Wage Subsidies for Coupons? What a Deal

Lam announced more money will be doled out to keep the economy going

This morning Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced there will be a third round of financial aid for businesses adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic -- including supermarket chains like ParknShop and Wellcome.

So far Lam said HK$290 billion has been doled out and resulted in the economy boosting by 5 percentage points.

The second round of the wage subsidy scheme of HK$81 billion will be available August 31 and last from September to November.

But why are these two supermarket giants eligible for the wage subsidy scheme?

ParknShop says prices have gone up because of the pandemic

Jardine Matheson-owned Dairy Farm operates supermarkets like Wellcome and Marketplace, as well as convenience stores like 7-Eleven, Mannings and Ikea. Dairy Farm received HK$399 million in the first round of the wage subsidy scheme, while ParknShop and Watson's got HK$161 million, both owned by AS Watson, controlled by Li Ka-shing's CK Hutchison Holdings.

AS Watson has about 260 supermarkets, and Dairy Farm has over 200 in Hong Kong.

When Lam announced the two supermarket chains were eligible for the scheme, eyebrows went up, but she quickly added a caveat.

"During the past few months, supermarkets generally saw sales remain the same or did even a little bit better," she said. "I will demand two supermarket chains -- ParknShop and Wellcome -- offer discounts to the public and cash coupons to the underprivileged in return for receiving wage subsidies."

Wellcome can get subsidies in return for helping the poor

There is no way the supermarkets are only making the same or just a bit better -- with restaurants forced to shut at 6pm, the vast majority of Hongkongers are making dinner at home. And where do they buy it? In the supermarket!

Most people are spending more of their money on food these days, even if it's just buying milk, pasta and rice, and the numbers show it.

In June, supermarket sales rose 4.5 percent compared to last year, a 7.3 percent increase in May, 16.1 percent in March, and 11.1 percent in February and January combined. Surely these are decent steady increases when other sectors are "swatting flies"?

But perhaps most galling is the government demanding the supermarkets give out discounts in return for wage subsidies. How about not making these companies eligible for these subsidies since they are doing a brisk business every month? Why create more bureaucracy in adding this condition? Why not give that money to smaller companies that desperately need to stay afloat in the next few months?

Cheng questions subsidy to supermarkets

Even the pro-Beijing DAB or Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong wondered how effective it would be for supermarkets to hand out coupons to the disadvantaged. How would that be determined? How much would be given out?

"It's hard to say how much discount is a reasonable discount," said DAB lawmaker Vincent Cheng Wing-shun. "So, what we are suggesting is we put at least half of the resources to the public, not only giving discounts to fulfill this subsidy scheme."

Some careful shoppers noted prices of some goods had gone up. When queried by RTHK about this, ParknShop replied that the wholesale prices of many products, as well as transportation costs had gone up drastically because of the pandemic, but said it would do its best to contain costs and keep prices reasonable.

Labour and Welfare Secretary, Law Chi-kwong had to perform some political gymnastics this afternoon in justifying the supermarket chains in receiving subsidies.

"The employment support scheme is to help the employers to help the community, in particular employment," explained Law.

Law says some companies should give back to the community

"But there are definitely companies who obtained these subsidies, they are not seriously affected. So there is some need for them to... sort of, pay back to the community," he said.

So in return for subsidies that help conglomerates save money from paying part of their employee wages, they can just hand out a bunch of coupons to the underprivileged? What a deal!

Perhaps another hair-brained idea cooked up by Lam and no one in her cabinet dares to point out the inconsistencies and yet they have to defend the measures to the skeptical media and public.

Back to the drawing board?

Hong Kong's Social-Distancing Measures to Continue

Social-distancing will continue for another week with case numbers still high

Hong Kong recorded 44 new coronavirus cases today, 31 of which were locally transmitted, 20 of them related to other cases.

Before the regular briefing by the Centre for Health Protection and the Hospital Authority, there were erroneous news reports that the dine-in ban would be relaxed so that people could eat in restaurants until 9pm or 10pm starting from Wednesday.

Only two people can dine per table these days until 6pm

However, that information was soon quashed when the government announced social-distancing measures would continue for another week until August 25, which include only two people can eat per table with restaurants having 50 percent capacity, and they can only dine from 5am to 6pm. Meanwhile masks must be worn outside, including while exercising.

So that bright hope to have dinner in a restaurant was extinguished and besides it was too short a notice for eateries to even prepare to open within two days.

With regards to the existing clusters, there are now 65 cases at the Kwai Tsing container terminals, which health officials are racing to contain. But the virus has exposed the plight of the workers there, who seem to work long shifts. They share a common area for meals, showers and even beds for sleeping.

The Kwai Tsing container terminal has seen 65 cases so far

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the CHP described it as the staff there living like a family, eating together, using the same showers and beds.

Why did the supervisors or even bosses of these container terminals not know these workers could not practice proper social distancing in this kind of an environment and that they needed more space? The workers themselves were possibly too worried about their jobs to complain, or they are so used to this that they didn't think it was a problem.

The CHP has apparently inspected the area, though it was not clear if it was properly disinfected.

Another interesting case is about a 33-year-old man who had contracted the virus in March in Hong Kong, got better by April, but then went to Spain earlier this month and came back testing positive for the virus.

They are testing him to see if the strain is the same as the one in Hong Kong or different. Either way it will be interesting to see how this case develops. But more importantly, why was he traveling?! Did he really need to go to Spain?!

Dr Chuang says container workers live together "like family"

Some people are traveling because they feel entitled or that they don't want to waste their precious holiday time in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile the rest of us are not even interested in going through all the trouble of traveling let alone the increased chance of being infected by the virus and are staying put.

It's just crazy to think there are people out there who don't think the virus will affect them, but in this case this man is infected again. Worth all that effort?

Awarding "Meaningless" Titles for Money

There are questions why Oxford University is making up titles for donations

Wealthy people donating to institutions is not new, but the latter doing it shamelessly is at another level altogether.

The Guardian reports an academic at Oxford University gave a "meaningless" university qualification to a Chinese businessman who has ties to Beijing in a high profile ceremony last year in Shanghai and raises questions about how easily institutions can be influenced by Chinese money.

Hudson and Chan at the ceremony in Shanghai last May

Alan Hudson who has since retired, was director of programmes in Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Oxford. Previous to that he was director of Social and Political Science at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education.

Last May, Hudson awarded the title "Belt and Road Academician from Oxford University" to Chan King-wai, who is a businessman based in Hong Kong and is a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Consultative Conference, among a string of other titles.

"I looked up the meaning of 'academician' and it is absolutely meaningless, it means anybody involved with the university, of any description. So I said there you go, we can put that on the certificate. In recognition of his contributions to the programme.

Hudson said the title was an incentive for a donation

"The incentive for this was a potential donation to the university or the department, and for a number of programmes," Hudson said. He added that he did not plan the lavish ceremony that was attended by an official from the British consulate. Hudson was surprised it was such a big event.

However, if you're getting money from a rich person, surely you have to pull out the stops?

"I was contacted by the Hong Kong development office [of Oxford University] who wanted to approach Chan King-wai... from the point of view of a substantial donation to the university," Hudson added.

Neither Oxford University nor the Oxford Chinese Studies department responded to The Guardian's requests for comments or if Chan did indeed donate money.

Chan was born in Shantou City in Guangdong province and in 1979 migrated to Hong Kong. He set up King Wai Group in 1982 and it focuses on property and construction in Shanghai, Tianjin, and Bangkok.

Chan made money in construction and property

Like many mainland Chinese, Chan loves having a long list of titles and associations on his name card. They include: chairman of the Hong Kong China Chamber of Commerce; vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce; vice president of the Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament; and chairman of Bauhinia Valley Innovation and Development Center.

Oh and Chan is also a member of the election committee that chooses the Hong Kong chief executive.

MP Neil O'Brien, who is also a founding member of the China Research Group, which brings together Conservative politicians who are critical of Beijing, said British universities needed to be more careful about fundraising in China.

"Universities need to fundraise but the fear is that if academics are prepared to hand out fake academic qualifications to chase money what worse are they prepared to do? There have been a number of concerning cases of UK universities being easily politically influenced for a bit of cash," O'Brien said.

O'Brien questions the political influence of donations

"I'd welcome a deep look by the Department of Education at where corporate and individual donations are from, and what political impact this is having," he added.

The award for China was also condemned by Benedict Rogers, co-founder and chair of the campaign group Hong Kong Watch.

"This sorry episode is yet another example of the growing influence the Chinese Communist party has in our leading academic institutions, which remains largely uncontested and free from scrutiny," he said.

Now that it has been revealed the title "Belt and Road Academician from Oxford University" is "meaningless", how does Chan feel about it? Would he be too embarrassed to have this "title" on his name card, knowing now it was just conjured up to get money from him? 

Or maybe he thinks no one will notice?

The Worrying State of Hong Kong Media

Will i-Cable be able to retain its integrity with its latest leadership shuffle?

On the same day that Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying was being arrested along with seven other people including activist Agnes Chow Ting, some executive shuffling was happening at i-Cable, a paid TV station that elicited some raised eyebrows.

Oscar Lee (right) conducts fawning interview with Chris Tang

Edna Tse Yin-na, who was the former head of the Hong Kong International Business Channel, the English channel under i-Cable, officially took charge of the news department as deputy general manager. She replaced Fung Tak-hung, who now has an advisory role.

Oscar Lee Tsun and Anderson Chan Hing-cheong will report to Tse as department controllers.

Lee and Tse don't exactly garner much respect in the newsroom, while Chan worked with Tse at ATV.

First Lee, who is known for being a television anchor and parenting influencer. He was widely mocked on social media after a recent interview with police chief Chris Tang Ping-keung which critics said was overly fawning and deferential.

Tse did not think Louis Cha's death was newsworthy enough

Meanwhile many question Tse's editorial judgment. When famous and respected novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, best known by his pen name Jin Yong, passed away on October 2018, Tse downplayed his death as not important.

She also seemed to not be familiar with Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang who was detained in August 2015 and wasn't put on trial until three and a half years later. While he was convicted of subverting the state in 2019, he was finally released in April this year, in large part thanks to his wife who relentlessly lobbied for him.

Fung hasn't escaped criticism for his editorial decisions either that are blatantly pro-Beijng. Last June he tried to postpone a show related to the June 4 crackdown, but he retracted his decision following protests inside the newsroom.

Then during this year's anniversary of June 4, an interview on i-Cable with Zhang Xianling, the mother of a 19-year-old who was killed in Tiananmen Square in 1989, was shortened to remove her comments on Hong Kong's national security law and similarities to restrictions in China.

Zhang Xianling's comments about NSL were cut from story

Last year a New Year's segment was edited to take out the chanting of the protest slogan, "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time" and was replaced with archival footage of a New Year countdown.

Observers say i-Cable's decline began after it was sold in 2017 to investors, real estate moguls Henry Cheng Kar-shun, and David Chiu Tat-cheong, both of whom have close business ties to China.

Then the broadcaster began diverting resources to focus more on business news in China, while sensitive news items were reported less.

These changes have left reporters in a difficult situation.

"It feels very draining when most of your time is spent on futile fight resisting the collapse of the institution instead of doing actual journalism," said a reporter at i-Cable. "I feel like I am fighting alone. I would also like to leave, but with similar scenes playing out across newsrooms in Hong Kong, where else can I go?"

Bruce Lui Ping-kuen, a senior journalism lecturer at Baptist University, questioned whether the latest appointments were made based on political loyalty.

Jimmy Lai was arrested Monday from his home

"Fung is one of the most experienced veterans in the industry. Although he has sparked controversy after rejoining i-Cable's news department, he only took up the position a little over a year ago," he added.

"He was also replaced by a less experienced colleague. With a big difference between them, this makes me question if political loyalty was the consideration behind Fung's replacement, instead of experience, or was Fung not doing enough in showing his political loyalty?"

As the vast majority of news outlets in Hong Kong are owned by pro-Beijing business owners, reporters and editors have to walk a fine line between serving the interests of the public's right to know, while trying not to offend or get their bosses in trouble.

Which is why Apple Daily, which holds everyone accountable, is such an important barometer for Hong Kong; if and when it goes, press freedom will truly be gone too. Who would be willing to take up that mantle?