February 20, 2004

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Beijing's continuing project to bring Hong Kong to heel is actually a masterpiece of CCP (Chinese Communist Party) control. They've trundled out a mix of academics and politicians to firmly tell Hong Kong not to get ideas above it's station. Local HK worthies join in. Sure in a democracy calling votes "dogs" doesn't help your cause, but in China it doesn't matter. Then you get everyone whipped up into a frenzy over a furphy, for example patriotism and its meaning. Everyone is so busy defending themselves and arguing about meaningless symbols that they forget the important issues that started the whole thing in the first place. So instead of continued debate about democracy and the meaning of the Basic Law, you've got a bunch of HK toadies jumping over one another trying to crawl as far as possible up the CCP's posterior, while the so-called democratic camp are busy trying to work out what they are actually on about.

Luckily the SCMP provides an insight for what HK politicos can look forward to.

Yang Fuwang is happy with his life as a beggar in Guangzhou, but the vocation that has given him a lucrative income is now under threat from plans to introduce a begging-free zone...Thanks to the generosity of residents in the city, Mr Yang makes 30 to 40 yuan a day, a significant improvement on the 300 yuan a year he used to make as a peasant. He has to go to the bank virtually every week to deposit the 50 to 100 yuan that he does not spend. [note US$1 = 8.3 yuan]

However, as with other major cities on the mainland, the good times for beggars may be coming to an end. This week, the city government announced that Guangzhou would follow Beijing, Shanghai, Fuzhou and Jiangsu in setting up no-begging zones.

In other cities, such zones include tourist spots, subway stations, railway stations and busy commercial areas...

Damn, looks like they may have missed that opportunity too.

posted by Simon on 02.20.04 at 10:55 AM in the




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