Big Lychee, Various Sectors

The Hong Kong tax authorities’ mass audits of independent media organizations and journalists get attention in the international press – as you would expect. From the Guardian…

Hong Kong authorities have targeted journalists and media outlets with what are supposed to be “random” tax audits, in a move the industry union says adds pressure to waning press freedoms.

The head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Selina Cheng, detailed what she said were “strange” and “unreasonable” accusations by Hong Kong’s inland revenue department. Requests or audits were made against the association, at least eight independent media outlets, and at least 20 journalists and their family members, including Cheng and her parents, she said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Cheng said the tax department had told one journalist that they had to pay a profit tax for a company they did not run, and had cited a registration number that did not exist. Another company was told it was being audited for profits made during the year before it was even founded. One journalist had their income “assessed” as double the amount they had actually earned, and was issued a demand for prepayment of tax on the “under-reported” income.

…Citing IRD figures, [HKFP founder Tom] Grundy said the chance of being “randomly” selected for an IRD audit was about 0.123%. “The probability drops much further when considering almost all independent media outlets were coincidentally, simultaneously selected.”

From RFA…

The association expressed concern that this could further reduce the operating space for small-scale and independent news outlets in a city once known for its freewheeling media. It called for the revenue department to stop audits without clear justification and to publicly explain the rationale for what it sees as a potentially coordinated crackdown on independent journalism.

“For small outlets like ours, this is a serious reputational attack. Being accused of tax evasion is defamation. The authorities’ frequent scrutiny of journalists and media organizations creates anxiety and casts a shadow over press freedom in Hong Kong,” Selina Cheng, the association’s chair, told a news conference.

And NYT…

Thomas Kellogg, the executive director of the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said that administrative harassment can be an effective way to control the remaining outlets that have managed not to cross red lines that could put them at risk for prosecution under national security or sedition laws. Such reviews “serve as a reminder to media outlets that they have to watch what they say, and that the government has ways to hit back at them over reporting it doesn’t like,” he said

….Last year, the authorities investigated what [HKFP] described as “false complaints,” including claims that a hot sauce it sold as a fund-raiser had come from an unlicensed food factory and that Mr. Grundy’s pet dog lacked a license and rabies shot. Both cases were closed after he submitted evidence to the contrary, Mr. Grundy said.

If you think journalists’ salaries are hardly high enough to warrant tax audits, wait until you find out how much artists make. The Standard reports…

Patriotism must be at the core of artistic practice in the new era to solidify Hongkongers’ national identity and promote the preservation of Chinese culture, Zheng Yanxiong, director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, said.

Speaking at the opening of the Guangdong Art Centennial Exhibition Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on Thursday, Zheng emphasized that art should serve as a vehicle for fostering patriotism and a sense of belonging to both the nation and Hong Kong. 

He called for greater innovation in artistic creation and cultural production to advance Chinese culture while maintaining its traditional essence.

Hong Kong is becoming Asia’s ‘mansions firesales’ hub. Bloomberg reports that billionaires in the city are selling their luxury homes…

This week, a sea-view villa previously owned by wealthy businessman Chan Ping Che was listed by receivers for HK$430 million ($55 million). Meanwhile investment firm Gale Well Group Ltd.’s Chief Executive Officer Jacinto Tong sold his penthouse apartment for HK$138 million last month, according to land registry filings.

Chan, known as Hong Kong’s “King of Cassettes” for the source of his fortune, defaulted on a loan worth about HK$350 million in principal and interest from Fubon Bank Hong Kong Ltd. earlier this year, he said in a phone interview on Wednesday. Last month, receivers took over the mansion he and his family were living in since the 1980s.

So have they moved into a 450 sq ft place in City One Shatin? Sadly, the story omits this tantalizing detail. But it seems the billionaires assumed property prices would go up and up forever, and borrowed more than even they could manage…

“People often use leverage to purchase additional properties, amplifying returns when prices rise, but also magnifying losses when prices drop,” said Christopher So, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Hong Kong. “As the market weakens, rental demand and yields also decrease, impacting cash flow for servicing debt and leading to rising rate of default.”

Or in plain English: they were greedy assholes.

Luxury home transactions have been improving since the last quarter of 2024, but prices aren’t reflecting the sentiment due to a surplus of distressed assets, according to a Savills report in March.

Presumably, by ‘improving’ the author means ‘rising’. When you have a ‘surplus of distressed assets’ the prices are probably reflecting the sentiment all too well.

Independent (ie non-pro-government) media in Hong Kong face tax audits and demands. From HKFP – which is among them…

Head of the HK Journalists Association Selina Cheng said at a press conference that at least six news outlets … had been receiving government tax demands since November 2023 as part of Inland Revenue Department (IRD) inspections.

Meanwhile, a total of 20 individuals linked to the independent media industry are also facing similar probes and tax demands, Cheng said: “Journalists in Hong Kong do not have a very high income. Other than having to pay these claims of taxes, they also need to spend money, time and energy to prove in reverse that they were innocent.”

…Cheng faces an IRD probe into her salary tax dating back to 2017-18 when she was a reporter with local outlet HK01. The IRD also inspected Cheng’s parents’ salary taxes, profit taxes and rates.

“I was earning a monthly salary of HK$18,000 at that time and IRD assessed my taxable income [to be] HK$231,000. But recently, IRD said my taxable income was HK$631,000, and requested to tax me for the ‘underreported’ HK$400,000,” Cheng said, adding that the IRD did not provide evidence as to why it suspected there had been more taxable income.

The SCMP adds…

Last June, Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung called the [HKJA] an organisation “with no recognition” and accused it of standing with the “black-clad violent mob” during the 2019 anti-government unrest.

Speaking of HK01, the outlet carries an op-ed pointing out what most of us know from our own travels – that a city that’s nice for its own residents to live in is by definition attractive to tourists. 

…The success of [Tokyo, Bangkok, London, Istanbul, etc] is not only due to their “tourist hotspots”, but because their urban planning, living culture and core stories together create an atmosphere that makes tourists feel that they can not only sightsee and check in, but also “live” in them.

…tourists are eager to experience real daily life, taking trams and eating in tea restaurants. Therefore, a city must be livable in order to retain tourists. The “Hong Kong flavor” cannot be represented by one or two tourist hotspots, but rather the city’s lifestyle culture, operating model, and a temperament from the inside out.

The ‘Working Group on Developing Tourist Hotspots’ unveils its list of ‘new experiences that are more in-depth and fascinating’ for visitors to Hong Kong. They include: tours of Lee Kum Kee and Yakult factories; the already-crowded area around Central’s Escalator; ‘exciting themed activities’ (crafts stalls) at Victoria Park; the already-popular Yau Ma Tei police station; ‘green tourism’ around four trails and mountains (inspired by the Four Trails movie); the already-crowded Kowloon City; and Disciplined Services’ museums. Plus the desperate-sounding Hung Hom railway freight yard and a pink trumpet tree garden. (The pink trumpet tree is native to South America and popular as a Japanese cherry blossom wannabe in cities around the world from California to India.)

Deputy Chief Secretary Cheuk Wing-hing says…

“The … hotspots span across the territory, underlining the concept of ‘tourism is everywhere in Hong Kong’. There are indoor and outdoor hotspots, locales for visits and explorations, as well as places for enjoying the ecology and scenery. They cater for travellers’ individual preferences, which can easily fit in different travelling routes for creating pleasant journeys. Hong Kong will gain in popularity and prosperity as the hotspots will bring economic benefits, boost consumption sentiment and stimulate the economy.”

As various commentators, even former Financial Secretary John Tsang, have pointed out, tourism does not account for a large part of Hong Kong’s GDP and is probably not worth trying to expand. This is especially so given that the costs in terms of overcrowding and inconvenience to residents seem to outweigh the possible benefits. So why this obsession with pushing up the numbers? Several reasons…

One clue here is in the phrase ‘tourism is everywhere in Hong Kong’. This was pushed by Mainland officials, so our local bureaucrats can’t not follow through – hence the formation of a dedicated Working Group..

Tourism essentially means more Mainlanders in town, which (as with talent visas) seems to be an unofficial policy aim.

It also offers the prospect of higher rents for retail and commercial property, key to the high land valuations Hong Kong bureaucrats yearn for.

More generally, Hong Kong has never recovered from Covid restrictions and the National Security clampdown, both of which reflect Beijing’s tightening control over the city. And now we also have Trump’s trade wars. The (unelected) government is under pressure to Do Something about the economy. And announcing measures to boost tourism is easy: you just pick some locations, and put up some signage – mission accomplished. Launching a new bio-tech industry is really difficult.

More on online archives removal…

Hong Kong’s ombudsman has defended the removal of years’ worth of records from its shelves, saying it may improve its website’s user experience…

…“I dare not comment as I am not an IT expert. But my colleagues mentioned that saving too much information will slow computers. The most important thing is that we have kept all information, and none of it will be deleted,” [Ombudsman Jack] Chan said.

Were they storing it all on 5.25-inch floppy disks?

An HKFP op-ed protests the deletion of Ombudsman’s Office online archives…

…the reports point out how departments have passed the buck, not taken responsibility, and how officials and citizens both exploit legislative loopholes. The issues not only annoy residents but also cause frustration, dissatisfaction, and disputes both among citizens and between citizens and government departments.  

From these reports, we can judge the extent to which government departments learn, improve, and become sensitive to problems previously ignored. Insofar as they do, these are good stories for Hong Kong. 

With only reports from 2023-24 onwards available, neither the public nor LegCo may be aware that some recent problems have long histories.

HKFP story quotes former secretary for the civil service Patrick Nip…

“Reports and surveys published by government bureaux and departments, public organisations, and independent commissions are important references,” he said in a Facebook comment replying to veteran journalist Lam Miu-yan’s post on the Ombudsman’s decision.

“Unless there are special reasons, they must be properly preserved and made easily accessible to the public,” Nip added.

RTHK (no stranger to wiping reminders of its former editorial independence) puts the official case…

The Office of The Ombudsman said on Monday that it has removed investigation reports that are “no longer up to date” from its website, saying that old reports could contain information that misleads the public.

In the statement, the Ombudsman said it reviews content on its website from time to time to ensure its accuracy and relevance, noting “only [reports] from the past three years” are being retained on its website following the latest update.

But also adds that several legislators are voicing disquiet over the move.

The Ombudsman issues a statement saying you can fax or email them to retrieve deleted material. (The Wayback Machine should also have copies of older material, if you can find them.)

What no-one is asking is what exactly the department might be trying to hide. As mentioned yesterday, the Transport Dept has also been reported as deleting embarrassing online records. 

One to watch: the Audit Commission, which also highlights government failures, still has all its reports since 1999 online. 

During my five-day absence, the Hong Kong government announced, passed and implemented new local national security/Article 23 laws. Blink and you would’ve missed it. The key part seems to be enabling Mainland NatSec authorities to directly take control of cases under ‘special’ circumstances. Much of the attention focused on the declaration of those authorities’ premises in Hong Kong – including four hotels – as ‘prohibited’ areas. Which again raises the question of how many of these officials there are here, and what they do all day.

Also while I was away: a proposal for something called the ‘Victoria Cove Area’. By ‘area’ we mean ‘hub-zone’, I presume. Sounds better than ‘the Kowloon Bay armpit’. As usual, it’s driven by the obsession with tourists. But a few of the ideas, like canoeing, are verging dangerously on being imaginative and, in theory, even fun. And then – uh-oh – you read that the project would be under the Urban Renewal Authority.

The CFHK on the introduction of the Hong Kong Judicial Sanctions Act in the US Senate…

The bill … would initiate a mandatory review of 45 individuals for targeted sanctions under existing U.S. laws … These individuals — officials, judges, and prosecutors at all levels — have weaponized the city’s legal system to punish pro-democracy activists, civil society leaders, journalists, and everyday citizens under the National Security Law and other repressive statutes.

Among the individuals named are the three judges who recently sentenced 45 pro-democracy leaders to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years: Johnny Chan Jong-herng, Andrew Chan Hing-wai, and Alex Lee Wan-tang. Also named is Anthony Chau Tin-hang, the lead prosecutor in many political cases related to the 2019 pro-democracy protests and a frequent denier of defendants’ bail requests, keeping dozens detained for over 1,000 days before conviction.

The HK government ‘strongly condemns US senators’ despicable attempt to intimidate HKSAR personnel safeguarding national security’…

“It is clear that safeguarding national security falls within the internal affairs of a sovereign jurisdiction, so the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law (HKNSL) is free from any intervention. However, those US politicians insist on turning a blind eye to all these facts, and even clamour for so-called ‘sanctions’ against the HKSAR personnel and judges who dutifully safeguard national security. The HKSAR despises any so-called ‘sanctions’ and shall never be intimidated…”

Transit Jam on the deletion of online archives by the Ombudsman’s Office and the Transport Dept.

A couple of BBC items… A story about an Australian’s five years in the Chinese prison system. And – well over a week old, but in case you missed it – a video on the rise of informants in today’s Hong Kong, including a pro-Beijing commentator who fears the emphasis on ‘patriots’ could lead to a sort of Cultural Revolution climate.

Speaking of which – a CMP interview with the Guardian’s Tania Branigan on how China still remembers the Cultural Revolution, and comparisons with the US under Trump…

A venomous mindset was, in a sense, key to the Cultural Revolution, it was all about the weaponization of division and hatred. When I was writing the book one thing that struck me was that Mao had to say, “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?”

Inspection tour report… For Japan’s most boring city, Nagoya is well worth a visit. Probably several. It might not quite have a distinctive vibe like Kyoto or even Fukuoka, and it’s more low-rise and less intense than, say, Tokyo or Osaka (is it just me or are the Family Mart staff especially friendly?)

But it has its share of architecture (the City Archive stairs appear in TV series Tiger With Wings), bird-watching (wetlands/estuary viewing facilities), clusters of second-hand retro clothes stores and tasteless themed cafes, creepy religious groups’ HQs, covered shopping streets, wacky subway announcements, and all the other fun Japanese things. Including, of course, food: sushi, yakitori, eel, gyoza, takoyaki stands, etc, etc – at maybe a third to half the price you would pay in Hong Kong. Not too many tourists (OK, other tourists) either. Give or take (braver-than-average) Hongkongers. Trying horse sashimi for the first time (it’s good), I noticed the guy sitting just next to me at the counter was watching the racing at Happy Valley on his phone.

The 68-year-old father of ‘absconder’ Anna Kwok is denied bail on national security grounds. He was arrested last week for attempting to obtain funds form an insurance policy of his daughter’s…

[Chief Magistrate Victor] So said on Thursday that after hearing arguments from the prosecution and the defence and reviewing all documents, there were insufficient grounds to believe that Kwok Yin-sang would not continue to engage in activities endangering national security if he was granted bail.

Links to two statements from NGOs here. The (paywalled) Economist says…

The move marks a serious escalation by the Hong Kong authorities, under pressure from Beijing, to enforce complete political control over the territory. Last year they jailed a group of 45 prominent activists who stayed in the city, for between four and ten years. But this is the first time a family member of an exiled activist has been prosecuted. In 2023 the Hong Kong government placed a bounty on several campaigners abroad, including Ms Kwok, who now leads the Hong Kong Democracy Council in Washington, accusing them of colluding with foreign forces. That can carry a sentence of life in prison. There are now 19 “wanted” activists living in exile, who have a bounty on their head. The authorities have revoked the passports of Ms Kwok and 12 others.

Their family members have faced increasing harassment. Since January police have interrogated the families of at least five of the exiled activists, says Human Rights Watch (hrw), an ngo in New York. They raided the office of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, an institution associated with Chung Kim-wah, a scholar now based in Britain, and confiscated HK$800,000 ($103,000) from the family of Ted Hui, a former lawmaker who lives in Australia, both for allegedly contravening national security.

And a cousin and cousin’s wife of activist Joe Tay – also overseas with a HK$1 million reward on him – are taken in for questioning…

Tay ran in the Canadian legislative elections last month as a member of the country’s Conservative Party. He emerged second in his district out of six candidates.

Victor So is busy these days. He sends a man to prison for a year for ‘knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intention’ on Facebook posts…

Li was said to have shared news articles and photos on his Facebook account along with his commentary. His posts could be viewed publicly, but received very few responses, the court heard.

The former Citybus employee attacked the police in most of his posts, saying that the force had made “arbitrary arrests” and “used violence” to crack down on protesters during the 2019 anti-extradition bill unrest.

The defendant called the police “black cops” and said the Independent Police Complaints Council, which cleared the police force of any misconduct during the 2019 protests, had “condoned” what he described as “police brutality.”

Li criticised court rulings in protest-related cases, calling some judges “stupid” and accusing them of “framing” defendants on rioting charges. He said Hong Kong’s judicial system was “fucking broken,” adding that the city’s rule of law was “dead.”

Some questions… How many Hong Kong people agree with any/most/all of Li’s comments? Would he be in the clear if he had prefaced each post with the phrase ‘in my opinion’? Does it make a difference if a defendant challenges the prosecution to provide evidence of the (little-read) posts successfully inciting any hatred? Or is it a crime to utter such thoughts even in private where no-one hears or reads them?

If this doesn’t reduce the influx of Mainland tourists, nothing will: foreigners peering out of the deathly gloom of Central in the early hours.

Spending the coming week in Japan’s most boring city.

You’re sitting on the deck of your luxury yacht sipping a pina colada. And then a Boeing 777 – engines at full 110,000-lb thrust – flies 1,000 feet over you. Repeat every two minutes. Did they think this through?

 The first phase of Hong Kong’s largest yacht marina in the Airport Authority’s ambitious SKYTOPIA development project is expected to be completed in 2028, according to Cissy Chan Ching-sze, the authority’s commercial executive director. 

The announcement comes as the Asia-Pacific superyacht market shows robust growth, with 530 vessels over 30 meters active in the region last year, of which 343 were owned by Asian nationals, according to the 2025 report from SuperYacht Times. 

After saying Hong Kong has tons of space for more non-yacht-owning tourists, Tourism Minister Rosanna Law tries to work out ways to sort out the crowding at High Island Reservoir…

She told lawmakers on Wednesday that in the past week, the number of visitors to East Dam at High Island Reservoir was just over 3,000 a day at its peak, compared to some 4,300 recorded in late March.

The secretary for culture, sports and tourism said the government doesn’t think the dam can withstand such a large number of visitors on a long-term basis, pointing out that the countryside’s capacity must be considered as part of any eco-tourism developmental effort.

“In the long run, we hope to divert the tourists visiting Hong Kong for hiking activities to different routes for a better visiting experience and to minimise the impact of visitors’ activities on individual hiking trails and countryside nature,” Law said in response to a lawmaker’s question in the Legislative Council.

Reporters Without Borders recently put Hong Kong at 140th place for press freedom, while China fell to 178th place. HKFP carries Ta Kung Pao’s reaction…

“RSF has long become a political thug, and the World Press Freedom Index has degenerated into a political smear tool in recent years,” it wrote. “Its smear of the press freedom situation in Hong Kong has reached unimaginable levels.”

From China Media Project, ‘public opinion channeling’ following a boat accident in Guizhou that claimed 10 lives (according to official reports)…

 Issued on May 4, the day of the tragedy, the agency’s official release … emphasized the action of the leadership, “Xi Jinping Issues Important Instructions on the Capsized Boat Accident,” the headline began. Xi emphasized the need to “do everything possible” in the rescue effort, and to ensure “resolutely curb the frequent occurrence of major safety accidents.” As typical under Xi Jinping, these “important instructions” were the prerogative of the top leader, while the country’s number two, the premier, made “written comments” (批示) to signal action from the top down.

From Made in China, the story behind (and politically fraught future of) a recently rediscovered late-1940s invention called ‘MingKwai’…

MingKwai was not just the first Chinese typewriter with a keyboard; it also embodied the first Chinese input method and helped lay the intellectual foundation for modern human–computer interactions…

On a slightly related note… I pick up Chinese characters at the rate of about one every few months. Not formal learning – just an ‘interesting enough to stick in my mind’ thing. The latest is the word for ‘vomit’, namely ‘嘔’. It combines two characters meaning ‘mouth’ and ‘area’, which is (to me, at least) amusingly and memorably vivid. If the beautiful Australian language was written in Chinese, the character would be made up of the words for ‘yawn’ and ‘technicolor’. 

Hong Kong’s amazing success over the May 1 Golden Week holiday was to attract huge numbers of tourists. The 1.1 million mostly Mainland visitors coming into the city represented an increase of around 20% over the previous year. However, many were not the high-spending sort we are told benefit the local economy. Social media carry photos of young Mainlanders sleeping overnight in McDonalds, while 60-strong day-trip groups paying as little as RMB40 a head were being herded around the West Kowloon parks and other cheap but photogenic spots.

CE John Lee says we ‘must welcome’ them all. I was once a youthful backpacker myself (sample of wretched nocturnal arrangements here), and I don’t begrudge elderly villagers from Pearl River backwaters a once-in-a-lifetime chance to gaze across the Fragrant Harbour. The problem is the excessive numbers of them, all going to the same spots that already have inadequate space for locals. Places are near bursting point. Either at least pedestrianize the streets and lay on enough transport – or just stop encouraging mass-tourism in this mindless pursuit of higher and higher visitor numbers. 

Unless, it’s not about tourists (as in landlords/rents) at all, but just about swamping the city with outsiders as an end in itself – perhaps some sort of collective punishment, or a way to reinforce the principle that the government runs the people, not vice-versa.

The Secretary for Stuff No-one Else Wants to Do says Hong Kong has space to cram in even more tourists. It’s a test of a) the population’s admirable patience and b) the government’s equally impressive imperviousness to public opinion. Which will break first?

Asia Times on China’s ‘deflationary death spiral’. Good example of headline writers exaggerating the gist of a story, which is interesting enough…

Tariffs are drying up international demand for Chinese goods, and in a bid to keep factories alive, Beijing is urging exporters to turn inward. However, that pivot is compounding the very problem it aims to solve.

Chinese authorities have been positioning the domestic market as a pressure-release valve for the manufacturing sector. But the influx of export-grade inventory is creating excess at home in a consumer environment that is already highly restrained. 

This is accelerating a destructive process: prices are falling, and not because productivity is rising or technology is improving. They’re falling because companies are desperate to shift stock and survive.

From religious journal First Things, a plea for a new pope with a ‘better China policy’, including blunt language from Hong Kong’s Cardinal Zen/Chan…

Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Cardinal Parolin is the architect of the [Vatican-China power-sharing] deal and its chief enthusiast. Beijing has not-so-subtly signaled that he is China’s top pick for the next pope. At a press conference on April 22—one day after Pope Francis’s death—Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun dangled the prospect of “improvement of China-Vatican relations” through “continued” partnership, and no one among the leading papal candidates has more experience working with China than Cardinal Parolin. 

The deal endangers faithful clergy in China. A stark reminder of this reality came last month when the Chinese state security authorities indefinitely detained Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin of the Catholic diocese of Wenzhou without due process. This is the sixty-one-year-old underground prelate’s eighth detention over the last seven years.  

…Joseph Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong accused Cardinal Parolin of “manipulating” Pope Francis into approving the deal by falsely claiming that Pope Benedict XVI had approved its draft. In an October 2020 blog post, the Hong Kong cardinal didn’t mince words: “Parolin knows he is lying, he knows that I know he is a liar, he knows that I will tell everyone that he is a liar.” 

Beijing has taken advantage of the agreement, and the Catholic Church is suffering for it. A better policy—one that does not share the pope’s important power of appointing Catholic Church leadership with an atheistic government and that supports the perpetuation of the Church through a faithful underground—is long overdue.

Fugitive activist Anna Kwok’s 68-year-old father is arrested and detained in jail for allegedly ‘attempting to deal with, directly or indirectly, any funds or other financial assets or economic resources belonging to, or owned or controlled by, a relevant absconder’. Her brother was also reportedly taken in and released on bail…

It is the first time Hong Kong authorities have charged a family member of a wanted activist under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, more commonly known as Article 23.

It is also the first prosecution for the offence that is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

According to the charge sheet, between January 4 and February 27, Kwok Yin-sang is said to have attempted to obtain funds from a life and personal accident insurance policy that belonged to Anna Kwok – who is wanted by Hong Kong authorities for suspected foreign collusion.

More on ‘absconders’. From Australia’s (paywalled) Age, the tale of how a Hong Kong lawmaker came to be an Adelaide lawyer…

To his friends and colleagues in Adelaide, he’s just Ted. To the Chinese and Hong Kong governments, Ted Hui Chi-fung is a traitor guilty of numerous heinous crimes. In Hong Kong, wanted posters for Hui have hung from noticeboards outside police stations.

In Australia, he’s the target of patriotic Chinese thugs and foreign interference campaigns…

In Hong Kong, before leaving for good…

Hui was regularly followed home from work by security officials. By July 2020, his office had been raided three times in six months.

“I was in a dangerous situation,” he recalls. “I knew that the rules of the game had changed and that this was their new tactic, that they would come up with new things and they would use whatever means to put you in jail.”

Beijing had begun implementing a new national security law, which gave the Chinese government unprecedented powers to sentence those deemed guilty of subversion to life imprisonment. In August, Hui was arrested after participating in a small protest in a local park in Tuen Mun, his childhood suburb, 11 kilometres south of the border with the mainland. He posted bail, but the Hong Kong police confiscated his passport.

And then…

COVID had shut the world’s borders. Zoom had killed in-person conferences. “For the first couple of weeks, we tried to look for real meetings to invite him to,” says [Danish activist] Storgaard. “But there were none. So we decided, ‘Let’s just make an invitation.’ ”

Storgaard, then 26, and his then 25-year-old friend Thomas Rohden, now a regional councillor for the Social-Liberal Party, got on the phone to their contacts in the Danish parliament. They rang non-government organisations, environmental groups and two Danish MPs, the Independent Greens’ Uffe Elbæk and the Conservative People’s Party’s Katarina Ammitzbøll. They convinced them to sign off on the official letter inviting Hui to a series of meetings and conferences that did not exist.

But quarantine would have prevented his scheduled court appearance on return to Hong Kong…

“So within four hours, Thomas and I had to call all the parliamentarians and NGOs and just ask them again, ‘We have this situation, we are trying to get this guy out of Hong Kong. If somebody calls you and contacts you from China, are you willing to say you’re going to have a meeting with this guy?’ And to my surprise, everybody said yes…”

…Hui did not tell Storgaard that he, too, harboured a secret: he was also going to smuggle his family out of Hong Kong.

Renee Xia, director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a US-based NGO, says the “Chinese government’s collective punishment of human rights defenders’ families appears to be a state policy”. Hui says, “My family didn’t want me to come back. They said even though we’re in trouble, they didn’t believe the regime would keep them in jail for a very long time.”

Hui was determined to avoid that outcome. “I didn’t want them to be held hostage,” he says.

Quite a story. No wonder the authorities are massively miffed about his success in fleeing. They won’t fall for it again.

A couple more HKFP pieces you might have missed…

Hong Kong falls to 140th place in the 2025 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index…

The free expression NGO said: “The main factor behind this decline is the deterioration of the political indicator (-7.28 pts), notably due to the September 2024 conviction for ‘sedition’ of Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, former editors of Stand News. This is the first sedition case against the media since the UK handed over the territory in 1997.”

And an op-ed on the Hung Hom marina proposal. What or who are such marinas for? Whatever the answer, local residents don’t come into it.

The SCMP reports…

A 47-year-old Hong Kong man has undergone an amputation of his left lower leg two days after developing a Group A Streptococcal infection following acupuncture treatment he received at two traditional Chinese medicine clinics.

The Centre for Health Protection said on Tuesday the man developed a fever and left thigh pain on April 11 and subsequently sought care from a private hospital, where he was diagnosed with septic shock and necrotising fasciitis, commonly known as “flesh-eating infection”.

…“During the investigation, the team suspected that the Chinese medicine practitioner had not strictly followed infection control procedures when performing acupuncture. The investigation is still in progress,” a spokesman said.

The man started off with a strained muscle, which would have fixed itself, then went to the voodoo clincic, then – after infection set in – to a private hospital, which sent him to Queen Mary. (Not to the Baptist U ‘Chinese medicine’ facility.) 

The paper’s explainer describes the infection and urges readers to exercise caution, while quoting a ‘Chinese medicine’ guy…

Lawmaker Chan Wing-kwong, president of the Hong Kong Registered Chinese Medicine Practitioners Association, also said he believed the case was isolated and it was the first in Hong Kong. He urged the public not to panic or stop treatment.

Nowhere does it mention that acupuncture is a pseudoscience.

The government is completing a ‘Chinese medicine’ hospital at Tseung Kwan O. Interesting to read the tender info.

Some weekend reading…

Brian Kern reposts Chow Hang-tung’s recent statement on why she decided to withdraw her judicial review on the Correctional Services Dept’s refusal to let her receive four books, including Szeto Wah’s memoir. He prefaces it with a useful commentary…

It’s not hard to see why, in this new era of political censorship, prison authorities refused to deliver those last three books to Hang-tung. In fact, according to Hang-tung in her application for judicial review, the CSD did give a verbal reason for refusing the books, something to the effect of the books “containing biased descriptions of social events, which may arouse a sense of resistance to governance and pose a threat to the security and order of the institution and are not conducive to rehabilitation.”

Here, it should be noted that Hang-tung’s actually the second Hong Kong political prisoner to make an issue of being denied books. Owen Chow was the first. On December 5, 2023, he filed an application for judicial review of CSD’s decision to deny him a book that contained a reproduction of Botticelli’s famous painting, “The Birth of Venus.” When his friend who was trying to deliver it received the book back from CSD, on the page in question was a post-it note with a prison guard’s writing, “Nude! Reject!” (裸露！退!).

A Chinese immigrant’s thoughts on voting for the first time as a Canadian…

…there’s homework to do. To make an informed decision, I’ve followed election news, tuned into political podcasts, and watched the leaders’ debate. I even told my parents back in China about it—like a child announcing proudly he’s learned to ride a bike.

When my mom recently asked how Canadian elections work, I struggled to explain an electoral system that can feel bewildering to outsiders.

Sure, the concept of “riding” was easy enough for her to grasp. But how would I unpack the intricacies of “strategic voting”? Or explain that we don’t vote directly for the prime minister, but MPs who represent us in Parliament? And what was the right Chinese word for “constituency”? Before long, our conversation veered into a new recipe my mom had recently tried.

Der Spiegel tracks down Chinese mercenaries fighting for Russia in Ukraine. Details of their motives and lives…

One of those contacted, though, opens up. On Douyin, he calls himself “Rabbit in the Bear Pit.” Videos show a man with a propensity for silliness. In one clip, he has stuffed animals shoved into the pockets of his military vest, another shows comrades dancing in a forest. The war is different than he thought it would be, he writes, “the ground was covered by the sleeping.” What? “By the eternally sleeping,” he specifies. Almost everyone in his unit is dead, he explains. He, too, urges his compatriots not to enlist.

He answers questions for two hours, soberly and without emotion. His responses come quickly – perhaps the conversation is a welcome change of pace. None of his comrades speak Chinese, he writes, adding that he is unable to speak English and his Russian is still poor. Still, he sends his nom de guerre in Russian: “Koshmar,” meaning “Nightmare.”

The Diplomat on growing closeness between Taiwanese who identify with the ROC but oppose unification with the PRC and those who support Taiwanese nationhood.