Tag: Hong Kong

RoW: Links for 20th November, 2019

Three links from the gift that keeps on giving, Marginal Revolution

 

  1. “A portrait of Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, adorns the wall of the Kosmonavtlar Station. Gagarin, and other early cosmonauts, were some of the USSR’s most important heroes, symbolising Soviet power and supremacy during the Space Race and widely depicted in Russian propaganda. Around him, the walls are lined with surreal portraits of famous cosmonauts floating through space amid a futuristic design of blues and blacks – similar to the colours astronauts would see as they left Earth’s atmosphere.”
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    Read, as always, but more importantly, savor the photographs.
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  2. That all conquering Nazi war machine wasn’t all that impressive, apparently.
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    “Below, I hope to share some astonishing statistics that show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the modern concept of Nazi military might is a myth.”
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  3. Who all have said sorry to China?
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    “Without further ado, here is the list of companies that have apologized to China. The companies are listed in reverse chronological order of their apologies, with the most recent first. For each company, we note what Chinese social media (and sometimes the government) took offense at, and when the company apologized, with a link to their apology.”
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  4. “The North already has an arsenal estimated at 40 nuclear weapons; it has already carried out six nuclear tests; its fissile material production facilities at Yongbyon and elsewhere are, as far as we know, all operating and producing more and more bomb fuel.”
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    Gulp, as they say. North Korea, a very pessimistic take indeed.
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  5. “Yet over the past decade it has been clear that the pendulum is swinging back to Singapore. Hong Kong’s property prices have continued to spiral—doubling in real terms from 2010 to 2018—making it difficult today for the young to even get on the ladder. Meanwhile locals have felt even more disenfranchised by Beijing’s increasing control over the city, itself symptomatic of the centralisation of power under China’s leader Xi Jinping, who assumed office in 2012. ”
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    “HK v Singapore? There is only one winner.

RoW: Links for 9th October, 2019

  1. On China’s reforestation programme. Also, if you haven’t already, read Seeing Like a State.
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    “After a half century of blistering economic growth, China is increasingly looking back at the environmental havoc it wreaked and searching for a greener path forward. It has boosted renewable energy, declared a “war on pollution,” and vowed to lower carbon emissions. But if Grain-for-Green is an indication, preserving biodiversity may represent a new challenge in China’s push to go green: protecting and restoring natural spaces with an eye to not just quantity, but quality.”
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  2. A review of No Friend But The Mountains, by JM Coetzee. I have not read the book, and am not sure I want to. Not, I hasten to add, because of the quality of the book or the lack of it, but because of the utter heartlessness the review manages to convey of a nation I am conflicted about.
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    “The UNHCR has been extremely critical of Australia’s offshore policies. In 2017 it concluded that PNG and Nauru were intrinsically unsuitable as resettlement homes, given “the impossibility of local integration.” In other words, Papuans and Nauruans do not want refugees living among them, and refugees do not want to live in PNG or Nauru. New Zealand has offered to take 150 of the inmates, but Australia has vetoed this offer on the grounds that former detainees might make their way from New Zealand to Australia, thereby weakening the deterrent power of Australian policy.”
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  3. A thought-provoking write-up by Danny Quah:
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    “In the new world order Asia’s leadership does not mean Asia has to become alternative architect. Instead, Asia only needs to be articulate and empowered consumer, and allow demand and supply to work in the marketplace. With care, thought, and unity, ASEAN (and indeed all of Asia) can continue to make a success of this new marketplace for world order.”
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  4. “A course at Yale-NUS College on dissent and resistance in Singapore was canceled two weeks before it was scheduled to start, the Singapore-based The Straits Times reported. Yale-NUS president Tan Tai Yong said some of the planned course activities and speakers would “infringe our commitment not to advance partisan political interests in our campus” and potentially expose students to the risk of breaking the law.”
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    Via (where else) MR, dissent on dissent in Singapore.
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  5. “Lok, 31, lives with her parents in North Point, in Hong Kong Island’s Eastern District. It is more than an hour away from the island of Tsing Yi, where 35-year-old Chau lives with his parents. Their three-year-old daughter, Yu, spends Monday to Thursday with Lok and the weekend at Chau’s. They can’t move in together in one of their family homes, Lok says, because the bedroom space is simply too small for two adults and a child.”
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    Not me being lazy, I promise, but this too, from MR… on the space crunch in Hong Kong, but oh so much more.

RoW: Links for 25th September, 2019

Five articles about East Asia today, all interesting in their own right.

  1. Reading this article reminded me (of all the things in the world!) of the conversation that Aakash has with his dad in Dil Chahta Hai, where Aakash’s dad asks him to find out the vajah. Weird? Yes. Relevant? You be the judge!
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    “Without really knowing what the North is about, it has been hard to be certain about what they really want: relief from the economic pressure of sanctions and the need to circumvent them so that the Kim dynasty can continue in not-so-splendid isolation, or economic and political engagement with the international community and a route to becoming a normal state without hostile relations with the US.”
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  2. Speaking of North Korea…
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  3. Part II of a two part series on energy (well, electricity)  in North Korea. Read both, though.
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  4. Hong Kong as a Shakespearean tragedy.
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  5. “There was no criteria except availability in English. Yes, this was more mad than methodical — but we’re proud of the result.”
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    A very useful list indeed: 100 books about China. I have read, I am happy to say, only six out of these. I am also slightly surprised to see that China Airborne didn’t make it to the list. And Taipan, maybe.

RoW: Links for 26th June, 2019

Articles from the Far East in today’s edition:

 

  1. “Thus is revealed a deeper lesson still: Freedom is not merely the ability to buy and sell goods at minimum regulation and a low tax rate, variables that are readily picked up by economic freedom indices. Freedom is also about the narratives people live by and the kind of future they imagine for themselves. Both of these are greatly affected by the legitimacy and durability of their political institutions.”
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    There’s lessons to be learned for all nations from what is going on in Hong Kong today, and Tyler Cowen ably lays out a map. In short, political institutions really matter – and that is a truly important lesson for anybody who wishes to learn economics.
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  2. “There were three such commitments: “to establish new U.S.–DPRK relations,” “to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula,” and “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The North also pledged to unearth the remains of Americans missing in action, which could help put the Korean War to rest—and not just for those most intimately affected.”
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    From about two weeks ago, but worth reading to get a sense of where North Korea and America are today, relative to where they thought they would be.
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  3. “At 12:42 a.m. on the quiet, moonlit night of March 8, 2014, a Boeing 777-200ER operated by Malaysia Airlines took off from Kuala Lumpur and turned toward Beijing, climbing to its assigned cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. The designator for Malaysia Airlines is MH. The flight number was 370. ”
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    This came out about a week ago, and if you are at all on social media, you’ve probably read it already, but on the off chance that you haven’t: a haunting coda to the sorry saga that is MH370.
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  4. “Beijing’s increasing heavy-handedness is more a symptom of fear than strength. It is borne in part from anxiety about the global trend of power diffusing from governments to non-state actors, a development that runs against the Communist Party’s desire to keep a tight grip on society. It also arises out of the Communist Party’s deep-seated concern that its legitimacy will come under scrutiny, particularly as economic growth continues to decelerate. Beijing’s endemic challenges in enforcing discipline within the Communist Party, particularly as it relates to corruption, also arouses anxieties. So, too, does latent admiration within Chinese society for values that America has sought to advance, even as popular views of the United States government come under fresh scrutiny.”
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    An interesting take on how to view Chinese culture, American culture, and how they evolve in response to each other, and each other’s forms of government.
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  5. “I was given time to try and log in again the next day after my penalty had been served.When I did I had to push “agree and unblock” under the stated reason of “spread malicious rumours”.
    So this rumour-monger clicked on “agree”.
    Then came a stage I was not prepared for. “Faceprint is required for security purposes,” it said.
    I was instructed to hold my phone up – to “face front camera straight on” – looking directly at the image of a human head. Then told to “Read numbers aloud in Mandarin Chinese”.”
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    The surveillance state in China, it’s capabilities, and it’s potential threats. All on China’s most popular app.