hong kong, 10 years after

June 1st marked the 10-year anniversary of the transference of Hong Kong's sovereignty from Great Britain to the People's Republic of China. In the 1990s, Hong Kong residents and the international community alike imagined that the 1997 handover to communist-led China would mark the end of Hong Kong's civil liberties, rule of law, and robust, open economy. In principle, Hong Kong was to become a Special Autonomous Region, but if the realities of autonomy in Hong Kong were to be anything like the Tibetan experience, Hong Kong, "Asia's World City," was doomed to devolve into a puppet of the Beijing government. Or so the world thought.

In fact, the mainland government has done a fairly commendable job of maintaining Hong Kong's outstanding institutions and economic independence. For the most part, Beijing has shied away from meddling in Hong Kong's judicial processes and has not bothered the openly critical Hong Kong press. The mainland government has not interfered in Hong Kong's economic policies either. And, in spite of financial setbacks stemming from the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, the American dotcom bust in 2000, and the SARS outbreak of 2003, Hong Kong's real GDP grew at a brisk 6.9% in 2006 while maintaining impressively low inflation. And although Shanghai's rapid growth since the early 90s may eventually allow mainland China to compete with Hong Kong as the business and financial capital of Asia, for the time being, Hong Kong is still Asia's number one city.

Except for one small problem. Hong Kongers can't vote for their government. Even though Beijing promised representative democracy to Hong Kong residents on numerous occasions, the PRC has taken drastic and generally shady measures to ensure that pro-Beijing politicians make up the majority of Hong Kong's government. Indeed, Hong Kong citizens only elect half of the tiny Legislative Council that runs the territory and have no say in the selection of the Chief Executive (basically the governor of the territory) who is essentially hand-picked by Beijing.

As such, thousands of Hong Kongers filled the streets yesterday to speak with their feet. According to The Guardian, at least 6,000 people "marched through the city centre chanting, 'One man, one vote', and carrying banners proclaiming, 'Democracy is not a gift from Beijing'." Indeed, "polls suggest the vast majority of Hong Kong people would like full democracy immediately." But of course, Beijing is afraid of democracy anywhere under its flag, especially since Hong Kong will fully merge with the PRC in 2047. Democracy in Hong Kong will either compel the mainland towards political reformation, or force Beijing to reconsider its future relationship with Hong Kong. Hu Jintao's government has never seemed too keen on the idea of democratization or political reform. Yet The Economist notes that, "in recent months [Hu] has tolerated an unusually open debate about the country's political options". In reality, this is nothing more than showmanship meant to coincide with both the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the Hong Kong handover and the ongoing build-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Hong Kong is one of the world's most intriguing, most cosmopolitan cities, and it is a terrible shame that the Beijing government denies its people democracy. Whether full democracy will ever materialize for Hong Kong remains uncertain. In Wong Kar Wai's 2004 film 2046 (the last year of Hong Kong's autonomy), a train departs for the year 2046 where "nothing ever changes" but "nobody really knows if that's true because nobody's ever come back." Time will tell whether Wong is right.

lenovo > apple

Greenpeace's newly released Guide to Greener Electronics names the Chinese company Lenovo as the greenest electronics company, with Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Dell coming up behind. Apple ranks at dead last on the scale.

Is the scale accurate? Call me skeptical, but as Slob's resident Sinologist, I'm going to go out on a limb and bet that Lenovo's environmental practices probably aren't as good as they claim. Inhabitat agrees with me, and goes further in its criticism of the Guide:

"There is something suspect in Greenpeace’s latest installment of the Green Electronics Guide, as the guide rates electronics brands on their web-based chemical policy reports, rather than on [their] environmental impact...Lenovo, the China-based PC maker that bought IBM’s PC business, jumped from last place in August to first place in the most recent report...The company’s actual environmental impact record could not have made such stratospheric change in that time frame. Lenovo is being rewarded for directly responding to Greenpeace’s campaign. Meanwhile, Apple is singled out for not responding to Greenpeace’s demands, ranking last on the list....The problem with Greenpeace’s campaign is the focus on toxicity and recycling while excluding one of the major contributors to climate change – energy expended during manufacturing and use."

Indeed, Greenpeace's Green My Apple campaign has been running for some time, and it points out that Apple's products are chock full of many non-biodegradable substances that competing electronic manufacturers have abandoned. At the same time, Apple's notebooks outrank Lenovo's according to the EPA's EPEAT ranking, which is far more thorough than Greenpeace's "standards." What's the moral of the story? Greenpeace's Electronics Guide is another one of their typical, attention-grabbing campaigns--high-style, low substance. Anyone else remember them crashing their boat into a reef that they were supposed to protect in 2005?

via Inhabitat + Greenpeace

oriental virgin

Take a look at this logo photographed by John at Sinosplice from the side of a Shanghai construction site:


Oriental Virgin. Brilliant. I won't even make the jokes. John points out that this sign, aside from being hilarious, is an obvious knock-off of the Sony Ericsson logo. Clever marketing, Chinese company.


Writes John:

Apparently the recipe for their English name and logo went something like this:

1. Take a successful foreign company’s name and add “Oriental” to the front. Base the Chinese name on the English name.
2. Copy the logo of a different company, altering it a bit.

Everyone knows Chinese companies never steal the ideas of others or anything dastardly like that. This must be the rare exception to the rule.