‘No Happy New Year ahead for Hong Kong, just endless protest chaos for the foreseeable future’

‘While the revolution devours its own, Beijing gets to showcase its tolerance
and patience to a global audience’

The new normal… Yonden Lhatoo yesterday

A Billion Chinese Dreams Ep 4: Balanced Development

Click here for the fourth and final in this series

This is a really good series. It gives you a bit more of an idea of today’s China than what you normally see in western media. It’s not apologia. But it does talk to ordinary folks in today’s rapidly changing China…a quarter of the world’s population. 

I’ve not time at all for the dictator Xi Jinping — I’ve criticised him often — but there is more to China than repression, suppression and censorship. There’s the everyday people.
Episode 1 is here. 

Episode 2 is here.
Episode 3 is here. 
Episode 4 is here. 

‘Let’s face reality, the protests have got to stop’

This is the photo accompanying the letter online. It’s a bit odd.
The caption says “protesters in action at an eatery, December 26”.
Though I can’t see any action. Just a guy sitting on a table

My letter was published in the South China Morning Post, today here. 

The headline above is what was in the print edition. The online headline version’s is ‘Why violent protests don’t stand to reason; look in the Basic law’.

The reference is to what the Basic Law says about democracy.
(Letter as submitted here).
ADDED: comments online, below the fold

'Did the police use "excessive force" against protesters in Hong Kong?'

This (pasted below the fold) is from a few months ago, but holds up well. A view from Andrew Mak, a HK resident since 2000. I think it’s a fair representation of what’s going on here in Hong Kong. The police have made mistakes. But they’re not the brutes the protesters claim. Overall, there’s misrepresentation in the mainstream media. Protesters are given a free ride and the police are hammered.
The link is here and you have to scroll down for this article. It’s also below the fold…

Protesters did scare away some pro-government voters

Above is the offices of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB)

I got some pushback to my letter claiming that some pro-government voters had been scared off voting in the November District Council elections. “Where was the proof?” they asked. And true, it was hard to find online proof. All I had was hearsay. 

Regina Ip, long-term Legislative Councillor, makes my point today, rather forcefully. And online there’s a link to another story with pix of protesters vandalising pro-government candidates’ offices.
So, that’s some proof, right there.
I knew Regina back in my government service days. She’s one tough cookie. Hardline, pro-government, sure, but I’d trust her as a woman of sound integrity. When she lost the battle over Article 23, which she was in charge of, she didn’t complain. She resigned to take responsibility.
I’ve copied her letter today, below the fold. (With apologies for some of the weird formatting):

‘Mainland Chinese who oppose Hong Kong’s protests aren’t brainwashed by censorship, despite what the West might think’

Illustration: Craig Stephens 

Well, survived another Christmas here in Hong Kong. Lovely weather, good food and some lively company. Hong Kong protests of course came up.

We could agree on some things, one of them in the headline above. We all travel regularly to China and speak the lingo. We agree that it’s wrong to suggest that all Chinese are brainwashed. They are well informed and have free and open debate. Some things are off the agenda: you can’t call Xi Jinping a human Winnie the Pooh (though he clearly is). That aside, it’s pretty much on for young and old. Up to and including criticism of ’s policies to Uygurs.
There is a vast amount of raucous, sometimes salacious, local media. Shanghai has Ted-style talk, open and spirited. A lot of foreign media is readily available. If you want western feeds that are behind the Great Firewall, getting a VPN to climb over the firewall is a matter of minutes’ work.
So, the fact that people in China might not agree with Hong Kong protesters is not because they are brainwashed. Just they don’t agree with them. They don’t sgeee with you?  It’s not that they’re told what to think. Just that they don’t agree with you!
Ren Yi discusses it in his article here, an article is missed first time round, back in October. 

Albanese attacks Coalition’s nuclear ‘fantasy’ as Greens say report should ‘alarm all Australians’

"This is absurd at best and dangerous at worst," [Senator Hanson-Young] said in a statement.

The above statement from the Greens Senator is itself "absurd at best and dangerous at worst". 

Absurd because nuclear technology is safe, cheap and reliable.  Not knowing that is absurd. Knowing that but ignoring it is lying. 

Dangerous because it will delay the move out of polluting coal, which claims lives every year through its air borne particulates and which contributes to global warming, dangerous to the whole of humanity and the earth's bio-system. 

I've written before how the "Greens have ruined the world". There is no let up to their obdurate ignorance which keeps trashing it. 

As for Albanese's comment, nuclear power for Australia is only a 'fantasy' because people like him have no imagination.  (With the Greens it's more a matter of wilful ignorance).

From here. 

What are the costs and benefits of the current protests?

LETTER TO SCMP [published on December 29, here]

What are the costs and benefits of the current protests? 

The costs are clear. Billions of dollars in shop closures, unemployment, reduced visitor numbers, starved charities.

But what are the upsides? What are the benefits of the protests? Surely there are some?
So far, I can think of only one. The extradition bill was withdrawn shortly after the first protests. Conclusion: (a) the protests were effective and (b) the government was responsive.
But protests continued. Have they gained any more upside? Well, now it's "Five Demands" not just one.

Three of these extra demands are only because of the protests. Not because they are causes fought for.

These are the "self-centred demands":
1. Stop calling us "rioters".
2. Give us all Amnesty, and …
3. Investigate the police (but not us!)
However:
1. You can't stop calling rioters "rioters" if in fact they are... rioters. It does violence to language to demand otherwise.
2.  The second demand does violence to the rule of law, which the protesters claim to champion. How can we give blanket amnesty to people who have killed bystanders and set people on fire?  
3.  Investigate the police… but don't investigate any of the wanton vandalism of the protesters? This one does violence to the concept of fairness. 
That leaves only the last "Demand" which is for universal suffrage. But trying to achieve this by violent protest is doomed to failure. Thinking otherwise is delusional. Universal suffrage is not a "promise" is being broken by Beijing (as is so often claimed).  The Basic Law makes it clear: The Chief Executive is to be selected by "election or through consultations held locally" and "the method small be specified in the light of the actual situation". No promise there. And the "actual situation" has clearly moved against it.

What this means is that what has been achieved by the protests and what will be achieved is: ZERO.
An essentially nativist and populist movement has been romanticised to being "pro-democrat". It is not. 

It's past time we faced reality: the protests are hugely costly without a single benefit. They must stop. Perhaps then we can get back to the "actual situation" allowing discussion of how to proceed with universal suffrage.

Pf etc…

What are the upsides of the protests?

I wrote recently about the costs of the Hong Kong protests. They’re pretty easy to calculate. At least the economic costs. There are other costs, like mental health and international trust, hard to quantify but acknowledged and real.
The economic costs alone are plenty. Tens of $billions in shop closures, increased unemployment, visitor numbers sharply down, real estate slowdown. Worst: charities and the least advantaged have been hard hit.
A restaurateur we know told us his June to August business had been the worst since he opened twelve years ago. People are simply not spending.
But what are the upsides? What are the benefits of the protests? Surely there are some?
So far, I can think of only one. The extradition bill was withdrawn. It was withdrawn by the government pretty quickly after the first, peaceful, protests. Given that it was the only “Demand” of the protests at the beginning, in June, and given that it was withdrawn quickly, you’d have to say that (a) the protests were effective and (b) the government was responsive.

But instead of heading home happy, some protesters kept going, and are still going to this day.
What extra have they achieved?
Well, for a start they added four extra “Demands” which have become the rallying cry.: “Five Demands and not one Less” (五大訴求 缺一不可).
Thing is, three of the five demands are there only because of the protests. When you protest it’s usually for something or against something. It’s pretty unusual to have demands that result only from your own actions. I call these three the “self-centred demands”.
These three are:
1. Stop calling us “rioters”.
2. Give us all Amnesty, and …
3. Investigate the police.

Taking these One-by-one, it seems to me that:
1. You can’t stop calling rioters “rioters” if in fact they are… well,… rioters. Not all of them, of course. But the ones that are, are. It does violence to the English (and Chinese) language to demand otherwise.
2.  If the first demand does violence to language, the second demand does violence to the rule of law, which the protesters claim to champion. How can a law abiding society give blanket amnesty to people who have, amongst all the vandalism, killed bystanders and set people on fire? (ADDED: I’m in favour of some leniency to younger ones and to those who’ve not done much; they should not have a lifelong stain. But you can’t make it a blanket amnesty. Some of the rioters have got seriously out of control and been wildly destructive. There has to be a penalty for that.
3.  Investigate the police… but don’t investigate any of the illegal, vandalistic, dangerous actions of the protesters? This one does violence to the concept of fairness. Doesn’t it?

That leaves only the last “Demand”,  number Five, which is for universal suffrage. I think this one was tacked on at the end, almost as an afterthought, perhaps to show the demands were not all purely self-centred. Had this suffrage issue been forethought, it may have occurred to them that rioting and vandalism, burning the Chinese flag, reviling China, insulting mainlanders etc, etc, is not the way to go about it. It would have been better to go back to the 2014 proposals for a step forward and work from there. Behind the scenes! To build some trust and confidence. Sadly, the way things have gone has ruined any trust with Beijing.
For those who maintain that a “promise” is being broken by Beijing, think again. Read the Basic Law.
Which rather means, if you accept my analysis, that what has been achieved by the protests is and will be: zero.
It’s put us in the map, sure.
And that’s it?
Meantime: I’ve said elsewhere the protests are more nativist than pro-democracy. Alex Lo says today they are more populist than pro-democracy [Wayback]. There’s lots of crossover in our views.

I would love to hear of any upsides to the protests. Email me. 

A Billion Chinese Dreams, Ep3. Next Stage Economic Reform

Click here to go to Video page

This is a really good series. It gives you a bit more of an idea of today’s China than what you normally see in western media. It’s not apologia. But it does talk to ordinary folks in today’s rapidly changing China…a quarter of the world’s population. 

I’ve not time at all for the dictator Xi Jinping — I’ve criticised him often — but there is more to China than repression, suppression and censorship. There’s the everyday people.
Episode 1 is here. 

Episode 2 is here.

'Core values of the United States at risk of being undermined'. LETTER re Editorial

Your editorial on the Trump impeachment reads like a Democratic Party talking points memo. (Core values of the United States at risk of being undermined, 22 December).

 I'm no Trump supporter, but some balance is needed. 

Presidential impeachment cannot be for "misconduct" because it would put the presidency at the pleasure of the House. They could remove a president simply because they did not like them. Hence the phrase "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanours", required for impeachment. 

Neither charge of the Trump impeachment rises to that level. 

"Abuse of office" is in the nature of "misconduct". The Democrats don't like the president, so they want to impeach him. This is dangerous precedent. 

The alleged "abuse"  relates to Trump asking Ukrainian president to "do us a favour".  Democrats assume it relates to the 2020 election . An equally valid assumption is that it relates to the Bidens' alleged corruption in Ukraine in 2016 [which the Democrats say is debunked, but… really??]. Either reading is valid. It is false for Democrats to claim that  "the facts are not in dispute". They are very much in dispute.  And note the Democrats did not charge "bribery", because the evidence did not support it.

"Obstruction of Congress" is also baseless. The White House sought the Courts' judgment on the validity of Congressional subpoenas, as both Nixon and Clinton had done. But when Trump does it, it's "obstruction"? Absurd.

The presidential office is a co-equal and to suggest he serves only as long as Congress likes him, and must jump when the Congress demands, is to put the presidency at the pleasure of the House.  

The core values of the United States really are at risk, as your headline suggests, but from the Democratic House, not the Republican Senate. The House is lowering the bar to impeachment to simply "I don't like the president".  Remember: the Democrats talked impeachment from day one the presidency, as the Washington Post reported on Jan 21, 2017:  "The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun".  

As you say "Voters may yet have to be the judge". Of course they will. They will judge against the impeachment, as the polls are suggesting.

PF, etc...

Full on delusion as trust in police plummets

An article in today’s Post reports “police reputation in tatters”. It’s true that it is (in tatters). It’s not true that it’s deserved. I see police arrest someone who is vandalising a restaurant. Others see police brutality. I see police trying to stop crime. Others see police mass rapists and “murderers”. Really!
Police have managed over six months of violent protests without killing a single person — unlike police in other cities —  but are accused of murder. The only murder is by protesters of innocent bystanders, but it’s police reputation that’s “in tatters”. A fifth of Hongkongers support protest violence and call for police to be disbanded! Go figure.
This is a case of mass insanity, of delusion at a city level, enabled and driven by social media.
It’s really weird to see it happening right in front of your eyes.
And yes, you need to keep your head, be aware of confirmation bias, be aware you too can be seeing just one angle and it may be wrong. But I’m not a cultural relativist. It’s not a matter of two sides to every story. The police have made mistakes. But they are not the brutal monsters they’re made out. They are not murderers. They have not committed mass rape. And we do need them (just as any decent city does). They are viewed poorly. But they do not deserve it. 

My mate Yonden, on the police issue …

A Billion Chinese Dreams, Ep2. Balanced Development

Click here to go to video 

This is a really good series. It gives you a bit more of an idea of today’s China than what you normally see in western media. It’s not apologia. But it does talk to ordinary folks in today’s rapidly changing China…a quarter of the world’s population. 

I’ve not time at all for the dictator Xi Jinping — I’ve criticised him often — but there is more to China than repression, suppression and censorship. There’s the everyday people.
Episode 1 is here. 

What to make of the impeachment process?

First the Dems were like “rush, rush, rush”. And now they’re like  “slow, slow, slow”.
Nancy says they’re delaying passing the impeachment bills to the Senate because... well... because.  And the Reps are mocking them. Memes of the “Blazing Saddles”’scene where the guy holds a gun to his own head and says “I’ll pull trigger if you don’t do what I say”.
It’s hard to avoid the impression that the Dems are in a jam. A tweet suggests “it’s like the unwanted abortion... you were supposed to pull out, but...”. Do the Dems wish they’d not got here? Do they wish they’d pulled out and gone “censure” route instead?
Or is the feeling of having impeached, just the great feeling, making Trump, Orange Man, feel bad, enough payoff?
Strikes me the Reps have the upper hand in this tussle so far. Trump’s support is up.

‘Muslims caused fear of Islam’: Mahathir Mohamad opens Kuala Lumpur Summit, amid Saudi disgruntlement

Is the Malaysian PM, Mahathir Mohamad, an Islamophobe? Kidding! But…
Here he is making statements about Islam that if a non-Muslim made them would be deemed "Islamophobic".

 "Today we have lost the respect of the world. We are no longer the source of human knowledge nor the model of human civilisation. For a long time in the 18th to mid-20th centuries Muslim countries were all dominated and occupied by European powers. We have now largely freed ourselves. But we have not done much better as independent nations. Indeed, some of us have regressed to the point of once again being dependent on our former colonial masters," said Mahathir, who is serving a second stint as prime minister after his previous term from 1981 to 2003.

I do wonder who he means has "regressed to the point of once again being dependent on our former colonial masters". Who is he referring to?
ADDED: a separate report in the meeting says they decided the best way to catch up with the west is to focus on dealing with other Islamic countries and ignore the secular world. Way to go. Not. 

‘Women fare worse in Japan than ... Angola’

Huh?
That was the headline of an article in today’s Post.  I thought…weird. Worse than Angola? I’ve been to Angola and I’ve been to Japan. In Angola the women carry firewood in their heads, cart the drinking water, lug the kids. The men, if you see them at all, are out front, riding a donkey, smoking. Women do all the work at home and most of it in the fields.  And we are supposed to believe that they are better off than women in Japan?
I googled it and find the same story, same headline on lots of sites, like this. Turns out that it’s the one story, emanating from the Post’s correspondent  in Japan and based on a report on gender from the World Economic Forum.
A closer look at that report shows that the reason women in Japan score lower than those in Angola — all according to the WEF — is that they don’t have the same proportion in senior government or business.
That may be so, but it does violence to common sense. Which is that women in Angola, the vast numbers who are not on company boards or in parliament, are savagely worse off than the average woman in Japan.
What nonsense to suggest otherwise.  Ask any woman of any ethnicity and from any country whether she would rather live in Angola or Japan.
A couple of stats:
Angolan women: life expectancy 61 years. Literacy rate 65%.
Japanese women: life expectancy 82 years. Literacy rate 99%.
But sure; women are better off in Angola.
(They’re probably happier though! The pic above is typical. As we found all over Africa, folks, women and men, smile and laugh a lot. A real lot). 

Has Trump impeachment been a legitimate process—or partisan weapon?

I’ve never had much time for Ted Cruz from the time of the 2016 primaries, and had not time for his unhelpful intervention when he visited Hong Kong recently. But he’s a strong legal mind, who has argued nine cases before the US Supreme Court, and here gives the best explanation I’ve yet seen of the background to the Constitution’s article on impeachment.

Key point: Impeachment can be for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours”.  The catch-all at the end ("... other..."), after a list, legally means things that are similar in nature to the preceding list: in this case treason and bribery. “Abuse of power” or “obstruction of justice”, the two articles in the present impeachment, are not of the same order. Cause, perhaps in the UK context, for a Vote of No Confidence, in the US of a Censure motion. But not impeachment. 

Related: I’ve not bought the Democratic line about Joe and Hunter Biden that all they did in Ukraine was on the up-and-up, and the Democrats talking points that corruption “has been debunked”.  Really? Where was the investigation?

The way this impeachment has been prosecuted so far, it will become simply a partisan weapon to oust the party you don’t like, if you happen to control the House of Reps. A bad outcome.
By the way, for the Dems to say that it’s not political, they’re only following the Constitution, is patently absurd on the face of it. The very fact that every Democrat supports and every Republican  opposes, means it’s a purely political act not a matter of “constitutional principle”.

'Hong Kong’s pro-America rioters ignore the US’ long history of anti-China racism'. (Response to letter of 14 December)

Chris Ma deplores the protesters waving American flags.  They "should be ashamed of themselves". (Rioters waving US flags need a history lesson, December 14). Ma gives some history of malign US policy against China and Chinese as reasons.

I agree and would like to add to that history. 

We all know about Britain deliberately addicting China's youth on opium and starting the Opium Wars when China resisted. One result was Hong Kong, forcibly taken by Britain. [And protesters also fly the Union Jack??]

Less well known is that the United States was an enthusiastic supporter of the opium trade, as described by Karl Meyer in The Opium War's Secret History. A "24-year-old Yankee", Warren Delano arrived In Canton in 1823 to work for Russell & Company  America's largest trading house in China. Delano made his money through the alchemy of opium, "black dirt" from India turned to silver by Chinese addicts. Meyer in The New York Times of June 28 1997, reports:

Warren Delano returned to America rich, and in 1851 settled in Newburgh, N.Y. There he eventually gave his daughter Sara in marriage to a well-born neighbor, James Roosevelt, the father of Franklin Roosevelt.

That is the very same Franklin Delano Roosevelt who became 32nd president of the United States, a presidential connection that helped keep America's role in the China opium trade long hidden.

But it is history. History that led to China's "Century of Humiliation". Hong Kong protesters wave the American flag, ignorant of this horrid history and in a deluded belief that America will come to their aid should things turn nasty. 

I join Chris Ma in saying "shame on them". And add: "Get real".

Peter Forsythe

Siena One

Discovery Bay

9308 0799

OK, Apostrophe!

Good morning David,

I enjoyed your article in the mighty apostrophe. Long may it reign!

Ironic that the paper you write for doesn’t use it when it’s needed in pinyin. 

I’ve had a years-long, so far unsuccessful, campaign to convince the  Post’s editors that (for example) “Xi’an” (eg, 西安) is not the same as “Xian” (eg, 先). Not only does the apostrophe change the meaning, but it also changes the pronunciation. Failure to use the apostrophe is wrong!

One of the Post’s writers told me that she had told the editors herself (in an article about Xi’an), but that they had told her it was “policy” not to use the apostrophe in pinyin. Policy, in other words, to be wilfully incorrect. 

I’ve just remembered a sign I saw many years ago — pre-phone cameras —  in an antiquarian bookseller along the Mall in London: 

“Just in …a first edition of David Copperfield, by Charles Dicken’s”.

Really!

Yours, in shared (?) pedantry and apostrophe adulation,

Peter f. 

Hong Kong 

‘Those who have been silent must now find a voice’

Click to enlarge and cleariify

My letter published in today’s Post. It’s based on “About half of Hongkongers think like this”

Albanese attacks Coalition’s nuclear ‘fantasy’ as Greens say report should ‘alarm all Australians’

“This is absurd at best and dangerous at worst,” [Senator Hanson-Young] said in a statement.

This statement from the Greens Senator is itself “absurd at best and dangerous at worst”. 

Absurd because nuclear technology is safe, cheap and reliable.  Not knowing that is absurd. Knowing that but ignoring it is lying. 

Dangerous because it will delay the move out of polluting coal, which claims lives every year through its air borne particulates and which contributes to global warming, dangerous to the whole of humanity and the earth’s bio-system. 

I’ve written before how the “Greens have ruined the world”. There is no let up to their obdurate ignorance which keeps trashing our dear planet. With the willing complicity of Albanese’s Labor Party

As for Albanese’s comment, nuclear power for Australia is only a ‘fantasy’ because people like him have no imagination. (With the Greens it’s more a matter of pig ignorance).
From here. 

Universal Suffrage: receding into the “tear smoke”

Even if you assume our protesters are motivated by the most noble of aims (which I don’t always accept), it’s a case of “the road to hell…”. 

That’s to say, outcomes the opposite to aims. Universal suffrage is further away, not closer, as a direct result of the protests. If this is true, then the last six months have been wasted. 

While the costs are easily identifiable and economically alone run to billions of dollars. 

Hong Kong has crossed the red line. 

UK elections

(03:00 am GMT)
I’m sat in Hong Kong watching the UK election results coming in in BBC and it seems it’s going to be a thumping Conservative victory. (64 majority projected).
To give the BBC presenters their due, they’re reporting the Tory landslide with brave faces. Remember BBC is staffed by arch Remainers and pro-Labour, even as they are obliged by Charter to be neutral.
Why are Labour losing votes in previously strong Labour seats?
My own main reason: because Labour is no longer a party of the working person. It’s a party of the urban educated upper-middle class.
I saw a chart a while ago that I can’t track down again: it showed percentage of Labour Party members who have a university degree (Y axis) by year (X axis). It goes up at a 45 degree angle. So that today the majority of Labour supporters are uni educated. Thats a big change from its origins as a party for the Working Man. Previous Labour voters, non-uni educated, in the country have to go Tory. And puts Greater London firmly in the Labour camp, with its upper end residents. If you’re working class you have to go Tory. How does one decry this?
By the way, it looks like Labour will win fewer seats (currently 196) than the so-called “disastrous Michael Foot election” of 1983, where he got 209 seats

ADDED: Total votes Conservatives: up 2%. Labour: down 8%. LibDems: up 4% Greens: no change.

ADDED: How could I forget? Voters are also telling Labour “no thanks” to mass Nationalisation. Labour were planning to nationalise Water, Energy, Telecoms…  I was in the United Kingdom in the 1970s where all those were run by the government. And they were dire. Three months wait for a phone line. Energy shortages. Three day working week. Governments are just not good at running businesses.
And, of course, Brexit. People were just sick and tired of all the faffing around, even those who’d voted Remain wanted it to finish per the 2016 referendum.  Labour’s message on Brexit was confused, to be the most charitable.

ADDED: my goodness! Jo Swinson leader of the LibDems just lost her seat to a Scottish National. By 100-odd votes with 83% turnout. BBC calls it an “astonishing result”. LibDems are huge Remainers. (03:47 am GMT).