Big Lychee, Various Sectors

From Al Jazeera, a general overview of how courts are operating in Hong Kong. HKFP explainer on the recently-lifted reporting restrictions in NatSec trials. Thread by Xinqi Su on the same subject.

These serve as a backdrop to some high-profile cases, notably the prosecution of politicians for subversion via primary elections. All have life sentences hanging over them. Many have spent nearly a year and a half in detention. Reporting restrictions have kept pre-trial procedures out of the public eye. There will be no jury (as with Jimmy Lai). The authorities have managed to turn some of the accused against the others. The 29 pleading guilty are following cold logic, assuming that a NatSec court will automatically accept that the primaries were a plot to undermine the government. Many of those pleading not guilty are among the minority who actually got bail. This is ugly.

A few weekend links…

From Matthew Brooker, a thread illustrating the importance of the ‘important speech’.

For economics wonks, Michael Pettis looks at China’s mortgage crisis.

Willy Wo-lap Lam on how the 20th Party Congress will consolidate Xi Jinping’s power…

Xi is not known as a brilliant or skilled policy-maker in either the economic or diplomatic arenas, but the supreme leader is a master of personal empire-building, particularly in enlarging the influence of the so-called Xi Jinping Faction in CCP politics.

From Politico, China’s ambassador to the US on how everything is the West’s fault, plus other ambitious/delusional claims.

Andrew Batson on China’s fixation about surpassing the US…

…some Chinese politicians have realized it does not actually display great self-confidence to obsess about your country’s standing relative to other countries

China Media Monitor investigates weird fake pro-China documentary films winning awards at fake film festivals. Two things going on here. First, various bodies feel a need to obey instructions to ‘tell China’s story’ overseas, so they produce junk propaganda as a performative, box-ticking display of obedience. Second, there are budgets for these projects – so someone’s making some money out of it. I’m inclined to say good for them!

A commenter writes:

I’ve never experienced or heard about a hospital bill totting up to 20% of a flat deposit. Even if the flat was purchased a couple of decades ago that’s still a couple of million.

It was 30 years ago, and apartments (small, old, out of the way) for under HK$1 million were a real thing. Sounds crazy, but true. (According to the title deeds, if I recall, the original price of that place around 1970 had been HK$35,000.)

Back home. Place where they chopped around hurts – but I guess it must. A stretchy corset thing around the waist helps, plus Panadol.

So the grand finale of my first-ever hospitalization took place at the Accounts Dept. In pain, clutching bags of pills and huge envelopes of photos of my innards. Just mail me the bill? No – the Christian charity will not let you leave until you settle in full. I had arrived with one credit card. In two swipes, that was maxed out. Still less than halfway there. Over the phone, I maxed out someone else’s credit card. Finally scraped the rest together via EPS. At one point they offered to escort me to an ATM.

It was the most I’ve ever paid for anything in (more or less) one go. A little more than the 20% deposit I paid for an apartment in 1992. The itemized bill sort of looks padded out, but then a hospital is obviously very expensive to equip and run, and it needs hundreds of highly trained people. Even if the surgeon drove a Honda and used a public golf course, it still wouldn’t be cheap. Not an expert on this. 

I apologize to the thousands of people who have told me over the years, while my mind drifted, that they have ‘been in hospital’ and ‘had an operation’. I never realized it was such utter misery.

Never again, if I can help it. But do read the less-jaundiced view of colonoscopy here.

Surgeon who did reconstructive work swings by at midnight. Peels off five mega-adhesive dressings from tummy, pulls out the daiquiri drain, does a quick stitch, replaces dressings with clean, slimmer ones. Says pain will subside, and is partly because he took my appendix out while in there. ‘It was in the way’. Tells nurse to remove final (unused) plastic IV device from arm. Free of these repulsive encumbrances at last.

They had just moved a new patient into a nearby bed. Even a non-medic can diagnose his condition: sleep apnea. Like a geyser erupting in a regular cycle of silence, approaching tremors, a massive whoosh, and a full-on 80dB explosive warthog snort, then a sort of spluttering subsidence. Over and over. When I complain, nurse gives me a sleeping pill. My first one ever. Another revelation – never realized how effective these things are.

Still clueless about how a hospital works. Most nurses have limited functions, like emptying bags of urine or taking blood pressure, and know nothing about your case. One or two will helpfully explain what is planned for you, but they’re basically guessing. Occasionally a busy one comes in and makes an executive decision – let’s remove that second plastic IV attachment. There is a hidden power guiding things somewhere out in the corridor. In terms of presence, doctors make up about 0.02% of the staff.

And on cue my colonoscopy guy drops by. Ten minutes to organize some meds, two hours to add up the bill – and I’m out.

Enjoying the view one last time…

Now allowed toast and congee. Catheter and IV removed, leaving just one tube gently oozing strawberry daiquiri lookalike into drain bottle. Amount of time silently raging about (allegedly, arguably, possibly, maybe-pure-mishap) botched colonoscopy leading to first ever surgery/hospital-stay in life, down 1%.

Remind myself of worse injustices around us. Nun’s advice is to take it as an opportunity to talk to Jesus. Or did she say ‘a good lawyer’? Didn’t quite catch it.

Girl in pink summer dress suddenly appears. Anaesthetist. Just dropped by to check I’m OK.

The drainage bag after emptying. Looks just like a bloody mary. And a visit from a friendly nun, very impressed by my knowledge of Catholicism.

Just doing this for the challenge of posting – especially uploading pics – on a tab.

My tummy right now…

What was supposed to be a routine out-in-two-hours colon/stomach check turns into a mega-nightmare (actually a tear in outer layer of colon and leakage of gas – very painful). So, semi-emergency surgery yesterday evening and now several days more in hospitalon broth only, maybe congee from tomorrow.

First time ever in my life in hospital, let alone under general anaesthetic. (Pretty amazing stuff – zero recollection of ever being given it. Apparently the reason I felt freezing cold in bed afterwards.) Now strung down with massively obtrusive IV drip feeding into right hand, a drainage bag (looks like ketchup), and a catheter. Insertion of catheter more a mental than physical trauma.

Moral: avoid routine checks. Will they bill me for the extra unplanned procedures. Stupid question, right?

Anyway probably not much going on here til later in the week.

A cheerful start to Friday: the HK Science Museum and MTR hold a ‘MTR x dinosaur’ painting competition for kids. Check out the entry by Chung Kwok-ching with its mind-warping perspective.

Children’s pictures aren’t – yet – censored in Hong Kong. Unlike movies…

OFNAA ordered the film producers to delete a scene that it said had “reconstructed the illegal occupation movement.” If they did not comply, the film would not be allowed for public screening.

What about a film that ‘reconstructs’ a case of domestic violence, a bank robbery, or cops having sex with an underage girl – all illegal incidents?

The population of Hong Kong has dropped by nearly 230,000 since end-2019. This includes deaths outnumbering births, but the bulk of it (note big drop in 20-somethings) must be emigration. (See also Standard story.) HKT notes emigration as a factor in slow broadband business growth.

Weekend links…

UK magazine The Critic on leaving China after 10 years…

…by 2022, China had become an impossible place to live. China’s initial COVID response was admirable, but it had descended into a mad authoritarian nightmare. 

Prospect reacts to the framing/arrest of Drew Pavlou in London.

From Bloomberg – Beijing offers Taiwan the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ formula and drops its old promise not to station troops there. Don’t all rush!

After peaceful reunification, Taiwan may keep its current social system and enjoy a high degree of autonomy — the same promises that were extended to Hong Kong. The words that follow merit attention: “One Country is the precondition and foundation of Two Systems; Two Systems is subordinate to and derives from One Country; and the two are integrated under the one-China principle.”

Essentially, Beijing is saying ‘screw it’.

ABC Oz on China’s problems in convincing ‘Wan Wan’ to return to the fold…

Beijing has failed to create conditions conducive to the “thorough settlement” of the issue.

And those conditions, in large part, haven’t occurred because the people of Taiwan can express their own views, a dramatically different situation to the 1970s and 80s, when a dictatorship still claiming to be China’s rightful government ran the island. 

Since China’s strongman leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, Taiwanese voters at successive presidential elections have chosen, by landslide, a government that rejects Beijing’s relentless pressure for closer ties on China’s terms. 

George Magnus on how China can’t afford to invade Taiwan. But don’t say ‘invade’! Tanky Martin Jacques gets publicly corrected by a Chinese government official.

China Media Project introduces you to the ‘Two Establishes’ – a phrase that has cropped up in People’s Daily a mere 33 times this month…

The phase is essentially a giftbox of loyalty to Xi, establishing him as 1) the unquestionable “core” leader of the CCP, and 2) his ideas as the bedrock of China’s future under the CCP.

Unpacked, the “Two Establishes” is a claim to the legitimacy of Xi Jinping’s rule, and a challenge to any who might oppose him. As such, the phrase is an important part of the process of “loyalty signaling,” or biaotai (表态), the registering of support for the top leader. 

Back to the NatSec stuff… The trial of Cardinal Zen, Margaret Ng, Cyd Ho, Denise Ho and others accused of failing to apply to register the 612 Humanitarian Fund trustees will begin next month. Has anyone ever bothered to register a civil-society funding effort? This will look like plain vindictiveness – the individuals are high-profile, and the fund was of course aimed at assisting arrested anti-government protesters. With a prominent elderly priest and a renowned pop star, this will attract a lot of attention overseas, just as the government hopes to spread the word that rule of law survives in Hong Kong. 

And two civil servants are arrested for allegedly posting social-media posts that ‘promote feelings of ill-will and enmity between different classes of the population of Hong Kong’. The NatSec apparatus, with its huge staff and budget, must find ways to justify its existence. At some point, they have to start trawling the Internet looking for anything or anyone that might pass as ‘seditious’. To injustice, add waste of taxpayers’ money.

Which brings us to David Webb’s latest round-up of the number of people held in jail without trial. Of all people in custody in Hong Kong, 10.4% were on remand at end-2000; that figure is now nearly 36%. (The number has been rising all along, but the fastest increase, from just under 23%, started at end-2019 – an extra 1,100 people.)

Fitch Ratings adds to ill-will and enmity with its new outlook for the Hong Kong economy…

We anticipate the latest partial relaxation of inbound quarantine requirements, to three nights in a designated hotel followed by seven days of periodic testing, will do little to stimulate the return of tourists and short-term business travellers, who have grown accustomed to the absence of any such restrictions across most jurisdictions…

…the government’s apparent prioritisation of broader national strategies and governance practices over economic competitiveness suggests a future policy trajectory that will increase risks to Hong Kong’s role as a leading centre for international finance and commerce…

Defying predictions that her days as a heavy hitter are over, Regina Ip manages to spark a brief spike in property stocks. In a Bloomberg interview, she sort-of implied that the government might be considering cutting extra stamp duty for Mainlanders with non-permanent status living in Hong Kong. The government quickly denies it, and Reg clarifies that it’s nothing official – just an idea being pushed by her ‘political’ party (more here).

Part of the confusion arises from Ip’s dual roles as a party leader dreaming up inane attention-grabbing ideas, and as a member (‘the Convenor’, if you please) of the supposedly advisory Executive Council who is bound to support government policy. The Standard criticism-by-shoeshine editorial says…

[Ip] holds the distinction of being the first woman convener of Exco, and the first with political affiliation since Hong Kong returned to China.

But, to coin a phrase, with great power comes great responsibility.

As the leader of a body of advisers that helps the chief executive in policy making, Ip should know she speaks on behalf of the government – and not her party.

The ‘great power’ thing is a joke. In our top-down system – now with extra guidance from on high in Beijing – ExCo and its ‘Convenor’ play essentially ceremonial roles. But all the more reason to assume her words reflect government thinking.

The impact on developers’ share prices underlines how desperate the Hong Kong stock market is for some excitement. Apart from a few local property and financial companies, most of the big names are Mainland firms viewed with increasing caution by international investors, as the dismal performance of the Hang Seng Index shows.

The main thing is that cutting tax for Mainland property buyers sounds 100% believable. Ever since the late 1990s, Hong Kong administrations have taken every step imaginable to push up housing prices. Even the imposition of extra stamp duty for non-resident property-buyers 10 years ago seemed designed to have limited impact. With interest rates and emigration rising, current property valuations (US$1 million for a 500-sq-ft concrete box in Shatin) look more presumptuous than ever. The bureaucrats must be itching to start curbing supply and/or stimulating demand. What we don’t know is whether their Beijing overseers will let them. 

With most pro-democracy politicians in jail, Regina is just about the only non-boring public figure in town. You can see why Bloomberg interview her. Maybe just don’t take her so seriously next time.

Let’s pretend we’re not moving away from China’s Zero-Covid policy while pretending we are!

Hong Kong reduces hotel quarantine for arrivals from seven days to three (by three we mean more like four), followed by four days’ isolation at home (by which we mean you can take public transport and go to the office, but not enter a restaurant), during which time you will have a ‘Yellow’ code.

So the ‘balance’ the government insists we strike shifts from around 70% stupid-30% common sense to 60%-40%, by which we mean 65%-35% when you look at the details. This is cause for joyous celebration. Not totally unwarranted in my case, as I am preparing for a long overdue trip to the free world and was not looking forward to a whole week in a hotel room afterwards.

Thus Hong Kong continues its tortuous (tortoise-like?) efforts to extricate itself from China’s zero-Covid policy without being too obvious about it, so the city still appears dedicated to the patriotic mission to crush the virus. We don’t know whether local officials are conning their Beijing counterparts in this, or (more likely) sympathetic Mainland overseers are smoothing things over with their superiors back home. Introduction of the health code tracking system – potentially a permanent social-control mechanism, or at least pain in the ass – is no doubt part of the deal. 

As critics rush to point out, the 3+4 model will do nothing to bring tourists back. There’s always a bright side!

On the subject of common sense – an article by HKU experts a few weeks ago diplomatically but clearly outlining the reality of the health threat Covid now poses to Hong Kong. Essentially, we are moving to endemicity and should follow what Singapore does.

Alternatively, Chinese health workers swab freshly caught fishes’ mouths to test for Covid.