12 posts tagged “beijing”

Surprisingly, I have never pasted this video on my blog before. About time that was redressed.

   The YouTube comments include one that reads, ‘Balls of steel’.

I entered Hong Kong as many of us old colonials would: with a British passport (air hair lair, what) and a falling-apart Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card (PIC).
   I did have a few problems with the latter, because it was issued in 1995, and it did not have much of the information that the new ones now contain, like your thumbprint, a photograph without a Melrose Place hairstyle and samples of my DNA contained in hermetically sealed vials of sweat, or whatever these newfangled things they have nowadays on identity cards.
   (In fact, I had problems with my British passport, notably at Waterloo Station where the passport controller insisted I was not British and had to queue up with foreigners. It was ironic that she was black and was herself practising apartheid. I had been British for longer than she had, thank you very much. The matter was ultimately raised with the PM after correspondence with the British High Commissioner, the Foreign Secretary, and the Shadow Foreign Secretary was ignored. I was going to expose all this and had some Fleet Street friends willing to aid and abet in the cause of true patriotism, but then HRH Princess Margaret went and inconveniently died on us.
   Since then, armed with this correspondence, I have not had any problems entering the United Kingdom on a British passport. I was under the impression we overseas British had the same Queen whose ‘Secretary of State Requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance’. Funnily enough, this is respected in France and Germany, even the US where we are allies on the War on Terror, but not Britain herself. But I digress.)
   I was still let through because the PIC number matched what was noted on my passport, though the controller, a very charming lady by the name of Y. T. Chan, advised I should get the PIC changed ASAP.
   Fast forward to today. We are very law-abiding, we British, so I began checking. There’s nothing at the British High Commission site about the PIC, but the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region website does have an application form and some notes.
   The problem, as I discovered, is that Britons like me cannot get a new PIC without applying for a HKSAR passport at the same time, which entails becoming a Communist.
   And I know from experience that my definition of ‘Chinese citizen’ somehow differs from that of the Politburo politician and the Beijing bureaucrat.
   My father did not escape from the Commies in 1949 just so his son could get into bed with the Reds.
   My mother did not insist on emigrating in 1976 to avoid the perceived peril of 1997 just so her son could get into bed with the Reds.
   I am proudly Chinese. I am proud of my culture. I am proud of my heritage. But I do not believe that the chaps who came to occupy my family’s land in ’49 have much of a right to it.
   Or the chaps that overran Beijing.
   Not while the Chinese people lack self-determination, a basic requirement under the UN Charter if China wishes to call itself a state.
   Some of my family members are technically, if not willingly, communists, but it doesn’t mean I have to join them.
   All I want is to retain my nationality as a British subject and get a PIC to which I believe I am rightly entitled by my domicil of origin.
   Back in 1995, this was perfectly feasible and I was under the assumption that the Reds would continue respecting the status quo ante when it came to administrative matters like this for an uninterrupted 50 years. And since when have Hong Kongers gone and pissed off Beijing? Well, apart from every June 4?
   We have contributed quite nicely to the Pekingese capitalist public purse, and the sayings of the old Chinese profit.
   I do hope, one day, there will be a united China, possibly a commonwealth of independent states. I also hope to see self-determination by the Chinese people exercised in my lifetime. But I have zero affinity with communist régimes, anywhere in the world, and certainly won’t be looking at changing my allegiance from HM the Queen, even if modern Britain is in a mess and it gave us Gary Glitter and selected nonces. There are some of us who are proud to be old colonials, who remember what it used to mean to be British, even if it is couched in some idealist, double-decker-bus-and-cobbled-street world where John Steed could poke a baddie with his brolley—and without us colonials kowtowing to any body, thank you very much.
   And quite simply, I agree more even with a faded modern Blairbrown-shaded Britain subservient to some Brussels Bonaparte than with a totalitarian régime that did its best to try to knock some of my family off, or shove them into jail on no charge.
   There is quite a price to be paid for loyalty to Her Britannic Majesty, but there you have it. It is a choice I quite publicly make.
   Tomorrow: a visit to the High Commission to see what HM Government can do. If they even care. Let’s hope they do, more so than after the Waterloo incident.

It’s good to have the server running more speedily, thanks to the Rackspace guys. From Autocade, some of the cars you might have forgotten, sometimes for good reason. Pity, I always liked the look of that SEAT Sport; and the CityRover is an interesting could-have-been if MG Rover had only priced the base model under £5,000.

CityRover (RD110). 2003–5 (prod. approx. 6,000 sold to 2004). 5-door saloon. F/F, 1405 cm³ (4 cyl. OHC). Badge-engineered Tata Indica (1998–) with 14 in wheels (up from Indian model’s 13 in) and revised grille, though no sheetmetal changes. Ride height lowered 20 mm. Not formally a Rover—an Indian-made base model seemed a stretch too far for the brand that had already been downgraded to adorn Metros. Even Rover badge on CityRover appeared different—as with no-marque Metros in the late 1980s. Base model without electric windows; generally dated against European competition. Rover botched the launch, pricing the vehicles far too high, making them uncompetitive—it was generally regarded that the price was £2,000 more than what it should have been. Price drop eventually, with £900 cut and standard equipment upgrade in 2005. Mk II models built but never officially launched, arriving one month after May 2005 collapse of MG Rover.

Beijing BJ750. 1973–5; 1988 (prod. 93). 4-door sedan. F/R, 2445, 2465 cm³ (4 cyl. OHV). Unclear information on mid-sized sedan dating from mid-1970s from behind the Bamboo Curtain; some sources indicate production continued to end of 1970s and beginning of 1980s, updated with features such as extra turn signals in 1980. Years given (1973–5 and 1988) from Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile, which indicates short production was due to Red Chinese government preferring the manufacture of the Shanghai automobile over the BJ750. BJ751 was a Wankel-engined model, two examples made for evaluation and existing around 1980. The 1988 revival (BJ752) featured larger Beijing Jeep Cherokee engine, prod. 3.

Daihatsu Charmant (E20). 1974–81 (prod. unknown). 4-door sedan, 5-door wagon. F/R, 1166, 1290, 1407, 1588 cm³ (4 cyl. OHV). Toyota Corolla (E20)-based car from Daihatsu, with particularly long life by Japanese standards. Upgraded to 1·3- and 1·6-litre engines, later shared with E70 Corolla, in 1978. Short-lived wagon model. More upscale than Corolla, though dynamically nothing remarkable.

SEAT 1200 Sport/SEAT 1430 Sport. 1975–80 (prod. unknown). 2-door coupé. F/F, 1197, 1438 cm³ (4 cyl. OHV). SEAT coupé based on 127 platform but 124 engines, characterized by blackened front end, earning it the nickname bocanegra in Spain. Larger-engined model from 1977. Attractive, contemporary 1970s’ design, though not very successful and not directly replaced.

Red Chinese authorities are so busy scrambling to provide evidence that He Kexin was the right age for the Olympics that they overlooked to explain two others where there are also discrepancies. In The New York Times:

He was one of three Chinese women gymnasts whose age had been questioned in the lead-up to these Games. Cui [Dalin, the vice minister of the General Administration of Sport of China], however, did not address the reasons for the age discrepancies for the other two gymnasts: Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin. Some national and provincial sports registries also have shown birth dates that would have made them too young to compete here. Yang won bronze in the all-around.

   I didn’t know much about the discrepancies for Jiang and Yang, and we have to ask this question: one administrative error, which the Red Chinese are blaming He Kexin’s 1994 birthdate on some records on, might be possible, but three? What are the odds of this, and what are the odds of two being Olympic medallists?
   Even if we took He’s passport at face value it’s hard to trust anything the Red Chinese authorities and state-controlled media tell us, given all these conflicting statements.

Here’s a way to flush one’s sporting career down the toilet: Ángel Volodia Matos of Cuba attacks the Olympic referee, Sweden’s Chakir Chelbat, in the 80 kg taekwondo bronze-medal match. (From France 2.)

If it didn’t look too serious, check out some shots from other vantage points in the following video:    Matos was rightly banned for life from the sport for this and his Beijing accomplishments have been stricken from the record, so we know the IOC can act when it wants to.

You’ve all heard the controversy over whether Red Chinese gymnast He Kexin is 14 or 16. A hacker has found documents in the Baidu (the Red Chinese search engine) cache that indicate she is 14. Some commenters have attacked the hacker, pointing out some potential errors in the search.
   Meanwhile, it was revealed that last year, the Xinhua news agency—a branch of the Chinese Communist Party—reported that He was 13.
   The Politburo has denied it ever gave the agency her age.
   It has emerged since that the People’s Daily, another arm of the Communist Party, reported in May that He was 14. This has not yet been covered in the western media.
   Will the Politburo dare suggest that that it never gave the newspaper her age either?
   I’m simply using the Red Chinese’s own mouthpieces to raise a question, because all this seems really contradictory: 14 before the controversy, 16 after. What gives?

• ‘Ladies, come January I’m not going to have too much to do, and I thought about establifying a volleyball team. I had a bit of experience with the Texas Rangers in baseball. What d’ya say?’
     ‘If you slap my ass it’s a deal.’

 
Photographed by Larry Downing/Reuter and reproduced only for parodying purposes.

Wow, a fly-over of Beijing’s Olympic sites and there’s no pollution! Sadly, this is just the virtual world, courtesy Google Maps. Featured at Lucire.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics are being brought to you by Visa—and the 1·5 million people of Beijing who were illegally forced out of their homes by the Communist Party. Some have been violently evicted at night, when there are no witnesses, by the government.

   And to ensure that Beijing has enough water, a lot has been pumped out of the ground—to the extent that Beijing is literally sinking. Other towns and villages have had their water taken by the state for Beijing’s usage.
   Somehow I think the bad karma will return to bite the Reds.

Heard over dinner tonight, hosted by Laywood Chan, son of the late and great Dan Chan who passed away on May 18: the story of Judy Chen of Flushing, NY, a mother of two sons serving with the US armed forces, was attacked by a Red Chinese régime-sanctioned thug operating in the United States. Only Republicans Tom Tancredo and Dana Rohrabacher have said anything about it on behalf of Ms Chen, charging that the Red Chinese were behind this attack on an American citizen. Many others have taken place.
   Ms Chen, who escaped Red China after victimization during the Cultural Revolution, asked, ‘Am I in China or America?’
   Ms Chen said that rocks and eggs were also thrown at them by the thugs.
   Why are not more lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum not joining in and pointing out to the Red Chinese that attacks on Americans on their own soil are totally unacceptable?
   And if the charges are true, why is the Red Politburo so fearful and willing to commit a hate crime on someone else’s foreign soil? If the reversed happened it would organize mass protests against that other nation and call for a mass boycott.
   Maybe Americans should be doing just that.
   According to a press release, one of Ms Chen’s sons, LCOM John Lee Caldwell, flew home to see how bad the attack on his mother was.
   LCOM Caldwell is about to go on his second tour in Iraq but took 10 days’ leave to see his mother.
   The release from PR Newswire and the anti-Communist Party Epoch Times (often biased against the Beijing Politburo) alleged, ‘Pro-communist mobs numbering as many as 600 have been a consistent presence in Flushing, New York, since May 17th when they first began intimidating Falun Gong adherents. The attacks on Falun Gong have frequently escalated to violence, and at least seven instigators have been arrested on charges of assault by New York police. The attacks are believed to have been orchestrated by the Chinese Consulate in New York City, as revealed by a telephone recording with Mr. Keyu Peng, the Chinese Consul General, in which he boasts of his involvement.
   ‘The incidents in New York City are part of a larger pattern of coercive intimidation used by Beijing's United Front Work Organization, which is charged with the mission of isolating and destroying dissenting voices on foreign soil—even in the U.S. The ramifications were apparent enough by 2004 as to prompt House Congressional Resolution 304, calling for Beijing to cease its intimidation of Falun Gong adherents on U.S. soil.’
   I am not commenting on the validity of Falun Gong and whether it is a cult or not: the fact remains that an American subject was attacked and if there is a Politburo connection, Americans need to pay careful attention to what foreign governments are committing on their own soil.