Sanctions for Hong Kong government officials, and merriment for regular Hong Kongers!

Rogue and revolutionary? ;b

After I finished writing up yesterday's blog post, I proceeded to check my messages and saw that I had been sent photos of bottles of champagne and celebratory emojis galore by friends.  A quick scroll through the news got me realizing why this was the case: namely, the American government's having slapped sanctions on super unpopular Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and eleven other government officials in response to the crackdown on free speech and political freedoms in the city!

For the record: the twelve people concerned are Carrie Lam, Police Commissioner Chris Tang, his predecessor Stephen Lo, Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng, Security Secretary John Lee, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office director Xia Baolong, his deputy Zhang Xiaoming, Liaison Office chief Luo Huining, director of the new Office For Safeguarding National Security Zheng Yanxiong, the secretary general of the Committee For Safeguarding National Security and Chief Executive's Office head Eric Chan, and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang.  And should anyone be unclear as to why the American government has decided to impose sanctions on them, their crimes are detailed in a U.S. Department of the Treasury press release for all to see!

  

The call to impose sanctions on Carrie Lam and co have been made by a number of people for some time now.  But I think it's not something many folks actually believed would really happen.  And the fact that it has happened is a major indictment of how low the Hong Kong and those that rule over it has fallen in the eyes of the international community -- and yes, I'm expecting other governments (notably the British) to do the same thing now that the Americans have gotten the ball rolling.    

 

If truth be told, I'm not quite sure what practical effect this action can and will achieve -- beyond the escalation of laam chau (something which the authorities have long publicly said they don't want, yet seem to contribute so much to fuelling the flames).  At the same time though, I totally get where Hong Kong Hermit is coming from when he Tweeted last night that, at the very least, there's the satisfaction at seeing that "some absolutely wretched people are put onto an international naughty list, and it's top banter"!

Among other things, there's been much merriment had from seeing so many normally pretty private information about the sanctioned individuals (including home addresses, passport and identity card numbers!) put out in the open by the American government.  The reactions of former Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and perenial aspirant Regina Ip to not being on the list have also caused much laughter along with those who have the dubious honor of being on the list.  And, as more than one wag has noted, the strong official government reactions to the imposition of the sanctions show that those who claim to scoff at it have, in fact, been pretty hurt by it.

Also, remember Carrie Lam stating that China's national security legislation for Hong Kong would "target only an extremely small minority"?  While I continue to doubt that she really thought that would be the case, I do get the feeling that she really didn't think -- or believe -- that she'd end up being targeted by the other side for her part in letting that piece of legislation be imposed on Hong Kong!   

A couple of Wuhan coronavirus-related notes before I end today's blog post: Firstly, Hong Kong reported 69 new cases today -- and while that number brought the total tally past the 4,000 mark, it's worth noting that today's figure is the lowest for the territory since July 21st (when 61 cases were reported).  And secondly, local medical experts were asked about the government’s announced plan to offer universal voluntary coronavirus tests and they expectedly turned out to be not too enthused about the idea.

The venerable Dr Yuen Kwok-yung was quoted as saying that if people are allowed to collect specimen at home themselves, they may hurt themselves and not get anything useful.  Another medical expert, Dr David Hui, pinpointed nose swabs as being difficult for people to perform themselves (as this testing scheme would have them do).  And a third medico, Dr Wong Lei-po, cited overseas example of children biting off and swallowing parts of the swab sticks when the tests were performed at home!  Talk about more good reasons to discourage people from carrying out these tests and participating in yet another not particularly well-thought-out government's scheme!