“Britain pulls its judges from top court in the city” | SCMP

This is another case of action by foreign governments having the opposite effect of that intended. The intent here, by the UK, is to object to the National Security Law and it’s effect on “One Country Two Systems” (OC2S). 

The US did the same in 2020 when Congress removed Hong Kong from international bodies. 

Both these actions only harm OC2S. The Road to hell is paved with good intentions.

‘Biden warning will only do more harm, US businesses say’ | SCMP

Today’s front page

Remember what Robert Gates, Obama’s Defence Secretary, said about Joe Biden: that he had been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades”. [Link]

In office now as President — after 47 years in government — Biden is keeping his record intact. He pulls out of Afghanistan precipitately, leaving it to the murderous Taliban. Did he need to leave right now, so fast? No. He claimed that Afghanistan army could maintain territory and stability. Everyone in the know knows that’s a lie.

Now he calls for boycott of business here in Hong Kong. Like the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (HKHRDA) before it, this move — arguably well-intentioned — will increase harm on Hong Kong. As American businesses are telling him. The business reps express “shock”. They shouldn’t be shocked. If they’d been paying attention, rather than hating on Trump, they might have noted Gates’ observation. (Not that Trump was any better on HK, mind). The article. 

Click Label HKHRDA below for previous articles I’ve posted on harm done while trying to “help”us. That’s the road to hell… paved with good intentions. (Parenthetically, I’m not even sure they do have good intentions. More like trying to harm China and we’re collateral damage)

Do I care who wins the US election?

 As I sit here in Hong Kong, I’ve determined that I won’t. I won’t worry about who wins. Even though it does affect us here. Trump and Pompeo’s war with China has caught us here in Hong Kong in the crossfire. There’s the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act”, which has only hurt us. Ted Cruz came here and said he didn’t see any violence in the streets, even though it was happening just outside his hotel. The Trump admin has not been good for Hong Kong.

So, we ought to be, I ought to be, rooting for Biden, right? Well, maybe not, because I think one ought to look beyond one issue. And the issue here is nothing less than the future of America and of western values. Crazy? Not really. There’s not one leader in the west, apart in the last few days of Macron, who has said that we must stand up for our western values. On the other side we have the Squad and their acolytes further left, who think that the United States, and the worlds capitalist systems must be brought down. Of course, of course, of course, this can’t happen. Or at least not tomorrow. But surely they are not kidding and surely they want to move that way and surely Joe will light the road for them.

I’d rather one than the other to win. But whichever wins I’m going to accept it with equanimity. I’m 70 now. And as Confucius says “when you’re seventy, you can go where your heart desires*”. Which turns out to be not true, literally. I can’t just hop on a plane and go where I want. But metaphorical, it resonates. Keep the heart open. Go where it takes one.

********

*七十而从心所欲. Qi Shi Er Cong Xin Suo Yu.

Here’s a thing: whenever I go to type “Biden-Harris”, I accidentally start with “Harris-...”. Time will tell. Very soon. A vote for Joe is absolutely a vote for Kamala. And if you’re fine with her, then all I can say is....

Hong Kong democracy camp wants many things, but do their demands add up?

Protesters who loathe Trump loathe China even more and
urge him to “Make HK Great” while waving US flag

Horrible Irony: people who resist Hong Kong becoming “just another Chinese city” pass a law — the Hong Kong Autonomy Act — that makes Hong Kong more “just like another Chinese city”. And claim a “victory”. This is because their beliefs were delusional from the get go. That Hong Kong is oppressed. Under the yoke of communist tyrants. It wasn’t then. But it is now. Thanks to their antics. 
To be clear, I also don’t want Hong komg to be “just another Chinese city” that’s why I live here and not Beijing or Shanghai. 
I think the protesters were right to protest the extradition bill. And if their gripes include ridiculous house prices and widening economic gaps, then I’m all in. But they ended up with an inchoate and irrational set of “Five Demands, Not One Less”, which is where we part company. And I stick by my belief that all the year of protests have achieved is greater Chinese interference and greater repression and erosion of lie Seven Freedoms. They are turning Hong Kong into “just another Chinese city” with the willing acquiescence of the US, for it is playing a bigger game, the Great Game, the battle of the old hegemon with the rising hegemon. 
In short, the protesters are achieving the very thing they say they are fighting against. The road to hell…
Spot on letter:

‘We had to destroy it in order to save it’. Part II

As I was saying yesterday. The Trump Admin's HK Autonomy Law — arising our of the HK Human Rights and Democracy Law  — reduces our autonomy. It harms us here in Hong Kong. We, the very people it allegedly aims to help, are harmed by it. While Beijing laughs up its sleeves. Thanks very much Donald Trump. Not.
Alex Lo makes the same point today in How to weaponise Hong Kong against China.
/Snip:

“Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China,” Trump said. “No special privileges, no special economic treatment, and no export of sensitive technologies.”

It’s hard to see how any of that will help Hong Kong, its people and their “autonomy” by treating it as part of China. Surely this couldn’t have been what the opposition and protest movement had in mind when they openly urged Washington to sanction Hong Kong and Beijing. They had wanted the threat, not the execution, in the belief that Beijing would back off.

This is down to the actions of protesters and rioters. There is not another reason we are in the pickle we are in now. We were never an “oppressed” society under Beijing’s boot. That’s a myth and a delusion. We’ve enjoyed wide freedoms, more than most nations. We did have a niggling issue — universal voting for the chief executive. But it’s not that we had no democracy. We have, especially at the local level, and as someone once said, “all politics is local”. And look elsewhere at voter turnouts in places that do have wide suffrage. For the position of Mayor for example, which is what our chief executive really is - an executive mayor - turnouts in the US are as low as mid 20%. I’m not downplaying the importance of universal suffrage. It’s a fine and dandy thing. But to destroy our city for it? To invite Beijing interference because of it? Especially when the driving force is nativist bigotry against Mandarin-speaking cousins? Surely not.
Alex Lo again:

Some opposition leaders thought they could change the behaviour of one superpower by inviting the intervention of another one. They rather neglect the fact that Hongkongers are small fry caught in a titanic power struggle between the two. If someone is going to be trampled on, any sensible person could have guessed which one.

 The new American laws – there are more in the pipeline – will harm Hong Kong a lot more than Beijing. Washington is on a warpath to take on China in every domain it can think of – think of – South China Sea, 5G, trade, international disease control, Chinese students and researchers in America, US-listed Chinese companies …

Either they are too naive or stupid to realise what has happened. Or they hate China more than they love their own city. Maybe giving Beijing a bloody nose is worth it even if it means breaking Hong Kong in the process. And many of our noble freedom fighters can move to the Five Eyes English-speaking nations to avoid facing the consequences of their actions.

“We had to destroy the village in order to save it”. Part I

Thus spake a US marine when torching a village in Vietnam. And thus speaks Trump, to Hong Kong, signing the ‘Hong Kong Autonomy Act’, which does the opposite: reduces our autonomy.
It’s worth recalling that last year in the lead up to the mishandled introduction of the Extradition Bill, Beijing had no views on it. Hong Kong delegates to the National People’s Congress in March 2019 were given no “instructions” or “guidance” on the the I’ll-fated draft Bill that was promoted by our own C-E Carrie Lam. It was not until a delegation of pan democrats, led by former chief secretary Anson Chan, went to the US to urge Washington to oppose the Bill, that Beijing sat up and took notice. Even then it was simply to make a statement of support for the Bill, while urging Lam to note people’s fears.
IOW, Beijing had neither initiated, nor influenced, the proposed Extradition Bill. And only took an interest after international involvement.
You can imagine any government, certainly the US’, concerned at outsiders’ interference.
This seems to be the first instinct of the pan Dems when they see something they don’t like: to go pleading to the US. It fails every time. They keep doing it. They keep failing. It failed in these last twelve months of protests and riots. They threaten to keep doing it. Well done pan Dems.

Change in Hong Kong must come from within the city, not from the US

In Wanchai last week. Marching with an American flag!
I always thought it distasteful - me a fan of America…
Imagine Beijing. Try marching in America with a Chinese flag 

Michael Chugani asks “How can the United States enforcing its own laws be [construed as] interference?” The US is a democracy, with freedom of speech and expression. Ergo, there is nothing wrong with US politicians making statements or standing in solidarity with the protesters in Hong Kong (“National security law leaves too many unanswered questions to feel safe”, May 28).
What is worrying is that US politicians, too, are using their government’s power to influence and intervene in Hong Kong, under a humanitarian garb, to ensure that things here run the way they deem fit.
The US passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act [HKHRDA] with bipartisan support and consensus because, if there is one thing that unites both parties in Washington, it is their compulsion to intervene in other nations’ affairs. Despite some good things built into this Act, isn’t it an attempt to leverage Hong Kong’s economic strength to foster policies that the US government prefers?
An essential feature of the legislation is an annual certification by the US State Department on the social and political status of Hong Kong, and it is the department’s report that determines whether Hong Kong retains its “special” status. A negative report could have repercussions like the special status being revoked, because the political or commercial climate in Hong Kong does not suit the needs or wants of the US government.

[ADDED: Related posts by Alex Lo and Tom Plate. In short: America, mind your own house.]

Remembering 2003

There we are! 105 in, 45 down.…
Mass demos against Article 23 Security Law, 2003.

We were there at the first mass demonstration in Hong Kong in November 2003. Jing and I and son John, 6 at the time.
I don’t recall analysing the issue very much. Well, TBF, I know I didn’t. It was just a major thing and we went along. Taking part.
I do remember thinking that Regina Ip - the Minister responsible for pushing the legislation to implement a Security Law, as required under Article 23 of the Basic Law - was rather arrogant in doing so. I wonder if she’d listened more whether we might have had a decent Security Law passed. But I doubt it. The mood was not for any Security Law at all, never mind how limited in scope.
In the years since, Regina has softened her image, commenting often on current affairs and I’ve grown to admire her for independent, well-reasoned views.
The government, meantime, has done precisely zero to carry out an obligation under our mini-constitution, the Basic Law. That’s understandable, given that the public reaction would have been the same as what we’ve seen with the anti extradition protests: protests and mass rioting.
The broad masses of the people, meanwhile, have been doing the equivalent of holding their breath, covering their ears and chanting “nyah, nyah, nyah…”. Hoping it would go away.
That’s not turned out well.  For while we might think we can get along perfectly well without a Security Law, Beijing does not. And Beijing, like it or not, is the sovereign power. And the Basic Law does require the passing of a Security Law. Those facts are not in dispute.
End result: a Law passed by Beijing and likely stricter (I admit to not having analysed it) than the one we might have passed locally, back in 2003, or since.
Failures all round, as Mike Rowse argues.

BREAKING: Trump announces revoking of our special status, under provisions of HKHRDA. So we get the real-life test of whether this is really bad for us, or just bad for us.
Regina will be speaking soon. She downplays the impact. Thinks we’ll be just fine. Cross fingers. 

How pan-Dems have helped end ‘1C2S’

The protesters and their enablers in Legco, the lab-Dems have brought about the very thing they were fighting against, the end of ‘one country two systems’ before 2047. And an end to any thought of negotiating for universal suffrage.

This was not only predictable, but was predicted. Predictable to all, except to them, the perpetrators, who nursed a naivety, that a tyrant would be turned by the sight of millions in the streets and fire bombing of police stations. To misquote Maggie, “the tyrant is not for turning”. And never was.

One could scream: “what were you thinking?!”.

And so we have what we have. Which is an erosion of the very broad ranging freedoms we have enjoyed since the handover in 1997. All for the chimera of universal suffrage. It’s a tragedy. An irony too. A tragic irony.

There will be many who say it’s all down to Beijing’s failure to implement the “promised” universal suffrage. That partly true, and they deserve blame. But the universal suffrage concept is not a ‘promise’ in the Basic Law. And in any case steps forward were offered in 2015, but were rebuffed by the pan-Dems because they were not 100% of what they demanded. So they rejected the 60%. A tragic strategic error. They - we - should have pocketed the offer and worked on the rest.

Alex Lo sums it up so well, I quote him in full, below the fold. Online article is here.

RELATED:
‘Hong Kong has no one to blame but itself for Beijing intervention’. Mike Rowse
‘Hong Kong lawmakers have let down Hongkongers’. Alice Wu

I share the sense of dread…

“Dread”. Anticipation with a sense of fear.
Prof Scott Kennedy says his one metric of whether “One Country Two Systems” is working is whether information is freely available in Hong Kong, including that critical of China.
That’s also been my favourite metric: freedom of the media. So far, since 1997, there has been. And I’ve said if that goes, I go. I value it too much. I find when I visit China, all else is fine, food, people, transport, all fine. What I miss is not being able to access international media and my favourite blogs. Including even this one.
Fortunately I’m in a privileged position. If we had to leave it would be easy. Not the case for many in Hong Kong.
So we dread. Or, at least I dread. For Hong Kong, for its people, for its young folk, for what it is and for what it has been.
A longtime Beijing-based said the other day “they [Beijing] inherited a nice city; they’ve turned it into rubble”. I kind of disagreed, as it doesn’t look much like rubble. Everything is operating again, after protests and Covid, and all looks well. But overall, I take his point. None of this was necessary. And while there’s plenty to blame the protesters for, and we have, there’s sure a lot of blame in China too, and in particular that brute Xi Jinping. It did not need to be this way.
Now we have the Security Law drama. Trump has just announced the US would rescind the special trade conditions HK has had since ‘97, as an autonomous region of China. Part of the HKHRDA provisions which we’ve criticised before.
Bloomberg thinks there’s room to deescalate, but it’s not a good trend. We are the piñata. Beaten by both sides, till we break and spill our contents on the ground.
The dread that I share with Scott Kennedy, by the end of the decade:

… the decline and withering of independent political parties, street protests, impartial courts, a free media, an open internet, critical arts, liberal education and autonomous religious organisations. All that might remain of current society is driving on the left, and Beijing could even attack that as a colonial legacy. [Here]

Theres rather more there than one metric, the erosion of media freedoms. But it could happen. Many will say it’s inevitable, now. And what then? For Hong Kong? For us?
For now it’s stay put. Hoping for the best, fearing…. Dreading.…

ADDED: I’m remembering that in 1983, when I was working in Australia’s Office of National Assessments, I was tasked with writing an assessment of that would happen to Hong Kong under Chinese rule. What prompted this was Margaret Thatcher’s visit to China to discuss HK with Deng Xiaoping (the architect of “one country, two systems”), and the Joint Declaration of 1984. I wrote it together with the late, wonderful, China scholar, Ross Maddock. As I recall, we wrote it fairly pessimistic. We did not think China would deliberately aim to destroy Hong Kong.  We thought damage would happen because Chinese leaders, bureaucrats, apparatchiks, did not understand what made Hong Kong tick. In the decades since then they have basically stood back. Now they’re wading in, and it looks like we may be proved right after all. Sheer incompetence and ignorance may do for us. 

Oh dear…

“We have to destroy Hong Kong in order to save it”

More serious, even, than football

“We have to destroy Hong Kong in order to save it”  That’s really the message, isn’t it, of the protesters when they say “if we burn, you burn with us”. To which I said, no thanks.

Now it seems to motivate the madness of the US.
China has gone ahead with the Security Law. That was expected. The US is ramping up the threats to China. That, too, was expected.
But does it have to throw Hong Kong under the bus? By removing all the special treatments we enjoy as an autonomous region of China? Does it really have to destroy us in order to “save” us?
The US is ramping up European and Australian support, and it seems they are likely to go along.
None of this in the least bit good for us. It may satisfy virtue signalling by Trump and his acolytes. But it will do our businesses and our autonomy grave harm. Far more than the Security Law itself.*
The only way out of it would be for the US to turn its metaphorical guns on the mainland and on mainland officials.
This is all grim consequence of the HKHRDA. Which, we recall, was promoted to the US Congress by local protesters and pan-Dems who made special trips to Washington to plead for an extra-territorial law punishing us in Hong Kong for Beijing overreach. Oh boy!
Meantime Britain’s Foreign Minister is talking of providing eacape route for refugees.  Not good.
None of this any good.
Remember that most infamous sentence from the Vietnam war: “we had to destroy the village in order to save it”.
Are people really going to go ahead and destroy Hong Kong in order to “save” us?

ADDED: Alex Lo, who only last week described the passing of a Security Law as a “masterstroke” is now as gloomy as I am:

“Forget about Hong Kong being “the goose that lays golden eggs” for China, or the conduit and window for the Western world to enter and invest in China. Such considerations are out the window in this rising titanic struggle between the two superpowers. It’s hard to see a good outcome for Hong Kong now.“ [Here]

Albert Cheng is also gloomy. While Grenville Cross says we have only ourselves to blame for failing to implement Article 23. I agree. And the reason for the failure is opposition by the pan-Dems.

*ADDED: A knowledgeable reader comments that the effects in HK of a US change to the status of HK will not have a dramatic effect on HK. It would likely harm US companies more than HK, especially US banks, who could lose out on lucrative IPOs (HK was the largest IPO market in 2019). The readier's advice to the US: “go for it!”.  i.e. shoot yourself in the foot, why don'cha!

Thanks for nothing, Pompeo

My comment to Shapiro, on the site:
Re Hong Kong @55’: Pompeo and State Dept stating HK is “no longer autonomous” does NOT mean HK is not autonomous. I’ve lived here over 40 years. In govt and business. In every day terms we remain very much autonomous. And will do so even after the Security Law.
Still. If State Dept removes the special conditions from us (HK), it will be THAT, not the Security law, that does us in. This is punishing us here in HK for what Beijing is doing, which please note was done after a year of rioting and looting in the streets. Ben talks of “virtue signalling”. This is the biggest case of virtue signalling on the international stage. Pure virtue signalling, and "commitment signalling" by Pompeo, to show “how tough on China I am”.  Pity us, here in HK. We suffer from your “good” intentions. Thanks a lot.

‘Pompeo: HK no longer warrants special treatment from US’

And ‘World leaders concerned over China’s proposed HK security law’ .
Those are the chyrons cycling on CNBC.
A talking head is saying that the most injured in this battle will be Hong Kong. Which is true. America taking action against HK to protest Beijing is like punishing the kidnapper by killing the hostage.
The US may be aware of this (or not), but its desire to punish Beijing is stronger. Very well. Punish Beijing officials. Not us.
This reaction will do more immediate and identifiable harm to our business than the security law. The security law may be a threat to freedom of the press, which would be enough to see me outta here, but Pompeo threatens people’s livelihoods with ill-considered punishments.
Why the HKHRDA is bad for Hong Kong. 

Not good news ‘NPC Acts on Security Law’

Dictatorship 101: the brutalist look. Winnie the Pooh in the middle
Prince Charles called them “appalling old waxworks”

ADDED (24 May): it’s fair to ask and expect that the UK should resist Beijing encroachments, given their history and being the other side of the Joint Declaration, an international treaty. Point being that this would have more impact than counterproductive  street protests and pan-Dems’ Legislative shenanigans. Here.

The Chinese National People’s Congress is going to enact a security law for Hong Kong, required under Article 23 of the Basic Law. We here in this household joined half a million other protesters in 2003 to march against the proposal by then chief executive Tung Chee-Hwa to implement it. That succeeded in stopping it and Tung stepped down as a result. 

Since then it’s not been addressed again, and the word is Beijing has become impatient as it’s 23 years since the handover. TBF, it is a requirement of the Basic Law. Still, no one here wants it. If there were more trust in Beijing, it wouldn’t be a problem. But there isn’t, so it is.

The part of the law that worries me most is its potential impact on freedom of the media. If a journalist can be charged with revealing “state secrets”, then freedom of the media is dead.
If the media starts to look like the China Daily and CGTN, then I’m outa here.
If they start blocking blogs like this one, if they start blocking Google and YouTube and other portals, then I’m outa here.

I shudder at this development. Even if it’s been brought on and hastened by the misjudgements of the protest movement and shenanigans of pan-Dems in Legco. “I told you so” doesn’t ease the pain.

Oh dear.

UPDATE: Social media here in Hong Kong, like LIHKG and Telegram, are already calling for people to come out on the streets in protest. Could be a troubled weekend.

LATER (23 May): A reader comments:

Hong Kong is at a turning point and Beijing will be quite happy to let the city wither on the vine. This is a very very sad day for Hong Kong.  The second exodus will now start which will drain the city of talent and this time they won’t return. The Hong Kong I love will never be the same.
 Best,

ADDED (23 May): My comment on this video:

RE Hong Kong (57’): Ben needs to learn a bit more about what’s going on in this part of the world before commenting. I live in HK, and have lived and worked in Shanghai and Beijing. I don’t like for one little bit what Beijing is doing about Article 23 in the HK Basic Law. BUT... it is allowed to do so, and it was entirely predictable (and was predicted, by me amongst many others) that Beijing would be riled into doing exactly this. Not that that’s a good thing, of course. But folks, we are dealing with a tyranny here. Not a nice democracy. My aim, in living here, has been to *maintain the very real and very extensive freedoms that we do have*, and which have been maintained in the 23 years since the handover, whilst living as a part of an acknowledged dictatorship. If the US decides to implement the “HK Human Rights and Democracy Act” to punish Beijing, the only people to be harmed will be us here in Hong Kong. You folks over in America may feel good about it, well done. But we will suffer. Here in Hong Kong. Not Beijing. Not America. WE Hongkongers will suffer.I’m a big Ben fan-boy. But honestly, he doesn’t know anything about China and Hong Kong, and as long as he does not know, he’s only doing damage to us with his crude and uninformed judgements. My feelings care about his non-facts. 

Beijing preparing for tougher stance on Hong Kong

Now I don't like this one little bit. Who would?

But…

The "but" is that some of the claims made in the mainland doco on Hong Kong, are correct. 

"Veteran HK democracy activists" did collude with western forces to foment anti-Chinese fury. Younger activists like Joshua Wong did so as well. They did so openly, by talking to the US Congress and pushing the so-called HK Human Rights and Democracy Act which I and many others have predicted will only damage Hong Kong.  

Some of the activists did call for independence, a flashing red flag to the Beijing bull.

Teachers did incite their students and countenance violence. Again they did so openly, on social media platforms like Telegraph and LIHKG.

This is yet another case of "you brought it on yourselves, guys". The road to hell, and all that.  It was not only predictable; it was predicted. 

It is the average Hongkongers who will be the ones to suffer. As the protesters gear up to blame Beijing and say "I told you so". Actually we told you so. We told you the protests would have the opposite of your intent. And so it is proving. 

Well done. Not.

‘The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act is a sledgehammer the US can use to crush Hong Kong’ | Regina Ip

The road to hell….
As I've said before the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act will lead to a less free Hong Kong, despite its well meaning intent. If it's ever implemented. Regina Ip nails it.

But if the US does make good on its threats, there can be only one consequence – the erosion of Hong Kong's international connections and access to the West, which would only result in pushing Hong Kong more in the direction of mainland China. This would be the opposite of what the act was intended to achieve.

I’m granting the well meaning intent of the Act. In fact it may, perhaps certainly does, have an agenda to constrain China. Which makes it all the more objectionable. I’m objecting to it even granting a good intent.

All quiet on the eastern front... the charge of the “must brigade"

Really! This ought to be distasteful to more than someone like me.

All quiet… at least for now.... A week since the District Council elections and all is quiet. An uneasy quiet.

My main concern since the elections is that so many folks are giddy with the “landslide” election, the win for pan-democratic parties, the US “support” via a well-meaning but harmful Act (*), that they have totally unrealistic expectations.
People are saying the Hong Kong government “must” do this and the Beijing government “must” do that. (Or this) (or that).
Well, perhaps our local government ought do something dramatic, but its record is not good.
And Beijing won’t feel the least pressure from these “musts”.  Indeed, the opposite.  They’ve been biding their time, the few statements made indicating barely suppressed rage. The magma is building up a head of steam, and soon may be the explosion, its lava to engulf these unrealistic dreams.
I’m all in favour of more democracy. My gripe is that this -- these protests, this violence --  is not the way to go about it. I’ve said that from the outset. That this show of defiance will only backfire.  So far it hasn’t and that’s good, a relief. But it is naive to believe that Beijing will see its way to some form of accommodation with young people it clearly despises.
There is no way, this side of being able to ice skate in hades, that Beijing will move in the direction the protesters want.
There was a chance.  In 2015.  But the pan-dems blew it. They gave away the offer of wider suffrage because it wasn’t full suffrage.  Had they accepted it, the Legislative Council election next year would have been by universal suffrage. Pretty big step forward. Confidence building. There’s no chance now, of even a reversion to that option, let alone immediate full suffrage, as demanded by the protesters. (“Five Demands, not one less”. Wuda suqiu. 五大訴求).
And those who are getting all giddy about something positive coming out of the elections? They are, as the Americans say, getting out over their skis.
I hope, I strongly hope —  I very much hope — I very very much hope — I’m wrong.
But I fear not.

***********

ADDED: Regina Ip shares my view.  (I knew her back in my diplomat days.  She’s a tough cookie.  Mind you, the party she formed lost all its seats in the District Council elections last week, though still holds some  in the LegCo)
(*) AND:, re that the so-called “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act”, the protesters seem so to love, Yonden Lhatoo, no fan of Beijing, is tart:

Hong Kong has had its own nose cut off to spite Beijing’s face after US President Donald Trump signed the veto-proof legislation, which now means Washington will regularly review the state of human rights and freedoms here – applying its highly hypocritical, politicised, virtue-signalling, double-dealing, self-serving standards – to decide whether this city should be stripped of its special status as a separate trading entity from the rest of China.

ADDED (5’00 pm): oh well, didn’t last long. Protesters are out again on Salisbury Road, the one along the waterfront via The Peninsula; ladies having their High Tea have a prime view. So far peaceful, but violence is predicted. Is that self-fulfilling one wonders. 

SCMP - American democracy group slams Beijing’s claim it is ‘black hand’ behind Hong Kong protests, as National Democratic Institute head calls it ‘patently false’

Haggling over the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act"

Is America involved in funding the Hong Kong protest movement? 

I don't know, but I do know smart people who believe it is. And so does Beijing. 

My view has been that we should see evidence of it, if they are — yet we've seen no evidence of it. As in evidence. In the media there is only an outfit called Global Research which is run by a Canadian conspiracy theorist and the China Daily, quoting that Global Research site. I've seen nothing else in mainstream media. 

An article from America's National Democratic Institute in today’s South China Morning Post saying they did not and do not fund the protesters, protesting their innocence, is hardly disinterested denial, not, as they say, dispositive. So I discount it. 

Still, the fact that 71% of the HK population came out last Sunday and voted overwhelmingly to support the so called pan-Dem parties, suggests that it's a popular movement, not necessarily funded by American "black hands". Not that it might not welcome such help.…

And so, to me it remains an open question. 

Comments at the article are interesting. Tending to be all over the shop, equal on the yes/no sides.

Western observers getting *everything* wrong about Hong Kong

This is an email to someone podcasting about chaos in the world. Hong Kong was mentioned at he beginning but only in passing. And with virtually every word incorrect. 
Here’s my email to the caster:
Peter Forsythe here, 40+ year resident of Hong Kong and long-term subscriber …

I’m no friend of Beijing nor of our local government BUT, everything you said in your intro (bold italics below), re Hong Kong, after the words “You have the situation in Hong Kong where...”, was incorrect. They may be your feelings; they’re certainly not the facts….

You say  “the Chinese government is running roughshod over protesters” — this is not correct, because:

(a) the Chinese government (as in: Beijing) does not, at least yet, run our government. Our police force reports directly to our own Hong Kong Secretary of Security, via our own locally appointed Police Commissioner. And:

(b) the police force has been carrying out duties in the face of six months of violent provocation from protesters. There is currently an enquiry into police actions and whether they have perhaps been rather too robust — and there is much public debate about their actions — but to say ‘`riding roughshod” is not factual.  And doesn’t help our situation either.  

You go on... “solidifying its grasp on a territory” … if anything China has proved the naysayers of 1997 (the “handover”) wrong by keeping out Hong Kong's day-to-day affairs. And has done so even in the face of daily provocations. 

Then “… that it was not supposed to be in control of until something like 2040”.  Two factually incorrect statements here: 

(a) China has been and remains “in control” of Hong Kong, by international treaty and via our Constitution, the Basic Law, since 1997. It has allowed, via the BL, a “high degree of autonomy” (“Hong Kong people run Hong Kong”) to the local HK government, but that in no way diminishes its suzerainty, which is recognised internationally.  And: 

(b) the date the current “one country two systems” runs to is 2047, not 2040, and is not a termination date, but rolls over unless specifically abrogated. Many Hongkongers — including me -- think we ought be working to clarify and extent post 2047 the freedoms we enjoy now; rather than carrying out fruitless and self-defeating (as we see them) protests, violent vandalism, killing and injuring ordinary people in the process..

By the way, we are not a Syria or a Yemen, nor even an Egypt or Chile. We are, we have been, a liberal, modern, tolerant, free society, economically successful and enjoying every freedom one could wish. I cover our Freedoms here on my blog. Our existing Freedoms are neither trivial nor imaginary. They are serious and real. So to say — as do the protesters — we are fighting for “Freedom” is something of a sick joke and clearly crafted for international consumption. The only freedoms that are being abridged are ordinary people’s freedom of expression and movement by the protesters… (Just like in America, opponents, ordinary people, are “cancelled”, their shops trashed, opponents and police are doxxed. And more.. a man is dead from a protester’s brick to the head, another in a coma after being set alight by protesters, a policeman was hit by an arrow, another had his throat slashed…All this, and the police are the bad guys??).

… I’m a long term fan and subscriber, hugely impressed by your knowledge and skills, so I was naturally disappointed that every word you said after ‘You have the situation in Hong Kong… ” was wrong, or at least grossly misrepresents the facts on the ground. If you don’t know, don’t speak, would be my plea here.

RELATED: why we don’t like the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act”, recently passed by your Congress….

With best wishes from a Free Hong Kong — oh, and I’m going off to vote tomorrow in the local District Council elections. These are free and universal. And the District Councillors so elected have say in the make up of the Electoral Commission, which selects a short-list for the next Chief Executive, who is in turn elected.  But, you know, violence in the name of “Freedom and Democracy”. Yay!

Why the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” is bad for Hong Kong

It’s been passed by both houses of United States Congress and, as I write, is shortly to be signed into law by Donald Trump.
The Act’s stated aims are in the title. And who could be against Human Rights and Democracy? Isn’t it a motherhood issue?
Well, no it isn’t, because the Act will punish the very people it is intended to help. It will hasten Beijing’s takeover of Hong Kong, the opposite to the aims stated in the title. Both democracy and human rights will be harmed.
We are about to learn, yet again, that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”?
Let me explain.
The Act calls for annual reviews of the situation in Hong Kong. If officials in either Hong Kong or Beijing are deemed to have failed the review in any way there are two forms of punishment:
1.  Punishment of officials in Hong Kong and Beijing.
2.  Removal of Hong Kong Special Status.
Most people appear to see only the First part. That is, officials in Hong Kong and Beijing will be punished by sanctions if they are deemed, by the United States Congress, to have violated human rights or democracy in Hong Kong.
The effects of this part of the Act are arguable, but I won’t dispute them here.
The damaging part to Hong Kong is the second part and the part that is ignored well-meaning folk here and in Washington.
The Second part will remove the special trade and investment conditions that have applied to Hong Kong since the handover in 1997. As a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, Hong Kong has been treated as a separate legal entity in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), in the WHO and in many other International and United Nations bodies. Hong Kong is separate in the Olympic Games, in Cricket, Rugby and Football World Cups and in all sporting World Championships.
In short, Hong Kong is treated as a separate entity in manifold international organisations.
It is this special treatment that underpins the “One Country Two Systems” (OCTS) formula. This formula is to last “at least” until 2047. We have argued that our efforts ought focus on extending the special treatment past 2047, rather than wantonly destroying our city (but that’s a whole ‘ nother issue).
The Act will remove this special treatment if the United States deems the Hong Kong government or Beijing to be in breach of its provisions.
Is it clear how bad this would be for Hong Kong.
Removal of Special Treatment would only hasten the demise of OCTS. It would only speed up our eventual total takeover by Beijing.
It is the people of Hong Kong who would suffer for the alleged misdeeds of our government officials (alleged, note, by the US Congress, whose members have shown themselves woefully ignorant of us and the region).
This is not shooting themselves in the foot; it is not even shooting us in the foot. It is shooting us in the heart.
I blame (a) self-righteous American politicians. The know-nothings, like the Act’s key promoter Senator Ted Cruz who came here and told us “I have seen no violence” — while at the exact time he said that, rioters were busily vandalising the Mongkok subway station and trashing nearby shops. But I blame more than Cruz and his ilk.
I also blame (b) Joshua Wong, the founder of a radical outfit called Demosisto, which boasts all of 25 members.  It was Wong, with three of f his acolytes, who spoke to the United States Congress — imagine, a 24 year old student in front of Congress! — and pressed them to pass the Act. He made a big impression. But he clearly has only the haziest notion of what was in the Act. Or is so blinded by hatred of Hong Kong and Beijing officials that he only sees the first part and ignores the second.  He ignores the wider damage that ordinary Hongkongers will suffer.
But then he doesn’t really care about ordinary Hongkongers, does he? His stormtroopers are trashing the working class areas of Hong Kong. Hitting the livelihoods of ordinary Hongkongers. Nowhere are the fancy properties, the glitzy Malls, of our billionaire Taipans attacked. I  presume Wong and co. are worried the Taipans will take revenge. They didn’t grow up in the days of Triads without learning some good old fashioned knee-capping, after all.
There are other people who have spoken out against the Act. To no avail, clearly.
Most recently today, Alex Lo, the redoubtable.
ADDED: The Hong Kong stock market is not fooled by this “motherhood”Act. It has just opened 3% down.
ADDED (22 November): Editorial against the Act