Big Lychee, Various Sectors

An LGBTQ radio show previously scrapped by government-run RTHK is cancelled by another station…

Hong Kong’s Metro Radio has abruptly halted plans to relaunch radio programme We Are Family, an LGBTQ show axed by government-funded broadcaster RTHK three years ago, its host has said.

Brian Leung, the host of We Are Family, said on the show’s Facebook page on Wednesday that Metro Radio invited him in April to relaunch We Are Family on Metro Info Live, one of the radio’s channels. 

The invitation was made by Steven Ma, who was the CEO of Metro Radio at the time. It was decided that the show would start on May 29, Leung said. 

After Ma announced he was leaving Metro Radio in May, Leung said he sought clarification from the head of Metro Info Live about whether the show would go on. He was told it would launch as scheduled and that an advertisement for it had already aired on Monday.

However, Leung said he received a call from the head of Metro Info Live on Wednesday afternoon, saying Metro Radio’s new management had decided to halt the relaunch.

This is just after gay carnival Pink Dot gets cancelled for the second year in a row after failing to get official permits. And seven months after Hong Kong Pride’s Rainbow Festival was postponed after the government decided the venue area needed urgent construction work.

There are puritan nationalistic and fundamentalist Christian elements with longstanding hang-ups about gay rights, and they are no doubt happy to see these sorts of events being cancelled. But they are not the ones making the decisions. The intolerance is not simply for gay-themed events but for a whole range of civil society activity – independent unions, political parties, bookstore classes, protests about the Wang Fuk Court tragedy, Tiananmen vigils, etc. Such activities are not illegal, but so many bureaucratic or other hurdles mysteriously arise that they can’t happen. 

What they have in common is: they involve actual or possible gatherings of people; they have some sort of potential political angle; and they are not under any form of government/United Front oversight.

So – it’s nothing personal!

Via Samuel Bickett, the Justice Dept issues a memo to all staff threatening to discipline anyone found leaking information about the new Director of Public Prosecutions. A leaked memo.

From the SCMP…

Hong Kong’s justice department has rejected online accusations about the newly promoted public prosecutions director [Anthony Chau Tin-hang] and a colleague, labelling the allegations “despicable behaviour” and an attempt to “defame public officers”.

In a statement on Saturday, the department said it had referred the case to law enforcement agencies for further investigation, vowing to “severely punish lawbreakers in accordance with the law”.

US-based Hong Kong fugitive activist Frances Hui Wing-ting has accused the two prosecutors – both of whom have handled national security cases – of abusing their positions for private ends.

Hui also accused their former boss of siding with them.

…Anthony Chau Tin-hang was promoted as the director of public prosecutions earlier this week, succeeding Maggie Yang Mei-kei, who is retiring after 32 years of service with the department.

Joel Chan elaborates…

Online posts by [Hui] … claim [Chau] had an improper relationship with a subordinate DoJ prosecutor, using public funds to stay at The Murray for “national security case work” around holidays 

The posts claim Chau influenced senior public prosecutor Crystal Chan Wing-sum’s appraisal, court exposure and promotion prospects

Chau assigned Chan to work on the Sadler/Segantii insider trading case, now ongoing

Hui alleges former DPP Maggie Yang Mei-kei knew but covered it up

Samuel Bickett says…

For years, every lawyer and journalist in Hong Kong has known that new Director of Public Prosecutions Anthony Chau was in an inappropriate sexual relationship with his subordinate Crystal Chan, granting her special privileges and misusing public funds to conceal it. But it took an activist in exile, @frances_hui, to bring it into the open.

If you have wondered why Hong Kong officials are so determined to shut down independent media like Apple Daily, imprison journalists, and drive human rights lawyers out of town, now you understand. 

From Janus Tin – a translation of Frances Hui’s long and explicit post…

During the handling of the entire 47 pro-democracy figures case, the two of them more than once used the pretext of “dealing with national security cases” to demand that the police arrange stays at the five-star Murray Hotel with public funds, on dates including Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, and the like—using public resources for the two of them to shack up. On [Crystal Chan Wing-sum’s] birthday, the police were even asked to go to Lady M in Central to buy a pink birthday cake worth about HK$1,000 and bring it back to the West Kowloon office, with the excuse being “because the assistant likes pink.” It’s said that during the Jimmy Lai case, the police later realized this was improper and substantially cut back on the hotel services.

…Word is that [Anthony Chau Tin-hang’s] wife once stormed into Yeung Mei-ki’s office in a rage and lodged a complaint with her. 

Oh Lawdy!

(The Lady M site, since you’re interested. A highly tasteful Dubai mochi tiramisu boutique.)

The Dept of Justice issues a denial (which is also the focus of the SCMP story)…

The DoJ has noticed that serious allegations involving the newly appointed Director of Public Prosecutions and another DoJ officer have been widely circulating online. The DoJ had earlier conducted a rigorous investigation into an anonymous complaint containing relevant content in accordance with the established procedures, and is confident that the allegations are completely without factual basis, entirely fabricated, and constitute malicious smearing.

It is ill-intentioned for someone to maliciously spread rumours online following the appointment of the new Director of Public Prosecutions, and to deliberately smear dedicated prosecutors who perform duties in safeguarding national security. 

If the government is right in stating that the story is ‘entirely fabricated’ – and who am I to doubt it? – I look forward to Frances Hui’s first novel.

A 55-year-old construction worker throws pieces of paper out of his 12th floor apartment into a public area. A clear case of littering. In fact, he is arrested and charged with…

…two counts of “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention”…

Because of what was written on the paper.   

Officials discuss provision for public space at the Northern Metropolis in the Legislative Council…

The debate also centred on whether room existed for further increases in the minimum size requirement for private and public housing units in general.

[Secretary for Development Bernadette] Linn said officials needed to take into account a number of factors for consideration.

“We need to consider the cost and return for developers. We also need to consider that society has diverse needs, people from all walks of life have different requirements of flat size, as well as the affordability of potential buyers,” she said.

The development chief added there might be a knock-on effect on the property market whenever the administration decides to lay down new indicators on minimum size requirements for flats, noting such an impact must be gauged carefully. 

This could mean: we must ensure property tycoons make lots of money; we will make sure the housing is so expensive most people can afford only a shoe-box; and we can’t have bigger affordable apartments because it might hurt the value of larger units that our friends have already bought.

Or it might mean something else. Not sure.

Some weekend reading: how Uyghur culture becomes ‘extremism’, from Bitter Winter.

The SCMP reports…

Hong Kong’s top court has been asked to abolish an “extraordinary” and “inexplicable” law prohibiting calls to boycott the city’s “patriots-only” elections on the grounds that it violates residents’ rights to express disapproval of the political system and to make informed decisions before voting.

A government senior counsel opposed the challenge by former Chinese University of Hong Kong student union president Jacky So Tsun-fung, arguing the law fell outside the scope of constitutional review. He cited Beijing’s decision to address “clear loopholes and deficiencies” in the electoral system after the city’s 2019 anti-government protests.

…So received a suspended jail sentence in December 2022 for reposting a social media message urging Hongkongers to cast blank votes in the Legislative Council election the previous year…

…The Court of First Instance dismissed an appeal stemming from that constitutional challenge last year.

The argument is that the law infringes freedom of speech rights in the Basic Law. So if the Court of Final Appeal wants a ‘loophole’ to avoid addressing this issue, it can maintain that the law ‘falls outside the scope of constitutional review’. It can also accept the government’s invitation to say that the law resulted from NPC decisions and therefore is untouchable.

But by any standards, it is an absurd and illogical piece of legislation. It is legal to abstain from voting; but illegal to ‘incite’ (recommend/urge) others to abstain from doing so. Officials have declared that such recommendation/urging counts as ‘interfering’ in the election. Yet it is legal to recommend/urge that others vote – as the government itself does.

To add to the weirdness, the law is enforced by the ICAC – an agency that is meant to be independent and focused on corruption.

Another twist: by reminding the public of this law whenever elections are underway, officials themselves actually remind everyone that boycotting the ‘patriots-only’ polls is an option (and quite a popular one, judging by the feeble turnout).

Ideally, the CFA would answer the basic question: How can it be a crime to urge people to do something that is not illegal? I am guessing it won’t.

…Chow Hang-tung in the HK Alliance ‘inciting subversion’ trial. A translation of part of her closing statement is here.

From HKFP…

A Hong Kong Tiananmen vigil activist standing in a national security trial has urged the court to safeguard the “dignity and bottom line of the law,” as she warned judges not to become “accomplices” in an alleged government crackdown on free speech. 

Chow Hang-tung, a former leader of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, said that authorities have been “reshaping” the city’s long-held values by prosecuting activists who advocate for democracy in China. 

…Delivering closing arguments on Tuesday, Chow said the crux of the case was whether the law protects the “perpetual rule” of the CCP or the rights of people to advocate democracy.

“Ending one-party rule means putting an end to the status quo, in which those in power are not bound by the law,” she said in Cantonese.

…She argued it was “unheard of” that a government would accuse its citizen of breaching the constitution.

“Any document that can be called a constitution in the world is to restrict the operation of power, not ordinary people,” she said.

The Standard…

Chow argued that the key question for the court was what the law prohibits and protects, what conditions the defendants sought to end, and what system the Constitution establishes. She questioned whether the law guarantees the permanent rule of the Chinese Communist Party and prohibits citizens from advocating political transition.

She said the defendants had merely advocated ending unrestricted power, and argued that the court could not criminalize the slogan “end one-party dictatorship” while claiming to uphold the rule of law.

Chow also argued that “subversion” should be interpreted as using external forces to rapidly, drastically and abnormally change an existing order, and that this was not limited to physical force. She said “destruction” carried an additional element of malice, involving unfair, unreasonable or unauthorized conduct, while justified criticism without malice did not amount to destruction.

She said the prosecution should directly prove what unlawful means the defendants had allegedly incited others to use, describing the prosecution’s argument that they had failed to call for constitutional amendment through lawful means as groundless.

Chow further argued that the prosecution must prove not only that the defendants broke the law, but also that they acted unconstitutionally, which she said required a much stricter standard.

AP reports…

In previous hearings, the prosecution has focused on “ending one-party rule,” one of the alliance’s core demands, arguing that the group’s advocacy was about inciting others to use unlawful means to overthrow the leadership of China’s ruling Communist Party.

Chow, a barrister who defended herself, said Tuesday that her trial was a “very strange case,” because the defendants neither denied anything they had done nor argued that what they said didn’t reflect their thoughts.

Chow said that “ending one-party rule” means ending a state where power is unrestricted, and that a key question in the case is whether the law is really safeguarding the Chinese Communist Party to rule forever and banning the people from pushing forward democratization.

Chow argued that the standard for determining right and wrong has been turned upside down in this case.

“Speaking the truth has become inciting hatred, seeking justice has become exploiting suffering, limiting power has become violating the constitution, and returning power to the people has become subverting the state,” she said.

She said that if the court fails to gatekeep over the reasonable effects of their statements, it could easily become an accomplice by tolerating the crimes committed by those in power.

Ouch. How will the NatSec judges address these points when they deliver their verdict in around a couple of months? Perhaps just with a simple: “No, you’re wrong.” It’s hard to imagine a response as convincing as Chow’s own argument.

Most people appearing in court under Hong Kong’s national security laws (incitement, subversion, sedition, collusion, etc) seem to be there for words rather than actions. But defendants or their lawyers rarely ask the judges to step back and view the alleged crimes as no more than expressions of opinion. Perhaps, given these courts’ near-100% conviction rate, it would be too provocative? We will now see. From HKFP…

Barrister Erik Shum, representing Lee Cheuk-yan, spoke before a three-judge panel on Monday as closing arguments began in the national security trial of Lee and Chow Hang-tung. Both are former leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. 

…The calls to end one-party rule – one of the group’s five tenets that also included the democratisation of China since its founding in 1989 – were demanding a change in the country’s political system rather than targeting any specific political party, Shum said.

Shum told the court on Monday that prosecutors had failed to present evidence that the Alliance sought to incite the public to revolt against the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

…Prosecutors have argued that there are no “lawful means” to end CCP rule after a 2018 constitutional amendment stipulates that the party’s leadership is the “defining feature” of China’s socialist system.

Shum argued on Monday that prosecutors presented a “tautological theory.”

“We ask: How exactly did the Alliance incite others to overthrow the CCP? And my submission is that the prosecution has always reverted to the claim that ending CCP rule is illegal,” Shum said.

Shum urged the court to draw a boundary for what is considered an acceptable political expression and what is not.

“The court must not pay lip service to human rights protections,” he said.

…The Alliance … was not exercising any power, and its calls should be considered civilian political criticism, Shum said.

In the decades since the HK Alliance was formed, did anyone in Hong Kong (or anywhere) try to end one-party rule?

Meanwhile, the government allocates another HK$5 billion to its National Security budget…

Classified as non-recurrent expenditure, the payment brings the total amount dedicated to national security spending to date to HK$18 billion.

According to official records, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po previously allocated HK$8 billion in December 2020 and a further HK$5 billion in March 2023.

Assuming the HK$13 billion committed so far has been spent in the last 65 months, they’ve burnt through HK$50 million a week.

You don’t recall any actual threat to the national security of the PRC coming out of Hong Kong during that time? Maybe that shows how effective that 50 million a week has been! 

Following Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing, the NYT looks at (VPN-equipped) Chinese netizens’ comments on overseas social media platforms…

Mr. Xi, the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, is on the front page of the official People’s Daily nearly every day. He dominates the prime-time television news. And yet he remains a mysterious figure even to his own people. Unlike Mr. Trump, who posts constantly on social media and regularly takes questions and even unscheduled phone calls from the press, Mr. Xi is always choreographed. He reads from a script and strikes the same pose in every photograph with world leaders. 

During the summit, some social media users mocked this predictability, commenting that Mr. Xi appeared to be exactly the same height as Mr. Trump — and nearly every visiting world leader he has appeared with in photos. As a 32-year-old tutor in southern Fujian Province put it on Threads, “I’d be much more interested in seeing Yao Ming meet Xi Jinping,” referring to the former N.B.A. player who is 7 foot 6 inches tall, “just because they’d be the same height, too.”  

…Some people joked that, having listened to Mr. Xi’s speech, Mr. Trump could now appreciate what it was like to sit through Xi Jinping Thought classes in college. 

…“Is China moving backward?” [one poster] asked. “A society that is truly confident doesn’t need children chanting slogans to prove its enthusiasm. A country that is genuinely open doesn’t need to repackage diplomatic events as collective performances.” 

One astute commenter noted that the children wore ‘staged-event’ clothing from a bygone era…

A Michael Korvig piece in Foreign Affairs a week before Trump’s visit to Beijing…

Trump should lead [the West] by example, eschew the mistakes of other visiting heads of state, and refuse ephemeral deals that deepen the United States’ dependence on China. Rather than seeking superficial adulation from Beijing, he should use the upcoming visit to strengthen deterrence by coordinating in advance with allies and setting redlines that none will cross, signaling he will impose costs for Chinese coercion that targets any of them, and conditioning any concessions on verifiable follow-through. That would diminish Beijing’s confidence in its strategy of compelling accommodation from individual countries. 

By accepting the terms Xi sets and performing in his authoritarian pageantry, these prestigious [Western] visitors are gratifying his yearning to be recognized as the world’s foremost strongman. Over time, such displays add up, and when combined with acquiescence on material matters such as Western leaders’ reluctance to sanction Chinese companies that support Russia’s war on Ukraine, they can shape other countries’ assessments of geopolitical power and legitimacy. 

…few of these deals buy economic resilience for the visiting countries. Instead, they reorient trade in ways that impede the development of their own economies. Exports to China are increasingly dominated by agricultural commodities, processed foods, and natural resources—fiercely competitive industries that require heavy investment in logistics, making substitution easier for Chinese buyers than foreign suppliers. Cases of CCP coercion targeting Australian wine, Canadian canola, and Norwegian salmon illustrate the imbalance: Beijing can rotate suppliers and leave unfavored ones to absorb years of losses. To stay in Beijing’s good graces, these countries must accept ever more imports of China’s increasingly advanced manufactured goods while their own industrial and technological bases wither. 

I don’t think Trump read this article.

Trump himself says he made ‘fantastic’ trade deals.

Peter Frankopan…

So we had the White House official account tweeting about ‘American strength back on the world stage’ – against a montage of Trump being welcomed by Chinese soldiers and children.

When you see the US present itself as though they are lucky to have their leader come to China and to be back in business, you start to wonder whether getting rid of so many State Department officials was such a good idea after all.

…It did not need to be this way, of course. Poor preparation; lack of expertise; the total conviction that business deals are the way to do foreign policy all play a part in what will go down one day as a set-piece of how not to do a summit. 

Thomas Juneau…

Trump’s performance in China has been a unique, extraordinary and embarrassing combination of weakness, obsequiousness, lack of preparation, amateurism, and incompetence. It just seems normal because we’ve become desensitized by the constant circus. 

And, on video, John Bolton.

China Daily’s front page for May 13…

Joshua Wong appears in court on a ‘collusion with foreign forces’ charge…

He was arrested in June last year while in jail. Wong is currently serving a four-year-and-eight-month jail sentence for his involvement in … election primaries in 2020, in which he pleaded guilty.

In the present case, the 29-year-old stands accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and “other persons unknown” between July 1 and November 23, 2020, to request foreign countries, organisations, or individuals based overseas to impose sanctions, blockades or engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.

…Magistrate Victor So said in August last year that Wong’s [foreign collusion] case would be transferred from the magistrate’s court to the High Court, where the maximum penalty is life imprisonment. At the magistrate’s court, the maximum penalty is two years, or three years when a defendant faces more than one offence. 

What’s going on? If he is released, he could (in the view of worry-prone people in authority) become the focus of a rival power structure – so he must stay in prison.

Weekend reading for economics geeks: from Elias Rutten – a history of how Japan became a manufacturing powerhouse, then entered decades of stagnation…

It is impossible to look at contemporary China without seeing Japan’s shadow. China is living through the earlier stages of a comparable exhaustion. Japan, thirty-five years ahead on the curve, shows what the late stages look like. 

Who can resist some bad news about New World? Drawing on a Bloomberg scoop, Reuters via the Standard reports that…

Blackstone has walked away from a proposed US$4 billion (HK$31.2 billion) tie-up with Hong Kong’s New World Development after the indebted property developer refused to cede control…

…The Cheng family has been in talks with a handful of financial institutions to sell an equity stake in New World, and Blackstone was the most advanced party in the process, Reuters reported in March.

Any investor would have to align their interests with the family and a change of control would be unlikely, they said at the time.

So why did Blackstone get this far in the negotiations? As for New World – was losing control just too much loss of face, or were they panic-stricken by the reality that someone bailing them out might expect to call the shots?

The Chengs are now scrabbling around trying to sell off choice family jewels, like Rosewood Hotels and the weird-smelling K11 Nausea mall. Apparently other investors – presumably with a greater appreciation of the wondrousness of the Cheng gene pool – are thinking of getting involved. 

Meanwhile, the Airport Authority is reportedly taking over the retail space at 11 Skies…

…with the mall’s positioning to be aligned with the overall development of SKYTOPIA to create synergies…

Synergy by SKYTOPIA. Sounds like a synth-laden 70s prog rock album.

New World won the design, build and operate contract for the project in 2018, with a total investment exceeding HK$20 billion. Under the existing agreement, New World is required to pay the Airport Authority an annual guaranteed rent of HK$1.8 billion from 2028 to 2066, or up to 30 percent of the project’s annual gross revenue, whichever is higher. The huge investment in 11 SKIES has been cited as partly responsible for New World’s debt crisis.

…The 11 SKIES project, located near Terminal 2, was originally designed to accommodate more than 800 shops and would become Hong Kong’s largest shopping mall upon opening. However, most storefronts are currently boarded up, with only two restaurants operating.

Sounds like a 0.25% occupancy rate. The boy Adrian, who masterminded 11 Skies, was last heard of a few months ago planning a mega-retail project in… Dubai. Talk about timing.

There was a time when Beijing might have arranged some help for a local tycoon in distress. But that was several decades ago. Hong Kong developers are of no further use now. Meanwhile, the Mainland’s developers have surpassed Hong Kong’s in vision and growth. Evergrande’s debt, for example, is probably 10-15 times bigger than New World’s. 

China’s chances of successfully invading Taiwan anytime soon look slim. Military and logistic challenges aside, there are daunting social and political problems. For example, in a country of one-child families, every dead Mainland soldier means the end of his parents’ lineage. But even if they managed it – what then? Lowy Institute paper by Richard McGregor and Jude Blanchette on how Beijing would try to run the place…

Beijing’s thinking on Taiwan has shifted decisively from peaceful accommodation to absorptive control. As Taiwanese identity and democracy have become entrenched, Xi Jinping’s unification terms have hardened, demanding full political integration rather than offering genuine autonomy. Drawing on PRC academic and policy literature, this paper finds that Chinese scholars see a form of phased subjugation for the island: an immediate security crackdown neutralising political opponents; institutional restructuring beyond what has taken place in Hong Kong; and a decades-long psychological re-engineering project so Taiwanese come to identify with the CCP’s China. Millions of Taiwanese would be excluded from public life and many current political leaders would be jailed.

Yet PRC thinking on integration is riddled with unresolved contradictions. Autonomy without credible guarantees generates no trust; coercion achieves stability but not legitimacy; economic integration cannot substitute for consent. Beijing understands the scale of the challenge it would face — governing a consolidated democracy against its will — but remains ideologically constrained from resolving it.

…these writings reveal persistent anxieties about legitimacy and capacity, and the long-term sustainability of rule over a society that has developed outside the PRC’s political orbit for more than seven decades. 

…To many PRC experts, a core challenge is Taiwan’s democratic political identity and its shaping over decades outside the PRC’s ideological system. As a result, resistance is expected to persist even after formal sovereignty transfer, particularly among younger generations, civil society networks, and professionals. Taiwan’s thicket of institutions — including media outlets, social organisations, professional associations, and local governments — is seen as providing fertile ground for covert or indirect forms of opposition. Taiwan’s international connectivity is also expected to sustain external attention and support for dissent.

Speaking of decades-long psychological re-engineering projects – a HKFP op-ed on the latest Hong Kong government publicity campaign…

…It seems we are urged to “Pro-actively align with the 15th five-year plan” and “Follow a holistic approach to development and security”. 

I hesitate to criticise the work of other writers, but I cannot resist the thought that the author of this offering needs to give some thought to finding the sort of language which means something concrete and sensible to the man in the street, who is rarely told to proactively align with anything, or indeed to follow a holistic approach to it.

Most English people of my generation are not bowled over by the idea of five-year plans. This is partly because rigid adherence to erroneous five-year plans caused two of the 20th century’s most catastrophic famines: in Ukraine in 1932-33 and in China in 1958-62.

…it is far from clear what the average Hong Kong person can do to further the doubtless laudable aims of the national plan.