Went along today to experience my first pro-independence protest in Barcelona, which was being held to coincide with the meeting take place between French president Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez in the city.
As I opined in yesterday’s blog entry, a slightly daft and rather unnecessary move to hold it here – giving the pro-independence movement the perfect platform to make their voice heard.
I turned up about fifteen minutes before the protest was set to start, and was a bit disappointed by the turnout – perhaps the cold had kept the less hardened independentistas away.
But then, after a quick coffee and a delayed breakfast, I returned to the streets to see that the numbers had really built – clearly indicating that the campaign for secession is still very much a going concern.
Only damage that I saw from the protests was a smashed traffic light, though some media report that there were a few scuffles with police after the peaceful protestors had dispersed.
That’s the only observations I have time for today.
I will pontificate about the future of the independence movement in a subsequent blog entry, but I have too many other things going on for now.
Just to say that the turnout, from what I saw, was decent.
When we first arrived in Hong Kong, a little more than seven years ago, we heard of someone known by a certain fraction of society as “689”.
This person was eminently corrupt, something of a buffoon and of course a Beijing loyalist.
His real name was Leung Chun-Ying (or CY Leung) and at the time he was chief executive of a vibrant, exciting and dynamic Hong Kong.
His somewhat derogatory nickname comes from the number of votes that brought him to power: just 689, in a country of more than seven million.
At the time, the label was ‘689’ was a lighthearted way that freedom-loving Hong Kongers would vent their frustration at the Beijing-leaning establishment and the fact that this new Chinese upstart, Xi Jinping, had put paid to any notion that Hong Kong was really in control of its future.
This was in 2015 and China had reneged on an earlier promise that Hong Kong might be able to reform its electoral system to be more representative.
People aren’t joking any more, though. Things are now serious.
Now we have a new securities law, which forbids any direct criticism of how things are being run in the territory, or of China’s involvement.
Now we have a new lady in charge, Carrie Lam, who professes to have humble roots and yet who seems to go out of her way to run contrary to Hong Kong’s interests.
Now we have a country facing a collapse of the national health system that could so easily have been avoided. “Bodies piling up in hospitals” is the kind of headline that shifts newspapers – but it is also the truth.
I have never seen such a total and complete crushing of a state happen in so short a timespan, and Hong Kongers should unequivocally hold Carrie Lam responsible. She comes primed with a noxious cocktail of incompetence, sycophancy and spinelessness. That is probably why she was awarded the top spot.
The latest Covid-19 fiasco is like nothing I have ever seen, and points to a worrying future for what is one of Asia’s most important financial hubs.
It shows a lack of leadership and a tendency for the elite not to listen to anyone else. This is a page torn straight out of the playbook of China’s Communist Party and is likely to spell the end for the Hong Kong that the British gave back to China in 1997.
People are dying in large numbers in Hong Kong. Two years after Covid-19 burst on to the scene, this is deplorable and could easily have been avoided through better preparation. It was inevitable that the zero Covid policy was never going to work in the territory, and that when Covid-19 eventually burst through the defenses it would be impossible to control.
Instead of ramping up the vaccine rate, and educating citizens (especially the elderly) about the importance of getting vaccinated, they spent large amounts of money in shutting Hong Kong off from the rest of the world.
The result is that vast numbers of elderly are now succumbing to the disease, and it is too late to redress this.
And now more mistakes are being made.
Instead of laying out a plan for easing back on zero Covid, the government is doubling down on the policy and still believing that it will work. Even if the government no longer believe in zero Covid, they should have the decency to explain clearly to the citizens about what the way forwards will look like.
We’re now seeing more than 35,000 cases a day – and risking. Researchers at Hong Kong University predicted this a month ago, but I saw no signs that the ruling elite heeded such warnings. The communication strategy is a shambles.
And now we are facing compulsory testing: a sure-fire way to catch the virus if everyone is gathered in the same place.
Not only that, but the day of testing is determined by your Hong Kong identity number, and not by who you live with, and so me, my wife and son could all be tested on different days. This is nuts.
As if to make matters worse, compulsory testing will not work without a proper and strict lockdown. Everyone knows that – but does the government?
Carrie Lam has repeatedly ruled out a lockdown. Then, a couple of days ago, news started appearing that a lockdown would be put in place (according to ‘sources’).
Of course it has to, if the testing has any chance whatsoever of being effective.
But the government really needs to communicate this better.
I have never seen such an effective crushing of a state, as I said, and Covid-19 is playing into this. Hong Kong is becoming a laughing stock.
This might not matter to Xi. He has other designs on the territory, including shifting the centre of power to Shenzhen.
But it should matter to the Hong Kong people. And Carrie Lam is the one that they should blame.
I’m having a coffee in a bar on the Champs Elysees, one of the most prestigious areas of Paris, just watching the world go by and trying to focus on an article I’m supposed to be editing.
Outside, there is an old gypsy-like woman, resting heavily on a walking stick and asking for money. She’s either a bloody good actor or really is destitute. I’ve been watching her for half an hour.
The most tragic thing is that I have so far not seen one person give her so much as a few cents. I’m mentally willing someone, anyone, to give her something.
I’ve been in Paris a couple of days, interviewing people about pensions, which is a fairly topical subject these days.
The country has been paralysed by strikes for the past week. A few days ago, I had the good fortune to meet a friend of mine from my Brussels days, who I hadn’t seen in ages. I was extremely fortunate, because my scheduled arrival was supposed to be two hous after her flight left. But, because air traffic control was woefully understaffed, her plane wasn’t allowed to leave. So one lady’s frustration was another man’s gain.
But, all over, I am seeing how seriously these strikes have affected the functioning of France. Fortunately, the two things I care about whilst in France – the TGV and the metro are both operating more-or-less satisfactorily. I did suffer one affect from the strikes, however, and that was the cancellation of a key meeting on Thursday. He had to leave work early, apparently, to catch his flight and therefore couldn’t meet me.
What I have been having some trouble understanding is why, when just about all countries of Europe (even the prolific Greeks, thanks to the stealy hand of Brussels), are having to swallow the bitter pill of austerity, no one is making quite the same fuss as the cambert-munching, frog leg-crunching Gaullists.
In an article a week or so ago, the Economist rather pooh-poohed the French protests, saying that the zing had rather gone out of French industrial action in recent years. I beg to differ. They have effectively paralysed the country. The fact that the new legislation is going through anyway says more about the bloody-mindedness of Nicholas Sarkozy and the obvious need for fairly swift action, than it does about the spinelessness of the French people. The unionists still have the clout.
One pension fund manager that I met explained to me, in some length, why the French feel the need to shout so loudly about the proposed changes; to many, raising the retirement age by a mere two years seems a rather trifling thing to get upset about. The unions fought hard for better pension rights 40 years ago, and they feel that any attempt to pare them back is a direct affront to their influence within the country.
I asked whether the reform would affect this particular pension fund.
“It’s a good thing,” I was told. “We’ll match the state pension. So, not only will we have longer to manager our investments, but the liabilities will be less.”
“So that’s why you’re not out there protesting,” I quipped, and we shared a good Anglo-French laugh.
Blake Evans-Pritchard's Weblog 