Blood & Treasure

in the time of the Kippers

I'll be blogging properly again soon, maybe, but in the meanwhile enjoy this:

In the run-up to the London Olympics, which cost the taxpayer $40 billion he doesn’t have and, in the curious metric of government accounting, was accordingly dubbed a “success,” Mr. Shrimpton, who has peculiar friends in highish places, got wind of a plot to sail a redundant German submarine carrying a second-hand nuclear weapon up one of the rivers in the southeast of England and then to detonate it during the opening ceremony.

the protest market

Here's Western virtual politics:

The protesters were very on-message for Fusion’s event, a gathering of young activists from around the world under the “Rise Up” brand the cable channel — a joint-venture between Disney-owned ABC and Spanish-language broadcaster Univision — has been attaching to its coverage of protest movements around the world. They raised signs saying “Millennials think you’re a war hawk” — a nod to Fusion’s self-declared target demographic — while one yelled “we’re here to rise up.”

Samantha Power, welcome to the world you made. And who will Russell's Brand be sponsored by?

so, so wrong

I take it you've all heard the latest example of China's vibrant popular culture, which is the most inane novelty record you ever heard by someone deep into methamphetamines. Anyway, give it a listen. You'll stop crying eventually.

It's by established Mandopop star Wang Rong, who seems have become 'Wang Rong Rollin' in Western accounts. My guess here is that she decided to give herself the English name Rollin Wang and that the whole name got transliterated in the Chinese style, with surname first and given name last. So Rollin Wang Rong became Wang Rong Rollin. Some background on her here.

Of course the first thing that occurs to you is that this ditty hardly conforms to Comrade Xi's instructions to cultural and art workers. She does something to human souls in that song, but I don't think it qualifies as engineering.

But last year she did a patriotic novelty anthem about the eternal justice of China's claim to the Daioyu/Senkaku islands, so I think she's covered. Feel your heart swell as you listen to it over here. Maybe China and Japan could sort this whole East China Sea thing with a Kawaii-off.

 

big fat fly

Section chief is the lowest position of authority in the Chinese official system; the lance-corporals of Chinese communism. Which adds mystery to the current corruption scandal wowing China:

Even with seemingly intense competition, though, one lowly official appears to be in a class of his own. If state news reports are to be believed, investigators found 120 million renminbi, or $19.6 million, in cash in his home. As well as 37 kilograms, or 81.6 pounds, of gold. And ownership documents for 68 homes.

 Thus did Ma Chaoqun furnish his modest abode in Hebei province, apparently with the illicit takings available to a very junior manager in the Urban Management bureau of the city of Qinhuangdao. There is much speculation about how he managed to make that sort of money, with some of it focusing on Ma's role in supplying water to the top leaders resort compound at Beidaihe.

It seems to me that the obvious answer here is that Ma is in fact a professional criminal who operated under cover of a no-show job with the local authority, in the manner of Henry Hill of Wiseguy fame. So the official  corruption nexis here maybe concerns how he managed to wangle that.

on the Hong Kong selectorate

Beijing probably hoped that post 1997 would produce a local version of Lee Kwan-yew, a pro-business authoritarian capable of forging a genuinely strong corporate identity for the city. In the current protest environment it could use a Nixon manqué, working to forge a populist conservative backlash against the demonstrators. What it has in CY Leung and friends is a sort of Cantonese Yanukovych-lite, too greedy and stupid to keep the show on the road.

Me over at New Left Project; just in case your appetite for Umbrella movement related chin stroking is not yet sated.

Taizong's hell

I was going to do some work this afternoon, but instead I find myself fixated on this wonderful collection of annotated Chinese hell scrolls instead. I will no doubt be boiled in my own vomit for this malfeasance. But what can a chap do?

via Brendan O'Kane on twitter.

Perlstein in Hong Kong

Roland Soong of ESWN is back after a long hiatus, with a long, immersive stats & sociology rich post on the overall impact of the Occupy movement in Hong Kong. Here we see that the outreach element isn't going so well:

Why did the Occupy movement work in Central, Admiralty, Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui and Mongkok but not in the outlying local communities?  Central, Admiralty, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui are commerce/business districts without many local residents.  When a large number of demonstrators are mobilized by organized effort or spontaneously from all over Hong Kong to converge there, there is little or no local resistance.  The issue is whether the demonstrators can be motivated to stay for a long period of time.  When the numbers dwindle close to naught, the location can be cleared by the police.  Mongkok is a mixed district with many businesses and private residences.  The Occupy movement worked there by gathering sufficient numbers of demonstrators (if not during the day, then at night) to ward off the unorganized local resistance.  In like manner, they can also "occupy" Repulse Bay, Victoria Peak, Stanley and other sparsely inhabited locations.  But the outlying communities (such as Yuen Long, Shum Shui Po, Chai Wan and Lam Tin) are densely populated low- and middle-income areas.  Sending less than half a dozen activists to set up a table to pass out leaflets for school boycott is like sending the Christians out to feed the lions.
 
So how does the Occupy Central movement spread its message in the outlying local communities?  Well, they can start by not talking about highfalutin ideas such as civil disobedience, court injunctions, chief executive nomination committee or Basic Law amendments.  That housewife on the Lam Tin pedestrian overpass is most concerned about business turning bad, her work hours being cut back and hence reducing her income which is needed to buy food to feed the family.  How do they allay the fears, concerns and practical hardship of this woman?  If they can't deal with that in an effective manner, they will be routed each time within minutes that they go out there.

As mentioned in previous posts, lots of potential here for Nixonian backlash politics, which, interestingly enough, the Hong Kong government has so far failed to mobilise. This says something about the current impasse. The Occupiers share the Hong Kong pan-democrats historic failure to explain what it is they wish to be democratic about, ie to tell working class Hong Kong why a meaningful vote might give it more economic security. The tycoonocracy, meanwhile, seems reluctant to use the political technology it has in the form of the DAB to forge a populist consensus around the status quo, perhaps because that would give working class Hong Kong a bit too much power for its taste.