a bio-tech hub-zone? Maybe, or maybe not. This is happening just as scientists are starting to express doubts whether there is in fact a link between the microbiome and autism – an area of research that…
…risks feeding into “pseudoscientific remedies and snake oil,” says Heini Natri, a biomedical researcher at the Translational Genomics Research Institute…
Why has the government cancelled the New Year fireworks? Maybe out of respect for the Tai Po fire victims (though why not say so?). Perhaps because a large gathering might turn into foreign-backed black-clad sedition (can’t rule it out). Or to save money (unlikely). Or to ward off an influx of tourists (we would be so lucky). Could it be the police are too overstretched to provide crowd control? Or things are just too awful.
After all the vitriolic mouth-frothing recently, let’s start with a pleasantly worded letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Hong Kong office to the locally based overseas media…
To help foreign media gain a more comprehensive understanding of the case, as the Spokesperson for the Commissioner’s Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the HKSAR, I wish to draw your attention to some facts regarding this matter.
Was Jimmy Lai convicted because of “press freedom”?
No. Jimmy Lai was not prosecuted for reporting news or expressing views through his media outlets. The crux of his charges was his collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security. Jimmy Lai is a primary mastermind and participant in a series of anti-China activities aimed at destabilizing Hong Kong, and a pawn for external anti-China forces. His case has nothing to do with press freedom.
Probably won’t convince anyone, but full marks for trying to avoid sounding like a psychopath.
One of the weirder habits of Hong Kong’s all-patriots/NatSec regime is the issuing of choreographed statements of support or approval for (typically unpopular) government actions by the administration’s own departments. NatSec judges’ guilty verdict for Jimmy Lai gets the treatment. Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau chief Erick Tsang – apparently already aware of the sentence due to be delivered in another month or 10 – says Lai will have ‘endless imprisonment’…
Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho, on her own Facebook page, said that the court’s ruling sent a “clear message” that any acts that undermine national security will be dealt with in accordance with the law, and those who break the law will face consequences. Her bureau does not have a Facebook page.
The Transport and Logistics Bureau said: “Attempts to use external forces to interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs will ultimately harm the general public. Without a stable society, economic prosperity and people’s livelihoods cannot be achieved.”
The Labour and Welfare Bureau, Environment and Ecology Bureau, Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau, Health Bureau, Home and Youth Affairs Bureau, Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, Development Bureau, and Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau all released similar statements hailing the ruling on Monday.
Under the principle of cabinet collective responsibility (or ‘democratic centralism’ for all the Leninists out there), these are statements of the obvious: government bureaus do not have minds or opinions of their own. Often, public bodies and even private-sector companies join in this staged cheerleading (for example, welcoming new NatSec laws or urging people to vote). Will we see every university or property developer issue a statement lauding this particular court judgement?
The government blasts the HK Journalists Association for not following the official line…
The Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) came under fire from the government on Tuesday, saying it had conducted the “subversive work of brainwashing” youngsters. The criticism came a day after the group expressed “utmost regret” over Lai’s conviction in the city’s first foreign collusion case.
A government spokesperson criticised the government-registered press union as lacking credibility, legitimacy and representation. It was “contemptible” that the group claimed it represented the news industry, when it refused to disclose its executive committee members list, they said.
The HKJA and “anti-China” foreign media “ignored” and “did not respect” the verdict in Lai’s case, which was handed down based on the law and evidence, the government said. They tried to “conceal” Lai’s crimes, and slandered the Hong Kong government, the spokesperson said, without naming any outlets.
“The SAR government strongly urges the HKJA and these anti-China foreign media to recognise the facts as soon as possible… immediately give up doing any form of subversive work of brainwashing on young people in the SAR. The SAR absolutely does not tolerate any behaviour that incites the public to turn their backs on their country and harm the interests of the citizens,” the statement in Chinese read.
Why such sensitivity about what a group ‘lacking credibility, legitimacy and representation’ thinks? Someone is really, really massively pissed off that there are people out there who think the Jimmy Lai trial was a rigged farce and/or political show trial and/or assault on press freedom.
Director Kiwi Chow’s latest (Taiwan-produced) film Deadlinehas been banned from screening in Hong Kong after a four-month review by the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration…
Chow said the ban was based solely on the grounds that the film was “contrary to the interests of national security,” without further explanation provided.
He added that a lawyer had advised against initiating legal action, noting that pursuing a lawsuit might not be meaningful, as an unsuccessful challenge could result in the government seeking legal costs exceeding HK$1 million.
Expressing sadness and anger over the decision, Chow said the ban prevented the film from being shown in his home city. “I look forward to the day when Deadline is screened publicly in Hong Kong,” he added.
It has been speculated that the decision may be linked to Chow’s previous work on politically sensitive documentaries and films, including Ten Years and Revolution of Our Times.
Jimmy Lai found guilty of endangering national security by colluding with foreign forces, and sedition. HKFPreport. And all other HKFPstories on the case.
There is no good publicity for Hong Kong in this – just a display of power.
Former media tycoon Jimmy Lai “never wavered” in his push to destabilise the governance of the ruling Communist Party and continued to call for sanctions — albeit in a “less explicit way” — even after the National Security Law came into effect, the High Court ruled in his national security trial.
The court’s meticulous approach, evidenced by an 855-page verdict citing over 2,000 pieces of evidence, underscores the severity and judicial rigor applied.
(See the bottom of page 3 for a graphic showing Lai’s emails and meetings with foreigners.)
The government responds to overseas critics at 1.53 this morning…
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government yesterday (December 15) expressed strong dissatisfaction with and opposition to the United States (US) and western countries, anti-China media, organisations and politicians for their malicious attacks, false statements, and smears against the HKSAR which totally disregarded the rule of law, following the court’s conviction judgment in Lai Chee-ying’s case, which was made strictly in accordance with the law and evidence.
A HKSAR Government spokesperson said, “these biased statements and malicious smears from external forces precisely reflect that the national security risks we face are real. External forces showed no respect in the HKSAR court’s independent judgment of the case, which had been made on the basis of facts and evidence. They also refused to acknowledge the evidence set out in the reasons for verdict, and refused to understand the court’s considerations and rationale for the verdict. Instead, they wantonly launched attacks, slandered and attacked the HKSAR Government, which was clearly a case of politics trumping the law. With the external forces distorting facts and confounding right and wrong, their malicious intentions are clearly revealed. We must sternly denounce their wrongdoings to set the record straight.”
The court’s conviction verdict was entirely free from any political considerations.
Beijing’s Foreign Ministry also issues a statement. The Ministry’s Hong Kong branch tells foreign media in the city that the case was not about press freedom…
In the letter released on Monday, the office’s spokesperson said Lai was found guilty of conspiring with external forces to endanger national security and conspiring to publish seditious publications. It clarified that Lai was not prosecuted for news reporting or expressing opinions, but for colluding with foreign forces to jeopardize national security.
The spokesperson described Lai as a key planner and participant in activities aimed at destabilizing Hong Kong and a pawn for external anti-China forces. His actions, including inciting hatred, supporting violent acts, and openly calling for foreign sanctions, constituted serious crimes under any legal system, the letter stated.
The office emphasized the trial was open and transparent, with the public, media and foreign consular officials able to observe proceedings. Lai’s legal rights were fully protected, and Hong Kong’s judicial authorities exercised independent adjudication. It also refuted allegations of inhumane treatment, stating Lai’s lawful rights are guaranteed and his health is good
Sentencing will take place next month. Perhaps not ‘life’, because it would look terrible and he is already old and in poor health. So maybe… 15 years? That should do the trick.
Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon, is facing life in prison after being found guilty of national security and sedition offences, in one of the most closely watched rulings since the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.
Soon after the ruling was delivered, rights and press groups decried the verdict as a “sham conviction” and an attack on press freedom.
Britain reiterated its stance that the prosecution was “politically motivated” and called for the immediate release of Lai, who is a British citizen. Lai’s conviction comes just weeks before an expected visit to Beijing by the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer.
Lai, 78, has been in jail since late 2020 on remand and serving several protest-related sentences totalling almost 10 years. Monday’s conviction, in which judges called him a “mastermind” of conspiracies designed to destabilise the Chinese government, came after a controversial trial that stretched for more than two years.
Lai appeared in the West Kowloon district court on Monday, in a grey jacket, flanked by armed guards as he sat in the glass-walled dock, as his family sat nearby. Crowds of supporters and onlookers, some of whom had queued overnight, had packed the main courtroom and several spillover rooms to see the highly anticipated – but widely predicted – verdict delivered.
Three government-vetted judges found Lai, 78, guilty of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Lai was arrested in August 2020 under a Beijing-imposed national security law that was implemented following massive anti-government protests in 2019. Lai has spent five years in custody, much of it in solitary confinement, and appears to have grown more frail and thinner. He has also been convicted of several lesser offenses related to fraud allegations and his actions in 2019.
Lai’s trial, conducted without a jury, has been closely monitored by the U.S., Britain, the European Union and political observers as a barometer of media freedom and judicial independence in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
…Reading from an 855-page verdict, Judge Esther Toh said that Lai had extended a “constant invitation” to the U.S. to help bring down the Chinese government with the excuse of helping Hong Kongers.
Lai’s lawyers admitted during the trial that he had called for sanctions before the law took effect, but insisted he dropped these calls to comply with the law.
But the judges ruled that Lai had never wavered in his intention to destabilize the ruling Chinese Communist Party, “continuing though in a less explicit way.”
Toh said the court was satisfied that Lai was the mastermind of the conspiracies and that Lai’s evidence was at times contradictory and unreliable. The judges ruled that the only reasonable inference from the evidence was that Lai’s only intent, both before and after the security law, was to seek the downfall of the ruling Communist Party even at the sacrifice of the people of China and Hong Kong.
[Apple Daily] angered Chinese officials with its relentless criticism of China’s ruling Communist Party and support for protest movements in Hong Kong.
When Beijing clamped down on Hong Kong protests by imposing a national-security law on the city in 2020, Lai was a target. The law has been used to imprison dozens of former opposition lawmakers and activists, effectively shutting down the pro-democracy movement.
Apple Daily closed in 2021 under pressure from Hong Kong authorities, who froze company assets, seized journalists’ computers and charged top executives under the national-security law.
…During the trial, Judge Esther Toh reprimanded Lai for referring to himself as a political prisoner, saying court rulings were based on evidence without regard for a person’s political stance.
Lai was accused of undermining China’s national security in connection with the financing of an international advertising campaign that called for sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials during the 2019 protests. Lai argued that he wasn’t an organizer of the campaign and had merely provided bridge loans when crowdsourced funds were temporarily frozen.
The first Trump administration imposed sanctions in 2020 on senior Hong Kong officials including Chief Executive John Lee and on mainland Chinese officials who oversee Hong Kong. Prosecutors argued that they didn’t need to prove that there was a direct connection between those sanctions and lobbying by Lai and others.
Lai backed the imposition of sanctions in articles, social media and online video chats he conducted after Apple Daily closed in 2021, the court said. The prosecution cited Lai’s international contacts, including meetings with former Vice President Mike Pence and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as evidence intended to show that Lai had influence abroad.
Lai was also convicted of the publication of dozens of what the prosecution described as seditious articles that attacked government authorities. Hong Kong’s colonial-era sedition law was revived as part of the legal campaign against dissent that followed the 2019 protests.
The founder of the now-shut Apple Daily newspaper has been behind bars since 2020, with his case widely criticized as an example of eroding political freedoms under the national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong following huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Prosecutors said Lai, 78, was the mastermind behind two conspiracies to ask foreign countries to impose “sanctions or blockade” or take “hostile activities” against Hong Kong or China, and accused him of publishing materials they said “excited disaffection” against the government.
“There is no doubt that (Lai) had harboured his resentment and hatred of the PRC for many of his adult years, and this is apparent in his articles,” Judge Esther Toh told the court, using the acronym of the People’s Republic of China.
“It is also clear to us that the first defendant has from an early stage, long before the National Security Law, been applying his mind as to what leverage the U.S. could use against the PRC,” she said, referring to Lai.
Lai, wearing a light green cardigan and gray jacket, looked impassive as he listened to the verdicts with folded arms, and did not speak.
…The British government has repeatedly described the prosecution of Lai, a British citizen, as “politically motivated.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned Monday’s ruling as a “sham conviction.”
“The ruling underscores Hong Kong’s utter contempt for press freedom, which is supposed to be protected under the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law,” CPJ Asia-Pacific Director Beh Lih Yi said in a statement.
…Lai looked thinner than when he first entered custody, and some of the dozens of supporters who gathered at dawn in front of West Kowloon court building expressed concern for his well-being.
“I really want to see what’s happening with ‘the boss,’ to see if his health has deteriorated,” said Tammy Cheung, who worked at Lai’s newspaper for nearly two decades.
His daughter Claire said last week that Lai, a diabetic, had “lost a very significant amount of weight” and showed nail and teeth decay during his long imprisonment.
In delivering their verdict, judges said there was “no doubt that (Lai) had harbored his resentment and hatred of the PRC … for many of his adult years.”
Lai’s trial came to be widely seen as yet another test of judicial independence for Hong Kong’s courts, which have been accused of toeing Beijing’s line since 2019, when it tightened its control over the city.
Hong Kong authorities insist the rule of law is intact but critics point to the hundreds of protesters and activists who have been jailed under the NSL – and its nearly 100% conviction rate as of May this year.
Bail is also often denied in NSL cases and that was the case with Lai too, despite rights groups and Lai’s children raising concerns about his deteriorating health. He has reportedly been held in solitary confinement.
Lai’s son Sebastien told the BBC earlier this year that his father’s “body is breaking down” – “Given his age, given his health… he will die in prison.”
The Hong Kong government has also been criticised for barring foreign lawyers from working on NSL cases without prior permission. They said it was a national security risk, although foreign lawyers had operated in the city’s courts for decades. Subsequently Lai was denied his choice of lawyer, who was based in the UK.
The HK Democratic Party decides to disband. (You mean it hadn’t already?) Reuters report via Guardianhere. Meanwhile…
An opinion piece in the Diplomat on the Hong Kong government’s reaction to the Tai Po fire…
…Instead of demonstrating accountability and responsiveness to public concern, authorities have adopted a defensive posture centered on political security.
Many observers see the official handling of the aftermath as another sign that Hong Kong is becoming more like mainland China. In reality, the situation is more troubling. Hong Kong has weakened its own accountability mechanisms without acquiring the governance tools that operate in the mainland.
…From the outset, the government’s approach to the fire was highly politicized and combative.
…The government … moved quickly to cast expressions of public concern as a security threat. The National Security Office warned of “hostile forces” using the disaster to disrupt Hong Kong, framing individuals who voiced dissatisfaction as “distorting the efforts of the government.”
…In today’s Hong Kong, public sentiment and civic engagement are treated as potential security concerns. While the situation in Hong Kong is often described as resembling that in the mainland, this comparison overlooks crucial distinctions. Despite the authoritarian system under Beijing’s rule, mainland authorities do possess institutional mechanisms that absorb public pressure and enforce administrative responsibility in ways Hong Kong currently does not.
…Instead of demonstrating administrative responsibility, the Hong Kong government’s primary tools were centered on information control and political containment.
…Many of [Hong Kong’s] key accountability mechanisms were designed and institutionalized during the final decades of British rule, when the colonial government sought to develop Hong Kong into a prosperous global city grounded in professionalism, public accountability, and the rule of law. For instance, the Commissions of Inquiry Ordinance, enacted in 1968, was designed precisely to handle major incidents requiring independent scrutiny. The Legislative Council also possessed meaningful powers to investigate official misconduct under the Powers and Privileges Ordinance.
These mechanisms, however, can function effectively only in a political environment that favors checks and balances…
…Hong Kong has hollowed out the institutional mechanisms that once ensured accountability and effective governance, but it has not developed the structures that support stability in mainland China. The result is a governance vacuum, in which neither democratic nor authoritarian accountability functions effectively.
…As a Special Administrative Region, senior officials are appointed by and report directly to Beijing. Any admission of administrative error thus risks reflecting poorly on the central government’s oversight. The political cost is even higher today, as Beijing has constructed a narrative of having restored stability and governance effectiveness in Hong Kong following recent crackdowns. Acknowledging serious failures by the city’s government would undermine the rationale for its post-2019 political restructuring.
…The Tai Po fire … exposed deeper structural problems in Hong Kong’s current governance model. The city has moved away from the institutional traditions that once made it administratively credible, yet it cannot adapt the mechanisms that enable mainland China to maintain stability through performance and accountability.
As long as Beijing values the appearance of “One Country, Two Systems,” Hong Kong will not be able to replicate the mainland’s approach to crisis governance. But without rebuilding its own institutions of transparency and responsibility, the city risks further erosion of public trust and administrative capacity.
Hong Kong is not becoming more like mainland China. It is becoming something more fragile and less capable of governing itself effectively.
In other words, Hong Kong either needs to go back to its old ‘high degree of autonomy’ (the core of post-1997 ‘One Country, Two Systems’) – or extend Mainland-style controls, such as widespread censorship of the Internet and foreign media.
The first isn’t going to happen under Beijing’s current leadership (see an interview with Minxin Pei on China’s trend to more authoritarianism). The second means giving up any claim to being an international business/cultural/etc hub, leaving Hong Kong simply a Mainland city with some niche sidelines thanks to the absence of capital controls.
The government’s decision to focus on ‘defensive political security’ as soon as volunteers and activists emerged after the Tai Po fire was perhaps a good example of why English needs a word for ‘shocking but not surprising’.
It looks like underworked but eager locally based Mainland national security officials swiftly stepped in and ordered local counterparts into action. If anyone sincerely believes ‘black-clad colour revolutions’ exist and pose an imminent threat, this might make sense. (Maybe someone does.) But even some pro-government figures must be cringing in embarrassment at the response itself and the way it backfired. Rather than prioritize empathy, which should have been natural and relatively easy, the authorities portrayed volunteers and activists – and by extension much of the broader community – as a possible enemy. Predictably, overseas media picked up on that and made it a big story. Next thing, the authorities are denouncing them as ‘anti-China’.
It would have been so easy to avoid such a PR mess in the old days – but now it’s almost inevitable. Until/unless the authorities take full control over the Internet and ban the foreign press.
The ‘anti-China’ coverage keeps coming. From Timothy McLaughlin in the Atlantic…
As the housing market generated greater wealth for Hong Kong’s tycoons, the construction and real-estate industries achieved growing immunity from regulatory oversight. Government deference, in turn, allowed corruption and corner cutting to proliferate, particularly among contractors involved in renovating the city’s limited housing stock.
This dynamic most likely played a key role in last month’s fire.
…Last weekend, authorities summoned international media organizations to an in-person meeting with national-security officials, who issued an apparent threat about spreading “false information and smear campaigns,” according to a statement from the Office for Safeguarding National Security. “Don’t say that you weren’t warned,” an official who declined to give his name told the assembled journalists.
…[Beijing’s] fear of history [mourning after Hu Yaobang’s death in 1989] repeating may explain the absurd accusation from a Hong Kong spokesperson that recent gatherings of mourners at memorial sites were really the work of “foreign” forces seeking to “maliciously smear” the government’s relief efforts. Beijing’s national-security office in Hong Kong claimed that bad actors were using the tragedy to revive “protest memories” of the city’s 2019 pro-democracy demonstrations and possibly launch “another ‘color revolution.’”
In a recent Twitter thread (starts here), McLaughlin refers to earlier public discontent over property tycoons and the construction industry…
Remember, this was all supposed to be fixed by Beijing after the imposition of the national security law, helped in part by the fact that the pesky pro-democracy lawmakers would be out of the way.
How is that working out?
Writing this as the LegCo election happened it is clear that the 7th LegCo session will be seen as a transition, or bridge, between the old LegCo and a new truly patriots only chamber. Some of the old guard, [Abraham] Shek etc., were told not to run in 2021, now the old guard is truly gone.
The next big Hong Kong story for the overseas media will feature trials without juries and appointed NatSec judges and starts at 10am today: after 1,800 days in prison – the Jimmy Lai verdict, which everyone expects to be ‘guilty’ .
