HK Observer | The bin bombers blew it

Robert Carroll

Well done LegCo bin bombers. Just what those who want to restrict our freedoms need. Now it’s we told you so; Hong Kong is not ready for more freedom, security necessitates less. Bombs going off – what next? Armed uprisings against the central government, I hear them say.
Why would these youngsters think they were helping the cause of preserving autonomy by upping the ante through this kind of violence? Why break a long tradition of peaceful assembly by challenging authority in such a manner?
Worse; four students, including a university student leader, were allegedly involved.  If guilty they will have tainted the reputation of an almost entirely peaceful student body; setting off alarm bells among Chinese officials, both here and on the mainland.
Even if it was supposed to be a harmless demonstration of discontent, and that’s unknown, look at the headlines: “Bomb goes off near LegCo.” Red alert, especially within the mainland corridors of power where conspiracies are imagined in every corner. From the myriad (over)reactions in articles from the Chinese state press, it would seem that every public action or statement here, of any import, is scrutinized by the legions of Beijing overseers. This for underlying meanings, if not conspiracies – how much more ‘terrorism’ in our midst!
Unfortunately these young would-be-bombers  fail to realize that impressions often count for more than reality. Associating the incident with serious violent undercurrents that allegedly originated from 2014’s overwhelmingly peaceful Occupy Central movement,  wets the appetite of those responsible for preventing such plots.
Do these young people not know that we are closely observed by officials in Beijing, in the several Hong Kong and Macau-watching bodies, their colleagues sent here and the much more numerous internet policers? And let’s not forget here, in the city, the many long-term sleepers and those locally-recruited here as eyes and ears, lobbyists and conspirators for ‘the good fight’.
Of course we have to bear in mind the frustrations of the young who fear a future without homes and decent jobs; that must be addressed, but not with explosives. The device didn’t do any damage except to the rubbish bin where it was planted and it remains to be seen if a real explosion was planned.  Let’s hope not. Likewise, we should hope that this was not an encouraged, undercover false flag operation.

It’s amazing that we have a recent competition law here that instead of outlawing monopolies and price fixing, outlaws real competition; forbidding what’s termed parallel trading.
The holder of a copyright to a particular brand can forbid other vendors from importing and selling that brand. The new rules will mean that disagreements that used to be a civil commercial matter – is becoming a matter for the criminal courts to decide, replacing the financial clout of major commercial groupings which had hitherto served as the glue upholding the system.
Why should this matter? Well take the case of supermarkets for example.
The two main chains decide which products to put on their shelves including major international brands in demand all over the world. Once the cartels hold the copyright of these brands they cannot be sold outside of their shops. Price fixing for maximum profit is the inevitable result as well as a lack of lower-priced substitutes for the brand leaders. And that’s not the whole picture.
When newcomers try to move in, the big corporations put impossible to resist pressure on suppliers of goods not to do business with others. The cartels controlling shopping malls and prime retail space also refuse to rent to potential competitors – all perfectly legal. But under the recent competition law, trying to compete by selling what should be readily available goods in a free market, would be illegal.