I shouldn't laugh but…
Italy's Olympic bigwig Giovanni Malago said he wanted to file an official complaint with organizers that Hong Kong's nail-biting fencing win against Italy was unfair.
Why? Because the referees were from South Korea and Taiwan, he thundered. He indicated that he believed that since those two places were neighbors of China, they would be biased towards China! Obviously!
Oops.
Er. Actually, Giovanni…
Someone needs to quietly explain to him that Taiwan is a "giant weapons depot" (so said the New York Times) for the US to use against Chinese people, and plans are far advanced for South Korea to become another one, filled with nukes, no less.
So not exactly supporters of Mainland China, then.
Pizza Hut in Hong Kong is offering free extra pineapple chunks in a humorous reference to the Italy-Hong Kong showdown in the Olympic fencing finals -- narrowly won by Hong Kong.
Conventional wisdom says that Italians are horrified by pizza served with pineapple. Wars have been started for less!
The Olympics top ten list is ALWAYS a list of countries, but one city has crept on to that list, ahead of almost 200 nations, one glorious day, just after the games opened.
Memories of media trickery:
I'm not going to get into the US trick of re-jigging Olympic results to change who is number one medal winner, but it's nice to have statistics confirm that our tiny, underdog city looks like it is number one on a per head basis, at least for this moment.
by Nury Vittachi
Lai See(利是)
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
Trump hunts for weak prey and plays fast and loose with rules. Influencer “Chairman Tu” (兔主席) lays out Trump’s playbook in "A Nation Torn Apart" (《撕裂之國》): Trump picks on soft persimmons and he has no respect for the law. The US President thrives on behavior that looks downright criminal.
Put those together, and Trump’s latest “kidnapping” of Nicolás Maduro reads like a textbook case of bullying-by-banditry, with a small country openly plundered. That’s American imperialism with the mask ripped off.
Here’s the twist: even with public anger boiling, a few people rush in with gold paint. Wanted fugitive Nathan Law tries to dress up “bandit tactics” as acceptable because, he says, “ending dictatorship” is what really counts.
Nathan Law’s post puts gold trim on Trump’s “Maduro abduction,” making an invasion look cleaner than it is.
Chip Tsao goes even bigger. He argues that without imperialism and colonialism, there would be no modern human civilization. He then hails Trump’s capture of Maduro, along with threats aimed at Colombia and Greenland, as the dawn of a “new era of 21st-century imperialism”. No wonder viewers feel like they’re watching black turned into white right in front of them.
Law’s argument lands fast after Trump’s hard-handed “Maduro snatch.” In a social media post, he says the US military action against Venezuela serves US national security and energy needs, boosts the “defender of democracy” storyline, and also weakens China’s allies while striking at socialist dictators.
With his “Revolution of Our Times” pedigree, it’s no surprise he claps the loudest for the most extreme scenes. He insists that toppling a dictatorship lets long-oppressed citizens “recover hope” and perhaps one day draft a democratic blueprint, so pro-democracy supporters ought to welcome the outcome. The spin is so saccharine it turns Trump into Venezuela’s “saviour,” pretending freedom arrives as a gift basket—delivered by abduction.
Goals don’t cleanse methods
Law then tries to police the language. He tells critics not to quickly label the operation “American imperialism,” and instead to appreciate the “diverse and complex” political motives behind it; translation: if the “goal” sounds upright and reasonable, don’t simplify it into condemnation. Strip it down, and it’s still a defense brief for Trump and his administration.
None of this is exactly shocking if you remember Law’s own US storyline. Around 2019, he and opposition representatives visit the US repeatedly, meet Washington politicians, and get treated like honored guests—deeply grateful for American backing of the “Hong Kong protests.” So now he naturally frames Trump’s move as saving the Venezuelan people, no longer fussing over how ugly the action looks.
None of Tsao’s applause is shocking either: this is exactly his lane. He celebrates Trump’s Maduro stunt and the wider saber-rattling as the launch of a fresh, triumphant imperial era. Then he tops it off with that “imperialism built civilisation” argument, laundering colonialism’s crimes and polishing Trump into Venezuela’s supposed benefactor. It’s creepily adoring, and hard to read without shivering.
Chip Tsao cheers Trump as the man “opening a new era” of 21st-century imperialism.
The mask comes off
Trump isn’t merely “gaffe-prone” this time—he tears the mask clean off. It’s a barefaced assault on Venezuela: snatch people, seize oil (and pocket the money, too). Anyone still clinging to basic morality and justice will see him for what he is: an enemy. Which makes it all the more grotesque that figures like Nathan Law and Chip Tsao can keep marketing him as a “saviour.”
Still, there’s one silver lining: the debate made the masks slip. One round was enough to reveal who was really who.
Lai Ting-yiu
