Commenting on one more political disturbance which took place late last night/month

The kind of view that makes many of us f**king love Hong Kong

I sincerely hope that those Hong Kongers who have felt obliged

to go into political exile in recent years can return some day to

enjoy views like this, along with the peace they evoke

Soon after I posted yesterday's blog entry, I discovered that more political ructions had taken place in what really had proved to be a pretty tumultous 24 hours for Hong Kong.  For after Carrie Lam announced the postponement of the Legislative Council elections for (at least) a year, the Hong Kong police competed for attention by issuing arrest warrants for six pro-democracy activists currently living in exile. (That state-controlled Mainland Chinese media first broke the news should tell you who's behind the decision to seek the arrest of these individuals accused of breaching the city's new national security law.)

Hong Kongers have focused on 27-year-old disqualified legislative councillor Nathan Law being among the six.  It stands to reason, since he's the best known of the sextet.  (As an aside: I may be a political junkie in the eyes of many but even I had not previously been all that familiar with Wayne Chan -- or, for that matter, the Hong Kong Independence Union party that he was the convenor of -- and Honcques Lau, whose lack of fame can be seen by the RTHK report I've linked to above misspelling his surname).

It's well noting though that others include Simon Cheng -- the former UK consulate worker abducted, detained and tortured by Chinese security forces on a work trip to Shenzhen -- and Samuel Chu, an American citizen of 25 years who currently lives in the US.  With regards to the latter: I wonder how much his being the son of Reverend Chu Yiu-ming (of Occupy Central with Love and Peace fame) is a factor in his being on this "wanted" list.  

As the Hong Kong police's actions have shown, the now more than a month old Chinese security legislation for Hong Kong really is intended to cover everyone, regardless of their citizenship and place of residence.  A lawyer, Michael Vidler, has since come out and asserted though that being on a wanted list created by them -- as opposed to, say, Interpol -- doesn't really mean much unless the person in question is in Hong Kong.  Which is fine if the people concerned never want to return to this part of the world -- but, given their obvious love for it, it surely would be a big torture and sacrifice to feel that they have to permanently stay away from here.   

Understandably then, as Simon Cheng made clear in an interview he gave to RTHK today, these actions are having a "chilling effect" on a lot of ordinary people who have a network or connection to Hong Kong.  And make no mistake: quoting Antony Dapiran, "This is the beginning of a series of moves intended to cut them off from their support base, friends and family in [Hong Kong], with the ultimate aim of isolating them and rendering them impotent (the same playbook China has followed to deal with all of its exiled dissidents)."     
 
At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if these further attempts at repression result in more pushback from the international community (and, already, there's been more in recent weeks than I think the likes of Xi Jinping as well as his Hong Kong underlings anticipated).  Just today, it was announced that Germany -- where, one of the individuals on this new "wanted" list, Ray Wong, resides after being granted asylum there -- has finally joined the ranks of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and others in suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong. (For the record: these countries do not have extradition treaties with China; yet another reminder of how different Hong Kong used to be from Mainland China as well as how it's becoming/become no different in the eyes of much of the world.)

While we're on the subject of activists in the Hong Kong police's bad books: Teen activist Tony Chung, whose late night arrest on Thursday -- along with three similarly youthful others -- turned out to be just one of a number of shocking "developments" this week, has been released on bail -- and ordered to remove certain social media posts within 72 hrs following his security law arrest earlier this week. The problem is that he and others had consistently stated that the new pro-independence account in question was started by overseas Hong Kongers. So, as journalist-law student Elson Tong chillingly pointed out in a Tweet: "By making it a bail condition that Chung "remove" the post, Beijing effectively demands overseas activists... cease action using friends in HK as hostages."

As we approach the end of the first day of this new month of August, the agitators have appeared to pause for a bit.  Maybe they've decided they've done enough this week and thus have earned a weekend's rest.  In any case, it's allowed the rest of us to catch our breaths and at least one good summary to appear as a reminder of how much Hong Kong has been transformed (read: shackled) in just one month. 

In the "thank goodness for small mercies" department: The Typhoon Warning Signal Number 3 which was raised last night has now been lowered .  So yes, Hong Kong still has been spared by typhoons thus far this year.  And on the Wuhan coronavirus front: the daily case numbers appear to be holding steady rather than exponentially increasing -- with 125 new cases reported today (more than ideal but not a record!); though, sadly, there have been another three, maybe four, deaths too.  (Update: the death toll is now up to 33; which means there were a record five deaths on the first day of this new month. :( )