Big Lychee, Various Sectors

An HKFP op-ed on how Beijing is rewriting Hong Kong’s recent history: 

Tea table gossip about bought-and-paid-for protesters has become the official narrative.

There was no pro-democracy movement supported by the majority of the population – just a foreign-backed anti-China plot. Local public opinion never existed.

The claim that Hong Kong protesters must have needed outside resources and know-how to – for example – arrange deliveries of bottled water to demonstrations goes back to the Umbrella Movement. But the theme of foreign forces (invariably the NED on a hilariously tiny budget) masterminding ‘citizen journalists’ to plot the overthrow of poor vulnerable oppressive regimes is indeed suddenly cropping up all over the place. Recent examples include China Daily. Another is here, where a ‘geopolitical analyst’ writes (at impressive length)…

…the protests were well-organized, well-funded, and clearly using a long list of specialized techniques associated with a shadowy sector known as “the revolution industry”. 

(Column brought to you by the shadowy sector known as the ‘CIA controls publics in authoritarian countries’ industry.)

Who do Beijing spin-doctors think they are going to fool with this narrative? Apart from the tankies, few overseas observers will be convinced (the revised history only makes that quest for ‘credible PR’ even harder). And the several million Hongkongers who attended massive peaceful protests in 2014-19 know the CIA didn’t pay or organize them, or issue them with special top-secret laser pointers. The answer can only be that they are kidding themselves.

But of course the new version of history serves as a pretext. It has been hard to miss a recent surge in official use of the phrase ‘geo-political’ – as in Hong Kong as a ‘site for geo-political conflict’. This week’s example, a deputy police commissioner angling for Internet controls. 

As the top guy himself tells us, John Lee will bring a ‘new atmosphere’ to Hong Kong.

On the subject of tankies, a US leftist publication denounces them and Muslim leaders for siding with Beijing over human rights violations in Xinjiang – while maintaining the anti-Western integrity…

…the Uighurs are wronged four times over: by China’s oppression, by American imperialist cooptation, by left-wing denialism, and by Muslim leaders’ dereliction.

It can be done!

Commerce Secretary Edward Yau, discerner of economic well-being and public opinion, says…

Hong Kong will not compromise its anti-Covid measures for the sake of the economy, despite growing calls from the business sector to resume quarantine-free international travel.

…He said travelers will still have to quarantine for the time being to reduce the risk of community transmission, as people are worried there would be importation of cases if restrictions are relaxed.

Hong Kong remains in the news – though not in a good way.

International legal figures including former UK and Canadian attorneys-general issue a statement warning that the CCP is undermining judicial independence in Hong Kong through Basic Law ‘interpretations’ and external pressure, and that the presence of overseas judges on the Court of Final Appeal…

…“is of considerable reputational benefit to the Hong Kong government, which has repeatedly asserted [that] the continued presence of [the judges] amounts to a vote of confidence in the Hong Kong courts as whole”.

It says that in practice the number of appeals reaching the overseas judges is very limited, with many cases being dropped in suspicious and troubling circumstances.

A big piece in Wired on the items used as evidence of participation in Hong Kong protests…

At trial, Chan’s friend testified that the two had planned to move furniture from an office and use the ties to secure everything in transport. The magistrate rejected the story. In the ruling, he inferred that the defendant intended to use the ties to create barricades and “further the unlawful purpose of using them in armed confrontations, fights, [and] inflicting injuries.” The court found Chan guilty in August 2020 and sentenced him to five and a half months in prison.

A CATO Institute guy summarizes Hong Kong today…

Attorneys have been targeted for defending protestors. NGOs and museums have closed. Bookstores and galleries purged their stocks just as the Hong Kong government scoured teachers’ ranks. The Legislative Council now includes only “patriotic” members, meaning CCP factotums. Almost any political activity opposing government policy is deemed a threat to national security. Emigration has surged as people seek to get out, especially for the sake of their children.

And then there’s the negative publicity surrounding less overtly political – but still Beijing-led – oppression in the form of Covid quarantine and social-distancing measures. Despite some recent minor relaxation, these are starting to feel like they will drag on into 2023 or just become permanent social restrictions in the name of public health. 

A CNBC item on people and businesses leaving Hong Kong invites a quick guesstimate: total emigration for 2020-22 could end up at 300,000 or so – maybe 4% of the 2019 population. What percentage of the middle class? (Grimmer departures are also up, with suicides reaching four a day.) 

Reports and stories like these have prompted some local officials and government supporters to express great concern over Hong Kong’s international reputation. Could this hand-wringing be – even unwittingly – a muted form of protest against the post-1C2S NatSec/Covid regime? These people wouldn’t dare openly criticize Beijing’s broad clampdown on Hong Kong, or even show unease as the city goes down the tubes. But they can boldly call for PR campaigns or better slogans to restore Hong Kong’s reputation.

(Reg’s recent HKFP column is an example of this focus on ‘PR challenges’ as a possible proxy alarm about the whole mess the CCP is delivering. The SCMP offers another – not really worth a click, but it gingerly hints at the collapse in Hong Kong’s credibility. More steadfast/less worldly loyalists have little to say on the subject.)

To the extent local-official/pro-establishment types worrying about ‘PR’ might not be protesting in disguise, they are assuming that someone, somewhere in a position of power in Beijing, gives the tiniest damn about what the rest of the world thinks about Hong Kong. Which is just silly.

An HKFP op-ed on the fallacy of repairing governance-disaster Hong Kong’s reputation with better PR sums it all up (it refers to Covid measures, but could just as well be about any of the NatSec horrors)…

If this problem were sorted out, then an improved reputation would ensue. And if not, not.

Some post-weekend reading…

An interview with Transit Jam.

Thread on how Beijing censors US Embassy posts on social media, while state media complain they don’t have free speech on Twitter.

New Republic on Biden’s long-overdue ‘gaffe’ on Taiwan. 

…Washington’s policy of strategic ambiguity has only worked, and can only work, if China is not really in earnest about reconquering its renegade province (as it sees it) by force. 

The Spectator on Taiwan’s plans to ward off a Chinese attack.

The Guardian on Beijing’s plans for the Pacific.

And one of the weirder out-of-area stories for a while: the Sudanese of Hungarian descent…

The Magyarabs of Aswan & Nubia had had little to no contact with the outside world, so an inexplicable adoption of a foreign identity seems at once implausible. Not only that, but they clung to this Hungarian identity so strongly that the British interred them during WW1.

Results-oriented government in action: hygiene officials leave sealed rat poison packets in vermin-infested alleyways because they believe the rodents will open the plastic bags themselves. (This only works if you write ‘cheese’ on the packs.)

HK Post releases stamps celebrating the 120th anniversary of Ta Kung Pao. It would be more accurate to say the 120th anniversary of the name: today’s state-owned propaganda sheet has nothing to do with the original publication, founded towards the end of the Qing dynasty as China’s first modern newspaper. It has, shall we say, undergone changes in ownership, and is today best known for naming individuals and groups in Hong Kong in advance of their political rectification. We are also nearing the 26th anniversary of the founding of Apple Daily. And the first anniversary of its closure.

A typical example of a Ta Kung Pao target is Cardinal Zen. Two items on his arrest and the Vatican’s pact with the forces of darkness, from AFP and Chris Patten, who doesn’t pull any punches…

For many CPC officials, Cardinal Zen’s real crime is not only his regular defenses of religious freedom in China and, through his pastoral and intellectual courage, his potential threat to the party’s totalitarianism, but also his criticism of the Vatican’s secret deals with the Chinese leadership. 

A report that Xi Jinping will get the title ‘helmsman’. (That should be ‘great’, surely?) And Xinhua is producing a 50-part series on his life.

From the Guardian, what Beijing is up to in the Pacific.

And CMP asks what, if anything, the economic ‘conference’ of 100,000 cadres means.

For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, Atlantic spells out what Hong Kong’s incoming Chief Executive means…

Lee’s elevation is reflective of the distrust and paranoia that has flourished in Beijing and among Hong Kong’s political elites since the 2019 prodemocracy protests, which he helped both trigger and eventually put down.

…Beijing clearly “wants to keep the current level of control,” [City U academic Liu Dongshu says]. This goes far beyond just stopping protests and ridding the legislature of opposition, and extends to dismantling the bonds and shared identity forged among Hong Kongers during the 2019 protests. This week, for example, state media warned that taxi drivers and shops displaying any prodemocracy symbols could be violating the national-security law.

Did anyone entertain any hopes that this ‘struggle’ would settle down, if not pass? But forget it. The paranoia over ‘foreign challenges’ and plots against the PRC government is on display in today’s headlines: a call for the Hong Kong government to use Mainland tech in case of sanctions, a looming clampdown on online crowdfunding, and police deployment of ’saber-tooth tigers’.

As China’s economic and international-relations problems build up, and its post-Covid society is left more isolated from the outside world, Beijing will see more enemies everywhere. Hong Kong’s remaining freedoms and identity are threats to be eliminated – and that job has only just started.

For some light relief: this guy again in China Daily. I’m seriously fascinated by this. What’s the motive? What compensates for the humiliation of having your byline here?

The ‘citizen journalists’ hunt is underway: CPI on Eric Wu Ka-fai, sentenced to one month in prison…

…the judge said Wu’s recounting of alleged police misconduct in a public place constituted a disorderly conduct offense because it could have incited collective hatred toward police at the scene resulting in violence. 

Government prosecutors dredge up ‘17 witnesses, 10 box files of documents and around eight hours of videotape containing footage of street booths erected during demonstrations’ as evidence against Cardinal Zen, Margaret Ng, Denise Ho and other trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund. They are charged with failing to apply for registration of the group. It is an archaic requirement: many/most organizations never apply and don’t get charged, and the penalty for not doing so is a grand HK$10,000. The trustees believe the fund did not count as a ‘society’.

Benny Tai is sentenced to 10 months for an even more absurd offense – ‘illegal election spending’ when all he did was pay for ads to publicize a plan to coordinate pan-democracy citizens’ votes in the 2016 legislative elections. As with the 612 Fund, no-one in law enforcement saw a problem at the time in the pre NatSec era, it was all above board.

HKDC update on political prisoners in Hong Kong…

Among the 1,014 political prisoners are leaders of non-governmental organizations and trade unions, journalists, activists, teachers, professors, students, opposition politicians, protest leaders and lawyers—a virtual cross-section of Hong Kong civil society. While many of the political prisoners are well-known, most are ordinary Hong Kong citizens who had no public profile prior to their arrests. 

As a batch of leaked documents shows, Xinjiang has it worse. BBC report.

June 4 and July 1 (and a possible visit by Xi Jinping) are coming. The Catholic church cancels Tiananmen prayer services because they might breach the NatSec Law. And the cops start finding more terror plots. Word is that anyone slated to meet Xi if/when he’s here will have to undergo a week’s quarantine beforehand. Carrie says…

“The 25th anniversary is an important day and we are very eager for the leader to visit Hong Kong and deliver important speeches.”

Meanwhile, the all-patriots Legislative Council members get into some heavy-duty policy proposals.

…to cure addiction to online Scrabble. A couple of quick links for the exceptionally bored…

CMP on the return of Mao-era propaganda-blaring village loudspeakers. One project…

…involves three daily broadcasts morning, noon and night [and] employs “internet + loudspeaker” cloud broadcasting technology.

And for those with an interest in tech cults – a critique in of the world’s richest/most tedious man, Elon Musk, in this thread (complete with lively comments).

HKFP on the rising cost estimate for the expansion of the Legislative Council’s facilities – from HK$1.17 billion to HK$1.56 billion. Under the ‘improved’ patriots-only election system, the body has expanded from 70 to 90 seats, and the project involves adding floors to an existing building, as with Shamshuipo illegal structures, except with a bigger budget.

The weirdest part is that the legislature is now devoid of any genuinely representative members – popular candidates being barred if not jailed. It serves a purely rubber-stamp function, so could easily be reduced in size. Just half a dozen people gathering for an hour a week in a rooftop hut could do the job.

And here we go…

“I wouldn’t say it’s a cost overrun as construction hasn’t even started.”

Quite right: the actual, genuine cost overruns will come once the contractors start work.

Over at China Daily, a ‘veteran journalist’ (says the bio) claims young Hong Kong ‘citizen journalists’ are working for a CIA front by ‘propagating anti-government information’ as part of a plan for ‘world domination’. The evidence is a US$75,000 NED budget item. You might think this is an almost insultingly small amount for an ‘infiltration and subversion’ operation – but the NED delivers amazing bang for the buck, having ‘supported, financed or instigated’…

…the Velvet Revolution in Serbia in 2000, the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, and, of course, the Arab Spring involving Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Syria, Libya, etc, in 2011 [which] toppled governments and caused civil unrest in the countries they targeted.

Nothing to do with millions of people in those countries making their own minds up about their corrupt and oppressive governments, obviously. The CIA also organized the French Revolution in 1789, don’t you know? (Does this guy actually believe what he is writing?)

Expect to hear more about ‘citizen journalists’ and ‘false news’ before long as the NatSec system grows into its mission. Also keep an eye out for the Hong Kong Federation of Journalists. Founded in 1996, it claims to safeguard press freedom, but is rather obviously a United Front creation. As well as organizing Belt and Road study tours and issuing statements supporting the NatSec Law, the group seems likely to play a bigger Ta Kung Pao-type role in cheerleading persecution of independent media like Stand News.

In case you blinked and missed it – regional head of major global law firm agrees to appear at a NatSec Law conference, then extricates himself when the backlash comes. Another little lesson in the dilemma of shoeshining Beijing to guarantee corporate profits while trying to maintain your international integrity. 

HK Post releases stamps to mark the 25th anniversary of the handover. The drab designs reflect, at best, a determined effort to play safe; at worst, an extreme absence of enthusiasm – except for patriotic Photoshop work.

David Webb on the futility of Hong Kong’s Covid strategy…

If HK lacks the “high degree of autonomy” to do the right thing for its residents and businesses on this occasion, then we must assume that HK will follow mainland strategy in future pandemics … and isolate the city again.

From Kong Tsun-gan – thoughts on the arrest of Cardinal Zen.

Samuel Bickett asks what’s going on with the HK Bar Association…

…all might have been forgiven if Dawes stuck to his word and avoided politics in order to steer the Bar Association through choppy waters. But instead, he is increasingly using the Bar Association as a tool to promote Beijing and Hong Kong Government positions, while ignoring matters like unjustified arrests and judicial misconduct that should be of concern to the city’s barristers.

(If you want arrest-and-judicial overload, HKFP’s output in the last 24 hours covers: Margaret Ng’s seized documents, the Passion Times national flag competition, 6.5 years in prison for Telegram admin, a denial of bail on NatSec grounds in a non-NatSec Law case, and another ‘sedition’ case.)

It’s all the fault of British colonialism. Tankie Martin Jacques tells Hongkongers they must stop being so un-Chinese, complete with blather about the Greater Bay Area and Northern Metropolis…

After 156 years of British colonialism, Hongkongers habitually looked West, not north. Many liked the idea of being Western at a time when the West still enjoyed considerable status and prestige. Hongkongers had a split identity, part Chinese, part Western. That is why many had somewhat mixed feelings about the handover.

(Nothing to do with not wanting to live under a Communist dictatorship. Does Jacques (a Brit) ‘like the idea of being Western’ himself? In fairness, it’s quite possible Global Times embellished his copy to suit the party narrative.)

A BBC video on Sophia Huang Xueqin, journalist behind China’s #MeToo movement who ‘vanished’ in 2021. She and fellow activist Wang Jianbing are expected to face trial for ‘inciting subversion of state power’. (Cue Martin Jacques telling her to stop trying to be so Western.)

Brian Hioe on the ‘Taiwanese’/’Chinese’ confusion following the church shooting in Irvine – basically, what is Waishengren?

CMP reading the tea leaves on Xi Jinping’s absence from page 1 of People’s Daily, and on ‘runology’ – the pondering of emigration.

Regina Ip reminds us (in case we’d forgotten) that the Hong Kong government’s PR and messaging is crap. She dwells mainly on the fact that the civil servants put in charge of the Information Services Dept lack the skills for a serious communication job. And her examples support this: dismal over-detailed/-technical press releases on Covid, and the hilariously clunky ‘rejoinders’ top officials issue every time foreign politicians or press have the audacity to comment negatively on Hong Kong affairs. 

But even a talented PR guru would find it impossible to craft publicity, speeches and press releases that convince audiences that Hong Kong’s government is doing a good job and the community is in excellent shape. 

If you round up dozens of democratically elected politicians and jail them for over a year with no bail and no trial, all because they held a primary election, your reputation will be damaged – however you frame it. If you use the word ‘improved’ to describe a supposed election with only one candidate and just a handful of selected voters, people will mock you. These things sap your credibility and image of integrity. You can’t reverse that by ‘explaining’ better. You can’t sell shit by calling it sugar.

It was Beijing that imposed the policies that have ruined Hong Kong’s global image. But it seems that the communication itself is also being influenced by Mainland officials. Anyone reading Hong Kong government press statements in the last few years will have noticed the rapid Mainlandization of the language – those rejoinders shrieking about overseas commenters ‘interfering in Hong Kong affairs’ and the insistence that barring popular candidates equals an ‘improved’ election system are in CCP house style. So warm-and-fuzzy wording of press releases isn’t an option anyway. (Today’s guest BS at the top.)

Hong Kong officials worried about the city’s PR might be wondering how Taiwan or Ukraine do it so well, for example on social media. Put simply, they are on the right side of history and have good stories to tell.

Covid – and related quarantine and social distancing rules – has left hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong working people on reduced incomes. Yet the ‘pay trend survey’ gives civil servants pay rises of up to 7.26%. The Standard’s editorial delivers a suitable rant.

But in fact it’s much worse than it seems. By focussing on (selectively measured) private-sector annual salary hikes, the government diverts attention from the longstanding massive gap between the private and public sectors’ base pay levels. The last survey on this – by PWC back in the 2000s if memory serves – found that civil service salary levels were over double those in Hong Kong companies. That survey was swiftly buried and forgotten. The percentage increase is a sideshow.

China Daily reports a Bauhinia Institute (who?) survey showing that 80% of Hong Kong people find the CE ‘election’ satisfactory, 69.4% think the housing shortage will be relieved in five years, and 73.9% believe John Lee ‘can help the city begin a new chapter, from chaos to order and prosperity’. (Story by one Shadow Li.)

Back in the real world, the week’s NatSec horrors start to stack up. Jimmy Lai and six others are committed to trial for conspiracy to commit collusion with foreign forces (maximum penalty: life) and conspiracy to print seditious publications. Ta Kung Pao picks its next target: taxi drivers displaying ‘yellow’ symbols in their cabs. The ‘Privacy’ (anti-political doxxing) Commissioner might ban the Telegram app. And a Hong Kong court has ruled that…

…prosecutors could label organisers of the city’s annual Tiananmen vigil “foreign agents” without having to reveal who the group is accused of working for.

Good luck defending yourselves.

If you worry that this sort of thing might harm the reputation of Hong Kong’s legal system – relax. Incoming Chief Executive John Lee will create a new Deputy Secretary for Justice post, saying…

“I want the secretary for justice and the deputy to go out to explain in full the legal system in Hong Kong, and the rule of law, and the independent judiciary in Hong Kong, so as to let people know the true picture of Hong Kong, particularly when we have been badmouthed by some politicians for political reasons, criticising unfairly the system that is being practised in Hong Kong.”

(Standard story here.)

The reshuffling of the bureaucracy (set in train by Carrie Lam) will involve the creation of 13 additional political appointees and 57 more civil service posts – costing a mere HK$95 million in salary per year. The deputy bureau chiefs will get HK$360,000 a month.

The bloat extends to bureaus’ titles. Home Affairs (where we put the token DAB dimwit) becomes Home and Youth Affairs, Environment becomes Environment and Ecology, and Innovation and Technology becomes Innovation, Technology and Industry (raising the possibility that the bureau might actually now have something to do).

In fairness – if someone can convince the world that Hong Kong rule of law is in perfect shape, HK$360,000 a month sounds like a bargain.