The "pro-democracy" Mee app vanishes after the arrest of five people associated with it but the Yellow Economic Circle remains visible still

  

The last physical branch of the famously "yellow" Chickeeduck 

closed a few days ago but its online store remains

 

This has been another pretty trying week for Hong Kong and those who really f**king love Hong Kong.  On a positive note: there still are many of us around (and, in fact, I'd maintain that we remain the majority in this territory some three and a half years after Hong Kong voters showed this to be so back on November 24th, 2019).  And one way that I've managed to keep my spirits up this week is to spend time with friends who share my pro-democracy opinions.

 

In recent days, I've had meals with friends at "yellow" restaurants as well as eaten out at other ones on my own.  At one of them, where the Mee (AKA "Punish Mee", as it's often joked that pro-democracy folks should go and "punish" "yellow shops" by patronising them) app's logo continues to be displayed, I got to chatting this evening with a couple of its staffers.  And after I paid the bill and was about to head out, they bade me to "take care and be safe out there".

 

If one takes a glass half empty perspective: it's sad that the need is felt to ask people to do that.  If one opts for the glass half full view though: it's nice to know that we -- strangers who nonetheless share a common cause -- are continuing to care for one another, right?

 

In any case, here's the reason why we had the conversation we did and the sentiments we have: In recent days, the Hong Kong police have arrested five individuals: who formerly belonged to the same now defunct political party (Demosisto) as Nathan Law, one of the eight activists now living outside Hong Kong whose heads the Hong Kong government announced at the beginning of this week that they have put a HK$1 million bounty on; all of whom were working on or for the Mee shopping and dining app that's associated with the Yellow Economic Circle and was launched in 2020 by Demosisto.  

Nathan Law's successor as Demosisto chairperson, Ivan Lam, and fellow ex-Demosisto members Li Kai-ching, William Liu and Arnold Chung were arrested for "conspiracy to collusion with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security” and the office of Mee raided, on Wednesday.  As reported by the Voice of America: "The four were suspected of “receiving funds from operating companies, social platforms and mobile applications to support people who have fled overseas and continue to engage in activities that endanger national security."

 

One day later, one more ex-Demosisto member, Calvin Chu, was arrested at Hong Kong International Airport, where he had planned to take a flight to Taiwan, on the same charges.  As relayed in an English language Radio Free Asia piece: "According to a report in the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper, the four stand accused of funding Law's activities via a pro-democracy app call Punish MEE, which was originally designed to give money to businesses that openly supported the 2019 pro-democracy protests, known as the "yellow economic circle."

 

One of the eight Hong Kongers now with a HK$1 million bounty on his head, veteran trade unionist  Christopher Mung Siu-tat has "said there are now concerns that the wanted list has ushered in an intensification of the crackdown, with many more arrests to follow. "Where is the crime in supporting one's own ideas through running a business?" Mung [asked]. "Anyone doing this will now be suppressed, or arrested.  Those warrants weren't just about putting pressure on overseas activists -- they will also lead to more intense daily suppression and arrests in Hong Kong itself," he said."

On the subject of suppression: One day afterwards, the Mee app looked to have disappeared from online platforms and app stores in the city (including Apple's Hong Kong App store and Android's Google Play app store).  And this has inevitable caused people to fear.  More specifically, "The Mee raid came as a shock for many, especially those yellow businesses that paid to be featured on the platform, as speculation emerged online over whether the contact list of companies that collaborated with Mee would be confiscated, too."

The Hong Kong Free Press reports that "[a] retail store owner who gave his name as Bill, said he removed the Mee sticker – used to indicate collaboration with the app – from his shop almost immediately after learning about the arrests. When asked why, Bill paused. “You can say it’s a sort of self-censorship, after all, the [red line] is unclear,” he said, after several moments."

 

This reminds me of a number of store taking down their Lennon Walls the day after China imposed its national security law on Hong Kong (back on June 30th, 2020).  Still, three years and nine days after that national security law came into being, there still are many "yellow shops" that continue to display visible signs of their "yellow"-ness -- even ones in supposedly very "blue" (i.e., pro-Beijing) parts of town and "old school" establishments owned and operated by people who are far in age from the student types that many people outside of the pro-democracy movement and/or Hong Kong predominantly associate with the 2019 protests.

 

And yes, the sight of a Mee app logo on a storefront or within its premises has been a sure sign that the establishment in question is "yellow".  But, in all honesty, it has been just one way to make a shop's "yellow"-ness known.  As Chu Kong-wai, owner of pro-democracy online shopping platform As One told the Hong Kong Free Press: "“The point is to support small business, it’s easy to recognise them, isn’t it? We can still pass on information about high-quality yellow restaurants by word of mouth, or in our neighbourhood, or among friends and colleagues... “Hongkongers are smart, we’ll find a workaround.”