Big Lychee, Various Sectors

Brian Hioe in New Bloom Mag critiques a now-notorious Atlantic piece by yet another Western journalist who is clueless about Taiwan…

Fittingly, Shuster opens with two paragraphs of fawning awe over Chinese President Xi Jinping. From this, one generally has a sense that Shuster is simply taken in by the pomp and circumstance that China has sought to project with its state institutions. No surprise, then, that when Taiwan’s legislature appears in the piece, some three-quarters through the piece, as compared to the grandeur of a dictator, it is described only as a “drab building on a narrow street in the center of Taipei.” 

…Shuster does not even seem to understand that the KMT is the Chinese Nationalist Party, referring to it early on in his article as Taiwan’s Nationalist Party, a basic factual error.  

Seen on Twitter yesterday…

The Too Simple, Sometimes Naive substack story on Nury Vittachi’s Friday Everyday financing is now outside the paywall. A well-researched piece on someone apparently doing a 180-degree turn on core values, presumably for the money…

Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference  member Hu Xiaoming is … explicit in tying Friday Culture to wider Party goals. Under a picture of him holding a work report, standing in front of Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Hu states:

“The mission of Friday Culture is what the 20th CPC National Congress report calls “telling China’s story well, spreading China’s voice effectively, and showcasing a credible, lovable, and respectable image of China.”

… In 2014, [Nury] wrote for Asia Sentinel:

The “Tiananmen Square massacre” became “the incident”. In some references, “incident” was further diluted to “accident”. It was as if Chinese leaders had said, “Oops, ran over the protestors with tanks, silly us.”

Compare that to today. Since forming Friday Everyday, each June, Vittachi puts out content “correcting the facts about Tiananmen”. Last year’s entry, titled: “one of the biggest hoaxes in modern history” was reprinted in full by Pravda, Russia’s state newspaper.

Patrick Poon on Joshua Wong’s trial…

While waiting for the sentencing, we should ask whether the courts in Hong Kong will still consider a sentence reduction for a guilty plea, as has traditionally been the practice. I wonder whether the court will take this into account at all, or whether it could impose an excessively long sentence, or even life imprisonment, as some people have expressed concern. If the court no longer considers a guilty plea as a mitigating factor, I would ask what the rationale is for requiring defendants to make submissions in mitigation. I would also challenge the legal community to explain the purpose of the mitigation process if it no longer has any meaningful effect. 

Brian Kern discusses the authorities’ view of Joshua Wong…

There are no Hong Kongers whom the Chinese Communist Party has invested more energy and propaganda into vilifying and maligning than Joshua and Jimmy Lai. According to the CCP world view, any time people rise up, it is because there are “black hands” manipulating them behind the scenes. In the case of Hong Kong, those black hands are Jimmy and Joshua—they duped the gullible citizens. The other secret ingredient in CCP paranoia is “foreign forces.” That is also present here: Jimmy and Joshua both “colluded with foreign forces” against the regime. And this ludicrously fantastic narrative is why, after they slapped Jimmy with his most recent sentence of 20 years, they’re going after Joshua. They want to make examples of them both, and they’re bending the courts of Hong Kong to conform with the regime’s false narrative.

In the case of Jimmy, 20 years for a 78-year-old man amounts to what many have pointed out is essentially a life sentence.

With Joshua, it’s a bit more complicated.

Desmond Shum details foreign analysts’ shifting view of China’s economy during the year…

I would summarize the progression like this:

January–March:
China is resilient, but increasingly unbalanced.

April–June:
The imbalance is structural, and technological success does not solve it.

July:
Failure to rebalance increasingly looks like long-term decline or economic decay rather than another cyclical downturn.

August–September:
China’s domestic weakness and industrial overcapacity are becoming problems for the rest of the world.

Like a herd of sheep (though in fairness, some economists have been quite outspoken about the imbalances for several years).

Lingua Sinica looks at how Beijing handled news coverage of the flooding disaster on the Tibet-Nepal border…

Our findings show that Chinese authorities were essentially effective in ensuring that the source of information on the breaking story was contained to a small number of central-level Party-state media, including the government-run Xinhua News Agency and the various outlets — such as China Central Television (CCTV) and China Radio International (CRI) — under the powerful China Media Group (CMG), the conglomerate directly under the Central Propaganda Department. 

Tung Chee-hwa dies. The Economist says…

He had an impossible job, and did it badly.

Although mercilessly mocked while in office, old ‘Tofu-for-Brains’ will probably be remembered by Hong Kong’s handover-straddling generation as the least bad of post-1997 chief executives – so far. He wasn’t an arrogant civil servant devoid of policy ideas (though he was pushed around by them, and stumbled in implementing new ideas in housing and education). He wasn’t an ideologue or a chip-on-shoulder nationalist. He didn’t hate anyone, and (to the delight of tycoons) was something of a soft touch. 

During the tough times of the Asian financial crisis and SARS, he fell into the trap of eagerly agreeing with detractors that Hong Kong was in a far greater mess than it really was. A skilled political player would have shown concern for citizens in genuine hardship, but mostly exhibited a relaxed confidence – which the fundamentals at the time warranted. 

In this respect, Tung personified the most obvious shift in Hong Kong’s governance style post-97. The pre-handover leaders of the 80s and 90s (think Youde, Wilson, Patton and officials like Piers Jacobs or Libby Wong) looked at ease in trying to keep up with fast-growing public expectations of government, and displayed pride in the city and its people. From Tung onwards, it was constant panic and defensiveness – and ultimately closure of newspapers and jailing of critics. 

HKFP on the HK Alliance sentencing…

Friday’s ruling said that the present case did not involve violence or the threat of violence, “nor had the defendant put forward any specific means of implementation or timetable” to end one-party rule in mainland China – one of the Alliance’s central tenets. Nevertheless, the court still found that the offence was “of a serious nature.” 

From the Guardian…

The court found they had “incited other persons to organise, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting the state power”. 

…The case had centred on a slogan that was used for decades by the Alliance: “end one-party dictatorship”. The court ruled that the defendants “intended to cause others to lose confidence in the Chinese Communist party by stirring up hostility and causing division”. The defence said that the Alliance was simply exercising its right to freedom of speech.

One supporter who attended the sentencing told the Guardian: “A demonstration that lasted for more than 35 years without any problem is suddenly being seen as subversion.”

They organized an annual gathering that was held for 30 years – after obtaining necessary police permission – expressing the opinion that China would be better off without a one-party system. Interesting that the most damning condemnation the NatSec judges could manage was to say the three intended to blah blah blah. The vigils and slogans had no impact on the CCP’s hold on power.

HKFP reports reactions of friends and foes of the Alliance. NatSec Police boss Steve Li believes the sentences prove the seriousness of the crime and rightly punish ‘obstinacy’… 

“From the sentences handed down to the three, it can be seen that they are responsible for extremely serious offences,” Li said. “It was to be expected that Chow Hang-tung, who showed no remorse and was obstinate to the end, received the heaviest sentence.”

I’m off to Hokkaido. In a tragic case of mis-timing, I will be back before the Five Year Plan-cum-Policy Address on September 16. Indeed, I will barely miss the 11th Belt-cum-Road Summit.

Some stuff…

Joshua Wong will be in court today, facing a possible life sentence for ‘collusion with foreign forces’.

From Brian Kern’s substack – more translations of Chow Hang-tung’s writings from jail.

A Hong Kong academic studying in Europe explores the Hong Kong diaspora in Taiwan. (Tells you rather more about social sciences research than Hong Kong emigres – but still interesting.)

The Guardian looks at Western social-media influencers fetishizing China…

“The younger generation feel like there is no meaningful method to change society. They feel defeated when they see what’s happening in Gaza – there’s been protests but the government doesn’t care and is collaborating with atrocities in wars. There’s also the Epstein files in America, which show how the elite is corrupt,” says Badiucao, who, along with Chan, is in Sydney to promote their new book, You Must Take Part in Revolution.

“When you want to see change, there is the hard way, which is being innovative and finding a solution. And there is the lazy way, which is finding a cheap alternative and fantasising about a faraway, oriental, communist country that might be your future,” he says.

Jimmy Lai biographer Mark Clifford op-ed in Japan Times on the HK Alliance convictions…

Chow Hang-tung first went to jail for lighting a candle… 

…Defendants in Hong Kong supposedly have a constitutional right to trial by jury, part of the package of guarantees that ended 156 years of British colonial rule.

But the courts toss out that constitutional protection when it suits them. In National Security Law cases — and now virtually any charge can be defined as a security case — the government tries cases before hand-picked judges drawn from a secret list … Little surprise that authorities have an almost unbroken string of convictions since the National Security Law was imposed on Hong Kong six years ago.

With the local media muzzled, Hong Kongers find themselves living in something of an Alice-in-Wonderland world. Contrary to the facts, the government and its judges even claim that there aren’t any political trials at all.

In Chow’s case, according to the court’s summary of the verdict, judges “emphasized that the defendants were put on trial not because of their political views or beliefs…

Few people could believe such an obvious lie.

The real reason Chow and her fellow Hong Kong Alliance members face a 10-year prison charge is because they dare to publicly oppose the Chinese Communist Party by uttering the words “end one-party dictatorship.” Four words. Ten years. But “not because of their political views or beliefs.”

…[Chow Hang-tung] told the court…

“Telling the truth is recast as inciting hatred, seeking justice as exploiting suffering, limiting power as violating the Constitution, and returning power to the people as subverting the state.” She accused the prosecution of “slander[ing] the Constitution.” By ending one-party dictatorship, she “seeks to end a state in which the Party stands above the law.” What could be illegal about that, asked Chow?

…She was being held without bail at Tai Lam prison while awaiting the verdict. Yet the treatment she described hardly reflected a presumption of innocence:

“It’s no longer just simple handcuffs; now they use a full set of handcuffs, leg irons, waist chains, and ankle chains, and then lead the prisoners like dogs on a chain.” Chow concedes that the written description makes the treatment sound “just more inconvenient and somewhat humiliating, nothing like torture. But it’s only when you actually put on those shackles that you realize the devil is in the details.”

From HKFP – pictures of the Have a Nice Stay bookshop’s last day. Emily Lau was among the hundreds who turned up.

And some pix from last night – 831 – near Prince Edward MTR station.

Enforcement agencies arrest 50 people for bid-rigging in building maintenance projects. If only they had done this a year ago, before over 160 people died at Wang Fuk Court.

In HKFP – Chow Hang-tung’s mitigation…

Believing that dictatorship is wrong and democracy is right – if that isn’t a belief, then what is? Even if the courts and the government attempt to claim, like a chanted mantra, that they are not judging beliefs, they cannot change the reality: under this judgment, anyone who believes in the principle of ‘ending one-party dictatorship’ has nowhere left to stand. In the eyes of this brand of ‘law’, holding such a thought inherently contravenes the Constitution – rendering it unlawful, an original sin. Even when we engage in entirely legitimate acts, such as commemorating June 4th, it becomes a crime simply because of the perceived ‘impropriety’ of our thoughts.

Yet the law cannot govern what a person thinks. Not only is it incapable of doing so, but when it openly defies the human conscience, it is the law itself that ultimately suffers – forfeiting its very legitimacy.

Via Brian Kerner, a description of what happened in court…

When she actually gave her mitigation statement in court, she was repeatedly interrupted by the judges who clearly felt uncomfortable with someone speaking like this in their courtroom. At first, one judge said that her words might be more appropriate for another setting. Apparently the judges thought she was attempting to relitigate the case. It got to the point where one judge asked directly, “So, you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, right?” Hang-tung replied, “I don’t think so.”…

…Hang-tung: “The trial has spread the message of ‘ending one-party rule’ in Hong Kong to the whole world. Originally, our voices weren’t so loud.’“

Judge, with a smile: “Then you should thank us, right?”

Hang-tung, also with a smile: “Yes, that’s right, thank you very much to the court.”

Judge: “Just kidding. We have handled the matter seriously.”

Hang-tung: “I said I shouldn’t sit in jail for even a day.”

It was then noted that Chow Hang-tung has already been remanded in custody for 1,404 days.

SBS on the fate of one activist after 2019…

At 21, Sam Chan Chi-sum was preparing to leave Hong Kong to continue his studies overseas.

Instead, he went to prison for nearly two years.

He’d been involved with a student activist group that collected sweets and toiletries to send to people jailed after Hong Kong’s 2019 anti-government protests.

Authorities accused the group of using the supplies to build support among prisoners and incite opposition to the government.

In September 2021, Sam was arrested under Hong Kong’s sweeping National Security Law, which had been passed a year earlier, and was convicted of “subversion with the intent of overthrowing the government”.

“Prison was awful. I shared a cell with around twenty people. At its most crowded, there could be forty of us,” he said.

“The pillows stank and the blankets were infested with cockroaches.”

Quoting ex-CFA judge Jonathan Sumption…

“I resigned early in June 2024 … because I felt that the outcome of that [HK 47] case showed that the judiciary in Hong Kong was not prepared to stand up to China,” he said.

“Hong Kong is becoming a totalitarian state because political dissent is no longer tolerated.”

The Too Simple, Sometimes Naive blog on how Nury Vittachi is funded…

Launched in 2021, [Friday Everyday] describes itself as an “independent” outlet and “not financed by Beijing”. It says it eschews “politically divisive issues” and instead wants: “zen journalism”.

Yet, if you’ve stumbled on them, it was probably through social media of … Nury Vittachi. Popular posts include: Tiananmen Square (“hoax”), the ‘Xinjiang genocide’ (“hoax”), and Iranian supreme leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei (“cool”).

Most of the article is paywalled, so I’m not sure exactly who the ‘United Front cadres’ are – but hardly a shock to find out that such sources back Hong Kong’s contribution to the Anglosphere’s pro-Beijing/tanky grift ecosystem. Could they spare a few bucks to teach the guy how to pronounce Pinyin?

Reuters on Hong Kong’s latest book closure…

People queued on Sunday to chat, browse and bid farewell to an independent Hong Kong bookstore before it shut, following a July police raid over alleged seditious ​books and what the store owners said was a “poor business performance”.

Snaking lines formed outside ‌the bookstore, Have a Nice Stay, stretching down the staircase in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district. Only 20 people at a time were allowed to enter the roughly 600 square-foot space.

The city’s once-flourishing independent bookstore industry has rapidly dwindled since ​Beijing imposed sweeping national security legislation on the city in 2020.

Many offered a broader range ​of political and social titles than mainstream retailers and became important spaces for ⁠civil society through book talks and workshops.

In China File, Jeremy Goldkorn goes back to China for the first time in years… 

It may be hard to make money in China in 2026, but it is very pleasant to spend it. A major element of involution is the brutal competition in every market that puts downward pressure on prices as consumers, spoiled for choice, demand higher and higher quality. Hotels, trains, flights, food, clothes, cars, phones, electronics, massages, mountaineering gear, Labubus: all are cheap compared to the United States.

But first you have to figure out how to pay for stuff. The country has gone cashless, and you need a mobile phone tied to a verified identity to use Alipay and WeChat Wallet, and these are the only digital wallets that work. 

…Aside from the ubiquitous cameras, it is not possible to move around a city on any form of transport or pay for anything without the apps, and they always know who and where you are. In Yangzhou’s Geyuan … you need to watch a video advertisement and scan your face to get toilet paper. Once only: the dispenser remembers who you are and won’t give you seconds. Some parts of Beijing look like a spoof science fiction film about a surveillance state: we visited a friend in a part of Haidian District where there are a lot of government buildings and housing compounds. There are horizontal bars above the street every 50 meters, each bar holding more than a dozen different cameras—we counted them. Our friend pointed out the different types: that one reads license plates, this one is for facial recognition of pedestrians, this one scans the faces of people inside cars, that one is used for gait recognition…

Semafor compares two Chinese tycoons…

…both share one thing in common: They are products of a system that concentrates massive resources at the command of the state, in the process generating colossal waste and leaving a trail of debt and industrial overcapacity. In sum, the pair represent how the business cycle in China plays out. 

…Hui [Ka Yan, ex-Evergrand boss now serving life in prison] is the fall guy for China’s real estate meltdown. No doubt his crimes are real, but he was also only playing his part in what was essentially a Ponzi scheme that everybody — from village committees to the Politburo — relied upon to drive growth and generate employment. Real estate speculation wasn’t a flaw in the system; it was for a time China’s primary development model. Developers like Hui came to see the market as a one-way bet — why would the government spoil its own party? — and in a sense, loading up on risky debt was a rational strategy.  

Michael Pettis asks who pays for the clearing of Chinese state banks’ bad debts. Another way of putting it: why is household consumption so weak?

…when the owners or creditors are politically powerful—or when imposing losses on them threatens broader financial stability—governments often intervene to socialize the losses instead. There are many ways to do this, but in almost every case the losses are ultimately transferred, often indirectly, to the household sector. This can occur through explicit fiscal bailouts financed by taxes, through inflation, or through financial repression that transfers income from depositors and other holders of monetary assets to borrowers. 

This leads to two fundamental points that are essential for understanding China’s banking cleanup. First, losses never disappear, even when they appear to. They are always absorbed by some sector of the economy. Second, loans that finance projects whose economic value ultimately proves to be less than their cost represent real economic losses, whether or not those losses are immediately recognized. Moving bad loans from one balance sheet to another does not eliminate them. It merely changes the way in which the losses will be allocated. 

The Jamestown Foundation on the growing alliance between China and Russia…

While Beijing is in control, and there is real and growing asymmetry between the two countries, excessive focus on Moscow as a weakened “junior partner” that fights costly wars, supplies discounted energy, and repeatedly seeks concessions from Beijing misses both the integration now taking place and the strategic assets Russia still contributes.

Asian Review of Books looks at Entangled Empires: Four Centuries of China-Russia Relations…

Putin and Xi indeed look rather chummy. But how broad, deep and lasting are the ties that bind their two nations? According to Sören Urbansky and Martin Wagner, two historians of Eastern Europe, the answer is not as much as many might think. To their mind, “florid proclamations of friendship are undoubtedly a façade behind which historic rivalries persist.” 

While Hong Kong pays lip-service to TCM for patriotic reasons, the city’s government is otherwise sensible about serious public-health measures like vaccinations. In the US, top health officials are pretty much denying that measles can be deadly; RFK Jr – when he’s not swimming in sewage and promoting unpasteurized milk – says chicken soup can cure it. From Science-Based Medicine. 

Prospect Magazine on Chow Hang-tung…

…she advocated for labourers in mainland China and built connections with Chinese dissidents. During frequent visits to friends there, Chow gained a reputation for her bravery, as well as her capacity to drink large quantities of Chinese white wine.

She was sometimes criticised by fellow activists in the Hong Kong democracy movement for focusing on the rights of mainland dissidents over issues closer to home. But according to her friend, the activist Patrick Poon, Chow was “prophetic” in seeing how the experience of dissidents in China foreshadowed what was to happen in Hong Kong. While many of the movement’s leaders had fled abroad, he says Chow was determined to remain inside the region. 

“What she saw and heard in mainland China made her realise more deeply that whether a society has freedom, rule of law and civil rights is not an abstract political concept, but directly affects the lives of every ordinary person,” her fiancé Ye Du tells me. He is barred from leaving China and has been placed under strict surveillance. The couple have not been able to communicate with each other since February last year.

One early morning in June 2021, police smashed down the door to her barrister’s chambers…

HKFP on Hong Kong’s first Chinese medicine hospital…

In addition to launching inpatient services, the hospital will expand existing outpatient services, including those offered in its radiological diagnostic and pathology departments. 

The hospital will also introduce 10 new special disease programmes in September and November, covering conditions such as eczema, Parkinson’s disease, and functional gastrointestinal disorders. 

Never knew that Chinese folk medicine uses scientific equipment like X-rays, ultrasound, etc. Do these procedures detect qi? For political reasons, Hong Kong must devote resources to what the Skeptic’s Dictionary defines as…

…a hodgepodge of diagnostic and healing practices developed over many centuries across a vast expanse of land that roughly corresponds to what today we call China. 

…these practices evolved long before the development of science and science-based medicine. What is called Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a label that mischaracterizes two millennia of various healing traditions as if they comprised a monolithic brand. 

…Underlying every aspect of TCM is a metaphysical system that has little, if any, correlation to science-based medicine. This is not surprising since the many practices of TCM developed before science as we know it began evolving in the 16th and 17th centuries.

It is also not surprising that the many attempts to confirm the scientific validity of TCM practices have largely failed since there is no plausible “mechanism of action for most of its therapies.”*

(Back in the late 1990s – the early days of the Internet – I emailed skepdic.com author Robert Todd Carroll and mentioned that his tone towards defenders of quack science and conspiracy theories was refreshingly rude. He replied: “It’s the only language they understand.”)

A group of lawyers’ organizations issue a statement on Chow Hang-tung…

Chow Hang-tung has been subjected to extensive harassment, multiple arrests, prolonged pre-trial detention and periods of solitary confinement by the authorities for her legitimate human rights work. In 2024, the government enacted further national security legislation under Article 23, ‘Safeguarding National Security Ordinance’. Chow Hang-tung was among the first to be targeted under this law, with new charges brought against her on 28 May 2024 for social media posts regarding a “sensitive date”, the Tiananmen Square anniversary that the authorities deemed as “inciting hatred” against Beijing. 

Following more than four years in pre-trial detention, often spent in prolonged solitary confinement, her trial commenced on 22 January 2026. Representing herself throughout the proceedings, she consistently sought to exercise her legal rights, including applying for bail, challenging restrictions on public reporting of the case, and contesting the secrecy that typically surrounds national security proceedings.

From HKFP – more on the government’s response to the negative publicity following the conviction of Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung…

…Echoing Friday’s judgment, the government statement said that the defendants “refused to pull back from the brink” even after Beijing implemented a national security law in Hong Kong, “and were bent on embracing the resistance line of the Alliance to the very end.” 

…a panel of government-appointed judges acknowledged that the activists did not suggest any specific means of ending one-party rule, and that the Alliance had never used or advocated violence.

But they said the defendants still spread the goal of “end one-party dictatorship” after the security law was passed, and compared the anti-extradition protests and unrest in 2019 to the “June 4th Incident” – the Tiananmen crackdown.

“[This stirred] up the hostility of [Hongkongers] towards the CCP, eroding and undermining the public’s confidence in its leadership,” they said. 

What brink did the defendants ‘refuse to pull back’ from? How do the authorities or courts detect or measure shifts in ‘public hostility to the CCP’? And if Lee and Chow did not suggest ways to end one-party rule or use/advocate violence, what exactly did they do – other than express an opinion? (So many other questions. For example: if one-party rule is beneficial to the people, why does the state feel a need to imprison citizens who call for an alternative?)

A mid-week read – American Affairs Journal on China’s domination of supply chains… 

For decades, companies and countries navigated this [politicized protectionism] environment with a rough working knowledge of the rules. Stay away from Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Tiananmen. Do not challenge China’s territorial claims. Do not embarrass the Party. Violate these norms and face the consequences, typically in the form of lost market access. It was an uncomfortable bargain, but a navigable one.

That changed in 2010. Following a territorial dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, China did something it had never done before: it imposed an export ban on rare earth minerals, cutting off supplies to Japan. This was not market access coercion: China was not threatening to close its doors to Japanese goods. Instead, this was supply chain weaponization: China was threatening to cut off something Japan needed to make things, not just sell things. The distinction is fundamental. Market access coercion punishes you for what you export to China. Supply chain weaponization punishes you for what you need from China.

The world watched, took note, and moved on, concluding it was just Japan’s problem. That was a catastrophic misreading

Following a notorious animal-cruelty case in the Mainland, Hong Kong people line up to lay flowers in memory of the dead dog Wang Wang and launch publicity campaigns calling for better protection for animals in China. But will the authorities see such activism as yet another national-security threat? HKFP reports…

Kenneth Chan, associate professor in the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, said that even advocacy campaigns for causes as politically innocuous as animal rights are inherently treated by the government “with suspicion.”

“It is hard to ignore the perceived arbitrariness” of what people or businesses believe to be permissible in the eyes of the authorities, he said.

The experiences of the boxing gym and the transport advertisers, he added, “show how a ‘better safe than sorry’ mindset exerts strong yet equivocal impacts on every aspect of the public domain.”

“Nothing can be ‘non-political’ in clear terms in a place where the authorities talk about being vigilant towards threats arising anywhere, anyhow, anytime,” Chan said.

The Guardian on Chow Hang-tung’s prison writings…

In another essay, she describes being handed a white Mickey Mouse t-shirt to wear in court because she is not allowed to wear clothing that carries the branding of her protest group, the Hong Kong Alliance.

“The Mickey Mouse t-shirt may seem innocent on the surface, but isn’t it still a prison uniform provided by the correctional facility? Even before the Alliance has been convicted, its clothes have already become contraband,” she writes.

While some writings are breezy and irreverent, many are deeply considered essays on defending civil rights in the face of a powerful and oppressive Chinese Communist party. As a highly regarded barrister who has been representing herself in court, she also dives into legal philosophy.

(Translations of her writing at Brian Kern’s blog.)

For enthusiasts – a description of ‘New Qing History’, and why the CCP hates it…

Traditional historiography often holds that the Qing dynasty’s success stemmed from the Manchus being highly “Sinicized.” New Qing History scholars, through Manchu-language and other archives, have proven that Qing rulers deliberately maintained Manchu ethnic identity and did not permit Manchus to be assimilated by Han culture. There is ample historical evidence from aspects such as official systems, power structures, territories, and cultural customs. At the same time, these frontier ethnic groups played active, interactive, and cooperative roles in the Qing Empire’s expansion and governance, rather than being merely passive objects of conquest or assimilation. Thus, the Qing Empire ultimately implemented a pluralistic system of “governing according to local customs”: adopting the traditional Confucian bureaucracy in the interior heartland, forming a Manchu-Mongol alliance with Mongolia, and establishing a patron-priest religious relationship with Tibet—demonstrating the flexible, multi-centered governance strategies of the Great Qing Inner Asian Empire.

The Hong Kong government’s statement on the conviction of Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan…

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government today (August 22) expressed strong dissatisfaction with and firm opposition to, and strongly condemned, the baseless slanders and smearing against the HKSAR by various western countries, anti-China media, organisations and politicians, using the court’s verdict of conviction yesterday (August 21) concerning the incitement to subversion case of the “Hong Kong Alliance” (the Alliance).  

…The spokesman stressed, “The reasons for verdict handed down by the court clearly emphasised that the defendants were put on trial not because of their political views or beliefs. The court would only consider the laws and evidence relevant to the case to decide whether the prosecution is able to prove the charge beyond reasonable doubt. The court also pointed out that the defendants had all along been hostile towards the CPC and the Central Government under its leadership. After the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law (HKNSL), the defendants refused to pull back from the brink and were bent on embracing the resistance line of the Alliance to the very end. Even though the defendants knew that what they had said and done might have already gone beyond the scope of lawful freedom of expression, they paid no regard to it.”  

And a not vastly different one from the Legislative Council…

The Legislative Council (LegCo) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government today (22 August) expressed strong opposition and dissatisfaction with, and strongly condemned, the malicious attacks, slanders and smearing against the judicial system and national security laws of Hong Kong by various western countries, anti-China media, organisations and politicians, using the court’s verdict of conviction concerning the case of “incitement to subversion of state power by the Hong Kong Alliance”. 

…The LegCo spokesperson stressed that the reasons for the court’s verdict were detailed, clearly pointing out that the trial of the case was never targeted at the defendants’ political views, but was based on objective law and evidence, strictly following the Hong Kong National Security Law (HKNSL) and other relevant laws. After the HKNSL came into effect, the defendants still persistently pressed ahead with subversion activities, and their acts clearly went beyond the boundaries of lawful freedom of expression.

The Guardian on Britain’s response to Friday’s HK Alliance guilty verdicts…

The UK Foreign Office’s Indo-Pacific minister, Rosie Winterton, said: “This verdict is a further demonstration that even peaceful acts of remembrance in Hong Kong are now treated by the authorities as threats to national security. The extensive use of Beijing’s national security law to punish and restrict peaceful expression undermines the commitments China made to Hong Kong under the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration. We reiterate our call for the national security law to be repealed, and for rights and freedoms to be respected in the Hong Kong special administrative region.” 

HKFP summary of statements from Hong Kong and overseas, including former Alliance participants and family members.

Via Brian Kern, a translation of two Witness articles on Lee Cheuk-yan – with a lot of old photos.

For enthusiasts of ‘fake history’ stories from China: a post suggesting that online Tang Dynasty denialism is actually aimed at mocking ‘western pseudohistory theory’ (ultranationalist claims that, for example, Ancient Greece didn’t exist). Makes sense. And quite amusing.

And the SCMP reports (paywalled) that China is criticizing US historians for not echoing Beijing’s official line on the Manchu-but-actually-Chinese Qing Dynasty. (More here.)