Hong Kong, US-China; Li Peng; PRC money in Australia

Beidaihe may not be much of a vacation for Xi Jinping this year.

After another weekend of protests in Hong Kong the the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council convened a rare press conference to condemn the protestors and express support for Carrie Lam and the Hong Kong police. So far Beijing is signaling that it will let Hong Kong deal with the problems, so we will probably see a ramping up of police deployments and aggressive tactics to control the protests, which in turn will probably backfire.

Li Peng’s funeral was Monday in Beijing. Jiang Zemin attended, walking with aides. Li’s death was nice political timing for Jiang, just before Beidaihe, to make an appearance. Jiang is probably the only elder whose death could even possibly have a significant impact on elite politics, and certainly while he is still alive he has influence, even if Xi has eroded much of it over the years. Hu Jintao did not attend, fueling speculation that he is quite sick, and the official re…