On Boris, Trump and the fightback of the establishment

Following the "coup" to throw out Boris, I feel like this is the end of a strange era, and it is worth writing a longer article about it.

He just puts on a persona?
He believes rules don't apply to him?

There used to be an argument whether Boris's goofiness and "bull in a china shop" fumbling around is just a persona he puts on, when he is in fact as calculating as every other "evil" politician. I have always believed that there is some - maybe small - elements of genuine "childishness" in him. This is what makes him stand out from the rest of the lot, and why he is likeable. But this also makes him quite gullible to political backstabbing, as Gove demonstrated before, and now we see it again.

A related accusation that was constantly raised is that Boris believes that "rules don't apply to him". I don't think that's what he believes - specifically, the "to him" part. Rather, he just has this care-free attitude about everything, that he doesn't take rules or anything else seriously enough. It's not like he thinks he is the only one who should have this privilege - everyone else also shouldn't take things too seriously. Again, that makes him a fun person to be around, but these are not necessarily the sort of character you want from a good leader or prime minister.

In short, his unique characters are the reason for his success and also his demise.

Boris and Trump

The media will keep reminding you that "Boris is like Trump": both "populist", "far-right", "divisive" and are just law-breaking criminals. Like they are the only ones who did those "divisive" things - are they? Let's see:

Boris "unlawfully" prorogued parliament? Well John Major did exactly that to serve his own political purpose.

Boris breaks international law (tears up Brexit treaty)? Well the EU themselves selectively obey EU law, such as France and Germany regularly protect its domestic businesses from foreign competition, against EU free-market directives. I remember there were stories saying that's why British train companies don't get their contracts.

Oh and did I tell you that John Major smuggled the country into EU without a referendum? Bill Clinton's lie about his oval office oral sex? Tony Blair's lie about weapons of mass destruction? Yes, the media did go after them, but never with the kind of personal venom they direct to Boris and Trump. The media is not satisifed in just bringing them down - they want them to be shamed forever, that it is a national shame that such people were elected in the first place, that they can have no place in public life ever again. They should just be "un-personed".

They both do have major character flaws (and indeed people in the HK localism movement as well). It is unfortunate that all these people that disrupts the establishment order have the same character flaws - but if they are "normal" politicians, they would have seen sense and "joined the game" instead of fighting against it.

The strange brief period of 2016-2022

I hope future history will mark this period, even if it is ultimately just a brief upset and doesn't change the course of history. We had a few good years where we had Trump in US, Brexit and Boris in UK, and even Hongkongers managed to stand up against Beijing and went violent for a bit in 2019 (although that one was defeated much more quickly). There seemed to be a bit of hope against woke-ism, and the never-ending destruction of national identity might be arrested. But within a few years that was all over. With the unleash of the China virus, the world was turned upside down and all those progress we made were undone.

The establishment fightback has taken time, but by gunning down Trump and Boris, it is now almost complete. We will return to "normal" politics, where serious-looking politicians, who all look the same, act like they are saints when in fact they only care about their own pockets and slowly sell out the country to China, while their neoliberal woke ideas destroy Western civilisation.

I remain pessimistic that the West is in long term decline, to the rise of China.

N reasons why you should welcome HK migrants #1: shifting the electoral balance

To offer a "balanced" view, not only will I explain to HongKongers why emigration may not be as good as you think, I will also explain to the West why you should welcome HK people. Actually, the points are kind of the same.

So, the number 1 point I want to make is that it will help shift the electoral balance to be more "right wing".

Sure, not everyone in HK support the Tories or the GOP. But at the same time, no one is "brought up to hate the Tories". This generational or geographical thing doesn't exist here. At a more fundamental level, HongKongers may be one of the most economically right-wing in the world. We believe in the idea that people should work with their own hands to make their living, to solve their own problems, to improve their life, to move up the social ladder. We don't believe that "the society" has a responsibility to help us. Things like (the equivalent of) state pensions or minimum wage only came into existence in the last 20 years or so.

Take the recent row about free school meals in the UK, for example. People in HK would be completely baffled by the idea that somehow the government is responsible for feeding your kids. We believe it's up to the parents to work and earn money to feed their kids. (As a popular Internet saying goes, "if you're poor, don't have kids".) Of course, if you are in real financial difficulty, the state should give you benefits. But not micro-controlling every individual thing like meals. It's up to oneself to decide how to spend their money.

At the time I'm writing this, Trump looks like he's going to lose the election. Most HongKongers on the pro-democracy side (i.e. not pro-China) keenly support Trump and dearly hope he win. (Those minority who don't are what we call "left plastic" - roughly the equivalent of "woke" people.) We never had so much interest in US presidential elections, so one-sided support to one candidate, so much anxiety in waiting for the results, and so much disappointment and despair now. 

Millions of HKers are thinking of emigration. Imagine if they moved to the US before the election happened - Trump would have won easily. Just look at Florida, where Trump won thanks to the many votes from the Latinos. (So much for a "racist" and "white supremacist" when it is the other one who gained white votes.) They escaped communism and don't want what happened to their country to happen to the US. The same goes for HongKongers. Many of our ancestors (such as my father) came to HK to escape China's communism. We are inherently wary of anything socialist or communist.

HK people are also socially/culturally right wing, not just economically. For instance no one gives a damn about all those LGBT thing, and we are anti-immigration. And at this point you may be laughing at the irony that anti-immigrant people now want other countries to accept them. But in addition to this reason #1, there are more fundamental reasons why this is not a contradiction. I'll explain that next time...

So, if you want to help the Tories (or even UKIP), or the GOP, or stop anything socialist or "woke", you should welcome us.

N reasons HongKongers should think twice before emigrating #1: Transgenderism

It seems like a massive exodus out of Hong Kong is about to happen. Understandably this causes anxiety of people in other countries. You may think it is ironic that people like us who are strongly against immigration, now ask for other countries to allow us in. (Some of us are proper refugees now by the way, not just "seeking a better life".) In a series of articles I hope to explain:

• why Western people should not fear us, indeed why you need us;
• why Hong Kong people should think twice: it is not as rosy as you think, you are just trading one type of tyranny for another.

So, this is the first one!

 

Donald Trump - A New Hope

In 2014, there was the Umbrella Revolution. In 2016, there was the Mong Kok Riot. On both occasions, protestors wanted and tried to get western attention and intervention - hoping it would put more pressure on the Chinese/HK regime. Of course, nothing came our way. There were some lukewarm sympathies, but no one would really want to tear up their relations with Beijing, with all their financial interests. Everyone, even the UK government, claimed that HK's autonomy was still largely intact. (This was of course not helped by the fact that "pan-democrats" said the same. Those left-plastics are just Beijing-sympathizers in disguise.)

Both uprisings failed, people were thrown to jail. Morale was extremely low. There was no way HongKongers can defeat the state machine of China without some foreign power intervening, and there was no reason to believe western countries would want to change their relationships with China. All theories on how HK's separation/independence could work relied on the scenario of 支爆 (China economic implosion), and although it was much speculated, it never really seemed like it would happen. In fact the western countries would probably be the first to offer help if China's economy does implode. There was no hope.

Until Trump.

The President may have no idea about this, but he is admired by many pro-independence / localist / "right-wing" HongKongers, who all hate China and want China to go bust. And he is the one who dramatically turned the political wind of the whole world against China. This is unthinkable just two years ago.

Over the last two years, with his many accomplishments, "mainstream" commentators in HK (and China) have gradually realised that their prejudice against him (like those in the West) were wrong and he is doing something really seismic and has to be taken seriously. And for the first time, China's implosion might, just might, be possible.

This blog is called "Save Hong Kong from China". Honestly, I never thought it was possible. It is more about documenting its slow death. But in Trump, we saw a new hope. If anyone can save Hong Kong from China, it is Trump.

多謝燒山

本網也要多謝燒山，自Trump當選後，本網的流量大半都是來自燒山的條目！

左膠理論，世界通用

原來把「中共最開心」與「不要惹怒共產黨」交替使用的，不只是香港左膠的專利。

Hong Kong left-plastics often simultaneously use two contradictory arguments: "Don't-make-commies-happy" and "Don't-make-commies-angry". See the links for more details (in Chinese... one day I will write the English version...)

As it happens, those in the West are the same. Before Trump was elected, everyone accuses him of being friendly with Russia and China, and those countries will be most pleased to see a Trump win, and therefore it is wrong to vote for Trump. Now that Trump has called the Taiwanese president to anger China, the very same bunch of people come out to criticize him of provoking China.

(And of all the reasons not to support Trump, this one is the most ridiculous. Yes, he has said Putin-friendly things, but who are you, of all people, to accuse him of this? All the Russia aggression in Crimea, Syria, etc, happened under Obama, Clinton etc. What have you done about it, other than sounding fierce? Sanctions? Please. It is the western world's weakness that encouraged the Putin aggression.)

As another example of their double standards, when they lost the Brexit vote, they said it shouldn't count because even though the yes vote won 52:48, the turnout was only 70% or so, so the yes supporters were only 35% of the country and so "the majority did not vote for Brexit". And when they lose the US elections they then say that "we won the majority vote" (when the turnout was only around 50%).

再說古德明

(1) 古德明，熱血公民的大計
http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/art/20160623/19665223

二零一零年，民主派也曾發起「五區公投」，也曾挾公投民意，呼籲「實行真普選，取消功能組別」，奈何中共充耳不聞。現在，黃毓民這邊廂痛詆民主派，那邊廂卻要師民主派故智，是一奇； ...

之前我還說古德明「對本土派的批評已不算猛烈」...唉。古德明嫉本土如仇，那也罷了，但也講點道理好不好？五區公投明明是黃毓民先發起，司徒華後來拒絕支持，最後只得公民黨參與，現在居然說成是「師民主派故智」？？

(2) 古德明經常在專欄攻擊陳雲、熱血等，說他們是共產黨派來，這個容易理解。不過他向來欣賞的公民黨，最近張德江「訪」港時，梁家傑等流晒口水醜態盡現，不知他又有何意見，怎麼好像不見其為文評論？