tim's experiment

Strange feeling of daja vu while I was reading Michael Chugani’s column this morning. Mr Chugani was complaining, with some justice, that the complaints about “white terror” from democrat enthusiasts seemed a bit overblown. Three of them had received razor blades through the mail. Mr Chugani thought this was pushing the language a bit, and so perhaps it is. Certainly I had read somewhere that someone else thought the same thing.
Then the penny dropped. Mr Chugani’s supporter of the day before was … Mr Chugani. In his column in the Standard, “Brush up your English” Mr Chugani had claimed that the word had been misused, gave some examples of correct use, castigated one of the razor blade recipients and finished up with an attack on Mrs Anson Chan. Well if you can’t agree with yourself, how can you expect anyone else to?
I do not question the merits, or the ethics, of using the same idea for columns in two competing newspapers. Freelancers do this all the time, I understand. Nor do I question Mr Chugani’s right to exercise his critical faculties mainly on language use by the pro-democracy camp. Mr Chugani’s feelings about democracy look increasingly like the average Hongkong millionaire’s feelings about marital fidelity: he’s vocally in favour of it but unwilling to take any practical action to bring it about.
What I do question is whether it is acceptable, in a column aimed mainly at people wishing to improve their English, to provide instead a piece of flagrant political propaganda. If Mr Chugani found a school teacher of English urging his students to Occupy Central he would be outraged.
There are two other dangers to this. One is that the unwary reader may be hoodwinked into supposing that linguistic virtue and political virtue are the same thing, which is clearly nonsense. The second is that elementary linguistic points may be overlooked in the rush to make a political point. White terror should not properly be used for attempts to victimise pro-democrats, not because the attempts are not very serious, but because white terror is only white if it is instigated by or on behalf of conservative or reactionary regimes. The correct term for terror inflicted by communist parties, governments and their supporters is “red terror”. There are plenty of Chinese examples, which Mr Chugani will no doubt get round to next week.

I would like to know what has happened to all those commentators who were so eager to pick holes in the methodology of the Occupy Central referendum, and indeed before that in the methodology of the Hong Kong University’s Public Opinion project.  Occupy Central was a particularly popular target. A person who cared to buy a second phone card specially for the purpose could, horror of horrors, vote twice. Foreigners who had Hong Kong ID cards could vote. Dark suspicions were fostered. Lau Nai-keung dismissed the whole exercise as obviously fraudulent because the number of participants was so high.

Now we have the Silent Majority, alias the Alliance for Peace and Democracy, both of which seem to consist of Mr Robert Chow and a large pile of someone else’s money. Their signature campaign has passed muster with all those picky types who thought the Occupy Central people were not being careful enough. Mr Chow openly boasted that he thought tourists and children should be perfectly entitled to sign up. Precautions against duplicate signing were non-existent. Employers were invited to distribute signature forms to their staff, a gesture which could easily be misinterpreted. As Mr Chow’s claimed total passed the 900,000 mark I waited patiently, but in vain, for Mr Lau to dismiss it as too big to be convincing. I have written a letter to the Post pointing out that Mr Chow is about 3 million signatures short of his claimed world record, but whether it will see print remains to be seen.

Meanwhile down at HKU they announced that Lufsig’s approval rating had improved. And surprise surprise nobody wished to examine the detailed results or question the methodology of the survey. Clearly there are a lot of people around whose views on matters of this kind generally depend mainly on whether the item under consideration coincides with the current Liaison Office line.

This brings me to Mr Michael Chugani, who announced at the end of his latest diatribe against the democrats that his commitment to democracy was beyond question because he had called for it before the handover. This is not how it works, Michael. Before the hand-over calling for democracy was an entirely cost-free activity. Indeed as the great day approached some of the more paranoid PRC people thought the Hong Kong government was encouraging it. Calling for democracy now, on the other hand, is thoroughly unpopular with a wide range of usual suspects including the management of the Post and ATV. People who work for either organisation or both should accept that the pay cheque has some intangible costs attached to it.

What has got into Regina Ip? Rather good piece on the back of the Post spoiled by a resounding piece of language abuse at the beginning. Ms Ip said that an “atmosphere of violence” had set in and was poisoning the atmosphere in our city. She then proceeded to list the symptoms, none of which actually involved violence.

We were offered five sentences starting “Violence in the form of…”, followed by one beginning “Also, violence in the form of…” If we may abbreviate this stirring piece of writing a bit, the forms of violence bothering Ms Ip are:

1. Calls for a peaceful occupation of Central.

2. “Extreme positions” on the method of electing the Chief Executive.

3. Filibustering in Legco.

4. Attempts by young radicals to storm the Legco building.

5. Verbal abuse of mainlanders.

6. And also … students insulting the guest of honour (the Chief Secretary) at an APA graduation day.

Now many of us may be hard put to provide a dictionary definition of “violence”, but we know it when we see it and we are not looking at it here. Calling for an occupation of Central, violent or otherwise, is not violence. It is speech. Positions on the methods of electing the chief executive, whether extreme or held obstinately or not, are opinions. They are not violence. Filibustering is purely verbal phenomenon, as are unkind comments on mainlanders. There is nothing violent about turning your back on the person awarding your degree if you find your institution has appointed to its highest post a politician you despise. The storming of the Legco building sounds more promising, though violence against buildings hardly justifies the attempt to identify a new atmosphere.

So what is violence? Violence is Loving Hongkong thugs turning up at other people’s demonstrations in the hope of starting a fight. Violence is chopper-wielding assailants attacking newspaper editors. Violence is policemen pepper-spraying children in moments of excitement. None of these items appeared in Ms Ip’s list, oddly enough. So it appears that basically for the purposes of her piece “violence” is just a word you attach to people you disapprove of. I suppose this is the sort of linguistic manipulation they teach you at Harvard.

A more sophisticated version of the same thing comes near the end of Ms Ip’s piece, after a rather good tour of current discontents about the wealth gap, real estate hegemony, and education. The argument over CE elections, we are told, is whether “we are willing to support the national goal of safe-guarding sovereignty, security and developmental interest, or insist on going the other way.” And what exactly is “the other way?” Are those of us who would like genuine elections really (objectively?) against sovereignty and in favour of insecurity? Does Ms Ip suppose that any method of choosing our CE which gives people a genuine voice in the matter will imperil national sovereignty? The national sovereignty of the UK is not endangered when the Mayor of London is elected by the people of London. The US does not wilt when State Governors are elected by the people of the states concerned, without the candidates being vetted by the Federal government. India and Japan have local elections free from manipulation by the central authorities. And what has security got to do with it? I hope Ms Ip is not the source of those paranoid fantasies with which the China Daily entertains its readers, in which malign foreign interests are constantly scheming to subvert Hong Kong. The truth is less exciting. Overseas countries do not care about Hong Kong. When people overseas hear about Hong Kong, most of them think it is in Japan.

And what, I wonder does Ms Ip have in mind by “developmental interest”? This looks suspiciously like “the interests of developers”. Well I suppose we can all agree we’re not in favour of that.

Look people I no longer expect to get a publication which could be mistaken for one of the world’s great newspapers, but can we please avoid decisions so crass that they spoil the day.

The back page of the Sunday Post is usually a pleasant read. At the top is a long thoughtful piece which manages to be a bit different from the daily stuff. Sometimes we get Regina complaining that all her Exco colleagues are dumb. This week it is Philip Bowring, who is original and interesting, as usual. Across the middle we have a decorative string of pictures recalling the events of the week. Down the middle column we have “quotes of the week”, which vary for the good reason that is some weeks good quotes are plentiful and in others they are thin on the ground. Bottom right this week we have a piece on the mainland media by Cary Huang, which explores changing attitudes to eating dogs. Good reading so far.

This brings is to the bottom left corner, where there is a piece which exemplifies the continuing merits of newsprint. When you read a piece like this you can throw the newspaper away in despair — not something you would wish to do with your iPad. The offending item is a piece by one Amy Feldman — no details of her provenance supplied — about the problems of selling silver cutlery. Eh?

It seems in the 50s, way back where Ms Feldman comes from, married couples were often given a box of knives, forks etc, in Sterling silver. This is silver adulterated with enough other metals to make it strong enough to cut a potato and hold an edge. I presume Ms Feldman comes from the USA. Indeed readers of The Help (excellent book by Katheryn Stockett – read it if you get the chance) will suspect that Ms Feldman comes from the part of the USA where domestic help was available on terms barely distinguishable from slavery. Because Sterling silverware, especially in fancy shapes, takes a lot of cleaning.

Ms Feldman’s parents were among the lucky recipients and now wished to dispose of the present. Ms Feldman goes on for 22 paragraphs on the ins and outs of disposing of silver cutlery, before coming to the unsurprising conclusion that selling it to a scrap merchant works quite well. And the question which arises is: who cares?

I suppose something like three quarters of the Post’s readership regard knives and forks as something you come across in Western restaurants. Many of the rest are not American, or are American but do not have parents who were married in the 50s, or have parents who did not get the present, or have parents who wish to keep it. In fact my guess is that the number of people in Hong Kong who might have a personal interest in this topic is probably in single digits. The management of the newspaper should apologize to the tree which was sacrificed for this meaningless piece of non-journalism. I do not blame Ms Feldman. No doubt there is a publication somewhere where this item fits in perfectly. It just isn’t in Hong Kong.

I am left to wonder what further editorial brainwaves we can look forward to:

Cooking: Ten nifty things you can do with left-over yak milk

Pets: what to feed your pregnant lama

Fashion: What the well-dressed reindeer herder is wearing this year

Homemaking: Pimp your igloo!

Time: Obsolete wind-up watches you can buy for half a million bucks

Oh, sorry. That last one is already a regular feature in the Magazine

The so-called Silent Majority, which is neither silent nor a majority, has made a video, which is circulating in the usual internet places. This is a lavish production, complete with animations and computer graphics, dedicated to the idea that Occupy Central with Peace and Love will bring Hong Kong to a standstill in a matter of hours. It’s called “They can kill this city”, runs four minutes and describes itself as “a Silent Majority production”. It is palpable nonsense. It is distressing to hear, in the English-language voice-over, the unmistakable tones of Mr Robert Chow Yung, for many years regarded as an honest journalist. The whole thing is a tribute to the generosity of the unseen millionaire who has financed this sordid enterprise from the beginning, and his willingness to pay people to lie on his behalf.

The facts about Occupy Central go like this. The plan ostensibly is to have 10,000 people turn up in Central, there to sit in the road. Peace and Love being on the menu, active interference with passers-by is not intended. This is a lot of people – the equivalent of a small Infantry Division or a large Battalion in a continental army – and would normally require a further force of hundreds to provide its needs for food, drink, sanitation etc. I suppose the organisers are going to avoid this logistic Matterhorn and expect their supporters to supply themselves, thereby gratifying those Chambers of Commerce who object to the whole idea on the grounds that it will be bad for the business of restaurants and pavement hawkers. This suggests that the 10,000 figure should be regarded as an aspiration for peak hours rather than an on-going prediction. Probably in the small hours of the morning the remaining protesters will be outnumbered by the police.

However for the purposes of the Instant Death video we shall ignore this, because their thesis is that fatal territory-wide blockage will occurr in a matter of hours, if not minutes. Let us note, firstly, that a complete blockage of traffic through Central is not going to happen. If we have 10,000 people sitting in the road they will occupy – give or take a bit – 10,000 square yards. This means that they will occupy a square 100 yards on each side, or some distortion of that basic shape. A crowd derives its strength from the consciousness of its own numbers, so we are not going to have little knots of protesters scattered here and there. We shall have one more or less cohesive lump. If it is 400 yards long it will be only 25 yards wide. At this point blockages can be cleared rather easily by small numbers of arrests so that is probably as thin on the ground as the demonstrators can afford to get. If you look at a map of Central you can see basically three East-West routes. One of these is Connaught Road, a six-lane monstrosity which would be a difficult target by itself. The Instant Death video seems to expect that the main target will be Des Voeux Road, because is has stalled trams in the picture. But this would not be very effective unless the blockage was accomplished at its junction with Queen’s Road Central, which would otherwise provide a convenient by-pass. But in that case (the Google map has a convenient scale in the bottom-right corner) even including Chater Road would be a stretch and doing anything serious to Connaught Road would be out of the question. Looking at the map one also observes that people who wish to go round Central without visiting it can detour via the mid-levels or the new Central reclamation. The point of all this is not to deny that the occupation of Central could cause a great deal of inconvenience. But it reveals as a stupid attempt to deceive the public the notion that within an hour or so of the demonstration beginning there will be queues of people waiting to get to Central blocking the Western and Causeway Bay tunnel entrances. Traffic will get through, albeit slowly. In any case, the arrival of a queue at a tunnel exit does not mean, as the video script puts it, that we have “lost the tunnel”. The other half of the tunnel is still perfectly functional. The part going to Hong Kong Island may have problems. There is often a hold-up already at the Causeway Bay exit when the queue for the Happy Valley fly-over trails back into the tunnel, forcing people who have no desire to visit Happy Valley but are stuck in the outside lane to crawl until they get to the end of the double white lines. Cautious motorists may avoid this tunnel. The Western one, which has three lanes to play with and only one lane going to Central, will clearly still be perfectly usable by people who wish to go to destinations other than Central.

This is not enough for the Instant Death crowd, though. They have the queue stretching up through Kowloon until we “lose” the Lion Rock Tunnel as well. This is prime bullshit, if you’ll pardon the phrase. If the worst predictions come true, Central is jammed solid and traffic is backed up to two of the three tunnels, motorists are not going to flock lemming-like towards Central by their usual routes. Many of them will doubtless opt to stay at home. People will adapt. Hongkongers are not stupid. Consequently they will regard the whole video as a hilarious piece of nonsense.  It assumes that everyone will try to do what they usually do, except for those who switch to the MTR, which the video makers expect to collapse under the extra load. Nobody is allowed to adapt, take reasonable precautions, change their habits or — a popular solution — I fancy, take the first day of “occupation” off. Anyone would think Hong Kong had never had a typhoon.

Much money mis-spent. Serves him right.

One of the distressing things about the Leung administration is that listening to its admirers usually makes you even more suspicious than you were before.  Consider the piece by Tammy Tam in last Monday’s Post. Ms Tam was detailing the Leung camp’s response to questions about whether it was really a good idea to have Leung supporters parachuted into a variety of government-appointed positions.

Ms Tam’s view of this seems rather confused. Mr Leung, she conceded, was seen as having a weak cabinet. Now he was determined to place allies and aides in his inner circle. No complaints so far. Mr Leung has appointed more policy secretaries, sidekicks, consultants and PR flacks than any of his predecessors. But that is his right. Policy secretaries and their hangers-on are there to implement the CE’s policies. But Ms Tam was not talking about the inner circle in this sense at all. The posts she had in mind were the chairperson ships of the Airport Authority, the Trade Development Council, the Independent Police Complaints Council and the body which runs Science and Technology Parks. This is not the inner circle of Hong Kong public administration by any means. One can perhaps make a case for a political figure running the airport aurhority. But the Police Complaints Council?

I am not at all happy with the idea that these people are “Leung fans”. Mr Leung is in the unfortunate position of Henry VIII in “A Man for all Seasons”, who observes that “There are those like Norfolk who follow me because I wear the crown, and there are those like Master Cromwell who follow me because they are jackals with sharp teeth and I am their lion, and there is a mass that follows me because it follows anything that moves”. Kings do not have fans or friends. Mr Leung’s misfortune is that he has been the darling of the Liaison Office since before it was the Liaison Office. He is a walking conduit to the advantages that being in the favour of our colonial masters can bring. If seeking a friend he would have to find someone who was uninterested in money or power, but prepared to get along with someone who thought of little else. It’s a tall order. Still, some of his appointments may turn out well. Let us hope so. I had some misgivings about Ms Tam’s idea that this process of “appointing people he can trust” was a way to “get things done”.

Oh yes? Looking at the recent history of the MTR and the prime collection of compliant mediocrities that the government has appointed to its board, I fear that this may be a way of not getting things done. Some of these jobs do require more extensive talents than the ability to say yes. Anyway, intelligent people can disagree about these matters.

Where it seemed to me Ms Tam’s choice of words wandered in a lamentable direction was in her discussion of Mr Jack So Chak-kwong, who is the chairman of the Trade Development Council but is apparently to swap jobs with the newly appointed chairman of the Airport Authority next May. There was no mention of the possibility that this curious arrangement might result in both organisations being effectively paralysed for a year. We were, though, invited to note that Mr So was a nominator of Henry Tang in the Chief Executive election. This really does not call for any comment or explanation. Hong Kong dos not have two warring parties. The difference between the two candidates in political terms was barely visible, leaving the election to be decided by their levels of success in concealing illegal structures. There is no reason why supporters of Mr Tang in the election should not take office under Mr Leung, just as no doubt supporters of Mr Leung would have been willing to serve under Mr Tang. Ms Tam, however, feels that “So took a stand for true democracy, putting aside the campaign bickering to support the current administration for the good of Hong Kong”. This is preposterous. Mr So is not taking a “stand for true democracy” by accepting the results of the Chief Executive selection process, which was specifically and successfully designed to be as undemocratic as possible. I do not know what Mr So thinks of democracy, but at a time when people are making genuine efforts to stand for it he can hardly claim to be a democratic standard-bearer because, having nominated one rich lay-about, he is prepared to work for another.

Say what you like about Occupy Central, it seems to bring out the worst in some people. I suppose Chambers of Commerce are entitled to their views on the matter, but a motley collection (the General, and chambers of Canada, Italy, Bahrain and India) went effortlessly from hyperbole to hypocrisy in their advertising campaign unveiled this week.”Newspaper vendors, restaurants, fast-food shops, and many other small businesses in Central all depend on a daily flow of customers for their livelihoods,” bleated the chambers. To be sure they do. But I do not recall the travails of Central pavement businesses ever attracted the attention of Chambers of Commerce before. Cut the crap about newspaper vendors, gentlemen, and admit that the looming prospect of Occupy Central is a threat to your interests.

Then we had the Secretary for Security, Lai Tung-kwok, who had an article published in several newspapers today, according to the Post, which was not one of them but ran the whole thing on its front page anyway. Mr Lai, as is customary with our government, is in charge of matters about which he knows very little. His career in the security business was spent entirely in the Immigration Department. Mr Lai, though, has a nice line in gloomy prophecy: “the radicals will take the opportunity to hijack the movement and turn peaceful public meetings into violence.” He goes on, “once violent confrontation occurs the situation may become irrevocable (?) and things could get out of control.” Well whether things get out of control could depend on many things. One of the things on which they depend is whether we have a sensible Secretary for Security who avoids provocative statements which could be interpreted as an order to get rough. Like Mr Lai’s conclusion: “We will ensure that the law enforcement agency will act in accordance with the law and will take robust action to uphold the rule of law and to maintain public safety and public order.” In other words, carte blanche for pepper spray?

Mr Lai’s predictions are a monument of lucidity, though,  compared with the nonsense peddled by Robert Chow Yung, spokesman for the Silent Majority which is neither silent nor a majority. Mr Chow thinks schools could be charged with neglect if their pupils skip classes to participate in Occupy Central, which is manifest nonsense. Students skip school all the time, for a variety of reasons. School are not expected to send out search parties. This piece of silliness is a close relative of another scare story, the idea that students convicted of public order offences might as a result lose their chance of going to university. Not so. I was involved for more than 20 years in university admissions and at no time did the question of candidates’ criminal convictions come up. The only vaguely legal problem was a boy who asked to be considered although his trial for a serious offence was after the interview period. He was interviewed and given an offer conditional on him not being in prison when it was time to take it up. Unfortunately he was convicted.

Now look, people, Occupy Central may be a first for Hong Kong, but there are plenty of similar examples from which we may learn. The lesson that history teaches is that it is very easy to stop road traffic in a big city for a day or two. This has no effect on the economy at all. Business continues. The sort of business which is conducted in modern business centres does not rely on road traffic at all. Indeed when some roads in the City of London were closed to hamper IRA car bombers the restrictions were so popular that they are still there. Some of the overseas examples, like the disorders attending the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 or the evenements in Paris the same year, have been subjected to very detailed examination and we can as a result say with reasonable confidence that Occupy Central may produce much telegenic traffic paralysis but it will not bring the economy to its knees. Nor will it lead to violent disorder unless the minority of violent demonstrators can get together with the minority of violent policemen. Nor will it lead to mass arrests and convictions of participants. Remember the Korean farmers’ protests during the WTO meetings in Hong Kong in 2005? Lots of pepper spray, tear gas, police cordons, kettling, arrests… The number of people eventually convicted after all this was precisely none. Zero. People who wish to continue to work in Central will continue to do so. Blocking access to a building is much harder than obstructing a road (see Wapping blockade, for example) and there is no sign that anyone intends to try it. Not everyone needs to travel by car. I imagine most Central workers commute by MTR, though I dare say Peter Woo is not one of them.

The real objection to Occupy Central is not that it will damage the economy, the livelihoods of Central hawkers or the prospects of local schoolkids. It is that it will embarrass the PRC government. This is a necessary precondition to any real progress in Hong Kong, as the latest PRC White Paper makes very clear. The Communist Party of China is not subject to the rule of law. The government is an extension of the Communist party so the government is not subject to the rule of law either. This is why the judges are party puppets and the PRC constitution is a work of fiction. Clearly a party in this situation does not regard itself as in any way limited by the Basic Law either. It is in China’s interests that Hong Kong should appear to be autonomous, and this represents an opportunity for Hong Kong because the easiest way to keep up this appearance is to allow matters which are much more important to Hong Kong than they are to China to be decided in Hong Kong. This of course still allows for plenty of influence to be exerted by the party through its local lackeys. Yes Peter and Robert that includes you. Clearly people who wish to see meaningful political progress will not get it by relying on the Basic Law, or on Beijing’s benevolence. Vociferous demands from Hong Kong might help. Exaggerated reactions to the prospect of Occupy Central just encourage people to believe that.

It seems the Financial Secretary, John Tsang, also has a blog. There is no need to read it, because the contents are usually taken up by local newspapers. This is a pity, because they do not inspire confidence. Mr Tsang’s latest outburst is a good example. Hong Kong’s low unemployment rate was in danger, he feared, because of the decline in the number of mainland visitors and the somewhat smaller decline in their spending. “I was quite worried when I saw the figures for retail sales in April,” the Standard quoted, “If the external economy does show obvious improvement [shouldn’t that be doesn’t?] while retail sales continue to fall, the employment rate will face immense pressure.” As so often in pseudo-intellectual discussions of the economy, we are in the presence of a mixed metaphor here. What it means in concrete terms is that if mainland shoppers are less numerous or less profligate then some shops will close, thereby throwing their staff out of work. This might lead to an increase in the jobless rate, which is currently 3.1 per cent. As there are always some people resting between engagements this is virtually zero.

What Mr Tsang is ignoring is the huge change which has swept Hong Kong’s retail sector in response to local landlords’ discovery that selling over-priced handbags to mainlanders is the most lucrative use to which they can put their properties. Shops which used to sell goods which local people needed have closed and been replaced by locust-orientated luxury outlets. Before the influx of mainlanders we did not have rows of empty shops, bereft of staff. We had a flourishing retail sector catering mainly for local needs. If selling expensive crap to mainlanders is no longer the retail racket du jour then it will be replaced by something else. This is the way the Invisible Hand works. The big difference will be that landlords will no longer be able to charge such high rents, a change which I am sure will produce widespread joy. Employment will not be affected at all.

Of course Mr Tsang may well be expecting the employment rate to increase anyway. The current rate is the lowest in 16 years. This suggests that it is a bit of a statistical blip and the next figure will be higher. This can then be blamed on anti-mainland sentiment, Legco filibustering or the Occupy Central movement, the three things which get blamed for everything these days. Actually I find it difficult to believe that Mr Tsang is seriously concerned about the unemployment figure. It is of course one of the things by which Financial Secretaries are judged, but Mr Tsang would have resigned long ago if he cared what people thought about him. Financial secretaries, chancellors, Fed Chairmen and such like people go through a regular process. For a year or two after they are first appointed they are indoctrinated by rich people, their lobbyists, liars, supporters in university economics departments etc. so that they realise their main function is to serve the interests of the rich – or in the popular euphemism, business. Once they have learned this lesson they become a valuable asset, and are described as flatteringly indispensable to the health of the economy (by which we mean business, by which we mean rich people). In Mr Tsang this process has now gone so far that the primacy of the interests of landlords is taken for granted. The only thing that needs thought is finding an acceptable explanation for running the economy in their interest. Nice try.