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| Bernard Chan’s article today, here. |
To the extent that there’s been a crimping of freedoms since 2019 — and I won’t say there hasn’t been — it’s all for one and one for all. 男女老少, Nánnǚ lǎoshào, as the Chinese say — “man, woman, old, young”. i.e. why specifically women? (Later: well, ok, it turns out the article was written for International Women’s Day).
To say that the streets are dangerous here in Hong Kong is arrant nonsense. We have amongst the safest streets in the world. Women and children and men and elderly can walk around anywhere day or night. The murder rates, as example, is one-twentieth the World average; one-eighth Asia’s average; one-seventh Europe’s; one-third that of the U.K., one tenth of the U.S.. It’s even just a half the rate of good ol’ safe Oz. Other non-murder violent crimes have a similar pattern.
By the way, we know this from our own personal experience of wandering the streets. When I was looking for sites for our schools, I went everywhere in Hong Kong. It’s safe everywhere. It’s so safe that we have to remind ourselves when we go overseas to beware. When we went to Chicago fifteen years ago, we weren’t careful — we were in Hong Kong mode — and found ourselves in South Chicago — “you don’t go there!” people told us later — where we got mugged at the first gas station….
Liz Truss and Ian Duncan-Smith are way off the mark. It’s what Beijing would call a “smear”. And they’d be correct.
[Source of data: United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime]
