Day: December 18, 2021

Hong Kong’s Election Is Really a Selection

Chin@Strategy

The signs and messages are everywhere: “Cast a vote for Hong Kong and yourself.” Candidates’ faces cover the pavement and walls from the city center to stalls in the wet markets on its outskirts. Government-sponsored billboards calling to “improve electoral system, ensure patriots administering Hong Kong” abound. Hong Kong and Chinese government officials have for weeks been urging the public to vote in this weekend’s legislative election. But this is not a typical free and fair election: It’s a selection process, thanks to an electoral overhaul with no meaningful participation…

‘The world must boycott’: Australian Uyghur calls for more pressure on Beijing Games

Chin@Strategy

What Almas Nizamidin knows of his wife’s arrest and disappearance is second-hand: the harried reports relayed by his relatives as it rapidly unfolded. The police came for Buzainafu Abudourexiti at her home in Ürümqi as she was travelling to a doctor’s appointment on 29 March 2017. Her family called, she cancelled her appointment and hurried home. There, the police shoved a bag over her head, forced her into a car and drove her away. Her husband, her family, and her friends have not seen her since. She remains incarcerated in…

Can a ‘Very Confident’ Carrie Lam Salvage Her Legacy in Hong Kong?

Chin@Strategy

HONG KONG — The students sat quietly as soldiers goose-stepped into the Hong Kong high school’s auditorium, hoisting a Chinese flag. The M.C.s spoke in Mandarin, the language of mainland China, rather than Cantonese, the city’s predominant language. Then Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, took the podium, to extol the importance of patriotism in the city’s youth. It was Mrs. Lam’s fourth visit to a school in recent weeks — a striking count for a leader who for two years had barely set foot on a campus. When anti-government…

How Hong Kong’s ‘Patriots Only’ Elections Bolster Beijing’s Grip

Chin@Strategy

Only a few of all the candidates running this year have described themselves as “pro-democracy,” and they share one thing in common: They observe Beijing’s red lines. They have avoided the sort of political stances that could lead to their disqualification or even imprisonment, such as calling for independence for Hong Kong or foreign sanctions against Hong Kong officials. In Hong Kong’s new electoral landscape, the absence of the mainstream opposition has resulted in an odd political twist: Such outside candidates are being given some help by Beijing’s representatives and…