Good ol’ Cliff Buddle. Long time journo here, mate back in the day, now back in U.K., says it right.
Two things can be true at once: Hong Kong is not just another city in China. It has its separations and freedoms not on the mainland. And it can still be worse today than it was four years ago, thanks to the National security Law, thanks to 2019 rioters demanding independence. Hong Kong government does itself, and U.S., no favours by front paging the pursuit of bail jumpers.
Like the Japanese Consul General I’ve had people say similar things. Believing that the crushing of HK is complete. It’s not. Not yet anyway and there appears to be no desire to make it so. Only in the face of— unlikely— of a reprise of 2019.
Sunday 31 December 2023
“As HK enters a new year, challenges ahead are sobering” | Cliff Buddle
Unherd’s best of 2023
I support Unherd and encourage you to do so. It’s fine, independent, heterodox journalism.
Happy 2024!
Saturday 30 December 2023
As support for ‘two-state solution’ grows, what role will China play in Israeli-Palestinian peace process? | SCMP
Short answer to the above question: NONE. There is NO role for China in a "two-state solution".
Because….
The two-state solution is DEAD.
The sooner the world comes to terms with this, the sooner we might get to some sort of peace in the Middle East.
A peace that requires the removal of Hamas. Because Hamas have only one aim: the complete genocide of every Jew in the world. That is no partner for any kind of "two-state solution". They don't want it and never did.
We must not forget: the two-state solution has been on the table since the 1937 Peel Commission and has been re-offered no less than eight times. Each time, it was the Palestinians that rejected it.
Pushing for a "two-state solution" is a kind of a weird mantra: that people like China's leadership, feel better repeating. A kind of Buddhist Chant. Nan Wu Ah Mi Tuo Fo. Ohhhmmm….
But:
It's. Not. Viable.
There. Is. No. Two-State. Solution.
Period.
PS: Famous international affairs "realist" professor John Mearsheimer has been a "long-time advocate" of the two-state solution He now says it is not viable. It's done. We have to move on.
“China population: …demographic woes deepened”
Snip:
Remember: it takes 2.13 children per woman to keep a population stable. Only 1 per woman means tepid population decline.
Friday 29 December 2023
The two state solution is dead
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Northern Hong Kong gateway to “Bay Area”
The Greater Bay Area’s GDP of around $US 2 Trillion makes it the 8th largest in the world, ~ the size of Canada. Despite which, my reading is that hongkongers are pretty leery of getting involved in the GBA. Partly because wages are still much lower than in Hong Kong.
In the pic above, that’s not the Hong Kong skyline, but Shenzhen, across the border into China. Which, when I first went in 1976, was rice paddy fields. Now a city of ~13 million. The green area is Hong Kong land, in the northern New Territories.
Thursday 28 December 2023
War in Gaza: is God to blame?
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Quantum Flux: destroying with facts and logic.
This describes Norman Finklestein!
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The comedian got the better of him, I thought. Through many on his side declared him the victor. Weird that, isn't it? That our priors give us opposite readings of the very same event.
He goes on, this professor Finklestein, cheering the massacres of October 7 (they "warmed his heart", he said, proudly), wildly Israel-hating, warmly Hamas-loving.
All that is in what Hillel Fuld describes, above. At other times called "self-hating Jews". And imdeed they are.
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“It’s time for Palestinians to be held accountable for the society they have built”
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How can you have a Two State solution when on side wants to kill the other side. Down to the last Jew.
Hamas have created the horrors of Gaza as an "open air prison". Of Gazan poverty. Of Gazan food deficiency. Of Gazan water shortages.
Hamas are the ones who stole billions of aid meant for the people of Gaza and stashed it in Qatar. And somehow we love Qatar. Because they funnel money to western universities and western politicians. Rotten they all are and the people of Gaza did the voting in of Hamas.
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Wednesday 27 December 2023
Liz Cheney exposed
Some truths from the “Never Trumpers”.
Greg Foreman shows that she’s a hypocrite.
Monday 25 December 2023
Sunday 24 December 2023
Christmas Eve in Hong Kong. — Sunny and cold
It’s just 10 C outside and barely 18 C inside. Brrrrr …
It’s been a brisk cold winter this last week. Rare for us to have such a long spell of cold.
On our dear motherland, up north, it’s record lows and feet of snow!
Saturday 23 December 2023
“Just Stop Oil”? Inconvenient facts
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Going Net Zero can’t be just shifting to Renewables. There’s so much more that we rely on fossil fuels for. Above video goes through the main ones. Full Net Zero is a recipe for poverty and civilizational destruction.
Thursday 21 December 2023
“How Hong Kong can step up the fight against climate change” | Lau Siu Kong
LETTER TO SCMP:
There sure is a lot we "must" do in Hong Kong according to your letter writers!
Just today, in a single screenshot of the Letters page on your App (see below) we see demands that we "must show we care" about voting rights; "must uphold the rights of climate activists"; must keep libraries "on trend"; and must allow retail prices "to fall further".
Today's letter from Lau Siu Kong [above] demands we must "step up the fight against climate change".
A couple of points:
1. Lau claims we have "significant carbon emissions per capita". According to Our World in Data, we are low, at 4.1 tonnes per capita per year. This is lower than the world average (4.7) and just half those of China (8.0). Our carbon emissions have come down in recent years thanks to our increased use of nuclear electricity from China and changing from coal-fired to natural gas-fired power stations. We can improve yet further by buying even more nuclear energy from China, as suggested by Dr Lam Ching-choi, head of the Council for Carbon Neutrality and Sustainable Development (Online here).
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| Daya Bay nuclear power station from where we get 25% of our electricity. Isn’t it nice, neat, pretty? Clean, green and small footprint We get a further 17% from Yanjiang Nuclear in Guangdong |
2. In terms of death and injury from climate events, Hong Kong has shown dramatic improvements: the number of deaths from typhoons alone has fallen by 99% since 1960 (HK Observatory). This mirrors similar trends worldwide, where we have seen a 98% reduction in deaths from climate disasters.
3. Sea level rise: scientists predict rises of a bit less than a foot, or 30cm, per century. Humans have overcome far swifter changes in sea levels in the past, and we can certainly do so in the future, as we are much more technically advanced. Hong Kong is more than able to handle such an increase. Large parts of The Netherlands are already below sea level, and have been for centuries, yet they hold the sea at bay. If the Dutch have figured out how to stay dry, so can we.
4. As for “severe weather patterns” I’ve commented before on the alleged stronger typhoons. Short story: there is no increase in typhoon severity. There may be more frequent heavy rain events, which we are more than capable of handling, by improved flood control.
I'm fully behind more renewables, more nuclear energy, and more sensible climate change mitigation, such as improved flood control.
But could we please cease our climate panic? Mitigation of CO2 and abatement of climate change are improving across the planet and we must recognise this to have a sound basis for policy going forward.
Policies based on panic are rarely sound policies.
PF, etc…
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Tuesday 19 December 2023
The Fall of Minneapolis
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I’ve watched the doco and I wonder: is there anyone — the Minnesota Governor, the Minneapolis Mayor, the Minneapolis Police Commissioner, Keith Ellison, Nancy Pelosi, President Biden? — involved in pushing what turns out to be a falsehood, an enormously damaging falsehood, who thinks at night “oh boy, what I did, what I let happen, what I enabled, what I encouraged, was really, really bad for America”?
It appears not a one. Indeed most are proud of what they did. Which has so profoundly damaged America, people of colour the most.
“The real target of anti-Israel demonstrations: American democracy” | Alan Dershowitz
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1. Islamists
2. Communists
3. Nazis
4. Useful idiots
I have friends who are now violently anti-Israel, even unto pro-Hamas. They’re older. Have changed from being supporters to being very anti. I’d have to out them in a combination of 2 and 4.
Dershowitz says if Israel falls the next target is the United States. I’d add Europe. They used to occupy Andalusia and southern Italy. They never give up land that was once occupied by Muslims. Hence the manic demand that all of Israel belongs to Islam. That once a part of the Islamic waqf, always a part of the Islamic waqf.
IOW: there will be no peace even if Israel is sacrificed to the demands of the “Palestine must be free, from the River to the Sea” crowd. The next demands will be to retake Andalusia, Rome, and Washington.
Monday 18 December 2023
I’m such an Elon Fanboy
First they came…
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This is too true.
I have watched it with mine own eyes. In Britain. In France. In Germany. In Denmark. Even Australia. Where Muslim Lebanese immigrants claim unemployment at three times Christian Lebanese do. Pretty telling, that, given same country, same people; just different religion/ideology.
And yet, to call it out is to be called a xenophobic Islamophobic bigot.
Sunday 17 December 2023
Doonesbury: “Witch Hunt”
This is a curious strip today.
We know that Garry Trudeau is violently anti Trump and anti-GOP. So, presumably the strip today is meant to be making fun of Republicans who call the Trump court cases a "witch hunt". That's the Left's take on the strip today, we must assume. Those crazy far-rightists! Even legitimate court cases are "witch hunts" to them! Silly, silly Nazis!
But conservatives will look at this cartoon — if they ever come near Doonesbury — and think "yeah, right! That's just how it is! A full- on witch hunt!" Spot on!
Which of course it is. Even the occasional article in the New York Times calls the cases "weak gruel".
The worst of the lot is the case brought by Latitia James the New York DA, and a punchline to the strip above — "Black DA, female … or both?". Tish: Black and a woman! It’s wrong.
"Tish" James should be prosecuted for judicial malpractice. I reckon. She campaigned on "Get Trump" — campaigned! — then spent four years looking for a crime, and found a completely bogus one which she is now prosecuting. Surely it can't be right in the U.S. legal system to announce you're literally going after a named person? Instead of what it should be: namely, (a) there's a crime committed (b) look for the perpetrator. And if it's allowed, it ought not.
New York DA James is exactly following Beria, Stalin's hated head of the Secret Service who said "show me the man and I'll show you the crime." Give me Donald Trump and I'll Get Trump!
But they won't let it go, the Dems, because by fair means or foul they must stop the Orange Man. Who is currently so far up in the polls that any crime pinned on him will do. And if that doesn't work, will they go for the big A?
Anyway: today's Doonesbury is one for the ages, pleasing and playing to the priors of both parties. A bipartisan cartoon.
Saturday 16 December 2023
“HK must push back in Western smears” | Mark Peaker
I've had those sorts of views said to me right here in Hong Kong by people passing through. Who should have read this blog and been more informed. At least on Hong Kong and at least more than the MSM in the west!
Friday 15 December 2023
“Increasing numbers seek a way out” [of Hong Kong] | SCMP
Most of the reasons, highlighted, for leaving are related to freedom and democracy.
Not a good trend.
Sadly the government and Beijing will only react to this by doubling down on patriotism and propaganda.
For me — an early Boomer — I’m fine. But I empathise with how they feel, these young kids. If I were 20 or 30 years younger I’d be heading off outta here. For now, though, in my later years, the safety, the cleanliness, the good governance, the good medical, the convenience, all are just fine.
So it’s a generational thing.
Boomers fine; Zoomers flee.
“Islamic nations’ ceasefire focus ignores roots of conflict” | SCMP
At least, and for once, there’s some denouncing of Hamas. Because all they want is destruction of Israel and killing of Jews everywhere in the world. How can we “make peace” with such a people? But this is so rarely mentioned vs the constant demands on Israel to “pursue a Two State Solution”.
Why does every Arab state from Algeria to Yemen refuse to accept Gazan refugees? Because they are radical terrorists. Why should Australia take one, then, let alone 1,000 as I’ve seen Albanese commit to. Why should we, a secular society, accept Nazi-equivalent Islamist that even their Muslim brothers won’t accept? Is it just to make ourselves feel better? Shame.
Calling for genocide of JEWS is “context dependent” according to Ivy Uni Presidents
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Elise Stefanik, grills Harvard president Claudine Gay, above.
Gay has form, as I’ll show in another post -- the firing of brilliant young Harvard economics professor, Roland Pryor, for going against the narrative on school choice and police shootings. (He was right, by the way)
And then there’s Stefanik's grilling of Penn’s president Liz Magill, here.
The hypocrisy is glaring. Any speech calling for mistreatment of Black, or LGBTQ, or women, or any ethnic group, is called out and punished. It’s just when it comes to the Jews, that there’s “context” to be considered.
As this X post shows.
Thursday 14 December 2023
bans…
The true reason Arabs rejected the UN partition proposal
The primary reason Arab leaders rejected the UN's partition proposal was their own disbelief in the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. In fact, they were opposed to it! Indeed, that's exactly as it sounds.
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“SEVEN items of evidence that debunk claims of war crimes, genocide, unprecedented civilian deaths, etc.”
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