September 04, 2019

(My quarterly Newsletter goes out to some 8,000 professional contacts worldwide. The following is my September 2019 issue. Back numbers may be accessed under What's New on this website)

Greetings!

Hong Kong has had a long and fiery summer. Reminiscent of the "butterfly effect", triggered by a Taiwan murder case, an extradition bill intended to prevent Hong Kong from becoming a haven for criminal fugitives has led to socio-political conflagration. The bill's extension to cover extradition to Mainland China ignited a powder keg of pent-up frustrations. These include upward hopelessness of the younger generation, anger with One Country Two Systems increasingly tilting towards One Country, and the government's perceived haughty nonchalance. While the vast majority of protesters are peaceful, diehard militants, seemingly aided and abetted by behind-the-scene politicians and other backers, are holding the city's law and order to ransom.

Preceded by peaceful protests, the same real-time dramas of violent police-confrontation by black-clad, gas-masked militants unfold before a tired and worried city every weekend for nearly three months. Caches of high-explosives were uncovered. Petrol bombs, handy catapults and sharp metal objects are deployed. The police responds with tear gas, beanbag rounds, and arrests. Hong Kong's parliament chamber was ransacked. The national emblem of Beijing's representative office was defaced. A hoisted national flag was thrown into the harbour. Police stations and staff quarters were attacked, their spouses and kids targeted for harassment. Hong Kong's international airport was obstructed to a halt. Slogans of "Liberate Hong Kong" and "Revolution of Our Times" appear in banners or sprayed on buildings. Ten Hong Kong people were recently caught displaying these banners in Tibet. A sense of anarchy prevails.

Meanwhile, protesters remain insistent on their "Five Demands": formal "withdrawal" of the recently abandoned and declared "dead" extradition bill, setting up an independent commission of enquiry to look into alleged police brutality, non-application of the crime of "Riot", freeing all arrested protesters, and universal suffrage unconstrained by Hong Kong's Basic Law. The militants are resorting to "flash mob" tactics in a cat-and-mouse confrontation with the police. Students are encouraged to refuse attending classes by way of a "strike", in tandem with calls for strikes by workers and businesses as part of a "civil disobedience" movement.

Conspiracy rumours abound. References to a "color revolution" and a Hong Kong-styled "Tiananmen Square" are becoming more frequent. The People's Liberation Army in Hong Kong's garrison and across the border are on high alert. One Country Two Systems appears on the brink. This is compounded by repercussions on Taiwan's presidential election dynamics to Beijing's disadvantage, and by President Trump linking the protests to US-China trade talks. Even the G7 has weighed in, cautioning against violence on both sides.

The community becomes deeply divided on views regarding the protests, even amongst friends and members of the same family. The government has been refusing to meet any of the protesters' demands, until today (4th September). In a televised appearance, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that the Bill is formally withdrawn. She expands the scope of the exiting Independent Police Complaints Council to look into broader allegations against the police, appointing two additional eminence grises into the Council and drawing on international experts. She also announces actions to reach out to the community for solutions to deep-seated problems.

Amid the smoke and mirrors, the following may hopefully offer some perspectives.

As with the past two years, I have again accepted an invitation as a Sponsored Speaker at the Amadeus Institute's 2019 MEDays Forum in Tangier, Morocco from 13-16 November. I will be speaking on The New Global Disorder and Zero-sum Wars. I will be uploading my presentations on my website in due course.

Cheer up and chill out

A repertoire of inspirational music, videos, songs and words. There is also a collection in Chinese.

Cross-border M & A propositions

You are welcome to send me propositions on a no-commitment basis initially.

Separately, you are welcome to reach out to my son Terence, a Cambridge-educated Prince Phillip Scholar and UK-qualified lawyer-turned-banker. He has over ten years M & A experience in London with Allen & Overy, Deutsche Bank, and Houlihan Lokey. He has been based in Abu Dhabi working on private equity for the past two years. He has now returned to the financial services sector in London. His personal email address is terencehyleung@gmail.com

Consultation services

Please email me atandrewkpleung@gmail.comor text my Hong Kong mobile +852 98198987. I can also be reached on Skype at andrew.k.p.leung, LinkedIn at andrewleunginternational, Whatsapp at (852) 98198987, WeChat at Andrewkpleung, Facebook at andrewkinpongleung, and Twitter at @Andrewkpleung

Speaking and lecturing invitations

I am open to invitations or proposals for speaking engagements, visiting lectures and tailor-made electives as a visiting/adjunct professor.

Business networking and speaking platform in Hong Kong

As an Advisor to the Denmark-based Executives' Global Network Hong Kong, I welcome your suggestion of a suitable speaker for an EGN event in Hong Kong. This will be entirely at our own cost with acknowledgement of your support, provided that we are not asked to cover any speaking fee, travel or accommodation expenses.

RSS feed and weblinks

My postings are regularly uploaded under my three blogs CHINAwatch, Publications and What is New on www.andrewleunginternationalconsultants.com A collection of leading China media and research sites can be found under China Links.

Please feel free to save my website on your computer, laptop, tablet, Blackberry, iPhone or iPad as a reference resource. If you wish instant access as soon as my postings appear, just click on “Subscribe to this blog’s feed” under RSS Feed on top of the right-hand column of each blog. Select the appropriate Google feed option. It is free of charge.

This newsletter is uploaded to my websitehere.You may save it for reference or reading at leisure and to share it on Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Twitter or other social media devices.

Courtesies

I look forward to your guidance, advice, comments, suggestions, and criticisms. You may share the above contents with colleagues or friends. You are also welcome to publish any of them with full attribution.

If you think that I may add value to your endeavours in any way, please let me know how I may help. If for any reason you do not wish to receive my emails, just ask me to delete your name from my databank permanently.

September 03, 2019

Hong Kong's protests have been raging for three months. At the front end, violence and lawlessness continue to escalate. Hong Kong's legislative council chamber was broken into and vandalized. Petrol bombs, hand catapults, metal rods, corrosive liquids, bricks, even military-grade bows and arrows and army knives are used or found. Barricades are erected to block roads. Police stations are surrounded and vandalized, their staff quarters threatened. Policemen's spouses and children are harassed. The International Airport was grounded to a halt several times. Mass Transit Railways offices and turnstiles are ransacked.

The vast majority of protesters are peaceful but are ambivalent about their militant co-protesters. The protests have many ordinary citizen supporters in different walks of life. All seem to harbour a deep sense of frustration, helplessness and anger against the Hong Kong government and Beijing. Many seem to think that One Country Two Systems has failed to deliver. The One Country is increasingly threatening to swamp the Two Systems. Democracy in the circumstances has no future. Hong Kong needs to be "liberated" with a "Revolution of Our Times", so go the protest slogans.

The protests were first triggered by an extradition bill (following a Taiwan murder case) that seeks to avoid Hong Kong becoming a haven for criminal fugitives from the Mainland and elsewhere. However, this was deemed to remove a critical judicial firewall between Hong Kong and Mainland China. The way the government tried to bulldoze the bill through ignited a wildfire of fear, discontent and social anger. Anti-establishment legislators are having a field day, expecting big wins in coming elections, reversing their fortunes in recent years.

Increasingly, protest violence is directed at symbols of Beijing's authority. The national emblem of Beijing's representative office building was defaced. Hoisted national flags are burned or thrown into the harbour. Recently some Hong Kong students were arrested in Tibet for unfurling pro-Hong Kong independence banners there. A video clip shows someone spraying Chinese words of "Liberation" and "Revolution" on an overhead signboard on a Mainland highway. Download WhatsApp Video 2019-09-02 at 7.58.24 PM

The United States is seen to be upfront in backing these protests. Star activist Joshua Wong met with senior US Consulate officials. Prominent activist Jimmy Lai, founder of influential anti-establishment newspaper The Apple Daily, was given unprecedented audience with US Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He is reported to have openly admitted that his aim is to topple President Xi, and that he is prepared to die for it! Click hereJoshua Wong has also recently said that Chief Executive Carrie Lam's resignation won't change matters, only the downfall of the Communist regime.

American NGO's like the National Endowment for Democracy and other international institutions like the Oslo Freedom Forum seem to have been involved in funding or training leading activists in civil disobedience and other protest tactics.Click hereand here

Unsurprisingly,Beijing has come to the conclusion that these protests are no longer about the now-abandoned and declared "dead" extradition bill. With foreign instigators, the objective seems to bring down the Hong Kong government and provoke Beijing's intervention with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), a trap to ensnarl China and to arrest its rise. References are made to a "color revolution" with hints of "terrorism". Beijing has hardened its line.

Across the border, the PLA is on high alert, its local garrison standing ready. Hong Kong is on the edge of a cliff. A sense of foreboding catastrophe prevails. There are talks about invoking colonial-era draconian Emergency Powers to stamp out the violence.

Fake news and biased reporting abound on both sides. What are the real facts? Quo vadis, Hong Kong? The following may offer some perspectives -

August 28, 2019

(My quarterly Newsletter goes out to some 8,000 professional contacts worldwide. The following is my September 2019 issue. Back numbers may be accessed under What's New on this website)

Greetings!

Hong Kong has had a long and fiery summer. Reminiscent of the "butterfly effect", triggered by a Taiwan murder case, an extradition bill intended to prevent Hong Kong from becoming a haven for criminal fugitives has led to socio-political conflagration. The bill's extension to cover extradition to Mainland China ignited a powder keg of pent-up frustrations. These include upward hopelessness of the younger generation, anger with One Country Two Systems increasingly tilting towards One Country, and the government's perceived haughty nonchalance. While the vast majority of protesters are peaceful, diehard militants, apparently aided and abetted by behind-the-scene politicians and other backers, are holding the city's law and order to ransom.

Preceded by peaceful protests, the same real-time dramas of violent police-confrontation by black-clad, gas-masked militants unfold before a tired and worried city every weekend evening. Caches of high-explosives were uncovered. Petrol bombs, handy catapults and sharp metal objects are deployed. The police responds with tear gas, beanbag rounds, and arrests. Hong Kong's parliament chamber was ransacked. The national emblem of Beijing's representative office was defaced. A hoisted national flag was thrown into the harbour. Police stations and staff quarters were attacked while police relatives and kids are targeted for harassment. Hong Kong's international airport was obstructed to a halt. Slogans of "Liberate Hong Kong" and "Revolution of Our Times" appear in banners or sprayed on buildings. Ten Hong Kong people were recently caught displaying these banners in Tibet. A sense of anarchy and ulterior motives prevails.

Meanwhile, protesters remain insistent on their "Five Demands": formal "withdrawal" of the now officially-abandoned and declared "dead" extradition bill, setting up an independent commission of enquiry to look into alleged police brutality, non-application of the crime of "Riot", freeing all arrested protesters, and universal suffrage unconstrained by Hong Kong's Basic Law. The government has refused to capitulate to these demands.

Conspiracy rumours abound. References to a "color revolution" and a Hong Kong-styled "Tiananmen Square" are becoming more frequent. The People's Liberation Army in Hong Kong's garrison and across the border are on high alert. One Country Two Systems appears on the brink of being torn apart.

As I write, the Hong Kong situation remains fluid. This is compounded by uncertain trade and geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States. The G7 has affirmed the validity of the UK-China Joint Declaration on One Country Two Systems, cautioning against violence on both sides.

Amid the smoke and mirrors, the following may hopefully offer some fresh perspective.

A repertoire of inspirational music, videos, songs and words. There is also a collection in Chinese.

Cross-border M & A propositions

You are welcome to send me propositions on a no-commitment basis initially.

Separately, you are welcome to reach out to my son Terence, a Cambridge-educated Prince Phillip Scholar and UK-qualified lawyer-turned-banker. He has over ten years M & A experience in London with Allen & Overy, Deutsche Bank, and Houlihan Lokey. He has been based in Abu Dhabi working on private equity for the past two years. He has now returned to the financial services sector in London. His personal email address is terencehyleung@gmail.com

Consultation services

Please email me atandrewkpleung@gmail.comor text my Hong Kong mobile +852 98198987. I can also be reached on Skype at andrew.k.p.leung, LinkedIn at andrewleunginternational, Whatsapp at (852) 98198987, WeChat at Andrewkpleung, Facebook at andrewkinpongleung, and Twitter at @Andrewkpleung

Speaking and lecturing invitations

I am open to invitations or proposals for speaking engagements, visiting lectures and tailor-made electives as a visiting/adjunct professor.

Business networking and speaking platform in Hong Kong

As an Advisor to the Denmark-based Executives' Global Network Hong Kong, I welcome your suggestion of a suitable speaker for an EGN event in Hong Kong. This will be entirely at our own cost with acknowledgement of your support, provided that we are not asked to cover any speaking fee, travel or accommodation expenses.

RSS feed and weblinks

My postings are regularly uploaded under my three blogs CHINAwatch, Publications and What is New on www.andrewleunginternationalconsultants.com A collection of leading China media and research sites can be found under China Links.

Please feel free to save my website on your computer, laptop, tablet, Blackberry, iPhone or iPad as a reference resource. If you wish instant access as soon as my postings appear, just click on “Subscribe to this blog’s feed” under RSS Feed on top of the right-hand column of each blog. Select the appropriate Google feed option. It is free of charge.

This newsletter is uploaded to my websitehere.You may save it for reference or reading at leisure and to share it on Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Twitter or other social media devices.

Courtesies

I look forward to your guidance, advice, comments, suggestions, and criticisms. You may share the above contents with colleagues or friends. You are also welcome to publish any of them with full attribution.

If you think that I may add value to your endeavours in any way, please let me know how I may help. If for any reason you do not wish to receive my emails, just ask me to delete your name from my databank permanently.