Watching the sun set, little by little, on Asia's greatest city - with a dash of Hemlock
Spent yesterday morning getting my first proper physical in a decade at a place in Central. They must do dozens of people every day a three-hour long conveyor belt of form-filling, examinations and tests, plus some waiting in between. Continue reading
Lingua Sinica examines the links between pro-Beijing media outlets attacking the HK Journalists Association last week… Without evidence, and in remarks that seemed a clear public setup stemming from the Wen Wei Po question [at a press conference on a Continue reading
Desmond Shum tweet on Beijing’s tax clampdown on offshore wealth… Article 11 states that even someone who has obtained foreign nationality or permanent or long-term residence overseas may still be deemed a Chinese domiciled tax resident if his or her Continue reading
The Court of Appeal allows 11 of the HK47 convicted of ‘conspiracy to commit subversion’ over the 2020 pan-dem primary elections to go to the Court of Final Appeal The defendants feature some of Hong Kong’s most prominent Continue reading
Lingnan University Students Union founded in 1967 decides to dissolve. The only student unions still active are at City U and HKUST, plus a couple of Chinese U’s colleges. One of the few remaining prominent and critical civil-society Continue reading
The Hang Seng Index suffers a modest plunge as insurers, banks and property developers worry that Beijing’s new drive to tax decades of offshore income will dissuade wealthy Mainlanders from parking their money in Hong Kong. Some observers will wonder Continue reading
We don’t hear much about the Legislative Council these days. Although there are 90 of them, the all-patriots members are mostly low-profile. There’s the one who drove her car the wrong way down a street. And another who did something Continue reading
From Flying Chopstick on Substack, a long, academic-type piece, partly critiquing a starry-eyed guy called Perez who thinks China has invented a space-age new form of governance, but mainly examining how Hong Kong fits into China’s system of government, with Continue reading
HKFP reports criticism of the Hong Kong government’s clampdown on bookstores from a slightly unexpected source: a small conservative Christian group known mainly for its anti-gay views… The Society for Truth and Light’s secretary general Choi Chi-sum said in a Continue reading
The Economist tries to explain Hong Kong’s obsession with shutting down small bookstores… Evidently the officers in charge of the raid had not expected such a big haul, or they would have brought more bins. The last of it had Continue reading
Yesterday’s on-line Standard carried an op-ed (or ‘news’ story) warning that overseas exchange and training opportunities, including the Fulbright and Chevening scholarships, are being used to groom agents for evil foreign forces… …Some political figures have bluntly stated that such Continue reading
Stephen Roach, former boss of Morgan Stanley Asia, writes a piece updating and defending his belief that ‘Hong Kong is over’ This dramatic transformation into Xianggang is the real story. Hong Kong s defenders are in denial about this new chameleon-like Continue reading
Lingua Sinica on how Hong Kong is emulating Mainland-style merging of NatSec police and media… Episodes two and three [of NS Files: Decoded] touch on the publication and distribution of the allegedly seditious children’s book Sheep Village, and the prosecution Continue reading
After his fifth case of plagiarism and several reprimands High Court Judge William Chan ‘takes early retirement’. HKFP reports… In the latest instance of plagiarism, Chan was found to have copied large parts of the defence’s opening and Continue reading
HK Labour Rights Monitor looks at how former members of the Hong Kong Police are moving into senior positions elsewhere in the public sector… Since taking office, [ex-cop CE John] Lee has appointed at least seven former senior police officers Continue reading
The SCMP reports on the HK Tourism Bored Board’s new exciting promotional campaign. Because apparently we don’t have enough tourists yet… Hong Kong is seeking to promote itself as a city that visitors “feel” rather than merely see under a Continue reading
Police staked out a bathroom in order to catch an autistic 18/19-year-old for scrawling ‘seditious words’ on the wall. The guy worked part-time as a clerk for the Vanuatu consulate… Magistrate Victor So handed down judgement on Wednesday morning at Continue reading
From China Unofficial Archives, an introduction to the Hong Kong Research Database at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica with an emphasis on their collection of T-shirts… The words on the T-shirt, “Hello, Please Step Down,” seem quite mild. But in fact, Continue reading
Of all the national security threats Hong Kong has faced in recent years teenagers, housewives, booksellers, etc this one must be the most pitiful… A Hong Kong court has sentenced a man with an intellectual disability to two Continue reading
Detained-bookseller artwork here. I visited Hunter Bookstore over the weekend. Quite crowded, with a slight ‘closing down sale” vibe though the store is issuing customer-loyalty cards as if it expects to be around for the long term. As well Continue reading