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.
"The longest-running, least-read blog in the world" Peter Forsythe in Hong Kong
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
“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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This describes Norman Finklestein!
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“It’s time for Palestinians to be held accountable for the society they have built”
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Wednesday 27 December 2023
Monday 25 December 2023
Sunday 24 December 2023
Christmas Eve in Hong Kong. — Sunny and cold
Saturday 23 December 2023
“Just Stop Oil”? Inconvenient facts
Click above for the video |
Thursday 21 December 2023
“How Hong Kong can step up the fight against climate change” | Lau Siu Kong
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 |
Wednesday 20 December 2023
Tuesday 19 December 2023
The Fall of Minneapolis
Click above for the video |
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
Click above for the video |
Monday 18 December 2023
I’m such an Elon Fanboy
We need to become an interplanetary species. We are only a tiny drop of consciousness in this part of the universe. If we don’t keep having babies, our population will drop by 90% in 3 or 4 generations.
First they came…
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Sunday 17 December 2023
Doonesbury: “Witch Hunt”
Saturday 16 December 2023
“HK must push back in Western smears” | Mark Peaker
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
Click above for the video |
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
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“SEVEN items of evidence that debunk claims of war crimes, genocide, unprecedented civilian deaths, etc.”
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