Defining Politics Down - The Wall Street Journal.

The Squad. Omar, AOC, Tlaib, Pressley 

As I was saying [sigh] … democrats had been doing a fine job of shooting themselves in the foot, what with AOC suggesting Pelosi is a racist, and all. Then along comes T. "Me too!"  Look st me, I'm a bigger racist than you lot!
As Shapiro has repeatedly said, all Trump has to do is shut up and point at the inanities of the Dems. But he can't do it. Even republicans and conservatives can't defend his tweets …

We're op­ti­mists about Amer­i­can democ­racy in the long run, but nowadays the long run looks longer all the time. The bon­fire of inani­ties in the last two days between Don­ald Trump and De­moc­rats over who's the bigger racist, or real anti-Semite, or greater dis­grace to the na­tion is a new low even by re­cent standards.

Mr. Trump started the bon­fire, as he so of­ten does, with a Sun­day Twit­ter bar­rage telling "'pro­gres­sive' De­mo­c­rat Con­gress-women" who are critical of the U.S. to "go back" to the coun­tries from whence they came. He seemed to be tar­get­ing the four hard-left Mem­bers of Congress, all mi­nor­ity women, who've been brawl­ing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the di­rec­tion of the De­mo­c­ra­tic Party.

Con­ser­v­a­tive jour-nal­ist Brit Hume of-fered a suc­cinct summary in call­ing Mr. Trump's com­ments "na­tivist, xeno­pho­bic, coun­ter­fac­tual and politically stu­pid." Three of the four women were born in the U.S., and "go back" is a taunt im­mi­grants have heard in Amer­ica for more than two cen­turies. It was used against Catholics, against the Irish, Germans and Ital­ians, against Chi­nese and Ja­panese, and in our day most of­ten against Mex­i­can-Amer­i­cans. A Pres­i­dent of the United States shouldn't sink to such a crude na­tivist trope, but then we re­peat our­selves.

Defining Politics Down

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Remembering June 9: A year of protests

A year ago today and I was house sitting my sister’s place with my mum down in bracingly chilly winter Canberra. The trees in this garden city had turned and were an explosion of reds, ochres, oranges.

Baker Gardens, Ainslie, ACT, Canberra

We sat that evening, M and I, by the fire, and watched the monster rally in Hong Kong against something I’d onlyjust heard of — the extradition bill. Some say that if you looked closely at the bill, there was nothing to fear. But I thought that beside the point. I doubt one in a thousand of those demonstrators had read it. The fear was what Beijing could do with such a Bill. What mischief it could get up to. And if you didn’t trust Beijing, well they hadn’t earned any trust. Not the brute tyrant Xi Jinping, who had proved himself an efficient dictator. So I understood the protests, and recalled to my mum, when we’d taken part, J, J and I, in a similar sized demo back in 2003, against the implementation of a Security Law required to be passed by Hong Kong “on its own” under Article 23 of the Basic Law.

We didn’t predict how long they’d fo in for or how violent they would become. None did.
That was a year ago.
Holly Chik does a pretty decent job of summarising a year of protests here, and below the fold.
What she missies is that the demos were not just about the extradition bill or even Beijing interference. They were also deeply nativist, often bigoted, revolts against the increasing number of mainlanders in the city. They were, they are, afraid of Mainlandisation, calling them “locusts”, using ugly characters to refer to them (支那人, Zhina ren, an imperial Japanese term for Chinese), banning Mandarin speakers from shops and restaurants, the whole panoply of racism and bigotry that would elsewhere be denounced by les bien pensants. 
She also doesn’t refer to what many people believe is covert outside interference, in particular of the United States’ National Endowment for Democracy.
She also does not refer in any detail to the extent of damage to the city, mich of it simply wanton vandalism.
Still, good effort by Holly, just last year still an intern… read on…

City records 1.2pc drop in population as emigration rises

Today’s page 3. SCMP

The figures to note:in the year to end June 2021 almost 90,000 people emigrated from Hong Kong. In the same period almost 14,000 mainlanders immigrated. 

Right-wingers would call that a process of “replacement”. Well, not just right wingers. The students out in the streets, demonstrating and rioting, back in 2019, calling for “freedom and democracy” were also driven by fear of “replacement” as I found at the time. They were worried about mainlanders taking over their jobs, bringing their uncouth habits, smoking in shopping malls, letting their toddlers urinate in the streets, not queueing properly, talking loudly, talking … [shudder] …Mandarin!

It was this fear of mainlandisation that drove the protests. Or, at least, more so than the demands for freedom and democracy. They had their “Five demands; Not one less” (五大诉求，缺一不可 Wu da Suqiu, Que Yi Bu Ke). Initially not a single one of the Five Demands was for universal suffrage. When they realised this was not a good look for freedom and democracy activists, they replaced the fifth Demand — the one demanding our hapless Chief executive Carrie Lam resign — with the Demand for universal suffrage. But all along it was a fear, a nativist fear, that Hong Kong was being overtaken by mainland people and customs. That Hongkongers, Cantonese speakers, were being replaced. How do we know this? Because they said it. Openly. As I noted at the time,  eg here.

And it continues, now exacerbated by the outflow —  more than 6 times the inflow of mainlanders.

Me, I’ve got no issue with it. When I started noticing, a decade or so ago, that there was more Mandarin spoken around me, I was fine with it — I speak the language! I lived in China! The mainland!  But it wasn’t clear to me until 2019 just how much the locals resented mainlanders. Their cousins, after all. I’d had hints of it when I got into some spats with locals over the use of simplified Chinese characters (a mainland thing) vs Traditional characters (a Hong Kong and Taiwan thing).

When I did realise the full extent of the resentment, the vitriolic hatred even, towards mainlanders by locals — some of whom, a shockingly large number of whom had never even been to the mainland (!) — I thought it a kind of racism. Except they’re all Han. So maybe just a kid of bigotry. Certainly a kind of xenophobia. 

What else about a declining population? Will the trend it endure? We don’t know. But seems likely at least to slow growth. Long-term planning has assumed a population upwards of nine million by 2050. That doesn’t seem likely.  How does that affect policies, housing, schooling, environment, etc? I wait and see… 

And that wait will be here in Hong Kong. At least for now; at least as long as there's free access to the internet. If that is censored, then there's Plan B. Having Australia as a Plan B is a pretty good fall-back option....

Ross Douthat on the "Islam in Two Americas"

We've spoken about the Ground Zero Mosque as being about two issues: they "right" to build there, which really noone disputes; and the "sensitivity" of building there, which the opponents are saying should dictate it be built elsewhere.  Why There?
As, as so often when he weighs in on an issue, Ross Douthat does so with insight, sensitivity and constructive points.  Here, for example, he takes these two issues, the "right" to build vs the "sensitivity" of building, and develops it into a theme of two: the "Two Americas".
[who is Ross Douthat (DOW-thut)?]

What are the upsides of the protests?

I wrote recently about the costs of the Hong Kong protests. They’re pretty easy to calculate. At least the economic costs. There are other costs, like mental health and international trust, hard to quantify but acknowledged and real.
The economic costs alone are plenty. Tens of $billions in shop closures, increased unemployment, visitor numbers sharply down, real estate slowdown. Worst: charities and the least advantaged have been hard hit.
A restaurateur we know told us his June to August business had been the worst since he opened twelve years ago. People are simply not spending.
But what are the upsides? What are the benefits of the protests? Surely there are some?
So far, I can think of only one. The extradition bill was withdrawn. It was withdrawn by the government pretty quickly after the first, peaceful, protests. Given that it was the only “Demand” of the protests at the beginning, in June, and given that it was withdrawn quickly, you’d have to say that (a) the protests were effective and (b) the government was responsive.

But instead of heading home happy, some protesters kept going, and are still going to this day.
What extra have they achieved?
Well, for a start they added four extra “Demands” which have become the rallying cry.: “Five Demands and not one Less” (五大訴求 缺一不可).
Thing is, three of the five demands are there only because of the protests. When you protest it’s usually for something or against something. It’s pretty unusual to have demands that result only from your own actions. I call these three the “self-centred demands”.
These three are:
1. Stop calling us “rioters”.
2. Give us all Amnesty, and …
3. Investigate the police.

Taking these One-by-one, it seems to me that:
1. You can’t stop calling rioters “rioters” if in fact they are… well,… rioters. Not all of them, of course. But the ones that are, are. It does violence to the English (and Chinese) language to demand otherwise.
2.  If the first demand does violence to language, the second demand does violence to the rule of law, which the protesters claim to champion. How can a law abiding society give blanket amnesty to people who have, amongst all the vandalism, killed bystanders and set people on fire? (ADDED: I’m in favour of some leniency to younger ones and to those who’ve not done much; they should not have a lifelong stain. But you can’t make it a blanket amnesty. Some of the rioters have got seriously out of control and been wildly destructive. There has to be a penalty for that.
3.  Investigate the police… but don’t investigate any of the illegal, vandalistic, dangerous actions of the protesters? This one does violence to the concept of fairness. Doesn’t it?

That leaves only the last “Demand”,  number Five, which is for universal suffrage. I think this one was tacked on at the end, almost as an afterthought, perhaps to show the demands were not all purely self-centred. Had this suffrage issue been forethought, it may have occurred to them that rioting and vandalism, burning the Chinese flag, reviling China, insulting mainlanders etc, etc, is not the way to go about it. It would have been better to go back to the 2014 proposals for a step forward and work from there. Behind the scenes! To build some trust and confidence. Sadly, the way things have gone has ruined any trust with Beijing.
For those who maintain that a “promise” is being broken by Beijing, think again. Read the Basic Law.
Which rather means, if you accept my analysis, that what has been achieved by the protests is and will be: zero.
It’s put us in the map, sure.
And that’s it?
Meantime: I’ve said elsewhere the protests are more nativist than pro-democracy. Alex Lo says today they are more populist than pro-democracy [Wayback]. There’s lots of crossover in our views.

I would love to hear of any upsides to the protests. Email me. 

“ National Security law is price we all pay for the self-serving tactics of pro-democracy camp”

2014 banging the drums for Occupy, rather than
agreeing to more voting rights. The 
characters, kang ming, say “disobey”.

This letter covers pretty much word for word what I’ve been saying in this blog for a year now. We supported the anti-extradition law protests but stopped supporting the protests when they became violent and clearly self-defeating.

The letter writers is just another gweilo like me, so doesn’t count for much… and is getting attacked in the comments, because he’s not tough enough on the “cruel and illegitimate” communist party.  

Still, it seems spot on, at least to me. The outcome of tougher crack down by Beijing was entirely predictable and was predicted. 

So the question then is: if you know, for absolute sure, that by doing X, the certain outcome will be Y, and Y is something you definitely don’t want, do you still go ahead and do X?   Even if it makes you feel better, braver, more virtuous? I’m steering clear of using the phrase “virtue signalling”, but, you know… 

It’s not that by not protesting you do nothing. We could have worked on universal suffrage, by, for example, tying it to implementing our own version of the Article 23 Security Law. This would have been better all round and, moreover, may we’ll have been achievable.  Consider how long it took for Beijing to act in the face of widespread and lengthy provocations — slagging off the Party in graffiti everywhere, attacking, burning, vandalising mainland or Beijing-owned businesses, calling mainlanders ”locusts”, refusing to serve mandarin speakers, all that nativist, bigoted stuff was going in weekly, throughout our city for months in end. Then Beijing stepped in with the National Security Law. Well done, pan-Dems …

The letter, copied below the fold:

"Look back in anger": Matthew Cheung and the issue of polling public sentiment. (Letter to SCMP)

ADDED:  published 24 November here.

Letter to SCMP, 

You asked for readers' views on Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung's much mocked statement that he "didn't know what the biggest cause of public anger was".  He proposed a recognised international company do a poll of public grievances.

Absolutely! I fully agree. I don't know why it hasn't been done already. I said back in August, that we needed to do a wide-ranging opinion poll.

Of course we know of the "Five Demands" which must be delivered with "not one less". (五大诉求，缺一不可)

But I believe there is rather more to it than that, judging by the words of protesters themselves.  There is a strong tinge of nativism in their anger.  

Consider this from your investigative article on 23 October: 

Their yearnings, as revealed on social media, imagine a Hong Kong where people speak Cantonese, patronise family-run shops and not chain stores and pharmacies catering to mainland Chinese tourists, and care for one another as neighbours in close-knit communities. 

In any other country, in any other context, this would be criticised as the nativist bigotry that it is. Recently the comedian John Cleese was savaged for suggesting that "London is not an English city anymore"; this is exactly the same sentiment we see above ("Hong Kong is not a Cantonese city anymore").

A video by the Washington Post, Anatomy of a Protest features a woman who says that she fears the "invasion" of mainlanders, who "refuse" to learn Cantonese, and only speak their own "dialect"(!), Mandarin.  

Graffiti around Hong Kong calls mainlanders "locusts" and Zhi Na Ren (支那人), the latter a term last used by the invading Japanese in the 1930s. Nothing is more insulting to mainlanders. The graffiti Tian Mie Zhong Gong (天滅中共) — Heaven Destroy the Communist Party —  goes back to early KMT days and was chanted by the Falun Gong. Also insulting. In 2011 I was involved in a debate in these pages over the use of simplified vs traditional characters. I couldn't understand what the hang up was with simplified. Now I know. Simplified = mainland and mainland = bad. [Our locals can dish it out but can't take it. They are incensed — outraged! -- when mainlanders themselves make tart and germane observations about Hong Kong and our protesters].

In short, the hatred of mainlanders is visceral and leads me to the thought that the stated worries about "Beijing interference" are really deep concerns about individual mainlanders (locusts, invaders), not so much things done by officials in Beijing (even given Beijing’s slamming the High Court ruling in face masks). If that's correct, a fair response to the protesters might be "get over it" rather than the molly-coddling and praise of "brave freedom fighters" heaped on them now here and in the international media.

Whether or not I'm correct about this would be flushed out through an international polling exercise. It should have been done long ago. 

(446 words) 

Peter F. etc…

Claudia Mo says "I will always try to do as much as I can for Hong Kong". (‘My Life’, Post Magazine, February 16)

LETTER TO SCMP
"Journalist turned lawmaker" Claudia Mo says "I will always try to do as much as I can for Hong Kong". (‘My Life’,  Post Magazine, February 16).
Very well, Ms Mo. How about standing up for the Seven Freedoms we already have? Namely:

1. Freedom of Conscience 
2. Freedom of Assembly 
3. Freedom of Movement 
4. Freedom of Press 
5. Freedom of Expression 
6. Freedom of Religion 
7. Freedom of Capital 

These are not delusional and they are not in my imagination. They are real and meaningful. They are now endangered by the antics of Claudia Mo and her violent supporters on our streets.
Mo represents a party she co-founded, "HK First", which supports for "localism", including independence for Hong Kong and the use of force to achieve it.
This is a delusional and dangerous policy. It will only draw the ire — and ultimately the fierce crackdown — of the hated despots in Beijing (we all hate them, Ms Mo!).
If you want to bring ruin to our city, keep calling for "Independence", keep being violent, and see what happens!
Ms Mo: If you care for our city, as you say you do, please work for something achievable: the maintenance of the Freedoms we already have. Which means working with the Hong Kong and Beijing governments, hated as they may be.
I'm a conservative in the sense that I want to conserve our Freedoms. Ms Mo could consider herself a progressive for doing the same. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that supporting localism, supporting independence, supporting violent "freedom fighters" on our streets is reckless and ruinously dangerous. It will have the opposite effect. "The road to hell…." and all that.
I stand for Freedom. Which is why I stand against violent protest, why I stand against "independence for Hong Kong", and why I stand against the policies of "HK First".
I also stand against Ms Mo's "mainlandisation" concerns, for they seem to me little more than nativist bigotry.* A kind of Cantonese Supremacy. Racist, in short. [Like this]
PF, Etc..
Published 22 Feb
Related:
* My SCMP letter on bigotry in the protest movement (24 Nov 2019)
* My post on bigotry in the protest movement (6 Dec 2019)

ADDED: “So, what would l do, to conserve these freedoms?”. Good question. I’ll look at that over the next little bit.

The Year China Inc. Bet Big on the U.S. - WSJ

There sure are problems in Sino-US relations. Our local South China Sea disputes big amongst them. And US firms in China are facing increasing problems from a nativist, protectionist China.
Meantime China investment in the US is booming.

There are plenty of problems with Sino-American relations, but investment by Chinese companies isn't one of them. China Inc. is voting for America, even if presidential candidates haven't noticed

Washington Post: 'Hong Kong is at war'

Just to show you how fair and balanced this blog is, I post the video above (18’15”) from the Washington Post. Anatomy of a Protest; Inside Hong Kong’s Fight for Freedom.

The Washington Post is of the Left and in the video above they don’t make any pretence to be balanced.  Or maybe... maybe, they think that they are balanced. In any case, it’s certainly pro-protesters (= “yellow ribbon”). The only ones interviewed are sweet young things who speak good English and assure us that they are “peaceful”, that they are sacrificing so much for Freedom and Democracy and that the government are the uncaring baddies....

What you don’t learn from the video:

1.  Violence was started by the protesters, as a result of a New York Times article which was widely circulated on social media sites LIHKG and Telegram.   The aim was precisely to provoke the police into hitting back.  From then on, it’s just been a cycle of more violence on both sides, though TBF to the police, more on the “yellow ribbons” side.

2. Violence and vandalism is almost all on the “yellow ribbon” side.  But it’s not even mentioned in the video.  There’s no mention of the man killed by a protester throwing a brick and hitting him on the head. No mention of the attempted murder of a man by setting him alight with lighter fluid (he lies critically ill in jail with burns to over 40% of his body). No mention of the policeman hit with an arrow. No mention of throwing bricks off bridges onto cars below.  No mention that they are using universities as armament factories: mass producing petrol bombs, gathering javelins and bows and arrows, storing bucketloads of bricks. No mention that they have doxxed police and their families.  No mention that they have trashed MTR stations, making it hard for ordinary folk to get to work.  No mention that they have trashed shops and restaurants across the city. Nothing, nada.

3.  Freedoms we already have (or had...): the protesters say they are fighting for “Freedom”. But we have every freedom of a modern, open, liberal society: freedom of speech; freedom of assembly; freedom of religion; freedom of conscience; freedom of movement; freedom of capital, freedom of trade -- you name it we have it....  We have all of these freedoms and they are not a delusion. They are real and meaningful. There is no freedom that the “yellow ribbons” might desire that they don’t already enjoy. Hong Kong is not/was not Syria or Sudan.  The only restrictions on freedoms have been by the protesters themselves; they have abridged our freedom of movement and freedom of speech: with bricks, lighter-fluid and doxxing.

4.  We already have the Rule of Law: and the protesters are damaging it -- specifically by their demands that all those arrested be released without charge. That would be very bad indeed for our Rule of Law.

None of the above will you learn from the Washington Post video.

These Young Ones are free to speak their minds. And I’m free to think they are deluded and doing harm to our existing freedoms. And to our ability to carry them past 2047. I’m free to say I don’t want our fine city destroyed by teenage millenarian fantasies.

But what you do learn, at the end of the vid, is the real reason they’re rampaging on our streets: open, naked, nativist hatred of mainlanders. For some time now, I’ve thought that this was the real reason for their rioting. And it’s true, from what they say. They want Hong Kong to remain Cantonese. They hate all these mainlanders coming in and speaking their own “dialect” -- as they call Mandarin, the lingua franca of China.  In any other context -- the UK, for example, or the US -- such bigotry to outsiders, such hatred for a different culture would be roundly condemned.

But not now, not by WaPo.  Because it’s “one divides into two” (一分为二, Yi Fen Wei Er), and if you have to choose a side, it’s going to be the “yellow ribbons” not Beijing.

At least we’re keeping “One Country Two Systems”

This is the second article* in two days confirming that OC2S will be maintained behind 2047. That’s significant and positive.

Zheng Yanxiong is right in saying that demonstrations in Hong Kong should not be calling for the downfall of communism on the mainland. We thought so at the time, back in 2019. We’d taken part in early demos. We stopped when they became violent (except I went to a couple as an observer). We wrote here, at the time, how dangerous it was to call for Hong Kong independence and downfall of the “Black Party” 黑党 Hei dang. There was no “right” to do so in the Basic Law. And in any case deeply unwise to criticise those you’ve already identified as “tyrants”. For tyrants will do what tyrants do.The dragon, its tail tweaked, will turn and blast you. We’re lucky the blast was relatively mild. Recall at the time many were predicting (hoping?) that the PLA would turn out the tanks. The National Security Law, draconian as it is, is a mild alternative.

People, the teenage “democracy warriors” of 2019 forgot that Hong Kong was under the suzerainty of China, by international treaty, by recognition of the United Nations and by the Basic Law. Promoting democracy in Hong Kong is one thing. Calling for the overthrow of the communist party quite another. And I say that as no fan boy of socialism, let along the Marxist Leninist party in Beijing. It’s realism.

So, given all that, I find it positive that Beijing sees fit to confirm One Country Two Systems will continue, including past its notional expiry of 2047. That does mean a “high degree of autonomy” for us. Less than before 2019, for sure. But that lessening due entirely to the misjudged violence of 2019. Let’s keep what we have remaining. Which is still plenty freedoms, and a safe city. 

The yellow highlighted bit in the article above is me taking note when our local officials do “commie speak”. That “fearless of struggle” is straight out of Mao Tse-tung. 艰苦奋斗 Jian ku fen dou. “Don’t fear difficulties or struggle”. It’s creeping in to the speech of our local apparatchiks. Which I don’t really like. But will. 

ADDED: The above probably looks like apologia for the regime. But Occasional Readers will know that I’ve been critical of said regime over the life of this blog. It’s just that I don’t buy the “fearless democracy warriors” narrative. The demonstrations against the Extradition Treaty, which we took part in, were relevant and justified. They should have stopped when they were successful. Instead they went on with a set of incoherent and changing “Five Demands”, against a supposed creeping dictatorship with Beijing. And they went on the be much more randomly violent. 

But 

(1) there was no "creeping dictatorship" until it was prompted by a year of non-stop the violent rioting calling for “HK Independence” and downfall of the  CCP. To which the response was the National Security Law.

(2) These young protesters would not have had any idea what was going on inside government and whether or not Beijing was interfering in the day to day work of our government. At the time I did know, at senior levels in the administration and through organising legislation to pass in the LegCo. There was nothing coming down as “orders from Beijing”. That only changed because of the riots; it was not the cause of the riots. 

(3) It became clear that the rioters were out go get mainlanders and mainland-linked companies, because of a nativist hatred of them -- who had been coming into Hong Kong at a rate of 150 a day since the 2008 recession. That’s not me saying that: they said it themselves, openly. They called mainlanders “locusts”. It was some pretty horrid stuff, which would be “racism” were they not all Han.

The article yesterday:

ADDED: I just noticed the bit I circled: “…it won’t change if it’s improved.”  ie, it won’t change unless it’s changed. Such is the logic of apparatchiks. 

"Even Sweden" doesn't want to commit cultural suicide

This sort of football fan, or....

Letter to the International Herald Tribune (the New York Times overseas):
Your editorial (“Even Sweden”, IHT, 29 September) puts all the onus of integration of Muslim immigrants to Sweden on the Swedish state and none on the new arrivals to learn the language and get a job.  You excoriate the so-called racism and xenophobia of those who wish to control that immigration seemingly with no understanding of its pressures and challenges.  The Swedish Minister of Integration, Nyamko Sabuni – a Muslim who came to Sweden when she was 12 –  insists  that "it is crucial that immigrants get in contact with the labour market as soon as possible after receiving their residence permit. This has to be combined with language courses."  Is Sabuni an Islamophobe?

Hong Kong protests: from throwing bricks at police vans to becoming experts at putting out tear gas, meet the teenagers who are risking it all for their ideals

Some think that this article romanticises the Young Ones protesting on the front lines. Others think that it’s useful to know what’s on their minds....

Their yearnings, as revealed on social media, imagine a Hong Kong where people speak Cantonese, patronise family-run shops and not chain stores and pharmacies catering to mainland Chinese tourists, and care for one another as neighbours in close-knit communities. Maps and guides online provide a list of “yellow” restaurants and stores – the colour symbolising democracy in Hong Kong – that protesters should support.

My view: this strikes me as outright nativist.  If something similar were said in the UK, or Australia, or the US, you would be hammered for being xenophobic, bigoted, racist. As was John Cleese when he said that “London is no longer English”.  Here it’s “Hong Kong is no longer Cantonese”.  We don’t have ethnic difference between Hongkongers and mainlanders, and yet locals have grown to hate their mainland cousins, because they’re here, not there, and they’re buying up milk powder and cutting queues.
And in the west that’s praised as fighting for “Freedom” and “Democracy”. Yay!

Almost two-fifths of the 12,231 protesters cumulatively polled in 19 protests from June to August were younger than 24 and about 11.8 per cent of them were 19 or below....

As of October 21, around 35 per cent of the 2,671 arrested protesters are students, according to figures obtained by the Post from police. One in eight arrestees – or nearly 360 – are high school students. Around 140 of them are below 16, with the youngest being just 12 years old. A total of 232 people have been charged with rioting, an offence punishable by 10 years in prison. Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung described an earlier set of figures released as “shocking and heartbreaking”.... 

Dr Samson Yuen Wai-hei, of Lingnan University, said the secondary school students’ involvement in the protests was unprecedented.

 So, as we know, they’re very young, and younger even than most other demos around the world.  Many just school kids.  Which begs the obvious question: how much do they know of the issues.  And the answer is; about Hong Kong before handover, nothing. About China: almost nothing, for very few of them have even visited China.
And we know, they think it’s fun:

But the increasingly dangerous stand-offs with police have sometimes also been thrilling, they admitted, giving their weekend protests an almost addictive quality.
Henry, a fit athlete, gave a sheepish smile as he recalled how he felt he was in a “Korean drama” when he had to sweep a female teammate into his arms and rescue her from smouldering tear gas.
For Bosco, who described himself as an introvert, the feeling of unity on the front lines is intoxicating. No one from his school or family would have thought he would be a hard core protester, he said.
“In a group, we hurl bricks together,” he said. “Wouldn’t you be happy if you get to hit a police van?”

And this? Below. .

But it was also easy for adults to dismiss them as young, foolish or being manipulated by other adults, a tendency common in movements worldwide.

Well, they are young!  Foolish? Well, who aren’t we all foolish, to some extent, when this young?. Manipulated by adults? The Pan-Dems are around always, spurring on. So, yes, I’d say that it’s true, if not dismissive.... We should not, as responsible adults, be letting the future of our fine city be decided by kids as young as 12. 

‘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.

Queues have consequences

“How hard”? Answer: really easy

 Why am I posting this seemingly random clip from today’s South China Morning Post? And why might queueing be “consequential”?

It reminds me of some happenings here in Hong Kong, maybe twenty years ago.

I was in Pacific Place, having a little meal at the wonderful Dan Ryan’s Chicago Grill, one of their chilli bowls and a hamburger that I rate at the best in Hong Hong, arguably the world, juicy, ripe, prime beef grilled to perfection, with sides of pickle and epic chips (“fries” to Americans), thick, crispy on the outside, creamy soft inside. 

I wandered in to a next door shop to buy something for dear spouse. At a Prada.

In the Prada, customers before me, a man under sufferance, leaning on the counter, his ladies, three or four -- wife, mum, sister, perhaps -- trying themselves out with various styles. 

The man leaned, bored, smoking, took a deep draw on his cigarette and blew out an eye cloud. 

Wait. Smoking? Cigarettes?

In a Mall? In the 21st Century?

I can’t remember the last time one could smoke in the Mall of a modern city. 

In any case it was certainly not allowed at the time this fellow was, right there in the Prada shop of Pacific Place.

I said to him, in Mandarin: “Mate, you’d better put that cigarette out. Cause if you don’t the security guys will be along in a bit and they’ll fine you. Like $5,000 ($US642). They do that -- they’re pretty fearsome”. 

He looked at me, puzzled at a huge foreigner confronting him and in his own language. 

He didn’t argue; he also didn’t ignore. He stubbed out his cigarette. But with bad grace. His ladies glared at me. They continued shopping, trying Prada.

When they’d gone the young lady behind the counter said: “Thank you for doing that”. I asked why didn’t they just do what I’d done, tell them they can’t smoke in here. She said they tried that and they were ignored. “Every time we have people from the mainland, they misbehave like this”, she said.

She said they’d tried again and again to stop them smoking (and some other “bad behaviour”), but they were always ignored.

Later, we learnt about more of these “misbehaviours”:  

• Upsets at the use of Chinese simplified characters
• Upsets at parents allowing their toddlers to pee in gutters
• Upsets that Mainlander speak Mandarin and not Cantonese
• Upsets at Mainlanders taking high-paying jobs in finance and other service industries

I followed the 2019 Hong Kong demonstrations day by day, on this blog. One conclusion: they were as much, perhaps more, due to such “upsets”. Annoyance at the different habits of mainlanders. Of which queueing (or failure to do so) is just one example. Sure, a desire for “democracy” was there -- but let’s remember that the demand for “universal suffrage” only became one one of the “Five Demands, Not One Less” after they’d promoted the first version which had, instead, the demand for CE Carrie Lam to resign. The “demand” for “universal suffrage” was an afterthought, never front and centre. Nativist hatred of their mainland cousins played a greater part.

“One Country, Two Systems”

One queues, the other doesn’t

It is as if "Animal Farm" had never been written -- thoughts on the 5 teachers charged with sedition

Re Ann Althouse blog of September 10, a few comments from me, here in Hong Kong.

Disclaimer: I may say some things below which appear to excuse actions of the Chinese Communist Party, and I certainly don’t mean them to be. I first arrived in China as a student at Peking U, in 1976, which was the fag-end of the Cultural Revolution, deep-red socialism, pak-choy socialism, rationing socialism, which experience cured me quickly of the Chardonnay socialism I’d imbibed at Uni in Australia. I’ve no love for Socialism, and no love of Xi Jinping. I’ve criticised it and him many times in the blog I’ve kept for the last 13 years. I certainly don’t want any of what I say below as seen to mitigate or excuse the excesses of Xi and his Leninist cronies.

Althouse says: “I want freedom of speech and abhor the prosecution described here”. Of course, I agree. And of course I have a “but”. Making me an instant member of Salman Rushdie’s “But Brigade”. And I really hate the But Brigade, but...
The Red Lines from Beijing were and are clear. They have been since 1997.
1. No talk of independence for Hong Kong. 

2. No call for any action to undermine the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
We can talk about anything, except independence or anything that might undermine the rule of the Communist party of China. Those areas aside, anything goes. 

We do not live in a western-style democracy. We are part of China, everyone recognises that both de jure and de facto. Our sovereign is neither a Nice Monarchy nor a Robust Republic. It’s an ancient Confucian state, now run by marxist-leninists. Call is “tyrannical” if you want — as did Lord Patton a while back. I wouldn’t quibble. When you are ruled by a tyrant, you’ve go to be ready for it to act like a tyrant. Don’t be surprised. Don’t be, like the Washington Post, “outraged” when the tyrant acts like a tyrant.
Yet this tyrant has acted rather less harshly than it might have.
Take the 2019 riots we had here in Hong Kong, for the best part of a year. Our very own “mostly peaceful demonstrations”.
Were they really peaceful? No, they were not.
The initially peaceful mass demonstrations had by mid year descended into chaotic trashing of the city. I went along to observe many of them, and we, my wife and I, watched in horror, as our beloved city was put to the torch. Not just occupation and vandalising the Legislative Council and other government offices and of mainland-owned companies, but also of individual companies and even stations on the MTR, our world-best subway.
You object: if they have have at times been a little less than “mostly peaceful” were they not at least “brave warriors fighting for freedom and justice”?
Again, no.
The west pushed that narrative, of course. But if you went on the street and talked to them (and I did) their anger was nativist. They promoted the idea that they were fighting against “encroachment by Beijing” because the western media lapped it up. In reality they hated that more individual mainlanders were coming into Hong Kong — at a rate of 150 a day, agreed during the Asian Financial Crisis as a means of giving economic stimulus to Hong Kong. They were threatened -- they said so, openly -- by mainlanders with their crude money and crude ways. Ways that Cantonese did not like: toddlers piddling in the gutter, spitting, smoking in non-smoking areas. I grant, those are pretty crude and you get a bit leery for fear they will infect your refined (colonial) ways. More serious: mainlanders started landing plum jobs — not through mainland nepotism, but because they were very often better trained, with better degrees — buying local real estate, pushing up property prices in a fraught market. They also got very upset with the use of mandarin and simplified characters.
What about “Beijing Interference”? 

That is, interference from Beijing, at government level, in the operations of Hong Kong? Of course there was some involvement. It would be weird if there were none. Until 2020, any Beijing involvement in Hong Kong matters came through “interpretations” of local laws by the National People’s Congress, but at the request of the Hong Kong government.
Was there any level of malevolent Beijing “interference” that justified rioting? No, there was not.
I know this from personal experience: I was a senior member of the Australian government liaising with the Hong Kong government. Later I founded and ran an education company in Hong Kong, during which I established a lobbying body for the private education industry. We were involved with the Hong Kong government and its legislature, drafting and amending regulations for the education sector. Not once was there any hint of Beijing behind-the-scenes involvement.
The demonstrators were almost all very young, mostly teenagers. I’m gonna go ahead and say: they had not a clue if there were or if there were not any Beijing “interference” in the running of Hong Kong. No idea. ADDED: my wife reminds me that post-handover the Hong Kong school curriculum removed any teaching of Chinese history. Crazy but true.
What these young demonstrators did have was a visceral anger at their cousins from the mainland, coming here and showing them up. That they did not like. And for that they torched our city. In any other context that would be slammed as “racist” though that’s a tough charge when they are literally of the same ethnicity. John Cleese was condemned in the UK, for saying London was “no longer English”. Racist! The Cantonese calumny of their Chinese cousins was the same.
Graffiti Graphics
I remember when I first saw some of the graffiti that shocked me in 2019. Hong Kong was, and is again, a place where there is virtually no graffiti, which I’ve always viewed as a positive, a reflection of the fact that people respect their home. On seeing the 2019 graffiti, vicious attacks on mainlanders and the CCP, I was shocked. And I thought, if this shocks me, how are the Leninist apparatchiks up north going to view this? The'll be freaked!
There were graffiti to “Liberate Hong Kong”, to start a “Modern Revolution” -- and nothing frightens an old revolutionary more than calls for a “revolution”. There were rude, crude and horrid graffiti: “kill the cockroaches from the north”, “stop the mainland locusts”, “CCP: Black Party”, “Let’s Burn together”.
What was surprising was not that Beijing responded to this. This lawlessness. This provocation. What was surprising was that it took so long to do so and that when it did that the response was relatively mild. At the time there was much talk of “Beijing bringing in the tanks” as they had done in June ’89 -- almost as if people were hoping for an extreme reaction so they could demonise Beijing. But not a single PLA soldier left their barracks, except with brooms, to sweep the streets. In the end it was not beasts of war but beasts of law that contained the riots: via the National Security Legislation.
One may argue the merits and demerits of that Law - many say it is too broad -- but whatever, we can’t argue that it was not far more restrained than tanks in the streets.
And so to these “seditious” books.
I’ve just gone over to read them, what’s available at the WaPo story. I’ve discussed them with Jing, my wife, born and brought up in Beijing, a linguist, scholar of Classical Chinese. I note that they’re written in Cantonese. Jing says -- ever the northerner --there's no such thing as “written Cantonese”, rather she says they’re written in combination slang and dialect. In any case, it’s not standard mandarin Chinese, which in itself is an indication of where the teachers are coming from -- let’s cock a snook at Beijing, why don’t we?
Second: that the reference to current events and criticism of Beijing is very obvious. The Chinese are no strangers to abstruse literary allegories. These are pretty in-your-face. The WaPo claims they are “...indirectreferences to social issues.... and implied criticism”. To any Chinese the references are direct and explicit.
This does rather sound like excuse-making, doesn’t it? To repeat: in Hong Kong we don’t live in a Democracy. If you want a full-on democracy where you can vote the president, then Hong Kong is not your place. Never was, never will be (maybe).
We live under the rule of Beijing. Call it a tyranny if you will, call it an Authoritarian-Leninism, call it Fascist-Mercantalism (a case can be made for each). What it most certainly is not is a democracy.
The RED LINES were made clear: do not talk of independence, do not talk of secession, and no blatant attack on the Communist Party. Got that? Ok, go ahead and say and write what you will. (I remember talking to some of the Yellows and they denied that they’d pushed for independence. "But I saw the graffiti with mine own eyes!" I say. Didn’t matter. Denial and deflection)
It’s true that we were -- kind of -- promised we could choose our Chief Executive by universal suffrage. I say “kind of”, because in the Basic Law, our mini-constitution, it says the method for choosing the CE “shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in ... Hong Kong...” with the “ultimate aim” of choosing by universal suffrage. Clearly loopholes you can drive truck through. It’s never been a copper-bottomed guarantee. The rioters in 2019 made sure that the “actual situation” is not that good, and that “ultimate” now means “final, final”.
Do I care? Not much. What I care about, what many care about, is having a Chief Executive who is competent and works for the benefit of Hong Kong. I was in Shanghai when the Mayor was Zhu Rongji. He made a huge and positive difference to Shanghai. If we could have a Zhu Rongji for Hong Kong, then I’m two thumbs up.

How Democracy Became the Enemy | New York Times | Roger Cohen. April 7-8

And annoy #MeToo

Letter to New York Times

What's with Roger Cohen? It's possible to be against unlimited immigration without being a Viktor Orbanite. 

Indeed three quarters of European residents are reliably against unfettered immigration. Yet they are mocked by Cohen as nativist "racial and religious purists".

But why should this majority be forced to enable the social problems that Islamic immigration has brought elsewhere to Europe. Should this majority do so because "kale-eating western liberals racked by colonial or war guilt" (as Cohen straw-mans them for Orban) try to shame them to do so?

I think not. 

Europe is not the kale-eaters to give away. 

P F etc

What are the costs and benefits of the current protests?

LETTER TO SCMP [published on December 29, here]

What are the costs and benefits of the current protests? 

The costs are clear. Billions of dollars in shop closures, unemployment, reduced visitor numbers, starved charities.

But what are the upsides? What are the benefits of the protests? Surely there are some?
So far, I can think of only one. The extradition bill was withdrawn shortly after the first protests. Conclusion: (a) the protests were effective and (b) the government was responsive.
But protests continued. Have they gained any more upside? Well, now it's "Five Demands" not just one.

Three of these extra demands are only because of the protests. Not because they are causes fought for.

These are the "self-centred demands":
1. Stop calling us "rioters".
2. Give us all Amnesty, and …
3. Investigate the police (but not us!)
However:
1. You can't stop calling rioters "rioters" if in fact they are... rioters. It does violence to language to demand otherwise.
2.  The second demand does violence to the rule of law, which the protesters claim to champion. How can we give blanket amnesty to people who have killed bystanders and set people on fire?  
3.  Investigate the police… but don't investigate any of the wanton vandalism of the protesters? This one does violence to the concept of fairness. 
That leaves only the last "Demand" which is for universal suffrage. But trying to achieve this by violent protest is doomed to failure. Thinking otherwise is delusional. Universal suffrage is not a "promise" is being broken by Beijing (as is so often claimed).  The Basic Law makes it clear: The Chief Executive is to be selected by "election or through consultations held locally" and "the method small be specified in the light of the actual situation". No promise there. And the "actual situation" has clearly moved against it.

What this means is that what has been achieved by the protests and what will be achieved is: ZERO.
An essentially nativist and populist movement has been romanticised to being "pro-democrat". It is not. 

It's past time we faced reality: the protests are hugely costly without a single benefit. They must stop. Perhaps then we can get back to the "actual situation" allowing discussion of how to proceed with universal suffrage.

Pf etc…

Da Big Boss in town

 

Happy July 1. Holiday here in Hong Kong. “Reunification Day”. 回归节. Hui Gui Jie. It happened 25 years ago.

ADDED: Bernard Chan makes the following point in today’s South China Morning Post 

New York Times romanticises, cheers on violent protesters

My response to a commenter on the NYT article, who  just said:

Posted 28 October 03:50 UT

@L: The government in Hong Kong didn’t “suddenly become China”. The changeover of sovereignty happened *22 years ago* and since then Hong Kong has ruled itself under “one country two systems”. We maintain every freedom that we had under the British: freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, freedom of capital, freedom of trade, freedom of surfing the internet. (and now, it seems, freedom to vandalise). 

These freedoms are real and not fantasy. I’ve lived in Hong Kong for over forty years, and have enjoyed enjoying said freedoms. 

Protesters say they are worried by “Beijing interference” but it’s more like the increasing numbers of mainlanders in Hong Kong and their different habits that they object to. This objection is a nativist, xenophobic attitude. If it were expressed in the West it would be hammered for being “bigoted”. (As was John Cleese when he said “London is no longer English”) 

The likeliest outcome of ongoing violence by these teenage millenarians — romanticised in this article — is *less* Freedom and *less* Democracy. 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. 

Our street violence ought not be romanticised, celebrated and cheered on by the likes of the NYT. 

[Re the universal suffrage question, see my immediately preceding post]