Big Lychee, Various Sectors

Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, Persian speaker, scourge of white elephant projects and collusion, record vote-winner and the greatest environment/lands/housing minister Hong Kong never had, is released from prison. He served four and a half years for ‘conspiring to subvert state power’ – also known as taking part in a primary election. 

What would Hong Kong be like if its people had been allowed to elect their own government, and talent like Eddie Chu could formulate policy?

Bloomberg reports on Hong Kong’s plummeting birth rate…

A total of 31,714 births were registered in the Asian financial hub last year, a drop of 14% from 2024, the office of Deputy Chief Secretary Warner Cheuk said in response to a Bloomberg enquiry. The figure is 3% below the previous pandemic low in 2022.

The city introduced a HK$20,000 ($2,565) cash handout for each baby born to a permanent resident between October 2023 and October 2026. Authorities had earlier estimated that the three-year, HK$2.29 billion scheme could help boost annual births to 39,000 — a 20% increase from 2022. As of the end of last year, just over half of the budgeted fund had been distributed, according to Cheuk’s office.

Hong Kong has also reduced the waiting time for families with newborns to apply for public housing — a key subsidized program for low income families in one of the most unaffordable housing markets.

Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have similar rock-bottom birth rates. China’s is not much higher. Even Thailand’s has fallen to 1.2 per woman. 

Pick the cause according to taste: the high cost of housing; the high cost of child care; the nightmare of getting kids into the right kindergarten and through homework and exams; a sense that the world is becoming a place you wouldn’t want your offspring to grow up in. They’re all valid. And there’s clearly a realization among younger people that you don’t have to have children. Careers, finances and life – for men as well as women – might just be easier and happier without them. I’d like to see a chart plotting the birth rate for these countries overlaid with a line showing dog ownership.

A billion bucks in incentives later, and Hong Kong just sees births decline. The North Asian countries have similarly tried throwing money at the problem to no avail. Assuming it is a problem. For a hint of one obvious solution, go to a few 7-Elevens in Tokyo and see how many Japanese are behind the counter compared with Russians and Sri Lankans. 

Something for architecture fans: from Historic Shanghai – why Shanghai is not as Art Deco as you think.

Speaking at the opening of the Legislative Council, John Lee urges lawmakers to ‘show courage in reflecting public opinion instead of simply following the tide’. (Standard story on on-line print edition only.)

So, after introducing ‘all-patriot’ elections in 2021 to ensure only vetted, non-opposition candidates can run, the authorities worry that the resulting legislature lacks credibility (barely 30% of voters turned out). 

Can people picked to agree with the government be induced to criticize it? (Maybe officials can train them by making them watch videos of Long Hair in the chamber, delivering his unscripted, impassioned pleas for social justice.) Do they have the knowledge of public affairs or the thinking skills to devise alternative policies?

And why should they need ‘courage’ to do it?

Obituaries for David Webb – from the NYT…

While finance was his main focus, Mr. Webb saw Hong Kong’s economic prospects as inseparable from its political system. In 2014, he gave a speech before thousands of protesters who were calling for a more democratic way of electing the city’s leader, saying that a popular mandate would make Hong Kong more stable and prosperous.

“Don’t worry about the small economic impact of these protests,” he said, according to a transcript of the speech on his website. “Think about the large economic benefits of a more dynamic economy, ending collusion between the government and the tycoons who currently elect” the city’s leader, he said.

…“I didn’t want to just, at the end of my life, have the epitaph: He made a lot of money,” Mr. Webb said in the interview with The Times. “Lots of investors have done that. It’s much better to feel that you’ve accomplished something in the policy areas, made the place you live in a better place.”

And Bloomberg…

When in October 2016 he posted a demand that hotel amenities maker Ming Fai International Holdings pay a special dividend from a property sale, the shares jumped around 7% within minutes. Later at a shareholder meeting, the firm’s mom-and-pop investors stood to shake his hand and thank him for intervening.

…In hopes that his website would live on without him, Webb said he tried handing it over to the University of Hong Kong along with offers of substantial donations to support it, only to be turned down. Maintaining a repository of data about companies and powerful individuals had become more perilous as Hong Kong’s government moved to restrict public access to such information.

…Webb had his fair share of detractors. He was quick to dismiss the viewpoints of Hong Kong’s local brokerage community, Choi Chen Po-sum, a vice chairman of the Hong Kong stock exchange in the 1990s, told Bloomberg in 2019. An ultimately successful campaign to end stock trading-fee minimums in the mid-2000s spurred some in the local press to label him an agent of foreign hedge funds, an allegation he laughed off.

…“Don’t worry about the small economic impact of these protests,” he told the crowd blocking a major highway in front of the city’s legislative building, according to a copy of the speech on his website.

“Think about the large economic benefits of a more dynamic economy, ending collusion between the government and the tycoons who currently elect the chief executive,” he said. “When 70 old tycoons visit Beijing for instructions, you just know something is wrong. It should be the Great Hall of the People, not the Great Hall of the Tycoons,” he said.

An authentic Hong Kong hero dies…

He addressed pro-democracy demonstrators during the city’s 2014 Umbrella Movement, speaking in favour of a “free market in leadership”.

The activist investor also criticised Hong Kong authorities during the city’s huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.

In one of his last public appearances, Webb warned in May 2025 that the rise of authoritarianism in Hong Kong had threatened its core economic model.

The RTHK story puts it more coyly, saying he…

…[advocated for] transparency as well as better corporate and economic governance.

I used to have lunch with him occasionally at the HK Club (he wasn’t an adventurous eater). Although geeky, he was down-to-earth and very smart. He annoyed – indeed, sometimes massively pissed off – all the right people.

His Webbsite has been reopened by a medical tech outfit. Hopefully, they will be able to keep it going. David had at least one, if not two, assistants going through corporate accounts updating all the info. Not sure if all that work can be automated.

AP describes the collapse of Hong Kong’s ranking in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index in the last 20 years…

Behind the decline are the shutdown of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, more red lines for journalists and increasing self-censorship across the territory. The erosion of press freedom parallels a broader curtailment of the city’s Western-style civil liberties since 2020, when Beijing imposed a national security law to eradicate challenges to its rule.

…A massive fire that killed at least 161 people in an apartment complex in late November revealed some of these shifts.

After the fire broke out on Nov. 26, reporters, including those from newer online outlets, went out in force to cover Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in decades. They interviewed affected residents, investigated scaffolding nettings that authorities said had contributed to the blaze’s rapid spread, and reported on concerns over the government’s oversight.

Cheng was encouraged by the coverage of the aftermath. But warnings and arrests followed.

Beijing’s national security arm in Hong Kong summoned representatives of several foreign news outlets, including The Associated Press, on Dec. 6. The Office for Safeguarding National Security said some foreign media had spread false information and smeared the government’s relief efforts after the fire and attacked the legislative election.

After arrests of non-journalists who posted allegedly seditious content online or organized a petition, public voices grew quieter, leaving reporters with fewer interviewees, Lee said.

A planned news conference related to the fire, organized by people including former pro-democracy district councilors, was canceled. Bruce Liu, an organizer, was summoned by police for a meeting the same day. An investigative report on the maintenance project by a pro-Beijing newspaper is no longer viewable on its website.

Ellie Yuen, who wrote a social media post questioning regulators’ oversight that went viral, said she stopped posting about the fire for “obvious reasons” without elaborating.

Which brings us to Jimmy Lai’s mitigation hearing. No mention of press freedom (other than publish and speak, your honour, what did he actually do?) But we learn that Judge Esther Toh gains weight when she’s on holiday and sitting at home.

The Standard celebrated the new year by having a re-design/makeover. As well as a new – and far less eye-catching – masthead, the paper has introduced a new font for its headlines. It’s a skinny-looking serif thing that experts will no doubt be able to identify. But here’s the main impression: it makes every article look like a paid-for ‘sponsored content’ advertorial pretending to be real news. Which you may think is entirely appropriate.

Best stick to HKFP. An op-ed on delays in Hong Kong in bringing criminal cases to trial…

Connoisseurs of legal bullshit will particularly enjoy Grenville Cross’s reliance on a doctrine which never applied to criminal cases and was formally abolished by the English parliament in 1769.

Another case of Mainland fraudsters thinking ‘you might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb’. From the Standard…

A mainland woman was arrested Thursday afternoon at a bank in Admiralty after attempting to use a forged document to withdraw approximately 150 billion euros.

…Upon examination, the bank staff suspected the document was fraudulent and alerted the police. 

…The arrestee, who was holding a two-way exit permit, is currently in custody for further investigation. 

The investigation is ongoing.

This follows a story (putting the ‘M’ word several paras down) in the SCMP last April…

Three people have been arrested for allegedly attempting to open a bank account in Hong Kong and depositing nearly 2,000 counterfeit bonds, each with a face value of HK$500 million (US$64 million).

…They presented 1,999 counterfeit bonds, each marked with a face value of HK$500 million, prompting bank staff to alert police.

A 72-year-old mainland Chinese man, who also held a Hong Kong identity card, was found to be in possession of the fake bonds. His companions, a 75-year-old man and a 65-year-old woman, both two-way permit holders from the mainland, were also detained.

Good to see that regardless of whether you try a HK$1.36 trillion or a HK$997 billion scam, sharp-eyed bank staff will catch you out. 

For no reason other than it’s vaguely interesting – the Economist looks at research on dogs’ genes…

Dr Lord is now looking, with the assistance of some wolf-dog hybrids, for the genetic changes which underlie this ability [to get on with humans]. And other work has already identified one plausible candidate—a pair of neighbouring genes lost in the transition from wolf to dog which, if missing in humans, cause a disorder called Williams-Beuren syndrome. This results in characteristic anatomical changes and mild-to-moderate cognitive disability, but it also promotes extreme friendliness.

Didn’t have ‘Ronny Tong does something useful’ on my 2026 bingo card, but there you go. Far less shocking (you sort of suspected it even if you didn’t know for sure): the sort of bid-rigging that went on before the Wang Fuk Court tragedy is pretty much legal…

According to the report, titled “Combating Collusion,” published in the wake of the Wang Fuk Court fire that killed at least 161, Hong Kong’s legal framework contains “significant loopholes” in tackling bid-rigging.

Bid-rigging is labelled as “serious anti-competitive conduct” in the Competition Ordinance, but it is only punishable by financial penalties and disqualification 

Although bribery in public and private tenders may be prosecuted under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance, it said, the legislation mostly targets bribery rather than bid-rigging.

And some hazy Competition Ordinance memories come back. Dating back to Donald Tsang’s time? Carefully drafted to make sure certain common practices weren’t really included, so local upstanding titans of commerce wouldn’t be unduly inconvenienced in how they ran their property and retail empires. Then again, you didn’t go to prison for wearing the wrong T-shirt either. Happy days.

Working my way through tech/economist Dan Wang’s (overly) sprawling annual letter – his first in two years… 

That task is more challenging as Europe and the US grew more apart in 2025. This year, both regions were able to look upon each other with pity. And both were correct to do so. America’s global trust and favorability measures have collapsed in Trump’s second term. Meanwhile, Europe looks as economically stuck as it has ever been, pushing its politics to increasingly chaotic extremes. But I am still more optimistic for the US.

I don’t need to lament the damage done by the Trump administration this year: the erosion of alliances, the cruelty towards the weak, the wasting of time. Manufacturing and re-industrialization, which I spend most of my time thinking of, have been doing worse. The Biden administration tried to fund an ambitious program of industrial policy; but it was so plodding and proceduralist that it built little before voters re-elected Trump. Since Trump imposed tariffs in April, the US has lost around 65,000 manufacturing jobs.

 His administration shows little interest in capturing electromagnetism before China overruns that field. Trump is more interested in protectionism rather than export promotion, which risks turning American industries into fossils like its exquisitely protected and horribly inefficient shipbuilding industry.

One of the Trump administration’s biggest blunders was its decision to raid a battery plant in Georgia, which put 300 Korean engineers in chains before deporting them. I suspect that any Korean, Taiwanese, or European engineer would ponder that episode before accepting a job posting to the United States. What a contrast that looks with China’s approach, which for decades has been to welcome managers from Walmart, Apple, or Tesla to train its workforce.

I’ll never forget seeing it in West Virginia when it first came out in… 1980 (jeez). I was so scared afterwards I had to check inside the little walk-in closet in my relatives’ creaky wooden house before going to bed. Kubrick’s The Shining will finally be shown in Chinese cinemas. 

To a fanfare of scraped barrel bottoms, the Commerce and Economic Development Secretary Algernon Lau encourages Hong Kong’s young entrepreneurs to explore new opportunities in Central Asia, Latin America and Africa…

Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, Yau said he would lead delegations of young entrepreneurs to explore new markets.

“In the future, I will personally lead teams to countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Hungary to explore new opportunities,” he said.

“We also plan to visit Latin America, but as the region is currently in a turbulent state, we will monitor the situation.

“After that, our focus will turn to Africa. In March, I will attend a World Trade Organisation conference in Cameroon. We will also explore opportunities there.”

Yau also said in a meeting last year with the Angolan ambassador to China, the envoy expressed hopes for deeper economic ties with Hong Kong.

The commerce chief stressed that young entrepreneurs should gain first-hand experience in understanding foreign markets.

“There’s one thing I truly believe: seeing is believing. We hope to give young entrepreneurs the chance to visit these countries with a government delegation, so they can better understand the realities on the ground,” he said.

I guess Hungary is of Central Asian lineage. There’s obviously a BRICS/Belt and Road thing going on here, though Algernon isn’t quoted as mentioning them (nor the Greater Bay Area). If any Hong Kong entrepreneurs are in a position to explore opportunities in these backwaters, it wouldn’t be kids who need Google Maps to get from Narita to downtown Tokyo.

Why do Hong Kong government officials like to urge young citizens to ‘seize’ opportunities overseas? Do they think the city, with its cartels and overpriced rents, has nothing to offer the next generation? Or do these ministers want to rid the place of young talent? Then again – what do the officials know, given that few of them have any experience of running or growing a business, let alone of Kazakhstan or Angola? 

A TransitJam tweet, with photo of people camping out outside a government building… 

…a “queuing gang” takes up all 100 daily quota slots for driving licence applications and then, through its office adjacent to Transport Dept, charges hapless citizens (blocked out by the full quota) $600 for submission.

How difficult is it to require real-name applicants to book ahead for an appointment?

The NYT looks at Chinese people’s reaction to Trump’s abduction of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro…

Within hours, the discourse online became a proxy debate over China’s power, its limits and its future. For nationalist Chinese, the U.S. military operation had exposed American lawlessness and frustrations in China at what they believe is Beijing’s restraint, particularly on Taiwan. For those venturing criticism of the government, the episode underscored the vulnerability of even entrenched authoritarian leaders.

…Over the years, the Chinese government has lent considerable political and financial support for Mr. Maduro. Mr. Xi’s critics characterized that as a failure of judgment after Mr. Maduro’s capture. The timing, just hours after Mr. Maduro’s meeting with an official Chinese delegation, prompted pointed questions about judgment and state capacity. “Always picking the wrong partner is also a kind of skill,” one comment said.

…In [liberal Chinese intellectuals’] line of thinking, Venezuela is not simply a foreign-policy embarrassment. It’s a case study in what happens when authoritarian rule hardens into stagnation, institutions hollow out and political loyalty outweighs competence. In Chinese debates, the blunt question becomes: Will China become the next Venezuela?

Donald Trump is no stranger to ‘picking the wrong partner’, as with Vladimir Putin and – perhaps now – Delcy Rodriguez and the other Venezuelan crony elites. 

Should the government end the civil service pay freeze imposed last year? Several lawmakers think it should (stories in HKFP, Standard).

Persistent budget deficits suggest that expenditure needs to be trimmed, or revenues increased. It would be useful to know whether (as most people suspect) public-sector remuneration is significantly bloated compared with the private sector. But officials never propose a serious benchmarking exercise* to find out. Instead, civil service pay is routinely adjusted according to a formula that tracks pay in the private sector – ignoring the possibility that the base levels themselves are mismatched. 

That said, we might suspect that officials’ willingness to implement a freeze was an implicit admission that the civil servants are, indeed, overpaid.

In a more representative system, we might expect an objective review of whether or how much public-sector pay levels exceed those in the rest of the workforce. Instead, this will continue to be a political decision driven by fear of ‘bad morale’ – which is perhaps code for a perceived need to buy loyalty among government staff.

China Media Project looks at a survey showing strong support for Xi Jinping among foreigners…

According to follow-up reports by the Global Times and other state media, the survey “selected some important concepts from Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想), and asked foreign respondents for their opinions. Nearly 80 percent reportedly endorsed “building a community with a shared future for mankind” (构建人类命运共同体) and the even more mystifying “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” (绿水青山就是金山银山), the Global Times reports. More than 70 percent approve of “comprehensively governing the party with strict discipline” (全面从严治党), “comprehensive deepening of reform” (全面深化改革), and “putting people at the center” (以人民为中心) — all concepts highly specific to the CCP political context and likely to draw blank stares from all but specialists in PRC political discourse.

How did the Global Times survey team manage to obtain such positive general feedback on what are decidedly political obscurities?

And CNN marks the 10th anniversary of the ending of China’s one-child policy.

For diehard enthusiasts of scandal/serious murk, or those who have a taste for the surreal: kung fu movie star Lau Kar-leung’s widow Mary Jane Reimer delivers a one-hour video on the theft of her husband’s remains last year and the sleazy Buddhist/celebrity scene. Includes a peek inside the plundered tomb, plus musings about the disposal of corpses in general, her past exposure of corrupt abbots, weird goings-on at columbariums, triads’ links with Cambodia and Burma, the holding of ashes for ransom, and more. (“Legally, ashes are not considered property under Hong Kong law. They are considered waste.”) As with many expansive works, it is best to dip into it.

There’s something almost nostalgic about all this: post-2019 Hong Kong has lost much of its ‘wacky mayhem’ mojo.

(Standard story from two months ago. Would anyone care to compare and contrast authorities’ attitudes towards corruption in the Buddhist establishment and within the building maintenance industry?)

Speaking of Hong Kong nostalgia on YouTube – a celebration of our proud tradition of lame tourism promotion, from the early 1960s. Yes, it was hackneyed even then.

For anyone out there needing more mind-bending content: the ever-jaunty Nippon TV on the World War II origins of Hello Kitty.

And Mrs Betty Bowers – top 10 tips on how to be a conservative Christian.