Big Lychee, Various Sectors

Apple Daily (Chinese) reports that the new ‘Red’ RTHK is deleting much of its older content from the Internet – presumably an attempt to cover up the fact that they used to do quality independent programming. “We have always followed the patriotic line and never ever interviewed any pan-dems – indeed, what’s a pan-dem?”

Fast-forward three years: the entire official RTHK archives comprise 9,000 hours of the Carrie Lam Weekly Today Show This Hour. Plus some Ronny Tong calling for a government unit to fight fake news (link via Jerry C’s comment here).

And yes, someone has backed them all up. (Can someone do the same for all the hilariously sarcastic headlines and Tweets from RTHK English?)

Some slightly amusing media-related snippets to start the week… 

The US cartoonist whose work was plagiarized (badly) for a Hong Kong NatSec-compliant textbook is not happy about it.

A former Registrar of Companies criticizes the government’s plans to allow company directors to obscure their identities and contact details. 

And for statistics fans, a graph showing the frequency of certain phrases in Hong Kong government press releases in recent years. Usage of all your favourite panty-wetting words are here – ‘so-called’, ‘internal affairs’, ‘foreign forces’, etc – has shot up.

The HK Immigration Dept has a mini-tantrum over their non-uniformed and unarmed colleagues in the Audit Commission, who uncovered suspected fraudulent marriage cases that date back over a decade. As RTHK notes, the passport-stampers had a panty-wetting fit a few months ago over… RTHK. 

Oddly, the Audit report records the Immigration Dept officially replying in the standard contrite tone. This suggests the whiny freak-out is partly for the benefit of Immigration staff, whose public standing and morale have no doubt declined sharply since the Security Bureau took a more ‘patriotic’ turn under CCP supervision over the last 18 months or so.

The Audit people issue a statement of their own, smugly quoting an official circular saying that departments caught being crap should shut up until the public accounts committee holds its regular hearings into the latest audits. Fun for all! Even so, the days when the Audit Commission provided an often-entertaining washing of bureaucrats’ dirty linen are probably numbered: there’s no place for independent scrutiny and transparency in the NatSec Regime, where everything the government does is wonderful.

The CCP knows how to deal with auditors.

On the subject of arrogant, thin-skinned disciplined services, former government official Liz Bosher writes to the SCMP protesting Police Commissioner Chris Tang’s attitude problem…

When reasoned and justifiable concerns are voiced by members of the public or the press, he and his staff should be prepared to address them fair and square, instead of falling back on patronising clichés which are frankly beginning to sound like thinly disguised threats.

In short, a little more humility would not go amiss Mr Tang, together with a heap more respect for the intelligence, common sense and passionate commitment to the freedoms of the people you are paid to serve.

For a taste of the North Korean future, see the new (possibly not yet vetted) textbook for the school course formerly known as Liberal Studies – now cleansed of critical-thinking content. This illustration will teach Hong Kong kids about Disney characters and McDonalds invading foreign countries to impose evil capitalist American culture, complete with WWII fighter aircraft dropping hamburger-bombs. 

This screams of someone trying desperately to appease the CCP and do the patriotic correct thing. Not just desperately, but badly. As others have noted, Hong Kong Disneyland is partly government-owned, and McDonalds here is partnered with state conglomerate CITIC. And of course the cartoon is copied: scroll down the thread to see the original and far superior artwork by – oh the irony – American Andy Singer.

(Update: the book is ‘transitional’ and not yet cleared by the relevant organs. But it’ll be all over the news now, anyway.)

Meanwhile, a genuinely talented cartoonist is being purged as unfit to teach.

A big choice of links for the days ahead…

The Hong Kong Uprising in song – protesters’ greatest hits.

In the Wilson Quarterly, a comparison of China’s Covid cover-ups and censorship and the equivalent phenomena in the US. The equivalences are obviously nowhere near exact, and the whole exercise feels slightly contrived – but still interesting.

Ten questions to Chinese officials on the origins of Covid-19.

An interview with Scott Rozelle, an expert on ‘low-income China’. Otherwise known as ‘Is China the next Mexico?’ – low education standards, low productivity, middle-income trap, etc.

Andrew Batson on how an aging population will – or won’t – change Chinese officials’ mindset on economic policy. Beijing’s planners instinctively prefer a high savings/investment model, out of deep-rooted mercantilism/nationalism, and also because the CCP can control it. They fear a low savings/high consumption model, even though the demographics demand it. A sample of official thinking…

…we must recognize that consumption is never a source of growth. We must understand that it is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. The high consumption rate of developed economies has historical reasons; once you switch, there’s no going back, so we should not take them as an example to learn from. 

Carl Minzner on Beijing’s all-male leadership’s about-turn from a one-child to a lots-of-kids policy…

…China’s once-revolutionary Communist Party is increasingly wrapping itself in faux-Confucian ideological robes and topping it off with a heavy dose of male chauvinism.

In China Heritage, translations of Lee Yee’s biting analysis of the nature of the CCP’s regime and its effects on Hong Kong – On Reaching 85 and The Sweet Sorrow of Parting (on quitting his Apple Daily column). Coins the phrase ‘collective patriotic afflatus’. 

…a country that boasts about its crowds of ‘patriotic masses’ is but a pitiable place and a most unfortunate nation!

Michael Cole on how the CCP’s rewriting of the past – notably the Cultural Revolution – increases the chances of history repeating itself. 

Extract from a book about how Australian Financial Review correspondent Michael Smith fled China after the Ministry for State Security came for him.

From Vice – a bio of a politician in a real democracy: Taiwan’s 29-year-old cosplaying legislator Lai Pin-yu. In the words of one voter: “I find her more authentic than other politicians.” 

The government’s immigration amendments are officially designed to stop asylum-seekers getting on planes at their embarkation port. But the wording (or lack of it) could also enable the authorities to bar specific residents from leaving Hong Kong. A quick Google search shows Reuters, Bloomberg, FT, SBS, Al Jaz, Japan Times, Taipei Times, UPI and more all reporting about possible ‘exit bans’. No doubt we can believe official assurances that there is nothing to worry about – assuming the CCP can be trusted not to use a new ‘rule by law’ power to intimidate, torment or trap critics and dissidents.

Finding it very hard to get enthused about a ‘travel bubble’ between Hong Kong and Singapore. I was last in Singapore in (flicks through mental passport)… 1996. Main memory: SU-27 thrust vectoring at air show. Since then, I’ve been to the US and UK probably a dozen times; the Mainland at least as often; Taiwan maybe eight to 10 times; Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia multiple times; Thailand, Philippines, France, blah blah blah, even Cambodia, at least once. But not Singapore. Nothing personal, just no compelling reason to go there.

Even a bubble with Macau is apparently too difficult to arrange.

How about fixing the whole mess? As David Webb says, the Singapore ‘bubble’ is not a real free-travel zone. He also points out that Hong Kong’s three-week hotel-quarantine requirement actually increases the spread of Covid-19. (Has anyone told the government this? I mean anyone they haven’t put in jail yet?)

Even going out in Hong Kong seems more trouble than it’s worth. The new ‘domestic bubbles’ regime creates four four categories of restaurant – bewildering permutations of customers per table/operating hours/tables occupied, depending on whether staff and customers are vaccinated/whether location uses the widely-shunned official tracking app/whether the TV is tuned to the All Carrie Lam, All Day Show with special guest star Bunny Chan. (Table here.)

If I’m reading it right, the unvaccinated have to go to bed early, while the vaccinated are allowed to stay up late as a special treat.

It’s hard to tell whether the government is coming up with ineffective solutions on purpose or just through ineptitude. I would guess officials are partly torn by the CCP’s demand to find excuses to ban protests, but otherwise it’s mainly just bureaucratic idiocy. Hong Kong civil servants have a long history of focussing on elaborately detailed process rather than plain outcomes. It helps pass the time before collecting the huge pension.

RTHK looks for fresh new patriotic talent to replace the ideologically unacceptable old-style journalists with their boring insistence on factual and even critical content. The broadcaster’s latest recruit is renowned liberal Carrie Lam, who will present the Carrie Lam Daily Show, starring charismatic Carrie Lam hosting a wide range of interesting and exciting guests in the studio – including friends from the Toilet Paper Retail and other Election Committee sub-sectors. 

Among the topics under discussion: Belt and Road Opportunities, Bay Area Opportunities, housekeeping tips on how to improve your election system, and recipes for authentic traditional organic artisanal Hainan chicken rice, as passed down by generations of happy smiling poultry-loving Hainanese from the tropical island paradise of palm-fringed golf-courses, sun-kissed duty-free outlets, and boundless opportunities for our city’s youth. The first episode will also feature a highly meaningful National Security quiz with prizes of souvenir Octopus cards (with instructions on how to use them).

This is part of RTHK’s new commitment to ‘equal time’ – guaranteeing viewers equal amounts of Carrie Lam whether they tune in at midnight, dawn or noon.

Update: an audio feed of the rolling, non-stop, on-the-hour-every-hour, seven-days-a-week Carrie Lam In Your Face Every Day Show will also replace station announcements on the MTR and the ‘Yuu’ jingle in Wellcome supermarkets.

I would normally follow the Oscars about as avidly as I’d follow Miss World or the Eurovision Tiddlywinks Cup. (Still haven’t seen Parasite, or Titanic, or even Sound of Music.) But the Hollywood bore-fest suddenly becomes fascinating if Beijing is scurrying around trying to micromanage the event – or at least perceptions of it. 

Hong Kong entry Do Not Split didn’t get a prize, but got a name-check from the documentary-category winner. This film was probably the reason TVB didn’t broadcast the ceremony (the station’s only chance this year at getting decent ratings, probably). Another Hong Kong-ish nominee was Better Days, which was subject to much Mainland-meddling.

The big story is that Nomadland by China-born Chloe Zhao won best director award. As the first Chinese (Asian/non-white/etc) woman to win this accolade, she should be the pride and joy of Beijing’s hyper-curated domestic media apparatus. Added bonuses: the film depicts the US as a post-capitalist dystopia; and Zhao’s acceptance speech included nuggets of ancient Chinese wisdom – all right up Beijing’s street. 

But because she once said something not totally adoring of the nation, the CCP had ordered state censors to erase her person, film and the actual award from the news. Instead of an easy (not to say unearned), ethno-nationalistic soft-power victory for the Glorious Motherland, the Leninist system orders another sullen, stroppy sulk. Funniest cinematic thing since Airplane! (By contrast, Koreans – free to make their own minds up about such things – celebrate an award for one of their actresses.)

Any Hong Kong civil servants showing enthusiasm for Chloe Zhao’s success will be reported to the NatSec Gestapo and demoted.

So China still awaits an Oscar the CCP isn’t too embarrassed to claim as Chinese. It will probably be something like The Wizard of Xi Jinping Thought, Some Like Xi Jinping Thought Hot, Lawrence of Xi Jinping Thought, Xi Jinping Thought at Tiffany’s, Gone With the Xi Jinping Thought, A Fist Full of Xi Jinping Thoughts, or Debbie Does Xi Jinping Thought.

Elsewhere in the Hurt Feelings Dept, Beijing freaks out over Australia cancelling Victoria’s mainly-symbolic Belt and Road agreement and the UK parliament’s also-symbolic motion recognizing genocide in Xinjiang. The former is an instructive example of how a free country can liberate itself from worry about Panda-Tantrums if it just sits out the panty-wetting and mouth-frothing until the Chinese officials reach their limit. (Incidentally, ASPI have done a slide-show explainer on Beijing’s Xinjiang disinformation on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere – worth a look for the fancy graphics/design, starting with a shot of the Xinjiang lavender fields.)

Canada, on the other hand, falls to its knees and does a stomach-churning pre-emptive kowtow any time Beijing demands. A Chinese-based hotpot restaurant in Vancouver – popular with PRC citizens – was recently found to have a surveillance system including two cameras per table sending live footage back to China. Some believe it is a test to see what Beijing can get away with. 

RTHK journalist Bao Choy is found guilty of checking the (public) vehicle registration database, getting a fine. As numerous people have pointed out, this makes her the only person convicted in relation to the Yuen Long attack. 

The key point here is whether her viewing of the database was connected to ‘transport matters’. I would have thought that by definition, any checking of a vehicle registry must be – you won’t find any information about cakes or wombats there. She was checking the transporting of thugs who attacked people. Obviously, in the NatSec era, what matters is whether the information might embarrass the regime.

(More on RTHK under pressure from VoA.)

A court denies bail to former lawmaker Jeremy Tam, partly because he received an email from the US Consulate, and is thus ‘of interest’ to a foreign power and might ‘continue’ to endanger national security if out of jail. The diplomats respond with appropriate indignation. (The unanswered emails had been submitted by the defence as evidence that he had not recently been meeting the Americans.) Again, the key issue is your stance: if Regina Ip had an email conversation with US officials insisting there is no forced labour in Xinjiang, that would be OK.

Good luck to anyone on the CCP’s enemies list who is due to appear before these judges in future.

Good luck also to Hongkongers moving overseas (though their chances can only be better). From HKFP, a profile of a single-parent family moving to an uncertain future in the UK, and the official and voluntary help available to them. A world-famous expert on keeping your kids happy under Communist dictatorships warns that they might regret leaving and advises that we stay and nurture our minds instead. This migration is in its early stages – so plenty of sour and peeved commentary from pro-Beijing quarters to come as people vote with their feet. It will be interesting to see at what stage the phenomenon shows up in actual skills shortages, relocation of corporate HQs, even housing prices. The ‘3’ telecoms group perhaps eyes an opportunity.

Other things going on…

The FCC writes to the police commissioner about his ‘fake news’ rant. (The Club also issued a statement on Bao Choy’s case, earning a rebuke from Global Times apparently handled by a copy editor who googled ‘FCC’ and got it wrong.)

Beijing’s officials decide to hold a struggle-session with Bar Association head Paul Harris. Not sure how they would handle the technicalities of rectifying/replacing the HKBA in order to install a ‘patriotic’ leadership and silent/compliant profession – but count on it happening.

From HKFP, a look at Ted Hui’s attempts to get the Independent [sic] Police Complaints Council to do its job. And how the NatSec Regime is driving films underground… 

…if you want to make money in Hong Kong, you have to make a film that makes China look good on the international stage and can pass government censorship.

Former SCMP editor Robert Keatly on the end of Hong Kong as we knew it.

In case you haven’t seen it, SCMP local-history columnist Jason Wordie – who usually recounts colonial-era oddities – unleashes a stream of vitriol about Hong Kong’s modern-day putrid governance driving the population away. 

And proof that Hong Kong’s infamous anti-pedestrian barriers piss off everyone trying to cross the road with their kids.

If this guy can be ‘worn out’, so can I. I need to ramble on about something other than the NatSec horrors occasionally – probably reviews of binge-watched inane Japanese TV dramas. (It’s either that or recipes.) So be prepared. By the way, today’s music (click on pic) is a song about Hong Kong.

To (hopefully) finish the week…

Before Reuters go behind a paywall, they convince some judges and lawyers to talk to them about the insane late-night bail hearings for the 47 politicians in early March, as Mainland-style justice comes to Hong Kong…

One active judge told Reuters the bail hearings were reminiscent of “show trials” used by China and other autocracies to publicly humiliate and ultimately break political opponents.

I’d be more impressed with righteous judges if just one went on the record on this and did a high-profile resignation on principle.

You know the CCP has taken over your radio station when… RTHK rejects an award for excellence in journalism – probably the last one they’ll ever get.

In the Washington Post (possibly paywalled), thoughts on the occasion of NatSec Education Day…

Directed at children and designed to rehabilitate the image of the Hong Kong Police Force, last week’s campaign showed how the authorities are enforcing a single narrative of the protests — meddlesome foreign forces stirring up trouble — and how no expense will be spared to fully integrate the financial center into China’s authoritarian system.

…as opposition leaders are marched off to jail, memories of the 2019 protests are being erased, leaving only a narrative of violent rioters deceived by foreign forces and the imposition of laws designed to eradicate them. And, as a friend who recently left Hong Kong wrote to me, this place is now “unrecognizable.”

CNN takes the government’s ‘anti-doxxing’ excuse at face value but otherwise does a good explanation of how partially obscuring Companies Registry data will lead Hong Kong to become Asia’s Dirty Money City for CCP elites’ families.

And how the NatSec regime ends the city’s dream of being an arts/culture/creative hub.

A thread on what the CCP’s Hong Kong newspapers – now scourges of ‘fake news’ – were up to in 1967.

And one suggesting that the government is making it harder for people below age 65 to get their MPF funds out if they emigrate. You thought this was your money, taken out of your salary? Wrong – it’s the CCP’s to withhold out of spite.

On glorious motherland affairs…

Beijing is launching a hotline to allow public-spirited citizens to report people who post ‘mistaken opinions’ online. 

National Interest compares Xi’s China and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Germany.

Ultra-long read for the weekend: Minxin Pei in Journal of Democracy on China’s undemocratic future…

The biggest threat to China’s neo-Stalinist order is a succession struggle. One now looms on the horizon. Having done away with the presidential term limit, the 67-year-old Xi is set for open-ended rule. If he grooms a successor, it will probably be a weak loyalist. As happened after Stalin’s death and Mao’s, once Xi is gone a power struggle will ensue. 

And an interview (maybe paywalled) with short-seller Carson Block…

Block’s team is exploring the idea of a long-biased fund that would invest in companies in emerging markets in Asia and Eastern Europe that could benefit if China’s authoritarianism leads to a loss of direct foreign investment post-Covid, which he predicts will happen. 

A good piece of investigative reporting from HKFP on the effort and money – HK$84 million – the Hong Kong Trade Development Council spent over several years lobbying US politicians to vote against the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. If anyone else did it, it would be collusion with foreign powers or meddling in internal affairs. The campaign, of course, failed. Here’s the intro, and here’s the full story.

(That reminds me – how’s the HK government’s PR agency getting on?)

Even the SCMP is doing some investigative work: directors of Mainland bodies that now have corporate votes in Hong Kong ‘elections’ aren’t Hong Kong ID holders. OK, not exactly a surprise.

The NatSec horrors continue to bubble away. Apple Daily responds forthrightly to the Police Commissioner. 

Like nearly all pan-dem figures, Tanya Chan is on the CCP’s put-in-jail list. Best the police/prosecutors could manage was a social-distancing rap. Looks like a mess so far.

And People’s Daily announces the next target: student unions.

Every week, I hope nothing will happen for a few days, so just some links will do until Friday. Here goes…

One interesting side-effect of Covid: migrant domestic workers have middle-class Hongkongers by the balls. More pay or wash your own dishes.

The director of Do Not Split – Oscars-nominated low-budget 2019 uprising documentary – thanks Beijing for all the free publicity. CCP = Commie Cinema Promotion. 

In case you’re not already thinking of leaving Hong Kong – psychopath transport planners believe the solution to rising car numbers is more roads and parking spaces.

Why is it taking so long for the Catholics to get a bishop for Hong Kong? Could it be the church is torn between looking after its flock and kowtowing to the Communists? Yes it could.

A video of a composed Nathan Law versus a ranting pro-Beijing ogre on a BBC talk show. Nathan adds…

Civility vs barbarity — that’s the difference between democracy and autocracy. 

Human Rights Watch’s new report on China’s human-rights violations against Uighurs and Kazaks (press release on report here).

An informed response to a recent SCMP op-ed whitewashing Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang.

Former Premier Wen Jiabao gets censored. The chatter now is that he or some Wen else (haha) might be on the verge of a purge.

The Jamestown Foundation on Beijing state media’s infiltration of Western newspapers and online.

Hungary’s plans to blow a huge amount of money on a Chinese university.

For a glimpse of how things can be without a police-state/dictatorship – private-public partnerships in the conservation of historic buildings in Taiwan (with great photos).

China-related links fans will like this – a newsletter full of them.

Suzanne Sataline a couple of weeks ago looked at the reasons behind the trial of the ‘Grey-Haired Seven’ – Martin Lee, Margaret Ng, Jimmy Lai, Long Hair et al. On Friday, they received prison sentences. At the same time, Jimmy Lai had new NatSec charges brought against him (‘conspiracy’ variants of charges like ‘collusion with foreign powers’), and he appeared in court in connection with the ‘fraud’ case against him.  

The whole rigmarole looks carefully pre-scripted: suspended sentences for the moderate/older (and most venerable) defendants, thus avoiding extreme outrage at callousness; imprisonment (for peaceful assembly among a crowd of a million or more) for the more radical/less aged, backed by feeble justifications from the judge; and simultaneous additional legal skewerings for Jimmy Lai – pure sadism by the CCP in revenge for his refusal to kowtow ever since calling Li Peng a ‘turtle-egg’. They will be happy if he dies in prison.

Here’s Margaret Ng’s rather noble statement to the court. Comments from Jerome Cohen on her case. And a word from Chris Patten…

The CCP simply does not understand that you cannot bludgeon and incarcerate people into loving a totalitarian and corrupt regime.

All those who are conniving at destroying the Hong Kong loved by the world will be remembered in shame, even as, in due course, they scurry off from HK clutching their foreign passports.

With peaceful assembly by government opponents now de facto illegal, it’s going to be the media’s turn. Top officials are already talking of laws against ‘fake news’ – meaning anything that counters the CCP line. Police Commissioner Chris Tang is the latest to call for such censorship after Apple Daily carried negative comments about the HK Police NatSec Fun Day ‘kids with toy guns on MTR’ photo. (The photo was not faked; what Tang should really do is fire the idiot who came up with the ‘kids-guns-MTR’ idea.)

A Ta Kung Pao op-ed demands that Apple Daily be shut down (for ‘promoting Hong Kong independence’ – reporting some Hong Kong-related billboards in the UK). Wen Wei Po has joined in, adding Stand News and the HK Journalists Association for good measure. When these Beijing-run papers call for something these days, it happens quickly. What’s the betting that the Hong Kong Apple Daily will be shut down by year-end? How long before wholesale blocking of websites begins?

In the meantime – an activist group looking at Andy Li’s case predicts – we will start having forced confessions. Luke de Pulford thinks the CCP will specifically make Andy Li frame elders like Martin Lee and Margaret Ng to create a ‘unified pan-dem plot’ conspiracy story. Simon Shen in The Diplomat exposes the fallacy of this idea with this survey of the ‘factions’ of pan-dems. (A slightly less dark/more naive reading is that heavier sentencing for more radical ones like Long Hair indicates that Beijing sees a point in trying to divide what is left of the pan-dem camp.)

And Beijing’s NatSec Office is expanding into the Island Pacific Hotel in Sai Ying Pun (not far from the Liaison Office). Their first task, perhaps, will be compiling huge accept/reject lists of ‘election’ candidates for the vetting/nomination process. After that, they have so much more to do.

A reminder that it’s not just Hongkongers – from one democratic free island nation to another, an appreciation of Plucky Icelander of the Week, Jonas Haraldsson.

Your tax dollars at work: HK Police do a lame – but apparently earnest – mock shoot-out against terrorists at a National Security Education Day event. Starring Jacky Chan as the heroic cop abseiling from the helicopter, Holden Chow as an evil bomb-throwing splittist, Allen Zeman as the dastardly foreign mastermind, and Regina Ip as Lassie the plucky patriotic police dog, who summersaults through flaming hoops to snatch a Chinese flag before a youth misled by Western thinking sets fire to it. Massed ranks of Asia’s Finest Goose-steppers added to the warm-and-fuzzy feel for the school-kids bussed in for the occasion.

More on the NatSec Adoration Cosplay Day activities. Although clearly aimed at meeting Beijing’s demand that Hong Kong correct the next generation’s minds, it all looks too clunky to convince average six-year-olds (though I wouldn’t mind a ‘Warning Tear Smoke’ key-ring). Prison officers battling foreign-influenced anti-China slippers here (yes, that’s slippers as in indoor footwear). For creepiness, try kids playing ‘riot squad’ in the MTR.

Police Commissioner Chris Tang celebrated National Insecurity Paranoia Day on a rather grim note, blaming protests on US agents fiendishly using public-opinion polls to ‘hype-up issues’. He promises proof of foreign influence, some time (heard that before). If the Party demands witch-hunts with a dash of xenophobia, it must be obeyed.

Not everyone is deferential. Apple Daily, with an evil gleam in its eye, examines Mainland think-tanker Tian Feilong’s ‘follow-up spanking of the pro-establishment camp’. Beijing is dividing its local followers into the merely stupid/lazy/cowardly ‘loyal garbage’ who can be slapped into submission, and the possibly disloyal ‘two faced’ who are on the CCP’s naughty list. And who among us has not wanted to give some bureaucrats and tycoons a serious ‘follow-up spanking’?

Some weekend reading…

For those fascinated by the structures of functional constituencies and the Election Committee, a couple of good explainers on the ‘improvements’ that stripped the processes of individual voters, here and here, and a look at the newly rigged Legal sector.

On economics, blogger Andrew Batson looks at how Beijing may be getting tougher on both tax and inequality.

From China Media Project, the 80 propaganda slogans you must learn to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the CCP. Start with this snappy little one…

Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era is the guide of action for the whole Party and the whole nation as they strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation!