The sun's setting quickly on RTHK, and Hong Kong's press freedoms in general

  

Sunset in Hong Kong

 

Even if nothing else, it's quite the dramatic sight

 

There's a Hong Kong blog I've been reading for some years now called Big Lychee, Various Sectors.  Early on, I reckoned the blogger behind it was being overly cynical in subtitling it: "Watching the sun set, little by little, on Asia's greatest city – with a dash of Hemlock".  But these days, the "watching the sun set... on Asia's greatest city" rings way too true and one wonders how soon it will be before Hong Kong ceases to be a place that that blogger and I hold in high regard.  

 

The latest blow to Hong Kong comes by way of the government's trumpeting yesterday that Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is going to be "reformed".  To be sure, the public broadcaster has been under siege for some time now.  This should be apparent from the treatment meted out to RTHK reporter Nabela Qoser and program producer Bao Choy alone.  But things really hit home yesterday with the announcement of the replacement of its head, veteran journalist Leung Ka-wing, with career bureaucrat Patrick Li Pak-chuen. 

 

It seems that even his shouldering responsibility for scrapping RTHK's relay of the BBC World Service and pull a weekly Chinese-language BBC programme was not enough to save Leung's head from going on the chopping block six months before his present contract was due to expire.  (RTHK pulling the plug on its BBC broadcasts following China banning the British public broadcaster's broadcasts in Mainland China on the eve of Chinese New Year was seen as shocking and worrying since Hong Kong supposedly has a high degree of autonomy if one were to believe that "One country, two systems" is still in place.)  

 

And for those who wonder how long more RTHK can retain the editorial independence that its charter officially guarantees: it's very much worth noting that, as far as Programme Staff Union is concerned, that already may have been lost yesterday.  

I know Hong Kongers upset by HSBC and Cathay Pacific kowtowing to the authorities by doing such as freezing the bank accounts of pro-democracy organizations and individuals (HSBC) and sacking "yellow" staff (Cathay Pacific). And it hurt me so much that the MTR began collaborating with the police (in prematurely stopping service to key stations before -- not just after -- approved protest marches, ferrying riot police from station to station, closing stations to let riot police rest inside them, and allowing riot police to attack people inside the stations, etc.).

I also have been upset by seeing supposedly neutral press increasingly toeing the government line along with the attacks on openly pro-democracy media (the latter physically during protests but in other ways as well in the past year or so). And what is happening to RTHK is especially horrific because it is both of them combined: the destruction of a respected, even beloved, Hong Kong institution; and the further emasculation of Hong Kong's press freedoms.

 

For the record (and quoting from the Reuters piece re RTHK):-

The only independent, publicly funded media outlet on Chinese soil, Radio Television Hong Kong was founded in 1928 and is sometimes compared to the British Broadcasting Corporation. Its charter guarantees it editorial independence.

It angered Hong Kong’s government, the police, and Beijing with its coverage of 2019 anti-government protests that shook the Asian financial hub, including several investigations that sparked widespread criticism of authorities...

Something else also worth noting: "Hong Kong’s ranking fell to 80 in the global press freedom index of Reporters Without Borders in 2020, from 18 in 2002 (just one position below the USA). China ranks 177th."  So yes, it has far to fall before it gets to the level of (Mainland) China.  But, truth be told, it's already fallen far further from grace than many of us are comfortable with.