Archive for the ‘South-east Asia’ Category

Official: I will no longer travel to China

February 7, 2021

Well, here’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Tibet, Xinjiang, South China Sea, Taiwan, Hong Kong. And a ridiculous number of individual cases of persons taken hostage by a state.

In the words of the late, great Gill Scott Heron: ‘It follows a pattern, if you know what I mean…’

The straw is the case of an Irish businessman, recounted below in the Irish Independent.

I am less diplomatic than the thoroughly decent Winston Lord, who is quoted. What I say is: ‘Fuck Xi Jinping and his miserable, proto-fascist government.’

I should also say that I hope you will believe me that it is pure coincidence that it is the case of a white male that has brought me this point. He just happened to be that straw.


…..

In February 2019, Richard O’Halloran flew to Shanghai for a series of meetings and has been ‘held hostage’ by the authorities ever since. The Irish Government is facing growing calls to step up its response 

Close knit: The O’Halloran family in happier times with Isabella, Tara, Ben, Scarlett, Richard and Amber all together

Close knit: The O’Halloran family in happier times with Isabella, Tara, Ben, Scarlett, Richard and Amber all together
Peter Goff
February 06 2021 02:30 AM


As Dublin prepares to light up buildings red to celebrate Chinese New Year, an Irish businessman detained in Shanghai for “corporate ransom” has now missed two Christmases with his wife and four young children.
Richard O’Halloran, a 45-year-old Dublin businessman, has been told he must pay $36m to the Chinese authorities before he can leave the country. His plight has put the potential hazards of doing business with China under the spotlight.


Critics say this is the latest example of Beijing’s lack of respect for the rule of law, international norms and human rights, while there have also been calls for the Irish Government to be more assertive.
Winston Lord, a former US ambassador to China, says O’Halloran’s situation was “a very sad and frustrating and indeed cruel case”. “This is a slippery slope and unless countries push back firmly on this kind of unfair detention, it can lead to greater and greater outrages,” he says.
The businessman’s wife, Tara O’Halloran, said last week on RTÉ radio that “we are crying out to the Government to step in and take control and demand he is released because he is innocent and he is not getting enough help”.


She said he had a serious lung condition, has suffered seizures in China, has had to be resuscitated twice, has regular panic attacks and that his mental health was at a low ebb.
“We are pleading for him to come home on humanitarian grounds, his health is deteriorating, he is very ill,” she said. “It can’t go on much longer; he won’t survive much longer over there on his own.”
President Michael D Higgins wrote to Chinese President Xi Jinping on December 23 and received a reply on January 29 suggesting the authorities on both sides “maintain communication and co-ordination to create conditions for an early and proper solution to the case”.
Lord says he was encouraged by the correspondence, “but it never should have got to this point”.
“I’m reluctant to criticise a friendly government, but I have to say in all candour that until this recent move by the Irish President, which I warmly welcome, the Irish Government’s performance in this has been disappointing, to put it is as diplomatically as I can,” he says.

“It has an interest, both in terms of protecting its own citizens but also just in pure humanitarian terms, and also for its reputation, to move aggressively to try to resolve this situation. And I think they’ve been very slow and tepid in their efforts until recently.”The Department of Foreign Affairs said that while it could not comment on the details of an individual case, it “continues to provide all possible consular support and assistance to Mr O’Halloran and attaches the utmost importance to his welfare”. It said the case has been raised regularly at “senior political and diplomatic level” with the Chinese authorities.

The statement added that Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney “remains actively and personally engaged, and senior officials in Dublin, Beijing and Shanghai continue to do everything possible to ensure that Mr O’Halloran can return home”.
‘We can’t see any progress’
In response, Tara O’Halloran told RTÉ: “That is not enough. A couple of phone calls and a couple of emails to the authorities is not enough. They need to take a stance and stand up and say that he is being illegally detained; they have no basis for holding him. We can’t see any progress and I am literally begging for help. I’m begging them and begging them and begging them. For two years I’ve been begging them.”

Close knit: The O’Halloran family in happier times with Isabella, Tara, Ben, Scarlett, Richard and Amber all together

Close knit: The O’Halloran family in happier times with Isabella, Tara, Ben, Scarlett, Richard and Amber all together
Richard O’Halloran, a relative of the late Fine Gael taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, is a director of China International Aviation Leasing Service Co Limited (CALS Ireland). The complex case that he has found himself embroiled in centres on an Airbus A330 airplane that CALS has leased to Finnair, according to David Maughan, partner with law firm William Fry, which acts for CALS.
The chairman of CALS, Min Jiedong, was arrested in China on charges of running an illegal crowdfunding scheme and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. There is no evidence that he used the money to buy the Airbus but the authorities are targeting it because it is a major asset connected to him. In February 2019, O’Halloran flew to China to hold meetings with colleagues after Min was arrested. When he attempted to board his return flight after a week of meetings, he was detained and told he would not be able to leave China. The charges against Min predate O’Halloran’s time with the company, and Min had agreed to buy the plane 10 months before he had joined CALS, Maughan says.

During the trial, both the prosecutor and Min told the court that O’Halloran had no involvement in Min’s crowdfunding in China and should be allowed to return to Ireland.“He is not guilty of any crime, nor has he been charged with any crime. He is being illegally detained… I would call this corporate ransom,” Maughan says.

O’Halloran testified as a witness four times in Min’s prosecution, and following Min’s sentencing he was subpoenaed to an enforcement court to give a financial account of CALS Ireland. On each of these five occasions, the Chinese authorities denied requests from the Irish Embassy to have representatives attend as observers. The court appointed an interpreter but O’Halloran was not allowed any legal representation in court, nor was he given any documentation relating to the appearances, Maughan says.

As part of a proposal to secure O’Halloran’s release, CALS sent the Chinese court $200,000 some weeks ago as a “good-faith payment”, Maughan says, but when the money arrived in China, police interrogated O’Halloran for six hours about the source of the funds. “During that interrogation the police said that the sum of $6m should be paid to resolve the case, and they also told him that his exit ban had been lifted,” he says.
O’Halloran booked the next flight home, “but when he got to the airport, he was denied access to board the aircraft,” Maughan says, “and he was escorted out of the airport by seven police officers wearing bodycams”.
At the latest hearing on February 2, in front of three judges, “they said that he was very healthy, despite all his many health issues, and is personally responsible to pay back the figure of $36m,” Maughan says.
“We were flabbergasted. The Chinese side picked this number of $36m, which no one knows where it came from. We haven’t been party to any of the proceedings.”

Response: Simon Coveney “remains actively and personally engaged" in the Richard O'Halloran case, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs

Response: Simon Coveney “remains actively and personally engaged” in the Richard O’Halloran case, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs
He says they had made several proposals to the Chinese ambassador in Dublin and to Coveney to try to resolve the issue, including resigning his position, handing over control of the bank accounts to the courts, or allowing the Chinese court to take over Min’s shares in related companies — including one in the Cayman Islands that owns the plane — so they could then control the assets.
In 2019, CALS agreed with a third party after a public tender process to sell the aircraft. “But the Chinese courts turned down Richard’s request that the aircraft be sold. Unfortunately, due to the global pandemic, the aircraft is worth half of what CALS had agreed to sell the aircraft for,” Maughan says.

Another proposal involved O’Halloran returning to Dublin and continuing to work for CALS to manage the five remaining years of the lease on the plane to Finnair, at which point the plane could be sold or flown to China. None of the proposals were accepted, Maughan says.
“If the Chinese side took the shares off Min, Richard O’Halloran would be home next week — if someone would take a big picture approach,” he adds. “There are plenty of solutions here if the Chinese wished to engage. I welcome Xi’s comments but it will take engagement. And I would not be optimistic, based on what the three judges said; that Richard and the board come up with $36m.”
Barring visitors from leaving is a tactic used widely in China, and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs now advises travellers to China that “Chinese authorities may place an exit ban on an individual to prevent them from leaving the country”. It adds that an exit ban “may be placed on an individual, their family or an employer; or in a criminal or civil matter, including a business dispute”.

The travel advisory says “such bans, which are distinct from detention or imprisonment, are part of the Chinese legal process and may endure for months, or longer”.
The US State Department uses stronger language, saying China “arbitrarily enforces local laws, including by carrying out arbitrary and wrongful detentions and through the use of exit bans on US citizens and citizens of other countries without due process of law”.
Charles Parton, a fellow of the Royal United Services Institute and a former British diplomat who spent more than two decades working in or on China, says that the taking of “hostages” was not unusual in commercial disputes in China.

“It’s quite a common tactic at a local level, provincial or below, where they’ve got contacts in the local government and in order to get their way in an argument with a foreign company, they deliberately take a hostage in this way,” he says.
Tara O’Halloran said in the recent interview that for a long time she had not spoken out about her husband’s plight because she had been advised that quiet diplomacy would be the best approach.
“We had faith in the Irish Government that they were going to help us, that they were going to intervene, help us, and we were advised not to go public because it might upset the Chinese, that they might retaliate, they might decide to keep him longer. But I can’t sit back and let him be there for another two years,” she said.
Observers say that, in most cases, exit bans never come to light because the parties involved do not publicise them in the hopes of finding a quiet resolution.

Parton says while each situation was different, he felt that, in general, people should speak out about these bans. “I think this business of keeping a low profile is not always wise,” he says. “That plays along with their game. I think you should make as much noise about it as one can. This is an example of local rather than central abuse and it should be called out in my view.”
Alexander Dukalskis, an associate professor at University College Dublin’s School of Politics and International Relations, says that, in general terms, the human rights situation has regressed “from an already low level” since Xi Jinping took the reins of the Communist Party of China (CCP) in 2012.
“Human rights lawyers have been systematically repressed under Xi, which further compounds the problem because it eliminates a source of protection. The previous leadership of Hu Jintao was more liberal — by CCP standards — than the current party leadership. More criticism was tolerated in the political sphere and activists were able to operate within certain boundaries,” says Dukalskis, who is author of the forthcoming book Making the World Safe for Dictatorship.
“Things have tightened under Xi, in some areas drastically so,” he adds. “China’s policies of repression in Xinjiang, for example, were already harsh before 2014, but since then they have become draconian, possibly even genocidal.”
On the international stage, China has been accused recently of adopting an aggressive form of “Wolf Warrior diplomacy”, and generally taking a more combative approach to its multilateral relations.
Lord, the former ambassador, says that things were getting worse “both domestically in terms of oppression and internationally in terms of adventurism, and in terms of interfering in other countries and pressuring other citizens”.
As China plays an increasingly important role on the world stage, Parton says countries have to stand up against human rights abuses or the situation will only get worse.
“Bullies are bullies whether they are at the international level or the playground level. And if you give way to bullies, what do you get? You just get more bullying,” says Parton, who worked with the EU delegation in Beijing for his final China posting.

More, later:

This guy is still going to Hong Kong. I guess the Hongkies need him, given what is going on there:

AN Oxford City councillor has announced he will be stepping down from his role with immediate effect as his work requires him to spend an increasing amount of time overseas.

Councillor Paul Harris will no longer represent the ward of St Margaret’s on Oxford City Council.

He was elected in 2018 and is a member of the Liberal Democrat Group on the council and has served as the opposition spokesperson for cleaner, greener Oxford, cycling, tourism and the city centre.

ALSO READ: ‘Lockdown only needed due to PM’s failure’, says Layla Moran

He has combined his work in Oxford with a career as a human rights barrister, often working in Hong Kong. Recent developments there, and restrictions on travel, have meant he has spent increasing amounts of time in Hong Kong and can no longer represent his ward as he would wish.

His seat will remain vacant until a by-election is held and St Margaret’s ward continues to be represented by Councillor Tom Landell Mills.

Councillor Landell Mills will cover the portfolio areas Mr Harris has held for the opposition in the run up to the elections.

Mr Harris said: “I have immensely enjoyed my almost three years as a councillor and will very much miss both colleagues and staff, as well as local residents in St Margaret’s Ward. I am pleased in particular I managed to get the towpath through St Margaret’s re-surfaced at last which was my main promise when I stood for election in 2018.

“The reason for my resignation is that I am relocating to Hong Kong with which I have work and family connections. I am a barrister specialising in human rights and I have been asked to be chairman of the Hong Kong Bar for the year 2021.”

It’s failed-states’ Wednesday

February 3, 2021

The article below by Max Fisher in the New York Times is very interesting on the disaster that is Myanmar. Far better than anything in the British press.

What Fisher writes chimes with what I saw in Myanmar and why I declined offers to go back there in the time of Ms Aung (she’s really called Ms Suu).

Meanwhile, breaking news in a failed state closer to home is that Mario Draghi is trying to form an Italian government. Ho, ho, ho.

Having gone to Frankfurt to run the European Central Bank and stave off the bankruptcy of his miserable but attractive country, Mario is now going to try to actually change Italy.

Good luck with that!

I guess we’ll soon find out if he really is Super Mario.

More, later:

Could I just mention, while we are on the subject of Italy, that the bung-taking architect of Putin’s insane Black Sea palace, described in Navalny’s wonderful documentary, is none other than Lanfranco Cirillo, who is, of course, Italian. They certainly invented fascism. Did they also invent corruption?

Cirillo is from Brescia, about 50 kilometres east of Milan (remember Berlusconi, or Bettino Craxi, or Poalo Pilliteri, who I interviewed when young?) All from the same neck of the woods. Northern Italians like to blame the south for the country’s problems. But my observation has long been that this is a crock of shit. It is the north of Italy that is the spawn-pool of selfishness and corruption. The south, after all, gave us Gramsci, possibly the last principled Italian. He died in 1937.

And here come the Myanmar generals…

February 1, 2021

You could not make it up.

Xi Jinping. Vladimir Putin. Myanmar generals.

Covid is now providing cover for every villain on the planet to do his worst (they do all seem to be men).

The generals in Myanmar, having been crushed in a free election, and then saying they wouldn’t do a coup, have done one.

What a mess. The key observations in the linked article come from the venerable Thant Myint-U:

<The author and historian Thant Myint-U wrote on on Twitter: “The doors just opened to a very different future. I have a sinking feeling that no one will really be able to control what comes next. And remember Myanmar’s a country awash in weapons, with deep divisions across ethnic & religious lines, where millions can barely feed themselves.”>

I should say that I am not a big fan of Aung San Suu Kyi. She seems to me to be a hippy and hippies don’t make good leaders if you want economic development and an end to poverty (remember Ghandi?).

About three years ago I was asked by a foundation that works on land reform to go to Myanmar and I met some of Ms Aung’s advisers and ministers. I was appalled by the non-quality and intellectual laziness of much of what I saw. (It was like I imagine having dinner with George Osborne or Boris Johnson would be.)

Still, none of this justifies putting the lunatics back in charge of the asylum.

I should also say that, although I have twice been in the same room as her, I have never actually spoken to the little lady, so there is some room for doubt about my opinion of her.

I also wonder if the Communist Party of China is meddling in this coup. It wouldn’t be a big surprise.

The sun also sets: Hong Kong version

January 31, 2021

I’m not going to start writing about the illegal misery that the Communist Party of China is raining down on Hong Kong. My only thought is that Xi Jinping may one day have to go into exile and I wonder where would take him? DPRK, I guess, if he brings enough cash. Or Saudi Arabia. Or DRC. It’s not a good choice-set.

If you are interested in Hong Kong and don’t know it, I would highly recommend in this period a lunatic friend’s Big Lychee blog. I suppose I’ll go and visit him when they lock him up. Take him a baguette.



Fat Pang’s Man of the Year

December 21, 2020

I have mixed emotions about Fat Pang, or Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong. I guess I am just suspicious of British Tory politicians holding forth about matters of political principle in former British colonies. When Fat Pang was recently arrived as governor, I asked to interview him about his understanding of British colonial history (he read history as an undergraduate). His press manager asked what books I had read on the subject, and for a rough idea of questions. When I provided the requested information, the interview failed to materialise.

Nonetheless, Fat Pang’s Man of the Year article from Project Syndicate (original version and subscription details here), is worth a read. It is, of course, about the estimable Jimmy Lai.

Dec 17, 2020 Chris Patten

By jailing fearless Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai on charges of breaking its new national security law, the Communist Party of China intends to reinforce the new limits to the rule of law, dissent, and autonomy in the city. But imprisonment often ennobles fighters for democracy and bolsters support for their cause.

LONDON – On December 12, Jimmy Lai, a successful businessman and brave campaigner for freedom and democracy, was led into court in Hong Kong in handcuffs and chains, accused of breaking the national security law recently imposed by the Communist Party of China (CPC). The Chinese authorities’ goal in charging Lai was to reinforce the new limits to the rule of law, dissent, and autonomy in the city.

The judge was handpicked by Hong Kong’s pliant chief executive, Carrie Lam, whose primary responsibility is to execute the CPC’s malevolent instructions regarding the city. Supporters of the 72-year-old Lai, including Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen, were in the courtroom to witness him being denied bail until a trial scheduled for April 2021.

The Chinese government hates Lai, because he embodies a passionate belief in freedom, and we must hope that any time Lai spends in prison will be in Hong Kong rather than the mainland. His handcuffs and chains are a tragic symbol of what has happened to Hong Kong’s once-free society in 2020.

The CPC has of course victimized us all this year. The party initially covered up the COVID-19 outbreak in China and silenced brave doctors when they tried to warn the world about what we would soon face.

Some national leaders have added to the gloom. US President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the result of an election that he lost by seven million votes has undermined America’s democratic system. His appalling behavior – abetted by Republican leaders and the GOP’s media allies – demeans him and his party and weakens the case for liberal democracy everywhere.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to connive in the security services’ murders of his opponents and to undermine democratic states wherever he can. Other authoritarian leaders, from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, have consolidated illiberal regimes by changing their countries’ constitutions and electoral systems.

But it is Chinese President Xi Jinping who has represented the most serious threat to liberal democratic values this year. Exploiting the world’s preoccupation with the pandemic, Chinese forces have killed Indian soldiers in the Himalayas, sunk and threatened other countries’ fishing vessels in international waters, and menaced Taiwan. Xi’s regime has also continued to pursue genocidal policies toward Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, in addition to targeting Hong Kong’s freedoms.

When Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, China’s leaders promised in an international treaty lodged at the United Nations that the city would continue to enjoy its way of life and high level of autonomy for 50 years. That promise, like so many of the CPC’s undertakings, has now been junked.

China was clearly horrified that elections and demonstrations increasingly showed that the majority of people in Hong Kong refused (like the Taiwanese) to accept that to love China, they had to love the CPC. But at least two-thirds of Hong Kong citizens were themselves refugees or relatives of refugees from the horrors of China’s communist history.

These people wanted to retain the system that had helped them prosper and made Hong Kong an international economic hub. The city’s governance, like that of other free societies, was based on the separation of executive, legislative, and judicial powers, freedom of expression, and a market economy.

These aspects of an open society terrify Xi’s regime. The CPC’s control depends on party bosses at the center maintaining an iron grip on everything. Universities and schools must be “engineers of the soul,” to use Stalin’s phrase. Courts should do what the CPC tells them. The free flow of information is too dangerous, and any notion of democratic accountability must be stifled.

Countries from Australia to Canada that criticize some of the CPC’s behavior are singled out for commercial bullying, or worse. China has taken two Canadian citizens hostage because of Canada’s 2018 decision to detain a senior executive of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei; the men are about to spend a third Christmas in solitary confinement.

This year, it was Hong Kong’s turn. The comprehensive stifling of the city’s freedom has proceeded remorselessly, encompassing schools and universities, the legislature, courts, civil service, and the media. All dissent is to be crushed, with democracy campaigners thrown into prison.

Lai is the latest and most prominent victim of the CPC’s idea of law, which the American China scholar Perry Link once described as like “an anaconda in the chandelier.” Lai was born in China but escaped to Hong Kong as a 12-year-old stowaway without a penny to his name. He worked in a garment factory, earned enough to start his own business, and founded the international retail fashion chain Giordano.

Lai never forgot that it was freedom and the rule of law that allowed him and others to prosper, and he denounced communism’s contempt for both. After the 1989 massacre of demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in China, he criticized then-Chinese premier Li Peng directly. As a result, his home and businesses were attacked and bombed by United Front communist activists and their fellow travelers in Hong Kong’s criminal triads.

Forced to close his garment business, Lai established a hugely popular magazine and newspaper group. He strongly supported democracy and never toned down his criticisms of Chinese communism. A devout Catholic, Lai regarded Hong Kong as his home, and was determined to stay and fight for the city he loved.

For the apparent crimes of principle and courage, and his refusal to surrender his beliefs, Lai has been targeted by a vengeful CPC with the collaboration of a few Hong Kong lickspittles whose reputations will forever be tarred by shame and infamy. But imprisonment often ennobles fighters for democracy and bolsters support for their cause: think of Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Václav Havel. And now think of Jimmy Lai, my man of the year.

Another day in Hong Kong

August 27, 2020

Further confirmation — if indeed it is needed — that press freedom is a thing of the past in Hong Kong. The city’s lickspittle government has denied a visa to the incoming editor of the excellent Hong Kong Free Press. This type of behaviour is standard practice in autocracies like China when governments want to censor without being seen to explicitly do so. However, it is a relatively new phenomenon in Hong Kong.

The piece pasted below explains the context. If you can spare any money, I would encourage you to donate to HKFP to support their free-to-reader coverage while raising a middle finger to the Hong Kong government. The donation process is very quick.

After Jimmy Lai was arrested and his Chinese-language tabloid Apple Daily‘s offices raided, Hong Kong people variously bought the company’s stock and purchased record volumes of the newspaper as a means to support Mr Lai and his paper and to show the government what they thought. The English-language HKFP doesn’t have the same audience-reach in Hong Kong and relies on donations from around the world.

The Hong Kong government will doubtless thank you for supporting quality journalism because it says the media are absolutely hopeless at their job. Only yesterday government and police spokespeople were pointing out that journalists completely misinterpreted photographs and video footage of police officers hanging out with suspected triad members.

The police were not consorting with triad members in attacks on pro-democracy protesters and random members of the public. Instead they were forcing the naughty triad types to go home. Anyone who cannot see the police actively pushing those ‘white shirts’ away hasn’t watched the video footage closely enough. The police didn’t take their names — despite the men being armed — because… err, well, that bit we haven’t come up with a cunning answer to yet. The main thing is that everyone agrees that there should not be an independent enquiry because we all trust the Hong Kong police and Carrie Lam.

Here is some ridiculous mis-reporting of the issue by more of those terrible journalists, in this instance ones who work for the Hong Kong equivalent of the BBC.

Visas ‘weaponised’: Gov’t denies Hong Kong Free Press editor a work visa, without explanation, after 6-month wait


Hong Kong Free Press has been denied a work visa for an established journalist following an almost 6-month wait. The Immigration Department’s rejection for HKFP’s incoming editor Aaron Mc Nicholas was handed down without any official reason on Tuesday, raising further concerns for the business community and the city’s press freedom in light of the new security law.

The news comes weeks after New York Times journalist Chris Buckley was forced to leave the city after being denied a visa without reason amid a tit-for-tat dispute between Washington and Beijing. The US newspaper subsequently shifted a third of their local workforce to South Korea.

Editor-in-chief Tom Grundy said that many other news outlets remain in limbo amid unprecedented visa delays, and a pattern had now emerged: “We are a local news outlet and our prospective editor was a journalist originally from Ireland, so this is not another tit-for-tat measure under the US-China trade dispute. It appears we have been targeted under the climate of the new security law and because of our impartial, fact-based coverage.”

He said that neither the applicant, nor HKFP, had been denied a visa before: “Other sectors can expect to be subjected to a similar bureaucratic rigmarole in light of the security law. Companies are already leaving or avoiding the city for this very reason,” Grundy said. “Businesses can be assured that visa issues are now a feature, not a bug. They may decide that Hong Kong is no longer a suitable place to set up a regional headquarters or base.”

He added that HKFP would press the government to offer reasons for the denial and will consider an appeal and legal challenge. 

Work visas ‘weaponised’

A senior lawyer – who has represented a number of media organisations and journalists but did not wish to be named – said the denial of visas for two respected journalists in such a short time was “unprecedented and deeply concerning.”

“This strongly indicates that the Hong Kong authorities, like those in the PRC [People’s Republic of China], have now weaponised work visas as a tool to control the reporting of Hong Kong affairs by international and local media, as well as silence free speech for all those needing a visa,” he said.

“Press freedom in Hong Kong has been under attack since the Victor Mallet case in late 2018. These actual and de-facto denial of visas for journalists since the national security law indicates how far and how fast the authorities are prepared to degrade press freedom in Hong Kong,” he added, referring to visa delays.

In an emailed response to HKFP on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Immigration did not state why the visa was denied: “Hong Kong has always adopted a pragmatic and open policy on the employment of professionals in Hong Kong, allowing those possessing special skills, knowledge or experience of value to and not readily available in Hong Kong to apply to come to work, including journalistic work,” they said. They added that each case was processed in accordance with the law.

‘Against press freedom’

The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Asia Programme Coordinator Steven Butler told HKFP that the incident undermined the city’s free status: “Denial of a work visa to a thriving local news operation bashes the most basic promise of press freedom given repeatedly by the Hong Kong government. It also severely undermines Hong Kong’s status as an international city and financial centre, which cannot flourish unless journalists are free to do their work.”

Meanwhile, in a statement, Reporters Without Borders’ East Asia chief Cédric Alviani told HKFP that months-long delays were highly unusual: “The Hong Kong government must revert this decision that clearly goes against press freedom, a principle enshrined in the Basic Law.”

The Hong Kong government must revert this decision that clearly goes against press freedom, a principle enshrined in the Basic Law”, Alviani said adding the the rejection is another sign of the decline in press freedom following the implementation of the security law whereby “the Beijing regime allows themselves to directly intervene on the territory.” He also cited the arrest of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai this month, and the raid on the Apple Daily offices.

6-month delay

News outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and South China Morning Post have also reportedly suffered months-long delays in a process that normally takes a few weeks. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, HKFP knows of visas for professionals in other industries that have been processed within reasonable time-frames.

Local media reported earlier this month that visas for journalists are now being vetting by a new national security unit within the Immigration Department. When asked about the unit last week, Immigration did not answer directly or deny its existence, but a spokesperson said that visas were processed by the Visa and Policies Branch.

Earlier this month, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club said that highly unusual processing delays have “affected journalists of multiple nationalities and in some cases have prevented journalists from working.” It has yet to receive a response to its latest letter demanding an explanation.

Jodi Schneider, president of the press club, told HKFP on Wednesday that they were closely following the issue: “This is obviously a key concern for the media working in Hong Kong. It is a press freedom issue.”

More:

I just ordered a new board game about Hong Kong police corruption via Kickstarter. It was inspired by the legendary Hong Kong police corruption of the 1960s and early 1970s. But maybe the game is relevant today? Let’s hope it arrives! Billionaire Seargeant is sold here.

Predicted by Orwell, Designed in China, Running Hong Kong

August 16, 2020

The link below will take you to an excellent review of the activities of China’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) in Hong Kong. It is the UFWD that orchestrated the political, administrative and civil society takeover of Hong Kong in the past 23 years, contrary to China’s ‘binding’ legal agreement with Britain that the place would run itself (with a few understandable exceptions) for at least 50 years. The author is the former New York Times correspondent and long-time China watcher Didi Kirsten Tatlow.

The piece explains the role of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which does a great job of co-opting persons who are (usually) not Communist Party members and getting them to act as Communist Party running dogs. Among highlighted Hong Kong CPPCC stars are late tycoons Henry Fok and Tung Chee-hwa, who readers of my 2007 Asian Godfathers will be familiar with.

There is also a nice presentation of evidence about how China has infiltrated and increasingly directed the Hong Kong police force and made use of local triads as ‘patriotic’ allies in its war against ‘Western’ influence and all things liberal. In the interests of historical fairness, it should be noted that the British also made use of patriotic triads when re-taking control of Hong Kong from the Japanese at the end of the Second World War, as beautifully related in Philip Snow’s The Fall of Hong Kong. The mafia in Hong Kong has batted for both sides, although it probably enjoys batting people over the head for Beijing more.

The document is here.

United Front Work Department in HK 0820

The end of Hong Kong

August 10, 2020

What could be more symbolic of the end of freedom in Hong Kong than a huge police raid on the offices of the leading Chinese-language tabloid newspaper and the arrest of executives including its owner, Jimmy Lai? The raid took place today and was conducted by a police unit created under the new Beijing-imposed national security law. One of the alleged crimes is reported to be ‘foreign collusion’, a new mainland-style catch-all offence that can lead to years in prison.

The national security law is only a few weeks old and we don’t know exactly how it will be applied. However, it makes bail unlikely. Whether court sessions will even be open to the public is unclear. Police already barred several media organisations from a press conference following the arrests.

What amazes me is how the Hong Kong government and the Hong Kong police force have entirely come on side for the new security law and seemingly flipped into an authoritarian police state without even a murmur.

The Communist Party of China hates Jimmy Lai. He escaped from the mainland as a child by sneaking across the Hong Kong border. His tabloid publications are the absolute antithesis of what the Party thinks the press should be. And he doesn’t give a fuck. He has been the victim of numerous attacks, including fire bombings, that are almost certainly Party-sanctioned or Party-condoned. But now the Party doesn’t need to use thugs to deal with Jimmy Lai because it has its national security law and a pliant, Vichy-style administration.

Here is the Washington Post coverage.

Here is a CBC interview with Jimmy Lai a few days ago.

Here is some coverage in long-form Chinese.

Here is the Twitter feed of Mark Simon, an American media executive who has worked for Jimmy Lai for decades.

Here is the Twitter feed of my old Hong Kong friend and rabid misanthrope Hemlock. I wonder which prison they’ll put him in? That said, he does know more Chinese history than the average paid-up Party member. Maybe they will create a prison library for him.

 

More, later:

Jimmy Lai was given police bail. That doesn’t mean he will get bail when he is charged which, as I wrote, the National Security Law (NSL) presumes against. What this means is that the police — or rather the people who are telling the police what to do — haven’t yet decided what to charge Lai with. However, the game looks distinctly mainland China in the way it is being played. In addition to NSL charges the police have also mentioned a fraud inquiry. This leaves the classic Chinese fallback of doing him for some trumped-up ‘economic crime’ if the powers that be decide that international (and local Hong Kong) reaction to a national security conviction will be unacceptably strong at this time. Whatever happens, what people from less brutal societies understand by rule of law is out of the window in Hong Kong.

 

Here is a short new piece about Jimmy Lai from the New Yorker.

Philippines back on track?

May 10, 2016

 

It is pretty much clear that Dirty Harry Duterte has won the Philippines’ presidential election.

Thank goodness. Six years of Noynoy, with relatively clean government and improved growth threatened the Philippines’ status as the most dysfunctional polity in mainstream east Asia. The Thais were catching up. Fast.

Dirty Harry has the chance to put his country back on its pedestal by returning to the basics of machismo, nepotism, greed and ignorance. I’m not absolutely certain he will seize the chance because, like Donald Trump, he expresses contradictory positions on almost every issue. Which is more important to Duterte: LGBT rights or rape? He’s expressed support for the first and condoned the second. I guess that only time will tell.

Do we blame the poverty of Filipinos for this presidential choice? Or the poverty of choice of candidates? My personal grudge is against Noynoy, for endorsing Mar Roxas, from one of the great robber baron political dynasties, as his successor. Roxas stood aside in 2010 to give Noynoy a clear run, so it seems that Noynoy decided he had to return the favour. It may yet be 100 million Filipinos who pay the price for this bit of political business as usual.

 

Dirty Duterte / Donald Trump quiz:

The Guardian today offers the following quotations. Which ones are from Duterte, and which are from Trump? Answers at the end.

On crime and punishment:

On crime and punishment

A: “Forget the laws on human rights… You drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings, you better go out. Because I’d kill you.”

B: “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

On sex and other things

A: “I was separated from my wife. I’m not impotent. What am I supposed to do? Let this hang forever? When I take Viagra, it stands up.”

B: “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”

On modesty

A: “I do not have brilliance, wit or smartness. What I have is common sense. It is what our country needs!”

B: “My IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure; it’s not your fault.”

On negotiation

A: “Do not fuck with my team.”

B: “Sometimes you need conflict in order to come up with a solution. Through weakness, oftentimes, you can’t make the right sort of settlement, so I’m aggressive, but I also get things done, and in the end, everybody likes me.”

On the political system

A: “The trouble with us in government is that we talk too much, we act too slow, and do too little.”

B: “One of they key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace. Good people don’t go into government.”

On the future

A: “We, the People, recognise that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defence.”

B: “We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realise their full potential.”

Answers: All As are Rodrigo Duterte and all Bs are Donald Trump. EXCEPT the last one – both are Barack Obama.

 

More:

Here is the first of three articles in the Huffington Post on the background to the Philippine elections. The first article links to the other two.

Easter viewing

March 25, 2016

I have meant for some time to recommend Joshua Oppenheimer’s two documentaries about the deaths of more than 1 million people in Indonesia in 1965-6, at the time when Suharto came to power. It wasn’t a genocide, I think, because lots of different racial groups were targeted (though ethnic Chinese suffered greatly). Rather, it was a ‘politicide’, if such a word exists, an attack on all those deemed to be enemies of the new regime, including anyone deemed to be a communist.

If you have not seen these films, you should. They can be rented cheaply from Amazon. Here is the download from Amazon.co.uk for the first documentary (£3.49 to rent), The Act of Killing, and here is the download from Amazon.co.uk for the second documentary, The Look of Silence.

The Act of Killing received rave reviews partly because of Oppenheimer’s extraordinary methodology. He showed up in Sumatra saying he was interested in learning about the 1965-6 killings, and a bunch of semi-retired preman (gang members/thugs) said: ‘Hey, that’s us. How can we help?’ He then convinced them to act out their memories of murder for his movie. This makes for some very weird and utterly compelling footage.

 

Personally, however, I like The Look of Silence more. In this second documentary, Oppenheimer follows one of the victim families, as a surviving brother gently begins to confront the murderers who butchered his sibling and chucked his body in the local river. The Look of Silence gets much closer to the political and social story underlying the politicide. It is not so visually freakish, but it makes you think more. I note that on Amazon, individual viewers rank it higher than The Act of Killing, so other people may have had the same reaction as me. Really, tho, you need to watch both docs.

 

Finally, here are Werner Herzog and Errol Morris talking about The Act of Killing, just in case the trailer hasn’t convinced you to watch it: