#Hong Kong risk governance

[darkautomaton]

Integrating Risk Management into Corporate Culture in Hong Kong

As regulatory complexity and economic uncertainty continues rising across Hong Kong and mainland China markets, establishing risk-aware cultures has become pivotal for corporations seeking to embed resilience against crises. Beyond building risk monitoring systems, companies today need to drive mindset shifts from the leadership down to infuse vigilance and responsibility towards hazard identification at all levels.

Cultivating Risk Intelligence Starts at the Top

For most organizations, the cultural transformation necessary to view enterprise risk oversight as a shared culture rather than just a compliance activity starts with Asia regional leaders and Hong Kong senior executives. This means not only investment into formal governance through appointing Chief Risk Officers but also having CXOs like Chief Finance, Information and HR Officers spearhead training to their teams around prevailing risk landscapes and vigilance necessary in day-to-day decision making.

Incentivizing Risk Reporting from the Ground Up

Middle managers and frontline analysts will then carry this risk-aware DNA through the organizational bloodstream into daily processes. This demands establishing transparent reporting channels, securing anonymity and anti-retaliation policies to encourage surfacing of suspected risks through what-if questioning or flagging incidents that seemed“off” without fear. Especially around integrity hazards like fraud/bribery, safety hazards like harassment or mental health situations, or regulatory hazards like IP/data transfer violations, removing stigma is key.

Aligning Strategy and Operations with Risk Perspectives

Ultimately, for a risk-informed culture to stick, considerations around financial, reputational and regulatory exposures should drive strategy planning as well as operational enhancements across everything from supply chain design to cybersecurity to financial controls. Key risk indicators must be integrated into dashboards at multiple levels with drilling down to understand root causes. Frameworks like ISO 31000 or COSO provide blueprints here from setup to ongoing assessments into mitigation tracking.

With leadership setting the tone, transparency enabling ground up risk reporting without repercussions, and strategy/operations reflecting risk learnings - global companies can align around managing uncertainty as Hong Kong/China markets, regulations and technologies rapidly evolve. Risk management thereby transforms from restrictive compliance activity to enabler of sustainable advantage and resilience.

[panchitacarmensita]

How Corporate Secretary Helps Compliance with Changing Laws

In the ever-evolving business world, the role of a Corporate Secretary is increasingly significant, especially when it comes to compliance with changing laws. This holds particularly true in dynamic business environments like Hong Kong, where legal and regulatory landscapes are in constant flux.

At the forefront of their responsibilities, Corporate Secretaries in Hong Kong ensure that companies adhere to current laws and regulations. Their expertise lies in interpreting legal mandates and translating them into actionable corporate policies. This role is crucial as non-compliance can lead to severe legal consequences and reputational damage.

Corporate Secretaries also play a vital role in monitoring and anticipating changes in legislation. Their ability to foresee potential legal shifts and prepare the company accordingly is invaluable. They keep a close eye on developments in corporate law, financial regulations, and other relevant legal areas, ensuring that the company is always a step ahead.

In addition to keeping the company compliant, Corporate Secretaries serve as the bridge between the company and regulatory authorities. They maintain open channels of communication, ensuring that any changes in laws are understood and implemented effectively. This role is particularly challenging in a diverse market like Hong Kong, where laws might be influenced by both local and international factors.

Corporate Secretaries also have the crucial task of educating and advising the company's board of directors and management. They provide insights on how legal changes impact the company's operations and strategic direction. This involves not only understanding the letter of the law but also grasping its practical implications for the business.

Moreover, Corporate Secretaries contribute to risk management strategies. By identifying areas where legal changes could pose risks, they help the company to mitigate potential legal and compliance risks. This foresight is essential in maintaining the integrity and reputation of the business.

Finally, Corporate Secretaries are instrumental in implementing and updating compliance programs. They ensure that all aspects of the company's operations align with the latest legal requirements. This includes revising internal policies, conducting training sessions, and ensuring that all employees understand their compliance obligations.

In conclusion, the Corporate Secretary's role in ensuring compliance with changing laws is multifaceted and indispensable, particularly in a complex and rapidly changing legal environment like Hong Kong's. Their expertise not only safeguards the company against legal pitfalls but also positions it to navigate the legal landscape proactively and strategically.

[medicinemane]

I don't know... what's happening in Ukraine is honestly just so deeply depressing (I mean, could it be anything else?)

I'm not really someone who cries, just not something that tends to happen even when I feel like it... and a lot of the time I read the news coming out of Ukraine (out of the world, but I follow Ukraine more closely) and... I'm just kinda numb

More innocent people dead, another hospital hit, another apartment hit, more dead, more dead, more dead... and I realize I can't even process it

Then you get nights like tonight where it clicks just what it means and it leaves me feeling like I want to cry, if I did cry I think I would

I don't think I have words for how stupid and sick it all is

And you know, I am war fatigued when it comes to Ukraine, but what that means for me is that I don't follow the front lines anymore because I just can't keep up with fighting for meters of ground, day after day, this endless slow churn... so I keep up with the big picture instead

(Whose fault do you think the slow advances for Ukraine are? Cause I'll tell you it's the western allies failing to deliver proper amounts of equipment soon enough)

The big picture is horrible, not in a Ukraine is losing kind of way, but in the sheer fucking needless death of random people just sitting at home when a drone hits and kills them

(And that's not even touching on Avdiivka where thousands of russian soldiers are going into the meat grinder, which I can think about and realize is a colossal loss of human life... but I can't even spare much sympathy or humanity towards attacking soldiers when Ukrainian civilians are dying)

And I mean, I'm half a world away. My home's not gonna get shelled ever, the only people I know in danger are people I've bumped into on here. I'm not the one suffering, hearing the sirens, losing people I care about

But it's just... you know, it's just basic human decency to think this is wrong. It could end in an instant if russia just left, but instead... I don't know if a single day has gone by where I haven't seen new news about 3 dead, 9 dead, 50 dead cause a missile hit a funeral, kid dead, family dead when a drone hit their apartment

...I think some people might say I need a break, but you'd be missing the point. I really don't, like most days I'm just numb and keeping informed, but some days it hits me and I wouldn't want to never be hit again with feeling a fraction of just how horrible this really is

The nights when it stops being numbers of senseless murders and it really hits home that each and everyone one of those people was a real person just living their life and now they're gone

...I don't think I'd get through my day if I could process that fact every second of every day, but I wouldn't have any humanity if I didn't sit with that fact some of the time. If this didn't hurt to understand when I really sit with it, something would be deeply wrong

I don't have words for it

Everyday I hope for a miracle, every day I get ready to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, till every inch territory is returned (and beyond, I like Ukraine, no reason not to support them in peace as well)

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

“The Chinese government is seeking to erase memory of the Tiananmen Massacre throughout China and in Hong Kong,” said Maya Wang, acting China director at Human Rights Watch. “But 35 years on, the government has been unable to extinguish the flames of remembrance for those risking all to promote respect for democracy and human rights in China.”

[mariacallous]

In 2024, increased adoption of biometric surveillance systems, such as the use of AI-powered facial recognition in public places and access to government services, will spur biometric identity theft and anti-surveillance innovations. Individuals aiming to steal biometric identities to commit fraud or gain access to unauthorized data will be bolstered by generative AI tools and the abundance of face and voice data posted online.

Already, voice clones are being used for scams. Take for example, Jennifer DeStefano, a mom in Arizona who heard the panicked voice of her daughter crying “Mom, these bad men have me!” after receiving a call from an unknown number. The scammer demanded money. DeStefano was eventually able to confirm that her daughter was safe. This hoax is a precursor for more sophisticated biometric scams that will target our deepest fears by using the images and sounds of our loved ones to coerce us to do the bidding of whoever deploys these tools.

In 2024, some governments will likely adopt biometric mimicry to support psychological torture. In the past, a person of interest might be told false information with little evidence to support the claims other than the words of the interrogator. Today, a person being questioned may have been arrested due to a false facial recognition match. Dark-skinned men in the United States, including Robert Williams, Michael Oliver, Nijeer Parks, and Randal Reid, have been wrongfully arrested due to facial misidentification, detained and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. They are among a group of individuals, including the elderly, people of color, and gender nonconforming individuals, who are at higher risk of facial misidentification.

Generative AI tools also give intelligence agencies the ability to create false evidence, like a video of an alleged coconspirator confessing to a crime. Perhaps just as harrowing is that the power to create digital doppelgängers will not be limited to entities with large budgets. The availability of open-sourced generative AI systems that can produce humanlike voices and false videos will increase the circulation of revenge porn, child sexual abuse materials, and more on the dark web.

By 2024 we will have growing numbers of “excoded” communities and people—those whose life opportunities have been negatively altered by AI systems. At the Algorithmic Justice League, we have received hundreds of reports about biometric rights being compromised. In response, we will witness the rise of the faceless, those who are committed to keeping their biometric identities hidden in plain sight.

Because biometric rights will vary across the world, fashion choices will reflect regional biometric regimes. Face coverings, like those used for religious purposes or medical masks to stave off viruses, will be adopted as both fashion statement and anti-surveillance garments where permitted. In 2019, when protesters began destroying surveillance equipment while obscuring their appearance, a Hong Kong government leader banned face masks.

In 2024, we will start to see a bifurcation of mass surveillance and free-face territories, areas where you have laws like the provision in the proposed EU AI Act, which bans the use of live biometrics in public places. In such places, anti-surveillance fashion will flourish. After all, facial recognition can be used retroactively on video feeds. Parents will fight to protect the right for children to be “biometric naive”, which is to have none of their biometrics such as faceprint, voiceprint, or iris pattern scanned and stored by government agencies, schools, or religious institutions. New eyewear companies will offer lenses that distort the ability for cameras to easily capture your ocular biometric information, and pairs of glasses will come with prosthetic extensions to alter your nose and cheek shapes. 3D printing tools will be used to make at-home face prosthetics, though depending on where you are in the world, it may be outlawed. In a world where the face is the final frontier of privacy, glancing upon the unaltered visage of another will be a rare intimacy.

[no-passaran]

Video transcription: warning racism & discrimination. Indian settlers dressed as Indigenous Jarawa in blackface dance at the official opening of Andaman airport. The Indian government's racist attitude to Andaman and Nicobar Islands' tribes is a threat to their lands and survival - like the uncontacted Shompen people, who won't survive the Indian government's plan to turn their island into the "Hong Kong of India".

From Survival International:

The indigenous peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India —including the Great Andamanese, Jarawa, Sentinelese and Shompen— have endured centuries of racism that has justified the theft of their land and their near-total annihilation. Indigenous peoples of India are still often treated with contempt, as racist displays like this video of Indian settlers wearing blackface shows. These attitudes continue to fuel land thefts today.

For example, the Indian government is set on using Indigenous land for development without consent. The Shompen who live on Great Nicobar Island are at risk of being wiped out if their forest is used for a mega-development project, which aims to settle over 650,000 people on the island— the equivalent of an 8,000% increase in population.

Without their forest, the Shompen, most of whom are uncontacted, could be totally wiped out.

More information on the Shompen, the Indian Government's mega-project for turning their island into a military, commercial and touristic base through ecocide and genocide, and a link to easily send a pre-written email to the government officials and companies involved here:

Some context to understand why Indian settlers are caricaturely dressed up as Jarawa people in this airport:

The Jarawa are a nomadic cultural group indigenous to the Andaman Islands, where nowadays indigenous peoples are outnumbered by settlers from India. Still, like most tribal peoples who live self-sufficiently on their ancestral lands, the Jarawa people thrive and their numbers are steadily growing. Research on their nutrition and health found that their nutrition is "optimal", in large part thanks to their deep knowledge of their natural surroundings (they have detailed knowledge of more than 150 plant and 350 animal species) and the well-being of the forests.

In the 1990s, the local Indian settler authorities revealed their long-term ‘master plan’ to settle the Jarawa in two villages with an economy based on fishery, suggesting that hunting and gathering could be their ‘sports’. This meant forcing the Jarawa, who are nomadic and get their food from hunting and gathering, to abandon their way of living. The plan was so prescriptive it even detailed what style of clothes the Jarawa should wear.

Forced settlement had been fatal for other tribes in the Andaman Islands, but a vigorous campaign brought success and in 2004 the authorities announced that the Jarawa would be able to choose their own future with minimal intervention. However, in the next years (most notably 2010), Indian settler authorities have again tried to force the Jarawa to abandon their way of life and become part of India's mainstream society. This pressure continues, including Indian MPs asking for residential schools to be created to take away Jarawa children from their families and strip them from their culture.

Indian government officials repeatedly refer to the Jarawa people as "primitive", "backwards" and "uncivilized".

Tribal peoples like the Jarawa are used as a tourist claim by Indian settlers, who organize "human safaris" for tourists to go see Jarawa people. Even though in 2002 India's Supreme Court ordered closing the highway that runs through Jarawa land, it's still open and used by thousands of outsiders who go watch them like they're wild animals in human safaris.

Outsiders, both local settlers and international poachers enter their rich forest reserve to steal the game the tribe needs to survive. Although in recent years many poachers have been arrested, none have been sentenced by the courts, despite the offence carrying a prison term of up to seven years.

Jarawa girls and women are sexually abused by poachers, settlers, bus drivers and others. Jarawa people report outsiders who get drunk on alcohol and high on marijuana going in Jarawa villages to rape Jarawa girls and women.

Vehicles queue to enter the Jarawa reserve along the Andaman Trunk Road © G Chamberlain/ Survival

Source: Survival International.

[crazed-lamb-leg-enthusiast]

DAY 3

Hi! Today is Day 3 of the series, and we (@maolonq and I)will be discussing mooncakes! Mooncakes are eaten during Mid-Autumn(duh), and the most famous traditional ones usually have a lotus paste, and/or red bean paste and a salted egg yolk with a crunchy outer shell. It’s a sweet and salty treat enjoyed usually when looking at the moon. Mooncakes are said to have been an accomplice in overthrowing the Yuan government as well. By hiding the messages of warfare inside the mooncakes, the Ming dynasty officials were able to pass messages discreetly

Courtesy of @maolonq

In 1960, a new type of mooncakes was invented. Snowskin mooncakes were a low fat, sweeter type of mooncakes, traditionally made of a glutinous rice crust and a fruit center. Now, fillings of ice cream or different flavours of paste and no center are common as well, as seen in different catalogues online(such as mango, green tea, red date etc).

Courtesy of @maolonq

Now that we’ve looked at the traditional-ish ones, let’s look at the unconventional mooncakes!

1. Char Siu Mooncakes.

Char Siu Mooncakes are a controversial type of mooncake that has a red bean paste mixed with sweet barbecue pork bits with a salted egg yolk in the middle. It is NOT common in Hong Kong or other places as it is not popular.

2 Durian Mooncakes.

Durian is a well-selling fruit in Hong Kong, which translates to its Mooncake counterpart, usually consisting of a durian paste and durian filling with a traditional or snow skin crust. It has gained legendary mooncake status as Hongkongers grow to like durian more and more.

3. Pineapple Mooncakes

Like the Taiwanese pineapple tarts, pineapple mooncakes bear the same egg coated crust and pineapple filling their cousins do, just with a salted egg yolk. They are well received.

Now for the REALLY unconventional ones!

1.pistachio

2. Egg Waffles(NOT A POP IT WAFFLE I SEE YOU ONLINE RETAILERS)

3 Sichuan Peppercorn

4 Gin

5 Yuzu

6 HAM.

7 CAVIAR?????

Anyways, look them up or try them at your own risk. Have fun!

[panicinthestudio]

COVID rapidly spreads in China as government eases strict quarantine rules, December 27, 2022

China is grappling with the rapid spread of COVID-19 after the government began rolling back its zero-COVID restrictions earlier this month. Now, cases are spiraling across towns and cities, hospitals are overburdened, medical staff are outnumbered and crematoriums are running out of space. Judy Woodruff reports.

PBS NewsHour

There is no nuance left in politics or public health policy when there is either an absolute and strict inflexibility of zero COVID or wholesale dismantling of safeguards before the healthcare or support systems are prepared for the waves that have been forcibly suppressed. The political insistence on using their own less effective, non-mRNA vaccines based on the original strains rather than Delta or Omicron, coupled with a low vaccination rate of the vulnerable and elderly is not helping easing the transition at all.

The way they’ve been counting mortality from COVID diverged from nearly every other country since early 2020. A death had to be directly attributable to SARS-CoV-2 eliminating cases of many preexisting or undiagnosed conditions, chronic illnesses, and other high risk factors that may have been exacerbated by the virus which became listed as the direct cause or if they simply tested negative in the few days before dying. The policy as of this week will further limit the count only to deaths caused by pneumonia or respiratory failure after contracting COVID, in addition to dropping much of the remaining inbound quarantines and regular case counts becoming even more inconsistent with lived reality.

It appears the PRC was prepared to stay in suspended animation within an onionskin of self-isolation layers indefinitely, maintaining the appearance of control and adherence to policy that was left to different local officials to execute. Downgrading the classification removes the local, emergency-style powers to lockdown and quarantine which were used capriciously. Residential buildings, offices and commercial areas such as malls, and even theme parks could be suddenly cordoned without warning, causing panic due to the stringency of testing and knock-on effects if a positive case was found rather than fear of having contacted or contracted the virus. Becoming listed as a close contact or a complete stranger’s positive result could mean further quarantining and repeated testing, as well any change in one’s COVID passport status severely restricting mobility for work or education, travel, or even basic necessities. The protests spread because “dynamic zero” was anything but dynamic, refusing to change or amend course in preparation for a transition to an endemic or post-epidemic state. People were simply fed up and the building momentum was becoming a potential danger to a regime that had just renewed its own political mandates.

These things aren’t happening in isolation, China is also changing tact on its travel restrictions domestically and internationally. The Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau have been trying to reopen ports and travel with the Mainland for years now for travel and economic reasons. Both were forced into accepting one-way policies where it was difficult for their citizens to enter China or even between one another, while rules were softened for travelers and politicians entering from and returning to the Mainland for short trips with the reason that the pandemic was less well-contained than within the Mainland.

As news of the highly visible current outbreak within China is continuing to emerge, the Hong Kong SAR is now proudly announcing agreements have been made with the Mainland to drop their travel restrictions posthaste. It’s being reported that many are travelling specifically for mRNA vaccines which are approved in Macau and Hong Kong.

[the50-person]

The risk goes beyond formal arrest and extradition. The bounties on offer may encourage vigilantism, and sympathetic governments may turn a blind eye to or even facilitate extra-legal rendition of the eight exiled activists.

.

This is illustrated by the 2015 case of the five Hong Kong booksellers who disappeared from various locations, including Thailand, and later showed up in China where they “confessed” to crimes in the state media.

[darkautomaton]

Best Practices in Corporate Risk Management in Hong Kong

With an increasingly complex legal, regulatory, economic, and technological environment, effectively managing organizational risks is critical for companies striving towards sustainable growth in Hong Kong. By taking a strategic approach to identifying key risk exposures and establishing governance policies to address vulnerabilities, both local and multinational corporations can enhance resilience.

Conduct Extensive Risk Assessments

The foundation for building robust risk oversight is to regularly conduct enterprise-wide assessments, tapping perspectives from leaders across functions on risks emerging within main business units, as well as at the corporate level. Special focus should be placed on emerging risks - from supply chain disruptions to fast-evolving cybersecurity threats. Risks posed by Hong Kong regulations and legal responsibilities around data, employment, IP, taxation and import/export controls should also be incorporated.

Appoint Centralized Risk Leadership

While business heads are accountable for risks within their domains, oversight at the core by a Chief Risk Officer and/or risk management committee provides critical independence and cross-functional coordination. Responsibilities span creating risk reporting procedures to keeping senior leadership and board directors appraised, to aligning mitigation plans with corporate strategy. Risk managers also liaise with insurance providers to secure proper coverage against financial hazards.

Implement Key Risk Policies

Findings from risk assessments should drive key policy changes, be it business continuity planning to address operational crises, instituting ethics training to reduce fraud and corruption, or enacting information handling protocols to avoid data leaks, hacking and illegal trading incidents that would undermine Hong Kong stock listings. Anti-money laundering and sanctions/export controls compliance also need special attention in Hong Kong as a gateway between China and global trade.

Monitor External Signals

In addition to internal risk monitoring, closely follow legislative or law enforcement policy shifts, as well as economic/political disruptions arising locally as well as in mainland China that stand to impact operations. Participate in trade groups and maintain contacts in agencies like InvestHK to receive critical market updates. Regular stress tests help evaluate Hong Kong megaprojects like the Greater Bay Area growth plan or One Belt One Road initiative - and gauge ensuing risk reprioritizations.

By approaching risk oversight as an integrated corporate capability monitoring both internal weaknesses and external threats, companies gain enhanced visibility into vulnerabilities which allows preemptively strengthening of operations against cascading Hong Kong/China hazards - thereby boostinglong-term performance and valuation for shareholders.

[panchitacarmensita]

Aligning Corporate Strategy with Legal and Regulatory Standards in Hong Kong

When establishing and growing a company in Hong Kong, it is vital that business leaders factor in the region's complex legal and regulatory environment into strategic planning. Failure to adhere to employment ordinances, tax codes, intellectual property laws and other standards can undermine your entire China/HK growth agenda. This article provides best practices on aligning organizational strategy with key compliance benchmarks.

Start by Building a Legal/Regulatory Risk Profile

Gather input from your Hong Kong legal advisors on the primary laws and regulations that will impact core business functions based on your growth roadmap. Recruit specialists for insights across domains – an employment lawyer to advise on ordinances around pay, working conditions and termination requirements; a corporate attorney familiar with documentation needs as outlined under the Hong Kong Companies Ordinance and Securities and Futures Ordinance (SFO); and a team with nuanced understandings around taxation in Hong Kong/Mainland China.

Emphasize Governance and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

With your risk map complete detailing major compliance pressure points around formation, sales, trading, hiring, operations and more, use this framework to drive governance moves that harden the organization against illegal or unethical actions. Expand procedures around everything from acquiring entities in China to information sharing standards that prevent insider trading incidents that might imperil your HK stock listing. Appoint board oversight committees on ethics and regulatory policy.

Monitor Regulatory Trends Proactively

Laws and policies do not remain static – from 2023 increases to statutory severance pay to tightening rules against monopolistic practices among Mainland businesses by the State Administration for Market Regulation, regulations shift frequently. Continuously follow key policy proposals and moves by agencies like InvestHK, while participating in trade associations that can help represent your interests in government discourses.

Align Business Objectives with Compliance Mandates

Finally, let mandatory requirements guide corporate strategy itself by identifying opportunities. With crackdowns on corruption and tax evasion, build competitive advantage via best practices in transparency and disclosure around transactions, modeling anti-bribery across China operations. Where competitors resist minimum wage increases or workplace improvements, embrace these to attract top talent across Hong Kong and Shenzhen centers tapping young professional desire for purpose-driven leadership.

By viewing ongoing legal and regulatory reform as intrinsic to strategy rather than counterweights to growth, foreign companies can sustainably thrive across Hong Kong and mainland China's vast ecosystem, while accelerating competitive edge, financial performance and positive societal impact.

[hong-kong-art-man]

What Is So Special About The Dance Drama Wing Chun (詠春) As An Art Furore ? Will The Competition From Shenzhen Force Hong Kong To Do Our Cultural Best?

In the Western world, martial art is the art of motion. For the Chinese, martial art is more than that. It is a master’s philosophy and use of his body to accomplish visual art result.

Success is no accident. Many in the art world just want to follow success and not create it. Great stage works never come from comfort zones. The real risk facing the performing art circles in Hong Kong is the lack of enough top-notch breakthroughs and talented persons, apart from the usual problem: insufficient financial resources to make a big dream possible.

The world has changed. Home cinema, home video game and home audio are the kinds of ‘home entertainment’, because of their instantly accessible enjoyment, are replacing the traditional places like theatres, movie houses and concert halls. Determining what play or dance to go to watch in a theatre can be exorbitant these days, especially when you have to take into account travelling expenses, parking and dinner, apart from the expensive tickets. Making the overall trip ‘worth it’ obviously favours the large budget stage productions these days.  

For the above reasons, the new dance drama Wing Chun (詠春), produced by the young city of Shenzhen (深圳) in China, has been extremely popular in the country for more than a year since 2023. The show went to Asian cities. Some said, “What a grand show! Almost 80 dancers perform on stage!” Some said, “The electrifying movements and gravity-defying choreography performed by the dancers create a visual spectacle that keeps us glued to the stage!” Some said, “The variety of striking scenes is another thing that makes me excited. Nobody performs ordinarily!” Some said, “The dancers, male or female, are good-looking, powerful and extremely stunning! They express their performing passion glamorously!” 

The story of Ip Man (葉問) who created the famous martial art of Wing Chun (詠春) is well-known among the Chinese. Ip man was born in 1893 and died in 1972. He developed the great martial art of Wing Chun when he was 20. He had a famous legendary student Bruce Lee (李小龍). After the Second World War, Ip left Foshan (佛山) for Hong Kong. The dance performance was chiefly about how he was struggling for a living in Hong Kong, bullied by the gangsters, training his students, sparring with other martial art masters and deserted by his loved wife. His life has an unbroken line of unusual events and emotions, resulting in a successful and yet regretful life.

The production is high-quality but a bit expected. It is said that the investment was fuelled by the Shenzhen government. The stage design, lighting, audiovisual engineering, music and costumes offer their best, though the show are somehow not good enough if it wants to be at the top of other top dances. The truly excellent ones in this case are the dancers. The physically captivating dancers have no stuntman. I can feel that they sometimes risk their bodies to complete dangerous movements. These marvellous performers make the show absurdly beautiful because it is the most rigorous job for a dancer to be equally capable of the best martial art skills at the same time.  

The southern island of Baoan (寶安) County became the British Hong Kong after the Opium Wars more than 100 years ago, while the primitive small village of Shenzhen was ignored on the border. In 1979, Shenzhen was suddenly made an Economic Zone for the ambitious economic developments of China. After about 40 years, the young au courant city managed to produce this art show that shocks the Asian art world. Hong Kong has a much longer cultural history and up to now, there has been no such comparable achievement. We should feel downcast by the scale of the threat that we see from this pioneering city neighbour.

The Chief Executive of Hong Kong announced in 2023 that Hong Kong, with the government’s help, will be able to produce big stage shows for large-scale long runs or re-runs. The ‘Signature Performing Arts Programme’ will provide a subsidy of up to Hong Kong $10 million, a matching funding of up to $5 million to match private sector funding and venue support so that these Hong Kong performances can become world-class art productions and the international cultural brand that can represent Hong Kong. This is surely a piece of exciting news. But, the local performing art sectors are too used to government’s money as their major source of funding. How to make profits is right now a big lesson for the local art groups to learn. Money can be a good reason for success. They must realize that there are 10,000 ways that make things not work. Complacency, inertia and lack of business sense are the imminent hurdles that they must overcome. 

We all do better when we can gather the most talented people from a larger pool to work together. The population of Hong Kong is just about 7 million. That of Chinese mainland is around 1.41 billion. A top-class performing art team must be made of many gifted artists, from front and back stage. It is almost a necessity that in order to accomplish the ‘signature stage projects’ of Hong Kong, we cannot work alone or simply let a few big stage groups determine the scene. Joint productions of Hong Kong and Chinese mainland will be the sensible path, and I am sure we can find and manage a right path. It is going to take some time, though. Flexibility is the art of creating way outs within the cul-de-sac, as a Turkish playwright pointed out. 

Maurice Lee

Chinese Version 中文版: https://www.patreon.com/posts/hong-dong-ya-de-98447537?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link 

Wing Chun Dance Drama

Acknowledgement-CultArts x Creative

Wing Chun Dance Drama

Acknowledgement – 生活生活

Wing Chun Dance Drama Interview

Acknowledgement – 香港商報

[transboysokka]

Thoughts on the situation between Taiwan and China?

ohhhh my god how much time do you have lmao

Actually I’m not even sure what the average person from other countries even knows about the situation so here’s a VERY basic overview (like so basic pleas just Google it if you really wanna know):

Basically in the early 20th century China as we know it was the Republic of China (ROC) but then there was a civil war because the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) tried to take over and effectively ended up chasing the ROC out of China to Taiwan. For a while both of them were like “We are the real China and we lay claim to ALL of this!” (China and Taiwan)

Anyway eventually the UN and all the other counties shifted from recognizing the ROC as China to recognizing the PRC which they still do today. So today we know the PRC as China and the ROC as Taiwan which have their own governments, currency, everything

People in China still learn and believe that Taiwan is a province of China. Taiwan is like “we are basically our own country, just leave us alone” but now there’s this threat that China is building up to take Taiwan back by force, which Western media loves to sensationalize.

Here’s the thing. Everything on the ground in Taiwan is just Business As Usual.

Are things more tense between the two countries than they’ve ever been? Yeah.

Is Taiwan buying up A LOT of military equipment to defend itself? Yeah.

Are military drills ramping up on both sides? Yeah.

Is my mom calling me every day to try to get me to leave this place? Yeah.

Are there signs for air raid shelters popping up in more and more places on the streets of Taiwan? Yeah.

Has China been sending their planes into Taiwan’s airspace every day for years now because they know that Taiwan will have to spend money and energy to send planes up to meet them? Yeah.

BUT do I think there’s ever gonna be an actual invasion? A lot of people do but I actually don’t.

1. Chinese people think Taiwanese people are Chinese. If the PRC invades or bombs or whatever, and Taiwanese people die, the Chinese people might turn against their government and be like “wtf are you killing us for??” I think there is risk there

2. A sea invasion is not practical because of the conditions of the Taiwan Strait. There are only like two narrow windows each year where the seas aren’t too choppy to send boats over, and there aren’t even a lot of beaches great for landing on

3. Technically America says they would defend Taiwan which honestly I’ll believe it when I see it but China really might not want to risk that

4. Another reason they wouldn’t bomb- the semiconductor industry here is SUPER important and basically powers the whole world, they couldn’t risk destroying that

I do think they could try other things, like I think cyber warfare is gonna be huge. They could easily take down the whole power grid, or cut off the internet, for example. Either of those things would create a lot of chaos. They could run misinformation campaigns or interfere in elections. I think if anything does happen it would be more in the sneaky back door style like how they took down Hong Kong

but even if there were an invasion, I’d stay and fight. This is my home, and I don’t think the Taiwanese people would make it easy on them

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

California Has More Than 100 Gun Laws. Why Don’t They Stop More Mass Shootings? (NYT) California bans guns for domestic violence offenders. It bans them for people deemed a danger to others or themselves. There is a ban on large-capacity magazines, and a ban on noise-muffling silencers. Semiautomatic guns of the sort colloquially known as “assault weapons” are, famously, banned. More than 100 gun laws—the most of any state—are on the books in California. They have saved lives, policymakers say: Californians have among the lowest rates of gun death in the United States. Yet this month, those laws failed to stop the massacres of at least 19 people in back-to-back mass shootings. The tragedies in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay have confounded Americans who regard California as a best-case bastion of gun safety in a nation awash with firearms. Inside the state, gun rights proponents say the shootings show that California’s strategy is a failure. Gun safety groups, meanwhile, have already begun mobilizing for more laws and better enforcement.

Peru’s protest ‘deactivators’ run toward tear gas to stop it (AP) When police fire tear gas at protesters demanding the resignation of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, most run away. A few, though, run toward the gas canisters as quickly as possible—to neutralize them. These are the “deactivators.” Donning gas masks, safety goggles and thick gloves, these volunteers grab the hot canisters and toss them inside large plastic bottles filled with a mixture of water, baking soda and vinegar. The deactivators made their debut in Peru street protests in 2020, inspired by protesters in Hong Kong who in 2019 unveiled new strategies to counteract the eye-stinging, breath-stealing effects of tear gas. With protesters in Lima facing a nearly daily fusillade of tear gas, more people have joined the ranks of deactivators trying to shield them and keep the demonstrations going.

France braces for major transport woes from pension strikes (AP) France’s national rail operator is recommending that passengers stay home Tuesday to avoid strikes over pensions that are expected to cause major transport woes but largely spare high-speed links to Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. Labor unions that mobilized massive street protests in an initial salvo of nationwide strikes earlier this month are hoping for similar success Tuesday to maintain pressure on government plans to raise France’s retirement age. Positions are hardening on both sides as lawmakers begin debating the planned change. France’s prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, insisted this weekend that her government’s intention to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is “no longer negotiable.” Opponents in parliament and labor leaders are determined to prove her wrong.

Russia’s Convict Fighters Are Heading Home (NYT) He was released from a Russian prison and thrown into battle in Ukraine with a promise of freedom, redemption and money. Now, Andrei Yastrebov, who was among tens of thousands of convict soldiers, is part of a return from the battlefield with potentially serious implications for Russian society. Mr. Yastrebov, 22, who had been serving time for theft, returned home a changed man. “We all feel like he is in some sort of hypnosis, like he is a different person,” said a relative of his, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “He is without any emotions.” President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to allow a mercenary group to recruit Russian convicts in support of his flagging war effort marks a watershed in his 23-year rule, say human rights activists and legal experts. The policy circumvents Russian legal precedent and, by returning some brutalized criminals to their homes with pardons, risks triggering greater violence throughout society. Since July, around 40,000 inmates have joined the Russian forces, according to Western intelligence agencies, the Ukrainian government and a prisoners’ rights association, Russia Behind Bars, which combines reports from informers across Russian jails. Ukraine claims that nearly 30,000 have deserted or been killed or wounded, although that number could not be independently verified.

Biden says no F-16s for Ukraine as Russia claims gains (Reuters) The United States will not provide the F-16 fighter jets that Ukraine has sought in its fight against Russia, President Joe Biden said on Monday, as Russian forces claimed a series of incremental gains in the country's east. Ukraine planned to push for Western fourth-generation fighter jets such as the F-16 after securing supplies of main battle tanks last week, an adviser to Ukraine's defence minister said on Friday. Asked if the United States would provide the jets, Biden told reporters at the White House, "No." The hundreds of modern tanks and armoured vehicles pledged to Ukraine by Western countries in recent weeks for a counteroffensive to recapture territory are months away from delivery. This leaves Kyiv to fight through the winter in what both sides have described as a meat grinder of relentless attritional warfare.

Winter has come for Afghanistan (Washington Post) For much of the past year, the West’s policymakers and analysts were possessed by one haunting question: How bad will Europe’s winter be? The prospect of a deep cold spell as European governments rationed gas supplies conjured images of a bleak winter from Lviv to London, with industry going dark and pensioners scavenging for firewood. The worst did not come to pass. But consider another part of the world that has receded from the West’s attention over the course of the Ukraine conflict. Afghanistan is currently in the grips of its worst winter in more than a decade. Temperatures recently plunged to below minus-34 degrees Celsius (minus-29.2 degrees Fahrenheit). Officials in the local Taliban government said the cold has been lethal, leading to more than 160 deaths over the span of about two weeks, and killing more than 70,000 livestock. The dismal conditions have struck a society ill-equipped to cope.

Suicide bomber kills 88, wounds over 150 at mosque in NW Pakistan (AP) A suicide bomber struck Monday inside a mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least 88 people and wounding more than 150 worshippers, officials said. Most of the casualties were policemen and police officers as the targeted mosque is located within a sprawling compound, which also serves as the city’s police headquarters. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, said Saddique Khan, a senior police official in Peshawar, but the Pakistani Taliban have been blamed in similar suicide attacks in the past.

Iran says drone strike targeted military complex amid ongoing shadow war (Washington Post) Iran said a drone strike lightly damaged a defense ministry complex in the central city of Isfahan on Saturday, an attack that reverberated across capitals as tensions with the West and Israel mount over Tehran’s advancing nuclear program, arms supply for Russia’s war in Ukraine and lethal crackdown on months-long anti-government protests. Iran’s Ministry of Defense said that three drones struck around 11:30 p.m. local time Saturday, according to a statement carried by the IRNA state news agency, in an attack that caused “minor damage to the roof of a workshop.” There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Saturday strike. But Israel has a history of conducting attacks on Iranian nuclear program facilities as part of an ongoing shadow war between the two regional rivals, a campaign that appears to have escalated following the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, three years into the landmark agreement. One U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity said the strike appeared to be the work of the Israeli military.

Russian embassy says North Korea lifted lockdown in capital (AP) Russia’s embassy in North Korea says the country has eased stringent epidemic controls in capital Pyongyang that were placed during the past five days to slow the spread of respiratory illnesses. North Korea has not officially acknowledged a lockdown in Pyongyang or a re-emergence of COVID-19 after leader Kim Jong Un declared a widely disputed victory over the coronavirus in August, but the Russian embassy’s Facebook posts have provided rare glimpses into the secretive country’s infectious disease controls. Last week, the embassy said that North Korean health authorities required diplomatic missions to keep their employees indoors and also measure their temperatures four times a day and report the results to a hospital in Pyongyang. It said the North Korean measures were in response to an increase in “flu and other respiratory diseases,” but it didn’t mention the spread of COVID-19 or restrictions imposed on regular citizens.

Radioactive needle in a haystack: Tiny capsule lost in rural Australia (Washington Post) Emergency officials in Western Australia warned that a tiny radioactive capsule was on the loose, with a harried hunt underway along a lengthy stretch of highway for what was essentially a toxic needle in a haystack. The Department of Fire and Emergency Services in Western Australia, a largely rural state that makes up the western third of the country, issued a hazardous materials warning Saturday evening, cautioning that the radioactive capsule had been lost while it was being transported from a mine near the town of Newman to a suburb near Perth, the state’s most populous city. The capsule—which is less than a third of an inch long—went missing somewhere along the more than 800-mile stretch of road between Newman and Perth, the department said. It contains cesium-137, a radioactive material used in gauges for mining, one of the main industries in resource-rich Western Australia. Despite its size, the capsule is dangerous, the department warned. “Exposure to this substance could cause radiation burns or radiation sickness,” it said, cautioning people not to touch it or move it if they come across it. Anyone who sees the capsule should stay at least five meters (16 feet) away from it and report it, the department said.

Palestinian Man Fatally Shot as Violence Continues in Israel (NYT) A Palestinian man was fatally shot outside an Israeli settlement in the West Bank and Israeli settlers carried out nearly 150 attacks against Palestinians and their properties across the region, according to reports on Sunday by Palestinian state media and the Israeli Army. Sunday’s violence was the latest to grip the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jerusalem since Thursday, in a series of raids and attacks that have left more than 20 people dead. Palestinian officials said that across the West Bank on Saturday night and into early Sunday, Israeli settlers had carried out 144 attacks against Palestinian civilians or their properties. One official, Ghassan Daghlas, told Wafa that settlers had hurled stones at more than 100 motorists and vehicles and had set fire to six vehicles in a wave of violence. At least 22 Palestinian-owned shops were attacked and at least one Palestinian home near the city of Ramallah was set on fire by settlers, Palestinian media reported.

[mariacallous]

Earlier this month, several prominent outlets carried news that artificial intelligence will not pose a danger to humanity. The source of this reassuring news? A bunch of humanoid robot heads connected to simple chatbots.

The news stories sprang from a panel at a United Nations conference in Geneva called AI for Good, where several humanoids appeared alongside their creators. Reporters were invited to ask questions to the robots, which included Sophia, a machine made by Hanson Robotics that has gained notoriety for appearing on talk shows and even, bizarrely, gaining legal status as a person in Saudi Arabia.

The questions included whether AI would destroy humanity or steal jobs. Their replies were made possible by chatbot technology, somewhat similar to that which powers ChatGPT. But despite the well-known limitations of such bots, the robots’ replies were reported as if they were the meaningful opinions of autonomous, intelligent entities.

Why did this happen? Robots that can visually mimic human expressions trigger an emotional response in onlookers because we are so primed to pick up on such cues. But allowing what is nothing more than advanced puppetry to disguise the limitations of current AI can confuse people trying to make sense of the technology or of recent concerns about problems it may cause. I was invited to the Geneva conference, and when I saw Sophia and other robots listed as “speakers,” I lost interest.

It’s frustrating to see such nonsense at a time when more trustworthy experts are warning about current and future risks posed by AI. Machine learning algorithms are already exacerbating social biases, spewing disinformation, and increasing the power of some of the world’s biggest corporations and governments. Leading AI experts worry that the pace of progress may produce algorithms that are difficult to control in a matter of years.

Hanson Robotics, the company that makes Sophia and other lifelike robots, is impressively adept at building machines that mimic human expressions. Several years ago, I visited the company’s headquarters in Hong Kong and met with founder David Hanson, who previously worked at Disney, over breakfast. The company’s lab was like something from Westworld or Blade Runner, with unplugged robots gazing sadly into the middle distance, shriveled faces flopped on shelves, and prototypes stuttering the same words over and over in an infinite loop.

Hanson and I talked about the idea of adding real intelligence to these evocative machines. Ben Goertzel, a well-known AI researcher and the CEO of SingularityNET, leads an effort to apply advances in machine learning to the software inside Hanson’s robots that allows them to respond to human speech.

The AI behind Sophia can sometimes provide passable responses, but the technology isn’t nearly as advanced as a system like GPT-4, which powers the most advanced version of ChatGPT and cost more than $100 million to create. And of course even ChatGPT and other cutting-edge AI programs cannot sensibly answer questions about the future of AI. It may be best to think of them as preternaturally knowledgeable and gifted mimics that, although capable of surprisingly sophisticated reasoning, are deeply flawed and have only a limited “knowledge” of the world.

Sophia and company’s misleading “interviews” in Geneva are a reminder of how anthropomorphizing AI systems can lead us astray. The history of AI is littered with examples of humans overextrapolating from new advances in the field.

In 1958, at the dawn of artificial intelligence, The New York Times wrote about one of the first machine learning systems, a crude artificial neural network developed for the US Navy by Frank Rosenblatt, a Cornell psychologist. “The Navy revealed the embryo of an electronic computer today that it expects will be able to walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself and be conscious of its existence,” the Times reported—a bold statement about a circuit capable of learning to spot patterns in 400 pixels.

If you look back at the coverage of IBM’s chess-playing Deep Blue, DeepMind’s champion Go player AlphaGo, and many of the past decade’s leaps in deep learning—which are directly descended from Rosenblatt’s machine—you’ll see plenty of the same: people taking each advance as if it were a sign of some deeper, more humanlike intelligence.

That’s not to say that these projects—or even the creation of Sophia—were not remarkable feats, or potentially steps toward more intelligent machines. But being clear-eyed about the capabilities of AI systems is important when it comes to gauging progress of this powerful technology. To make sense of AI advances, the least we can do is stop asking animatronic puppets silly questions.