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Hongkongers! Look on the bright side of totalitarian rule
Fed up with the stream of depressing news as Hong Kong is slipped into a new set of chains? So am I. Therefore let us, for a change, consider the bright side of totalitarian rule. The future is not all gloomy.Living with dictatorship does have a bright side, difficult though it may be to appreciate it under present circumstances. So here is a rough list of the pleasures we can look forward to:Cool uniforms: let’s face it, dictators do tend to have strikingly well-dressed minions. The gold standard for uniform design, by general if slightly embarrassed consent, was set by Hitler’s fashion team....
Hong Kong Free Press
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No stone left unturned: The Basic Law Hongkongers thought they knew is being demolished
“No stone left unturned” should be the hallmark for Hong Kong’s new life under national security rule which began almost five months ago on July 1, the anniversary of the city’s 1997 return to China.The new order began with the central government’s promulgation of a mainland-style national security law late on June 30. It is being enforced in multiple ways, including formal court proceedings and the decisions of officials both here and in Beijing.Their reach is all-encompassing. Nothing seems to be off limits, not Hong Kong’s heretofore independent judiciary and certainly not its legislature, ...
Hong Kong Free Press
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Vince Cable: A Liberal Democrat in thrall to Beijing’s illiberal dictatorship
There is a new book about the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Can you guess the colour of its cover?Bright red books have been understandably mocked by the China-watcher community. Yet we should cut the authors some slack as this is most certainly the publishers’ decision. They know how to market a book which appeals to the masses, no matter what the sneering specialists might say.I feel somewhat relieved to discover that volumes bound in deep red are a minority amongst my small China collection, and those that do opt for this cliché colouring, Odd Arne Westad’s Restless Empire a...
Hong Kong Free Press
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Abuse of foreign workforce tarnishes Taiwan’s rights reputation
Taiwan has a decent reputation for civil rights and other liberties but not everyone enjoys them. The island employs over 700,000 foreign workers from Southeast Asia. In addition to domestic care, they work in old people’s homes, factories and the fishing industry. But these migrant workers are often treated poorly, as two recent developments show.Taiwan is currently engaged in a dispute with Indonesia over broker fees. When Indonesian labourers want to come to the island, brokers act as middlemen by paying for health screening, airfare and pre-job training and testing. In return, the labourer...
Hong Kong Free Press
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Pennsylvania Judge Issues Stinging Opinion In Dismissal Of Trump Election Lawsuit
U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann delivered a scornful opinion in his dismissal of a lawsuit that Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, argued in court last week. Trump’s team demanded the disenfranchisement of 7 million Pennsylvania votes, but were instead met with a 37-page opinion which argued that, “This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence.” Brann added, “In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone ...
uPolitics.com
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How China seeks to redefine global norms and keep the West at bay
China was one of the major issues in the US presidential election. No matter what stance we take, we must acknowledge an objective reality: four decades of the US strategy of “peaceful evolution” and engagement with China has failed spectacularly.Drawing on the lessons of the Soviet Union, China has developed a series of ways to respond. It is even trying to redefine many global norms through constructing a “community with a shared future for mankind,” as defined by Chinese characteristics. Washington did not awake to such strategic moves until recently.The collapse of the Soviet Union, two ye...
Hong Kong Free Press
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Fire tragedy shows accountability is meaningless for the Hong Kong gov’t
As news emerged of the deadly fire at an unlicensed Nepalese restaurant in Jordan, Secretary for Home Affairs Caspar Tsui took to Facebook to tell the world how much he had enjoyed a bowl of sugar water.Tsui is allegedly responsible for matters such as this. But in the non-elected world of Hong Kong government where responsibility has no meaning, the valiant Secretary could not even bring himself to apologise for his callousness. Instead, he chose to comment that “multitasking is not conflicting”. Yes, he actually wrote that.This sordid combination of arrogance and rank irresponsibility is cha...
Hong Kong Free Press
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The tension between science of disease and people’s science
COVID-19 may have made science accessible to the public, perhaps, as never before. However, people may not have learned to interpret its logic and language or grasp the way it works. By Pradeep KrishnatrayDespite the present twists and turns on COVID-19, the scientific community has well-established ways of classifying diseases. However, over the centuries, people and cultures have evolved their own unique systems of interpreting them. A simple heuristic they follow is whether the disease is curable or not (or whether a person afflicted with a disease can return to leading a normal life).Follo...
Health Analytics
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Why Hong Kong’s rule of law is just as shaky in the lower courts
People trying to assess the health of the rule of law in Hong Kong tend, quite understandably, to look at those high-profile cases in which the government is trying to ensure that by the time Legco elections do come round — a year late — all the plausible opposition candidates will be either in prison, disqualified or both.This will transition us painlessly to democracy with Chinese characteristics, in which anyone can vote but you cannot run for office without the Party’s approval.But these conspicuous examples are quite remote from the rule of law as the man on the proverbial Clapham omnibus...
Hong Kong Free Press
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Beijing unbound: Hong Kong’s autonomy crumbles as China rewrites the law
By Thomas E. Kellogg It was dramatic political theatre. Just hours after a decision by the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress led to the expulsion of four prominent pan-democratic lawmakers, Hong Kong’s remaining 15 pan-dems resigned their seats in protest. Newspapers around the world carried photos of the 19 newly-unemployed lawmakers facing a phalanx of microphones, hands clasped in solidarity.From Beijing’s perspective, the day was a complete political success: its decision signalled the end of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council as one of the last high-profile platforms f...
Hong Kong Free Press
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