Big Lychee, Various Sectors

An SCMP report describes Beijing officials’ extraordinary efforts to micromanage the patriots-only December Legislative Council quasi-election so it doesn’t look too North Korean.

Obviously, with a vetting mechanism in place, they essentially choose who appears on each ballot. They are making sure a ‘centrist’ (like a Ronnie Tong sidekick) runs in each geographic constituency alongside the usual DAB/FTU zombie-loyalists and the tycoon shoe-shiners. And – is this sad or what? – they are ordering functional constituency candidates accustomed to winning unopposed to find suckers to pose as rivals. 

Lawmaker-turned-exile Ted Hui proposes that pro-democracy voters cast blank ballots as a way of protest (summary here, lengthy FB post in Chinese here). His ambitious target is for blank ballots to outnumber the filled ones. The logic is that such a glaring number of blank ballots would be embarrassing to the regime – which of course it would.

However, it would be easier and probably at least as effective if large numbers of voters choose simply to boycott the whole event. The headline figure would then be the drop in turnout from 71% in the 2019 district council polls to (say) 30% or 35%. Of course, the CCP could falsify the results in any case – but an exaggerated turnout would be easier to spot when there were no lines outside polling stations.

The ICAC – supposedly an anti-corruption agency – swiftly responds to Hui’s idea by warning against ‘inciting’ others not to vote or to cast blank or spoiled ballots, which they claim would be ‘manipulating and sabotaging the election’. A widespread boycott seems to be the protest method the authorities fear most – probably because it relies simply on voters’ gut instinct and natural disinterest/laziness rather than any proactive organizing or complex rationale. A turnout of below 30% would look seriously horrible.

A man in police custody died of pneumonia as a result of ‘inadequate clothing’. Perhaps the most surprising part is that the IPCC police complaints agency vaguely gave a slight damn (though the suspect was detained on suspicion of possessing drugs, not for shouting slogans about Hong Kong independence). The case prompts American lawyer Samuel Bickett to share disturbing detail of torture-by-freezing in police custody.

In theory, Justices of the Peace are supposed to drop by police stations and prisons to check on detainees’ treatment, but even in pre-NatSec days the title of JP was a reward for shoe-shiners who see the colonial-era (indeed, 1360s-era) office as a mark of social status. Long gone are the days when pro-democrat lawmakers like Emily Lau would exercise their right as JPs to visit prisons.

(Reminds me of a story from happier times, when an establishment stalwart who was a JP had been imprisoned for taking a bribe from a wannabe member of the HK Club. When the Correctional Services officer asked inmates one day if anyone wanted to talk to a visiting JP, they pointed to him and said they had one already.)  

The results of the latest Gratuitously Brown-nosing Shoe-shiner of the Week Award are in. In second place comes Nury Vittachi, who explains in a video how and why Amnesty International are not being forced out of Hong Kong. An ever-so earnest delivery sadly let down by rather predictable tankie undertones. And the winner is a newcomer, with a surprisingly strong performance: a China Daily op-ed lavishly praising Carrie Lam’s policy address, by a physics professor and boss of the HKU ‘Space Research Laboratory’ – almost as if his contract is up for renewal or something. Have a sick bag ready.

The Guardian on Hong Kong’s Covid policy…

The changes push Hong Kong further into a life dictated by China’s strategy as the rest of the world is opening up… It adds to already record levels of population loss as Hongkongers fled the national security crackdown.

From Bitter Winter, more on the replacement of ‘Tibet’ by ‘Xizang’. (This effort will surely just attract more international attention to Tibet’s plight. I recall one of Beijing’s English-language mouthpieces referring to the then-CE as ‘Tsang Yam-kuen’ in order to avoid the alien ‘Donald’, but dropping the idea after a while, presumably because it merely confused readers. Another snag with ‘Xizang’ is that much of the intended overseas audience will also probably be unable to pronounce it.)

Another sign that the global public are finding the CCP’s China increasingly annoying – a new take on Winnie the Pooh from US artist Alex Solis.

Just when you thought Hong Kong’s Covid measures couldn’t get any more unscientific or oppressive – they decide to put recovered patients in 14 days of de-facto quarantine. Not remotely sustainable if there’s ever a surge in cases. Simply a theatrical gesture to impress Mainland officials who have no incentive to open the border with Hong Kong. Won’t this also possibly give people an incentive to avoid diagnosis if their symptoms are mild? 

And the NatSec film-censorship law gets the rubber stamp. Loyalists eager to impress their masters are calling (logically) for the law to apply to online videos. The Commerce minister says that would involve ‘technological and enforcement considerations’, but we will at some stage find such considerations melt away when Beijing’s officials get round to imposing a Great Firewall in Hong Kong.

An early start to the weekend, with some recommended reading and viewing…

Lots of interesting observations on the NatSec regime in Hong Kong from Scott Veitch, law professor at HKU.

NPR interview with former SCMP editor and Next Media board member Mark Clifford on the media under threat in Hong Kong…

…we have seven journalists from Apple Daily and its parent company in jail right now being held without – essentially without bail. And it’ll probably be years until their trial comes up. And they’re effectively serving a life sentence because they’re presumed guilty rather than innocent before a trial, and the trial can take place whenever the authorities want it.

Also from NPR – Hongkongers settling in the UK. Including, from the (maybe paywalled) Economist, Blackpool.

Francesco Sisci in Asia Times on Beijing’s mishandled foreign policy… 

In the last 15 years ‘…China grew complacent and arrogant with its two crucial neighbors, Japan and India; it mothballed planned political reforms at home and in Hong Kong.’

What is it doing now?

The action most consistent with its system and the internal balance of power is “nothing,” a modern-day wuwei 无为, or “inaction.” It would mean: Close itself off and strengthen internal cohesion to avoid coups or rebellions. Therefore, draconian anti-epidemic measures are also helpful to keep external political pollution out, wait for the US to fall apart and for China’s rivals to come begging on their knees for mercy.

Former State Dept official Ortagus Stilwell tells CNN of the risks to US citizens of visiting China.

Is it goodbye Tibet, hello Xizang? Global Times seems to think so, and Bill Bishop in his newsletter writes…

My understanding is that the ministry of propaganda issued a directive last month to gradually start replacing “Tibet” with “Xizang” in external propaganda. I assume this comes after the August Tibet work conference, is part of a more encompassing “sinicization” strategy?

John Oliver explaining Taiwan – surprisingly well.

Ronny Tong proudly presents his Path of Democracy ‘third way’ political group aimed at attracting people who have no political views…

“We understand die-hard pro-establishment supporters might not be interested in us nor die-hard radical supporters,” Tong said. “Our previous surveys found over half of Hongkongers are politically neutral. They will be our biggest voter base.”

Sorry, Ronny – no-one will be interested in you. Note the oh-so subtle attempt to differentiate the group as some sort of cool rebellious outcast rejected by ‘die-hard pro-establishment’. And, behold the non-platform…

“Compared to the pro-establishment camp we will stress more on Hongkongers’ core values, our freedom and the uniqueness of our society,” Tong said.

“On the other hand, we will focus more on the importance of China’s constitution and complying with the requirements under the Basic Law, national security and the importance of fighting for democracy under a stable society.”

It seems even the venerable ultra-moderate ADLP won’t be participating in the coming legislative polls, so Ronny’s little crew – like Tik Chi-yuen’s similar Third Side group – get to be Beijing’s token/quasi-democrats, masquerading as ‘centrists’. 

Reminder: any candidate whose name is on the ballot in December is a United Front stooge – no exceptions.

Hong Kong tightens its quarantine measures, again, in an effort to be as Mainland as the Mainland. It’s easy to mock international financial institutions whining about Hong Kong’s Covid restrictions driving expat bankers away (Fortune has one of many reports). But the fact is that large numbers of the city’s residents, most of whom are not expats/bankers, are getting increasingly pissed off. 

What’s intriguing is that local officials, who in decades past grovelled to overseas bankers, are now treating them with the same contempt as they do everyone else. What this tells us is that the local administration is no longer making the decisions. Greatest irony: during the 2019 movement, these same officials criticized the protests for (allegedly) driving foreign business away. 

Kong Tsung-gan is keeping count of the civil society organizations disappearing in Hong Kong – 53 so far.

The Golden Buttock Award for Bare-Faced Cheek goes to China and Hong Kong police, who ask Danish counterparts via Interpol to cooperate with investigations into Danish lawmakers who might have helped pan-dem activist Ted Hui leave Hong Kong. The Danes said no.

Ma Chun-man – ‘Captain America 2.0’ – is convicted of ‘inciting secession’, by chanting slogans that ostensibly call for Hong Kong independence. (Background to trial here.) Simply calling for Hong Kong independence seems to be sufficient to be a crime; no-one has to actually be ‘incited’ to do anything. How distinct is this from mildly expressing a personal opinion that Hong Kong would, ideally, be independent? 

The NatSec judge dismissed defence arguments out of hand. An expert at Georgetown Law pulls apart the judgement.

As it happens, Amnesty International chooses this time to announce that it will pull out of Hong Kong, after 40 years here. No point in hanging around and finding out what will happen if they don’t (police raids, asset seizures, arrests of staff, charges of inciting conspiracy to incite blah blah, and a NatSec judge.). 

That leaves the HK Journalists Association among major civil-society groups still operating – for example, yesterday’s criticism of the government’s moves to tighten access to the Companies and Lands Registries.

An interesting conundrum for the government desperate to have voters attend rigged and futile quasi-elections but also desperate to impress Beijing with its extreme approach to Covid: should polling stations require the Leave Home Safe app to enter? 

In case you missed them, a small sample of worthwhile recent articles from Hong Kong Free Press…

How many flats will (or would) the Lantau Tomorrow and Northern Metropolis yield versus how many Hong Kong will need? This op-ed finds the projects’ promoters and bureaucrats are using very slippery numbers. (One tycoon of my acquaintance liked to use the word ‘decant’ rather a lot in connection with the Lantau white-elephant proposal. The not-so hidden agenda was cleansing districts like Shamshuipo or Mongkok of local riff-raff for redevelopment as luxury blah-blah.)

Another op-ed on the background and underlying purpose of that fact-sheet on US interference in Hong Kong, including the shaping of the…

…emerging new official narrative … Without the opportunistic meddling of foreign agents and their Western government sponsors, Hongkongers apparently could never have managed such an ambitious project on their own.

An explainer on how Beijing is erasing the memory of the Tiananmen Massacre in Hong Kong.

And a reminder that HKFP is holding a fund-raising drive.

(Also, in case you didn’t see it, a late comment from yesterday. Didn’t a spate of suicides take place around the depths of the Tung Chee-hwa/SARS era?)

For music fans – the song Fragile, aimed at China’s panty-wetting on-line ‘Little Pink’ patriots. Includes a reference to bat-eating. So far, 16.8 million views. I guess Malaysian rapper Namewee and Australian Kimberley Chen won’t be on the overseas compatriots invitation list for next year’s CCTV Spring Gala. More here.

Embarrassingly over-eager law-enforcement NatSec idiocy so far… Marking the 1911 Revolution is banned as an expression of Taiwan separatism. Prisons ban hairpins and M&M chocolate for potentially fomenting subversion among inmates. The Customs chief is after lobsters, provocatively waving their nasty anti-China claws round and round.

And now, the police bar runners in the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon having shorts (or tattoos) bearing the words ‘Hong Kong Add Oil’ – a slogan used by everyone to encourage local athletes in the Olympics. Indeed, it suggests here that police were stopping anyone displaying just the words ‘Hong Kong’, despite the event’s official title.

Even minor day-to-day activities must be intensely politicized in the name of eradicating an open-ish political system.

A barrister on the government’s move to deny defendants in criminal cases using legal aid the right to choose their own lawyers – thus ‘state-appointed’ defence lawyers. Put this into the context of vaguely drafted NatSec laws, politicized prosecutions, NatSec judges and plans for mega-courts, and you have a 99% conviction rate for people accused of thought crimes. 

A not-creepy-at-all extract from a Hong Kong primary school textbook encouraging ethnic consciousness in Mandarin.

And the relentless positive energy continues with an FT (paywall) report suggesting that Hong Kong could continue its extreme quarantine regime for another 13 months…

A significant outbreak in China or Hong Kong would also be politically sensitive, as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics in February and President Xi Jinping seeks to secure a third term in power later next year. Hong Kong will also hold a leadership election in March and mark 25 years since the handover from British to Chinese rule of the city in July. 

“We’re effectively deciding Hong Kong will become a Chinese city,” said the Asia-Pacific chief executive of a $60bn asset manager.

Fearsome new Customs Commissioner Louise Ho (seems Hermes has gone) is on a mission to protect the glorious motherland from subversive lobsters. She explains…

“On the face of it, it’s just a normal smuggling case, smuggling lobsters. But actually these smuggling activities would undermine the country’s trade restrictions on Australia. Therefore, tackling lobster smuggling activities is an important task in safeguarding national security.”

This is like Security Secretary PK Tang’s confusion of 1911 Revolution commemorations with Taiwan independence. It seems disciplined services chiefs are so robotic and/or uninformed in enforcing the NatSec Law that they attack irrelevant targets. Beijing has put up barriers against Australian goods like lobsters – against WTO rules – to express frustration and rage at not being obeyed by a smaller regional state, not as a measure to protect the nation from harm.

More evidence that Commissioner Louise is taking things way too seriously… 

…officers will be on the alert for people resorting to ‘soft resistance’ to spread messages endangering national security, through books, magazines or everyday items.

Can she give examples of books that threaten the PRC’s national security? Is Hong Kong going to join Saudi Arabia and a few other select places where men in uniforms flick through arriving passengers’ copies of, say, The Economist in search of offending articles to cut out? Excuse me sir – do you have any ‘soft resistance’ in your luggage?

Elsewhere in NatSec regime… How the CCP deals with free elections: overturn the result. The pan-dems won over 380 of 450 elected seats in the last district council polls; after various measures to disqualify or otherwise get rid of them, there are now just 60 left. Some of the councils themselves now have so few members that they are defunct. 

The only candidates you may now vote for are people who support rigged elections in which you have no choice.

More disqualifications, because a Leninist system can never have too much control: Beijing is also tightening its grip on already-subservient Macau.

Some weekend reading…

George Magnus on China’s property-market woes.

The BBC on ‘Ziganwu’ – China’s young xenophobic patriots…

More recently, top medical expert Zhang Wenhong became a target… A suggestion that children should drink milk for breakfast was taken as a sign that he was rejecting traditional Chinese breakfast – and values. “Isn’t this too much worship of the West and fawning over foreigners?” wrote Pingminwangxiaoshi.

(This just in: Commissioner Louise orders Customs officers to intercept all boxes of cornflakes entering Hong Kong.)

How Taiwan is making itself more popular around the world, partly with China’s help.

From Taiwan Insight – the politics of Hong Kong immigration in the UK and Taiwan. Interesting comparisons.

Carrie Lam is shocked to find that the NatSec Law has harmed Hong Kong’s image. External forces and media, she says, refuse to believe our version of the story and insist that the Law reduces human rights and freedoms. The government must explain its work better.

Meanwhile, almost as if he is taking instructions from someone other than the official head of the executive branch, the Security Secretary is threatening to arrest and prosecute disciplined services officers who allegedly mocked the death of a police officer in the line of duty. There is plainly no law against bad taste, but PK Tang says: ‘…there are other laws in place that can deal with “inappropriate information” and sedition’.

Small wonder that ‘external forces’ are watching and commenting. The latest example is Georgetown Law’s comparative analysis of the Tong Ying-kit NatSec flag-waving/’terrorism’ trial. Go to page 28 for the relatively pithy conclusion.

The NatSec regime invites ridicule. Look at the expert testimony given by a pro-Beijing professor at the trial of ‘Fast Beat’ Tam Tak-chi for allegedly uttering seditious words (reports here and here)… 

Lingnan University Professor Lau Chi-pang on Monday told the District Court that “Liberate Hong Kong; revolution of our times” or “Hongkongers, add oil” were capable of inciting others to break the law depending on the circumstances of their use. The latter phrase is a Cantonese expression of encouragement.

…The professor maintained that expressions such as “Hongkongers, add oil” and “no rioters but tyranny” – a reference to the government’s classification of certain 2019 protests as riots – could have breached the law if they were used during the chaos outside the liaison office.

The NatSec Law does not apply to everyone. Huang Xiang-mo colluded with Australian politicians, and now turns up on Hong Kong’s ‘Election Committee’ as a representative of ‘grassroots’ – which is quite an achievement for a billionaire property developer. As it says here…

Jeremy Tam was denied bail because the US consulate in Hong Kong emailed him about a coffee. He didn’t respond. Claudia Mo was denied bail because she texted reporters. Huang delivered bags of cash to foreign politicians but is a good patriot.

From the same author, Atlantic on the hypocrisy of Hong Kong’s shoe-shiner/quisling milieu… 

These officials, politicians, and commentators employ a combination of historical revisionism, double standards, gaslighting, and whataboutisms … The messages they push, delivered straight-faced, beggar belief: A less representative election is actually more democratic; Hong Kong has never been as safe and stable, but the threat of terrorism has never been more dire; even as organization after organization is forced to close, civil society is as vibrant as ever.

There are the cheerleaders for patriotic state education who send their own children to international private schools and sit on the boards of universities overseas, and the elites whose family members reside in the same countries that they allege meddle in Hong Kong’s affairs. And there are the law-enforcement leaders who claim that the U.S. is trying to destroy Hong Kong but know the enemy well, many having studied there or even trained with the FBI.

My one quibble would be describing these shoe-shiners as a ‘ruling class’. Most have no more political power than the rest of the population, though they often hold symbolic titles and positions.

The article touches on the reasons why formerly decent liberal-minded people have become apologists for an authoritarian regime. As it says, for many (including businessmen, obviously), becoming an instant-noodle patriot loyalist is the only choice if you want your company or job to be safe. It’s also the default option for bores who simply crave the social status of ceremonial positions like Executive Council (‘government advisor’ to the gullible). But there must also be some who are essentially being blackmailed.

Speaking of the NatSec regime being easy to ridicule – and for fans of goose-step marching – HKFP’s op-ed on the Prussian-Nazi-Soviet-PLA foot drill (from 2018, when the idea of Mainland officials telling the Hong Kong police how to march seemed disturbingly intrusive).

It’s barely Wednesday, but it looks like we already have a winner for this week’s Pass The Sick Bag Prize: Hong Kong Customs Commissioner Hermes Tang, who declares… 

It is an honour and yet a grave responsibility to be a member of the Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the HKSAR. I have a particular deep feeling in holding the capacity and must express my sincerest gratitude to the Central Government.

(I have a particular deep feeling that the ‘and yet’ in the first sentence is a bit odd.)

Of course, there’s more (the Pass The Sick Bag isn’t that easy to win). Commissioner Hermes goes on at far greater length – more than the most verbose or literary of us could manage even if we were paid – on the adoption of that oh-so elegant Mainland-style goose-step marching for his staff’s parades…

The Chinese-style foot drill has long been a shining icon of our country in the international community. It is also a spiritual outlook that our 1.4 billion compatriots are proud of. Good practice of the Chinese-style foot drill helps in better integrating ourselves into the country’s governance system and enriching the exercise of ‘one country, two systems’. Apart from spreading a positive message to members of the public, it also adds a vibrant colour of patriotism to the city.

Now read each sentence again carefully, and each time ask yourself whether it is true, or even logical. Really Hermes?

That’s just a small portion of a lavish bout of patriotic NatSec-era shoe-shining – though this is not so unusual among the disciplined services, who take orders, and everything else, literally.

Hermes is shown on the right presenting the Whistle of Honour (I wish I’d made that up, but no) to the best recruit. “Don’t blow it all at once,” he said. Maybe.

At the other end of the rhetorical scale… Several CUKH students have been sentenced for rioting in 2019. One, nursing student Foo Hoi-ching, wrote a defiant letter to the judge – a translation here.

From rhetoric to semantics… another Hong Kong court hears an expert’s view on how, based on 1,900-year-old Eastern Han Dynasty texts, ‘Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times’ might be a seditious slogan.

Tam Tak-chi, nicknamed “Fast Beat,” appeared in the District Court before Judge Stanley Chan on Monday … People in the public gallery made heart hand gestures and … shouted “You’re so handsome” to Tam, who at one point waved, pulled down his mask and smiled back.

Too sick with worry to do anything today. Just sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the latest news from Queen Mary’s. She should have asked someone to help her pull those suitcases full of cash up the stairs to the store room after every payday – but too stubborn, of course.