One Way Traffic

Before 1997, there was a slew of books predicting that the advent of Chinese rule would inevitably mean the death of Hong Kong.  For several years, I believed that they were wrong.  I would tell friends overseas who asked how life here had changed that the Chinese government had interfered far less than we all feared, and that by and large Hong Kong life went on much as before.

It is now apparent that these perceptions arose from a false sense of security.  In reality, Hong Kong has been in the position of a woman forced into an unwanted arranged marriage whose new husband chooses not to consummate it immediately - but eventually she is bound to get well and truly screwed.  And now we are.

Among the many betrayers of Hong Kong who have contributed to the dire situation we are in, one name stands out.  Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai CBE - prominent among the sudden patriots I wrote about yesterday - is Hong Kong's only member (one can hardly call her a representative, as she only represents herself) of the NPC Standing Committee that laid down the disastrous fake democracy blueprint delivered yesterday.  As such, she bears a special responsibility for its decision.

The Independent newspaper once asked "What is it about Rita Fan that makes Hong Kong hate her so?"  Well, one obvious reason is that she likes to lecture Hong Kong people on why they are all wrong about Beijing, and boast of her own unique insight into the Central Government's thinking.  A few days ago she warned Hong Kong people not to pressurise Beijing (as if a mouse could apply much pressure to an elephant!), and after yesterday's announcement she reinforced the message:

"If we want something done we have to persuade them in a manner that they can understand.  We should never persuade people in a manner that they feel unhappy about, that they feel they are being pressurised."

OK, so let us assume for a moment that Fan is right.  Since she claims to know how to persuade Beijing in a manner that it can understand, how has she used this knowledge to make them realise that the pseudo-democracy it proposes for Hong Kong can only exacerbate unrest, deepen division, and ultimately destroy the very "stability and prosperity of Hong Kong" to which the Beijing leadership so often claims to be committed?  And has she advised Beijing not to let Hong Kong people feel that they are being pressurised?

Well, nothing at all, and no, respectively.  Fan did not achieve the power and influence she so clearly enjoys by speaking uncomfortable truths to the powerful.  She will tell Beijing nothing about Hong Kong that it does not wish to hear.  And the narrative - or myth - Beijing prefers, and may even fool itself into believing, is of a contented and united populace loyally devoted to the motherland and grateful to the all-powerful Chinese Communist Party for the gifts it so munificently bestows on them, spoiled only by a negligible handful of dissident troublemakers stirring up disagreement.

Fan is not of course the only politician peddling this one-way traffic - passing down Beijing's imperious edicts to Hong Kong, while failing to help the Central Government understand the SAR's needs and concerns.  With a few honourable exceptions, most government ministers and the DAB's leaders are all guilty of the same thing.  But as Hong Kong's only member of the NPC Standing Committee, Fan was in a uniquely privileged position last week to make a real difference to Hong Kong's future.  By going along with a decision that will ensure future CEs continue to speak for the Central Government rather than representing the people of Hong Kong, she has sadly abused that privilege.

As the winter of our discontent deepens, what adds insult to injury is that not only has Fan welcomed the approaching iceberg, but she and fellow Beijing toady Lau Siu-kai, former head of the Central Policy Unit, have even blamed us - the Hong Kong people - for steering the ship into it.  According to them Beijing has taken a hard line against the democrats in Hong Kong, as Lau puts it, "simply because of the the pressure they apply on Beijing".  Yeah, sure - and without that we would surely be living in paradise...

PS - it's hard to believe when you look at her now, but Rita Fan was quite a beauty when she was young.

Lest We Forget

A Basic Law Committee member and one of the most prominent of those I call the sudden patriots - those opportunistic old crones who did very well out of sucking up to the British for many years  before 1997, when they suddenly discovered a deep, abiding, and previously entirely unsuspected love for the motherland and became part of the new Hong Kong establishment that wins Beijing's trust by telling it exactly what it wants to hear.  ("Not the facts, ma'am, just not the facts.")  Rita Fan (also a CBE) is another leading member of this unsavoury crew.

As Hong Kong sinks deeper into the political mire with the release of Beijing's electoral proposals today, let us remember those who are helping the city to drown.

And incidentally someone seems to have done a spot of ethnic cleansing on Maria Tam's Wikipedia entry, which at the time of writing mentions her Hong Kong honours (GBM, GBS) but conveniently forgets her no-longer-PC British one.  Of course, anyone can edit Wikipedia...

Why didn't someone tell me about this before?

In response to press reports of people being paid to join the Alliance for Sleaze and Disharmony's march on Sunday, organiser Robert Chow reverted to the feeble "everybody's doing it" defence and claimed that people are also being paid (or at least bribed with free meals) to join pro-democracy rallies.  All I can say is that I wish I'd known about this earlier.  Like hundreds of thousands of other Hongkongers, I have turned out year after year in sweltering heat or pouring rain to speak out for Hong Kong's rights and freedoms, and never received a cent or a sandwich for my trouble - not even my bus fare.

So, where do I collect my arrears?

Egg on their Faces

Yesterday's protest march by the Alliance for Peace and Hypocrisy attracted a claimed 110,000 plus participants - although if you deduct those who were paid to attend (some of whom, when interviewed on TV, clearly had no idea what the event was all about), coerced by their employers, bused in from the mainland, or more interested in protecting their mainland business interests than in the welfare of Hong Kong, the real figure was probably only a few hundred.  Even hardcore Beijing loyalists like Maria Tam, who showed her face at a precursor event earlier in the day, reportedly couldn't be bothered to actually get off their arses and march - while many of those who did, having registered their attendance at the starting point, apparently dropped out soon after leaving Victoria Park.

The most interesting thing that happened was one of the protesters throwing eggs at some People Power hecklers staging a counter-protest.  Their aim being as imprecise as the aims of the Alliance for Peace and Dishonesty itself, they hit a young policewoman instead.  Strangely, the police - usually so aggrieved at any perceived attack on themselves - somehow never got round to arresting the perpetrator.

Why is this interesting?  Because for a month the Alliance has had booths all over town inviting people to sign its petition against - not really Occupy Central, but a demonised distortion of Occupy Central that doesn't exist in reality - in other words, a fantasy enemy.  And all during this time, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no physical attack on any of these booths or on those staffing them by the supposedly dangerous Occupy Central camp, whom we are invited to fear as a violent threat to the peace of Hong Kong.  Yet when there is a march against this so-called violent organisation, we see an attack coming from those who are supposedly promoting peace and opposing violence - and a planned one too; no one just happens to be carrying a tray of 24 eggs with them (as shown in the SCMP's photos) when they go on a protest march.

Yes, there is a violent threat to the Hong Kong we care about - but it doesn't come from Occupy Central.

Fingering

Uncle Beach's Etiquette Advice - Part 1 of a new series

Dear Uncle Beach,

I would like to know how best to respond to the strange hand signals I see being used by the Alliance for Peace and Democracy.  I do not want to cause any offence to the Hong Kong people by giving an inappropriate response.

Signed Puzzled of Pokfulam

Uncle Beach replies:

Dear Puzzled,

No need to worry - for the true Hong Konger there is only one appropriate response to anything the so-called Alliance for Peace and Democracy does:

Signed Uncle Beach

Occupy Central - the Chief Executive Speaks Out

In strict legal terms, CY Leung's warning against Occupy Central may be accurate.  But as in so many other aspects of his "leadership", it betrays an alarming unfamiliarity with the real world.  The fact is, we all break the law regularly.  Just about everyone in Hong Kong is at some time guilty of, for example: jaywalking, speeding, illegal parking, bringing home a little more than the duty-free allowance when returning from overseas, eating on public transport, smoking in a no-smoking area, or (like Leung himself), making unauthorised alterations to our homes.  These are offences of the type classified in American law as misdemeanours - they may be against the law, but no one really thinks of themself as a criminal for doing them.  They form the middle ground that Leung tells us does not exist.

Yes, Occupy Central would be illegal - but what type of illegal?

Who's Blocking Whom?

So let me see if I've got this straight: a group of minibus drivers take over the street to protest against people planning to take over the streets.  Hmm.  Another story for the "You couldn't make this stuff up" file.

Torah 2.0

The Book of Exodus

The Book of Benjamin

...and rising, based on the latest reported death toll of 1,000 Palestinians  (mostly civilians) and 42 Israelis (mostly soldiers).

The continuing slaughter gave rise to what must be one of the most meaningless utterances ever by a prominent politician, when US Secretary of State John Kerry said

"They may have rejected some language or proposal within a framework of some kind of suggestion at some point in time, but there was no formal proposal submitted from me on which there should have been a vote or which a vote was ripe."

If this means anything at all, I think it means something like "I am embarrassed to be standing up here making excuses for our Israeli allies continuing to shoot at schools and hospitals despite the various ceasefire proposals being put forward, but I suppose I have to say something that doesn't sound too negative, so er...er..."

Rotten Luck

By a rather unfortunate coincidence, the South China Morning Post had this:

on its website today in close proximity to this:

I think we can safely rule out one contender for best burger in town!

Wall of Shame

A government that fences itself off from the people it governs is a government that no longer feels part of, or accountable to, those people.  The irony here is that protests will still be allowed in Civic Square on Sundays and public holidays - in other words, people will be allowed to deliver their message against the government only when the government is not there to hear it.

This is yet another sign that Hong Kong is gradually being transformed from reality to fiction.  Those who have read Catch-22, one of the last century's greatest novels, will remember Major Major Major Major, who only allows people to come to his office to visit him when he's not there.  The character's resemblance to the Hong Kong government is heightened by his total ineptitude.

However, from ancient Jericho to Berlin, all walls will one day fall...

Yes, But Which Mainstream?

Which one is the mainstream?

Quite apart from the bare-faced nonsense it spouts about the CE election (see yesterday's post), the government's report on constitutional reform claims that mainstream opinion is that the functional constituencies in the Legislative Council should be retained (or more specifically, that the present composition of LegCo need not be changed).  This may be the mainstream opinion in Government House, but out here in the real world I don't know anyone who shares it except those who benefit from the undue influence the FCs give to a few selected groups.  Most people can't wait to see the back of these rotten boroughs and hopefully enjoy a more genuinely representative legislature - which would at least bring some balance to a system in which it has obviously been decided already from on high that we're not going to get a genuinely representative Chief Executive.

In yet another sign of how far Hong Kong politics has drifted from reality, ATV news tonight reports that "Beijing's mouthpiece newspaper the Global Times published an editorial today hailing Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's own report on political reform as 'more representative than any other voice in Hong Kong and the best definition of the SAR's current situation'".  So don't worry, Daddy knows best - but more representative of what exactly?

The Global Times article also claimed that mainstream opinion in Hong Kong had been "hijacked by extremists".  That must explain the 800,000 mainstream people I saw recently being dragged kicking and screaming into polling booths to vote in the Occupy Central civil referendum.  Not to mention the hundreds of thousands marching from Victoria Park to Tamar at gunpoint on 1st July.

[Note to humourless CCP minions - the previous paragraph is satire.  Don't quote it as fact.]

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains

The Hong Kong government's report on the consultation on political reform has been out for less than 24 hours, but already I don't like it.  A hundred pages of barely readable blah blah blah minutely depicting which party said what about what (playing up the contributions the government likes), then a conclusion that "mainstream opinion" follows the government line (i.e. shut up and accept whatever crumbs of democracy Beijing graciously condescends to throw under the table for us).

Mainstream: "the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are regarded as normal or conventional", says one dictionary – as if anything in Hong Kong these days can be corralled into that description.  It certainly doesn't belong in a report of this nature.  If half the population thinks black, and half thinks white, does that mean mainstream opinion is grey?

Nowhere is the government brave enough to say what majority opinion thinks – perhaps because there isn't one.  What we have is a population split between two philosophies of the world: the truth that humans are born with certain innate rights to self-determination, and the big lie that they are only entitled to as much freedom as the government chooses to give them.  The entire apparatus of Chinese rule is devoted to propagating this lie.  So, alas, is that of the Hong Kong government.

It's About Time

In a nice bit of synchronicity, I decided to read a couple of pages of the book I'm currently working through - Thief of Time by Terry Practchett - this morning after being up half of the night watching Germany win the World Cup, when within a few sentences I came upon this:

"Lu-Tze had long considered that everything happens for a reason, except possibly football."

A Sermon from the Archbishop of Hong Kong

First Things First

The impasse in the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council is of course a political game.  On the one hand, the pan-democrats are offering to move the less controversial expenditure items up the agenda to get their funding approved before LegCo's summer break, while continuing to block those items they disagree with.  On the other hand, the government is refusing to change the sequence, presumably with the aim of persuading the easily fooled that it is the pan-democrats' fault they will not receive their promised CSSA bonus and other budget giveaways.

Well, don't be fooled.  There are three things wrong with the position taken by the givernment and the establishment parties:

1. They continually complain that the pan-democrats are being unreasonable – unwilling to compromise and cooperate – but when they are offered a compromise that will see much of their programme get through LegCo they refuse to accept it.
2. They also complain that the pan-democrats resort to "radical" or 'extrene" extra-parliamentary actions such as protests and the threat of Occupy Central to get their way, yet when the pan-dems use parliamentary tactics according to the rules of procedure, such as filibusters and tabling thousands of amendments, they don't like that either.  Play the system or go outside the system, either way they object.
3. This comes down to a more fundamental problem, the sense of entitlement the government and its allies appear to feel.  They act as if they have a God-given right to get everything they want through LegCo after a few token questions or objections.  Maybe that is how they interpret "executive-led government", but if LegCo is just there as a rubber stamp, why do we need it at all?  LegCo's primary job is to scrutinise the government's bills and expenditure requests, amend them where necessary, pass them where appropriate, and reject them when they are unacceptable.  That is exactly what is happening now, and while we still have "two systems", that is how it should be.

Snippets

There are too many things going on to write at length about all of them (I have to work, you know).  So, just a couple of quick reactions to some recent snippets of news.

"Tourism Board chairman Peter Lam Kin-ngok warned that Occupy Central could harm tourism in the city."
-- So, another reason to welcome Occupy Central!

And in China, an appeal court believes a totally nonsensical story and reduces a killer's sentence to 7 years.  This one is so absurd that even the usually Pro-China Morning Post gives space to demolishing it.  See also here and here.

-- Oh well, it may not be justice, but at least we can be sure the judges are patriots!

Much ado about much ado

A History Lesson from Xi Jinping

That Sinking Feeling

Four anti-Occupy Central protesters jumped into Victoria Harbour yesterday.

Meanwhile another group of antis, the Hong Kong Island Commercial Alliance, staged a drive-by protest yesterday, apparently being too lazy to walk.

I'll be out with a lot of other people walking from Victoria Park to Tamar tomorrow - see you there.

South of the Border

ATV News headline: "Development Secretary tries to calm villagers affected by border development". [my italics]

Interesting choice of phrase there, considering there are suggestions in some circles that the North East New Territories development, as it's officially called, may in reality be less about Fanling North than Shenzhen South.  Paranoia?  See here also, then you decide.

Satire - Who Needs it?

In other news:

• Hong Kong can handle up to 100 million tourists, says Commerce Secretary
• Third airport runway will not endanger dolphins, says Airport Authority

"In other news..." is a standard satirical device for ridiculing absurd official statements.  In most countries, this means producing a humorously exaggerated version of other public statements.  Here in Hong Kong, there is no need to do that - what the authorities say is already absurd enough to be a satire of itself.

Typically absurd Pro-China Morning Post front page above, as well - giving the opinion of one clapped-out retired Chinese politician greater prominence than the opinions of more than half a million Hong Kongers.

Go Google Yourself

There are a lot of things I like about the Chrome browser, but I've been wondering why it doesn't allow me to use Realdownloader to download videos from YouTube.  Now I find that Google has disabled this, and any other extension not in their Chrome Web Store.  They won't allow me to re-enable it unless it's added to the Web Store, which requires the developer to apply and pay a fee (not a lot, but multiply it by the number of browser extensions out there...)

It is obvious from the postings on the Chrome forum that I am far from the only user annoyed by this policy.  If Google want to flag extensions as potentially dangerous to alert the user, that's fine.  But what gives them the right to decide what software the user can add to his system, and to irretrievably disable anything they don't like?  Oh well, back to Firefox.  Realdownloader works fine with that.

Double Fault

In response to my last post, Troika says "Funny how the SCuMP never draws attention to its own gaffes".  I suggest the reason is that they don't even notice them.  Certainly yesterday's web page, where the same headline appeared twice, suggests that no one is actually editing (or even reading) their output.

These Are Not The Dr.Roids You're Looking For

I've seen many odd "English" names in Hong Kong - including Puffer and Whisker - but this is a new one on me.  Given that most people adopt an English label while at school, it doesn't say much for the standard of English teaching here that no one tells the students when a name they choose is too weird to use.  Given this, it's perhaps not surprising that the SCM Post reports on this sign in Victoria Park:

 

However, I rather like the comment from one person interviewed by the Post that the mistake doesn't matter much because "few people pay attention to the warning signs anyway".  Now there's the true Hong Kong spirit!.

Speaking Truth to Power

As usual, the police's estimate of the numbers attending last night's June 4th candlelight vigil was about half the organisers' figure - even though they couldn't pull their usual "at its peak" trick to underestimate the numbers this time, as the event is a static protest.  Now this is one case where the real figure should be fairly easy to determine, give or take a few - since one candle is given out to each arriving participant, one only needs to count how many candles were handed out.  Number of candles in box x (number of boxes purchased - number of boxes left) - simple.

I didn't personally see the Voice of Lying to Hong Kong's counter-event last night, but according to the Morning Post it attracted all of a record 20 participants.  The Post page includes a video of them, in which their leader tries to justify the massacre (let's call it what it was, not the currently politically correct euphemism "crackdown") on the grounds of foreign interference.  Another labels someone calling for the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party a "British dog" - indicating a remarkably narrow mindset.  Hong Kong really should have better mental health care for people suffering from acute paranoia.

The Voice of Darkness

The grotesquely misnamed Beijing front organisation Voice of Loving Hong Kong not only urges us to "forgive and forget" the events of 4 June 1989 - I wonder if they would "forgive and forget" the murder of their own children for demonstrating peacefully - but has resurrected the misleading claim that "no one was killed in Tiananmen Square".  Technically this may be true - the deaths largely occurred in the nearby streets - but their intent is clearly to cast doubt on whether the massacre happened at all.  Well, the Woodstock festival wasn't held in Woodstock, either, but that doesn't mean there was no festival.

See you in Victoria Park tonight.

New Love, New Hate

I love my new toy - which I took out for a maiden voyage yesterday - but it has inadvertently given me something else to hate - the braindead pedestrians who wander aimlessly along the cycle track instead of using the adjacent footpath. Grrrr!

Old Boys Network

Chief Excutive CY Leung today refuted criticism that his recent round of appointments to public bodies was a case of "jobs for the boys", pointing out that one of his highly qualified cronies appointed was in fact a girl.

Seriously, look at this: Vincent Lo succeeds Marvin Cheung as Chairman of the Airport Authority for one year, at which time Jack So will take over.  In the meantime Jack So remains Chairman of the Trade Development Council until mid-2015, when he will be succeeded by:  (pause for fanfare) - Vincent Lo!  Also popping up as a new member of the Airport Authority is that rather unpleasant character Franklin Lam, whom we thought we'd happily seen the last of when he resigned from the Executive Council after it emerged that he'd sold a couple of flats shortly before the government imposed additional stamp duty to cool the property market.

Lam is also one of the mad bunch who want to smother our country parks with concrete and encourage even more mainland tourists to flood Hong Kong.  He and Lo were on the (previously) losing side of a battle with Marvin Cheung over plans to develop a new shopping mall at the airport - we can probably assume, therefore, that the new appointments reflect the government's support for constructing yet more shops selling overpriced luxury crap to yet more unwanted visitors.

Meanwhile CY's campaign manager Fanny Law becomes chairwoman of the board of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, while solicitor Larry Kwok, who "has been serving in many Government commissions" (in other words is another one of the boys), becomes the new Chairman of the "Independent" Police Complaints Council.  Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok argues that the Council's professional secretariat will somehow ensure Kwok's impartiality.

In a city of seven million talented people, why are appointments to public bodies so often drawn from the same incestuous little pool of (sometimes ethically-challenged) yes-men (and occasionally women)?

The Patriot Game

"Patriots don't go to Russia."
--US Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking of Edward Snowden

Next to a Landfill - the Best Place to Buy Property

Nobody in Hong Kong wants to live near a landfill, as we've seen in the recent spate of nimbyism over the government's expansion proposals.  Yet paradoxically, there are great advantages to buying property right next to one.

True, while the landfill is in operation, you will suffer from the smell, filthy dusty air, and infestations of flies.  But once it is decommissioned, you will have something few Hong Kong property owners can enjoy - at least a ten-year guarantee of an unimpeded green view.  While others watch despairingly as reclamation or new buildings block the open views they paid dearly for, you will relish the sight of a verdant forest gradually spreading over the former garbage dump as it settles down and decomposes.  Nothing can be built on it until this process finishes.

Undisputed Nonsense

undisputed (adjective):not challenged or called into question; accepted. 

From last night's ATV News: [Chinese] Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang "said the Vietnamese boat capsized after smashing into the drilling platform, which he emphasised is in undisputed Chinese territory."

This story differs from China's original account of the incident, which claimed that the sunken Vietnamese vessel collided with a Chinese fishing boat (which just happened to be in the vicinity of the contentious oil rig by chance, presumably, like the other 40-odd boats hanging around the area).  That aside, unless Qin's statement has been badly translated, what are we to make of that word "undisputed"?  The Chinese government knows very well that its claim to the area of sea in which this occurred is hotly disputed by Vietnam; and, indeed, that large parts of its other maritime claims in the South China Sea are fiercely challenged by half a dozen other nations on whose coastal waters they intrude.

Given this, Beijing is clearly well aware that the area of water in question is far from being undisputed Chinese territory.  One wonders, therefore, why its spokesman is allowed to make statements that are obviously bare-faced lies.  In what way does it strengthen China's case to talk undisputed bollocks?

Try this: ask a European to name half a dozen great European sailors and navigators from history.  He or she is likely to reel off without much difficulty such names as Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Drake, Cook, Bligh, Cabot, and so forth.  Now ask a Chinese person the same question.  Their immediate answer will be Zheng He (who was in fact more of a diplomat than the admiral he is often described as).  After that will probably come a long uncomfortable pause...

The reality is that, despite its "claims from history" to vast areas of ocean, China has never been much of a maritime power.  And while Chinese fishermen certainly roamed the South China Sea from ancient times, so did fishing folk from the other lands around it.  In an age when fish were abundant and the idea of undersea mineral extraction had not yet been conceived, it is very unlikely that any of them thought of the vast ocean as the exclusive property of any single country.

What kind of fakery is this?

The grand arrival of the "Buddha's parietal bone relic" in Hong Kong last night, to be displayed at the "China-backed" World Buddhist Forum in the Coliseum, was certainly a colourful spectacle, but the whole event reeks of fakery.

Leaving aside the irony of an avowedly atheist regime sponsoring a religious event, the relic itself is of dubious provenance.  Claimed to be part of the Buddha's skull, it was apparently only unearthed in Nanjing, China, in 2010 (or 2008 - China's propaganda organ, the China Daily, does not even seem sure of the date).   I have seen no clear explanation of how a fragment of bone dug up in Nanjing can be positively identified as coming from a body cremated 2,000 miles away 2,500 years ago.  In fact the whole business of religious relics has historically been mostly about persuading the gullible faithful to part with their money - it has often been jokingly said that there was enough "wood of the true cross" in Europe to build a battleship.

Even if the relic is genuine, why are believers being invited to worship it?  This is surely contrary to the teachings of the Buddha that suffering is caused by excessive attachment to the material world.  Whatever remains significant about Sakyamuni, it is not his physical body.

Further evidence that the Forum is more of a propaganda event than a religious one comes from the presence of the so-called Panchen Lama.  In fact no one knows the whereabouts of the real Panchen Lama - or even whether he is still alive - other than the Chinese authorities who abducted him and engineered his disappearance after his recognition by the Dalai Lama.  The person attending the Hong Kong event is the fake Panchen Lama chosen by the Chinese government, who have no more authority to appoint the Panchen Lama than they do to select the next Pope. - which they would probably like to do if they thought they could get away with it!

Bun There, Thrown That

A relatively trivial gesture in LegCo - one that falls within a time-honoured tradition - has all sorts of people fulminating about legislators run wild and how they should be punished, with LegCo president Tsang Yok-sing one of the few voices of calm reason.  Here's a suggestion - let democracy do its job.  If the Hong Kong people are really as upset over such antics (nicely captured in the SCMP's photo above) as the CE and his acolytes claim, the lawmakers responsible will be thrown out of their seats at the next election.  If they are not, then CY Leung would do well to reflect on why so many members of the Hong Kong public apparently want to see things thrown at him.

Doublespeak to the max

An early contender for the Orwell Award 2014: proving yet again that every child should be given a copy of George Orwell's Politics and the English Language as an essential tool of life, Beijing mouthpiece the Global Times says this:
“The South China Sea disputes should be settled in a peaceful manner, but that doesn’t mean China can’t resort to non-peaceful measures in the face of provocation from Vietnam and the Philippines. Many people believe that a forced war would convince some countries of China’s sincerely peaceful intentions."
or in plain English, "if you don't believe in my sincerely peaceful intentions, I will use violent means to convince you that I am not violent."  More stuff you can't make up.

I Told You So

Private Beach on the high speed rail delay, 16 April: "Expect the usual response: a round of hand-wringing, at the end of which nobody will be held responsible."
 
One month later: the pro-China Morning Post reports that Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said
"the panel’s main objective was to identify what went wrong in the process, and not to look for who was personally responsible in order that they be penalised."

Heaven forbid that anyone should actually be held accountable for their screw-ups!.  That would not be the Hong Kong way.

Have We Got News For You

Watching the news in Hong Kong, it is often hard to shake off the feeling that the whole broadcast is one elaborate - and not even very funny - satire.  Take the first half of last night's ATV news for example:

• Beijing expresses concern over the anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam - which are remarkably reminiscent of the anti-Japanese riots that break out in China from time to time over similar perceived insults to national sovereignty.  Of course the PRC government could stop the whole problem in seconds by announcing that China would remove its oil rig from the disputed waters off Vietnam, but...
• Hong Kong's Financial Secretary announces that in the face of the LegCo budget filibuster, he will withdraw funding from the Hospital Authority and higher education - presumably so the money can be spent on more important social needs, like the White Elephant Bridge to Macau or the inflated salaries of overpaid but underskilled government ministers.
• He also announces that he will not talk with the radical legislators leading the filibuster because he is opposed to their demands.   Isn't that why they need to talk?  If they already agreed on everything, they would have no need to discuss their differences in the hope of reaching a compromise.
• By the way, who was the marionette-like figure lurking behind John Tsang's right shoulder and nodding sympathetically on cue at the FS's words of supposed wisdom?
• The government announces that it will not include demands for civic nomination in the next round of consultation on the 2017 CE elections, thereby making it clear that the first round - the results of which have not even been released yet - was a meaningless exercise which will, as we feared, be ignored in favour of whatever the government has been told to do already by its puppet-masters in Beijing.  They could at least be smart enough to pretend to be listening to the people, but that would require some degree of intelligence.
• To add insult to insult, Carrie Lam asks those planning to vote in Occupy Central's coming referendum to "consider whether it provides them with a genuine choice".  Er, would that be by comparison with the fake choices offered by the government, or what? If no genuinely democratic candidate is permitted to run in 2017, I suggest a write-in vote for Mr. Bean - we certainly need a leader with more substance than the present crowd.
• The Consumer Council warns that energy drinks contain high levels of sugar and caffeine.  Hello?  Isn't that why people drink them?

"You couldn't make this stuff up" may be a cliché, but no other response seems appropriate to the farce that passes for news in Hong Kong.