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From Zero to XI

www.chinadiction.com

From Zero to XI

As the world begins to open up, Hong Kong's Zero Covid policy has been buried under an avalanche of new cases, with wait times of up to eight hours at hospital emergency rooms.

Chris Taylor
Feb 17, 2022
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From Zero to XI

www.chinadiction.com

Hong Kong appears to be doubling down on its Zero Covid policy, despite on-the-ground reports that suggest a general unravelling in Asia’s World City. Reports the Wall Street Journal:

As spiraling Omicron cases overwhelm Hong Kong’s health system, officials … [are] commandeering thousands of apartments and hotel rooms to isolate infected residents.

Wards at public hospitals have begun to overflow, with reports of children being turned away as pediatric isolation beds ran out. Despite the strain, just a fraction of those being treated or isolated were in critical condition, and Hong Kong officials urged Covid-19-positive residents – previously subject to immediate hospitalization regardless of symptoms or vaccination status – to avoid emergency rooms if their symptoms are mild.

The Global Times reported that “Xi [Jinping] conveyed his high attention on Hong Kong’s recent COVID-19 surge and his kind care for the Hong Kong people to SAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam through Vice Premier Han Zheng.”

Xi’s personal interest is not necessarily a blessing under any circumstances:

Twitter avatar for @krislc
Kris Cheng @krislc
Xi orders Hong Kong govt to make containing the pandemic its top priority, to mobilise all resources and take any necessary measures to ensure people’s safety and health, and stability of the city. More restrictive measures to come then?
Image
12:46 AM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
198Likes104Retweets

The immediate plan would appear to get really serious about testing:

Twitter avatar for @krislc
Kris Cheng @krislc
Hong Kong considering city-wide covid testing for 7.5m people, doing it 3 times between early and late March, HK01 reports. By early March, what would be the daily number of cases, and if there are tens of thousands infected, how to put them in quarantine?
hk01.com01獨家|港府擬強制按身份證 三次全民檢測750萬港人面對瀕臨失控的第五波新冠疫情,《香港01》獲得可靠消息,香港將實施前所未見的全民動員計劃!港府擬與內地當地商討,爭取在下月初,替全港750萬市
2:12 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
72Likes72Retweets

As the New York Times put it:

The scenes were straight out of China’s coronavirus playbook. Armies of workers, deployed to lock down residents. Plans to erect a massive makeshift hospital. And on Wednesday, a command from Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, plastered across local front pages: “Make controlling the epidemic as soon as possible an overwhelming priority.”

In Hong Kong itself, anger and frustration are thwarting what are arguably ham-fisted attempts by the authorities to sedate the chaos:

Twitter avatar for @XunlingAu
Xun-ling Au 歐迅灵 🏴 @XunlingAu
Heartbreak & fury at what is happening in HK with the latest covid wave. Heartbreak because the dam has broken & people will suffer. Fury cause HKSARG failed to plan effectively, didn't listen to HCWs, didn't build capacity, didn't build trust, instead they prioritised oppression
Twitter avatar for @hurtingbombz
Justin Lim | hurtingbombz.eth @hurtingbombz
Photo of patients turning in for the night, in a street lit alley Credit: Elson Li (IG) https://t.co/egFSbj70dh
8:12 AM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
35Likes11Retweets

The New York Times suggests that Beijing is casting around for scapegoats, with Tian Feilong, a law professor specializing in Hong Kong at Beijing’s Beihang University, writing that the latest outbreak showed that “the Hong Kong government still has some insufficiently loyal or two-faced officials.”

Carrie Lam, HKSAR chief executive, said the government will recruit more truck drivers and transport goods from to Hong Kong by sea. Over 20 percent of drivers are quarantined or sick, leading to supply shortages and food inflation.

But the current confusion is sure to be only temporary.

Twitter avatar for @fangshimin
方舟子 @fangshimin
香港医院爆满,病床就设在露天,连帐篷也没有。林郑对记者说“动态清零”是中央政府的要求,她也不知道那是什么意思。不是说抗疫方向被指明了吗?原来还在摸黑。
11:13 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
92Likes14Retweets

On-the-fly translation: “Hong Kong hospitals are full, and the beds are set in the open air, and there are no tents. Carrie Lam told reporters that the central government [in Beijing] demanded"dynamic clearing" but she didn't know what that meant.”

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Civil servant perks

A popular TV series in China has been documenting the comeuppance of corrupt officials – more than 4 million so far. According to the New York Times, the November episode, “Zero Tolerance”, is “the best journalistically and artistically” so far. Perhaps too good.

It’s easy to see how the show’s producers – and even the censors – might see the reporting as redounding to the determination of Xi Jinping to clean up the CCP, but as the Times puts it they “seemed unaware or unconcerned that they were airing the dirtiest laundry of the Communist Party, which, as the ruling party of a one-party state, has no one to blame for the rampant corruption but itself.”

Twitter avatar for @CarlMinzner
Carl Minzner @CarlMinzner
@LiYuan6 on "Zero Tolerance": "It felt like watching Mafia dons recounting their most glorious criminal acts in a reality show. Except these were former officials of the Chinese Communist Party playing themselves in an anti-corruption documentary series."
nytimes.comChina’s Anti-Graft Show Is Educational, With Unintended LessonsA documentary created to celebrate the success of China’s anti-corruption campaign instead has aired the dirty laundry of the Communist Party.
12:54 PM ∙ Feb 9, 2022
3Likes4Retweets

Wang Fuyu, formerly a deputy party secretary in Hainan Province and later in Guizhou Province, asked businesspeople to buy him houses in three cities for different seasons: winter on tropical Hainan Island, summer in the cool Guizhou Plateau, and spring and fall in the southern city of Shenzhen. An avid golfer, he had a mansion on a golf course and could start swinging as soon as he stepped out of his door.

Chen Gang, Beijing’s longtime deputy mayor, who studied at China’s top architecture school, used some of his $20 million in ill-gotten gains to fund a garden complex in the city’s suburbs that he designed. The complex, the documentary said, occupied 18 acres and included a Chinese courtyard, a Western-style all-glass mansion, a Japanese garden, an artificial white-sand beach, a theater and a spa.

Social media users joked that the series felt like a recruiting commercial for civil servants, or a how-to guide to bribery.

Fiber-to-the-floor Hong Kong

Are we seeing the arrival of the Great Firewall in Hong Kong? No, not yet, but Hong Kong bureaucrats are getting fussier about what they want you to see and they’re probably itching to get better at it.

Twitter avatar for @nathanhammond
Nathan Hammond 張拿敦 @nathanhammond
It was brought to my attention that hongkongwatch.org was not resolving in Hong Kong. I've since confirmed that both CMHK (at 172.20.10.1:53) and PCCW (at 103.233.167.2:53) are indeed demonstrating patterns that indicate DNS removal. /cc @hk_watch @lukedepulford
11:55 AM ∙ Feb 14, 2022
297Likes296Retweets

Writer Nathan Hammond explains why he’s not calling this a version of the Great Firewall yet:

“I have been describing the current state of Internet Censorship in Hong Kong as “Internet censorship amateur hour.” I believe that this – the first request – was implemented manually. Not only that, but it was handled inconsistently by many parties across each of the ISPs in Hong Kong. This is mildly reassuring as to where we stand.

But the issue is far from resolved. Benedict Rogers, the head of Hong Kong Watch. told The Guardian:

With the steady drip of website removals, there are fears that China could begin introducing its great internet firewall into the city. With time, this could have serious ramifications for the continued presence of western technology companies in the city.

Twitter avatar for @benedictrogers
Benedict Rogers 羅傑斯 @benedictrogers
“If this is not just a technical malfunction, and Hongkongers will no longer be able to access our website because of the national security law, then this is a serious blow to internet freedom,” said Benedict Rogers, the group’s head.
theguardian.comFears of online censorship in Hong Kong as rights group website goes downUK-based Hong Kong Watch says outage could be part of wider Beijing crackdown
9:01 AM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
223Likes107Retweets

Other news

Nope, the Evergrande story has not gone away – In fact, the entire China real estate fiasco has not gone away. Reuters reports that a China court has frozen $157 million of Evergrande assets over missed construction payments. How long will China’s property disaster play out? A lot longer than this performance of “China Dream” in choral song.

Twitter avatar for @GundamNorthrop
Northrop Gundam @GundamNorthrop
As china's Evergrande Real Estate financially collapsed, the stage where a group was singing "china dream" also collapsed. You can't make this up. 👇🏽
Twitter avatar for @MuYangLee_XWKD
新聞看點 @MuYangLee_XWKD
唱到我的中國夢 舞台就塌陷了😂 https://t.co/u7dPzdbCy0
1:15 AM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
6Likes2Retweets

Everyone’s favorite exiled Chinese billionaire reckons he’s down to his last $100-150,000

Twitter avatar for @seth_hettena
Seth Hettena @seth_hettena
Breaking: Fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, who joined forces with Steve Bannon and financed the social media site Gettr, has filed for bankruptcy.
3:39 AM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
35,410Likes7,158Retweets

The Wall Street Journal reports that Guo Wengui filed for bankruptcy protection … after a New York judge ordered him to pay $134 million in fines for hiding a yacht from an unpaid lender.

Mr. Guo, a prominent critic of China’s Communist Party, built a real-estate empire in Beijing but fled the country in 2014 to seek asylum in the U.S. after Chinese authorities accused him of bribery and money laundering, which he has denied.

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Twitter avatar for @AngryTaiwanman
Leslie Liao @AngryTaiwanman
Pizza Hut Taiwan's latest monstrosity. Fried oyster and fried shrimp pizza. @TPKoper has already told me that this is a no-go, but I would be remiss if I didn't notify @lnachman32 that this existed.
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3:26 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
39Likes4Retweets

Pizza Hut continues to push at the boundaries in Taiwan. These latest – oyster and shrimp pizza, which frankly don’t sound that bad – may not be ready for the prime time, but Pizza Hut’s century egg and ramen pizzas have made it onto menus, so anything is possible.

The South China Morning Post is reporting that a China tech company has developed an in IT system that can predict when an employee is poised to quit the job. The Shenzhen-based company has developed a system that spies on employees browsing job recruitment pages and applying for jobs via email. As one commentator noted, it’s Stage One in Philip K Dick’s imagined pre-crime future.

As Hong Kong falls to covid, Where’s China at with the development of its vaccines? According to Reuters, not exactly on the brink of breathtaking success: One of China’s mRNA candidates has performed poorly in terms of neutralizing antibody activity against Omicron, which is likely to be the strain that finally breaches the defenses of fortress PRC.

DJs playing gold winner tunes are becoming as famous as the athletes winning the actual gold medals in China, according to What’s on Weibo. Read the story; it’s fun.

According to Bitter Winter, a newsletter focused on religious oppression in China, the Chinese authorities are destroying Buddha statues and putting Buddhists in reeducation camps. This is not exactly news, but the new rules on Buddha statues are.

“The CCP claims that the new Religious Affairs Regulations should be interpreted to the effect that ‘large-scale religious statues’ should be all demolished,” writes Bitter Winter. Yup, that’s China-wide, and previously, the measures were reserved for statues outside the areas of temples and monasteries. However, in Drakgo (Tibetan Sichuan Province) “the authorities have even entered a Buddhist monastery and destroyed statues accused of being ‘too tall’.”

Don’t wait with bated breath for regulations on recommended heights for religious statues. It’s far easier to tear them down and then say they were too tall.

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Book Review: The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China

A charming feel-good China book that also manages to confront all the staple horrors chronicled by the Western mainstream press – and with a great premise:

Foreigners weren’t allowed to drive cabs in China. So … I came up with a novel business model: free cab rides in exchange for conversation. Roof lamps are banned on private cars in Shanghai, so my news assistant, Yang, had white magnetic signs made. One set of signs read, or literally “Free Loving Heart Taxi,” which sounds better in Mandarin than it does in English. Another pair said, , , or “Make Shanghai Friends, Chat about Shanghai Life.”

Yes, Langfitt – former NPR China correspondent – meets hustlers and even some misfits Of course, it’s more than a road trip. It’s an inner journey in which our guide is compelled to scrutinize his own cultural quirks as much as he is those he’s traveling with. Does it work? When I was reading Country Driving by Peter Hessler, I really felt like I was stuck in a car with Peter Hessler and had to hurl myself out and onto the road in a desperate bid for sanity after around 50 pages. Langfitt is an altogether humbler traveling companion. He doesn’t uncover anything revelatory about China, but he gets to hang out with the Chinese and learn some of their ways. Not all of his insights are on the mark, but if you’re an armchair traveler and you’d like to know more about the PRC you could do far worse than read Shanghai Taxi.

Coda

Twitter avatar for @hkfp
Hong Kong Free Press HKFP @hkfp
Last weekend was the first since Hong Kong's tightened Covid-19 restrictions came into force. All 17 of the anti-gathering fines given out by police on Sunday - HK$5,000 each - were to foreign domestic helpers, figures obtained by HKFP show.
Image
3:29 AM ∙ Feb 15, 2022
156Likes126Retweets

The average domestic worker in Hong Kong makes HK$10,000 a month to put that into perspective.

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From Zero to XI

www.chinadiction.com
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