Monday, March 11, 2019

Hong Kong, and China: rule-of-law, freedom & democracy tracking (#2, continued)

To me, the critical values a society has to protect above all are related to democracy. The rule-of-law (justice), independent judiciary/legislative/executive, separation of church and state, freedom of the press, protection of private property, freedom of travel, thought and expression. And once these are secured, the freedom for each citizen to elect who is going to represent them in government.

 However, and maybe as a result, I also believe that equality of outcomes is not as important (if at all important) as providing equality of opportunities. Equality before the law trumps order. Opportunities to dream and be free to pursue these dreams more important than social normalization.

 With the fall of the U.S.S.R., and the opening-up of China, the world could have hoped to reach, as Francis Fukuyama puts it, the "end of history"; liberal democracies as the final stage of society's evolution.

 I still firmly believe in that vision but it is being threatened by autocratic populists on both side of the political spectrum, herding people, with comforting lies, ever closer towards the dismissal of these democratic institutions.

I do believe that the democratic culture will ultimately prevail in countries that have built it over centuries.

 I am not sure that the same can be said of the countries that have, over hundred of years, been dominated by supreme rulers or single party systems.

 I thought that the rise of the Chinese middle-class would also see the rise of the political will for change. However, it seems that repression and the CCP's propaganda machine have managed to effectively shut dissent 

I believe that the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest threat to the global freedom of individuals, and a major impediment to democracy's progress. I also believe that a rational look at the behavior and outcomes of the actions of the CCP is the best way to make sure that the Chinese people demand change for their governance and ultimately break the one party system.

 I will use this entry and update it as I find more information which I consider important in that reflection on the suppression of the democratic thought process by the CCP, as well as events that are impacting Hong Kong's democratic institutions and aspirations.

 Note: the following documentary gives a very thorough and fascinating background to the current situation in China and Hong Kong:

-------------------------------
2021-APR-20
''Heil Carrie Lam & CCP"


Civil servants pledging alliance to the government.
Carrie Lam, Chief Executive of Hong Kong, on the left


"Nearly 130 civil servants have failed to take a new oath of allegiance to Hong Kong as required by the government and most are facing dismissal after having been suspended from duties.
(...)
The declaration aims to strengthen allegiance in the public sector following the adoption of the national security law in late June. Civil servants who had taken the oath are also expected to support government policies, including implementation of the law
(...)
Explanations as to why workers did not make the pledge included claims it infringed upon their freedom of speech, they disagreed with the declaration’s content and that it might conflict with a foreign passport they held.

But Nip dismissed these reasons as unacceptable. “As civil servants, they should not say something in public against the government or the Basic Law. I don’t see how the oath-taking would infringe upon their freedom of speech or be in conflict with holding a foreign passport,” he said."


2021-FEB-07
''Shine a light : tagging content works"

"How Twitter’s ‘state-affiliated’ labelling led to a drop in the impact of China’s state media

Twitter users are liking and sharing fewer tweets by Chinese news outlets since the social media platform started labeling them as state-affiliated, an analysis by the China Media Project shows.

Comparing tweets from a sample of 33 official Chinese accounts on Twitter for 50-day periods immediately before and after the implementation of the new policy in August 2020, CMP found that tweets by most of the accounts studied showed significantly fewer shares and likes."


2020-SEP-06
''1984"

Today is a sad day for Hong Kong as it should have been elections day which would have seen the pro-Beijing parties and candidates being kicked-out of legco. Carrie Lam made sure it would not happen by suppressing Hong Kongers right to vote, using the lie of a Covid-19 emergency requiring a year delay.
Consider the following:
- Elections, by definition, have social distancing measures built-in, to ensure voting privacy. Actually, I have never voted in an election where people were packed together...
- There are zero restrictions at grocery stores or shopping centers; they are jam-packed. No 2m here... (see photo below)
- The are no restrictions in public transportation (photo below is off-peak, at 8am Sunday)
- When Lam announced the delay (July 31st), it was quite clear that the wave was abating (see stats below, from the gov's health services!) 
Carrie Lam, Exco, and of course, the DAB, have failed Hong Kong miserably in pretty much every facet of governance:
- Mega projects that have been exceptional failures (High-speed rail, Macau-Zuhai-HK bridge)
- Inability to come-up with sensible land policies despite thousands of hectares of land available for development (too afraid to upset the triads, which also massively vote pro-Beijing)
- Introduction of extradition bill which nobody wanted
- Complete destruction of the rule-of-law, presumption of innocence, and pretty much every other principles of common-law that made Hong Kong what it is today
- Terrible response to Covid-19
- Failure to enforce 1 country 2 system in letting Beijing dictate Article 23
- Delayed elections
- Constitutional and historical revisionism in schools' textbooks
- Instituting a climate of fear that muzzles the press
- Arbitrary arrest of pro-democracy figures
- Arbitrary denial of foreign journalists' work visas
The list goes on. 
Historically, when stability has been imposed by force, against a people's will, it always has been short-lived...
We shall see...







2020-AUG-12
''CCP's cognitive dissonance... a.k.a Beliefs with Chinese characteristics."

11th of August 2020. Made in Hong Kong good!
"The Hong Kong government says it's considering taking action under the rules of the World Trade Organisation in an attempt to prevent the United States from labeling goods from the SAR as 'made in China'."


May 22nd, 2020. Made in Hong Kong definitely not good!
"Demosisto on Friday night slammed the operation as political suppression, saying customs had told them the “Not made in China” claim, which was printed in prominent positions on the packaging, could not be asserted if the products were manufactured in Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China or Taiwan."

2020-JUL-15
''Dictatorship"

'New York Times Will Move Part of Hong Kong Office to Seoul
A sweeping national security law passed by China in June has unsettled news organizations and created uncertainty about the city’s prospects as a hub for journalism in Asia.
The New York Times said on Tuesday that it would relocate its Hong Kong-based digital news operation to Seoul, South Korea, a significant shift by an American news organization as China has stepped up its efforts to impede the affairs of the Asian metropolis.'


2020-JUL-01
''Dictatorship"


Photo: Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

'Just hours after China imposed its tough new national security law on Hong Kong, the city’s police force deployed a new weapon in its running battle with protesters: a purple flag warning demonstrators that shouting certain slogans or carrying banners could now bring criminal charges.

The city’s police force has often used different flags in its yearlong battles with protesters — black banners to warn of the imminent firing of tear gas and red flags to signal that a failure to stop advancing would be met with force.

But the employment of the newest flag was a surprise for how quickly it was introduced, and reflected the force’s aggressiveness in cracking down on conduct that only a day earlier was not illegal.

The flag warned protesters against “displaying flags or banners/chanting slogans/or conducting yourselves with an intent such as secession or subversion, which may constitute offenses” under the new law. “You may be arrested and prosecuted,” it read.'


'Deploying pepper spray and water cannons to force protesters off the streets, the police arrested about 370 people, including 10 over new offenses created by the security law that takes aim at political activity challenging Beijing. One of the 10 was a 15-year-old girl waving a Hong Kong independence flag, the police said.'

2020-JUN-27
''In Seizing Control, China Sidelines Its Allies in Hong Kong"

'BEIJING — China’s Communist Party has long pursued its agenda in Hong Kong by working through loyalists among the city’s top officials, lawmakers and tycoons. That behind-the-scenes approach was a key feature in preserving considerable autonomy for the territory.

Now, as the party prepares to grab more power in Hong Kong after months of sometimes violent unrest last year, it has pushed aside even its own allies in the city. The party’s strategy sends a clear message to Hong Kong: In quashing challenges to its authority, Beijing won’t hesitate to upend the delicate political balance at the core of the city’s identity.

Party-appointed lawmakers in Beijing are expected to pass a sweeping security law for Hong Kong on Tuesday. Yet few among the city’s Beijing-backed establishment, even at the highest levels, appear to have seen a draft. Its top leader, Carrie Lam, and secretary for justice, Teresa Cheng, have both acknowledged knowing little about the law beyond what has been reported in the news.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Ms. Cheng said earlier this month.

Bernard Chan, a Hong Kong cabinet official and a member of the Chinese legislature, said that he had not even expected Beijing to act this spring. “I’m actually surprised, caught by surprise with the timing,” he said in an interview.

(...)

Even before Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Beijing was cultivating ties with tycoons who had fled communism in China for the city and built vast fortunes in trading, banking, real estate and industry. The tycoons, together with British-trained civil servants, later formed the establishment Beijing entrusted with running the city alongside an independent judiciary, police, academic system and capitalist model.

The elite have served as Beijing’s eyes and ears. They have defended the Communist Party’s interests by promoting patriotism and pushing through unpopular laws, including one earlier this month that criminalized disrespect of the national anthem.

(...)

“I am also disappointed that we can’t see the bill,” Elsie Leung, a stalwart Beijing ally and former secretary for justice, told reporters, in a rare admission. She said, though, that she believed that Beijing had heard different views about the law.

For many in Hong Kong, such reassurances have largely rung hollow. The city’s residents are accustomed to very public, sometimes rowdy discussions of new laws by the city’s legislature. Confronted with Beijing’s secrecy, Hong Kong’s democracy activists, scholars and former chief justices have asked: Who would get to rule on cases? Would Hong Kong’s residents be extradited to the mainland? Would the law be used retroactively to prosecute protesters?

Mrs. Lam, the city’s leader, has sought to allay the public’s concerns, saying this week that Beijing had pledged to preserve the city’s civil liberties. But she acknowledged not having seen the specifics of the legislation.

Tanya Chan, a pro-democracy lawmaker, said Beijing had undercut the city government’s credibility. “How could we believe you?” she said in an interview.

“The entire law is to be imposed on Hong Kong, but the government is willing to be a propaganda machine without having seen the clauses,” Ms. Chan said. “Not only did they not help citizens fight for the right to know, they were blinded themselves.”

Even without releasing a draft of the law, China last week made clear that its passage would grant Beijing expansive powers in the city. It would allow mainland security agencies to set up operations in Hong Kong and for Beijing to assert legal jurisdiction over some cases. The law calls for a mainland security official to be an adviser to Mrs. Lam and for tighter controls on the city’s schools, which have been hotbeds of sometimes violent activism.

The law would make it a crime to collude with foreigners, push for independence, subvert the state or otherwise endanger the party’s rule. Beijing has not yet disclosed how these crimes will be defined, but many pro-democracy lawyers and activists fear they will be applied broadly to muzzle dissent and shut down the opposition.

The Chinese government crafted the national security plan this spring with such stealth to prevent the city’s tycoons and professionals from lobbying against it.

“Beijing this time has kept its secret very well,” said Lau Siu-kai, a former senior Hong Kong government official who now advises Beijing on the territory’s policies. These days, he added, “the military and the national security people are more influential in Hong Kong affairs.”

(...)

James Tien, a moderate politician and honorary chairman of the pro-establishment Liberal Party, has emerged as one of the few establishment figures willing to acknowledge that Beijing’s move is deeply unpopular and unsettling, despite the party’s assertion that the law enjoys wide support.

“I think most people will say that we don’t like it, we don’t want it,” he said last week in an interview with Radio Television Hong Kong. “But there’s nothing much we could do.”'



2020-JUN-17
''Crumbling"

The pro-Beijing Hong Kong government always brags about its 'competitiveness and free economy' standing in the world's rankings.
Well, Carrie Lam's extra effort to align with the CCP's directive has resulted in falling 3 spots in the IMD's 2020 World Competitiveness ranking, to 5th place. Similarly, Hong Kong was knocked out of the 1st place in the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom index (Hong Kong was there since 1995). Note that except for Hong Kong, the rest of the top5 are democratic countries. 









2020-JUN-01
''Unbelievable"

For this guy to write something so patently false and believe he can get away with it, it would mean that there are tons of people just willing to believe without questions. (Global Times is Chinese state media)





2020-MAY-30
''Words of wisdom"

'LONDON (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping is so nervous about the position of the Communist Party that he is risking a new Cold War and imperiling Hong Kong’s position as Asia’s pre-eminent financial hub, the last British governor of the territory told Reuters.
Chris Patten said Xi’s ‘thuggish’ crackdown in Hong Kong risked triggering an outflow of capital and people from the city which funnels the bulk of foreign investment into mainland China.

The West, he said, should stop being naive about Xi, who has served as General Secretary of the Communist Party since 2012.

“We have long since passed the stage where, without wanting another Cold War, we have to react to the fact Xi seems to want one himself,” Patten said.

Patten cast Xi as a dictator who was “nervous” about the position of the Communist Party in China after criticism of its early handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak and the economic impact of its trade disagreements with the United States.

“One reason Xi Jinping is whipping up all this nationalist feeling about Hong Kong, about Taiwan and about other issues, is that he is more nervous than any official would allow about the position of the Communist Party in China,” he said.

The Chinese embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Patten, now 76, watched as the British flag was lowered over Hong Kong when the colony was handed back to China in 1997 after more than 150 years of British rule.

Hong Kong’s autonomy was guaranteed under the “one country, two systems” agreement enshrined in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. But thousands of Hong Kong protesters have defied Beijing in recent months.

China’s parliament this week approved a decision to create laws for Hong Kong to curb sedition, secession, terrorism and foreign interference.

“Xi Jinping hates the things which Hong Kong has been promised under the ‘one country, two systems’ treaty lodged at the United Nations which he is wilfully breaking,” Patten said. “What he hopes he can do is to bash Hong Kong into shape.”

Patten said Xi’s actions had placed Hong Kong’s position as Asia’s premier international financial hub under question.

“What does it mean? It means serious question marks not just about Hong Kong’s future as a free society but also about Hong Kong’s ability to continue as probably the premier international financial hub in Asia,” Patten said.

“A lot of people will try to leave Hong Kong,” Patten said, adding that he feared capital would also flow out. “It is going to be pretty rough over the next few months.”

The autonomy of Hong Kong has, until now, given investors faith in the territory’s legal and governance systems. China’s legal system is accountable to the Communist Party.

“What you have coming into conflict is a dictatorial idea of what the law is with the common law which is undoubtedly going to cause a constitutional clash,” Patten said

He added the West had been even more naive with Xi’s China than it had with post-Soviet Russia.

“What Xi has demonstrated so far is that unless you stand up to bullies they go on bullying you,” he said.

Patten said the West should stand together when allies - such as Australia - were targeted by Beijing and be cautious with companies such as Huawei which Britain has allowed to help build its 5G network.

“Huawei is an agent of an unpleasant Chinese state,” Patten said. Huawei has repeatedly denied claims that it is agent of the Chinese state.'



2020-MAY-30
''Dance of the sycophants"

'China’s proposed national security law for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) could trigger volatility in local financial markets in the short term, but will bring stability in the long run, the chairman of the city’s stock exchange said.

After investors have time to digest the news and the details of the law are unveiled, their concerns will be allayed and uncertainties will be reduced, Laura May-Lung Cha, the head of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd., told Caixin in an interview in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Cha has chaired the company since May 2018.

“Investors may still need two to three months to observe,” she said, adding that markets may fluctuate in the short run as the introduction and passing of the law may cause social unrest.'


2020-MAY-2"
"IPCC; anything but independent"


'Hong Kong protests: police used disproportionate force and made poor decisions, says British expert who resigned from IPCC review
Clifford Stott says police in city operate with a lack of understanding of how crowd dynamics work, and end up creating disorder instead of preventing it
The expert had earlier resigned from a panel advising city’s police watchdog on its review of the force’s handling of anti-government protests

Hong Kong police used disproportionate force at “practically every” anti-government protest from mid-June last year and made poor decisions in dealing with them, according to an overseas expert who withdrew from a review of the police’s handling of the demonstrations.
Professor Clifford Stott, who was on the international expert panel advising the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) before all of its members resigned last year over concerns about its limited powers, has doubled down on his criticism of watchdog’s report that was released on May 15.
The 999-page report concluded there was no systemic problem with policing in Hong Kong, and officers’ use of force was only in response to violence during the protests.

Stott, a scholar of crowd behaviour and policing at Keele University in Britain, said he would seek to publish his findings on the protests – based on first-hand accounts as well as the IPCC’s data – in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

He said his original plan of publishing a separate report by June 9 would therefore be delayed.
In a Facebook Live discussion with activist Nathan Law Kwun-chung on Friday night, Stott said he had stood down because the police watchdog failed to define a meaningful role for the team of experts, and because he was concerned that their attachment could be used to legitimise the council’s work.

According to him, the IPCC had no investigative power, including the capacity to summon witnesses, and could only assess the credibility of probes by the force’s own complaints division.

People leading the watchdog’s inquiry “were not willing to actively challenge” the information obtained from officers, he said.

Stott also said officers had poor decision-making in general about the use of force.
“Police are operating with a lack of understanding of how crowd dynamics actually work, and their role in the creation of those dynamics is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In effect their attempts to prevent disorder actually creates it,” he said. “I would certainly suggest there is ample evidence that the police used force disproportionately on practically every protest from June 12.”
Stott questioned why hundreds of officers inside the Legislative Council complex did not stop dozens of protesters from attacking a window at its entrance on July 1. Later in the day, protesters stormed and vandalised the Legco complex.
He said police also used force disproportionately on June 12, when tens of thousands of people gathered outside Legco to protest against the second reading of the now-withdrawn extradition bill.

But Stott said police did not use excessive force on June 16, when an estimated 2 million people took to the streets.
He also noted that officers arrived late despite hundreds of calls on July 21 last year when a group of white-clad men attacked protesters and commuters at Yuen Long rail station, even though a police car had driven past the men before the incident.
“That was clearly posing a threat to public order and there was no police response,” he said.
The attack left 47 in hospital.

While the IPCC study on the protests could not ascertain whether there was collusion between the attackers and police, Stott said the incident exposed some important deficiencies in the force’s handling of events.
“What we know about the Yuen Long incident is that it led to an almost complete loss of trust in police by wide sections of Hong Kong society, and that was a dynamic in radicalising the protests,” he said.
Though Stott approved the IPCC’s efforts in drawing out data for the official study, he said there were shortcomings in its analysis.
The IPCC report made 52 recommendations, including a better communication strategy to “restore and rebuild public trust”; a review of the force’s operational command structure; training for officers; clear guidelines on the use of weapons; and a task force to advise on the frequent use of tear gas.
But Stott said the official findings had failed to understand the perspectives of people who were in the crowd.

For example, while the council stressed that there was a route for protesters to escape when police fired tear gas around a commercial building on June 12, he noted that protesters could not actually see any way out amid the chaos.

Stott said his separate report would use data from the IPCC findings, but would also include academic surveys and some extensive interviews he had done with people involved in the protests.
“What we’re going to do is to pursue an academic publication through peer review to ensure that when the paper is published, it has sufficient rigour behind it to stand up to scrutiny,” he said, without specifying a publication time.'




2020-MAY-21
''China Moves to Tighten Its Control of Hong Kong"

'BEIJING — China signaled on Thursday it would move forward with laws that would take aim at antigovernment protests and other dissent in Hong Kong. It is the clearest message yet that the Communist Party is moving to undermine the civil liberties the semiautonomous territory has known since the 1997 British handoff.

The proposal to enact new security laws affecting Hong Kong was announced ahead of the annual meeting of China’s legislature, which is expected to approve a broad outline of the plan. While specifics of the proposal were not immediately disclosed, the rules could be harsher than anything Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing government has done to curb opposition to the mainland.

The freedoms that have distinguished Hong Kong from the mainland, like an unfettered judiciary and freedom of assembly, have helped the former British colony prosper as a global city of commerce and capital. But the proposal raised the possibility that the Beijing government would damage the “one country, two systems” policy that has ensured such liberties since the territory was reclaimed by China'


'HKFP - Beijing is to discuss introducing national security legislation in Hong Kong following almost 12 months of protest and unrest. The move comes 17 years after such plans were scrapped following city-wide demonstrations.

State media announced on Thursday that the National People’s Congress (NPC) is to discuss drafting a decision on “Establishing and Improving the Legal System and Enforcement Mechanisms for Hong Kong to Safeguard National Security” at a plenary session on Friday.

Earlier, pro-Beijing paper Bastille Post cited sources as saying that the NPC is to authorise its Standing Committee to draft laws for Hong Kong covering secession, foreign interference, terrorism and subversion against the central government.

It is expected that the law will be added to Annex III of the Basic Law and promulgated by the Hong Kong government before September, bypassing the legislature, according to the source.

Article 18 of the Basic Law stipulates that no Chinese national laws shall be applied in Hong Kong save for those listed in Annex III of the mini-constitution. The NPCSC may add to the list after consulting its Basic Law Committee. The Annex III laws must then be effected through promulgation or by way of local legislation. Promulgation is done by the chief executive issuing a legal notice in the Government Gazette, allowing the national laws to be applied verbatim.'

https://hongkongfp.com/2020/05/21/breaking-beijing-to-discuss-enacting-national-security-law-in-hong-kong-following-months-of-protest

2020-MAY-8
''World's #1 dictatorship"

'Chinese tech giant Tencent reportedly surveilled foreign users of WeChat to help censorship at home

Chinese internet giant Tencent has reportedly been surveilling content posted by foreign users on its wildly popular messaging service WeChat in order to help it refine censorship on its platform at home.

 WeChat has over 1 billion users globally. It is the most popular messaging app in China and ingrained in daily life, allowing people to do everything from making payments to hailing taxis. 
Surveillance and censorship of social media and messaging platforms in China is commonplace. Companies that run such services often remove or block content that is likely to offend Beijing.

 But Citizen Lab, a research center that is part of the University of Toronto, said in a report published Thursday, that “documents and images shared among non-China-registered accounts are subject to content surveillance and are used to build up the database WeChat uses to censor China-registered accounts.”

 Tencent told CNBC it had received the report and takes it “seriously”, adding that “user privacy and data security are core values” at the company. 
“With regard to the suggestion that we engage in content surveillance of international users, we can confirm that all content shared among international users of WeChat is private. As a publicly listed global company we hold ourselves to the highest standards, and our policies and procedures comply with all laws and regulations in each country in which we operate,” a spokesperson for the company said.'

 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/08/tencent-wechat-surveillance-help-censorship-in-china.html

2020-APR-25
''World's leading enemy of the free press "

'Displeased with its 177th rank out of 180, China claims that foreign journalists are “welcome” in China. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) point out that the regime harasses correspondents and has recently expelled 13 of them.
In response to the Reporter Without Borders’ (RSF) 2020 World Press Freedom Index, published on April 21st and that again ranks China 177th out of 180, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reportedly insisted in a press briefing that the regime “welcomes foreign media and journalists” and accused RSF of spreading “fake news” as a result of “prejudice” against his country.

China, far from welcoming foreign correspondents, instead consistently practices intimidation, harassment, and surveillance against them and their sources, as highlighted by numerous reports published by RSF as well as other NGOs. Last month, the Beijing regime expelled 13 journalists working for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal while at the same time orchestrating a global disinformation campaign designed to drown out critics who blame its censorship for the spread of the coronavirus.

“The only prejudice that Beijing can attribute to RSF, an international organization defending journalism, is to consider that trampling on press freedom is in no case legitimate,” said Cédric Alviani, RSF East Asia bureau head, who urged the Beijing regime to “respect Article 35 of its own constitution, which, although it has unfortunately never been enforced, guarantees freedom of the press.”

In recent years, President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have tightened control of China’s state and privately-owned media, increased surveillance of social media, and have actively exported their oppressive model as shown in a RSF report published last year.

RSF is an international non-governmental, non-profit organization defending journalism and freedom of information. Every year since 2002, the organization has published the RSF World Press Freedom Index, a data-driven ranking that is frequently quoted by governments, media, and NGOs worldwide.'https://rsf.org/en/news/china-ranking-near-bottom-rsfs-index-claims-it-welcomes-foreign-journalists-despite-all-evidence

2020-APR-23
''CCP blindness"

'Why Beijing must change before it’s too late

 From the US perspective, it’s all China’s fault. Could the virus in America be the Pearl Harbor of the next conflict?
The Covid-19 pandemic is really a consequence, not a cause, of the geopolitical confrontation between the United States and China. Had there been mutual trust and good bilateral relations, Beijing might have been less defensive about the early outbreak of the disease, the US might have better understood the spread of the virus out of Wuhan and the global damage of the deadly flu might have been better contained.'
https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/china/

2020-APR-21
''Crumbling of Hong Kong's democratic institutions"

'Hong Kong has plunged seven places in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index “because of its treatment of journalists during pro-democracy demonstrations,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says. China, meanwhile, was ranked 177th as it sought a “new world media order,” according to the French journalism watchdog.

 Hong Kong was ranked 73rd in 2019 – its new ranking marks a significant drop from 18th, where the city stood back when the index was created in 2002. The press freedom rating is released annually to highlight the media freedom situation in 180 countries and regions and measures pluralism, the independence of the media, quality of legislative frameworks and the safety of journalists.

 The report highlighted the treatment of reporters by the authorities during protests: “They have been the targets of police violence… the semi-autonomous territory [has] fallen seven places, one of Asia’s biggest falls.”

 It also raised alarm over the regional decline in press freedom: “[T]he past decade has seen a steep decline with the adoption of undemocratic and totalitarian practices, the emergence of a populism that unleashes hatred on journalists, and extreme media polarization.”

 https://hongkongfp.com/2020/04/21/just-in-china-seeks-new-world-media-order-says-watchdog-as-hong-kong-plunges-to-80th-in-press-freedom-index/

2020-APR-21
''Quieting dissent"

'From 'perfect Chinese daughter' to Communist Party critic, why Vicky Xu is exposing China to scrutiny.

 "If something happens to me you know I've been murdered."

 It's a joke journalist Vicky Xiuzhong Xu makes in her stand-up comedy routine, but the reality is she's had a lot of death threats.

 She was, not so long ago, a model Chinese citizen; loyal to her government and its ideology.

 At university in Beijing, she was training to become an English-language broadcaster, politely presenting state-approved news to the world.

 Today, firebrand journalist Xu challenges just about every Western stereotype of a typical Chinese student. She's outspoken, edgy, disarmingly frank and loud, and her disillusionment with the Communist Party has been so complete that at the age of only 25 there may be no way back for Xu.

 Her family has warned her not to return to China; she may never see them, the people she loves, again. It is a searing separation that causes deep conflict and pain.

 "What I'm doing now and the line of work I'm in was never part of the plan," Xu tells Australian Story.

 "To them, I guess, I've been a bit of a disappointment."

 Being an investigative journalist criticising the Chinese Government is a lonely place to be. Her closest friends in China have cut contact.
Isolation is a heavy price to pay, she says, for "just doing my job".

 Driven, intense and provocative, Xu smokes cigarettes and barely sleeps as she tweets and publishes article after article exposing human rights abuses in her homeland.
She was one of the first journalists in Australia to lift the lid on the incarceration of Uyghurs in China, convincing members of the Australian-Uyghur community to go on the record with their stories of missing relatives.

 (...)

 What led a young woman, one of her country's "best and brightest", to turn away from her government's ideology, but not her people? It's been an uneasy, sometimes agonizing passage.

 There was a time, she says, of "cognitive dissonance" as she sought to reconcile two different worlds; childhood indoctrination about China with what she was hearing.

 "The popular belief is that if you don't love China, you're not one of them. So, who am I anymore?" she says.

 Xu well understands why "many people are just very angry" with her. Her old self would have been angry with her too.

 But she says, "What they don't know is that just a few years back I was just like them." '

 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-09/vicky-xu-exposing-chinas-human-rights-abuses/11954794

2020-JAN-28
''Exporting Dictatorship"

'Getting to 601: How Beijing controls the HK Chief Executive election

Watching from the comfort of HK as Chief Executive Carrie Lam toured the TV studios of Davos last week, we saw her repeat the line that the 2014 proposals for Iranian-style "universal suffrage" for the Chief Executive weren't bad, because the nominating committee, currently known as the Election Committee (EC), that would vet the candidates is "broadly representative". In her own words, on Bloomberg TV (start at 02:43):

 "The nominating committee's broad representation comes from the different sectors. It's not entirely within sort of Beijing loyalists. You have professional people, you have representatives from the trade unions, from the business sector...Through the nominating committee, the Hong Kong people, under the respective [constituencies], will elect this 1,200-member nominating committee..."
Sounds great, doesn't it? Of course, it is completely false. The same EC already "elects" the Chief Executive, and nobody regards that process as democratic, precisely because nobody regards the EC as broadly representative. If it were, then like the election of the USA's President by its electoral college, the process would be regarded as democratic, albeit indirect. That "broadly representative" claim went unchallenged by the interviewer, and we've seen it happen so many times with other HK officials and other interviewers that it's about time we provided the media with the verifiable truth.

 Also unmentioned was the fact that the detailed rigging of this structure with small-circle (often uncontested) corporate elections is all contained in HK legislation, something that, legally speaking, can always be reformed without any approval from Beijing. All that it takes is for a brave Chief Executive to exercise his/her autonomy to propose a reform Bill and for the Legislative Council (LegCo) to pass it. This is a matter of legislative reform, not constitutional reform. The details are contained in the Legislative Council Ordinance (LCO) and the Chief Executive Election Ordinance (CEEO). Carrie Lam's claims that democracy is unattainable without following Beijing's rigged proposals for direct universal suffrage are false. Democracy can be achieved by universal suffrage to elect the 1,200-member EC in local law, without introducing universal suffrage for the Chief Executive election.'


2019-DEC-31
''We are Chinese but we don't support the CCP"

Exclusive: Hong Kongers support protester demands; minority wants independence from China - Reuters poll

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong’s protest movement is supported by 59% of city residents polled in a survey conducted for Reuters by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, with more than a third of respondents saying they had attended an anti-government demonstration.

Supporters of the protests outnumbered opponents by a ratio of nearly two to one, with 30% percent saying they were opposed. Of those polled, 57% said they favored the resignation of Carrie Lam, the city’s leader. Lam was a particular target of the anti-government demonstrations that gripped Hong Kong for most of 2019 after she attempted to push through a deeply unpopular extradition bill.

Nevertheless, only 17% expressed support for seeking independence from China, and 20% were opposed to “the current path of one country, two systems” - the arrangement under which Hong Kong is governed by Beijing.

Many protesters say Beijing has used its authority under the system to gradually undermine certain freedoms - such as an independent judiciary and freedom of speech - that are supposed to be guaranteed at least until 2047 under the arrangement.

The results of the survey, involving 1,021 people and conducted from Dec. 17-20, also showed a large plurality of respondents mainly blamed the Hong Kong government for the crisis, the worst civil unrest to hit the city in decades, rather than the central government in Beijing.

“The figures are consistent with Carrie Lam’s low popularity rate, which shows her ability to lead the government is very low,” said Ma Ngok, a professor of government and public administration at Chinese University of Hong Kong. “Resistance and protests will continue next year.”

A Hong Kong government spokesman said in a response to the poll results that Lam and her team would “continue to engage the people through dialogue”.

China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office under the State Council, or cabinet, did not respond to a request for comment.

The protests erupted following an attempt by the Hong Kong government to introduce a bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial in courts that are controlled by the Communist Party.

The bill was later withdrawn, but the protests have escalated into a broader call for greater democratic representation in the city and an inquiry into alleged police brutality in dealing with the protests.

The results of the poll reinforce claims by protesters that their key demands are broadly backed by the general public, according to Samson Yuen, a political science professor at Lingnan University. They also counter Beijing’s characterization of the protests as a movement aimed at undermining its sovereignty over the city.

The poll conducted for Reuters also shows little public support for the denunciations of China by hardline protesters, some of whom have called for independence for Hong Kong or scrapping the “one country, two systems” model.

“People go on the street due to their dissatisfaction with police and the political system, not asking for independence,” Yuen said.

The survey was the first in a series commissioned by Reuters to gauge public sentiment in Hong Kong amid its worst political crisis in decades. The Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute is an independent polling firm.

Among the key findings:

— 57% of respondents said they wanted Lam to resign.

— 37% of respondents said they had taken part in protests in 2019, versus 63% who had not.

— 47% said the Hong Kong government deserved most of the blame for the unrest in the city, 14% blamed the pro-democracy camp the most, and 12% mainly blamed the central government in Beijing.

— 41% of respondents said they “strongly oppose” Hong Kong independence, and 26% said they “somewhat oppose” it. Only 8% said they “strongly support” independence, and 9% “somewhat support” it.

— 74% said they wanted an independent inquiry into alleged police brutality in handling the protests. Only 9% said the police deserved most of the blame for the unrest.

The Hong Kong government has rejected calls by protesters and opposition politicians to set up an independent inquiry into police actions, saying that its oversight of the force is adequate.

SUPPORT FOR INQUIRY
The people of Hong Kong “are not seeking a quick fix”, said Yuen, the Lingnan University professor. “They think Carrie Lam should be held accountable but it’s not the most important thing. They want an independent inquiry to improve the relationship between police and people.”

The Hong Kong police did not respond to a request for comment.

Many protesters say they are incensed by what they see as an abuse of power by the police in dealing with the unrest. The police say they have used reasonable and appropriate force against illegal acts including vandalism and rioting.

Since Hong Kong reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997, many people in the city of 7.5 million have become increasingly angered by what they see as efforts by China to undermine the city’s autonomy and roll back freedoms.

When asked whether Hong Kong should keep on its “current path” of one country, two systems, 39% of respondents said they “strongly support” the model, and 29% said they “somewhat support” it.

China has denounced acts of violence in the protests, which it sees as being aimed at undermining Chinese sovereignty.

The large number of respondents saying they had participated in a protest chime with the huge demonstrations the city saw in 2019. On June 9, an anti-extradition march drew an estimated one million people; that was followed a week later by an even larger demonstration.

Widespread discontent was also reflected in city-wide elections for district council seats on Nov. 24, in which pro-democracy candidates won nearly 90% of the 450 seats. While voter participation is usually low in elections for the councils, which oversee things like garbage collection, nearly three million people in the city voted in the November election, or 71% of registered voters. It was the highest turnout in Hong Kong electoral history.

The degree of support for the protests varied sharply by age, education and whether respondents were born in Hong Kong. Younger, better-educated people born in Hong Kong, for example, were far more likely to support or take part in the protests, the poll showed.

For the poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, respondents were randomly polled by telephone in Cantonese, which is spoken by the vast majority of people in Hong Kong. The results were weighted according to the latest population figures in Hong Kong.

Reporting by Hong Kong Newsroom. Writing by James Pomfret; Editing by Philip McClellan"



2019-OCT-05
''China's war is with its own people"

In terms of absolute dollars, the U.S is by far the biggest spender for its military. However, something worth pointing out is that it spends relatively less to 'defend' itself against internal threats when compared to China. 
Essentially, China is brandishing its biggest arsenal, against its own citizen. And for a country of 1.4 billion (roughly one fifth of the world population), that should be a concern to anyone concern with the advancement of freedom.



https://www.securitydegreehub.com/security-spending/
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/01/asia/china-70-anniversary-five-graphs-intl-hnk/index.html

2019-AUG-10
''Lies & non-truths"

In the August 9th 2019 The Standard, Edward Chow makes some statements which, as usual, he cannot back with any evidence:
"Following two months of protests, unrest and riots, it's now becoming increasingly clear that money is behind every move, from paid agitators initiating "peaceful" protest marches, to the storming of police headquarters, the Legislative Council building and the central government liasion office."
Nope, no evidence of that; Edward is just not being critical of the fake news that he reads on Facebook.

 "In the past week, the focus of graffiti slogans has shifted from the extradition bill and the resignation of the chief executive to police behavior and the "repossession" of Hong Kong.
The target of their attacks has also shifted to district police stations and their living quarters as an increasing number of rioters are arrested.The game and its name have changed."
Nope, same 5 demands from almost day 1...

 "What has become increasingly obvious via the photos and video clippings in both the major and social media are scenes of black-shirt protesters (workers) reporting to work, cash being paid, and prepaid MTR tickets being handed to them as they finish work to facilitate their exit."
Ah, there you go; that's his reliable source of "factual" information. Pre-paid MTR tickets is indeed true, just the same way water is being provided to marchers. Nothing to do with money given to 'workers'.

 Riddle me this you idiot; if these are paid rioters meant to only create trouble, why don't they actually get real weapons and do real damage? I mean, what about using slingshots and metal balls? Guns smuggled from abroad? Actual swords instead of hiking sticks and umbrellas?
This is BS of the highest order of magnitude; yes, there is self-organization and a support system for marchers and for the night "rioters" but since the basic goals are non-violent, that is why the end results is risible small amount of actual physical violence.

 The true workers always have been the ones attending the pro-BJ rallies:

 "A protester told Apple Daily on camera that she came from Shekou, Shenzhen, and was promised HK$300 as reimbursement for transport. She said Hongkongers were paid HK$300 more than mainland participants."
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/11/14/protesters-claim-they-were-paid-to-attend-pro-beijing-rally-in-support-of-chinas-ruling-on-oath-row/
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-28832294

Meanwhile, the true violence, the one meant to shut down the desire of the vast majority of Hong Kongers, has expressed itself:
Pro-Beijing group lists its demands
"A pro-government group has called on the government to relaunch the fugitive bill and Article 23 security bill, both of which have attracted a million people to protest.

 About 100 people from The Pro-Beijing Politihk Social Strategic rallied outside the police headquarters in Wan Chai to submit a list of "11 demands by 90,000 citizens."

 This was despite ongoing civil disobedience actions over the now-suspended extradition bill that could send suspects from Hong Kong to China to face trial.

 The surprising demand came after Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office chief Zhang Xiaoming on Wednesday called on the pro-establishment camp to stand in front of struggles against the protests.

 The Pro-Beijing group also urged the government to enact a law banning protesters from wearing masks.

 Its chairman Tang Tak-shing said their submission refers to the "90,000 citizens" who joined the assembly to support police on August 3, on top of the 165,000 citizens who turned up earlier on June 30.

 "We have a mandate from 165,000 and 90,000 citizens, and came up with the 11 demands from them," Tang said.

 In another assembly yesterday at the Star Ferry Pier's five flag poles, about 30 people called for citizens to respect the national flag and emblem.

 Meanwhile, Elsie Leung Oi-sie, former deputy director of the Basic Law Committee said yesterday the protesters' target is no longer the fugitive bill, instead they want to paralyze Hong Kong and create "a state of anarchy."

 In an interview with the state-owned Xinhua News Agency, the city's former secretary for justice said law breakers should be held liable and not be pardoned or Hong Kong would be in chaos.

 National People's Congress Standing Committee member Tam Yiu-chung said sympathy for violent protesters would only foment more violence.

 "Nobody said the independent inquiry could never be established," he said.

 Executive Council members Ip Kwok-him and Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said a "commander" was behind the anti-fugitive bill protesters. "They played very smartly, which is not what youngsters can do, and their propaganda work is done very well," Ip Kwok-him said in a radio program.

 Regina Ip echoed her colleague in the same radio show of an "invisible and calculating big boss" behind the protesters.

 She said this "boss" could hold a civilian press conference after the government one, and make use of social media Telegram, online forum "Lihkg" and the iPhone function AirDrop to organize protests."

 Note: There were never 90,000 nor 165,000 people at these rallies. In total, less than 25,000 attended in total, most likely less than 10,000 were actually from Hong Kong.
What is critical to understand is that the organizers know that full well as they are the ones paying for these bus from Shenzhen, and it is plain to see from the pictures (see below Aug 03 entry) that there were not all that many people at these rallies. Therefore, the actual goal is propaganda to prepare the population for more muscular interventions by the police.

 Netizens bark back with counter cases
"To counter the police's daily press conference, netizens yesterday cited several cases of the excessive use of force, including when anti-riot police allegedly threatened a 12-year-old girl with a baton and insulted her."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=210501

 Wong tagged as independence leader
Beijing's way to justify their interventions.
"Beijing yesterday branded activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung as the leader of the Hong Kong independence movement after he met one of the United States' Consuls.

 This comes after Wong, the Secretary-General of Demosisto, and ousted legislator Nathan Law Kwun-chung met with Julie Eadeh of the United States Consulate General at the JW Marriott Hotel in Admiralty on Tuesday."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=210499

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam rules out protest concessions, urges focus on economy
“Unless a small minority of people… [don’t] mind destroying Hong Kong. They have no stake in society which so many people have helped to build. And that’s why they resorted to all this violence and obstructions, causing huge damage to [the] economy and to the daily lives of people,” she said.

 When asked if she had any political solutions to the current crisis, Lam refused to make any concessions.

 “I don’t think we should just make concessions in order to silence the violent protesters. We should do what is right for Hong Kong,” she said."
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/08/09/hong-kong-leader-carrie-lam-rules-protest-concessions-urges-focus-economy/?fbclid=IwAR02QbGyRG2rgxU6HLZwnU6925SqQchnLo28Du74trgtlDOwYIj5OZSwXH4
https://www.facebook.com/1446403762243685/posts/2409465779270807/?sfnsn=mo


2019-AUG-08


Lawyers' second march against fugitive bill
"Lawyers will hold a silent march today to urge the government to establish an independent inquiry commission and refrain from political persecution in the fugitive bill saga.
This is the second action by legal professionals on the now-suspended fugitive bill.
Hong Kong Bar Association chairman Philip Dykes, who could not join as he is not in Hong Kong, said yesterday: "The aim of the silent march is to demand that the government provide solutions to end the deadlock."
He also criticized the government for its evasive attitude."

Strike attendees may lose pay
"Carol Ng Man-yee, chairwoman of the Confederation of Trade Unions, said 350,000 people participated in the general strike on Monday."
Organized by Civic Party lawmaker Dennis Kwok Wing-hang and 30 members of the Election Committee's legal sector, participants in black will march from the Court of Final Appeal to Justice Place at 12.45 pm before holding an assembly outside Justice Place until 2.30 pm. The first silent march by the legal sector against the bill was held on June 6, attracting about 3,000 legal professionals."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=210399

Extradition fury sparks new voters high
"The voters' list has topped four million - an all-time high - driven by a record number of nearly 386,000 confirmed new voters, almost half of them millennials.

 This record numbers came after some groups called on people to register to vote in the upcoming District Council election amid the fugitive law controversy.

 The new voters can be crucial to the November election as the constituencies are small, an analyst said.

 The Registration and Electoral Office confirmed there are 385,956 new voters, putting the total number of voters at 4,118,908.

 This is a net increase of about 305,000 voters over last year, after taking into account the deletion of about 32,000 and 49,000 voters that have been listed on the omissions list due to death and after completion of the inquiry process, respectively.The number of new voters this time was 47 percent higher than in 2015, when the last District Council election was held - the year following the 2014 Occupy movement."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=210281

Clueless Zhang Xiaoming
"warned that the worst crisis since the handover to Chinese sovereignty could not be resolved by bowing to protesters’ demands.
Zhang Xiaoming, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO), put the emphasis on ending the protest chaos and violence that began two months ago, triggered by the government’s now-abandoned extradition bill."

China strips rights lawyer Li Jinxing of licence over ‘improper’ social media comments
"Prominent Chinese lawyer Li Jinxing, who gained national attention for defending clients in a number of high-profile cases, lost his licence for allegedly making “improper comments” on social media, a provincial regulatory body ruled on Tuesday.
The penalty was announced by a panel under the Shandong Provincial Department of Justice, which regulates lawyers in the east China province.
The panel said Li violated the lawyers’ code, which stipulates strict discipline for practitioners, by commenting on two cases – one about the disbarment of another lawyer Wen Donghai; and the other about Li being blocked from meeting his client at a detention centre in Fujian province.
In the Fujian case, Li said lawyers were granted less dignity than Zhu Jianqiang, a celebrity pig that survived the Sichuan earthquake in 2008."
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3021863/china-strips-rights-lawyer-li-jinxing-licence-over-improper

Good idea but maybe China is not the best place to get "best-practices" from, when it comes to application of the law
"The government is supporting a non-government organization in developing an online platform for dispute resolution and eliminate the physical limitations of the process, Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah said.

 In her blog yesterday, Cheng wrote she visited the Beijing Internet Court last month.

 The Beijing Internet Court adopts an e-litigation platform and uses artificial intelligence technology to generate pleas, real time voice-to-text and basic information of judgments."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=210448

Illegal 'guns' easily available online
"Hong Kong permits the sale of laser pointers that are less than 200 milliwatts, but more powerful ones are available illegally or on online shopping websites in the mainland.
Police called the product a 'laser gun,' but it is more commonly referred to as laser pens or pointers.
The majority of them contain low to moderately powered diode lasers.
Many stall owners on Apliu Street removed laser pointers yesterday following the arrest of a student leader.
A stall owner said common laser pointers have a longer range, emit a green light, are 20 milliwatts and cost less than HK$100.
The owner said it is illegal to sell laser pointers that exceed 200 milliwatts."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=210459&sid=21

2019-AUG-06


San Francisco – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement in support of the courageous pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong:

 “As they have all summer, today the people of Hong Kong are sending a stirring message to the world: the dreams of freedom, justice and democracy can never be extinguished by injustice and intimidation.

 “The extraordinary outpouring of courage from the people of Hong Kong stands in stark contrast to a cowardly government that refuses to respect the rule of law or live up to the ‘one country, two systems’ framework which was guaranteed more than two decades ago.  The people of Hong Kong deserve the true autonomy that was promised, with the full rights guaranteed by the Hong Kong Basic Law and international agreements.  The Legislative Council must finally take long-overdue measures to meet the legitimate democratic aspirations of the Hong Kong people – starting with completely and immediately withdrawing the widely-repudiated extradition bill.

 “Democrats and Republicans in Congress stand united with the people of Hong Kong in demanding the hopeful, free and democratic future that is their right.  We reiterate the call of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Co-Chairs Congressman Jim McGovern and Congressman Chris Smith to the Trump Administration to suspend future sales of munitions and crowd control equipment to the Hong Kong police force.

 “When we return to Washington, the bipartisan, bicameral Congress will begin our work to advance the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, and fight to preserve democratic freedoms and the rule of law in Hong Kong.”

 https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/8519-3/

2019-AUG-03
''Pro-Beijing rally fizzles"

Less than 5,000 people joined the Pro-Police but more so, pro-Beijing rally. The organizers stated that 90,000 people joined the rally, the police mentioned 26,000. 
You be the judge...

 Pictures taken at 4pm, at very height of the rally.

https://www.facebook.com/579827748716829/posts/2641504859215764?s=753094347&sfns=mo

 Lots of Chinese flags floating around:
"Organised by the pro-establishment group Politihk Social Strategic, the event saw attendees filling the park’s central lawn amid wet weather for an afternoon of music and speeches. Organisers put the turnout at 90,000, while police said 26,000 attended at the event’s peak.

 (...)
On Thursday, rural authority Heung Yee Kuk issued a notice calling on 27 rural committees to “mobilise” villagers to attend the rally."
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/08/03/pictures-hopeful-tomorrow-pro-govt-group-hosts-rally-denouncing-violence-backing-hong-kong-police/

Victoria park's rally location is virtually empty...
https://www.facebook.com/hongkongfp/videos/667143053785391/?t=655

Credit: HKFP
RTHK's video of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese villagers being bus-ed to the rally site:
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/ch/component/k2/1472269-20190803.htm



2019-AUG-01
''Bunch-o-things"

Beijing Is Weaponizing Nationalism Against Hong Kongers
"The report Monday about a mainland Chinese man pushing a female Hong Kong overseas student to the ground at the University of Auckland in New Zealand may seem inconspicuous on its own. But it’s a worrying sign of how Beijing has turned Hong Kong’s protests into an intraethnic conflict—one that could flare into far worse violence.
(...)
Xi occupies the three roles of general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, president of the People’s Republic of China, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. He has amassed considerable power and is willing to use it. When Xi talks about China’s national rejuvenation, the underlying tenets are a radical revisionist and expansionist domestic and foreign policy. For his aspirations to succeed, Xi needs to pacify the periphery. He is willing to pay almost any price to achieve this objective.
By putting a heavy emphasis on the discolored national emblem through state-controlled media, the Chinese government is deliberately whipping up nationalist fervor among mainland Chinese citizens and is granting license for people to act against imagined enemies of China. This form of political and psychological warfare has the potential to lead to even greater tragedy than a conventional military crackdown, as it could poison the relationship between Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese citizens for generations to come.Xi’s reckless move could easily spiral out of control, just as Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution did in 1966."


New video shows van driver provoking and assaulting a protester before he was mobbed and assaulted in Sheung Wan on 21st July

Hong Kong Public Opinion Program - Survey Results
Carrie Lam 17-19/7/2019 Support rating: 30.1%
If a general election of the Chief Executive were to be held tomorrow, and you had the right to vote, would you vote for Carrie Lam? 21.4% YES, 70.3% NO (17-19/7/2019)

Kwong Chun-yu, 2-8/7/2019, support rating of 61.7% (Pan-democrat)
Regina Ip, 2-8/7/2019, support rating of 33.1% (Pro-Beijing)
Starry Lee, 2-8/7/2019, support rating of 33.5% (Pro-Beijing)
Claudia  Mo, 2-8/7/2019, support rating of 47.4% (Pan-democrat)

We found the black hands!
Pro-Beijing leader posts photo of CIA agent, creates chaos. Twist: It is Matt Damon from Jason Bourne
"A Pro-Beijing leader posted a ph

Former Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa accuses the United States and Taiwan of orchestrating ‘well-organised’ recent protests
Hilarious!

Maybe the CCP should be told that repeating a lie 3 times to make it true is a metaphor...
"The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday accused the United States of influencing the increasingly violent pro-democracy protests that have rocked Hong Kong for two months.

"As you all know, they are somehow the work of the US," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a press conference in Beijing."

Riots and triads:
Hong Kong protests: Were triads involved in the attacks? 



2019-JUL-31
''Recount of Yuen Long white shirt terrorist attacks"

https://youtu.be/fDtM3dEJdHo
https://youtu.be/16CiwPChpr0

 2019-JUL-28
''Bunch-o-news"


 Civil servants threaten action
"Civil servants from 44 bureaus and departments issued an open letter to the government, threatening industrial action if the administration continues to ignore the public's demands.

 There were also open letters from other groups, including teachers, pilots, MTR employees and non-government organization staff members.

 All of them called on the government to adhere to the five demands of anti-fugitive bill protesters and, above all, denounce the police inability to stop the violent attacks that occurred in Yuen Long on Sunday.

 But none of the letters were comparable to that signed by more than 235 civil servants, including civilian staff from the police force.

 It was addressed to Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Executive Council members, all 16 secretaries, and lawmakers.

 The letter said that although many citizens called the police for help after the men in white T-shirts launched violent attacks on innocent citizens and reporters, the police did not send officers promptly to protect Hongkongers and arrest the thugs.
"Their behavior has caused suspicion of government-triad collusion, which has not only made citizens lose all their confidence in the police, but also cause civil servants to question whether the government is not serving citizens, and whether civil servants might become an accomplice in polarizing society," the letter said."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=210028

 Washington—Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
“I am deeply concerned by the reports of police brutality in response to peaceful protests in Hong Kong and by the vigilante attacks on reporters in Yuen Long MTR Station. I urge all parties to exercise restraint and call on the Hong Kong Government to uphold its commitment to the rule of law. Allegations of police violence over the past weeks have tarnished Hong Kong’s international reputation for good governance and the fair administration of justice.
“Moreover, Beijing’s increasingly harsh responses and propagandic depictions of ‘radical protestors’ as ungrateful troublemakers egged on by ‘foreign interference’ further sheds light on the Chinese Communist Party’s continued attempts to chip away at the freedoms and rights that make Hong Kong unique."
https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2019/7/engel-statement-on-hong-kong

 Pan-dems appeal for 'understanding'
"Withdrawing the fugitive bill is the only solution to the crisis, according to the pro-democracy camp.

 It also demanded the government set up an independent committee to investigate the June 12 clashes.

 The camp said peaceful demonstrators and those who occupied Legco shared the same demand.

 "We don't condone violence," said Claudia Mo Man-ching, convenor of the pro-democracy camp.

"But we hope everyone - not just in Hong Kong, but in the whole world - will try to understand the young people, the desperation exhibited behind the so-called violent acts."

 "Carrie Lam is trying to turn the tables and try to shift the public opinion from focusing on the young offenders that they are to blame.
"Instead of trying to solve the problem, they are trying to [get back at] the problem-raisers. And that's a communist tactic. It is not going to work in Hong Kong."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=209216&sid=50040706










2019-JUL-25
''Bunch-o-news"

"They offered protection to Deng Xiaoping, a top Chinese leader, as he made a historic trip across the United States in 1979. They were publicly hailed as “patriotic” by China’s public security minister in 1992.

 They were courted by a Beijing official to smooth over Hong Kong’s handover from British to Communist Party rule in 1997.

 For decades, the “dragon heads” of mafia clans — known as triads — have been widely regarded as muscle-for-hire for those aligned with China’s Communist Party, which has never denied the suspicions and, at times, even offers something of a knowing nod.

 That suspected connection is again in the spotlight. Dozens of men, clad in white T-shirts and carrying Chinese flags, chased and beat anti-government protesters and bystanders with clubs in Hong Kong on Sunday, leaving at least 45 people hospitalized and bringing a new element of fear into a polarized city.

 Local politicians and scholars say there is a decades-old but not widely known history of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld embracing the pro-Beijing establishment.
In 1984, Deng was fixated on the strategy of how to reabsorb Hong Kong from the British. He remarked that the triads wielded disproportionate influence and had “many good people.”

 A decade later, Tao Siju, China’s top security official, praised Hong Kong triads for offering Deng protection on foreign trips and told the city’s newspapers that triads “also love their country.” 
As Hong Kong transitioned to British rule, a former top official with China’s official Xinhua News Agency, who acted as a liaison for the Chinese government, explained how he wooed the triads on Beijing’s behalf. The argument was financial.

 “I told them that if they did not disrupt Hong Kong’s stability, we would not stop them from making money,” Wong Man-fong said to a stunned university audience in 1997. 
Over the past decade, prominent Hong Kong media personalities, all Beijing critics, have been attacked. In 2014, after young anti-government demonstrators seized Hong Kong’s streets during the “Umbrella Movement,” alleged triad members raided their encampment and cleared occupiers.

 “There’s a proven link between the Bamboo Union triad and activities on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party,” said J. Michael Cole, a senior fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute. “What we saw in Hong Kong this week is a logical escalation of what we’ve seen for the past decade.”

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-backers-and-triad-gangs-have-history-of-common-foes-hong-kong-protesters-fear-they-are-next/2019/07/23/41445b88-ac68-11e9-9411-a608f9d0c2d3_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.98cbd9ec13a5

"Why does the Chinese gov’t need to hire thugs to exert social control?"
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/11/04/chinese-govt-need-hire-thugs-exert-social-control/

"The ABC understands pro-China activists gate-crashed a protest by fellow Chinese students showing solidarity for persecuted minorities in their homeland.

 Hundreds of students gathered in the university's Great Court to express their views.

 Pro-China students clashed with the other group as they played nationalistic songs and chanted "China is great".

 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-24/uq-student-protest-anger-over-hong-kong-chinese-minorities/11343130?pfmredir=sm

"Hong Kong protests: Armed mob violence leaves city in shock"
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49071502

"Hong Kong: Failure in political leadership inflames situation"
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/07/hong-kong-political-failure-inflames-situation/

An idiot gets owned by BBC's journalist
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-49058890/pro-china-hong-kong-protester-calls-bbc-reporter-fake-news-during-broadcast

 Asking the right questions, getting no answers...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uqqAmIlRr4&feature=youtu.be

2019-JUL-17
''Disgusting individual"


"Protests should be banned in Hong Kong, a pro-Beijing lawmaker says as she urges the police chief to stop issuing permits for demonstrations.

Protests planned include one in Mong Kok on Saturday, Hong Kong Island on Sunday, Hung Hom the following Saturday and Tseung Kwan O on July 27.

Ann Chiang Lai-wan of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said she had written to the Commissioner of Police Stephen Lo Wai-chung yesterday.

'Every time after the assemblies and rallies, different degrees of clashes between police and citizens occurred, especially after the Sheung Shui and Sha Tin protests, which led to serious conflicts,' Chiang wrote.

She urged Lo to stop issuing letters of no objection to assemblies that may lead to social disruptions 'to avoid affecting people's daily lives and casualties.'

Her suggestion was echoed by pro-establishment legislator Ma Fung-kwok, who said the government should judge more carefully whether the protest would lead to conflicts."

2019-JUL-14
''Pooh's joke of the day"


As evidenced in my 2019-JUL-04 entry, over a million Uyghurs are imprisoned in re-education camps in Xinjiang. China first claimed the camps didn't exist, and when ample evidence made it impossible for the CCP to keep on lying without being called on their lies, then later said they were vocational training camps.




Then, a few days later, 37 nations filled a paper with the U.N in support of China's actions in Xinjiang.


"But the letter supporting China commended what it called China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights.

'Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers,' the letter said.

The letter said security had returned to Xinjiang and the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there had been safeguarded. It added there had been no terrorist attack there for three years and people enjoyed a stronger sense of happiness, fulfillment and security."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-xinjiang-rights/saudi-arabia-and-russia-among-37-states-backing-chinas-xinjiang-policy-idUSKCN1U721X

Let's not focus that the statements in the 37-nations letter are obvious lies, but rather, let us compare the 2 groups that have issued the contradicting letters.

First, have a look at the chart below which should make it clear which countries are notorious human rights violators... (10 is the worst human-rights offending score possible)

With that data, let's see where the countries that have denounced the situation in Xinjiang:


 https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/15/asia/united-nations-letter-xinjiang-intl-hnk/index.html?no-st=1563316557

Unsurprisingly, the countries offering the most protection for human-rights are condemning China while the worst offenders are defending the CCP's actions.

 Interesting to note that the almost totality of China's supporters are also participants in China's Belt&Roads  initiative...

Sources: 


(List of countries supporting China) https://www.zaobao.com/realtime/china/story20190713-972151


2019-JUL-10
''1984"

"A innocuously named plan issued by the Guangdong provincial government ruffled feathers online after it recommended “accelerating” the adoption of China’s highly controversial “social credit system” in the Greater Bay Area — which, you might have heard, includes Hong Kong — sending the SAR government scrambling to put out a public relations fire today.
Point 75 of the “Three-Year Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area 2018-2020,” released on Friday, proposes boosting the planned super-region’s implementation of the social credit scheme, an unprecedented system of surveillance that assigns citizens overall rankings based on everything from the timeliness of debt repayment to whether they jaywalk."




2019-JUL-04
''Typical PCC lie"

"China calls Xinjiang camps training centres, but government’s own documents say otherwise, researcher finds
A researcher’s review of government documents finds evidence of coercive internment, police presence and political brainwashing
The findings refute China’s claims of ‘vocational education and training centres’ by quoting government reports not intended for international audiences
(...)
In contrast to the “schools” shown in state media footage and selected for foreign diplomats and journalists to visit on their highly controlled tours to Xinjiang, the government-issued construction bids researched by Zenz feature heavily guarded, prison-like facilities that require high walls, barbed wire, watchtowers, elaborate internal camera systems, police stations and even bases for special police units.
(...)
In Kashgar prefecture, for instance, all “vocational education and training centres” must be equipped with the “five preventative measures” as demanded by the region’s hardline Communist Party boss, Chen Quanguo. One of them is “escape prevention” – security requirements that also apply to Xinjiang’s prisons.
(...)
In the paper, Zenz also suggests a “speculative upper limit estimate” of 1.5 million detainees in the camps, based on the amount of food allowance subsidies for the “trainees” the Xinjiang government gave to the region’s ethnic minority prefectures in 2018."https://www.scmp.com/print/news/china/politics/article/3016850/china-calls-xinjiang-camps-training-centres-governments-own


2019-JUL-03
''Hong Kong losing its edge to Singapore"

"Some foreign wealth managers are scrapping plans to open offices in Hong Kong in favor of Singapore as the rich begin to move funds from the SAR, where an extradition bill has stoked public unrest, people familiar with the matter said.
A mid-sized European private wealth advisory firm has abandoned a plan to set up its Asia arm in Hong Kong and will instead aim to launch it in Singapore, its London-based chief executive said.
(...)
For the wealthy, a key worry is that Beijing may eventually be able to seize their assets, leading them to weigh moving their assets offshore. Wealth managers mostly go where their clients prefer to park their riches.
Uncertainty over the bill clouds the SAR's outlook as a wealth management hub, one of the main pillars of growth in Hong Kong, which has been losing ground to Singapore in recent years.
(...)
In a survey by trade publication Asian Private Banker last year, 58 percent ranked Singapore as the most preferred offshore wealth management hub, followed by Hong Kong and Switzerland, respectively.
It said compared to the SAR Singapore had become attractive as it was 'less connected to the mainland from a regulatory, political, and financial perspective.'
(...)
Rahul Sen, a London-based global leader for private banking at headhunter Boyden, said three of his multioffice wealth advisory clients decided in the last few weeks to hire teams of bankers in Singapore after initially considering Hong Kong.
'New teams that are being set up, they are asking why should they align with Hong Kong when its future as an independent wealth hub is uncertain,' Sen said."

2019-JUL-02
''Hong Kong!"

"US President Donald Trump spoke 'briefly' with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping about protests in Hong Kong against proposed amendments to the city’s extradition laws, the US leader said on Monday"
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3016853/us-calls-calm-following-hong-kong-protesters-break

2019-JUN-30
''The real angry mob"

"Hong Kong press groups condemn abuse of journalists at rally backing police’s handling of extradition bill protests.
Hong Kong journalists were physically and verbally attacked at a pro-police rally on Sunday as the city’s deepening split over the extradition bill crisis was laid bare ahead of the anniversary of the handover to Chinese sovereignty.
Reporters and photographers from various media outlets – including the Post – said they were insulted, spat on, kicked and splashed with water and mud by demonstrators at a rally to support the embattled police force in Tamar Park.
Journalists have become the latest victims in the dispute. On Sunday, many middle-aged supporters attempted to block them from covering the pro-police rally.
Officers said a 61-year-old woman was arrested on Tim Mei Avenue, outside the legislature, for assaulting two journalists at around 6.30pm.
A Post reporter was grabbed by her wrist and dragged when she tried to keep an aggressive man away from a colleague at the demonstration area outside the legislature in Admiralty. The reporter, who was wearing a press badge and had made her identity clear, was also called a “c**t” and other profanities when she tried to film rival protesters hurling insults at each other.
A woman also called the reporter a “traitor” and jabbed a finger in her face before she was stopped by police.
Another Post journalist wearing a press badge was cursed with profanities and pushed by a group of male police supporters, who refused to stop when she told them she was a journalist. She managed to escape only when officers intervened.
Video footage by RTHK showed that a female reporter, who was trying to film the clash in Tim Mei Avenue, was blocked and obstructed by a middle-aged man who kept shouting “bastard” at her.
The 34-second clip ended abruptly with the female reporter shouting: “Don’t touch me!”
Tammy Tam, the Post’s editor-in-chief, called the abuse of journalists “abhorrent”.
“We are shocked that our reporters have been targeted and subjected to such abuse by the demonstrators today,” Tam said.
“Our journalists are professionals, doing their job in very difficult circumstances. It is unacceptable that they were targeted and harassed in this manner. This abhorrent behaviour towards the media should be condemned by all of Hong Kong.”



2019-JUN-26
''Bunch-o-news"

Carrie Lam's FATF excuse for the extradition debacle seems to be a red-herring...
She said that it was Hong Kong's international duty to have an extradition treaty with China. Well...
The Hong Kong administration itself was leading the panel in 2001-2002 which include provisions for money laundering and terrorism funding.
http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/2001%202002%20ENG.pdf

 Then, the 2008 report stated that Hong Kong "most significant deficit" was the lack of an extradition treaty with China, Macau, and Taiwan.

 https://www.fatf-gafi.org/documents/documents/mutualevaluationofhongkongchina.html

 The mention of extradition in the 2008 document is but one of a series of 32 points. It is not clear why Lam would see as a matter of urgency something that was stated in a document over 10 years old as one of many points.

 https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/mer/MER%20Hong%20Kong%20ES.pdf

Furthermore, it seems that in the 2019 revised version of this document, the FATF will completely drop the mention of this "deficiency" which should be remedied.

 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3015711/global-money-laundering-watchdog-financial-action-task
More concerning is the fact that China will lead the next proceedings of the FATF:


----------------------------
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor received the lowest rating ever compared to all former chief executives by scoring 32.8 points, according to the University of Hong Kong.

 It was just a day after the Chinese University published that Lam received the lowest rating ever on a survey since the handover.

 The HKU Public Opinion Programme interviewed 1,015 citizens on June 17 to 20, and found that Lam's latest popularity rating stood at 32.8 points, which dropped 10.5 points compared to two weeks ago.
Her approval rate is 23 percent, disapproval rate 67 percent, giving a net popularity of minus 44 percentage points, a significant drop of 20 percentage points.

 http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=209042&sid=11

----------------------------
"‘We will not allow the G20 to discuss the Hong Kong issue,’ says Beijing

 But Chinese assistant foreign minister Zhang Jun said the G20 is a forum to focus on global economic issues.
Xi and Trump have agreed to hold bilateral talks focusing on the US-China trade war during the summit.

 'I can tell you with certainty that the G20 will not discuss the Hong Kong issue and we will not allow the G20 to discuss the Hong Kong issue,' Zhang said at a press briefing previewing Xi’s G20 attendance.
'Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs and no foreign country has the right to intervene,' he said, recalling that the city is a special administrative region of China."

 https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/24/will-not-allow-g20-discuss-hong-kong-issue-says-beijing/


2019-JUN-23
''Bunch-o-news"

"The former foreign affairs secretary of the Philippines, Albert del Rosario, arrived in Manila late Friday afternoon after he was barred from entering Hong Kong.
Del Rosario, who arrived in the city on a 7.40am Cathay Pacific flight, one day after saying China was 'not to be trusted' over the sinking of a Philippine vessel in the South China Sea, was held and questioned by immigration officers at the airport before being deported.
The former diplomat told reporters at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport that a complaint he and ex-ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales filed at the International Criminal Court against Chinese President Xi Jinping was the reason why he was held at the airport.
'It’s harassment. They have no right to hold me since I am travelling on diplomatic passport,' he told reporters, citing violation of the Vienna Convention. It’s an international treaty that specifies the privileges of diplomats to carry out their work without fear of coercion by a host country."

2019-JUN-21
''Bunch-o-news"

"The resumption of the second reading of the national anthem bill will be delayed until the next legislative year following the controversial fugitive amendment bill, the government has told Legislative Council president Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen.

This comes as lawmakers - including Leung - have asked the government not to table the anthem bill before Legco's summer break next month.

"Legco needs time to heal [its wounds]. Priority should be given to people's livelihood and economy. Politically controversial issues might have to be put aside first," Leung said.

The anthem bill will prohibit people from deliberately altering the lyrics or score of the anthem or singing it in a distorted or derogatory manner.

Anyone found guilty of insulting the anthem is liable to a maximum fine of HK$50,000 or three years' imprisonment."


"Lawmaker Alice Mak Mei-kuen's emotional flare-up at Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has shown how the fugitive law amendment has ripped apart ties between the government and the pro-establishment camp.

Mak, of the Federation of Trade Unions, swore at Lam when she briefed her supporters at Government House last Saturday before she announced suspension the bill. The two women even cried together.

But it showed members of the pro-government camp were frustrated after they went all-out to support the bill. Some even felt they had been betrayed by Lam when she decided to suspend the bill following the rally by 1.03 million people.

The government will have a difficult time running the city in the next three years as backing down on the controversial bill may backfire in upcoming elections, a political observer said.

Commentator Ivan Choy Chi-keung said: 'This will definitely affect the trust between the pro-establishment and the government. The government can't take the camp's support for granted any more.'

He said many pro-establishment people were dissatisfied and it will be challenging for the government to push forward policies.

'Even the pro-establishment lawmakers recognized the risks and decided to postpone controversial policies such as Lantau Tomorrow and the national anthem law,' he said. He cited 2003 and said the pro-establishment camp suffered a huge defeat in the District Council election after the government withdrew the Article 23 amendment due to a severe backlash from society. 'But it's too early to say the impact will last through the Legislative Council election next year,' he said.

In a new voice recording revealed yesterday, lawmaker Christopher Cheung Wah-fung confirmed it was Mak who swore at Lam during the camp's closed-door meeting with her at Government House. Cheung, from the pro-establishment party Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong, was talking to Anthony Neoh, chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Council, at the watchdog's meeting on Wednesday.

He forgot to switch off his microphone and their conversation was recorded by a radio reporter.

Cheung told Noeh that Mak threw out the "F" swear word and used four-word Chinese foul language at Lam. 'Mak promised voters the bill would pass,' Cheung said. 'She placed all her career on the bet and because of this she may not be elected again.'

The conflict between the pro-establishment camp and Lam was first reported by The Standard's sister publication EastWeek Magazine on Tuesday, citing sources saying Mak boiled over and poured her rage on Lam at the meeting, scolding the chief executive for five minutes straight.


'You're too naive. Even if you suspend the bill now, people won't accept it,' Mak told Lam, as she called her a 'bastard.' She added that her lawmaker assistants had been doing promotions around the city to encourage citizens to support the bill but often received heavy criticism. Lam broke into tears but Mak was unimpressed. 'What's the use of crying now! You can cry and I can also cry,' Mak said, as she also burst into tears."

--------------------

 "As tensions mount in Hong Kong over the proposed extradition bill, footage has surfaced of a speech given by Xu Yan (徐焰), general and professor at the Defense University of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) at the "2018 Annual Meeting of National Famous Teachers' Workshop Union" in Chengdu city, on Nov. 5, 2018. The 90-minute speech was given before 2,000 teachers, and elementary and junior high school students taking part in the conference."
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3728215
The part of the speech (A MUST WATCH!): https://youtu.be/oCux75k0NbU

--------------------
"The United States has been accused of demanding “enormous, even hundreds” of changes to Chinese laws to protect intellectual property, according to a Chinese government adviser, who said it was a key factor in the collapse of the trade talks.
Shi Yinhong, a prominent international relations scholar from Renmin University, said the gap between the two sides was widening as Washington demanded a strong enforcement mechanism while Beijing wanted more leeway.
He said China could only agree to a “relatively weak enforcement mechanism” without too much scrutiny and there should not be automatic penalties for violating the agreement.
(...)
Shi said the gap between the two sides on technical aspects of the agreement widened as negotiations advanced, with the US presenting the Chinese with a list of hundreds of intellectual property infringements that it wanted to be addressed."

 So, basically, China broke the deal because they refuse to make commitments that they would have to honor and would rather continue stealing intellectual property.

 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3014057/us-accused-undermining-trade-talks-demanding-hundreds-changes#comments
--------------------

Unsurprisingly, the pro-extradition petition (refer to this blog entry of 2019-JUN-16) did not have 800,000 signatures. That was a scam.

 Details here:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2219071884828824


--------------------

China is creating an alternate reality about the Hong Kong protests, in real time

https://qz.com/1647908/not-even-the-hong-kong-protests-can-get-past-chinese-censors/




2019-JUN-20
''United against Jinping"


"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime critic of China’s human rights record, on Wednesday threw her influence behind bipartisan legislation to require the Trump administration to certify Beijing is maintaining its special treatment of Hong Kong.

 Pelosi called the large demonstrations in Hong Kong 'a beautiful sight to behold' adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been 'really taking China backward in terms of repression.'

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-pelosi-idUSKCN1TK2BP?fbclid=IwAR3RexGm97dHYXGFGl2Pwlic4q3Tb64wnnGlq3ufEHAF2f5veoVCJyoBMUk

2019-JUN-20
''His Master's Voice"

Unbelievable nonsense... sad to read this in 2019...

"The absence of an extradition agreement has not only been an anomaly but an unjust one in our legal system that successive administrations have ignored.

Until now no administration has ever sought to introduce a system whereby people in Hong Kong who commit serious criminal offenses in the mainland can be extradited to face trial.

The same applies to Macau and Taiwan.

We live literally on borrowed time as the clock ticks remorselessly toward 2047, when one country, two systems will almost certainly become one country, one system.

I do not see why Hong Kong should worry about its prosperity as Beijing will always promote our economic interests.

Visionary Greater Bay Area plans are a godsend, placing Hong Kong at the financial center of what will probably become the greatest and wealthiest metropolis in the history of the world.

Climb to the peak of the mountain and survey the panoramic golden landscape that represents our future - and then consider how extraordinary it would be if a person thought to have committed a serious criminal offense could not be extradited from one part to another part of the same country.

The law amendments have been met with vociferous, even violent, opposition.

The march of just over a week ago drew a great number of well-meaning protesters, though its organizers no doubt, and understandably, exaggerated the numbers.

Whatever the actual numbers are, we can appreciate that people enjoy the right to protest in a civilized but peaceful manner.

I have spoken to many people about the law changes, and apart from lawyers who appreciate their legal niceties, most non-lawyers ask the same questions: "Am I going to be arbitrarily arrested and taken to the mainland to face trial. Or if I say something against the Beijing government can I be extradited to the mainland?"

The common denominator is fear - fear that the new law will be used arbitrarily.

My response is that such fears are caused by a lack of understanding of how the legal systems work and especially how our system deals with extradition applications.

Extradition is a legal, not a political, matter, and is dealt with by our courts in full accordance with the law, which is famously independent and fair, even with eminent foreign judges sitting in our highest appeal court.

Legal procedures are often slow and cumbersome as they are very careful to deliver justice, with legal aid always available to assist those in need of financial help.

And after all the court hearings and appeals every extradition request that passes court scrutiny has to be also backed by the chief executive. It is legally impossible and politically inconceivable that the chief executive could ever extradite anyone the courts had refused to extradite.

It is hypocritical to praise our judicial independence on the one hand while at the same time vehemently opposing the proposed law changes.

As for the mainland's legal system it may not, as in ours, be modeled on common law, but its defects are quickly being put right, as are defects in all legal systems, ours included. China and its own rule of law have steered a quarter of mankind through 70 years of extraordinary change, 70 years of remarkable peace and prosperity.

I am saddened that 22 years after Britain handed Hong Kong back, there is a deep and often misplaced distrust of the mainland. Britain and its ways were part of Hong Kong's past, but our future lies with China.

Must we wait another 28 years to allow the Basic Law's 50-year deadline to eliminate this anomaly?

Obviously, the chief executive cannot change tack and she cannot allow the anti-Beijing forces to demonize her proposals.

In 1959 that famed novelist from Henan, Han Suyin, author of A Many Splendored Thing, wrote an article for US magazine Life, headlined "Hong Kong's Ten-Year Miracle." It described Hong Kong as a city that was living through the declining years of the British empire: "Squeezed between giant antagonists crunching huge bones of contention, Hong Kong has achieved within its own narrow territories a co-existence which is baffling, infuriating, incomprehensible, and works splendidly - on borrowed time in a borrowed place."

Sixty years after Han wrote those words, Hong Kong may no longer be a borrowed place but it is most certainly still living on borrowed time - until 2047.

Cheng Huan is an author and a senior counsel who practices in Hong Kong"


2019-JUN-20
''What about clown hats?"


"Even without weapons in their hands, people wearing helmets to join clashes with police could be charged with rioting, says executive councillor Ronny Tong Ka-wah.

 Speaking on radio yesterday, Tong, who is also a barrister, said not only those with first point of contact with police could be charged."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=208763



 2019-JUN-16
''Propaganda spotting"

This is the extent of what the CCP propaganda machine will do. About 2 million protesters marched on Sunday June 16th, demanding an apology from Carrie Lam, the extradition bill to be dropped, and for her to resign.


The march:


And here's what China Daily, one of the mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party had to say:


(BTW, Stanley Ng Chau-Pei is a pro-Beijing politician member of Our Hong Kong Foundation, founded by ex-CE Tun Chee Wah)

Meanwhile, the always excellent Hong Kong Free Press cover the newspaper front-pages. Can you tell which ones are Beijing-backed?





2019-JUN-16
''Hong Kong press?"


2019-JUN-16
''Money moving out?"


"HONG KONG (Reuters) - Some Hong Kong tycoons have started moving personal wealth offshore as concern deepens over a local government plan to allow extraditions of suspects to face trial in China for the first time, according to financial advisers, bankers and lawyers familiar with such transactions.

One tycoon, who considers himself potentially politically exposed, has started shifting more than $100 million from a local Citibank account to a Citibank account in Singapore, according to an adviser involved in the transactions.

'It’s started. We’re hearing others are doing it, too, but no-one is going to go on parade that they are leaving,' the adviser said. 'The fear is that the bar is coming right down on Beijing’s ability to get your assets in Hong Kong. Singapore is the favoured destination.'”


2019-JUN-12
''Hong Kong's first bona-fide CCP dictator?"


"No concessions. That was the message from Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor as she refused to ease back from a controversial amendment to the fugitive law despite Sunday's mass protest.

But she did say there would be regular reports about implementation after the amendment went into force.

She was talking after a stunning 1.03 million protesters took to the streets on Sunday, according to organizer Civil Human Rights Front, which called for the amendment bill to be withdrawn.
(...)
Protesters had also called for Lam along with Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah and Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu to step down.

Lam's response to that was no one was going - a message she delivered flanked by Cheng and Lee during a press conference at government headquarters yesterday.
(...)
'But there are also more than 300 social groups supporting our works, and many citizens showed their support in many other ways,' she added. 'So when there are controversial issues, especially those involving the mainland, society tends to be polarized.'
(...)
As chief executive, Lam said, 'I will need to achieve balance between different opinions.'
(...)
During her election campaign in 2017, Lam promised she would resign if mainstream public opinion no longer allowed her to function as fully as chief executive, and she was asked yesterday whether she would keep her promise.

Her response: 'What I promised is to make Hong Kong a society of the rule of law, civilization, harmony and tolerance. In every aspect of our society, including economic growth and especially in terms of innovation technology, our efforts in the past two years have been acknowledged by many.'
"
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=208476&sid=11&sid=11

"'China resolutely supports the SAR government’s amendment and is not worried about the impact on the business environment,' Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, noting the authorities’ estimated protest turnout figure was 240,000 – much lower than the number organisers touted.
(...)
In an interview with the Post on Monday, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung noted the 'unusual number' of critical statements by various foreign governments over the bill."

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013797/thanks-coming-im-not-changing-my-mind-defiant-carrie-lam

  • Unwillingness to hear and abide by the will of the vast majority of Hong Kongers
  • Willingness to lie and use false-equivalence to paint a situation of 'chaos' and social disorder which she has herself created
  • Complete alignment with Beijing's demonization of democraties, labelling their legitimate concerns as 'foreign interference' 
  • Authoritarian decision making that accepts no other way but her own way, which also happens to be the CCP's way

"Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has spoken of her preference to serve just one term as Hong Kong's leader. In fact, she told a special phone-in program on RTHK that this was a condition of her husband for her taking up the job." 
October 13th, 2017
2019-JUN-09
2019-JUN-09
''News"

"The Law Society has made an 11-page submission calling on the government to shelve the fugitive law amendment.

This follows the Bar Association's strong opposition to the amendment.

The society warned the amendment would have far-reaching and important implications, so there should be comprehensive review of the current extradition laws and extensive consultations.

The fact that the mainland had signed but not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also exacerbated people's concern about the prospect of being extradited there, as "the legal amendment could be conveniently be used for political persecution and suppress freedom of speech."

The society said local courts could not act as effective gatekeepers under current fugitive laws as documents in support of extradition could be submitted without further proof and evidence by the defense could not be offered as a counterargument.

The society suggested committal proceedings be introduced, and that "mandatory procedural requirements are laid down for both the prosecution and the defense to comply with," adding the defense be allowed to "give evidence and call evidence."

In the NewYork Times

"China's WeChat is a site for social interaction, a form of currency, a dating app, a tool for sporting teams and deliverer of news: Twitter, Facebook, Googlemaps, Tinder and Apple Pay all rolled into one. But it is also an ever more powerful weapon of social control for the Chinese government.
(...)
I was in Hong Kong to cover the enormous candlelight vigil marking 30 years since the People's Liberation Army was ordered to open fire on its own people to remove the mostly student protesters who'd been gathering in and around Tiananmen Square for months in June 1989.
(...)
Naturally I took photos of the sea of people holding candles and singing, and posted some of these on my WeChat 'moments'.
Chinese friends started asking on WeChat what the event was? Why were people gathering? Where was it?

 That such questions were coming from young professionals here shows the extent to which knowledge of Tiananmen 1989 has been made to disappear in China.

 I answered a few of them, rather cryptically, then suddenly I was locked out of WeChat.

 'Your login has been declined due to account exceptions. Try to log in again and proceed as instructed,' came the message on the screen.
Then, when I tried to log back in, a new message appeared: 'This WeChat account has been suspected of spreading malicious rumours and has been temporarily blocked…'

 It seems posting photos of an actual event taking place, without commentary, amounts to 'spreading malicious rumours' in China.

 I was given time to try and log in again the next day after my penalty had been served.
When I did I had to push 'agree and unblock' under the stated reason of 'spread malicious rumours'.


2019-JUN-08
''Must read"

Very, very good article in Foreign policy. Take 5 minutes and read it all... Abstracts:

"Authoritarian governments deploy a range of strategies to maintain their grip on power. Sometimes, they terrify their citizens into submission. At other times, they take a softer approach, trying to persuade the public that democratic contestation threatens stability and prosperity. A middle way strategy looks to grind people down until they are too tired to resist and give up hope for change.

(...)
But as Chinese President Xi Jinping has concentrated power and suppressed opposition in mainland China like no leader since Mao Zedong, so too has he looked to stamp out dissent in politically defiant Hong Kong. It doesn’t help that the city is an ever-shrinking part of China’s GDP; a region that was once critical to its success is now one city among many, with an economy similar in size to the neighboring metropolises of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

The pace of the erosion of freedoms and autonomy in Hong Kong in recent years has been relentless, even though it was those very attributes that made the financial center a global success story.

Within the last three years, the Hong Kong government, which is appointed by Beijing, has taken many unprecedentedly repressive steps.

It has disqualified elected lawmakers, banned young activists from running for office, prohibited a political party, jailed pro-democracy protest leaders (including a sitting lawmaker and two respected professors), expelled a senior foreign journalist, and looked the other way when Beijing kidnapped its adversaries in Hong Kong."



2019-JUN-06
''News"


"A record turnout of more than 180,000 people, according to organisers on Tuesday night, turned Hong Kong’s Victoria Park into a sea of candles in an emotionally charged vigil to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
After months of political turmoil and mounting concerns about diminishing freedoms, brought to a head by the government’s recent push to change the city’s extraditions laws to allow criminal suspects to be sent back to mainland China, Hongkongers came out in force for the biggest gathering on Chinese soil to mourn the victims of June 4, 1989.

 Police put the turnout at a far more conservative 37,000 at its peak.
(...)
At 8.20pm, organisers closed entry to six soccer pitches, each accommodating some 20,000 people, as the crowds still pouring in had to be diverted to an adjacent lawn."

So, even if the soccer pitches were just half full, which was absolutely not the case (they were packed! I was there), that would still be 60,000. Police clearly underestimated the count.  Note that it seems to be the case that police underestimate since the 2014 Occupy movement, coincidence?
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013115/hong-kong-keeps-tiananmen-crackdown-memory-alive-record


 "Key foreign envoys to Hong Kong on Monday raised the stakes in their opposition to the city’s controversial extradition bill, with some saying they would consult their governments on what action to take if the local administration insisted on pushing it through the legislature.
After a closed-door lunch attended by more than 30 consuls general and other consular representatives, along with 21 lawmakers, at the Legislative Council, one opposition politician quoted some diplomats as saying a unilateral review of their governments’ bilateral relations with Hong Kong was an option, but others did not confirm this."

 "Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the pro-establishment Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said some envoys had expressed support for the bill, but she declined to identify them."

 Starry-pants on fire!

 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3011931/hong-kong-extradition-row-rages-diplomats-and-lawmakers

The following would be hilarious if it were in a slapstick movie... but it is unfortunately real quotes...

"Beijing's human rights are in the 'best period ever,' said China's embassy in the United States as it crossed swords with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over the June 4 crackdown.

 In a strongly worded statement, Pompeo called on Beijing to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising by releasing all prisoners jailed for fighting human rights abuses in China.

 He again urged China to make a full public account of those killed or missing in the 1989 incident who he referred to as 'heroes' who inspired future generations to call for freedom and democracy around the world.

 Over the decades that followed the incident, the US hoped that China's integration into the international system would lead to a more open, tolerant society, he said.

 'Those hopes have been dashed. Today Chinese citizens have been subjected to a new wave of abuses, especially in Xinjiang, where the Communist Party leadership is methodically attempting to strangle Uygur culture and stamp out the Islamic faith, including through the detention of more than one million members of Muslim minority groups,' he wrote.

 China's embassy in the US expressed 'strong dissatisfaction' with Pompeo's statement, saying the intervention in China's internal affairs was made out of 'prejudice and arrogance.'

 The embassy added: 'The Chinese government and people reached the verdict on 1989 long ago. After four decades of reform and opening up, China's human rights are in the best period ever. The Chinese people have the best say on China.'

 Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a press briefing in Beijing that Pompeo's statement "maliciously attacks China's political system, denigrates the state of China's human rights and religious affairs, wantonly criticizes China's Xinjiang policy and severely interferes in China's domestic affairs."

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=208352



2019-JUN-05
''June 4th. Never forget"
These barring of freedom & democracy activists entering Hong Kong started after 1997. 
That's the start, then they will pass Article 23 and claim that these June 4th vigil is compromising Hong Kong's security and China's integrity by questioning its government. That's how a free society turns into a dictatorship ; bit by bit, under the pretence of social order...

 https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/03/exiled-tiananmen-protest-leader-feng-congde-barred-entering-hong-kong-vigil/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-hongkong-activists/chinese-activists-barred-from-hong-kong-idUSPEK34456120080806


2019-MAY-30
''June 4th. Never forget"

https://youtu.be/hA4iKSeijZI
https://youtu.be/NK9bU7Rol0k
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/03/tiananmen-massacre-immunised-china-turmoil-claims-chinese-state-run-daily/?fbclid=IwAR1nHZin0HyLKGBnTfRbpfLBs3JDr8X8p_Fzg5Xhk6pZbGVY6o3lg8-yjwo

2019-MAY-28
''News"

"Some Hong Kong judges fear they are being put on a collision course with Beijing as the special administrative region’s government pushes for sweeping legal changes that would for the first time allow fugitives captured in Hong Kong to be sent to mainland China for trial.

Three senior judges and 12 leading commercial and criminal lawyers say the changes, called the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance amendment bill, mark one of the starkest challenges to Hong Kong’s legal system and are increasingly troubling its business, political and diplomatic communities.

It is the first time judges - who by convention don’t comment on political or legislative matters - have discussed the issue publicly.

The city’s independent legal system was guaranteed under the laws governing Hong Kong’s return from British to Chinese rule 22 years ago and is seen by the financial hub’s business and diplomatic communities as its strongest remaining asset amid encroachments from Beijing. Hong Kong’s extensive autonomy is guaranteed until 2047.

The judges and lawyers say that under Hong Kong’s British-based common law system, extraditions are based on the presumption of a fair trial and humane punishment in the receiving country – a core trust they say China’s Communist Party-controlled legal system has not earned.

'These amendments ignore the importance of that trust - and in the case of the mainland, it simply doesn’t exist,' one highly experienced judge told Reuters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.


'Many of us see this as unworkable,' the judge said. 'And we are deeply disturbed."

2019-MAY-28
''News"

"Beijing officials told foreign journalists on Tuesday to 'inject positive energy' into their coverage of proposed changes to Hong Kong’s extradition laws, according to China’s foreign ministry.
The briefing, attended by Reuters, CNN, CNBC, Kyodo News and the Financial Times, was organised by the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong.
(...)
Outgoing president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) Hong Kong, Florence de Changy, told HKFP that she rejected attempts by governments to influence foreign reporting: 'I would only comment [saying] that it is not in the tradition of the western media to be told what to write or what tone to adopt by any government… We [the FCC] have invited the Chinese authorities to present their views at the FCC and I hope they will do in due time.'”
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/05/25/beijing-officials-tell-foreign-hong-kong-press-inject-positive-energy-extradition-law-coverage/

 "China will give a five-year tax break to its home-grown semiconductor makers and software developers in a bid to bolster the industries as the trade war shifts to an assault on Chinese technology."

"Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed the need for self-reliance and innovation in a rallying call to the country to prepare to fend off various long-term challenges from the United States.
'Technological innovation is the root of life for businesses,' Xi said on Monday on a visit to Jiangxi province, state-run news agency Xinhua reported. 'Only if we own our own intellectual property and core technologies, then can we produce products with core competitiveness and [we] won’t be beaten in intensifying competition.'”

"Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said she can't act on her own accord and extradite whichever fugitives Beijing wants.

One of the concerns regarding the fugitive law amendment is that people have no confidence in rule of law in the mainland, but Lam, who has the power to initiate extradition procedures and make final decisions, can't reject any extradition requests by Beijing.

In an article this month, University of Hong Kong law professor Albert Chen Hung-yee said "the concern for many people in Hong Kong is that the chief executive can hardly refuse any extradition request from central authorities."

In a question-an-answer session yesterday, Federation of Trade Unions lawmaker Wong Kwok-kin voiced public concern over the mainland's judicial system and quoted Chen's opinion.

"As the chief executive is held accountable to Beijing, is it the case that the chief executive has no right to refuse the mainland's requests, and has to transfer fugitives even if the court rules against extraditing them?" Wong said.

Lam answered that she is accountable to both Beijing and Hongkongers, and the courts will be hearing cases about "everything under the sun."

"There is the fourth estate in Hong Kong, as the media has great power of supervision, thus the chief executive cannot transfer the fugitive if the court rules that he shouldn't be transferred due to a lack of evidence," Lam said. "It's not the case that chief executives can act on their accord to transfer somebody to other jurisdictions."

Wong also emphasized the suggestion that extraditions to the mainland should only be granted if the Supreme People's Court or the Supreme People's Procuratorate make a request.

Lam said the government has listened to many opinions over the past three months, and will make positive responses to some of the suggestions in the future.

Au Nok-hin of Council Front criticized Lam for falsely blaming foreign interference, which caused Beijing's intervention and eliminated alternatives to the fugitive law amendment.

"Western countries won't easily intervene, but the Communist Party eliminates all alternatives due to your accusations of Western intervention," Au said.

Lam mocked Au, saying that the pan-democrats had double standards by encouraging foreign intervention.

Meanwhile, a Chinese Chamber of Commerce delegation met the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference chairman Wang Yang in Beijing.


Chamber boss Jonathan Choi Koon-shum quoted Wang as saying that vice premier Han Zheng had stated Beijing's support for the fugitive law amendment the day before, and hopes the chamber will back the SAR government in getting it passed."

2019-MAY-23
''Truth"

"For many decades, every democratic government in the common law world has successfully resisted efforts by the People’s Republic of China to conclude an extradition treaty. These democracies have refused to commit to forcibly delivering, for trial in China, people whom Beijing claims have violated Chinese criminal law. Australia signed an extradition treaty with Beijing, only to have its parliament reject it in 2017.

The UK, the US, Canada, New Zealand and other common law democracies have never even signed such an agreement.
(...)
...personal experiences of many Hong Kong citizens, and those of many other countries, have shown that even though 70 years have passed since the People’s Republic’s establishment and much relevant legislation has been promulgated, its criminal justice system can still not assure alleged offenders a fair trial
(...)
Despite the Chinese system’s legendary non-transparency, its failures to meet international standards of due process are well known. Arbitrary, often lengthy, secret and incommunicado detention, widespread existence of torture and frequent denial of the effective help of defence counsel are hallmarks of the process.

The police, more powerful than prosecutors and judges, dominate China’s criminal justice officialdom, and all three departments operate subject to the dictates of the Communist Party political-legal committee and the new National Supervision Commission that control them. A single party leader’s brief instruction can determine guilt or innocence, the duration of a sentence or even the death penalty."

 https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3011117/if-beijing-wants-extradition-law-hong-kong-and-elsewhere-it

2019-MAY-23
''

"Public support for Taiwan’s embattled President Tsai Ing-wen has risen sharply after her tough rejection of Beijing’s call for unification talks, boosting her chances of winning her party’s nomination for the 2020 elections.
Tsai, whose popularity had been flagging at a low of 24 per cent due to widespread disapproval of her performance, has seen her approval rating climb by 10 percentage points to 34.5 per cent in the latest opinion poll by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation.
Michael You Ying-lung, foundation chairman and a hardline supporter of independence for the self-ruled island, said the turnaround in Tsai’s popularity showed there was no market in Taiwan for “one country, two systems”, the model for unification proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the beginning of January."

2019-MAY-23
''



2019-MAY-19
'Fatality of corruption in CCP's authoritarian model...'

"China’s green efforts hit by fake data and corruption among the grass roots.
China’s notoriously lax local government officials and polluting companies are finding creative ways to fudge their environmental responsibilities and outsmart Beijing’s pollution inspectors, despite stern warnings and tough penalties.
Recent audit reports covering the past two years released by the environment ministry showed its inspectors were frequently presented with fake data and fabricated documents, as local officials – sometimes working in league with companies – have devised multiple ways to cheat and cover up their lack of action.
Local governments have been under pressure to meet environmental protection targets since Chinese President Xi Jinping made it one of his top three policy pledges in late 2017. The performance of leading local officials is now partly assessed by how good a job they have done in cleaning up China’s much depleted environment.

According to the reports released this month by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, pollution inspectors have found evidence in a number of city environmental protection bureaus of made-up meeting notes and even instructions to local companies to forge materials.
Cao Liping, director of the ministry’s ecology and environment law enforcement department, said many of the cases uncovered were the result of officials failing to act in a timely manner.

“In some places, local officials didn’t really do the rectification work. When the inspections began, they realised they didn’t have enough time, so they made up material,” he said.
(...)
Environmental officials in Shizuishan, in the northwest region of Ningxia, tried to improve their results in December 2017 by ordering sanitation workers to spray the building of the local environmental protection bureau with an anti-smog water cannon. The intention was to lower the amount of pollutant particles registered by the building’s monitoring equipment.

The scheme may have gone undetected if the weather had been warmer but the next day a telltale layer of ice covered the building and the chief and deputy chief of the environmental station in the city’s Dawokou district were later penalised for influencing the monitoring results.
Similar tactics were deployed in Linfen, in the northern province of Shanxi in March 2017, when former bureau chief Zhang Wenqing and 11 others were found to have altered air quality monitoring data during days of heavy pollution.
The monitoring machine was blocked and sprayed with water to improve the data and Zhang was also found to have paid another person to make sure the sabotage was not captured by surveillance camera.

According to the environment ministry, six national observation stations in Linfen were interfered with more than 100 times between April 2017 and March 2018. In the same period, monitoring data was seriously distorted on 53 occasions."

 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3010679/chinas-green-efforts-hit-fake-data-and-corruption-among-grass?fbclid=IwAR1TJUvelbIDsFRktu5IEunV6Xem2rUI9VNH0ooFPVMf9Xhzng2FkKFCkTs

2019-MAY-16
'More despicable news than I can keep-up with...'

So many despicable news about Hong Kong and China, I just can't keep-up!

CCP-fan-boy Xiaorong Han censors review which exposes Uyghur's treatment:
"How an Academic Journal Censored My Review on Xinjiang
On January 1, 2018, I received a request from China and Asia: A Journal in Historical Studies, a new journal sponsored by the academic publisher Brill, a respected Dutch publishing house with some 275 journals under its aegis, which claims “over three centuries of scholarly publishing.” The request from the journal was to review Tom Cliff’s book Oil and Water – an ethnography about Han settler experiences in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
(...)
The next day, I received a brief message from the book review editor. The editorial staff “suggest a minor change,” he wrote: to delete the entire first paragraph, in which I had outlined the situation in Xinjiang. I opened the edited document to see the first paragraph, as well as the first two sentences of the second paragraph, had been crossed out (see screenshot below). I was more confused than upset. I spent the evening and next morning trying to make sense of this editorial decision, before responding in an email asking for clarification and expressing my concerns over censorship. The book review editor forwarded my note to the editor-in-chief of the journal, Han Xiaorong.
(...)
On digging deeper, I came to believe that this was not an “honest mistake” (they chased up the review several times, after all) but that the journal would not allow my review to criticize the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) policies in Xinjiang. I discovered that the editor-in-chief, a professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, conducts formal research on Xinjiang and Tibet, and claims state-minority relations as one of his specializations. In 2013, he wrote an op-ed in Ta Kung Pao, Hong Kong’s pro-CCP paper, in which he identifies “outside influences, especially from the western world and the Muslim world” as one of six sources of the region’s unrest. I shared this information with Brill, but they haven’t responded yet."


"Both the Liaison Office's article and its director Wang Zhimin in its leader meeting showed strong support to back the #FugitiveExtraditionHK bill amendment. Meeting Ronnie Tong in Beijing, HKMAO director Zhang Xiaoming said the amendment is appropriate, reasonable and legitimate. This is not the first time officials in Beijing backing the bill amendment. Zhang Yong, deputy director of Basic Law Committee, and Chen Dong, deputy director of the Liaison Office, also said they do not want Hong Kong to become a fugitive sanctuary."


Proof that commies haven't learnt what has been saving China from collapse since 1980... globalisation capitalism, not cronyism... 

 "The Communist Party in China is handing out low-interest loans to companies that prove their loyalty to the party and to Xi's ruling doctrines"

Bloomberg Businessweek, May 6, 2019

Read the following article and remember it when deportations start...


"In the current debate on extradition, some commentators have defended the mainland’s legal system, pointing to various “improvements” in recent years. We should examine such “improvements” and China’s rule of law, not in terms of the statute books, but by how people experience the rule of law.
For example, since 2002, those who aspire to join the private legal profession, the state prosecution body and the judiciary must pass a national exam. This written test, which includes multiple choices questions and essay writing, is all you need to qualify for a lawyer’s practice certificate; formal practical training is generally non-existent.
Recently, law students have been provided with standard study material on Marxist-Leninist socialist rule of law. Professors are required to take a multiple-choice test on the thoughts of President Xi Jinping and are increasingly wary that students may report their teaching to the university Communist Party committee. Tsinghua University, ranked Asia’s top university, recently suspended law professor Xu Zhangrun, who wrote articles criticising the country’s governance.
(...)
Meaningful legal aid is not yet widely available. The latest nationwide legal aid budget is around 2.2 billion yuan, compared to around HK$1 billion in Hong Kong. In Beijing, practising lawyers are obliged to take up at least one legal aid case a year, at a nominal rate of 200 yuan per case. The general impression is that lawyers who are obliged to take up these cases lack passion.

In some cities, there has been some improvement in terms of witnesses attending court proceedings. One survey indicates that, on average, in about 10 per cent of cases, defence lawyers can cross-examine witnesses in court. Even if lawyers successfully apply for leave to summon witnesses, there is no guarantee they will turn up. It is common for the police to refuse to attend court without giving a reason. 
(...)
Since the evidence leading to a conviction is predominantly confession-based, torture remains an attractive means of investigation. Also, if Chinese judges were solely concerned with the truth of a confession, there would have been fewer cases of miscarriage of justice over the years, including wrongful executions.
(...)
Chinese prosecutors’ performance is appraised annually according to the conviction rate of the cases they handled and judges must pledge loyalty to the Communist Party. A judge in Shaanxi province lost her job after finding against the local government in a case ruling that the latter’s conduct was unconstitutional. The Supreme People’s Court, upon overturning her judgment, issued a directive, stating that the constitution must not be referred to and relied upon in any court proceedings.
(...)
Since President Xi came to power, lawyers have been subject to tighter state control; they are subject to, for example, annual inspection of their licences. In 2012, the Ministry of Justice required all lawyers to take an oath that starts with pledging 'to faithfully fulfil my solemn duty as a legal practitioner under socialism with Chinese characteristics, to be loyal to the motherland and to its people, and to support the leadership of Communist Party of China and the socialist system”, before mentioning a duty to “safeguard the dignity of the constitution and the law'”.

 https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3010015/chinas-rule-law-has-not-improved-enough-reassure

"Wikipedia blocked in China ahead of Tiananmen Square anniversary"
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3010361/wikipedia-blocked-china-ahead-tiananmen-square-anniversary

 Then there's Alex Lo's article on... ah... nevermind. Nobody seriously care anymore about whatever drivel Lo has to write...

2019-MAY-13
'Munk Debates, always relevant...'

Is China a threat to the liberal international order?
74% say Yes, 26% say No

https://www.munkdebates.com/The-Debates/China

As usual, Munk Debates are worth watching.

2019-MAY-10
''nough said...'

 "Taiwan won’t ask for murder suspect if Hong Kong passes ‘politically motivated’ extradition law"
There is no rush, there is no reason, and Carrie Lam is a liar...

 https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/05/10/taiwan-wont-ask-murder-suspect-hong-kong-passes-politically-motivated-extradition-law/
2019-MAY-08
'Failure of logic...'

A friend told me recently that the Hong Kong government's problem is that they are a bunch of bureaucrats that are more concerned about processes and rules than results that benefit Hong-Kongers. This was somewhat of a revelation to me as I couldn't fathom the source of the incompetence of the current and prior administrations (since 1997); it is the level-0 of incompetence "They don't know what they don't know"

Worthy proposal from the pan-dems:

Yet rejected by the bureaucrat because it would change the way they do things...

Typical bureaucrat answer.

The answer for accountability: fully elected government.

P.S. Of course, town-idiot Ronny Tong provides his tidbit of incoherence:
" Ronny Tong: People Against Bill Amendment Don't Believe in 1C2S, Better Emigrate

ExCo member Ronny Tong said the proposals mentioned in the community with regard to the bill amendment are practically or technically impossible, and that reflects people proposing these packages do not understand the principles of amending the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance (FOO) or even misunderstood the government's proposal. Tong added that those who are against the amendment do not believe in the judicial independence in Hong Kong as well as One Country, Two Systems (1C2S). Their concerns cannot be solved and there is no room for discussion, so these people should emigrate to elsewhere, Tong said.

The ExCo member also said the current FOO was enacted during the colonial era. Back then, there was no requirement of handing fugitives to jurisdictions under the ICCPR. Tong pointed out that the UK and the US also surrendered fugitives to some countries not under the ICCPR, so he has doubts over whether it is needed to set such a principle."

2019-MAY-04
'Know thy enemy...'

Garbage article in The Standard by a certain Susan Liang who obviously has no clue what the Rule-of-law means, probably because her law degree only served to close property deals...

Let's review the falsehoods:

"The jailing of four leaders of the Occupy Central movement is a message to all those who aspire to advance their own ideas of democracy that they should do it 'peacefully.'
By occupying Central, the life and hub of this city, it is a form of "violence" imposed on the silent majority who may not share in their fight for immediate full democracy.
The offer from China was one man, one vote, but from a pool of preselected candidates, which was rejected by the pro-democracy camp.

The silent majority prefers stability and a step-by-step progression to democracy through negotiations with the central government."


I'm quite certain that the editor forced her to use the quotes there because it was overwhelmingly recognized that the Occupy movement of 2014 was done extremely peacefully, to the point that not count of violent protest or inciting to violence could have been charged towards the organizers.
Second lie is the idea that there's a "silent majority" which prefers a "progression to democracy through negotiations with the central government". First, this will never happen as the CCP will never allow proper democracy from Hong Kong, so, there's no 'negotiation' possible beyond accepting the fact that Beijing runs the show. Hong Kongers know that full well. Second, there's no 'silent majority', that's a false concept resulting from a bogus interpretation of opinion polls. 
This is yet another example of how CCP supporters, through what is portrayed as an individual's 'opinion piece', play a part of the wider propaganda plan to convince Hong Kongers to just go with the flow and accept the unacceptable.




2019-MAY-04
'China sad...'

Why would the happy country of Taiwan want to be merged into big, unhappy, communist China?

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-happiest-country-on-every-continent/



2019-MAY-03
'Know thy enemy...'


" 'The essence of patriotism is to combine one's love for the country with love for the party and socialism,' said Xi Jinping to the gathered crowd of students, workers, soldiers, and local party officials.

 Xi also condemned those who 'betray the motherland' as well as those who are not patriotic in support of China as a communist country.

 'It's very shameful if a person isn't patriotic or even deceives or betrays the motherland. There is no place for such a person to stand anywhere,' said the autocratic ruler to his captive audience."

 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3691983

2019-APR-30
'Bunch of links'

"Who Owns Huawei?
In summary, we find the following:

• The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.

• We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
• Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.

• What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual interests in a profit-sharing scheme.

• Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.


• Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the employees do not."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669


"I grew up learning that my city’s core values were rooted in the freedoms granted by the Basic Law, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of press and publication. Myself and many people from Hong Kong take pride in being somewhat politically separated from China, which is governed by the Chinese Communist Party that notoriously censors the internet and imprisons dissident people in China. Many citizens even call themselves “Hongkonger” which the Oxford Dictionary later adopted in 2014."

2019-APR-29
2019-APR-28
'#1 country in the world... for hacking democracies'

"Amnesty International's Hong Kong office has been hit by a years-long cyber attack from hackers with known links to the Chinese government, the human rights group said yesterday.

The hackers attempted to collect information on the group in order to obstruct its humanitarian work."

2019-APR-25
'Sad'

"Carrie Lam, Hong Kong Chief Executive
I want to reiterate that Hong Kong is a rule of law society, and we deeply cherish the spirit of the rule of law. No matter if it is the government or the public, they must respect and strictly adhere to the law… I cannot see how these court cases have affected freedom of speech, assembly or demonstration in the free society of Hong Kong…. Since the Handover, whenever we have issues – big and small – a lot of people, organisations and lawmakers have used Hong Kong’s freedom of expression to organise marches and public assemblies."
 Quite sad that the Hong Kong C.E. does not even know the basics of what rule-of-law is...

See more reactions on this Hong Kong Free Press article:

The Progressive Lawyers Group releases a report tracking the threats to Hong Kong's rule-of-law:

 2019-APR-23
'Rendition'

"There has been much debate about the China fugitives transfer bill. Yet, surprisingly, the government has rarely pitched Hongkongers on the reciprocity that would allow local authorities to get hold of criminals on the run beyond its jurisdiction.
This could have been good spin, given the number of criminals that have disappeared into mainland China over the years. They formed the majority of those on the wanted lists from the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).
(...)
There are two possible explanations for that. Firstly, the benefits of the amendment to Hong Kong have never come to mind. If you have never thought about it, it could be easily overlooked.
Or, alternatively, they know very well that reciprocity doesn’t really work when it comes to mainland China. That’s not an unfair assessment judging from the lessons learnt in two financial scandals."

2019-APR-22
'Human Development Index'

China has to be more like Hong Kong, not the other way around...

 The United Nations' 2018 Human Development Report
http://hdr.undp.org/en/2018-update




2019-APR-21
'Rule-by-law'

"The Occupy 9 trial shows Hong Kong’s judicial standards are out of line with the rest of the world’s

Basically, these are the people who in disciplinary circles would be labelled 'ringleaders.' The charges were some interesting legal antiques involving 'inciting to commit a public nuisance,' and even 'inciting to incite a public nuisance.'
(...)
Lurking in reports of the proceedings was an interesting legal issue. All or most of the defence lawyers commented, it appears, on the length of time taken by the prosecution to charge and try the defendants, as a factor which should mitigate the resulting sentences.
The delay was as follows: the offences took place in September 2014. Some of the defendants were not arrested until January 2017 and charged a further two months later. There followed a further two-year delay before the trial.
(...)
As one of the standard textbooks puts it: “According to article 14 (3)(c) of the International Covenant and articles20 (4)(c) and 21 (4)(c) of the respective Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, every person facing a criminal charge shall have the right “to be tried without undue delay.” In the words of article7 (1)(d) of the African Charter, article 8(1) of the American Convention and article 6(1) of the European Convention, everyone has the right to be heard “within a reasonable time.”
This point is also recognised in the Department of Justice’s own Code for Prosecutors, which says that “The prosecutor must be alert to the rights of an accused which are relevant to the prosecution process, including equality before the law, the rights to have confidential legal advice, to be presumed innocent, and to have a fair trial without undue delay.” These rights are attributed to Basic Law Articles 25, 35 and 87, and  Bill of Rights Articles 10 and 11.
(...)
The European Court examines each case on its merits and does not have a stated time limit. The Supreme Court of Canada is less timid. It 'rejected the framework traditionally used to determine whether an accused was tried within a reasonable time under section 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and replaced it with a presumptive ceiling of 18 months between the charges and the trial in a provincial court without preliminary inquiry, or 30 months in other cases.'"
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/04/21/occupy-9-trial-shows-hong-kongs-judicial-standards-line-rest-worlds/

2019-APR-16
'C.Y 2.0'

"Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor says the Hong Kong government will create a favorable atmosphere for the enactment of Basic Law Article 23.

Several officials from Beijing had explicitly or implicitly hurried Lam to enact the security law over the past few years.

Speculation has been rife that Lam would finally do so as it is believed by some to be a prerequisite for her reelection in 2022."http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=206913


2019-APR-16
'Doom for Hong Kong's freedoms'

No-one will be able to say they could not have foreseen the CCP's desire to remove freedom-of-expression from Hong Kong's mini-constitution; first, you demonize what was essentially a peaceful demonstration, then you rationalize that freedom-restricting laws are required. Then you divert laws to abolish any resistance.

"Liaison Office director Wang Zhimin yesterday accused some locals of 'colluding with anti-Chinese politicians' and posing threats to national security even as some countries are employing tactics to try to contain China.

Wang's remarks came in a speech at the National Security Education Day Hong Kong Symposium attended by representatives of the SAR administration, the Liaison Office and the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office.

Wang said Beijing is coping with the most complex and capricious security environment since the end of the Cold War, and some countries are desperately trying to contain China by playing the 'Hong Kong card.'

He added: 'A handful of individuals in Hong Kong are busy colluding with anti-China politicians and organizations by taking part in closed-door meetings and seminars in an attempt to badmouth Hong Kong and beg for foreign intervention.

'These few individuals, who are paid generously with taxpayers' money, have made repeated overseas pilgrimages to sell out Hong Kong for personal gain.'

And they were set to be despised by the people of Hong Kong and the entire nation, he declared.

But Wang did not go on to name anybody.

It was noted, however, that former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang and legislators Dennis Kwok Wing-hang and Charles Mok went to the United States in March and met American politicians - including Vice President Mike Pence - to express their concerns over the implementation of the one country, two systems arrangement.

Wang then moved on to identify the Occupy movement as having been a serious threat to national security.

He said: 'Many of my friends kept asking these questions: Why did some professors and scholars brazenly instigate this illegal campaign of Occupy Central that endangers national security? Why should the general public pay for the damages they inflicted?'

He also said the Occupy movement pointed to a legal loophole in Hong Kong's legal system when it came to safeguarding national security.

'There is only the responsibility of one country in terms of national security," Wang remarked, "and there is no difference between the two systems.'

He said the fact that all nine defendants in the Occupy public nuisance cases were found guilty on April 9 made that day an important one in the manifestation of the rule of law in Hong Kong.

The deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Deng Zhonghua, who arrived from Beijing for the event, said there were incidents in Hong Kong impacting the bottom line of national security and they should be handled with zero tolerance.

'This is the most important item in implementing the one country principle in Hong Kong and also the duty and responsibility of the SAR government and Hong Kong citizens,' Deng said. 'Relevant laws should be improved, and any behavior threatening national sovereignty and security should be prevented and punished.' "



"The fugitive law amendment must proceed even if the suspect in a Taiwan murder case gets released, says Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu.
(...)
Separately, the Civil Human Rights Front has called on groups that have voiced concerns over the proposed amendment bill to join its protest in front of Legco at 8am tomorrow."



2019-APR-12
'C.Y 2.0'


"Nine democracy leaders responsible for the largest civil disobedience movement in Hong Kong’s history were on Tuesday found guilty over their roles in the 2014 protests.

Judge Johnny Chan Jong-herng called the three founders of the city’s Occupy movement – academics Benny Tai Yiu-ting, 55, and Dr Chan Kin-man, 60, and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, 75 – 'naive' to suggest that by encouraging people to block roads they could force the government to bow to their political demands."

 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3005312/occupy-leaders-found-guilty-over-role-hong-kongs-2014

 It is interesting to see how the CCP propaganda paper ChinaDaily presents this outcome:

 "Hong Kong residents have plenty of reasons to feel proud of the city they call home and effective rule of law is no doubt one of the main reasons for many if not all. That is why so many locals went on social media to cheer the guilty verdict by the District Court Tuesday on a range of criminal charges against nine of the leading figures in the 79-day illegal campaign of 'Occupy Central', which caused huge losses to the SAR.

 The guilty verdict was widely considered long overdue but most people knew the day of reckoning was coming. Many publicly condemned the criminal acts by some 'Occupiers' in the early days of the illegal movement. This was in sharp contrast to the hypocrisy displayed by some Western governments and politicians in encouraging such wanton challenges to Hong Kong’s rule of law — using concern about individual rights and freedoms as an excuse for illegal behavior.

 Today, few if any still remember how the Western pro-democracy camp celebrated the Umbrella Movement, but people cannot but compare the recent and often violent yellow-jacket protestors in some European cities to the aggressive protesters in Hong Kong more than four years ago. Many of the demonstrators in Europe were arrested and charged with offenses such as reckless endangerment, vandalism and even arson in the wake of heavy-handed responses by local riot police and even the military."

What is probably more concerning is that some uneducated people will fall for these false-equivalencies; Occupy 2014 was by an large an extremely peacely movement. There was minimal violence, most of which was originated by the Hong Kong police force. There is definitely a reason why the nine occupy leaders were only charged with the minor crime of 'public nuisance'; because that's the only credible charge they could muster. It only makes the evidence of this Beijing-pleasing verdict more plain, by applying CCP-styled rule-by-law.

 https://www.chinadailyhk.com/articles/74/123/138/1554913392334.html?newsId=67468
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Daily 


C.Y. 2.0...
"Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor says claims her administration exploited the judiciary in the Occupy movement trial are wrong.

 She made the remarks after pan-democrats slammed the trial as political revenge and Gyde Jensen, who chairs a German Bundestag panel on human rights, said it was unacceptable that protesters were intimidated when exercising freedom of speech.
Lam said: 'I think those comments are totally unsubstantiated and unfounded, and they will damage Hong Kong's international reputation in terms of our rule of law.'

 She also rebuked former governor Chris Patten, who said 'anachronistic common law charges' were used in a vengeful pursuit of political activities.

 'It's meaningless for someone to say whether the law is updated or anachronistic because any law on our law books are applicable,' Lam argued.

 http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=206761&sid=47387612

 Either she is truly not the sharpest tool in the shed, or she is convinced that she must hide Beijing's pulling the strings at all costs... At any rate, she certainly seems to be clueless about the rule-of-law...



2019-APR-06
'Today in the press'


Hong Kong Basic Law Article 5: 
"The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years."

"Basic Law Committee vice chairwoman Maria Tam Wai-chu says Hong Kong's role in the Greater Bay Area initiative will see the SAR keep its "one country, two systems" framework after 2047, when it is set to expire.

Tam also warned yesterday that if Hong Kong becomes a base for anti-communism, it will lose its special status and high degree of autonomy.

(...)

'But if Hong Kong becomes an anti-communist base, any cooperation will be difficult, and it will be difficult to retain the one country, two systems any longer.'

Tam said Hong Kong would be in the best position to keep the high degree of autonomy if it continues with its roles in helping mainland enterprises to go global, and introducing foreign investment to the mainland.

She also called on young people to visit the mainland every year to experience the improvements achieved in past years."


Carrie Lam is truly C.Y. 2.0...

"There is no basis for omitting white collar crimes from the proposed amendment to the fugitive laws, and such exclusions would not in any event have any bearing on fundamental problems arising from a different criminal justice system in the mainland, the Bar Association argued yesterday. 

'If the exclusions are motivated by concerns over the proposed changes to the extradition regime enabling rendition of persons to the rest of the People's Republic of China, these concerns should apply to all offenses and not just some,' the statement said.

The Bar Association also believes the protection that appears to be going into place with the exemptions is 'illusory' because business people can always be extradited with alternative offenses, adding: 'An allegation of infringing intellectual property protection laws (exempted) can also give rise to allegations of obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception (not exempted).'

The administration has claimed repeatedly that it was a 'loophole' to have no long-term extradition arrangement to the rest of the PRC, but the Bar Association slammed that as a misleading assertion because it had been a deliberate decision not to include the rest of PRC into areas allowing fugitive transfers 'particularly in light of the fundamentally different criminal justice system operating in the mainland and concerns over the mainland's track records on the protection of fundamental rights.'"


"The first legislative step to amend the fugitive law was passed by the Legislative Council in relative calm, with the pro-democracy camp left with few openings to filibuster.

The first and second readings of the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019 came yesterday afternoon. Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu introduced the bill for the second reading.

Legislator Kwok Ka-ki of the Civic Party made a quorum call before Lee started, and it took more than 10 minutes for enough legislators to return to the chamber for the meeting."


"The safety of reporters would be under threat if the fugitive-law amendment is approved, a joint statement by journalist groups claims.
The amendment first frustrated the business sector and pan-democrats. Now journalist groups have voiced their fears.
Four groups - the Hong Kong Journalist Association and Hong Kong Press Photographers Association, trade unions of several print media, six online media and the director of the School of Communication and Journalism of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Francis Lee Lap-fung - issued the statement.
They are concerned not only of threats to journalists' safety, but also the 'chilling effect' on the freedom of expression.
'Numerous journalists have been charged or harassed by mainland authorities under criminal offenses covered by the amendment,' the statement said.
It suggested several Hong Kong journalists working in the mainland were alleged to have committed crimes on the list of misdeeds permitting extradition, such as drug possession and bribery."


2019-APR-06
'Really?'

While The Standard's Cheng Huan April 1st piece does read an April fool's bad joke. I wanted to address the last 2 paragraphs which state:
"Demographic trends indicate that the population of France is shifting toward being predominantly Muslim, and there's nothing anybody can do to stop it.

 Beijing's leadership must be truly thankful that because China has not followed the democratic path it does not face the social dislocations and democratic disorder that plague Europe."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=206468

First, because the second paragraph is patently false; China suffers severe social dislocations as if the sending of over a million Uighur's to re-education camps, in the best neo-Mao fashion.

And second, because Mr Huan completely misses the point and core strength of democracy; its ability to bend and adjust.This is something that dictatorships such a the CCP's cannot do. It does create short term social unrest but eventually, stability returns as citizen-driven and democratic-institutions-driven adjustments are implemented. Meanwhile, post-industrial revolution dictatorships have never survived a century.

2019-APR-06
'How quick we forget...'


Over 5 years ago, Hong Kong saw an end to Occupy Central/Umbrella movement. The years following these events have seen a marked slide in Hong Kong's political independence from Beijing, and reduction of freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of expression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Central_with_Love_and_Peace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests

As the local 2-bit commies would have it, the Occupy Central/Umbrella movement was very violent and justified the severe restrictions to freedom of speech and assembly that resulted. 

First, maybe let's re-establish some basic facts since the same local commentators got these wrong and quoted "one hundred policemen were injured". The number is actually 65, and out of these, only 40 were sent to the hospital. This pales in comparison to the 220+ civilians that had to be rushed to the hospital for injuries during the same events.

 "The storming and confrontations at different locations of unlawful assemblies in recent days have resulted in the injury of 65 police officers.  According to the records of the Fire Services Department (FSD), as at November 3, a total of 262 persons, including 40 police officers, were sent to hospital by FSD ambulances due to injury or not feeling well during the protest assemblies."
https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201411/05/P201411050729.htm

 The idea is not to make it a numbers game; violence should be avoided at all costs. But if there's something that correctly characterize the Umbrella/Occupy Central movement, is the extreme attention to non-violence and respect of order taken by its leaders.

 Contrast this to the Hong Kong police beating of activist Ken Tsang: https://youtu.be/oGwVXBEvPcs https://youtu.be/NLlauagU17Y

Maybe even worse than the crime of the police force itself, are the disgusting comments from Beijing aligned lawmakers:

"Legislator Priscilla Leung Mei-fun of the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong said she respects the court’s decision but the officers might have been forced to do what they were accused of after being provoked and insulted by the protesters.

 Ann Chiang Lai-wan from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) also echoed Leung’s view, saying the case was an isolated one and their crime was the result of having been provoked."

 http://www.ejinsight.com/20170216-police-chief-gives-pep-talk-to-staff-after-seven-cops-convicted/

Not to mention the Beijing-supporting media and commentators that pitched in support of restricting freedoms further or supporting police and government-led repression. Details here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beating_of_Ken_Tsang

Even to the extent that the CE's adviser happily spread fake-news about cop-beatings:

"The media-and-communications adviser to Hong Kong’s beleaguered leader, Leung Chun-ying, posted a photo to Facebook on Wednesday that showed a grimacing, blood-spattered “cop” said to have been wounded in a clash with pro-democracy protesters the previous night.

 The photo was being circulated by supporters of the police, keen to show that the demonstrators weren’t as peaceful as they claimed to be.

 (...)

 HKTV, the network set to air Night Shift, confirmed on Facebook on Wednesday that the image was of one of its actors. It posted the zombie-cop photo next to a picture of the show’s actor without his living-dead makeup."

http://time.com/3512521/occupy-central-hong-kong-andrew-fung-wai-kwong-zombie-cop-hktv-night-shift/

Did Hong Kong already forget the events of 1967 where pro-communist directly supported by Beijing actually exploded bombs and fostered true social unrest?

"By the time the rioting subsided at the end of the year, 51 people had been killed, of whom 15 died in bomb attacks, with 832 people sustaining injuries"

And remember that the DAB is, from its very foundation, a pro-Beijing, pro-communist party:

"Some of the members who participated in the 1967 riot have since regained a foothold in Hong Kong politics during the early 1990s. Tsang Tak-sing, a communist party supporter and riot participant, later became the founder of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong. Along with his brother Tsang Yok-sing, they continued to acknowledge Marxism in Hong Kong

 In 2001, Yeung Kwong, a pro-Communist party activist of the 1960s, was awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal under Tung Chee-hwa, a symbolic gesture that raised controversy as to whether the post-1997 Hong Kong government of the time was approving the riot.

 In 2017, hundreds of protesters who took part in the 1967 riots were hailed as heroes in a memorial ceremony at Wo Hop Shek public cemetery to mark the 50th anniversary of the uprising. Former finance sector lawmaker Ng Leung-sing and the Federation of Trade Unions' Michael Luk Chung-hung, along with Chan Shi-yuen, head of 67 Synergy Group were some of the prominent attendees. They called for Beijing to vindicate of the protests, which they have continued to refer to as a 'patriotic act against British colonial tyranny'"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1967_leftist_riots

It should be clear to all that the root cause of violence and social unrest in Hong Kong, throughout its history is the ever tightening grip of the CCP, via the unelected CE, CCP supporting political parties such as the DAB, Beijing-controlled press, and clueless political commentators...

2019-MAR-31
'One country, one hell'

"March 31, 2019

 Carrie Lam
Chief Executive
Office of the Chief Executive
Tamar
Hong Kong
ceo@ceo.gov.hk

Re: Proposed Changes to Hong Kong’s Extradition Laws

Dear Chief Executive,

 We are writing to express concerns about the Hong Kong Security Bureau’s proposed changes to two Hong Kong laws concerning extradition, the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance (FOO) and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Ordinance. Amnesty International, Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, and Human Rights Watch are concerned that these changes would remove existing safeguards from the process of extradition, allowing people to be sent to jurisdictions, notably mainland China, where they are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment, and unfair trials.

 Under existing legislation, Hong Kong authorities can only extradite people to jurisdictions with which the Hong Kong government has standing extradition agreements or to other jurisdictions on a case-by-case basis. Changes to these arrangements must be ordered by the Hong Kong chief executive and scrutinized by the Legislative Council (LegCo).

 The existing legislation excludes mainland China from these arrangements, a deliberate decision taken before Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997, reflecting public and lawmakers’ concerns about China’s poor human rights record, and to build international confidence in the territory’s “One Country, Two Systems.”

 But the proposed Security Bureau changes would expand the case-by-case extradition arrangement to mainland China, enabling the Hong Kong government to transfer criminal suspects to the mainland authorities. The changes would remove the LegCo from scrutinizing these individual executive requests, a crucial layer of governmental and public oversight.

 The Security Bureau contends that the amendments contain adequate safeguards for human rights because, among other elements, the crime concerned must constitute an offense in both jurisdictions and cannot be “political in nature.”

 In practice, the safeguards are unlikely to provide genuine protection. The Chinese government regularly brings criminal charges recognized as legitimate and non-political, such as tax offenses, to prosecute and imprison peaceful activists, human rights defenders, and those who oppose government policy.

 Moreover, the ability of Hong Kong’s judiciary to withstand pressure from China in ruling on such cases is increasingly in question. Hong Kong courts are generally known for their independence and the enforcement of procedural protections.  However, these safeguards are unlikely to be adequate when dealing with extradition requests from the mainland, including because judgments of Hong Kong courts may be subject to Beijing’s “interpretations of the Basic Law.” In 2016, the Chinese government actively interfered in a highly political court case, ejecting two pro-independence advocates elected to the LegCo.

 In recent years, the Hong Kong government has increasingly made use of the legal system to silence critical voices, bringing politically motivated prosecutions against peaceful protesters. The courts have convicted and sentenced a number of them. The extradition amendments, once they pass, can present a potent tool for the Hong Kong and Beijing governments to further intimidate critics.

 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which applies to Hong Kong, and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which Hong Kong is bound, as well as customary international law, prohibit the return of individuals to jurisdictions in which there is a real risk of torture and other ill-treatment, including detention in poor conditions for indefinite periods, or other serious human rights violations. We also note the obligation to mandatorily and generally refuse extradition requests where the person sought may face the death penalty, as reflected in present Hong Kong law and practice, and that any assurances as to its non-application would have to be reliable, effective, and open to judicial overview in Hong Kong.

 China's justice system has a record of arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, serious violations of fair trial rights, and various systems of incommunicado detention without trial. These problems are exacerbated because the judiciary lacks independence from the government and Chinese Communist Party. As a result, we are gravely concerned that anyone extradited to China will be at risk of torture and other ill-treatment and other grave human rights violations.

 We urge the Hong Kong Security Bureau to rescind its proposals to amend the legislation.


 We look forward to your reply and would be pleased to discuss these matters with appropriate officials at your convenience.


 Sincerely,

Man-kei Tam
Director
Amnesty International Hong Kong


 Law Yuk Kai
Director
Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor


 Sophie Richardson
China Director
Human Rights Watch


CC: John Lee Ka-chiu, Secretary for Security"

 https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/30/joint-letter-chief-executive-carrie-lam
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/03/31/dear-carrie-lam-hongkongers-risk-unfair-trials-torture-ill-treatment-new-china-extradition-plan/?fbclid=IwAR3h6PDFGxHwQ2t8n8a1DFK3qZK2UloE1nfWAZh1sVi7hzjmp3UYbkZuypE

2019-MAR-30
'One country, one country'

"Amnesty International Hong Kong warns of severe deterioration for human rights in its annual review

 The human rights review highlights how the Hong Kong government is increasingly using 'national security' as an excuse to deprive people in Hong Kong of their human rights. Individuals who advocate for Hong Kong’s independence or self-determination, by non-violent means, are cast as a threat to 'national security', and their peaceful activism is branded ‘illegal’, in breach of Hong Kong’s human rights law and the government’s obligations to uphold international human rights standards."

https://www.amnesty.org.hk/en/hong-kong-freedom-of-expression-under-sustained-attack-with-human-rights-situation-in-rapid-decline/

2019-MAR-29
'More lies from the middle-kingdom'

Remember that less than 18 months ago, China was claiming that these camps did not even exist!

 "China on Thursday hit back at criticism from the United States’ top diplomat who called its treatment of Muslims “shameful hypocrisy” after speaking with a former prisoner from a Chinese detention camp.

 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the comment after meeting with Mihrigul Tursun, a member of the Uighur ethnic group who has spoken publicly in the US about what she said was widespread torture in China’s prisons for the minority group.

 Beijing claims the camps are “vocational training centres” that provide language classes and employment, steering locals away from extremism."

 https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/03/29/extremely-absurd-china-slams-us-criticism-treatment-muslims/

2019-MAR-18
'Status report: pants still burning'

"A coalition of campaigners made the remarks two days after Hong Kong’s No 2 official Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said at the five-yearly Universal Periodic Review session in Geneva that the “one country, two systems” principle was successfully implemented.
(...)
When French representatives raised suggestions about guaranteeing freedom of expression, assembly and association in Hong Kong, the Chinese delegation said this was 'accepted and already implemented'.
(...)
When Canada recommended that people in Hong Kong should be able to join the government without distinction, the delegation said this was 'accepted and being implemented'."

 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3002071/mainland-chinese-and-hong-kong-officials-lied-un-human

2019-MAR-15
'Liar liar, pants on fire!'

"Chen Zhimin, who held the senior security post from 2009 to 2017, said mainland authorities "have the names of every single one of these people," adding that they were wanted for serious crimes.
(...)
Chen, who is now a member of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said Hong Kong had returned to China for more than 20 years but had still not reached an extradition arrangement with the mainland. He urged the SAR to improve, saying many foreign countries and even Taiwan had already reached such agreements with the mainland."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=205899

 Absolutely a lie!


2019-MAR-12
'Old goat'


"Hong Kong plans to make it possible for the first time to extradite criminals to China in a move that critics worry could be misused by Beijing to detain people passing through the international business hub for political or other reasons.

The territory’s security bureau this week proposed to amend a law that has long prevented the transfer of fugitives from Hong Kong to either China, Macau or Taiwan, to instead allow extradition requests from the three jurisdictions to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The suggested changes would allow Hong Kong’s chief executive, who is appointed directly by Beijing, to issue arrest certificates. A final decision on the surrender of fugitives would be decided by a court as a safeguard for defendants’ legal and human rights."


"Taiwan’s top government agency handling cross-strait affairs has forcefully rejected the claim that it was responsible for Hong Kong’s latest attempt to update its extradition law.

Pro-Beijing heavyweight Maria Tam, who was attending the 'two sessions' meeting in Beijing, told reporters on Thursday that Taiwan had asked for the amendment, not China’s central government.

She added that, 'as far as she was concerned,' the HKSAR Basic Law Committee also did not discuss the extradition law update. Tam is the vice-chairperson of the committee, which is an advisory body under the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC).

Tam’s comments drew a strong rebuke from Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which called her words 'utter nonsense, a complete fabrication, [and] purposefully misleading.'

'There has been constant scepticism from all sides since the Hong Kong government proposed the amendment. The relevant authorities should listen to the advice and reflect deeply on why they lost the public’s trust,' the council wrote.

'Spouting nonsense and deflecting responsibility will only show their ignorance, and this will not help Hongkongers achieve fairness or justice.' "


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