Friday 5 January 2024

“Chipping away in Hong Kong” | Wang Xiangwei


Click to enlarge and clarify 
Wang Xiangwei is right. 

I've talked of this before. The grotesque view of local officials bending the knee to Beijing when they don't need to. I've talked of "commie speak" by local functionaries. And I do know commie speak — I learned it at the end of cultural revolution Peking in 1976.

And back in the early days after the handover, it was local officials who asked for "interpretations" of our Basic Law, from Beijing’s National People's Congress. When they absolutely did not need to. And when Beijing made it pretty clear that they didn't want to be asked. But our apparatchiks did it anyway, Tung Chee-hwa, Donald Tsang and Carrie Lee, past chief executives. They all  kowtowed to China. Even when Beijing didn't ask them to.

The kowtowing continues and is worrying. 

Note how even Xi Jinping calls for Hong Kong to continue with One Country Two Systems. Yet it's Hong Kong officials making it less so.

Though, tbf, Washington doesn't help, by removing policies that have recognised Hong Kong's separation. 

Interesting how brutally critical Wang Xiangwei is, in this piece. Pretty straight. Pretty direct.