First Came 'Love China'; Now It's 'Love Britain'

[PeterRS]

Hong Kong is still reeling from the law brought in by its Chinese masters 3 years ago. This effectively gives the Chinese-appointed Hong Kong government (yes, I know it's elected but only by an elite group from a small slate of candidates all approved by Beijing) even greater powers than those in China itself regarding subversion, terrorism and colluding with foreign powers. It's known as the "love China" law and extends right down into schools and publishing companies. As I have recently discovered, all books about Hong Kong, past and present, must now be censored prior to publication and certain words, phrases and events can not be included.

Having initially failed in its duty to protect the citizens of Hong Kong by denying Chinese holding the British National Overseas Passport the right of abode in Britain prior to 1997 - an event which one political commentator of the time claimed would have been the single best boost the British economy could ever have - in 2020 Britain reversed course and opened its doors to those very same citizens. As of December last year more than 150,000 had taken up the new visa rights leading to Hong Kong's first fall in total population for many decades.

Now it seems the UK has learned from China. An article in today' Observer newspaper states the deeply unpopular Conservative government has drawn up plans to broaden the definition of extremism to anyone who undermines its institutions and values.

"The proposals have provoked a furious response from civil rights groups with some warning it risks 'criminalising dissent', and would significantly suppress freedom of expression.

"One Whitehall official said: 'The concern is that this is a crackdown on freedom of speech. The definition is too broad and will capture legitimate organisations and individuals.'

. . . "The documents state: 'Extremism is the promotion or advancement of any ideology which aims to overturn or undermine the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy, its institutions and values.'

"Martin Bright, editor-at-large, Index on Censorship, added: 'This is an unwarranted attack on freedom of expression and would potentially criminalise every student radical and revolutionary dissident. It has never been the British way to arrest people for thought crime.'”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/04/plans-to-redefine-extremism-would-include-undermining-uk-values

[reader]

From CNN

This city never slept. But with China tightening its grip, is the party over?

Hong KongCNN — 

As the scattered patrons hop from one deserted bar to the next, it’s hard to believe the near-empty streets they are zigzagging down were once among the most vibrant in Asia.

It is Thursday evening, a normally busy night, but there are no crowds for them to weave through, no revelers spilling onto the pavements and no need for them to wait to be seated. At some of the stops on this muted bar crawl, they are the only ones in the room. 

It wasn’t always this way. It might seem unlikely from this recent snapshot, but Hong Kong was once a leading light in Asia’s nightlife scene, a famously freewheeling neon-lit city that never slept, where East met West and crowds would spill from the bars throughout the night and long into the morning – even on a weekday.

Such images were beamed around the world in 1997, when Britain handed over sovereignty of its prized former colony to China, and locals and visitors alike welcomed in the new era with a 12-hour rave featuring Boy George, Grace Jones, Pete Tong and Paul Oakenfold. 

China’s message at the time was that even if change was coming to Hong Kong, its spirit of “anything goes” would be staying put. The city was promised a high degree of autonomy for the next 50 years and assured that its Western ways could continue. Or, as China’s then leader Deng Xiaoping put it: “Horses will still run, stocks will still sizzle and dancers will still dance.” 

And for long after the British departed, the dancing did indeed continue. Hong Kong retained not only the spirit of capitalism, but many other freedoms unknown in the rest of China – not just the gambling on horse races that Deng alluded to, but political freedoms of the press, speech and the right to protest. Even calls for greater democracy were tolerated – at least, for a time.

Continues at

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/03/economy/hong-kong-nightlife-china-dst-intl-hnk/index.html

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, reader said:

From CNN

as China’s then leader Deng Xiaoping put it: “Horses will still run, stocks will still sizzle and dancers will still dance.” 

The more I reflect on China and Hong Kong's histories, the more I respect Deng. Naturally the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre blots his copybook big time, but even there I think he was to a certain extent hoodwinked by the hardliners who had worked so efficiently behind the scenes to remove his reformer proteges from their various positions of power and installed hard-liners like the dreadful Li Peng as Prime Minster. It is acknowledged now that Li was the leader of that incident. As with the current President whose father was a moderate reformer, Li had amost a similar upbringing. His father had been executed by Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang. He was then adopted by Mao's No. 2, Zhou En-lai, and his wife. As more and more of the history becomes known, Zhou himself was very much a moderating influence on Mao's increasingly mad schemes. So how is it that these two, Xi Jinping and Li Peng, brought up in relatively reform-minded moderate households turned out to become such hard-line extremists? A question for another day.

Back to Deng. Another of his famous phrases was uttered in early 1979. Hong Kong investors, increasingly Chinese who had taken over many of the old British trading companies, were concerned about 1997. They wanted some guaratees that if they continued to invest in Hong Kong enterprises, they would still be able to make sizeable profits. If the Chinese took over the economy in 1997, the deadline for making those profits was fast approaching. So Hong Kong's governor, the much respected and admired Sir Murray MacLehose, a Scot who had spent many years in several posts in China including a spell at the Beijing Embassy and who spoke fluent Mandarin, made a trip to meet Deng in Beijing. He returned with Deng's words which he proclaimed in the media.

"Tell Hong Kong investors to put their hearts at ease. It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mice"

At the time this was interpreted as giving the green light to investors, that post 1997 Hong Kong would still be a centre where they could make big profits. In other words, Deng's Beijing was far more interested in the economy of Hong Kong continung to prosper than in imposing a political ideology. This was unlike Shanghai in 1951 when Mao, having first all but begged investors and busineses to stay, then turned turned his ire on wealthy capitalists resulting in virtually all businesses fleeing to Hong Kong.  

Deng was a visionary but very far from perfect. He never liked titles and unlike many of his top Party colleagues, when he stepped down from power in 1989, he held on to just one: Chairman of the China Bridge Association.

[PeterRS]

There is one other issue from that article in the OP which , I think, suggests that the writer really does not know a great deal about present-day Hong Kong. Later in the article it states -

"In an effort to arrest the [nightlife] decline, the Hong Kong government has launched a “Night Vibes” campaign featuring bazaars at three waterfront areas, splurged millions on a recent fireworks show to celebrate China’s National Day . . ."

It then goes on to add there have been -

"security concerns over the use of fireworks."

This last comment is utter b/s! As far as splurging millions on a "recent" fireworks display, the fact is that massive fireworks displays have been a regular feature in Hong Kong since 1982. They always cost millions, are arguably the most elaborate ever seen anywhere, and started as a way of celebrating Chinese New Year. This continues, but a second mega-display was added in 1997 as part of the celebrations of the handover. This has continued every year since then. It has absolutely nothing to do with recent government actions!

As for there being less people on the streets and in nightlife venues, that is no doubt true. But, as the writer belatedly points out in the article, Hong Kong's reaction to covid was almost the most stringent on the planet. The city was all but closed down for 3 years. Hong Kong people really were afraid and inevitably this took a huge toll on all forms of nightlife. When it eventually opened its borders, the quarantine restictions were equally severe - three weeks stuck in a hotel room and a further week of monitoring. Little wonder that the tourists who always made up a decent number of those enjoying the city's nightlife were non-existent.

Certainly a good number of Hong Kong people have been leaving, including both locals and some of the expat community. But the writer gets it all wrong in suggesting that the bars and the streets are all but empty a result of recent Hong Kong  government legal actions. Once again this is b/s. When I was in Hong Kong in January and February, it was certainly true. But I was back in Hong Kong 4 weeks ago from a Sunday to the following Wednesday. There were plenty of people about, day and night. How many were locals and how many Chinese tourists I did not bother to find out. Shopping malls were busy especially in the evenings and my hotel was at least 80% full. I visited one gay bar where, to be fair, there were few patrons. But then gay bars never had more than a few patrons on those days. One gay friend told me they were packed as usual on Friday and Saturday nights. With work the following day, a Thursday was never quite as bustling!

The one area which has seen a drop in patrons during week-days is Soho, but this used to be largely an expat haunt.

If Hong Kong has been "dozing" according to the writer, it is certainlly waking up again.

[Keithambrose]

2 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Hong Kong is still reeling from the law brought in by its Chinese masters 3 years ago. This effectively gives the Chinese-appointed Hong Kong government (yes, I know it's elected but only by an elite group from a small slate of candidates all approved by Beijing) even greater powers than those in China itself regarding subversion, terrorism and colluding with foreign powers. It's known as the "love China" law and extends right down into schools and publishing companies. As I have recently discovered, all books about Hong Kong, past and present, must now be censored prior to publication and certain words, phrases and events can not be included.

Having initially failed in its duty to protect the citizens of Hong Kong by denying Chinese holding the British National Overseas Passport the right of abode in Britain prior to 1997 - an event which one political commentator of the time claimed would have been the single best boost the British economy could ever have - in 2020 Britain reversed course and opened its doors to those very same citizens. As of December last year more than 150,000 had taken up the new visa rights leading to Hong Kong's first fall in total population for many decades.

Now it seems the UK has learned from China. An article in today' Observer newspaper states the deeply unpopular Conservative government has drawn up plans to broaden the definition of extremism to anyone who undermines its institutions and values.

"The proposals have provoked a furious response from civil rights groups with some warning it risks 'criminalising dissent', and would significantly suppress freedom of expression.

"One Whitehall official said: 'The concern is that this is a crackdown on freedom of speech. The definition is too broad and will capture legitimate organisations and individuals.'

. . . "The documents state: 'Extremism is the promotion or advancement of any ideology which aims to overturn or undermine the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy, its institutions and values.'

"Martin Bright, editor-at-large, Index on Censorship, added: 'This is an unwarranted attack on freedom of expression and would potentially criminalise every student radical and revolutionary dissident. It has never been the British way to arrest people for thought crime.'”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/04/plans-to-redefine-extremism-would-include-undermining-uk-values

Thank you for raising this issue. I am a Guardian reader, but missed this article. It is very concerning to me as a UK resident, and a lawyer. Quite why Michael Gove, and his department are involved is unclear. This is just the sort of thing that the dreadful Braverman would think of. She is on record as saying that support shown for the Palestinian cause is, in itself, unlawful. This is rubbish. There is nothing unlawful about supporting the Palestinian cause, what is unlawful is supporting violence and/or Hamas, who are terrorists.

[PeterRS]

Purely for clarification, Michael Gove goes by one of the strangest government ministerial titles ever invented - Minister of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Unsurpriginly it was Boris Johnson who was kicked out as Prime Minster who came up with that one!  Stella Braverman is the hugely unpopular right-wing Home Secretary.

[Keithambrose]

20 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Purely for clarification, Michael Gove goes by one of the strangest government ministerial titles ever invented - Minister of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Unsurpriginly it was Boris Johnson who was kicked out as Prime Minster who came up with that one!  Stella Braverman is the hugely unpopular right-wing Home Secretary.

Indeed, we seem to have a fetish for renaming Government Departments, with more and more complex and stupid names. It not only stupid, but very expensive. Your starter for ten, is Suella Braverman better or worse than Priti Patel?

[PeterRS]

Sorry, predictive spelling changed Suella to Stella and I did not notice!

Don't know enough about the fine details of UK politics other than the present lot in power have made such a ghastly mess that hopefully they will be booted out and stay out for a long time. Just yesterday one of the tabloids claimed a Chairman of that Party accused his predecessor of covering up a serial rapist with up to 8 victims who remains a sitting MP. Not only did they do nothing about the MP, they paid for one of his victims to be treated at the Party's expense at a private hospital. 

The vidictive Nadine Dorris, the former Culture Secretary (who seems to know nothing about arts and culture!) and who is mightily pissed off that the Peerage she felt she was entitled to (enabling her to call herself 'Dame') was not given to her, alleges in her new book that. among other unsavoury episodes, an MP had sex on a billiard table with four other MPs looking on and cheering (odd, surely, that the House of Commons would have a billiard table rather than a snooker table?), and another MP stored a laptop on behalf of a relative with indecent images of children!

Mind you, "Culture" was a dead-end job despite around 4 million working in jobs specifically related to the work of that department, and Ms. Norris was the 10th to occupy that position in 10 years. The Guardian newspaper called her a "toxic disaster". Indeed her only claim to knowing anything about culture was taking part in an "I'm A Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here" TV reality show. They did. She was the first voted off! 

What a bunch of total incompetents! (Do I get a few marks for inserting the awful Ms. Norris into the discussion?) 

[vinapu]

23 hours ago, reader said:

 

China’s message at the time was that even if change was coming to Hong Kong, its spirit of “anything goes” would be staying put. The city was promised a high degree of autonomy for the next 50 years and assured that its Western ways could continue.

who was naïve,  believed

[reader]

8 minutes ago, vinapu said:

who was naïve,  believed

Like the offs we take because they’re so damn good looking only to prove wanting between the sheets, China well knew what the British needed to hear as the deal was being negotiated.

[PeterRS]

22 hours ago, vinapu said:

who was naïve,  believed

22 hours ago, reader said:

Like the offs we take because they’re so damn good looking only to prove wanting between the sheets, China well knew what the British needed to hear as the deal was being negotiated.

I undestand both points. But I do sincerly believe that back in 1984 when the Joint Declaration agreement on Hong Kong's future was signed, both countries actually believed what they said and which are included in the Agreement. I had two good friends who were civil servants on the UK/HKG negotiating team. As far as the UK was concerned - and indeed almost all of the expat business people in Hong Kong and their head offices around the world - China would never kill the goose that was laying its golden eggs. Besides, there was a frequently quoted comment that within the 50 year period following 1997, China would become a much freer economy with far greater grass roots democracy. In other words, it would be far more like Hong Kong.

What killed the golden goose was Hong Kong's last governor Christopher Patten. In a post always previously given to a very senior civil servant, Patten was a politician who had lost his seat in the 1992 general election won by Prime Minister John Major. Offered a couple of senior government jobs, Patten said the only job he wanted was the last governorship of Hong Kong. Against the advice of the foreign office, Major caved in. Once in Hong Kong, Patten did everything he possibily could to undermine the terms of the Joint Agreement. Clouded in the strictest secrecy he allowed a British television channel to visit Hong Kong over the course of a year as he sought every tiny loophole that would enable him to assist the very young and then relatively unpopular HK Democratic Party. He then infuriated the Chinese by breaking the Joint Agreement in making a unilateral statement. In 1994 he announced increased democracy in Hong Kong prior to 1997.

As many in Hong Kong were aghast at this announcement, there was considerable agreement that through Patten Britain was flushing Hong Kong down the toilet. After all, it had had many decades to introduce democracy but had never done so. Why, it was asked, leave it to the last minute, infuriate the Chinese by breaking a mutually agreed position and risk the consequences? These came quickly. As was their right, the Chinese announced that all political agreements would cease  on July 1 1997 instead of as earlier agreed continuing through to the new administration. As Patten sailed away from Hong Kong with Prince Charles on the Royal Yacht, the Chinese then put their own people in place. It was entirely a result of Patten's stupidity, narcissism and idiocy. If anyone does not believe that, look at the disasters during his later term as Governor of the BBC, a post from which he had to resign.

For around the first 15 years, it was clear the Chinese were sticking to the Agreement. But in 2014 the actions of the Beiing appointed Chief Executive angered a young group of students who had been inspired by Patten's ideas and wanted to have more say in the Hong Kong government. This resulted in 3 months of protests with students camping out on one of the city's main vehicular arteries. Named the 'Umbrella Protests' they massively disrupted the flow of traffic in the central district. They also pissed off quite a number of Hong Kong people. A petition signed by 1,800,000 residents called for the disuruption to end and the restoration of law and order. It worked.

The rulers in Beijing were well aware of the power of students. It was not just 1989 in Tiananmen Square. Throughout Chinese history, students have ofen been at the forefront of demanding change. To finally get their back on Patten's "reforms", new laws were introduced in 2019-20 making such protests all but impossible in future. And so the so-called "love China" policy became law. The question that needs to be asked is: had those very long very disruptive protests in 2014 not occurred, would the 2019 laws have been necessary? Did the students overplay their hands? Did they not understand how Beijing might eventually react?

Between 1984 and 2019 the long and highly complicated series of events relating to Hong Kong and its future cannot be encapsulated in just a sentence here or a phrase there. I'll give the last word in this post to Margaret Thatcher's leading civil servant when those 1983-1984 negotiations were taking place. Sir Percy Craddock despised the way Patten went out of his way to anger the Chinese. In a long article for Prospect Magazine in April 1997, he ends with this sentence -

"All who look beyond the headlines will wonder why Britain, with its long and rich experience of China, should reserve its biggest mistake for the last act of the play."

[thaiophilus]

On 11/6/2023 at 3:36 AM, PeterRS said:

 (odd, surely, that the House of Commons would have a billiard table rather than a snooker table?)

 

Not at all. Over here, billiards is perceived as a game for gentlemen, whereas snooker is something played by the lower classes (or even, shock horror, by professionals!)

PS we generally refer to Ms Braverman as "Cruella".

[PeterRS]

On 11/6/2023 at 10:48 AM, vinapu said:

who was naïve,  believed

I have to add to my earlier post a fact that came to light just before the 1997 handover. I quote from a radio programme aired in Australia with direct quotes from people who were directly involved and moderated by an Australian journalist with a great deal of background information on the complicated Hong Kong situation. I quote -

Sally Neighbour: The people of Hong Kong had good reason to believe that democracy was guaranteed. The 1984 Joint Declaration said the legislature - until then appointed - would be constituted by elections and would have the power to hold the government accountable. What it didn't say was that the wording had been left vague deliberately because Britain and China could never agree on definitions for these terms. The Chinese had refused to allow any reference to democracy. 

Over the coming years, Britain would adopt a policy of deliberate deceit - secretly accepting China's position while publicly holding out the promise of democracy to the people of Hong Kong. That promise of democracy was broken barely a year after it was made. After agreeing to the handover, Britain and China set up a Joint Liaison Group to oversee the transition to Chinese rule. At only its second meeting, in November 1985, Britain and China reached a secret agreement that would stop any move towards democracy in Hong Kong. 

Under the deal made by the Joint Liaison Group, Britain agreed not to make any political changes until after China had completed its own political blueprint, the Basic Law - a task that would take five years. In short, Britain handed to China control of Hong Kong's political fate. For the British Government, the desire for smooth relations with China had outweighed the need to honour its promise to the people of Hong Kong. To keep China happy, democratic elections had to be stalled.

John Walden, Hong Kong Director of Home Affairs, 1976-1981: The whole thing was done in secret and a pretense was made that Britain hadn't departed from its undertakings on political reform. But if you look at what came out of the Basic Law at the end [in 1990] you can see it wasn't what was promised, wasn't what was promised in Parliament in 1984, so there had been a back down, a change of policy, a big cover up. 

Patten would certainly have been fully briefed on that 1985 secret agreement. He therefore was perfectly well aware that his announced reforms in the mid-1990s were not only a deliberate violation of that agreement, he and his advisors would have been equally aware that China would just throw them out on July 1 1997. And that is precisely what happened. Patten assumed he had some sort of super power that would alter the myth perpetuated when Britain sold Hong Kong down the river in 1985! He didn't. He just made it worse. 

[vinapu]

and that gradually but surely HongKong become  just another Chinese  city with only difference being driving on wrong side of the road and using different currency, both easy to normalize. In case of traffic they should do what Sweden did in 60 ties and start with moving  trucks to drive on the right  first

[PeterRS]

11 hours ago, vinapu said:

and that gradually but surely HongKong become  just another Chinese  city with only difference being driving on wrong side of the road and using different currency, both easy to normalize. In case of traffic they should do what Sweden did in 60 ties and start with moving  trucks to drive on the right  first

Indeed it is just another Chinese city that is beginning to suffer as Shanghai takes over. The "difference" is that many believe China is at fault for having broken the "50 year" promise. As always seems to happen with secrets and lies, it was in fact broken 38 years ago by the British