HK elections: pro-democracy camp wins 17 out of 18 districts

Tangmo said:

Yet all we hear from the Beijing Fanboyz is how the Boyz in Beijing are going to come down hard on the Pan-Democrats and democracy activists sooner or later. The repeated recitations invoking only an inevitable brute force and muscle get old fast.

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To be clear, I am wholly in favour of the protestors and the pro-democracy movement.

I also feel that China is unlikely to engage in any kind of extreme measure to crack down on it due to the probable repercussions from the international community, as well as the obvious potential for domestic backlash.

Ultimately it's my view that the ultimate practical impact of the election results will be unclear and probably limited in terms of the ultimate control Beijing exerts on HK governance as opposed to being a decisive blow, because Emperor Pooh simply will not permit the city to engage in actual self-determination, is notoriously prideful and stands to lose too much in terms of face; though he may not resort to violence and slaughter, I'm certain he will employ virtually any and every other mechanism to achieve his aims.

Tangmo said:

~..............................Yet all we hear from the Beijing Fanboyz is how the Boyz in Beijing are going to come down hard on the Pan-Democrats and democracy activists sooner or later. The repeated recitations invoking only an inevitable brute force and muscle get old fast.

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I sure hope you don't consider me to be a Beijing fanboy because that couldn't possibly be more of the mark.

Surrealistik said:

To be clear, I am wholly in favour of the protestors and the pro-democracy movement.

I also feel that China is unlikely to engage in any kind of extreme measure to crack down on it due to the probable repercussions from the international community, as well as the obvious potential for domestic backlash.

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No one however is stating the sole reason Xi will not use military force in HKG. If Xi sends military armed forces into HKG then it will instantly be the absolute end of the one country two systems paradigm that Beijing must acknowledge and pay lip service to.

So if Beijing used military force in HKG then Xi and the CCP Boyz would demolish the one country two systems mantra Xi uses to justify opposition to the democracy protests. Xi maintains the system is alive and well in HKG and that there's no need for the demonstrations and street actions that are occurring, ie, no need to make any changes to it. Xi also uses the one country two systems mantra concerning Taiwan and the CCP delusional obsession to incorporate Taiwan into the mainland CCP-PRC.

The only way Xi would authorize military force in HKG is if protests and demonstrations started up on the mainland in support of the Pan Democrats in HKG. Chances of this occurring on the mainland are however less than zero given the large number of mainland Chinese who are angry if not furious against the Pan Democrats of HKG and the activists in the streets. Too many mainland Chinese curse the word 'freedom' for any HKG pro democracy demonstrations in sympathy or support to occur. At the other end of it, if Beijing wanted pro HKG government demonstrations on the mainland it would have ordered 'em up long ago, but CCP Boyz want the mainland to remain normal, orderly, obedient, stable. Quiet.

Ultimately it's my view that the ultimate practical impact of the election results will be unclear and probably limited in terms of the ultimate control Beijing exerts on HK governance as opposed to being a decisive blow, because Emperor Pooh simply will not permit the city to engage in actual self-determination, is notoriously prideful and stands to lose too much in terms of face; though he may not resort to violence and slaughter, I'm certain he will employ virtually any and every other mechanism to achieve his aims.

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Xi agrees with you and yes, Xi will employ any and every other mechanism to maintain the one country two systems talking point. That you and Xi are on the same page doesn't make you a commie however ha.

Xi still has the clout in the territory Legislative Council and he can still choose the Chief Executive whether that may be tomorrow or in 2022 as scheduled. Yet the Boyz in Beijing are very nervous after the landslide blowout result of the district election. The election has changed the numbers and the equation from their original settings made in 1997 and planned through during the years leading up to the changeover.

So the Boyz are feeling compelled to cook up changes or new influences that make 'em feel less uneasy about it. Indeed, the Pan Democrats and some prominent business types on the chief executive selection committee are already feeling one another out about whether they might have things in common to work toward in common, be it at certain times or all the time. The Boyz are definitely squirming.

One major reason the district council election went explosively well for the Pan Democracy Coalition is that Beijing quietly backed down on a disqualifying loyalty oath for candidates that prohibited a number Pan Dem candidates from standing in the 2016 territorial elections.

Beijing did not apply the loyalty oath first implemented in 2016 to candidates standing in the district council elections. The only banned candidate applicant this time was the articulate activist Joshua Wong, 23 who is an English major at Hong Kong Open University and who has positively intimidated both Hong Kong authorities and the Boyz in Beijing since he was 15.

The Pan Democratic Coalition takes this quite retreat by Beijing as a positive sign toward gaining universal suffrage in the next and in future elections.


Hong Kong Free Press

District Council polls show that ballot box could be the key to a Hong Kong solution

30 November 2019

The November 24 election suggested how Hong Kong might begin to hold free elections, even within the confines of the existing national Communist Party-led system.




Whether by deliberate design or only force of circumstances, the election marked an important step back from the brink of loyalty-oath vetted candidates that have become the norm since 2016. The government’s unannounced and unexplained retreat is what gave November 24 the unexpected aura of a “free and fair” election. This is because, with only one exception [the feared by Beijing Joshua Wong], candidates were vetted and cleared to contest whose political persuasions are the same as those who have been disqualified in recent years.


Joshua Wong, 2nd from right, secretary-general of Hong Kong's Demosisto party and leader of the "Umbrella Movement" spoke at a press conference by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after he testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China about the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, on September 17, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Photo by Olivier Douliery / AFP) (Photo credit should read OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)


Why the vetting officers in 2019 chose to disregard what had been grounds for disqualification in 2016, has yet to be explained. But whether an order from on high or improvised from below, a practical solution to the political impasse has appeared. This positive scenario may be able to point the way toward elections relatively free of Beijing-style rules and standards.

Officials are in a bind, held in check by a volatile rebellious community that is no longer afraid to come out onto the streets. The younger generation has set the pace, but the rest of the community is standing firmly right behind them. November 24 proved that point if there was ever any doubt. More disqualifications will only provoke more protests, and the downward spiral will continue.

District Council polls show that ballot box could be the key to a Hong Kong solution | Hong Kong Free Press HKFP

There are a bunch of CCP Boyz names here but Wang Zhimin is the pig in a poke because he's Beijing's liason guy in Hong Kong so he's got the bull's eye on his back.

The landslide blowout results of the district council election against Beijing put the bull's eye there. While all the CCP Boyz have grotesquely misjudged the situation in HKG all the Boyz are pointing at the perspiring Wang instead.

Wang's got three CCP Big Boyz in particular circling him. They need a scapegoat if I may continue to barrage you with metaphors ha.

Heavyweight Li Zhanshu who's chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress is one.

Worse, Zhang Xiaoming who reports on HKG daily in writing to Xi Jinpingpong and who's head of Hong Kong Affairs for the Politburo has got to blame somebody for the fiasco so he's on board.

Han Zheng a vice premier and a chieftan of the State Council knows too Wang is the obvious and easy target.


China considers replacing top Hong Kong liaison officer


Wang Zhimin is -- or may soon be was -- Director General of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong. Wang vows to remain in his position.


China’s leadership is considering replacing its most senior liaison official in Hong Kong and has set up a crisis command centre in the southern border city of Shenzhen to tighten control over efforts to manage the upheaval in the self-governing Chinese territory.

But the mainland’s leaders have been managing their response from a villa on the outskirts of Shenzhen, bypassing the formal bureaucracy, and is considering potential replacements for the agency’s director, Wang Zhimin, two people familiar with the situation told Reuters.

Wang is the most senior mainland political official stationed in Hong Kong. The Liaison Office is housed in a Hong Kong skyscraper stacked with surveillance cameras, ringed by steel barricades and topped by a reinforced glass globe.

Massed flags of the People's Republic of China and the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong which is not a province.


The office has come in for criticism in Hong Kong and China for misjudging the situation in the city. “The Liaison Office has been mingling with the rich people and mainland elites in the city and isolated itself from the people,” a Chinese official told Reuters. “This needs to be changed.”

The Liaison Office may face increased pressure after city voters delivered a resounding defeat to pro-Beijing parties in local district elections on Sunday. Pro-democracy candidates won more than 80 percent of the seats, securing their first-ever majority after running a campaign against Beijing’s perceived encroachments on Hong Kong’s liberties.

China considers replacing top Hong Kong liaison officer - Bioreports

Looks like that after the landslide blowout of Beijing in the district council elections across Hong Kong there are some new demands in the works.

More power to the good guys.


Hong Kong’s protest problem will not be solved by sacking Liaison Office boss Wang Zhimin

7 December 2019


2 million Hong Kongers make history June 17th protesting Beijing's extradition bill amid disappearances by Hong Kong booksellers.


Over the past six months, Hong Kong’s protest-filled streets have been rendered impassable, its universities trashed and its MTR stations firebombed. Yet Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu still has a job in a city where security seems to have slipped entirely out of his hands.

Likewise, Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah continues to report daily to her posh Lower Albert Road offices, while any concept of justice in Hong Kong has gone missing along with the nearly 6,000 people, many of them aged 18 or younger, who have been arrested by a Hong Kong Police Force on steroids.

Most mind-boggling of all, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is still standing after making a confounding series of disastrous decisions, which have plunged Hong Kong into a state of chaos and mayhem and made her the most unpopular CE in the city’s post-handover history. The pan-democrats’ triumph in district council elections, seen by most analysts as a referendum on Lam’s leadership, only served to underscore the fact that she should have stepped aside long ago.

Today’s Hong Kong has become this surreal place where a reviled government and despised police force hang on for dear life while their masters in Beijing seemingly revel in a nightmare of their own making.

If indeed the replacement of Wang is the initial move in the central government’s plan to reclaim Hong Kong, this misconceived gambit shows that Chinese leaders, from President Xi Jinping on down, are just as clueless about the city now as they were way back in February, when they decreed the Lam administration’s ill-fated decision to push for an extradition bill.

If Hong Kong is going to bounce back from its current troubles, Lam and her gang of flunkies need to go—and the sooner, the better.

Hong Kong's protest problem will not be solved by sacking Liaison Office boss Wang Zhimin | Hong Kong Free Press HKFP