defrog | Entries tagged with anarchy in the hk

Well, I’m trying, anyway.

What Are Biblical Values?: What the Bible Says on Key Ethical Issues by John J. Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another reading assignment, so even though I’ve read John J. Collins before (also for a class, and that was a textbook), that’s probably irrelevant to my decision to read him again. But this one, while academically inclined, is not a textbook, but rather a critique of politicians and other people who justify their positions and policies on hot-button ethical and social issues (gender, gay marriage, abortion, climate change, etc) by claiming they’re based on “Biblical values”. The problem, argues Collins, is that the people who say this sort of thing either cherry-pick their “values”, or apparently haven’t studied the Bible very deeply. Or possibly both.

Collins looks at what the text of the Bible has to say about the above topics, plus things like violence, social justice and slavery, with the caveat that his objective isn’t to declare which side is right, but to highlight the problem of relying on what is in essence a complex and often contradictory anthology of writings – what Collins describes as less of a unified, cohesive treatise and more of a running argument written and edited by dozens of different people over the span of a few thousand years – to justify a given modern-day position.

Overall, Collins makes a good case that (1) anyone who wants to talk about Biblical values in any meaningful way must at the very least engage with that text in depth with a reasonably open mind to identify consistent and objective “values” from the text, and (2) anyone who does so may find themselves surprised to find how little support the Bible may provide. Obviously, what the reader makes of this will largely depend on how literally they take the Bible in the first place. Others may be put off by Collins declining to settle scores for them. For me, I got a lot out of it, but then I’m not a fundamentalist, and I also agree with one of his key points: “To treat the Bible as a magic book of answers to modern problems amounts to refusing to grapple with it seriously.”

Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy by Shibani Mahtani

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

English-language books about the 2019 Hong Kong protests tend to have a specific hook or angle based on the personal experience or expertise of the author, so while each volume may not be comprehensive, they do add up to a broader picture when you put them together. This one illustrates the complex history of the pro-democracy movement in HK and how it evolved over time before 1997 (when Britain gave the city back to China under the “One Country Two Systems” principle that promised to preserve HK’s freedoms and common-law system for 50 years, and allow it to become a proper democracy) and after, until the National Security Law 0f 2020 crushed it.

Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin – who covered the 2019 protests at street level – tell that story by focusing on four key people – Rev. Chu Yiu-ming, one of the pioneers of the pro-democracy movement; “Tommy”, an art student on the front lines of the 2019 protests; Finn Lau, who played a key role in the decentralised, online side of the protests; and Gwyneth Ho, a journalist who gave up her career to run for election and went to jail for it. Each of their stories serve to ground the overarching narrative of the pro-democracy movement at the human level – it’s not just about the politics, but what drives people to take a stand against creeping authoritarianism, and the human cost of doing so.

As always, it feels weird to read about events I’ve only recently lived through, but it’s good to be reminded of what really happened – not least because the HK govt has already recast the 2019 protests as a violent, foreign-funded terrorist revolution that came out of nowhere and was masterminded by newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, rather than what it actually was: a decentralised grassroots movement 30+ years in the making that was finally pushed too far by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, whose cold, harsh handling of protests against a controversial extradition bill made everything progressively worse. Mahtani and McLaughlin tell the real story, and they tell it well. It's by no means comprehensive (which would require it to be at least twice as long), but they cover all the necessary bases to understand what happened and why.

NOTE: Ironically, I actually managed to buy a copy of this in Hong Kong, which one could take as a sign that we still have freedoms, etc. That said, the store I bought it from, Book Punch, is one of a shrinking number of independent bookstores who sell books like this as well as other political books, and are constantly harassed by the govt over technically unrelated minor things like building, health and fire safety codes. So it's hard to say how much longer books like this will be available here.

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Be water, my friends,

This is dF

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Radio 4, "Enemies Like This"

And here we go again.

Not exactly off to a flying start, but then I lowered my Goodreads Reading Challenge this year to just 23 books, so I’m actually ahead of the count here. Anyway.

Theology: A Very Short Introduction by David F. Ford

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had to read this for a class, but like I say, I got a Reading Challenge to complete, so I’m counting it. As the title says, this is a very short introduction to the field of theology for students who are considering studying in that field. As Ford notes early on, theology is essentially asking questions about God, with perhaps a key question being: “Which God?”, as theology can be about any deity, not just the Judeo-Christian God. That said, Ford focuses on that God partly to save space (this is, after all, meant to be a short intro), and partly because that’s his particular field of expertise. But many of the points he makes and questions he raises can also be applied to other religions.

Ford starts off by briefly explaining the current state of religious and academic theology, moves on to examples of theological thinking about select key issues (the nature of God, worship, ethics, evil, salvation and the role of Jesus in all this), and then looks at the types of texts and sources that can feed into those (to include traditions, historical accounts and experience) and the importance of prioritising wisdom over knowledge. He wraps up with some thoughts on what the big theological issues might be in the next millennium (this being first published in 1999).

Anyway, while I can’t say I plan to study theology any time soon, the book definitely gave me a clear understanding of what theology is, why it matters, the kinds of questions it asks, and the different approaches for attempting to answer them. Strangely, perhaps the most encouraging point I got from the book is that most if not all of those questions will never be answered definitively or quickly – as our understanding of the texts evolves, our thinking evolves with them, so that there are always new angles to dig out and new questions to ask. And there will always be disagreement on the answers. There's something liberating in that – it removes a lot of the pressure we often feel in these matters to have all the answers.

The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir by Karen Cheung

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Debut book from Hong Kong journalist Karen Cheung that’s both a memoir about growing up in post-Handover Hong Kong, and about Hong Kong itself. Cheung states that she didn’t set out to write a book about Hong Kong, but rather her relationship with it as someone who grew up ambivalent about the city until Beijing made increasingly drastic moves to change it into something else.

Note that Cheung warns readers that this may not be the book they’re expecting to read – which is to say, it’s not about politics, or a journalistic account of the pro-democracy protests and the subsequent crackdown. It’s a personal story that explains what it’s been like for young people to grow up mostly after the 1997 handover – not just in terms of political development, but the city’s hypercapitalist pressure cooker environment where housing is expensive, space is precious, and the city’s old neighbourhoods and subcultures are being swallowed up by property tycoons with cosy govt ties. “Everywhere we look in Hong Kong, we’re confronted with the impossibilities of trying to make a home in a city where the game is rigged,” she writes.

Cheung talks about her highly dysfunctional family and how, as a working-class kid who went to an international school with mostly wealthy expats, she never felt connected to the city until she discovered its underground art/music counterculture in the old industrial estates in Kwun Tong, and also realized that the promise from Beijing of HK autonomy for 50 years was being broken before her eyes. Cheung’s experience with severe depression particularly resonates at a time when, less than two years after the book’s publication, statistics show HK’s mental health problem is getting worse, with insufficient resources to help people who can’t afford private counselling (most people, in other words).

In essence, Cheung describes the sociopolitical and economic conditions that helped produce the Umbrella and ELAB protests movements that millions of people supported then and now. If nothing else, it’s a corrective (and welcome) antidote to the current (and false) govt narrative that the protests were an insurrection plot masterminded by a newspaper publisher colluding with foreign governments.

It's a very immersive, edifying and sometimes moving read. The section on HK’s underground music scene alone is worth the price of admission, but there’s just so much more here to explore and chew on. Or maybe I’m just saying that because I’ve live here almost 28 years – in fact, for the entire period covered in the book – and that I know pretty much all of the neighbourhoods and events that Cheung is referencing? Maybe. It may have given me an advantage, as Cheung tends to jump back and forth along her personal timeline – I can follow it fine, but people who know little about HK may have to work harder to keep up.

So, it’s worth repeating Cheung’s note that this may not be the HK book you were expecting. If you don’t know anything about HK going in, you may find yourself a bit lost at first, and Cheung didn’t write this to “explain” HK to you. Indeed, Cheung is adamant to point out that she does not represent any unified voice of HK, not least because she's writing in English, a colonial language that doesn’t adequately capture HK culture, which is rooted in Cantonese. She also advises us to be wary of anyone who claims to represent the authentic Hong Kong – the city is too multifaceted and complex for that. Which is really the point – it’s what makes HK simultaneously frustrating and fascinating, and why most of us who live here are enamoured of it, despite all its flaws.

The book captures this well. Indeed, the book itself is so multi-layered that I found it impossible to do my usual three-paragraph review. And I’m still not doing it justice. Just read it, why don’tcha?

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Long gone in Hong Kong,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: TST
Current Music: The Raveonettes, "Gone Forever"

There’s a new TV show on Amazon starring Nicole Kidman called Expats, created by Lulu Wang and based on a novel, which is – as the title implies – about wealthy expats. Specifically, American expats in Hong Kong, where I also happen to live as an expat – although in my case, I’m a poor expat rather than a wealthy one, so the first thing I should say is that anything you see in the show is like no life I have ever lived, here or anywhere else.

Many of the HK scenes were actually filmed here on location, and if you haven’t heard, it caused a big stir here because the scenes were shot in the thick of the COVID pandemic when HK had serious restrictions in place (masks at all times, only four people allowed to eat together in restaurants which must close after 6pm, etc), the most stringent of which were immigration rules under which people entering HK had to be quarantined in a hotel for anywhere from one to three weeks, depending on what country they departed from.

Kidman and the film crew were all given exemptions to all of this, which did not sit well with those of us whose lives had been impacted by rules that made increasingly less sense as the pandemic continued. It didn’t help that for some outdoor scenes, where Kidman is walking around a street market in Mong Kok, the film crew reportedly decorated the street with lanterns, bird cages and other things – supposedly to make it look more “Chinese”.

Anyway, a lot of people were annoyed by this and promised to boycott the show when it came out. I am not boycotting the show, mainly because (1) I don’t subscribe to Amazon’s streaming service and (2) the premise of Expats doesn’t interest me, regardless of its setting. Put simply, I can’t legitimately claim to boycott a show I wouldn’t have watched in the first place.

(Update [added Jan 27, 2:44pm): Also, it seems Amazon isn’t making the show available in HK, for reasons that are currently unclear, but I think we can guess. Developing ...)

So I haven’t watched it – but I’ve read some of the reviews, which have been mixed. And this one from Linda Holmes at NPR is quite interesting, as she notes that a big problem with the show is that it seems totally disinterested with the fact that it is set in a city at a time of significant political upheaval and change.

The show doesn’t really engage with any of this apart from one episode that has a protest scene, but according to Holmes, it’s done in a very non-specific way that doesn’t say anything about why protests are happening. It’s a backdrop, and barely a plot device as far as the main characters are concerned. And it’s never revisited again.

There’s been speculation that this was an intentional choice in order to avoid displeasing the HK govt and Beijing. We don’t know. But I think all of this raises a good question in terms of writing:

Does a story HAVE to have something to say about its setting?

I don’t think so. The setting doesn’t have to BE the story. You don’t have to set a story in, say, Barcelona, and be obliged to explore the issue of Catalan independence. Ergo, I don’t think Expats is obliged to say anything meaningful about the pro-democracy movement or Beijing’s encroachment thereon, etc. And as some have noted, a show about rich self-obsessed expats being oblivious to the realities around them is at least realistic.

However, based on the reviews, it sounds like Wang squandered both the premise (rich oblivious expats with problems) and the setting (HK during a time of political turmoil). She made a rich-people-with-problems drama that could have been set anywhere and uses HK-specific issues at most as shallow plot devices.

Again, I don’t think Wang is obligated to tell a story where the developments in HK are more central to the story arc, or to make some kind of social commentary. But I do think it’s a lost opportunity. There’s so much you could do with a story about rich expats living in a city undergoing profound changes. But it sounds like the only reason the show is set in HK is because the original novel was (and from I’ve heard, the novel itself took a similar approach).

That might be fine for Wang and her (presumably) US audience, but for those of us who live here it’s yet another example of HK being used as a generic backdrop for Western cinema, mostly for aesthetic reasons (urban canyons, Blade Runner neon, etc).

And, you know, it’s nice y’all think our city looks cool (I agree!), but we’re more than a pretty face. So forgive us if we’re not impressed.

And yeah, breezing in here during COVID and decorating Fa Yuen Street to make it look more “Chinese” didn’t help.

In the city,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Pacific Coffee
Current Music: Ambient cafe soundtrack

Recently I reviewed the book 33 Revolutions Per Minute, Dorian Lynskey’s history of protest music in the 20th century and the protest movements that inspired them.

Among the multiple appendices at the end of the book, Lynskey included a playlist of 100 recommended protest songs – none of which are the 33 songs he used as a writing prompt for each chapter. As the book came out long before Spotify and similar services were a thing, I thought I’d assemble the playlist for you.

As you might notice, there are only 95 songs here. That’s because five of the songs on Lynskey’s list aren’t on Spotify right now, though a few of the artists in question are. But I decided to leave those out instead of taking liberties. If Spotify ever adds them later, I’ll add them here.

Meanwhile, here are the missing ones:

The United States of America, “Love Song For The Dead Che”

Gary Byrd, “Are You Really Ready For Black Power?”

McCarthy, “The Home Secretary Briefs The Forces of Law and Order”

Marxman feat. Sinead O’Connor, “Ship Ahoy”

Fun-Da-Mental, “Wrath of the Blackman”

BONUS PLAYLIST

I made a protest playlist a few years ago inspired by the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, which apparently I never posted here. So here is that, if the above is not nearly enough protest music for you.

Fight the power,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Pacific Coffee
Current Music: Editrix, "Editrix II: Editrix Goes To Hell"

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region turned 25 yesterday.

Chief executive Carrie Lam, who “decided” not to seek another term, is gone.

Replacing her is John Lee, a former cop who (as Secretary of Security) led the hardcore crackdown on the 2019 protests. He was personally selected by the CCP as their preferred candidate, and he ran unopposed in what we laughably call an “election” (in which the Election Committee – 1,461 elites vetted by Lee himself and approved by Beijing – are the only voters allowed – Lee won 99.4% of the vote, and the 0.6% are probably under investigation by now).

So you have an idea of how the next 25 years are going to go. To clarify, Lee’s term is only five years (and he can run for re-election, though that’s a rare thing in HK), but it’s a fair bet that Lee’s successors will run with whatever ball they’re handed – because it is after all Beijing’s ball, and that’s the nature of the gig.

Do I have thoughts? I do, though there’s too much to say and at the same time nothing much to say.

1. It’s probably worth starting with sharing some links, like where HK is now in terms of the national security law, press freedom, civil society, and in general. On the whole, it’s not good. Unless you happen to share the views of GovHK and the CCP (or accept their highly idiosyncratic definitions of One Country Two Systems, free speech, press freedom, universal suffrage, judicial indepencdence, etc – in which case, yr probably enjoying yourself.

2. Here’s another link explaining how we got here – and it’s worth reading as a cautionary tale for other countries who are experiencing creeping authoritarianism right now. Simply put, it’s not an overnight thing – it’s a long game, years in the making. And you'd be surprised how many people will accept it as long as it works in their favor.

3. Here’s a link reviewing Carrie Lam’s legacy and her role in taking a wrecking ball to HK’s freedoms, and her Beijing-directed zero-COVID policies that have decimated the economy.

4. And here’s one about John Lee and what we can expect from him.

5. The HKSAR 25^th Anniversary itself was somehow a perfect metaphor for where we are right now – the convention centre walled off for blocks around, most media banned from attending it (though they could cover it using govt-supplied video), and a typhoon poised to shut down the rest of the city. No fireworks, no gala event, no party, just lots and lots of Chinese flags everywhere. China President Xi Jinping came down to swear in Lee and make a big speech about HK’s prosperous future now that it’s been brought to heel and the pro-democracy camp in jail or in exile. Good times.

6. And so, what now? Likely more of the same, only more so – an expansion of the national security law to cover even more vaguely defined offenses against the state, a “fake news” law that is very likely to be used to keep the media in line and crack down on social media, the June 4 candlelight vigil permanently banned, book bans, and of course the usual official gaslighting: Hong Kong has lost none of its freedoms, the protests were funded and run by foreign forces out to overthrow China, HK was never a British colony, etc. To say nothing of the continued and accelerated blurring of boundaries as Hong Kong gets co-opted into the Greater Bay Area project.

Which is a drag, of course.

7. To answer the inevitable question (and one which now regularly appears when meeting local people I haven’t talked to for awhile) – “Are you planning to leave HK?” – the answer is: no. Not right now. I’ve lived here 26 years now, longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, so this is home. The one thing that would convince us to go back to the US is if my mom (who is 90, bless her) needs more looking after than my sister can provide on her own.

But apart from that, the political aspects don’t affect me too much right now. Perhaps they will later, especially with US-China relations deteriorating. I don’t feel in any real danger of being arrested, if only because GovHK isn’t interested in jailing literally everyone who says bad things about them – and that’s mainly because it’s logistically impossible. They know full well how much support the pro-Demo movement and the protesters had then (and have now). It scares them. So they’re hoping to make enough public examples of the high-profile ringleaders who have actual influence to encourage the rest of us to shut up.

My social media presence is modest and my follower numbers meagre. I think I’ll be fine. Perhaps that’s naïve. We’ll see.

Staying put,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Sandwich, "No Goodbyes" EP

ITEM: Hong Kong has a new and improved election system that – we are assured – will result in more democracy than we’ve ever had before.

Here’s how RTHK put it on Twitter:

Which is about right.

To explain: the “reforms” were imposed on us by Beijing in response to the 2019 protests, the landslide victory of pro-Democracy candidates in the District Council elections at the end of that year, and the pro-Demo primary in 2020 that was part of their planned strategy to win a majority in LegCo for the first time in the LegCo elections in September that year.

Every single person who ran in that primary is now in jail for violating China’s national security. (No, really.)

Meanwhile, as there was a pretty good chance the pro-Demo strategy actually might have actually worked, the HK govt postponed the LegCo election for a year (citing COVID-19 as the official reason, of course), and Beijing decided our election system and our democracy in general needed fixing.

Well, they fixed it all right.

The details are here if you want them, but in the name of TL;DR, here’s an analogy:

Imagine that Congress had a total of 70 seats, only half of which (35) are directly elected by the people. The other half are elected by business sectors and special interests.

Imagine also that the POTUS (let’s say Trump, for example) is elected not by regular voters but an Electoral Committee of 1,200 electors controlled by the GOP, which gets final approval on who serves on the committee. The same committee also gets to decide who gets to run for POTUS.

That was our system until today.

Here’s the new system:

Congress will be expanded to 90 seats, but you can only vote for 20 of them
Of the remainder, 30 will be elected by business reps and the other 40 will be elected by the same Electoral Committee that elects the POTUS
That committee (which is now 1,500 people, 1,000 of which are hand-picked and appointed by the GOP, the rest elected by approved pro-GOP corporations and interest groups) also gets final say on who gets to run for all 90 Congressional seats
A new committee will vet all candidates to ensure they are “patriots”. They will be assisted by the national security police to make sure the candidates are not national security threats.
Any candidate disqualified by the committee is subject to arrest by the national security police for violating the national security law
Encouraging people to cast protest votes in any way shape or form (to include t-shirt slogans) is punishable by three years in prison, even though protest votes are not illegal.

So, yes. That’s our democracy now.

CAVEAT: It’s an imperfect analogy in the sense that the HK isn’t a two party system. Rather, we have a number of parties divided into two ideological camps – pro-Beijing and pro-Democracy. The CCP does not operate as a political party in HK, but from this point on, only candidates (regardless of political party) who pledge patriotic loyalty to China and the CCP can run for office – which basically means anyone approved by the CCP to run for office in HK is by default CCP-adjacent, if not literally a party member.

Naturally, Carrie Lam and whatever LegCo members are left (as most pro-Democrat politicians are either disqualified, in jail or in exile) are selling it as a delightful, major improvement that it actually makes Hong Kong more democratic, because it ensures that all voices are represented. (To explain: Beijing’s idea of “representation” is that all points of view are welcome to be represented in government, so long as only pro-Beijing voices have majority control forever – and as long as all views come with a pledge of loyalty to the CCP.)

They’re also selling this in the TV PSAs as a matter of national security with a direct link to the 2019 protests. Essentially, this involves a rewrite of history that combines two separate elements – protest violence + rowdy scenes in LegCo by pan-Democrats with a penchant for theatre – as if all of this was one big violent separatist movement funded by Western govts to create anarchy, take over the govt and overthrow Beijing.

“See? It’s either this or TOTAL VIOLENT CHAOS! Which would you rather have?”

Which of course is 100% false. But this is the same govt that arrested 53 pro-Demos for attempting to legally win a LegCo majority and tells teenagers holding up blank placards in malls that they’re violating national security. So.

BONUS TRACK: Regarding the RTHK tweet, here’s a link about how RTHK (our local public broadcaster) is being slowly but surely transformed from the best and most trusted news source in the city to a govt propaganda mill. Their social media person (at least on the English language side) is apparently keen on going down swinging.

Voted off the island,

This is dF

Current Mood: blah
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Ambient highway
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1739395.html

I do keep up with current events. I just can’t blog about them in real time. Blame it on deadlines, moving house and kidney stones.

Anyway:

1. Trump is now the only POTUS to be impeached twice. Which is braggable.

Is it too little too late? Well, we had that discussion during Impeachapalooza 1, where the argument was (1) there was no point impeaching him if the Senate was going to acquit him anyway, or (2) there has to be consequences for Presidential shenanigans or we might as well say the POTUS is above the law and can do anything they want.

Granted, it’s not much of a punishment. Trump probably regards his Twitter suspension as more severe than being impeached. Which is why we do need to rethink our current mechanisms for dealing with criminal presidents.

2. Yes, it damn well was a coup – or, as it’s technically known, a ‘self-coup’. Dr Fiona Hill lays it all out for you here. And there’s little room for doubt that Trump encouraged it, even if he didn’t actively organize it.

Meanwhile, each passing day seems to reveal that while the storming of the Capitol was a mix of planning and improv, at least some of them intended to kidnap and kill people in the name of keeping Trump in power. It was a poorly executed self-coup, but a self-coup nonetheless.

3. Moreover, it also seems clear that the Capitol Police and some GOP Congresspeople were complicit to some degree. Compare the security at the Capitol Building during a nearby BLM protest last year to the security on Jan 6, and it’s hard to believe any of these yahoos got within 50 yards of the entrance, let alone inside. We don’t know the full story yet, but frankly it doesn't look good.

On a related note, it’s pretty clear that after a couple of years of BLM protests – that featured massive police brutality and people being plucked off the streets and hustled into unmarked vans – there’s an obvious double standard in how police handle protests based on the racial makeup and political affiliation of the protesters.

4. As others have pointed out, the bigger problem is the complicity of the GOP. They played along with Trump’s “Democrats stole the election” meme despite zero evidence in the clear hope that it would work. Even after the self-coup, 146 Republicans voted to reject the electoral votes to deny Biden the White House, and most are still parroting the stolen-election meme. Meanwhile, the conservative white evangelical leadership that gives Trump much of his power is generally sticking with him. So.

I’m also not impressed with those Republicans now distancing themselves from Trump and saying the Capitol riot was awful and terrible and that’s not who we are, etc. Well, no – we’ve always known who Trump was and what he stood for, and he spent the entire 2020 campaign making it clear he would accept no result that didn’t result in re-election.

It’s also clear few of them take any responsibility for the coup, whether they're claiming it was really antifa in disguise or that Trump only did what he did because liberals bullied him for four years and it drove him mad, or that they have to overturn the election because Trump’s mob will come after them if they don’t. So pardon me if I doubt their sincerity.

5. The same goes for all of the corporations now saying they won’t support Trump businesses or Republicans who supported overturning the election. I mean, you know, great. But after every awful thing he’s done and said in the last four years, NOW you’re having an epiphany?

Point being, I think it’s worth asking if the people turning on him now would be doing so if the self-coup had actually worked. Maybe a few. But I suspect most of them would have cheerfully strapped themselves to the post-democracy Trump Train, because why wouldn't they?

6. Will there be martial law on Tuesday? No idea. I doubt it, in that Trump needs military support to pull that off, and it’s not clear he has it. I’m also not convinced the MyPillow guy will change that equation, although if he does, it won’t even be the weirdest episode in this sorry excuse for a Netflix series. I’m not saying Trump won't try it – or that his cult won’t try something on their own. I’m saying I think it will fail.

But again, that won’t mean we’ve seen the last of Trump and his MAGA cult. While it will be nice having an adult in the White House again, we’ve got a long road ahead of us, and it’s not going to be a pleasant one. These people are not going to magically go away when Biden is inaugurated. Trump may be out of power, but his legacy will remain a cancer in US politics and society for a long time.

BONUS TRACK: Here’s an interesting local angle to the Capitol mob – not unsurprisingly, HK chief Carrie Lam and Chinese state media are trying to compare the coup to that time in 2019 when HK protesters broke into the LegCo chambers and trashed the place. The objective is a half-assed attempt to call out the US govt as hypocrites: “Oh, you loved it when rioters invaded LegCo – not so much fun now that it’s happened to Congress, huh? So maybe shut up about HK violating everyone’s human rights because now you understand why we are justified in cracking down on them.”

It is, of course, a bad and inaccurate comparison. But then the wonderful thing about state propaganda is that it doesn't have to make sense.

White riot,

This is dF

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Rush, "The Way The Wind Blows"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1699808.html

One thing many of us in HK have noticed over the past couple of years is how public statements from the HK govt – whether it’s chief executive Carrie Lam, department heads or other senior officials – were sounding increasingly similar to public statements from Beijing officials, especially when it came to discussing the 2019 protests, the pro-Democracy movement in general, the implementation of the National Security Law, and any govt leader overseas expressing an opinion about it.

To explain: for decades, whenever Beijing sends Foreign Ministry spokespersons out to talk about the latest diplomatic row, human rights accusation or whatever, they tend to use carefully crafted language to assert that China has done nothing wrong, it is acting according to the law and everyone else is a lying hypocrite who is violating China’s sovereignty by interfering in its internal affairs.

Over the last couple of years, HK officials have started sounding like that. It was as if Beijing’s Foreign Ministry staff were writing their responses – or at least giving them instruction on how to write them.

Over at Quartz, Mary Hui and Dan Kopf analyzed 165,000 HK press releases over the last ten years, and found that HK officials are indeed embracing CCP-speak.

The study serves not only as a textbook case of how a relatively benign government adopts authoritarian language, but also as a masterclass on how to spot authoritarian language and understand its purpose.

In the case of HK:

Broadly, the newly strident rhetoric appears to be aimed at several goals: reinforcing China’s absolute national sovereignty; refuting criticisms and justifying the government’s own actions; exerting control over civil society; and redefining concepts like human rights to align them with CCP ideology.

So, for example, “human rights” becomes defined as “legitimate rights” or “lawful rights”. And “press freedom” is guaranteed under the Basic Law … as long as you exercise that freedom lawfully and don’t print anything that violates this vaguely defined national security law.

Indeed, the HK definition of free speech now is, “You can say or write anything you want. We will totally arrest you if what you say or write is illegal, but yr totally free to say/write it first. You know, if that’s what yr into.”

Anyway, it’s worth the time to read. Who know, it might even apply to your own country.

Speak my language,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Lucinda Williams, "Good Souls Better Angels"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1690409.html

ITEM: The Great Hong Kong National Security crackdown continues, with the police arresting ten (10) people for “collusion with foreign forces”. Notably, one of them was Jimmy Lai, founder of Next Media and publisher of Apple Daily ( the last openly pro-democracy newspaper in HK), and someone who has been on the Beijing hit list for a very long time.

So here’s some bloggery about that:

1. This is essentially about petty revenge. The HK govt, Beijing and the police hate Lai, and have wanted to punish him for a very long time. Lai has always been a media rabble-rouser, both in HK and Taiwan, and the CCP has always been a favorite target of his. He’s already been arrested for unlawful assembly and related charges, but that’s not enough for BJ – they want him (and people like him) in jail for the rest of his life.

2. No one knows what “collusion with foreign forces” means in this case – and it’s not certain we’ll ever find out – but we do know that Beijing’s definition of such things tends to be very loose. For example, last month the police arrested four kids on NSL charges of secession – where in this case the act of “secession” was literally sharing a pro-independence article on Facebook.

3. With people now convinced that this spells the death of press freedom in HK, at least one Beijing official is trying to spin this by claiming Apple Daily is not a newspaper but a political organization that just happens to print newspapers. So it doesn’t count as curbing press freedom, see?

In other words, you’re a media organization until Beijing decides you’re not a media organization but a rebel political group.

4. Also, the reassurances about press freedom aren’t that convincing when remembering the police didn’t just arrest Lai – they sent a hundred cops to raid the Apple Daily office for “evidence” – and then arbitrarily banned certain media from the press briefing.

The police made an attempt to explain it the following day:

“It depends on the past performance of those media — whether they behaved in a way that the police deemed unprofessional,” the police chief said. “Criteria include whether their reporting is objective, whether they have participated in actions other than reporting, whether they would obstruct officers from performing their duty or if they would pose danger to officers.”

Which isn’t helpful, but it does illustrate a few things: (1) Police chief Chris Tang has a list of media he does not like and will not cooperate with, (2) he clearly thinks press freedom should be limited to news outlets he personally deems worthy, and (3) if the govt ever decides to implement an accreditation system for journalists (which the police have openly advocated for some time), Tang already has a wish list of who he wants rejected.

This is, after all, the same police chief who is obsessed with the idea that some reporters who show up to cover the police are not actual reporters but protesters disguised as reporters. Or something. I have no idea what he thinks these clandestine fake journalists (if they exist, and he’s never proven that they do) are up to. I suspect he doesn’t either because he’s just making it up to justify police violence against anyone wearing a press vest.

5. It’s also worth remembering the broader context in which this happened. Ever since the NSL was passed, press freedom in HK has been eroding one step at a time.

Rachel Cheung has compiled a list here. But the pattern is clear: the HK govt is working make it very difficult for foreign journalists to work here, and attempting to establish norms in which media is forced to self-censor or stick to stenography if they want to avoid an NSL rap. Loyalist papers like Ta Kung Pao will get access and exclusives because they can be counted on to toe the govt line, and even serve as cheerleader.

For everyone else, the Apple Daily raid and selective came across as theatre that was intended to send a clear message to all other media outlets: watch what you write, or you may be next.

That’s certainly how the local Foreign Correspondents Club is taking it. And, you know, they’re not wrong.

6. Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. For one thing, Apple Daily wasn’t shut down. It’s still in operation. Indeed, it went to press the very next day with a very defiant headline vowing to fight on despite govt oppression and an expanded print run of 550,000 copies (as opposed to the usual daily run of around 70,000 copies).

Result: as far as I know they sold every copy. And the company’s stock price jumped over 700% in two days.

Bet that annoyed the govt no end.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I bought two copies (see photo, above). Which technically means I could be arrested for helping to fund collusion, should the police or Beijing decide to interpret it that way. But then they’d have to arrest 550,000 people, so it’s probably not worth the effort.

Meanwhile, a restaurant owned by one of Lai’s sons – who was also arrested as part of the same sweep – did awesome business yesterday.

Because this is how we protest in HK now. We can’t march, and even holding up blank signs in a shopping mall is illegal now – but we can find other ways to make our feelings known.

How do you like them apples,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
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Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1652154.html

Hong Kong was scheduled to have its next LegCo election next month. It has now been postponed to next year.

The move has been condemned by Donald Trump – who as it happens wants to postpone the US election in November.

Let’s blog this, shall we?

1. The excuse for the HK election postponement is COVID-19. The loyalists either really believe this or are pretending to do so. The rest of us are reasonably convinced the actual reason is that Beijing wants it postponed because if we hold it on time, there’s a decent chance that the pan-Democrats might actually gain ground or – even worse – win a decent-sized majority. And we can’t have that.

2. We were expecting this, of course. Both the HK govt and Beijing went out of their way to state that the pan-Demo primary was probably maybe a violation of our shiny new National Security law. This was followed by election officers asking the pan-Demo candidates who topped that primary to ask them whether they would support the NSL and every other HK govt policy wholeheartedly and without question (and the answer had better be yes, and it had better be a convincing yes).

Result: 12 of them were disqualified. Which was also expected – not least because Beijing was directly involved in the decision.

The only reason to think they might not postpone the election was if Beijing opted to just keep disqualifying pan-Demos until there were none left. Why cancel an election when you can just rig it? But I suppose they thought that was too blatant – that, and the pan-Demos planned to make them work for it by having a rather long list of back-up candidates.

Anyway, Stephen Vines sums it up well here, but basically Beijing has made it clear that it will only suffer the pan-Demos’ existence as long as they have no real power and they learn to shut up and like it. And given the momentum the pan-Demos have thanks to the Lam admin being generally hopeless at handling major crises like political unrest and COVID-19, Beijing apparently decided they would much rather call off the election using a plausible excuse like COVID-19 than take a chance that DQing candidates they don’t like might be too obvious.

3. Speaking of which, the COVID-19 excuse is also nonsense. Carrie Lam pointed out that several countries have also postponed elections because of COVID-19. Which is true, but plenty of others have successfully held elections – and their COVID stats are far worse than HK’s. The pan-Demo primary was a masterclass in holding an election safely, and that was organized and managed by a tiny polling organization with minimal resources. The HK govt has far greater resources and is perfectly capable of taking measures to ensure the Sept election is carried out as safely as possible. It just doesn’t want to.

4. Which raises the obvious question: will the election really take place in one year? And the obvious answer is: who knows? I think Beijing needs HK to have an election at some point, otherwise they can’t exactly claim with a straight face that HK is a democracy under One Country Two Systems. However, I’m reasonably sure that Beijing will not give the green light until they’re convinced the pro-BJ camp can’t possibly lose.

5. The other obvious question is how the current LegCo can legally keep serving for a year after everyone’s term expires? No one knows yet. But I fully expect the solution to be bad news for the pan-Demos still in LegCo (four of whom were among those disqualified from running again).

5. As for Trump wanting to delay the November election because of non-existent mail fraud, the catch is that you can never tell when he’s serious and when he’s just spouting paranoid nonsense to feed the base.

The one thing we can be reasonably sure of is that it’s not just because he’s worried about mail-in votes. He’s worried about having his ass handed to him, which would not only bruise his ego, but make him more likely to face prosecution and jail for his many high crimes and misdemeanors.

I don’t know how worried he is about the latter. But I do think at the very least he’s continuing his efforts to lay down the groundwork to de-legitimize the results should he lose.

6. Also, I take little solace in the technical fact that legally and Constitutionally, Trump can’t unilaterally delay the election. Which is true, but Trump somehow strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn't really care about breaking laws or violating the Constitution.

That said, in order for him to literally prevent the election from going ahead in all 50 states, he’d need some way to enforce that. I don't think the MAGA Boogaloo Cult with their AR-15s and whatnot have the manpower or firepower to stop every single election in each state. He’d need the support of the National Guard and Armed Forces commanders – which might look and feel too much like a coup for their taste.

I’m not saying he won’t try. I’m just saying his odds of succeeding are not good. At least right now. But as I say, I think he mainly wants his MAGA cult to throw a locked-and-loaded hissyfit if he loses and take their anger out on whatever liberals and minorities happen to be at hand while he tweets for the rest of his life from a secure location about the Democratic Liberal Coup of 2020.

7. Anyway it takes some nerve for him to send his press secretary out to condemn the HK election postponement when he’s planning on doing the exact same thing at home, and with an even flimsier excuse. On the other hand, it’s very on-brand.

Cancel culture,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Dee-Lite, "Vote Baby Vote"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1648781.html

Given what I’ve posted about Hong Kong recently regarding the national security law – and what you may have heard/read in the news – it probably sounds like HK has become a totalitarian police state where we’re all forced to worship Xi Jinping and Carrie Lam, we need police permission to do anything, and making any negative comment about Xi, Lam or the police will result in negative feedback – cyberbullying, police harassment, a blast of pepper spray in yr mug, re-education camps, etc.

And, you know, kind of.

To be honest it’s not quite that bad. Not yet.

To be clear, there is definitely a deliberate chilling of speech and a curtailing of speech-related liberties – banning slogans, prohibiting schoolchildren from singing that song, yanking books off library shelves, arresting kids for silently waving blank placards, press self-censorship, etc. And of the 10 people who have been arrested under the NSL to date, most were for speechcrime.

The chief exception is the guy who crashed his motor scooter into some cops – he’s been charged with terrorism, even though available video strongly indicates that it was accidental, although he was also carrying a “Liberate Hong Kong / Revolution Of Our Times” flag, which is considered secession under the same law. (Important clarification: “trying to hit people with a motorbike” is not an act of terrorism or a violation of any other law when the police do it to protesters.)

So things aren’t good.

On the other hand, it’s worth mentioning that many people here do support the govt and the NSL – or at the very least aren’t bothered by it, whether it’s because of self-interest, business reasons, political apathy or an unshakeable belief that It Can't Happen Here – HK’s rule of law will keep the authorities from abusing their power.

As for everyone else, there’s been talk about how HK is “dead”, the protesters lost, and we’re resigned to either shutting our traps or fleeing the country while we still can. Game over.

But resistance isn’t dead.

You can read this piece from Tom Grundy, co-founder of Hong Kong Free press, who has vowed to go down swinging in terms of media coverage and refusing to self-censor (clearly distinguishing HKFP from other English language outlets, particularly the South China Morning Post, which employs some excellent reporters but also has editors who have loudly celebrated the NSL in editorials).

Meanwhile, indie bookstores like Bleak House Books have vowed to stay open and sell whatever they want until the police come and take them away.

There’s also this op-ed from frontline reporter Karen Cheung, who notes that really, HK has always been a tough place to live, but that we always adapt somehow.

… not everything has disappeared. The bookshop near my flat posted a message on social media: “Life goes on, resist fear.” A reporter I know tweeted, “I’ll just try my best to pretend this law doesn’t exist, keep calm, and carry on.”

I don’t want to downplay how terrifying the national security law is. People were arrested under that law on the first day, some of them just for carrying a flag bearing suddenly “outlawed” slogans. Courts can deny bail and hold secret trials. No one knows how to navigate this new reality.

Yet people are already coming up with cheeky, humorous ways of circumventing the new rules, resisting the temptation to be too obedient and give in to the chilling effect. We will continue to find defiance in unexpected places.

If nothing else, according to Jessie Pang at Reuters, you’ll find it in the young people who voted (and in some cases ran) in the primary. They know that if anything is going to change, it’s up to them. They’re under no illusions that they’ll win, but they know that it’s better to try and fail than to give up, just as they know that the Establishment pan-Demos still tend to see this as a rules-based scenario, and that you can beat Beijing by using its own rules against it. The trouble is that Beijing not only doesn't respect the rules, but rewrites them at will and interprets them randomly to suit its needs.

So, while we can’t realistically do much about the NSL and whatever abuses will inevitably occur (and arguably already are), we can adjust to this reality and resist as best we can. Yes, things are likely to get worse in the coming weeks, and eventually even the pro-gov/BJ supporters will find out the hard way that they are not exempt. But that doesn't mean we might as well give up and accept it. If we can't win in the streets or at the polls, we can always refuse to live in fear.

Because they want us to live in fear. So let’s not do that.

Have a beer with fear,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Calexico, "Victor Jara's Hands"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1643752.html

Hong Kong had its first – and possibly last – primary election over the weekend.

To explain briefly:

HK doesn't normally have primaries in the same manner as the US. But the pan-Democratic parties (which are legion) have never held a collective majority in in the Legislative Council (LegCo) – in part because the parties keep splitting into smaller factions, which ends up splitting the vote to the point where pro-Beijing parties tend to win.

So the pan-Demo organization People For Democracy organized a primary election to help the various parties work out which pan-Demo candidates have the best chance of winning and then back those candidates in the General Election in September. The Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) – an offshoot of HK University which conducts public opinion polls – is collecting the data and tallying votes.

Another reason for doing this is that most pan-Demos are pretty sure that the upcoming LegCo election is their last chance to win a majority, not least because the govt has been looking for every excuse they can (often linked to last year’s protests) to disqualify pan-Demo candidates to ensure they don't win a majority.

Indeed, even though the primary is not against election rules, various HK govt officials (including, of course, Carrie Lam) have naturally said that all of this could potentially violate the new National Security Law. Their reasons? (1) it's cheating for the pan-Demos to figure out in advance which of their candidates have the best chance of winning and (2) it's a violation of the national security law for opposition parties who oppose govt policies to win a majority because opposing the govt is sedition. On the other hand, if the opposition parties agree to support everything the govt proposes, then that's perfectly legal. See?

[Additional note: these are the kind of arguments you get from people who have no idea how something works but think they do.]

It’s also notable that the night before the election, police raided PORI and seized some of their computers – supposedly for something unrelated to the election. Luckily, they didn’t take the computers with the election data on them.

Anyway, I voted. I don't think I'll go to jail for it, if only because 610,000 people voted. So I don’t think they have the capacity to arrest that many people at once. More than likely they’ll arrest the organizers if they decide to arrest anyone.

So, a brief Q&A:

1. Is 610,000 a good number?

Yes, in the sense that the PFD was expecting 170,000. Every one of those are verified voters.

2. Will it actually help the pan-Demos win a majority?

No idea, but it’s unlikely, if only because I fully expect the HK govt to arrest and/or disqualify the candidates who won the primary (all of whom, as it happens, are the younger and more blatantly anti-Beijing candidates rather than the moderate Establishment pan-Demos).

Also, it depends on whether the various pan-Demo factions really can unite behind a candidate that may not tick all their ideological boxes. (For the Americans, it’s kind of like convincing Sanders supporters to vote for Joe Biden.)

3. Could the govt just cancel the elections?

They could, though legally it’s tricky, and they’re trying to pass themselves off to the international community (especially investors) as a reasonable regime that totally believes in freedom and democracy despite beating up, tear-gassing and arresting people for advocating just that. So I think they’ll settle for rigging it in their favour.

4. Isn't the fact that they didn't send the police out to stop the primary a good sign?

Not really. As I said, the HK govt is desperately selling the narrative that the NSL all about freedom and democracy and the NSL was only necessary because a tiny group of violent separatist terrorists (trained and funded by mysterious foreign agencies) were trying to overthrow China by firebombing the streets of Hong Kong and sticking Post-it Notes all over the place. Beating the crap out of decidedly non-violent people who support (currently) legal political parties who are clearly not doing anything technically illegal creates the kind of optics that make that narrative a tough sell.

Yes, so does banning slogans, prohibiting schoolchildren from singing that song, yanking books off library shelves and arresting kids for silently waving blank placards. But then I never said their arguments make sense, and HK/BJ either don’t know or care that they don’t – their defense of the NSL, police brutality and censorship is essentially one big gaslighting exercise, and they seem convinced that if they repeat it enough times (despite all evidence to the contrary) the rest of the world will have no choice but to believe them. I mean, these are the same people who said that the press will have 100% press freedom under the NSL as long as they don’t write anything that violates the NSL.

Anyway, as I say, they’ll settle for arresting the organizers (likely starting with Benny Tai, who they absolutely hate) and disqualifying candidates.

Developing …

You choose, you lose,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Jonathan Richman & Modern Lovers, "Party In The Woods"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1643231.html

45 songs for the revolution of your times. Play in any order, as long as you play them loud.

Hello from Hong Kong.

PRODUCTION NOTE: Possibly inspired by current events.

Revolution Earth,

This is dF

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: See above

What a year it’s been.

Not 2020 (although yes, that too) – I mean the last 12 months here in Hong Kong.

One year ago today, over 1 million people marched on the streets demanding the withdrawal of a proposed Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB) that would allow Hong Kong citizens to be extradited to mainland China. Despite the fact that it was the largest turnout for a protest of any kind since 1989, the govt said no. And so the anti-ELAB movement began – and of course blossomed into something much, much bigger.

And one year later, where are we now?

Technically, the protests themselves tapered off after December 2019 for a number of reasons – COVID-19, of course, but I think it was also due to two key events: (1) the District Council elections, in which pro-democracy candidates took every district except one, and (2) the Battle of PolyU, which was so intense (and traumatic for most of the protesters there) that relatively few people fancy the prospect of a rematch.

Also, the police have taken advantage of the lull to formulate a more proactive strategy of ruthlessly shutting down protests before they can rev up into something bigger. All anti-govt protests are essentially considered illegal now, and disproportionate violence, mass arrests of innocent people and attacks on journalists are justified by the police force’s massive propaganda campaign portraying the protest movement in general as a foreign-funded terrorist campaign.

Which in itself is the justification Beijing is now using to impose a national security law on HK for the explicit purpose of enabling HK and Beijing to deal with protesters the same way Beijing deals with dissent of any kind – secret trials, forced confessions, re-education camps, basically everything China already does to Uighurs in Xinjiang. The NSL not only effectively kills off One Country Two Systems as a human-rights/democracy preservation mechanism (which was generally the point of it), it also changes the game in terms of the protests. It’s one thing to put pressure on the HK govt, which at least has a modicum of democracy and free speech. It’s quite another to do the same to a viciously totalitarian dictatorship that’s out to make a very clear point: we run this dump, we will always have the last word, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

Sure, this was probably always true in the long term. But we thought we had more time before Beijing went for the nuclear option. Turns out not.

So the two big questions before us are:

1. What now?

That depends who you ask. This piece in SCMP – in which Jeffie Lam interviewed protesters about their next move – is somewhat gloomy. This piece from The Guardian reflects a more defiant tone.

But the general gist is this: overall the protest movement isn’t ready to give up yet – we’ve come too far and too much is at stake. Also, Beijing’s aggressiveness essentially proves the protesters were right all along about its true intentions and the HK govt’s complicity. But no one’s really sure what the next move should be.

One ray of hope is the upcoming LegCo elections in September, which could go the way of the District Council elections. Meanwhile, many business sectors have been setting up unions for the express purpose of organizing strikes to pressure the govt.

Still, Beijing and the HK govt undoubtedly have plans for this too. We can safely assume the HK govt will do what it can to rig the LegCo elections in its favour by disqualifying as many pro-democracy candidates as possible (and indeed, it may be no coincidence that the NSL is expected to be in force just before the election). As for the strikes, the NSL will probably be used to deal with those – Carrie Lam is certainly displeased with the idea.

As for the street protests, those will probably continue – indeed, there was one this evening in Central to mark the anniversary, which of course the police shut down quickly – but they’re not likely to happen at the frequency or scale of 2019. Hong Kong Civil Right Front is planning a major march on July 1 (a.k.a. Handover Day), and the massive defiance of a ban on the Tiananmen Square candlelight vigil was an encouraging sign. But for the most part, I think street protests will be relatively limited.

Still, there are other ways to resist besides massive street marches. We’ve also seen the return of “sing with you” flash-mob protests in malls where students show up to sing the alternate national anthem, which also tend to get shut down swiftly. But every little bit helps.

Stephen Vines points out here that the one thing we have going for us is that history is not on the side of autocracies. Sooner or later, they go too far once they believe in their own infallibility:

… all autocracies, especially those in the modern age, have feet of clay. Their reliance on oppression to retain their position is inflexible and belies the weakness inherent in a system that only has one way of clinging to power.

Put simply, autocracies generally don’t last. It may take decades, but inevitably that weakness can be exploited if you poke at it long enough. You just gotta keep poking.

So whatever form resistance takes, the important thing is to keep resisting. Size and scale don’t matter – what matters is to undermine their authority any way you can (peacefully, when possible).

Sing songs in malls; stage work strikes when you can; support businesses who support the cause; wear black t-shirts; document brutality and injustice where you see it; make art; be creative. Go underground if you have to, but don’t stop. The one thing Beijing and Carrie Lam want more than anything in this world is for us to sit down, shut up and obey. Do none of these things.

Resist,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Yello, "Angel No"

I’m late with this, I know. But in case you hadn't heard, the Hong Kong police banned this year’s candlelight vigil to observe the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

We held one anyway.

BACKSTORY: Hong Kong has held a rally every June 4 since 1990 to remember the massacre and demand the Chinese govt admit the truth of what happened. This year was the first year the police denied permission to hold it – ostensibly because of COVID-19 social distancing restrictions, but anyone with any sense knows that’s not the only reason. We know that the restrictions have been used specifically to target any anti-govt protest gathering, even ones that don’t require police permission and do comply with social distancing rules.

And of course, with the national security law scheduled to be shoved down our throats by Beijing sometime soon, we know full well that the vigil will be banned anyway, so there’s no reason to assume this year’s ban just happened to coincide with the COVID restrictions.

As it happens, the vigil organizers expected this, and came up with a back-up plan – the core group would go to Victoria Park (the usual location for the vigil), have a small scaled down ceremony, and broadcast it live on YouTube. Meanwhile, different districts could hold their own small observances – otherwise everyone who wanted to participate could light candles wherever they were at 8pm and watch the broadcast.

Which is what the bride and I eventually did.

Anyway, the police did what we expected them to do – set up metal barriers all around Victoria Park first thing in the morning to close it off to the public. Around 7pm, the organizers showed up, pulled down the barriers and proceeded as scheduled.

Thousands showed up to join them.

Notice the social distancing.

Interestingly, the police – for once – didn't intervene. There was a pointless skirmish in Mong Kok afterwards, but a relatively minor by HKPF standards, especially considering the protesters essentially outright defied their ban.

Mind you, I'm not giving the police credit for restraint. My hypothesis is that they only held back because (1) the whole world was watching, and (2) Beijing and the HK govt are in the middle of a global propaganda campaign trying to convince the world that the upcoming NSL is nothing to be afraid of and HK will still be all about freedoms and the NSL. Cracking down on a vigil remembering another crackdown on freedom is the last thing they need right now – optics-wise, anyway.

That said, I expect the other shoe to drop eventually. At the very least I think they'll arrest the HK Alliance organizers for illegal assembly etc. Not right away, of course – remember that those 15 activists were arrested for protests that happened months ago. They may wait until after the NSL is passed to inflict maximum damage (pro-Beijing figures have suggested the NSL will be grandfathered to apply it to past activities before the law is enacted – I would be surprised if it isn’t, and we know exactly who the first targets are going to be in that scenario).

Either way, the police are going to make sure the organizers pay for this dearly. And anyone else they decide to punish for showing up.

Anyway, if this has to be the last Tiananmen Square vigil in HK, it was a great way to go out as a massive show of resistance to the coming crackdown.

BONUS TRACK: Oh by the way, the HK govt celebrated June 4 by passing a law that makes mocking, booing or otherwise disrespecting China’s national anthem a crime. Really. The punishment is up to three years in jail.

The govt says it doesn’t impinge on anyone’s freedom of expression because it’s still legal to do it in your own head – just not out loud.

Light a fire,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Rev James Cleveland, "Peace Be Still"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1631948.html

It seems like we’ve crossed some sort of event horizon or cultural Rubicon when I scroll past protest photos and videos on Twitter and I have to look closely to see if they’re from Hong Kong or Minneapolis.

The parallels are striking, from the excessive and indiscriminate use of tear gas and gratuitously pepper-spraying and arresting reporters to pundits and leaders calling protesters thugs who should be shot and blaming teachers and church leaders for encouraging them.

And not just in Minneapolis, of course. Protests are popping up in other major cities. Even the White House was in lockdown temporarily.

And, you know:

1. To get the obvious out of the way, yes, all four officers should be arrested (Derek Chauvin has finally been charged with murder – the others should at least be charged with accessory), though it seems the police seem to be going with the defense that George Floyd would still be alive if he’d lived a healthier lifestyle, and I don’t see that helping to ease tensions.

2. And yes, institutional racism in America is most definitely a thing, and has been since we were still colonies of the Crown. Trump’s so-called presidency has made things worse, but the problem existed long before he invented Birtherism.

Indeed, the protests are not just about George Floyd. They’re about Kenneth Walker, Breona Taylor, Sean Reed, Ahmaud Arbery, Steve Taylor (and that’s just in the last month) and so on and etc all the way back to Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and the thousands upon thousands before them – to say nothing of the whole stupid Amy Cooper saga.

3. So IMO the anger and fury of protesters is 100% justified. The violence, not so much, but it’s understandable. MLK Jr told us this way back in the 60s: riots are the language of the unheard, and the inevitable result of systemic injustice – they don’t just magically pop up out of nowhere.

That said, it’s worth adding that protest violence is often the result of police handling the protests badly by escalating tensions rather than defusing them, whether intentionally or by accident. In cases where the police themselves are the object of protest anger, simply showing up in riot gear is almost guaranteed to make a bad situation worse. I’ve seen anecdotal accounts that this is the case in Minneapolis. It’s certainly the case in Hong Kong. Like the saying goes, when you send in riot police, you get a riot.

4. Like in HK, the law-and-order response from Trump and those who worship him has been predictably awful and likely to get people killed. One thing going for the US is that the police is not just one force that takes orders from the White House – it’s a diverse array of local and state forces, and at least some of them are trying to defuse tensions rather than escalate them.

5. It’s hard to know how bad this is going to get. Past history isn't much help – usually, things die down after a few days and we spend the aftermath discussing the problem and generally doing little to address it. Here in 2020, we have a white supremacist in the White House with a cult army of supporters fuelled by paranoid conspiracy theories that liberals, the media and PoC are all out to get them.

I guess we’re lucky the Open Carry buffoons who stormed capital buildings because they couldn't get haircuts on demand haven't shown up at these protests to “help” – not yet, anyway. That could change.

And I don’t even want to think about what all this could mean for the 2020 election.

6. Anyway, as I said, we’ve been living our own version of this in HK for some time now in terms of protests and police brutality. And it's almost like we’ve become a template for Minneapolis – not just the police going crazy with tear gas and targeting reporters (at least the non-white ones), but protesters reportedly throwing tear gas canisters back at police.

So there’s a certain hypocritical irony that Trump advocates shooting black protesters for rioting while he simultaneously takes steps to punish Beijing and the HK govt for oppressing protests here.

That said, I’m not sure he even knows what’s going on here. His statement on HK doesn’t say a word about police brutality or human rights. He’s concerned mainly with HK’s loss of autonomy under 1C2S, and I think he only cares inasmuch as it’s something else he can add to his anti-China rhetoric, which he deploys mostly to entertain his cult and push the nonsense narrative that China – not Trump – is to blame for COVID-19 killing over 100,000 Americans.

Which I only mention because a number of HK people seem to think Trump can somehow save us if he takes action. Thing is, Trump doesn’t care about us, or about human rights in general. He pals around with oppressive authoritarians and ruthless dictators, and even talks about Xi Jinping as a good friend. Sure, it's all in his head. The point is that if his actions do us any good whatsoever, it will be by sheer dumb luck.

And okay, when things look increasingly hopeless as they do here, you can't afford to be picky. If Kim Jong-un or Rodrigo Duterte intervened to save us, we’d probably take it.

Still, the thing about Trump is that his whims turn on a dime, and he regularly undermines his own policies on Twitter. Also, his “plan” is pretty vague and hasn’t actually been enacted yet. Everything depends on details and execution, and it’s always possible that his “solution” to HK will be worse than the problem.

7. Oh, BTW, shoutout to Laura Ingraham for coming up with the worst attempt so far to convince black people that Trump totally understands what they're going through.

Developing …

Revolution earth,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Voice of the Beehive, "Let It Bee"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1629337.html

The reception to Beijing’s plan to slap a National Security Law (NSL) on Hong Kong in the name of “urgency” – and the HK police’s reaction to that reception – has been about what you’d expect.

Of course, not everyone is freaking out about the NSL. Quite a lot of people welcome it, and have been going around making very conspicuously public statements saying so. Every govt department head has been releasing statements supporting the law – each and every one of them verbatim copies of each other apart from the dept name and corresponding serial number. So you know they’re sincere.

Meanwhile, Beijing officials, HK govt officials and pro-Beijing editors and pundits have spent the last few days making public statements or publishing op-eds assuring everyone (especially the international community) that their fears are unfounded. There is nothing to worry about. All is well.

And so on.

Pretty much all of them boil down to the same basic points:

1. Everyone has national security laws, why can’t we?

2. The NSL will only apply to a tiny, miniscule minority of people. If you are not one of them, you have nothing to fear.

3. The NSL will bring peace and harmony to HK, and all this political turmoil will be a thing of the past, and we can get on with our lives and the economy can recover and everything will be awesome.

I’m not kidding about the last one. Here’s our first CE Tung Chee-hwa saying it. And here’s SCMP columnist Alex Lo calling the NSL a “masterstroke” that means “Hong Kong can now be depoliticised and get back to reviving its economy and improving people’s lives”.

Zounds! Imagine that. Years of polarized politics, frustration at the broken promises of universal suffrage, mistrust of the police, and fears of being “disappeared”, magically wiped away just like that by this one law.

“Well, why didn’t they say so earlier?” etc.

As you might imagine, I find their reassurances rather unreassuring. And one reason (of many) is that not a single one of these people has said exactly HOW the NSL will bring peace and harmony.

Seriously: how? I want one of these people to please spell out for me in detail how NSL will accomplish this in a way that isn't scary or alarming.

None have. I think I can guess why.

I’ve noticed that statements and op-eds opposing the NSL have gone into great detail as to why it’s a bad idea and means the end of One Country Two Systems, giving historical and contemporary context, with numerous examples of how “national security” could be (and already has been) abused in China and elsewhere to stifle and punish opposition.

See for example this column from Cliff Buddle, which ran in SCMP the same day Alex Lo’s column did. He makes a detailed and thoughtful analysis (that saves me a great deal of typing) explaining why there’s good reason to worry about the NSL, and to doubt Beijing’s claims that it will be very narrowly applied.

By contrast, Alex Lo’s column doesn’t back up his assertion at all. He doesn’t explain how the NSL will depoliticize HK, end the protest violence and go back to normal. It simply will. As if the entire problem all along was that we didn't have Draconian enough laws to deal with these punks throwing petrol bombs in the streets. Now that we’re going to have one, problem solved and we can all get along.

There are various reasons for the gaping plot hole in such declarations. For one thing, the people making them are under no obligation to defend their conclusions. It’s not like the law won’t passed if not enough people are convinced that it’s necessary, so why make an effort to back your argument?

For another, the point of these statements is really to be seen publicly declaring sworn loyalty to the new regime. These people know where the power lies, and like good Quislings they’re making sure the Powers That Be point the NSL crosshairs at someone else.

Also, at least for now, no one wants to say the quiet part out loud – the NSL will bring about peace and harmony by using the strong arm of radical law enforcement to terrify the opposition into silence and make examples of anyone who resists.

Voilà: peace and harmony.

This is what China does with its malcontents – this is what the HK govt and its supporters want for HK.

They'll say they don't, of course. And you know, I’m sure many of them imagine in their heads that we’ll still have the same freedoms (or at least they will, because they don't harbour verboten political beliefs, so same thing, really). And maybe some of them actually believe the NSL will be only used against the most violent radicals, and that once those people are dealt with, everyone will be right as rain.

In reality, it's a classic case of trading liberty for security without the slightest understanding just what the price of that security will be. Or maybe they do – and they’re okay with that as long as it’s someone else paying that price.

I wonder how they’ll feel if the price becomes higher than they expected, and where they might draw the line – midnight house raids? Disappearing journalists? Xinjiang-style re-education camps? Tiananmen 2.0?

Welp. We’ll find out.

The price of everything and the value of nothing,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Sid Ramin, "The Syncopated Click"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1627855.html

Thursday night, Beijing’s National People's Congress Standing Committee announced it will put forward proposals to enact national security legislation in Hong Kong that will officially make sedition, treason, foreign interference and terrorism crimes in the SAR – bypassing the HK government’s Legislative Council in the process.

By no coincidence, this comes after the HK govt, the HK police, pro-government politicians and Beijing liaison officials police have spent past few months consistently building up the narrative that the protest movement as secessionists and terrorists backed by foreign interference – which just happen to be the exact specific things this bill is targeting.

You see where this is going, yes?

Backgrounder: Under the Basic Law (the mini-constitution that governs Hong Kong under the One Country Two Systems arrangement that allows HK to operate separately from China for 50 years), Article 23 requires the HK govt to enact legislation covering “national security” issues such as sedition, treason and terrorism before its SAR status expires in 2047. This is, to say the least, thorny, because at the time the Basic Law was drafted, everyone knew what the Chinese govt counts as sedition and treason (i.e. simply saying something critical of the govt was equivalent to actively attempting to overthrow it), and that Beijing would naturally expect HK’s law to have similar criteria.

The HK govt first introduced an Article 23 bill in 2003. The response from the HK public was 500,000 people marching on the street to oppose it. The HK govt backed off and didn't bring the matter up again.

Now, in 2020, national security legislation is back, mainly because Beijing (and Carrie Lam, and her crew) have said that it’s the only way to put an end to the protests.

That’s not even remotely true, but it’s the only solution Beijing is interested in because that’s how they handle it on the mainland, and frankly they’re sick of our crap and want to out the fear of God into us. And with HK’s pro-Beijing majority in the Legislative Council not having a big enough majority to railroad legislation through locally, Beijing has evidently decided to bypass LegCo and enact national-security laws here by adding them to Annex III of the Basic Law. HK still has to pass its own national security law under Article 23, but in the meantime, the laws under Annex III will do nicely.

The vote is expected next week.

And so, what then?

I don't know. A lot depends on the details, but there’s no real reason to be optimistic when you loOk at the broader context in which all this is happening. Carrie Lam and her henchmen were just on TV telling us (and the world) that there’s nothing to worry about: we’re still a totally free and open society, and One Country Two Systems will remain completely intact after this bill is passed.

She said that about the extradition bill too.

I mean, these are the same people who just managed to get a long-running political satire program on RTHK taken off the air for the terrible crime of making fun of the police (by a comedian who used to be a police officer!), which to them is no different from actively encouraging people to hate the police. So no, I don't trust them to wield this new power responsibly or fairly.

Is it truly the end of One Country Two Systems?

It’s too soon to say definitively – I think it will continue to exist in the technical sense that HK will still be considered a semi-autonomous region that gets to plan its own economy and have its own version of democracy, etc. But it will be run the way Beijing tells them to run it – and Beijing will be a lot more proactive in doing just that. In terms of free speech, human rights and civil liberties, the HK system may be a separate system, but it will be a system nearly identical to the mainland system, rendering the term another meaningless catch-phrase for Beijing’s foreign ministry spokespeople and the CE to throw around when they respond to international criticism, like “hegemony” and “rule of law”.

How will protesters react?

There’s a march planned for Sunday that the police will almost certainly ban, and will beat up and arrest anyone who tries (as well as anyone who happens to be near anyone who tries, the media and innocent bystanders included). Beyond that, I don’t know. My sense is that the protest movement overall won’t give up – the fact that Beijing is resorting to this shows that the protests has truly rattled the CCP. So stopping now would be a waste of all the effort put in so far.

But they aren’t crazy about another year of sucking tear gas in nightly street fights with riot police either, not least because they know it’s a futile gesture anyway. I’ve heard they’re looking for alternative resistance action plans.

On the other hand, if they feel they truly have nothing to lose, maybe they’ll go out swinging. In which the police would be delighted to accommodate them.

Either way, it seems 2047 has indeed come early.

For more information:

Read this Vox explainer.

Read also this mildly hopeful commentary from Stephen Vines.

The other shoe,

This is dF

Current Mood: pessimistic
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Jeannie C Riley, "Widow Jones"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1626764.html

You know Hong Kong has got COVID-19 under control when the protest movement kicks back into gear.

Granted, it’s mostly just been people singing the unofficial anthem in malls. But that hasn’t stopped the police from treating them like terrorists about to blow up the place.

Anyway, there are several key differences between last year and this year.

Mary Hui at Quartz lists most of them here, but essentially:

1. Beijing has more aggressively stated its right (and its intention) to dictate affairs in HK, even though the Basic Law (our mini-constitution defining One Country Two Systems) says otherwise.

2. The police has been using social distancing restrictions to harass businesses that support the protest movement, and to arrest protesters.

3. They’ve also been busy arresting top pro-Democracy activists and legislators.

4. In fact, the police are generally much more aggressive now in squashing any potential protest. No applications have been approved, and if so much as five people gather somewhere to protest, the police send in vans full of riot police to dish out gratuitous violence, pepper spray and body searches, And that’s just for the media.

We’ll likely be seeing much more of #4 – the Independent Police Complaints Council has issued its investigative report on police brutality and general handling of protests, and generally found that the police could maybe have done a better job in a few specific situations, but otherwise, keep up the good work.

This wasn't unexpected – the IPCC isn’t as independent as the name makes it out to be, and has no legal powers to investigate most of the complaints beyond comparing the police version of events with the complainant’s accusations. And as the IPCC is mostly run by former cops, you can already guess which side they’re going to give more credence to (hence one of the Five Demands™ being a truly independent inquiry into police brutality and corruption).

Carrie Lam's official response was also as expected – as far as she's concerned, the report shows the police have been exonerated, and Hong Kong's biggest problem is lying protesters besmirching the police with propaganda and fake news. Naturally, the solution is to stop protesters from spreading fake news. I think we know what that will involve.

The fact that she gave this response whilst standing in front of a huge backdrop saying “The Truth About Hong Kong” kind of says it all, really.

The injustice of it all is heartbreaking. For months we watched the police fire off endless rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets, real bullets, bean bag rounds, pepper rounds and pepper spray not only at the hardline protesters smashing up stuff, but anyone who got in their way, including journalists, first aid responders, social workers, innocent bystanders and legislators trying to broker peace. Less-lethal weapons are supposed to be used to deter imminent threats – HK police are as likely to use them as an exclamation point to assert their authority over you if you so much as look at them funny. They’ve done nothing to keep the peace and everything to ensure violent confrontation.

They’re doing it still. The video evidence of police brutality, irresponsibility and unprofessionalism is staggering. The govt has chosen to pretend it is “fake news” and propaganda spread by the protesters. Now, thanks to the IPCC report, the police have essentially been given a green light to do whatever they want to protesters and anyone who supports them. At most they risk a reprimand (which may be issued with a wink, for all we know).

What happens now?

We don't know. Given that the police have been actively running propaganda campaigns attempting to label the protest movement as a terrorist organization, now would be a good time for the protest movement to shift gears, disavow violence as much as possible and use other tools to resist. I was never a fan of the violent wing of the protest movement, even if they were mostly limiting the targets to property and riot police – partly because I generally oppose violence, but mainly because it plays into the hands of the govt and the police. They WANT the protesters to be violent so they can justify their disproportionately violent response. It plays into their “terrorist” narrative, and the best way to counter that right now is to take no action that could be used to feed that narrative.

Unfortunately, it seems the govt has a plan to make sure the protest movement stays angry.

Remember how all of this started with the extradition bill that meant HK citizens who just happened to be critical of China could be whisked off to stand trial in China’s notorious judicial system? That bill is now dead, but the govt seems keen to pass new laws that seem almost designed to provoke the same kind of angry reactions as the extradition bill.

For example, the pro-Beijing DAB party is finalizing a bill that makes it a crime to criticize or mock China’s national anthem.

There’s also been talk about solving the problem of the police assaulting journalists by requiring journalists to be accredited by the govt. How would this solve that problem, you ask? I could explain the official reasons, but they would make no sense. Suffice to say the police excuse for assaulting journalists is that a few of them are allegedly protesters pretending to be journalists to escape capture. Which (1) may not even be true, and (2) even if it was, the police are basically arguing that if a suspected criminal hides in a crowd of 100 people and you don't know which one is him, it's in the interest of law and order to pepper-spray and beat up all 100 people to make sure you get him.

The govt will likely follow that up with the infamous Article 23 legislation intended to enact laws in HK against sedition and treason – with the likelihood that its definition of what counts as both will be identical to Beijing’s (i.e. any criticism of the govt whatsoever).

The fact the govt is pushing for all of this at a time when tensions are already sky-high suggests to me they're hoping the protest movement will be angry and desperate enough to do what they did last year – only this time, the police will be under no obligation or pressure to show restraint. Which I reckon is just fine with Beijing. They don’t really want to send in the PLA to shoot protesters and make examples of them – they’d much rather the HK police do that for them, if only for the sake of optics. And the current police chief seems keen on the idea.

So that’s what we have to look forward to in the coming months. The past few months have been mostly quiet, and it was the opportune time for the HK govt to try and find a peaceful way out of this. Turns out they don't want one.

Cruel summer,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Joe Tex, "Let He Who Is Without Funk Cast The First Stone"

A clarification on my previous post regarding COVID-19 in HK, the difficulties of maintaining social distancing for long periods of time, and the role of govts in sustained social distancing:

In HK, we mitigate that with masks and hand sanitizer, etc. But it only goes so far. You need solid and consistent govt leadership setting the example and imposing limitations.

I should have added:

Not that we have that in Hong Kong.

The new social distancing regs that kicked in today are good in theory (if somewhat flawed). But a potentially bigger problem is enforcement – partly because the details are difficult to enforce consistently and fairly, and partly because consistent and fair enforcement is the responsibility of the HK police force, which is not especially renowned for being consistent or fair.

In fact, the HK police is probably the most hated organization in Hong Kong right now, and most if not all police officers hate us back. That’s not a good mix when a squad of cops walk into a restaurant and start measuring how far apart diners are and making them move if they’re less than six feet apart.

It also doesn't help that the HK police are currently obsessed with the fact that protests still happen in HK (and still receive a lot of public support), which means not every protester is in jail, and they remain convinced the way to fix this is to continue to arrest, jail, beat, pepper spray, tear gas and harass as many protesters as it takes until the protests stop.

<tangent>

They’ve also been going out of their way in recent months to establish a clear narrative that the protest movement is in reality a terrorist movement. Stephen Vines has a concise write-up on this, but essentially police have uncovered several stashes of bombs, weapons and ammo that they say is intended to wage a campaign of bombing and cop-killing across HK. They frequently describe this as if the campaign is already happening, even though the handful of incidents they can actually point to – though certainly illegal – have caused minor damage and injured no one.

The police have, of course, produced no evidence whatsoever that these stashes have anything to do with the protest movement or that the people arrested intended to use them to target the police. But apparently, according to Vines, that hasn't stopped Carrie Lam and other govt officials from reportedly telling foreign diplomats in HK that the protest movement is either a terrorist threat in itself or providing cover for a fringe terrorist group (funded by foreign elements! Probably!).

One aspect the Vines column doesn’t touch upon is the fact that this is happening while a number of adamantly pro-govt/pro-police legislators are calling for Article 23 legislation.

Quick history lesson: Article 23 of the Basic Law – our mini-constitution established with the 1997 handover from the UK to China – says HK must establish a ‘national security’ law by 2047 that specifically covers terrorism, sedition and treason. The HK govt tried this in 2003 and was countered with what at the time one of the biggest street protests in HK’s history, for the simple reason that we knew perfectly well that the ultimate purpose of the law sooner or later was to allow the HK govt to define terrorism, sedition and treason the same way China does: literally anything that criticizes or challenges any govt action, policy or official in any way. Simply disagreeing with the CCP could bring you up on charges of attempting to overthrow the govt.

Imagine what the HK govt would do with such a law right now.

The pro-govt people are practically drooling at the prospect. So are the police. Luckily, we’re in no immediate danger just yet – the whole protest movement started with an extradition bill that would have enabled HK anti-govt activists to be extradited to China for whatever China felt like charging them with (“soliciting prostitutes” is a classic go-to charge). It would be beyond stupid even by Carrie Lam standards to pursue an Article 23 bill now.

On the other hand, the police have just arrested a pro-Democracy district councillor for sedition using an old Colonial law that hasn’t been used for decades. The “sedition” was allegedly forwarding a Facebook post that allegedly gave details of a police officer who some people think was responsible for half-blinding Indonesian journalist Veby Indah covering the protests last September.

A doxxing charge would be understandable (flimsy and arbitrary, but understandable). Sedition? Come on.

The arrest itself is fairly obviously petty revenge by the police (who decided to arrest her at her home at 1:45am). It’s also widely believed to be a test to see if they can actually make a sedition charge stick, and if the public will go along with it, which would pave the way for more sedition arrests and maybe bolster support for Article 23. The police narrative about protesters = terrorists might also possibly being crafted for that purpose.

</tangent>

So anyway, THIS is the police force that will be tasked with enforcing the new social distancing rules – and arresting anyone found violating them.

To be clear, I don’t think they’re going to equate sitting five people at a restaurant table with sedition. But there’s a running bet on Twitter that the police will use the social distancing law as another thing they can arrest protesters for (wearing a surgical mask is technically still illegal, although right now enforcement is, to say the least, impractical). Or – absent any actual protests – they’ll use it as a pretense to shake down and arrest anyone they think might be connected with the protests – especially in restaurants and other businesses that have been openly supportive of the protests. And the police are widely expected to handle those situations the same way they handle anything protest-related – with lots of tear gas, pepper spray and gratuitous violence.

Or maybe they'll use common sense for once and realize that we're all in this together and if there's one thing we should be unifying over, it's this.

Ha ha. No.

So, yeah, the social distancing law might have been necessary, but enforcement is likely to be messy in more ways than one.

All this because some people decided going to LKF to drink a lot of overpriced beer was more important than flattening the curve.

Hope it was worth it.

Don’t go out there,

This is dF

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Tung Chung
Current Music: Blondie, "X-Offender"
Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1609221.html

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I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (OCTOBER 2024 EDITION)
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ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT THAT “EXPATS” TV SHOW WHICH I HAVE NOT WATCHED
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ANARCHY IN THE HK: MEET THE NEW BOSS / WORSE THAN THE OLD BOSS
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IMPEACHAPALOOZA 2: COUP COUP KACHOO
AUTHORITARIAN LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS
AN APPLE A DAY ANNOYS THE POLICE: THE STRANGE AND TERRIBLE SAGA OF JIMMY LAI
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ANARCHY IN THE HK PART 398 (FEARLESS EDITION)
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ANARCHY IN THE HK PART 395: HOW MUCH WOULD *YOU* PAY FOR NATIONAL SECURITY?
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I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (OCTOBER 2024 EDITION)

I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (JANUARY 2024 EDITION)

ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT THAT “EXPATS” TV SHOW WHICH I HAVE NOT WATCHED

I PROTEST! AT TWO DIFFERENT SPEEDS!

ANARCHY IN THE HK: MEET THE NEW BOSS / WORSE THAN THE OLD BOSS

HONG KONG: NOW WITH EVEN MORE ERSATZ DEMOCRACY!

IMPEACHAPALOOZA 2: COUP COUP KACHOO

AUTHORITARIAN LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS

AN APPLE A DAY ANNOYS THE POLICE: THE STRANGE AND TERRIBLE SAGA OF JIMMY LAI

DEMOCRACY IS CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

ANARCHY IN THE HK PART 398 (FEARLESS EDITION)

ANARCHY IN THE HK PART 397 (OUTLAW PRIMARY EDITION)

45 REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE

ANARCHY IN THE HK PART 396 (ANNIVERSARY EDITION)

IT’S 2020 AND WE REMEMBER TIANANMEN SQUARE WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

MINNEAPOLIS IS THE NEW HONG KONG

ANARCHY IN THE HK PART 395: HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY FOR NATIONAL SECURITY?

ANARCHY IN THE HK PART 394: NATIONAL INSECURITY EDITION

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