Threats to Hong Kong that I worry about and ones that I don't

Whither "Asia's World City"?

After I wrote my blog post last night, I went on Twitter to check a few accounts before calling it a night.  A Tweet by the Wall Street Journal's Newley Purnell jumped out at me and, in all honesty, not only jolted me wide awake but also unable to sleep soundly for pretty much the whole night.  I'm of course referring to the report that Google, Facebook, Twitter and a whole host of other tech companies are threatening to quit Hong Kong if the authorities move forward with a new privacy law that's "not aligned with global norms and trends".

 

For some time now, I've considered the day when the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter cease to be accessible from Hong Kong to be the day when I will have to leave this place that I have considered home for some time now.  And I've considered each day that the Great Firewall of China has not descended upon Hong Kong to be a blessing even while figuring that the arrival of that day is inevitable.   

 

What I didn't reckon on, however, was that the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter would consider pulling out of Hong Kong.  But the Asia Internet Coalition -- an industry group backed by Google, Facebook and Twitter, among others -- has voiced out its concern that Hong Kong's proposed anti-doxxing legislation would put locally-based staff of tech companies at risk of criminal charges and stated that, the way it sees it, "The only way to avoid these sanctions for technology companies would be to refrain from investing and offering their services in Hong Kong, thereby depriving Hong Kong businesses and consumers, whilst also creating new barriers to trade."  

 

Over on the Big Lychee, Various Sectors blog, Hemlock was moved to state the following and ask a super pertinent question: "Internet companies generally comply with such rules in other jurisdictions – but the laws are proportionate, and these are typically countries with rule of law and accountable governments. Police states, on the other hand, don’t allow Western social media sites in the first place. Which is Hong Kong?"

 

There still are some Hong Kong government officials who will maintain that Hong Kong is not a police state (even while other politicians have pretty much let the cat out of the bag and seem fine with it being so).  In that vein, Carrie Lam has counter asserted that the concerns raised by Facebook, Twitter and Google are unwarranted and would be proved wrong as the new law takes effect -- just as with the security law!

 

But as many of us know, ""Carrie Lam dismissed concerns…" is kinda evergreen" (with multiple examples supplied here of concerns she had dismissed turning out to be entirely justified).  Which is one reason why many people have come to hold the view that "it is meaningless to pay attention to what Carrie Lam is saying. There is nothing to come for. Not even hints at policy direction, since she has no say in those matters."    

 

Similarly, few people are wont to take seriously assertions by the police of bomb plots and the like -- the latest of which have seen six schoolchildren arrested along with three adults.  This is because more than once now (see here and here for examples), the "evidence" presented has been way too flimsy to be believed by other than the super gullible (even while this sadly still does not mean that these people will escape arrest and even imprisonment: for an example of an innocent being found guilty nonetheless by a Hong Kong judge, see the case of Samuel Bickett).   

 

Also, in all honesty, bombs tend to be associated in Hong Kong with pro-Beijing rioters (specifically those that made the summer of 1967 a bomb-strewn one in Hong Kong) rather than pro-democracy Hong Kongers.  This is not least because the "leftist riots" of 1967 resulted in 51 deaths, including 15 by way of bomb attacks; the most tragic of which involved two children -- a brother and sister aged 2 and 8 -- being killed by a bomb planted in a streetside dustbin in traditionally pro-Beijing North Point, and is yet another piece of Hong Kong history that the authorities will not want many people to recall.