Change in the air -- in Hong Kong as well as the U.S.A.?

Visible change in the air!

 

 A (short) break in continuity, at the very least?!

 

A friend told me at lunch yesterday to expect something big to happen in the next 48 hours.  When I asked her why, she pointed to the changing of the American president being due to take place at 12 noon on January 20th over in the East Coast of the United States of America (which is 1 am on January 21st over here in Hong Kong), and the Communist Chinese regime's tendency to do something dramatic and negative on days that they feel that much of the world will be distracted (e.g., Christmas Day).

 

Just two weeks ago, on January 6th, we got proof of that in Hong Kong when the territory saw the largest wave of security law arrests to date on the day of the Georgia senate runoff elections (remember that the USA's eastern seaboard is 13 hours behind Hong Kong), with what happened at the Capitol the next day presenting a bonus to the Communist Chinese with which they used to smear Hong Kong protestors along with gloat at happenings in the USA (salient facts be damned).  So, unlike many of my American Democrat friends who have already been flooding my Facebook feed with their expressions of elation, I still am not in a mood to outright celebrate -- or even breath several sights of relief -- just yet.

At the same time, I can't help hoping that change is truly in the air, and that it will be for the better.  On a nature note: I noticed some really unusual cloud activity in the skies over Hong Kong (specifically, Cheung Chau, which I went over to for the first time in over a year today) this afternoon which would seem to indicate that, at the very least, tomorrow's weather will be quite a bit different from today's.  

 

And on a Wuhan coronavirus note: there's a possibility that Hong Kong might be transitioning from its fourth wave to a fifth one!  In any case, it is hoped that we saw our last triple digit figure with regards to daily new cases this past Monday as we've returned to double digit figures (56 yesterday and 77 today); and the travel ban in effect against the United Kingdom and South Africa being extended to Ireland and Brazil.     

As far as politically related happenings are concerned, the big news in the Big Lychee today was the reversing of the decision by British Queen's Counsel David Perry to come over to head the prosecution of the 15 pro-democracy figures whose arrests back on April 18th of last year shocked Hong Kong.  Presumably, the pressure and criticism of his decision by many of his peers back home and British foreign secretary Dominic Raab got the QC to see the light: namely, that his planned participation in the political persecution of respected pro-democracy campaigners provided the Chinese and Hong Kong governments with quite the propaganda coup by way of bestowing a "veneer of respectability to a system which deserves no respect’.  

 

And while it does appear that it was David Perry who made the decision to pull out of the case rather than the Hong Kong government, it's been interesting to see the Hong Kong government actually reverse some of its decisions in recent days.  To be sure, they do not concern major subjects.  (We're talking, after all, about such as the holding of Chinese New Year flower markets and the preservation of an underground reservoir with aesthetic and heritage value.)  But it still is interesting to see that the Hong Kong government can bow to public pressure -- and not after months of damaging delay (as was the case with a certain extradition bill back in 2019)!