Big Lychee, Various Sectors

An explanation from China Digital Times of the ‘garbage time of history’…

When the result of a sporting match becomes a foregone conclusion and lesser players are subbed in to run out the clock, announcers often term it “garbage time.” The latest term to sweep the Chinese internet holds that nations, too, experience a similar phenomenon: the “garbage time of history” (历史的垃圾时间, lìshǐ de lājī shíjiān). Coined by the essayist Hu Wenhui in a 2023 WeChat post, “the garbage time of history” refers to the period when a nation or system is no longer viable—when it has ceased to progress, but has not yet collapsed. Hu defined it as the point at which “the die is cast and defeat is inevitable. Any attempt to struggle against it is futile.” Hu’s sweeping essay led with Soviet stagnation under Brezhnev and then jumped nimbly between the historiography of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty and Lu Xun’s opinions on Tang Dynasty poetry. Unasserted but implied in the essay is that China today finds itself in similar straits. 

A partial translation of the essay follows.

At Bloomberg, Minxin Pei picks up on the Chinese people’s pessimism about the country’s prospects during the ‘garbage time’ …

On the surface, such pessimism is driven by economic woes. The collapse of the real estate sector has shrunk the net worth of the middle-class. The resulting negative wealth effect has curbed consumption, exacerbating the slump and threatening deflation.

The malaise, however, has deeper political roots. The country has gone through much worse economic times before without despairing. Tens of thousands of state-owned enterprises were liquidated and more than 30 million workers laid off at the end of the 1990s. Still, ordinary Chinese remained optimistic about the future.

The difference is that those citizens believed in the competence of the reformist then-premier Zhu Rongji…

…Now, Chinese are not only dissatisfied with government decisions. More importantly, they see no possibility of improvement because the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly signaled that it intends to maintain the same domestic and foreign policies that have led to economic stagnation at home and geopolitical tensions abroad.

…Under Xi, the party is ruled by a highly centralized, if not personalized, leadership. Changing or reversing policies is extremely hard, if not impossible, as evidenced by the absence of major shifts since China’s recent economic struggles began in mid-2023.

Which leads us to a post by former Mainland real-estate developer Desmond Shum on ‘the Key Characteristics of Xi Jinping’…

When Xi took power in 2013, he saw a China growing more diverse, which he perceived as a threat to the CCP’s dominance. To counter this, he dismantled his political rivals, reorganized the bureaucracy, and reasserted state control over key sectors—media, real estate, finance, and more.

Xi views this as trading short-term pain for long-term gain, but his failure to grasp the depth of the immediate consequences has drastically altered China’s trajectory. The country now finds itself on a path of decline, a result of Xi’s rigid policies and inability, maybe more unwillingness, to adapt.

In Hong Kong, the government is setting up a committee to name the two panda bears that will receive an elite police motorbike escort ‘in arrow formation’ on their arrival.

One more NatSec sedition case from last week…

Au Kin-wai, 58, appeared before Chief Magistrate Victor So at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Friday, where he pleaded guilty to one count of “knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intention” over statements he made online.

He was charged on June 21 over posts on social media platforms Facebook, X, and YouTube calling for the dissolution of the Chinese Communist Party, and for Chinese president Xi Jinping and Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee – both of whom he dubbed “dictators” – to step down.

He also invoked a Cultural Revolution-era slogan: “Revolution is no crime, to rebel is justified.”

…Kwan on Friday contended that the court had to consider the minimal impact of Au’s actions, saying that most of Au’s 200-odd posts were repetitive, and that he only had about 20 followers on all four of his social media accounts. The counsel asked the court not to give too much weight to the protection of society as a sentencing factor, considering the defendant’s limited reach.

HKDC’s tally…

37 have been imprisoned in #HongKong for #sedition. 104 arrested, 60 charged, 42 convicted, 0 acquitted. Almost all for speech protected in free countries, including 42 for online posts, 15 for journalism, & 13 for publishing, possessing, importing &/or selling books.

Kevin Lau (former Ming Pao editor and victim of a knife attack in 2014) writes on the intimidation campaign against Hong Kong journalists…

The harassment methods often involve pressuring relatives, specifically targeting journalists’ parents, spouses, and siblings. They spread rumors to their employers, landlords, and even neighbors and real estate agents, claiming the journalist is a criminal. They make all kinds of unfounded smears, trying to put enormous pressure on journalists’ relatives so that, unable to bear the disturbance, they will persuade the journalist to stay silent and change careers. This method of pressuring relatives to isolate them socially has often been seen in mainland rights activists’ experiences but was rare in Hong Kong. Now it’s being used intensively against a group of young journalists, reflecting the invasion of mainland political suppression tactics into Hong Kong. The spectre of Cultural Revolution-style denunciation campaigns now hangs over the heads of targeted individuals. This might be the most eye-opening aspect for Hong Kong people – if the HKJA hadn’t conducted a broad survey of its members, and some harassment victims hadn’t stood up to testify, this dark political trend might still be unexposed.

Three HKFP stories, starting with a 14-month sentence following the first Article 23 seditious T-shirt trial…

Chu Kai-pong, 27, was convicted on Monday after he pleaded guilty to one count of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention,” under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, known colloquially as Article 23.

He was arrested on June 12 while wearing a T-shirt with a 2019 protest slogan on it, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”…

Chu was also wearing a yellow mask printed with the letters “FDNOL” when he was arrested…

Magistrate Victor So on Thursday ruled that Chu had intended to disrupt the peace and stir up hatred against the Hong Kong government.

The magistrate also said that the defence’s submission that there was no proof that people had been incited by Chu did not amount to a mitigating factor.

…So also said that the duration of Chu’s offence was short only because he was promptly intercepted by the police. The court earlier heard that Chu had worn the T-shirt for just 25 minutes before he was arrested.

Moving on to seditious bus graffiti…

Chung Man-kit appeared before Chief Magistrate Victor So at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Thursday, where he entered a guilty plea for three counts of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention.” He was then sentenced to 10 months in jail.

The 29-year-old also faced two property damage charges, which were dropped on Thursday.

(In case you thought ‘well, that’s vandalism’.)

Chung was arrested on June 23 on suspicion of “writing words with seditious intention on multiple occasions on the back of bus seats on different public buses in March and April” in contravention of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

The offending phrases, written between March 23 and April 21, included the 2019 protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” and others advocating independence, including “Hong Kong independence, the only way out.” The former was ruled capable of inciting secession during the city’s first trial under a Beijing-imposed security law in 2021.

…So ruled that Chung had written statements endangering national security and advocating Hong Kong independence on multiple occasions. He added that although the slogans were written on seats towards the back of the bus, they were still visible to the public. Society would “fall into chaos” if he was not stopped, So ruled.

And former Democratic Party lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting and six others are tried for rioting for going to Yuen Long MTR station during the attack by a local mob on passengers on July 21, 2019…

Prosecutor Jasmine Ching told the court Lam was not a credible witness and that he should be blamed for the escalation of violence between the white-clad group and other people gathered in the station that night.

…She claimed that Lam had “abused his power for personal gains,” such as by live-streaming on his Facebook page when he arrived at the scene, in order to “attract traffic.”

Lam also made three public Facebook posts ahead of the attack that “on the surface warned residents to seek safety, but in reality urged others to gather in Yuen Long to stir troubles, either discreetly or manifestly,” she added.

The prosecutor also accused Lam of “smearing” the white-clad people as a “gang,” further fanning the flames.

Ching said the white-clad group intended to “protect Yuen Long and their homeland,” a claim that the Court of Appeal had rejected in an appeal over a separate rioting case relating to the same attack, but that their intention was “lost” due to Lam’s provocation.

“If only [Lam] and other people in the station had dispersed, the event could have calmed down,” she said. “[Lam] must have turned a blind eye to the demands of those in white so that he could achieve his purpose.”

To what extent will the court accept this version of events?

Some reading for the weekend…

Phrase of the week from China Media Project is ‘Soundless Saturation’ (润物无声)…

This evocative phrase, which could also be translated “quietly nourishing,” references an early spring drizzle falling gently over the world. It is a colorful phrase that now describes the drive by the Chinese Communist Party leadership for more innovative and evocative deployment of state propaganda themes both domestically and internationally. The phrase expresses a trend in CCP thinking about the need for more subtle and effective means to disseminate and inculcate the party’s thoughts and agendas.

Will it be applied to Hong Kong government press releases?

From elsewhere in the world, a completely nuts thread on the Russian mafia taking over the funeral/cemeteries business as the sector sees rising demand because of bodies coming back from Ukraine…

In the Vsevolozhsk region, a gun battle broke out between rival funeral companies during a funeral. As well as opening fire, they used a coffin with a deceased woman inside as a battering ram.

…but just time for a quick glimpse at the Standard’s daily attempt to talk up the property market. Someone bought five apartments for more than HK$15 million at the imaginatively (putridly?) named SkyeHi in beautiful Tuen Mun in July. They have now sold one of them – bought for HK$2.94 million – for HK$3.2 million. The Standard invites readers to salivate over the HK$261,000, or 9%, return in less than two months. 

Presumably there are lawyers’ fees and stamp duty to be paid. And remember the speculator has another four units to shift in what still looks like a sagging market. The report notes that…

KT Marina I in Kai Tak … launched 12 more selected flats with discounts as high [as] 35.75 percent to cater to robust demand after it released Mid-Autumn Festival incentives.

Of course, any vendor caters to ‘robust demand’ by slashing prices by over a third.

News of the HKMA cutting 50bps off the base interest rate came too late for this morning’s edition of the paper – but expect some orgasmic descriptions of prospects for speculators tomorrow.

After three months in jail, 27-year-old Chu Kai-pong is convicted of ‘doing acts with seditious intent’ – wearing a T-shirt…

Under the new security law, the maximum sentence for the offence has been increased from two years to seven years in prison and could even go up to 10 years if “collusion with foreign forces” is found to be involved.

Chu was arrested on 12 June at an MTR station for wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” and a yellow mask printed with “FDNOL” – the shorthand of another slogan “five demands, not one less”.

…Chief magistrate Victor So, handpicked by the city’s leader, John Lee, to hear national security cases, adjourned the case to Thursday for sentencing.

From HKFP…

Chu … was arrested on June 12 this year after being intercepted by police near Shek Mun MTR station.

He was wearing a top and a mask printed with statements that police said could incite hatred, contempt or disaffection against the “fundamental system of the state established by the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China.”

The story has so far appeared in the Taipei Times via AP and Reuters, and Al Jazeera, with more international coverage sure to come. Especially if he gets a mere two-year prison term, as his lawyer requested.

The Chinese government will raise the country’s retirement age gradually in the coming years. The SCMP finds a Hong Kong owner of a Mainland business to comment…

Danny Lau Tat-pong, honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises Association, said he expected the change to have little impact on his building materials firm as more than a tenth of the 150-strong workforce were already over 60.

“Our operation does not require very sharp minds. Not only is it cheaper to hire older workers, they will also earn an income and have a pastime. It is good for them and good for us,” said Lau, who operates production facilities based in Dongguan, Guangdong.

(Echoes of Hong Kong’s introduction of a six-day working week back in the 1960s or so: factory owners accustomed to seven-day weeks lamented that their employees wouldn’t know what to do if they had Sundays off, as they were too poor to afford leisure activities.)

There’s always another silver lining…

With mainland workers set to have longer careers, [lawmaker Michael] Tien also anticipated more demand for office clothing, a boon for his G2000 chain, which has been serving the market since 1996.

Some interesting stats: according to this 3-minute video quickie from Bloomberg, Hong Kong has 15 million sq ft of vacant office space, with another 8.5 million due by end-2028. The bulbous Henderson – built on the Murray Rd Car Park site, for which Henderson paid a mere HK$23 billion in 2017 – is 40% empty. As it happens, Henderson (or a scummy surrogate) bought my apartment (and many others in the same and adjoining buildings) that year. These guys really get their timing wrong.

HKFP reports on an intimidation campaign against Hong Kong news media workers…

The Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) said in a statement on Friday that since June, dozens of journalists have received emails and letters with defamatory content to their home addresses, workplaces and other venues. The journalists targeted included those from Hong Kong Free Press, InMedia, HK Feature, and those who are members of the HKJA’s executive committee.

Fifteen journalists saw complaints sent to family members, landlords, employers and organisations they are associated with, the HKJA said. Some of the complaints threatened recipients that if they continued to associate with the journalists, they could be breaching national security laws.

AP adds…

…posts on Facebook targeting at least 36 journalists called their articles inflammatory and described legitimate reporting as problematic or illegal, the group said. Violent online threats were also made against some journalists and members of the association’s executive committee, it said.

[HKJA chair Selina Cheng] said they did not find any evidence that the harassment was directly linked to the city’s authorities. Several people who were targeted have reported their cases to the police or the privacy commissioner’s office, she said. But the journalists organization was concerned about potential data leaks from the government because some information used cannot be easily obtained under normal circumstances.

HKJA press statement…

Since June, self-proclaimed “patriots” have sent anonymous complaints by email or letter to at least 15 journalists’ family members, and their family members’ employers, landlords and related organisations, including charities, schools and private businesses. Multiple “complaint letters” were sent from Microsoft Outlook.com mailboxes.

The format of each email or letter is similar, but tailored to the different identities and characteristics of a given organisation or individual. For example, letters sent to a school took the role of concerned parent, while media organisations received letters ostensibly from readers or viewers. Larger businesses and organisations received letters in English, written in respectful, quasi-legalistic language, though often containing false and defamatory content; letters sent to smaller organisations were made to look like ransom letters, with threatening words and photos of journalists attached.

Government officials say law enforcement will take the intimidation seriously. More seriously, hopefully, than if you complain about illegal parking. Here’s a video of a cop freaking out with gratuitous cantankerousness after Transit Jam reminds him that cars are blocking the pedestrian crossing. TJ – whose little kid is looking on – is wrestled to the ground, taken to the police station, and released hours later. The story starts here.

HKFP op-ed on the chilling effect of the Stand News case…

We are often told that publications merely have to obey the law, which is well known and perfectly clear. Oh yes? Yet in the Stand News case, Judge Kwok Wai-kin acknowledged that in an earlier judgment on the “sheep village” books he had said that sedition must involve intentionally inciting others. He has now changed his mind, and the offence requires mere “recklessness of the consequences.” So all you suckers who perused the earlier judgment in the hope of finding out exactly what the law was were wasting your time.

In fact, if you are interested, even perusing the law itself is not much help. Traditionally it was supposed that seditious content must be so extreme as possibly to inspire violence. If violence was not implicitly advocated there was no sedition. This condition has apparently lapsed. It is in any case specifically excluded by the relevant part of the [March 2024 Article 23] Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, where the revised law on sedition now resides.

The decline of a semi-open political system and civil society in NatSec-era Hong Kong extends beyond pan-dem parties, activist groups and unions – it’s also affecting tycoons’ ‘think-tanks’. A Standard editorial notes the imminent closure of property scion Lau Wai-ming’s youth-oriented MWYO, the wrapping up of Donald Tsang’s buddies’ Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre in 2022, and the fall in donations toTung Chee-hwa’s Our Hong Kong Foundation. Also, the shutting of the Hong Kong Development Centre…

Since pro-democracy candidates were blocked from contesting the city’s elections, the need for the center has … disappeared

Although these groups were hardly part of the opposition, they would implicitly criticize official policy by proposing different ideas in a spirit of pluralism, healthy debate and unashamed grovelling for handouts. Now, businessmen who know what’s good for them just keep their heads down.

Some weekend reading…

From Zolima City Mag, a look at the 1950s-60s rivalry between right- and left-wing movie production studios in Hong Kong…

A lot of what was put on screen was subtle, as studios from both sides of the political spectrum were trying to entice the audience to go to the cinema first of all for entertainment, but also to feed them an aspirational or educational story. If the right-wing studios were presenting stories in which a growing urban middle class was going to coffee shops and dance clubs, taking up white-collar jobs and embracing Westernised modernity, the patriotic film studios would often have a less individualistic message, with greater emphasis on the collective, on working-class heroes, evil landlords and wealth inequalities, or dramas that unfolded and were resolved thanks to the combined action of citizens in solidarity with each other. Many were also highly entertaining comedies, in which the object of ridicule was the moneyed class.

China Media Project examines the rise of the phrase ‘美西方’ – ‘US-Western’ – instead of plain ‘Western’ in Beijing’s discourse, to underline the idea that countries that displease Beijing are American puppets …

“When we said ‘the West’ in the past,” the People’s Daily wrote in their 2022 piece on the phrase, “it referred to all developed capitalist countries in the Western Hemisphere, which constituted an ideological camp…

“Countries in the same camp still have their own demands. Even if they saw America as their leader, they didn’t follow all of its demands. In the changes unseen in a century, however, the declining US Empire must seize every advantage it can… Even [America’s] Western allies have been mercilessly suppressed. They dare not speak out, but must hold back their silent fury.”

The phrase also now appears in many Hong Kong government press releases, though the author adds…

As @kjoules pointed out to me, the usual translation of「美西方」in HK gov’t press releases is “the United States and some western countries.”

This is a deliberate mistranslation that obscures the term’s intended meaning in Chinese, making it more palatable to int’l audiences.

For journalists and other naifs who are – again – pondering the supposed likelihood of the Yuan replacing the Dollar, a classic Michael Pettis paper from 2022 spelling it all out in easy-to-understand terms.

A video from a Taiwanese state-owned outlet, Who are the Taiwanese? Taiwan Undaunted Ep1, by an American journalist and veteran Taiwan watcher. A very simple introduction for those – sharp as naifs – who have never visited or learnt much about Taiwan. While the narrative stresses the unique identity of the place, it actually refrains from being especially assertive about countering Beijing’s lines. For example, he refers to the Manchu Qing rulers as ‘Chinese’.

From the SCMP…

A group of mainland Chinese tourists was suspected to have suffered food poisoning after developing diarrhoea and vomiting in Hong Kong, with a dozen ambulances called to take them to hospitals on Tuesday.

…Photos posted online showed a middle-aged man throwing up in the street and another tourist sitting on a bus while holding a plastic bag.

The Travel Industry Authority said the tourists were among 63 mainland visitors belonging to two tour groups managed by the same agent.

…“[Theauthority] had reminded the relevant travel agents and restaurant operators receiving mainland Chinese tour groups to be more vigilant in ensuring food and environmental hygiene, and to caution visitors to observe personal, food and environmental hygiene for their safety.”

The restaurant where the affected tourists had dinner was also involved in two other food poisoning cases in July.

What’s going on? Transit Jam explains…

…The govt offered junket operators stupid sums of money ($400 per head, with no quality control) to organise “thematic” tours. The govt also offered $100 million in restaurant vouchers to all incoming tourists (again, with no quality control or auditions).

End result: if you can get a bunch of muppets on a shitty bus and feed them cheap, you’re looking at ~$450/head pure profit. Cue “thematic tours” of To Kwa Wan with a stop in gangster Lui’s cousin’s “seafood” restaurant for $20 worth of “lobster” dressed up as a banquet.

Mustn’t forget [the Food and Environmental Hygiene Dept’s] role in all this, failing to properly inspect restaurants (unless they’re “yellow” of course, in which case a scuff-mark on the wall = stiff fine/closure notice) and, if complaints or food poisoning cases arise, simply “reminding” the owner to rectify.

Sam Hou-fai, Macau’s top judge, will take over as the city’s Chief Executive in December. He has gathered 383 nominations from the 400-strong committee that ‘elects’ the CE in October (or in fact doesn’t need to bother electing him, as there will be no-one else on the ballot). 

But has Taylor Swift endorsed him?

The US House of Representatives approves – by 413 to 3 – the HKETO Certification Act, which requires the US government to consider shutting down Hong Kong’s economic and trade offices in the US. The bill still needs to go to the Senate. 

The HK government waxes wrathful, with a 10-para press release… 

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government today (September 11) strongly condemned the United States (US) House of Representatives for making use of the so-called Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act to slander laws on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong and smear the human rights situation in Hong Kong. The US House of Representatives’ fact-twisting attack on Hong Kong is politically driven, violates international law and the basic norms governing international relations, and grossly interferes in the affairs of Hong Kong. The HKSAR refutes this action resolutely and condemns it strongly.

The so-called Act is a self-deception of double standards. Despite the US having the most stringent national security legislation, the Act maliciously slanders against the just and legitimate objective of the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL) and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (SNSO), disregards the constitutional obligation and inherent rights of the HKSAR to safeguard national security, smears the fact that human rights and the rule of law are properly protected in accordance with the law by the HKSAR Government, and grossly interferes in the affairs of Hong Kong. Such a political manoeuvre not only maliciously attacks the work of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices (ETOs) in the US on promoting normal economic and trade relations and cultural exchanges between Hong Kong and the US, but further advocates for their closure, severely damaging the normal economic and trade relations. The HKSAR refutes this action resolutely and condemns it strongly.

The bill is part of what RFA calls a ‘laundry list’ of bills being fast-tracked through the House during a ‘China Week’, covering such subjects as Chinese electric vehicle imports, Chinese influence over the WHO, and Confucius Institutes.

The SCMP mentions briefly that US-based activists have called HKETOs ‘vectors for [Hong Kong’s] malign influence’. They routinely amplify the Hong Kong government’s talking points on issues like the NatSec Laws, and earlier this year an employee of the London one was arrested for involvement in Beijing’s campaigns against dissidents in exile overseas. 

Politics is the process by which a community decides how to govern itself through laws and policies. In an open, representative system, this involves public debate, often between factions supporting different views. In an authoritarian system, the process takes place behind closed doors among a small group of power-holders and excludes the public, who are expected to just go along with the result. In stricter authoritarian regimes, critics might be jailed for speaking out.

Hong Kong used to have a semi-open system, with elected representatives attempting to hold unelected decision-makers accountable. Today, with an ‘all-patriots’ legislature and local councils, the public does not have even that level of input. Sedition laws, meanwhile, do not exactly encourage debate. This is by design, in accordance with a principle that China’s supreme ruling party must have a monopoly of power. But it seems academics at Chinese U didn’t get the message…

Nearly 60 per cent of Hongkongers are uninterested in politics, according to a survey by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, with only 3.4 per cent saying they posted or shared “very often” about their political views.

The survey released on Monday also found that more than 80 per cent of respondents rarely or never expressed their views on social affairs to the government, and more than half believed that officials did not care about their views.

Political scientists said the widespread lack of interest could harm governance and called on officials and legislators to engage more widely with the public to understand their concerns.

…Political scientist Chan Wai-keung from the Polytechnic University’s Community College added that the reduction of elected seats in the Legislative Council and district councils following Beijing’s led electoral reforms had contributed to public apathy.

Dr Hung Wing-lok, of the Chinese University’s school of governance and policy science, said that there should be more public engagement.

“The findings show that officials, district councillors and legislators need to engage more widely with the public to understand their concerns and opinions on Hong Kong’s development,” Hung said.

If the government wanted that, it could reintroduce a system whereby voters could elect critics and opponents to legislative and consultative bodies. Indeed, it could go the whole way and have a freely elected chief executive. Moves to a less open and representative system – attracting less public interest – were deliberate…

…lawmaker Chan Yung, also a vice-chairman of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, argued that the city had traditionally prioritised economic development over politics.

“In the past, people got more interested in politics because many social affairs were politicised by the opposition camp. Legco became a venue of protests. That was bad quality democracy,” he said.

“Now we are back to high-quality democracy and Legco has also returned to play the role of coordinating with the government to help its governance.”

So today we have only lawmakers who think ‘economic development’ is separate from ‘politics’, ‘social affairs’ should not be ‘politicized’, and public interest in politics is ‘bad quality democracy’. 

This is not just about having elected representatives scrutinizing and checking government. As Ma Ngok notes in the introduction to a recent paper on district councils at their brief democratic peak…

…local elections can … support social and political movements, promote civic participation and community-building, and strengthen civil society. 

Which brings us back to yesterday’s sidelining of gay rights and other NGOs, and of professional groups like social workers.