Tiniest Subsidised Flats for Sale

The subsidised flats occupy the former airport at Kai Tak

The Hong Kong Housing Authority's mandate is to provide affordable rental housing to low-income families with housing needs, and to help low- to middle-income families gain access to subsidised home ownership.

That's what it says in its website.

However next year's batch of subsidised homes the authority will sell will be as small as 186 square feet -- the equivalent of one and a half car parking spaces, the tiniest flats to be offered since the start of the Home Ownership Scheme in 1978.

The smallest flats will be 186 sq ft

The 320 small units are on the site of the former airport at Kai Tak, among the 8,925 subsidised flats to be for sale in the first quarter of next year.

About 30 percent of the new batch are smaller than 322 sq ft. Such flats are increasingly making up a bigger portion of the authority's supply, accounting for 22 percent in 2020, and 15 percent in 2019.

Francis Lam Ka-fai, vice-president of the Institute of Surveyors and its spokesman on housing policy said that while he supported the 49 percent discounts on the units, he slammed the micro-flats on offer, saying they had "become a joke".

"That's really undesirable. Why did [the authority] go for such small units? I don't know what their rationale is," he said. "In terms of the design, [anything] less than 200 sq ft is really undesirable for anybody." 

We fully agree.

The tiny flats may look like this. Appealing to you?

And to even qualify for this scheme, a single person can have a monthly salary of no more than HK$34,730 and assets worth no more than HK$925,000, while for households of two or more people, they must earn no more than $69,740 and own assets worth less than HK$1.85 million.

Who wants to live in 186 sq ft discounted HK$1.24 million (US$158,900)? What can you even fit in there? Can someone really live happily in such a tiny place? And they would have to live in it for 15 years before being allowed to sell it. 

If the government wants to encourage a higher birthrate, it really needs to build bigger subsidised flats to start with. How can one even get married let alone have children in 186 sq ft? Have these housing officials even seen how tiny that space is? 

It boggles the mind...

The Calm Before the Storm

The last hours before the national security law is enacted

There is a sense of uneasiness in the air... the reality that the national security law is coming down on Tuesday and there isn't much we can do about it without the threat of being arrested hanging over our heads.

The heavy-handed nature of how secretively and quickly this law has come about, encompassing any possible scenario shows the Party's determination of not messing about anymore, let alone depending on pro-establishment elites to get the job done.

The fact that even Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah don't even know the details of the legislation speaks volumes about the role of the Hong Kong government with regards to governing the city; they are just minions on a need-to-know basis.

Meanwhile the everyone else is hatching their plans. On the weekend my relatives bought a flat in Manchester, a place they have never visited before. They said there were a lot of people in the office in Jordan, snapping up whatever unit they could get their hands on.

Jimmy Lai says he is not fleeing Hong Kong

The flats, part of a new development, are being built and expected to be completed in early next year. While buying property doesn't secure citizenship, it is at least a place they can go to if they wish.

Some expatriate families are leaving, seeing the city in disarray and feeling that this is not a good place to raise children. It's understandable if you don't consider Hong Kong your home, but many of us do.

Apparently Chinese dissident Wang Dan has warned Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and Demosisto's Joshua Wong Chi-fung that the the Communists would get them first. Lai and Wong have stated separately on Twitter they are not going anywhere.

Talk about martyrdom.

Previously at the gym some middle-aged members were gleeful about the incoming legislation, that it would finally stop the protests; today there was not a mention of it. Perhaps they now see the implications of implementing such a law on Hong Kong, that it also applies to them?

Some people are sadly counting down the days until "freedom" is gone, others are defiant and won't let the law defeat them.

It's such a strange time to be here now, with a lot of uncertainty, all of us literally in the same boat.

Xinjiang women subjected to birth control

Hong Kong will now be divided into pre-national security law (pre-NSL) and post-NSL.

Heightening the stress levels today is the publication of a story that proves further repression in Xinjiang. Families with many children are punished, while women are forced to take birth control pills,  have IUDs inserted, or if they are pregnant to have abortions, all against their will. Some women have ended up sterile.

Previously the Chinese policy was that Han Chinese could only have one child, whereas ethnic minorities could have more than one. Now the government has twisted it to punish Muslims in Xinjiang for having more than one child, saying it is unfair for Han Chinese to have less children.

As a result the population of Muslims in Xinjiang has plunged significantly in recent years, in a bid to "control" them and possibly dilute them with more Chinese in the region.

Is this what will happen to Hong Kong?

Tonight's stunning sunset colours

This evening, there was the most amazing sunset. The colours were reflected on the clouds and the sky had a soft pink glow like a Monet painting that gave way to the dark blue night.

I had never understood what the phrase "achingly beautiful" meant until watching that sunset.

Sunsets are simple pleasures, but mean so much more when things are about to change forever.

Home Quaratines Lead to Domestic Violence Spike

A poster spreads awareness of domestic violence

With people in China stuck at home under quarantine for over a month, there are jokes that the country's birth rate may spike in nine months with people not having much to do other than eat and sleep...

However, at the same time there has been an appalling increase in domestic violence, and the authorities aren't doing much to deal with what has been a crime since 2016 with the anti-domestic violence law.

There are no nationwide statistics, only numbers and anecdotes from rights activists who are trying to help victims get away from their abusers. But physically escaping can be almost impossible when cities are under lockdown and no one is allowed to get out.

Community checkpoints make it hard for victims to escape

Wan Fei is a retired police officer who founded an anti-domestic violence nonprofit in Jingmen in Hubei province. He says the reports of domestic violence have nearly doubled since cities were put under lockdown.

Since February 27, the police station in Jianli county that administers Jingmen, had received 162 reports of domestic violence in February -- three times more than the 47 reported during the same month last year. The number of cases reported in January also doubled compared to the same period in the previous year.

"The epidemic has had a huge impact on domestic violence," said Wan. "According to our statistics, 90 percent of the causes of violence are related to the coronavirus epidemic."

As of today China has over 80,000 confirmed cases, and over 2,900 deaths.

He believes the fear and anxiety from being quarantined for a long period of time as well as the economic stress it has put on families has resulted in the uptick of domestic violence cases.

Feng Yuan says the police should do more to help victims

But at the same time because the epidemic is being prioritized, other social services are being shunted by the wayside.

Wan reports there are shelters for victims of domestic violence in other parts of the country that have been turned into homeless shelters by the authorities, leaving victims with no where to go.

Feng Yuan, who is the director of Beijing-based women's rights nonprofit Weiping, says they have received a significant number of domestic violence-related cases since Chinese New Year a little over a month ago, around the time many cities went into lockdown.

She said the police should be more proactive in registering victims' complaints instead of having excuses not to help them.

"The police can detain people for insulting [respiratory disease expert] Zhong Nanshan online and arrest someone for not wearing a mask on the street. It looks to me like the epidemic has not affected their law enforcement capacity," Feng says. "If they use the epidemic as an excuse to not deal with domestic violence cases, that's not acceptable."

Weiping is reaching out to victims by livestreaming a workshop to let them know what to do if they become a victim or witness domestic violence.

"It's very important to let domestic violence survivors know their rights, and as witnesses we should all give them confidence and support," Feng says.

Another good reason to hope China can contain the coronavirus as soon as possible...

China's Demographic Crisis

China is projected to have less than 15 million babies born in 2018

The projections are becoming a reality for the Chinese government -- 2018 was indeed the turning point for the country's population to drop significantly since 2000. Some economists are already calling it a "demographic crisis" that threatens China's currently struggling economic development.

The final figure for the number of births in 2018 will fall below 15 million, well below the government's estimate of 20 million.

While China's National Bureau of Statistics has yet to release the countrywide number, provinces have already recorded lower births.

Yi Fuxian says this is a turning point for China's population

A paper co-authored by Yi Fuxian, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a long-standing critic of China's family planning policy, and Su Jian, an economist at Peking University, say this will have long-lasting effects on the country.

"The year 2018 will be remembered as a historical turning point for Chinese population," Yi and Su wrote in the paper. "The Chinese population has started to fall, the ageing problems has accelerated, and economic vitality has weakened.

"A great nation, which once upon a time accounted for nearly a third of the world's total population, is gradually degenerating into a small group of the old and the weak thanks to wrong demographic policies."

Hua Changchun, an economist with Guotai Junan Securities, wrote a research note saying the number of births across China could be as low as 14 million if there is a 20 percent drop in births nationwide.

Less births will impact China's economic development

He said the drop in births would not only impact China's social and economic development, but also lead to a drop in demand for property.

This last point led Ren Zeping who is the chief economist for property developer Evergrande Group, to be very concerned about the birthrate dropping and urged China to lift all birth controls "and encourage people to have babies". 

China had hoped lifting the one-child policy in 2016 would lead to more births, but there was only an initial spurt, as many, especially in big cities cannot afford to raise another child, nor do they care to heed the call of the government to do their patriotic duty to procreate for the country.