- Protesters are doing all they can to keep mainlanders away from city by targeting sites from Tsim Sha Tsui to Disneyland and even seedy streets of Yau Tsim Mong
The latest estimate on tourism by HSBC must be music to the ears of anti-China activists. Hong Kong will have 350,000 fewer visitors from the mainland this year, according to the lender, after it revised down its growth forecast to 9 per cent from 9.7 per cent.
The bank's analysts cited as a main cause the ongoing unrest stemming from the government's extradition bill, declared dead by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.
Still, the drop may be too few for the hate-China crowds; there will still be 55-plus million mainland tourists coming our way.
But those groups are doing their best to keep mainlanders from coming, and kick out those already here.
The anti-extradition movement has morphed into a broader -anti-China campaign. The recent mass rallies against buskers, mostly amateur female Chinese singers in Tuen Mun, and parallel mainland traders in Sheung Shui, are just the start of the so-called reclaim movement.
The idea is to "reclaim occupied spaces" in the 18 districts by rotating mass protests in coming weeks and months until the presence of mainlanders is eliminated or at least minimalised.
This autarkic, anti-Chinese movement may have a different name, but it's really a continuation and intensification of the previous "anti-locust" campaign a few years ago. The insect in question refers to mainlanders.
Here's a protest schedule that has been circulated among such groups. I am not sure how updated it is. Presumably, it needs to be revised now that it has been leaked.
However, those targets include: mainland tourists in Tsim Sha Tsui; large tour groups in Hung Hom and To Kwa Wan; and Hong Kong Disneyland where most visitors are now from the mainland.
In addition, they will also rally against "black cops", meaning corrupt and brutal policemen, in Fanling as well as the "black cop" academy during a graduation ceremony, presumably in Aberdeen.
What mystifies me is that the cemetery in Wo Hop Shek is also on the list. Do many mainland visitors go there?
Intriguingly, they also plan to rally in the Yau Tsim Mong red light districts to kick out the sex workers, most of whom are believed to be on two-way permits. It's not clear whether the aim is to get rid of all prostitutes or only the mainland ones.
Perhaps their spouses and boy/girlfriends should go along, to make sure their guys stick to protesting.
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