Britain’s most senior diplomat for Hong Kong has called for an end to “megaphone diplomacy” between the UK and the Chinese territory, saying British and Hong Kong diplomats would make more progress with closed-door discussions. Brian Davidson, the consul general to Hong Kong and Macau, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post that the UK-Hong Kong relationship had weathered “some difficult headwinds” over the past four or five years, but that “we are looking to lean back into a constructive engagement to see where we can collaborate”.…
Tag: Hong Kong
Born in Asia but Based in Britain, HSBC Fights to Stay in One Piece
For many investors, HSBC, Europe’s largest lender with a venerable place in Britain’s banking industry, offers little to critique: It is performing well and has focused on its most profitable and fastest-growing operations, those in Asia. But for the firm’s largest investor, the sprawling Chinese insurance giant Ping An, that isn’t enough. Over the past year, Ping An has waged a campaign to convince HSBC to spin off its Hong Kong-based operations in some way, cracking open the bank’s global empire to improve its financial performance. It’s a move that…
Canadian lawmaker says China targeted his family for harassment
A Canadian lawmaker has accused government officials of turning a blind eye to Chinese harassment of his family as pressure mounts on Justin Trudeau to launch a public inquiry into Beijing’s attempts to meddle in the country’s domestic politics. The Globe and Mail reported that China’s intelligence agency had sought information about Michael Chong’s family in Hong Kong “for further potential sanctions” over the Conservative MP’s criticism of Beijing’s human rights abuses. The paper also reported that Zhao Wei, a Chinese diplomat in Toronto, was part of the harassment campaign.…
Hong Kong: some schools face closure as birthrate and exodus take toll
Hong Kong schools are being forced to merge or prepare for closure as a decade-long decline in the birthrate and a recent exodus of residents from the city has led to a plunge in student numbers. Local media have reported that at least five schools face closure in coming years after they failed to reach the minimum 16 enrolments in the first grade. There have been two recent cases of schools merging with each other due to insufficient student numbers. The secretary of the city’s education department, Dr Choi Yuk-lin,…
Fears grow for Taiwan book publisher believed held in China
Concerns are mounting for a Taiwan-based book publisher believed to have been detained in China, in a case that has echoed the disappearances in 2015 of five Hong Kong booksellers. Li Yanhe, also known by the pen-name Fucha, reportedly travelled to Shanghai last month to visit relatives but has been uncontactable since Thursday. His alleged detention was first reported by Bei Ling, a Chinese writer and activist, who said on Facebook that he had been told by various sources that Li had been arrested by authorities in Shanghai. Taiwan’s government…
New York Philharmonic, Pushing Cultural Diplomacy, Plans Asia Tour
The New York Philharmonic, saying it hoped to use culture to help ease political tensions, announced plans on Thursday for a summer tour in Asia, including stops in Hong Kong and Taiwan and a visit to mainland China by a small group of musicians. The tour will be the Philharmonic’s first visit to Asia since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when many countries in the region shut their borders. It comes amid rising tensions between the United States and China and concerns about the possibility of a crisis over…
Screenings of Winnie the Pooh horror film cancelled in Hong Kong
The screening of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a British slasher film due to be released in Hong Kong this week, has been cancelled for technical reasons, movie websites said. Moviematic, which had organised a screening of the film for Tuesday evening, reported the cancellation on its social media pages. Several other websites and media also reported the cancellation of screenings. The movie’s distributor in Hong Kong, VII Pillars Entertainment, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A ticket-booking link on its Facebook page brought up a message…
Hong Kong police put bailed pro-democracy leader Albert Ho back under arrest
Hong Kong police have arrested a veteran pro-democracy politician who was out on bail for medical treatment after spending more than a year in detention on a subversion charge. Albert Ho, 71, once led the city’s largest opposition group, the Democratic party, and runs his own law firm. Police handcuffed Ho and took him away from his home in a vehicle on Tuesday, a Reuters witness said. Ho had been charged with inciting subversion under a national security law that China imposed on the former British territory in 2020, and…
Hong Kong: two arrested for possessing ‘seditious’ children’s book
Hong Kong’s national security police have arrested two men for possessing children’s books deemed seditious by the authorities – in the latest of a string of moves that underlines the state of civil freedoms in the city. The two men, aged 38 and 50, were arrested and detained after police and customs officers searched their homes and offices and found copies of “seditious publications” that allegedly “incited hatred or contempt” against the Chinese and Hong Kong governments and the judiciary, according to a police press release cited in the local…
Hong Kong court jails Tiananmen anniversary vigil organisers
A Hong Kong court has jailed three former members of a group that organised annual vigils to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in China. Chow Hang-tung, 38, a prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and former vice-chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, was among those convicted by a magistrate’s court. The two others were Tang Ngok-kwan and Tsui Hon-kwong. The three were jailed on Saturday for four-and-a-half months for not complying with a national security police request for information. Speaking before sentencing,…