NIL RETURN

I clicked on this link this morning:

and got this:

So presumably we can assume that nothing good happened this year.  Which fits in pretty well with my own experience, marked by deaths and disease among my immediatecircle, against the wider background of Britain slumping ever deeper into the slimy sinkhole of Brexit while Donald Trump does his best to ignite either World War 3 or environmental collapse, whichever comes first.  Not that I can do much to stop any of this stuff – indeed anyone who posts on any online forum probably feels like this at times:

Nevertheless, we can hope. Here's a toast to all my loyal readers (however few in number):

 By the way, the link was repaired later - and there are plenty of similar lists online.  So perhaps it's not all doom and gloom.


[Cartoon borrowed from Private Eye.]

Seven Reasons the Pan-Democrats Must Stand Firm

It was Parliament of Liars time yesterday as the Legislative Council began its long-awaited debate on the government's political reform package.  Before the members began their dissection of the bill, its two main proponents both used misleading and arguably downright dishonest arguments in its support.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, as ATV news reported it, "told lawmakers that the public opinion is clear" and they should vote accordingly.  Excuse me?!  It is true that a few months ago the package commanded modest net support (though never an absolute majority) in the opinion polls, but opinion has gradually been swinging against it, with some recent polls showing more voters against it than in favour.  Certainly there is no great public consensus welcoming the package - it would be truer to say that public opinion is deeply divided on the issue.

Then Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen "told lawmakers that the government's political reform package has made use of all the leeway available under Beijing's framework for the 2017 Chief Executive election" (ATV again).  "Yuen also dismissed suggestions by the pan-democrats that the nominating committee would serve to vet candidates based on their political inclinations, and anyone who wanted to run for the top job could do so if they get the support of the committee."  This is about as meaningful as saying that "anyone who wants to can be rich in Hong Kong if they can win the Mark Six lottery" - we all know that the whole point of the nominating committee is to ensure that only Beijing's favoured candidates can get on the ballot.

The overall thrust of Yuen's argument was to paint the limitations on democracy as a legal matter about which nothing could be done.  This drew an uncommonly caustic response outside the chamber from the usually urbane Civic Party leader Alan Leong, himself a lawyer: "I would respectfully ask the Secretary for Justice to shut up!"

As the debate continues today, the likely outcome appears pretty much as expected.  But just in case any of the pan-democrats may be wavering in their determination to veto the bill, here are seven good reasons why they should stick to their guns:

1. Public opinion is far from solidly in favour of it - see above - and the 40% of the population opposed to it deserve to have their voice heard.
2. It is not a legal matter - the biggest flaw in the Basic Law is that the body charged with interpreting it is not an impartial legal tribunal, but a partisan political body with a vested interest in the outcome of its own decisions.  The NPCSC's interpretations of the Basic Law are inevitably political decisions, made in China's perceived interests.  This means that far from being an immovable barrier to progress, as Rimsky Yuen suggests, they can be changed if the Central People's Government can be persuaded that it is in their interest to do so.  Though the SAR government is pretending that the current decision - whichever way it goes - marks the end of the debate, the need for a more genuinely representative system in Hong Kong will if anything become more apparent in the months ahead, and the issue will inevitably be reopened, with the possibility of a different decision.  Indeed the Basic Law specifically states that certain decisions will be made in the light of "the actual situation in Hong Kong".
3. Legislators are not robots - even if it were true that public opinion largely supported the package, it has long been accepted that elected representatives in a parliamentary democracy are not delegates, bound to follow the public's wishes.  Indeed, if that were so, we could have government by public opinion poll with no need for a legislature at all.  Any student of politics will be familiar with Edmund Burke's classic statement of this principle in 1774: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion".  Our legislators may not always be wiser than us, but they should at least be better-informed on the matters they deal with - it is part of their job to be so. 
4. Right is right and wrong is wrong - following on from this principle, even if a majority of the public support a particular position, that does not automatically make it right - otherwise we would still believe that the Earth is flat.  A legislator who considers something wrong has a duty to follow his conscience and vote against it.  Without this, we could never have moral leadership in politics.  Many of the great advances in human progress - civil rights, the abolition of slavery, the end of capital punishment - have not initially enjoyed overwhelming popular support, but were pushed forward by courageous and far-sighted politicians.
5. Responsibility to constituents - notwithstanding that elected representatives are not obliged to follow every whim of the public, there is an expectation that they will nevertheless stick to the general principles on which they sought election.  The pan-democrats were voted into office by those who wanted them to pursue genuine democracy, and it would be a betrayal of their constituents to settle for the fake version offered by the government.
6. Hypocrisy - the government's claim that LegCo members should follow public opinion is of course merely a tactic, not a principle - you would have to be very naive to believe that if the opinion polls suddenly showed 60% solidly against the reform bill, the government would start telling the DAB to vote against it on the same basis!
7. The consequences - but what is so bad about the government's package?  Mainly this: the biggest danger is that the proposed system, while systematically excluding large swathes of public opinion from candidacy, gives an illusion of democratic choice.  The next CE could - and probably would - use this spurious mandate as an excuse to pursue policies which would advance the CCP's apparent agenda of cultural assimilation, tilting further towards "One Country" and weakening the "Two Systems" safeguards which keep Hong Kong worth living in.

Overlooking the Obvious

Ten facts that should be obvious to any reasonably intelligent person here, but apparently not to the Hong Kong government:

1. Hong Kong is already grossly overpopulated and doesn't have room for more people.
2. A growing population will need more green space for relaxation and recreation, not less, so we should stop eating away at it for other purposes.
3. Pushing through the government's blatantly undemocratic political reform proposal is more likely to exacerbate discontent in Hong Kong than to eliminate it.
4. With more and more people and a finite supply of land, the village house policy is clearly unsustainable (apart from being a scam whereby "New Territories villagers" who don't even live in Hong Kong any more come back to grab their piece of subsidised land).
5. There is a limit to the number of tourists Hong Kong can accept without straining its infrastructure to breaking point.
6. The bridge to Macau will never be economically viable or environmentally sensible.
7. If you're going to build a high speed railway between two cities (not a bad ideas in itself), the termini should be at major transport intersections to facilitate onward travel, not stuck in the middle of nowhere.
8. As one of the richest cities in the world (in terms of GDP per capita), Hong Kong could easily afford to eliminate poverty and give all its citizens a decent standard of living - there is absolutely no reason why 80-year-old ladies should be reduced to scavenging cardboard boxes to survive.
9. When small businesses complain that they can't afford to give their workers a better deal, it's not because wages are too high, but a) because too much of their revenue goes to paying inflated commercial rents, and/or b) they're greedy (pick one or both).
10. When the mainland insists on selling us more water than we need at a price much higher than other cities in China pay, it's time to look again at the economics of desalination, not just meekly accept whatever non-negotiable deal is on the table.

Another great Hong Kong achievement

Interesting to see that Hong Kong's Avenue of Stars rates number 2 in CNN Travel's list of The World's Twelve Worst Tourist Traps.  Can someone please publish a Chinese translation where it will be seen by prospective visitors from you-know-where?

IgNobel Support

With imprisoned Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in enforced absentia today, China’s fearsome Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu has again been required to spout nonsense with a straight face, solemnly declaring that “most of the world” supports China’s opposition to the awarding of the Prize to Liu. “Most of the world” apparently means the 17 countries other than China which have declined to send an official representative to the award ceremony – out of 65 embassies invited, and representing less than ten percent of the world’s almost 200 nations. One country, Serbia, has reversed its earlier decision not to attend.

The BBC analyses the reasons behind these countries’ boycott of the event. Broadly they either object to a dissident receiving the prize for fear of encouraging their own internal opposition movements, or have close economic ties with China and fear reprisals from the PRC. But really, what a sad list of countries to parade in support!

Several of them (*) score highly on the Failed States Index: Three of them (plus China) are ruled by leaders who feature in the list of the World’s Ten Worst Dictators (#), which also includes several other close allies of China. Four of them are among the world’s heaviest users of the barbaric death penalty (&), a list again led by China (though the supposedly civilised United States also ranks highly, to its shame). And several of them appear on Transparency International’s list of the world's most corrupt countries (@), while several others (including Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan and Pakistan) are not far off inclusion in this category..

Almost all countries on the list are repressive and authoritarian dictatorships, and in most of them, a wealthy ruling elite enriches itself while the majority of the population lives in dire poverty. Afghanistan, for example, has the world’s second or third highest infant mortality rate, and an average life expectancy of 44 (Japanese live nearly twice as long, with Hong Kong a close second). Pakistan and Morocco have literacy rates barely above half the population. Saudi Arabia denies women the right to vote in local elections – and indeed most other rights; for example, they are not allowed to drive. In at least three countries on the list, it is doubtful whether the results of the most recent national election truly reflect the people’s will (%). Both Saudi Arabia and Iran strictly limit religious freedom, while Vietnam also does so to a lesser extent. And in Sudan, the government has done little or nothing to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur.

With friends like these, China does indeed enjoy impressive support – from a handful of the world’s most backward, repressive and corrupt countries. Here’s the list:

• Russia – the only major nation on the list, an ostensibly democratic country where almost all media outlets are now controlled by the government, organised crime has tentacles everywhere, and local democracy has been replaced by central government appointment of provincial governors.
• Saudi Arabia [# &] – an absolute monarchy where the royal family enforces strict Islam at home while many of its members make frequent overseas trips to enjoy the illicit pleasures they deny to their subjects.
• Kazakhstan
• Algeria
• Tunisia
• Pakistan [*]
• Sri Lanka [%]
• Iraq [* & @]
• Iran [# & %]
• Vietnam [&]
• Afghanistan [* @ %]
• Venezuela [@]
• Egypt [&]
• Sudan [* # & @]
• Cuba
• Morocco.

All for the love of - a new telephone?

And another thing that puzzles me: why are people willing to spend several days of their precious life queuing to be the first to get their hands on the new iPhone? It's only a phone, albeit one with some nice gadgets. Why don't they just wait a few weeks till they can get it without having to waste time lining up?

There are a number of things I would be willing to queue overnight for, but not a mere tech toy. For example:

• Democracy in Burma
• A cure for cancer
• An end to genocide in Darfur
• A free trip to Mars
• A workable Middle East peace settlement
• A private dinner with Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu
• The closure of the US torture camp at Guantanamo Bay
  

And last but not least:

• Tickets to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band live in Hong Kong (are you reading this, Bruce?)

Hong Kong's Multifarious Musea

How many museums do you reckon Hong Kong has? Ten? Twenty?

Try closer to fifty, many of them little known even to locals. The best known are probably those managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, but others are run by other government departments, public bodies, educational institutions and private organisations.

Here is a list:

1. Aberdeen Country Park Visitor Centre
2. Airport Core Programme Exhibition Centre
3. Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
4. Dr Sun Yat-sen Museum
5. Fanling Environmental Resource Centre
6. Fireboat Alexander Grantham Exhibition Gallery
7. Flagstaff House Museum of Teaware
8. Health Education Exhibition and Resources Centre
9. HKMA (Hong Kong Monetary Authority) Information Centre
10. Hong Kong Correctional Services Museum
11. Hong Kong Film Archive
12. Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre
13. Hong Kong Heritage Museum
14. Hong Kong Housing Authority Exhibition Centre
15. Hong Kong Immigration Museum
16. Hong Kong Maritime Museum
17. Hong Kong Museum of Art
18. Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence
19. Hong Kong Museum of History
20. Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences
21. Hong Kong Planning and Infrastructure Exhibition Gallery
22. Hong Kong Police Museum
23. Hong Kong Public Records Building
24. Hong Kong Racing Museum
25. Hong Kong Railway Museum
26. Hong Kong Science Museum
27. Hong Kong Space Museum
28. Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre
29. Hong Kong Wetland Park
30. Lantau Link Visitors Centre
31. Law Uk Folk Museum
32. Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb Museum
33. Lions Nature Education Center
34. Madame Tussaud’s
35. Museum of Ethnology
36. Ping Shan Tang Clan Gallery
37. Plover Cove Country Park Visitor Centre
38. Po Leung Kuk Museum
39. Sai Kung Country Park Visitor Centre
40. Sam Tung Uk Museum
41. Sheung Yiu Folk Museum
42. Shing Mun Country Park Visitor Centre
43. Tai Mo Shan Country Park Visitor Centre
44. Tao Heung Foods of Mankind Museum
45. Tsuen Wan Environmental Resource Centre
46. Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Museum
47. University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong
48. Urban Renewal Authority's Information Centre
49. Wan Chai Environmental Resource Centre

There may be more, depending on how you define "museum". For example, many of the buildings declared as ancient monumnets by the government are open to the public, though not formally classified as museums. And many other places have museum-like collections of memorabilia, such as the Hard Rock Cafe's display of rock artefacts.

Please add a comment if you know of any I've missed.