Does the hypocrisy of Hong Kong's establishment know no bounds? Where are the limits to self-serving, government-approved cartels? Can the bureaucracy ever distinguish between the public interest and the vested interests which offer them soft retirement jobs?
Just one issue last week of the South China Morning Post provided ample answers to those questions. In no particular order, they included:
First, the prosecution of the operator of a website, which carried contact numbers and addresses of the services of prostitutes, for living off immoral earnings. This was, I am told, one of several such sites which enable individual prostitutes to connect with clients.
That might be regarded as a useful service which makes such women less prone to protection rackets than might otherwise be the case. The more important point, however, is why the operator of this site was prosecuted when several newspapers have long carried similar information. And when the Yellow Pages carry advertisements for escort and massage services, and the sauna and massage facilities of some luxury hotels are known as little more than fronts for sexual services.
Don't expect well-known business figures close to the government to be prosecuted for living off immoral earnings. Instead, go after a little-known website that may not be controlled by a patriotic triad boss.
Second, there was the Medical Council's decision to merely give a suspended three-month removal from the doctors' registry to a doctor who had given a patient no less than 17 types of medicine on a single day, 10 of which had illegible labels and included so-called 'health food' supplements. This same doctor had previously received a suspended order against him for giving kickbacks to a beauty centre when he worked as a plastic surgeon. The chief-executive-appointed council appears to the outside observer to be a typical professional body which is reluctant to admit its members' failings, or to tackle the illegal kickbacks between GPs and consultants or providers of related goods and services.
