Big Lychee, Various Sectors

Donald Trump is about to visit Beijing. Inspired by Benjamin Netanyahu’s ability to sucker the tragic dementia case into launching a pointless war against Iran, Chinese officials will no doubt lure him into an irresistible ‘deal’. In return for withdrawing all US bases from Korea to Guam and declaring Taiwan Chinese territory, China will buy one million metric tons of American soybeans, give Jared Kushner a real-estate project in Urumqi and let Trump stand on a gold-trimmed red carpet to have a selfie with his ‘good friend, Jeejee Bing’.

(Post from Desmond Shum on who has the upper hand in US-PRC relations.)

A WashPo editorial considers Trump’s chances of getting Jimmy Lai released to be fairly limited…

The former publisher of the shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, for years one of Hong Kong’s most widely read publications, was sentenced in February to 20 years in prison for bogus charges of sedition and colluding with foreign forces, meaning the United States.

The 78-year-old is in poor health, so two decades in prison, with no likelihood of parole under China’s draconian national security law, is tantamount to a death sentence. Lai holds a British passport and could live out his days there.

Hong Kong is now as cowed as any mainland Chinese city under Communist rule. Independent media has been silenced. Opposition parties have disbanded. Civil society, once vibrant, has been stifled. Many people have voted with their feet and left.

Xi releasing Lai would be a welcome humanitarian gesture and remove an impediment to more normalized U.S.-China relations. Refusing to do so, which unfortunately seems the likeliest outcome, would reflect the rot inside the Chinese system. It’s telling that Xi is so scared to let a 78-year-old ailing newspaperman go free. 

An op-ed in the Times by Chloe Cheung of the CFHK…

Peter Wai was exposed as a spy who had served in the UK’s armed forces, police and Border Force. Longstanding connections between the Chinese authorities and organised crime are now a matter of court record. And evidence revealed Hong Kong’s London “trade office” to be a hub for transnational repression.

The office’s manager, Bill Yuen, acted on Beijing’s orders to covertly gather intelligence on Hong Kong dissidents and British parliamentarians. The former Hong Kong police superintendent funnelled almost £100,000 through the office’s accounts — payments to Wai and others for surveillance and intimidation operations.

…Remarkably, the London trade office enjoys diplomatic immunities granted when the promise of 50 years of post-handover autonomy for Hong Kong was still taken at face value. That era is over.

The national security law transformed Hong Kong into an extension of the CCP’s security apparatus. The Crown Prosecution Service treats China and Hong Kong’s authorities as one and the same.

Continuing to grant diplomatic status to the trade office is to pretend that the repression of Hong Kong never happened. The security minister, Dan Jarvis, often says that the government “will not tolerate” transnational repression. If that is true, then London’s Hong Kong trade office must be closed without delay.

UK government statement upon summoning China’s ambassador after the conviction of two men for spying for China…

It was made clear that the UK will not tolerate any attempts by foreign states to intimidate, harass or harm individuals or communities in the UK, and that such activity constitutes a serious breach of the UK’s sovereignty. We will continue to use the full range of tools available to protect our security and hold China to account for actions which undermine our safety and democratic values. 

Standard report on China’s position…

China denounced on Friday convictions of two men in the United Kingdom for spying on Hong Kong dissidents as a “political farce”, accusing the country of “erroneous practices”.

…”The United Kingdom’s arrest and prosecution of Chinese citizens in the United Kingdom on groundless charges, its abuse of the law and manipulation of judicial procedures for conviction, its blatant support for anti-China and Hong Kong-destabilising elements and its unreasonable accusations and smears against China are a typical political farce,” Lin said.

“We urge the UK to correct its erroneous practices… and safeguard the hard-won positive momentum of China-UK relations,” he added.

…An earlier statement on Thursday by an unnamed Chinese embassy spokesperson in London said that Yuen’s conviction in particular “is nothing but a political move of abusing the law and manipulating the judicial process by the UK side”.

The “sole purpose” of the decision is to “embolden those anti-China elements who are hiding in the UK and bent on destabilising Hong Kong, and to smear the Chinese government”, the statement added, calling it a “so-called verdict”.

“We deplore (the conviction of Yuen) and have made solemn representations with the UK side,” the Chinese embassy statement said, calling on London to “immediately stop the anti-China political manipulation”.

The Chinese statements: support the convicted man employed by the Hong Kong authorities; declare the UK residents who were subjects of the surveillance to be enemies of Beijing; and do not claim that Beijing was uninvolved.

The Global Times story is slightly more subtle…

During the Cold War, a very typical political pattern between the UK, the Soviet Union, and Eastern European countries was the constant arrest of “spies”, the search for “suspicious individuals” and the construction of related accusations. Today in the UK, from some members of Parliament to certain government departments, this “Cold War mentality” remains quite evident, Cui Hongjian, professor at the Academy of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times on Friday. 

The UK security and intelligence agencies have been hyping so-called “spying activities” from China in the last several years.

HKFP on the Hong Kong government’s denial of any involvement…

“From the outset, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government has been clearly stating that the allegations in this case are absolutely not related to the HKSAR Government and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London (London ETO), nor are we party to the case,” a government statement sent to the media on Friday morning read. 

Kevin Yam on that denial…

The Hong Kong Government’s response has been that it is not a party to and has nothing to do with this case. And yet, one of the convicted men was the Office Manager of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, while both men had their legal costs covered by the Hong Kong Government. It is difficult to imagine the Hong Kong Government being willing to fund defence costs if it had nothing to do with the whole case. It is now untenable for the HKETO to deny that it is every bit as much of a spy hub as its masters at the Chinese Embassy.

And a comparison of NatSec trials…

…The trial of these two men and the national security trials in Hong Kong could not be more different. The two men were released on bail pending trial. They were able to get the cream of the London criminal bar to defend them while the likes of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong were denied legal representation of his choice. They were tried by jury before a judge that was not a Government hand-picked judge who can be “trusted” to rule the right way. 

The Guardian quotes Nathan Law…

In a message in which Wai used a derogatory term for pro-democracy protesters, the court heard that the dual British-Chinese national had boasted he was able to tally up monthly totals of “cockroaches” entering the UK.

“He had access to the system that contains information on us,” said Law. “I think there’s a part of the evidence showing that he used those systems to search for addresses or any other sensitive personal information for me.

“I can only do so much to protect myself. I can try to spot anyone following me and take different routes and do different things to sort of like get rid of them. I can hide my digital footprints. But I can’t not give details to the [British] government, and if their databases are so accessible and there are no safeguards to protect people like us, who are obviously targets of intelligence and secret operations from hostile governments, then that is a worry.”

Bloomberg on the HKETO’s role…

HKETO office manager Bill Yuen Chung-biu, 65, and another man, Peter Wai Chi-Leung, 38, were convicted at the Old Bailey in London on Thursday of assisting a foreign intelligence service. Yuen, a retired Hong Kong police superintendent, gave tasks to Wai, a UK Border Force officer and City of London Police special constable, that included carrying out surveillance on Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners in Britain, the court was told. Wai, who used his access to the UK immigration database to track the dissidents, was paid from the HKETO bank account. 

…The convictions underline how the role of these once-apolitical trade bureaus has evolved since China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020. They call into question the future not only of the London office but of 14 other HKETOs around the world, including the three US branches in New York, San Francisco and Washington DC.

In the SCMP, various people rush to assure us that the ETO in London won’t be shut down. One says the UK values old ties with Hong Kong too much. But as the Bloomberg piece suggests, the ETOs around the world don’t come out of this looking good. Following the erosion of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ insulation between Hong Kong and the Mainland in recent years (remember ‘high degree of autonomy’?) host countries were already increasingly questioning the offices’ status. And now this.

Book Punch – the store previously punished for serving sake at a book-reading and holding Spanish classes – gets fined again for hosting a stand-up comedy event last year. Was it a ‘staged event’ even though the venue did not have a stage?

[Magistrate Andrew Mok] said he did not think “stage performance,” as stated in the ordinance, applied only to performances with a stage.

Mok said that [store owner] Pong showed no remorse during the trial, and therefore, there was no reason to give a lighter penalty. But he noted that Pong’s attitude during the trial was “pragmatic,” and that his past convictions all had to do with promoting culture.

So if you ever hold a standup night – show remorse! (Is the magistrate showing a slight queasiness, imposing fines on a bookshop owner for ‘promoting culture’?)

(Great Moments in Hong Kong Law Enforcement continues with the arrest of a 12-year-old kid for mixing vinegar and baking soda, which the police deem to be manufacturing explosives.)

The Hong Kong government denies that it has anything to do with the case of its London Economic and Trade Office manager, who has been found guilty of breaking the UK National Security Act by assisting a foreign intelligence service. Fair enough – but which foreign power was he working for?

The (probably paywalled) NYT summarizes the proceedings so far at the Wang Fuk Court fire inquiry…

Testimony presented at hearings suggest that alarms had been deactivated, windows removed from evacuation staircases and water tanks drained. When trapped residents called for help, they found emergency hotlines were quickly overwhelmed. 

…Before the fire, residents had contacted the authorities to express concerns about the foam boards, which were meant to protect the windows during the work.

Emails and phone calls showed that a Fire Department employee said the agency was not responsible for regulating window coverings. The Housing Bureau investigated but failed to take action.

…WhatsApp messages revealed that a Housing Bureau employee tipped off the renovation consultant about an inspection the day before it was to be conducted. The consultant then notified the contractor, whose workers installed fire-safe netting — but only in the areas that were to be inspected. The rest of the netting later turned out to be substandard. 

…The hearings are taking place in a heightened political environment. In December, Hong Kong’s government condemned “anti-China” forces for criticizing the response to the tragedy. 

A lot of buck-passing and collusion. Imagine what this process would be like if we had independent lawmakers, civil society and Apple Daily. 

Bloomberg on Donald Trump’s forthcoming visit to Beijing…

US President Donald Trump says he will raise the case of imprisoned Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai when he meets President Xi Jinping in China next week. It might seem implausible that Beijing would consider releasing the pro-democracy businessman, an arch foe who feuded with the ruling Communist Party for decades, only three months after he was given a 20-year sentence on national security charges. The obstacles are formidable and shouldn’t be underestimated. But there are enough reasons to think that a deal isn’t out of the question. 

…Beijing has vilified Lai for years as a “running dog” and “pawn” of Western forces, but at this point it would surely be to the Chinese government’s advantage to release him. For one thing, it has won the battle over Hong Kong. The city’s people have been cowed and large-scale demonstrations akin to the 1 million-plus who flooded the streets in 2019 are now inconceivable. Releasing the businessman, along with other peaceful democracy activists who remain incarcerated such as trade unionist Lee Cheuk-yan, barrister Chow Hang-tung and former journalist and Legislative Council candidate Gwyneth Ho, would project magnanimity — and confidence. 

…China has already paid a price for the Hong Kong crackdown, in the form of loss of trust and reputation, removal of the city’s special economic treatment, its biggest population exodus on record and sanctions on central government and local officials. Calling a halt would remove the main irritant to better relations. Has the time not come to declare victory? 

From CSIS, a massive analysis of the Iran war’s impact on China.

Dr David Owens of Owens Trodd and Partners in Central (my physio/cupping place) writes on how athletes have managed to run a marathon – 26.2 miles – in under two hours. Brilliant geeky stuff…

This demands sustaining approximately 21 kilometers per hour while operating at the threshold of human cardiovascular and metabolic capacity. The physiological requirements—VO2 max around 80 ml/kg/min, and lactate threshold around 90% of VO2 max—appeared to represent the outer limits of human adaptation. 

Shoes have a surprising amount to do with it.

Former HK Police spokesman John Tse has become head of the Information Services Dept – the producer of the mouth-frothing ‘despicable’, ‘smear’, ‘slander’ press releases that so often brighten up our day. He was previously in the CE’s office, where according to HKFP he was…

…[formulating] public relations and media strategies. 

The government says Tse is the most talented and suitable PR whizz they could find. Which is possibly true. But, generally speaking, the personality type of a policeman does not usually overlap with that of a media/communication strategist. Cops tend to value obedience and rules, while eschewing abstract or creative thinking. For example: to most of us, 2019 was a massive society-wide protest movement against bad and unrepresentative government; to a cop, all those people were infringing paragraph x of the Public Highways (Willful Obstruction) Ordinance and had to be arrested, end of story. 

Ideally, a PR guru will tell his boss/client things they don’t want to hear. “You are unpopular because you are unelected and unresponsive to the people’s needs, and unless you fix that, no media strategy will help.” In reality, it is easier to deliver messages that make the higher-ups feel good, even though public opinion – the audience that is supposed to matter – remains unconvinced or even hostile.

That’s why it often makes sense to hire an outsider, and preferably one who leans subversive. The Iranian regime – far more authoritarian than Hong Kong’s – understood this when they engaged Explosive Media to churn out anti-Trump Lego videos. 

Tasteful photo of my back below my right waist. Felt some pain in the hip, and had visions of some terrible bone problem. An x-ray revealed nothing untoward. Physiotherapist diagnosed stiff muscle deep down in the maximus glutinous. He pulled and pummelled, and taught me some stretching exercises. He also insisted on “cupping”, which naturally set off my TCM/quack BS detector. But it seems this is a genuine science-based treatment. 

They put several small glass bulbs on you and use a device to suck the air out. Absolute agony. Feels like a giant rodent has sunk its teeth into your flesh. Then, after two very long minutes, phhht – and the air comes out. 

Anyway – stiffness largely gone now.

HKFP reports…

Hong Kong’s countryside has seen an influx of tourists with the start of the Labour Day Golden Week in mainland China, recording over 600,000 arrivals in the first two days of the five-day-long holiday. 

…High-traffic areas included High Island Reservoir East Dam, Sharp Island, Shui Hau on Lantau, and various Sai Kung East Country Park campsites, the AFCD wrote in a Facebook post.

Over 1,000 camping tents were spotted in the three campsites at Ham Tin Wan, Sai Wan, and Long Ke Wan in Sai Kung East Country Park on Friday evening, the AFCD said, adding that good order and hygiene were maintained at the sites.

More HKFP photos of the scene at Ham Tin Beach in Sai Kung here and here.

But don’t worry! Everything’s OK because camping doesn’t harm hotels…

Speaking to RTHK, the executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Association Timothy Chui said the overall occupancy rate at local hotels reached more than 90 percent during the Labour Day Golden Week holiday.

As for campers, Chui said that some of them were not staying outdoors for their entire trip, instead, they booked hotel rooms for part of their stay and continued spending money in the city.

“Campers might sleep at the camping site for one night and opt for a hotel on the following night. Hong Kong offers this option, it allows tourists to switch between a short time period. They may go camping one day and then continue dining, shopping and having fun in the urban areas the next,” he said.

“This is exactly Hong Kong’s strength.” 

Spend one day on a horribly overcrowded beach, and the next day in a horribly overcrowded urban area. Hong Kong: land of horribly overcrowded contrasts.

Don’t they have beaches/trails in the Mainland? What happens when more visitors post selfies on Chinese social media and you have 10,000 tents on these beaches? (Where, as a commenter points out, camping is not actually permitted.) Is there a point where the bureaucrats realize the mindless pursuit of ever-higher tourist numbers is stupid? 

‘Commando-style’ tourism hits Hong Kong…

…an extreme “budget travel” spectacle has emerged, with large groups of tourists setting up their own tents for street camping in Hong Kong’s urban areas, even encroaching on core districts of the political and business elite. Netizens have spotted that the covered pedestrian bridge outside the Government Headquarters in Admiralty has turned into a “free campsite,” with multiple tents from mainland outdoor brands pitched along the walkway, creating a scene reminiscent of a “refugee camp” right at the gates of the government headquarters. 

…Beyond Admiralty, this “urban camping” trend has spread to residential neighborhoods; around Tseung Kwan O’s LOHAS Park Station, covered walkways have seen even more exaggerated campsite setups, with at least six to seven tents lined up in a row, monopolizing the passage and completely disregarding the original purpose of public facilities. 

I thought it was just me, but it seems quite a few people stayed at home for much of the long weekend simply to avoid the Mainland tourist crowds. This must have suppressed local consumer spending, while the Mainland visitors often bring their own food.

The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong reports that press freedom in the city has hit a new low. (If you’re in Hong Kong, don’t be surprised if the link doesn’t work. The medium is the message!) Some details and a timeline from HKFP.

DW awards Jimmy Lai its annual Freedom of Speech Award. 

An angry government press statement ensues…

 The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government today (May 1) strongly condemned the attempts by an anti-China organisation and foreign media to sugarcoat the criminal acts of national security offender Lai Chee-ying and to slander, smear, as well as attack the HKSAR by releasing a so-called press freedom index and presenting a so-called “award”. Such despicable behaviours totally disregarded the rule of law and twisted the facts, which must be strongly condemned. 

…”Some media organisations and organisations that claim to represent journalists have conflated the criminal acts in the Lai Chee-Ying case with freedom of the press, and have even played up different cases to vilify the HKSAR, with the purpose of misleading the public and defaming the HKSAR’s human rights and rule of law. In fact, the Lai Chee-ying case has nothing to do with freedom of the press at all. Over the years, the defendants were using journalism as a guise to commit acts that brought harm to our country and Hong Kong. 

Plus one from the all-patriots LegCo…

​A spokesman for the Legislative Council (“LegCo”) today (May 1) strongly condemned the release of a so-called press freedom index by a foreign media organisation and presentation of a so-called award to the national security offender Lai Chee-ying to sugarcoat his criminal acts, and smear the press freedom and rule of law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“HKSAR”). LegCo strongly condemns and firmly opposes all untrue comments that defame the human rights and rule of law in the HKSAR. 

(Notice different uses of quote marks: the government press release uses them for “award” but not the first use of “HKSAR” in parenthesis; with LegCo it’s the other way round.)

From Sinocism – a translation of a Ministry of State Security WeChat post accusing foreign forces of spreading the ‘lie flat’ dropout culture among young Chinese people…

In recent years, foreign anti-China hostile forces have leveraged online platforms to deliberately amplify social anxieties, distort interpretations of development problems, and continuously play up negative concepts such as “effort is useless” and “those who strive lose out.” They attempt to manufacture negative emotions in order to elevate individual hardships into group antagonism, leading young people to be misled and swept along without realizing it, thereby dissolving the conviction to strive among Chinese youth and even shaking the value foundations of society. 

It gets weirder…

What makes this all the more ironic is that while inciting us to “lie flat,” they themselves are working off their feet. In recent years, the countries in question have rolled out a series of economic bills, revitalization projects, and talent programs, even poaching global talent at high salaries. Clearly, they have never accepted “lying flat” themselves; they only want our youth to lie flat, so that they can hand over our development dividends, our strategic opportunities, and the future of our nation on a platter. 

Youth unemployment in China hit 16.9% last month. (It’s probably higher: after the number went over 21% in 2023, Beijing stopped reporting figures and then came up with a new method of calculating the rate, which was lower.) Some 200 million Chinese work in the gig economy – such as food delivery. Recent reports also suggest rising homelessness among the young, and factory closures. In the background, a burst property bubble and a declining population. 

More on overcrowded beaches. HKFP reports…

To prevent environmental degradation due to excessive tourism, the AFCD will deploy 11 staff members to patrol Sharp Island – part of Hong Kong’s UNESCO Global Geopark – and conduct hourly drone inspections, local media reported on Tuesday.

Buoys will also be positioned at sea to mark coral reefs and prevent tourists from trampling the fragile ecosystems.

…The verbal advice by AFCD officers carries no legal weight and will be inadequate to tackle excessive snorkelling and other problematic activities, such as clam digging, the NGO said. 

Greenpeace obviously aren’t thinking of the commercial potential. Why not charge Mainland tourists to trample fragile ecosystems? Say HK$50 per clam, and HK$1,000 for stomping on coral?

More NatSec… Political commentator Wong Kwok-ngon, aged 72, has been in jail since December. He was arrested on suspicion of “doing an act that has a seditious intention with a seditious intention”. Also for allegedly divulging details of a national security investigation – which presumably means he told someone else that he was being investigated. He will be the first to be tried for it. The trial is set for October. 

Wong was taken in by national security police in December, on the same day he was set to appear at a press conference about the fatal Wang Fuk Court fire, which had occurred days before. 

And then there’s the law making it illegal to urge people not to vote…

The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), which oversees Hong Kong’s election legislation, said in a Monday statement that the two men, aged 38 and 63, were charged with alleged breaches of the Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Conduct) Ordinance. 

…Lam is accused of leaving a comment on a media outlet’s social media post to incite an invalid vote at the election. The post was a news report on security chief Chris Tang’s remarks that it is an offence to incite people not to vote or cast an invalid vote.

Wong shared a post by wanted overseas-based activist Alan Keung on social media, calling on people not to vote.

Reminder: it is perfectly legal in Hong Kong not to vote.

You get the right to control a beach in Hong Kong and make as much money from it as possible. What would you charge for? Use of the drinking water fountain? Restrooms and changing rooms? Showers? BBQ pits? (All pre-installed using taxpayers’ money.) Tacky hamburger concessions (“No outside food allowed”)? Check between bathers’ toes when they leave and charge them HK$5 for each grain of sand they are taking away (“environmental protection fee)?

Director of Leisure and Cultural Services Manda Chan on Monday said the government is open to expanding a proposed pilot scheme which would involve the private sector managing certain public beaches.

Her remarks came after the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) invited businesses’ expression of interest in operating three public beaches – Ma Wan Tung Wan Beach in Tsuen Wan, Butterfly Beach in Tuen Mun and Big Wave Bay Beach in Southern District on Hong Kong Island.

Speaking on an RTHK programme, Chan said the three beaches have unique features and business potential to host commercial activities. 

The idea seems to be to prevent overcrowding (otherwise known as Mainland-tourist overload). So there could also be a booking system, where you reserve a slot to visit the beach on an app (otherwise known as don’t bother, let’s do something else this Sunday.)

Despite possibly being expanded, it’s still only a proposed pilot scheme, so the whole visionary concept might go the way of waste-charging, bus seat belts and other initiatives imposed with patriots-only support rather than regard to public opinion. Or some property tycoon’s dimwit kid might bid HK$100 million to ‘monetize’ a 200-yard stretch of shore.

(Perhaps there is potential for private operators to monetize public spaces as non-nanny-state zones. The last time I went to a beach that charged admission, it was out in eastern Shenzhen. It seemed that, in return for payment, visitors could bring dogs, smoke, play music, let their kids pee-pee anywhere, etc. Maybe we could have sitting-out areas where, after paying admission, you can lie on a bench and kids can ride a tricycle. Brought to you by AnarchyParks Inc.)

This will do nothing to address over-tourism elsewhere in Hong Kong. In my own neighbourhood, I can think of half a dozen spots where Mainland tourists gather on the sidewalk in such numbers that anyone else passing by must walk in the street among traffic. If I were Emperor of the Universe, I would summon the Tourism Promotion bureaucrats and the Transport Department psychos to kneel before me and tell them to work out between themselves how to either reduce the number of people or increase the amount of space for pedestrians. You have one hour, or you lose your jobs.