Breaking: China cancels Kissin
NewsEvgeny Kissin’s recital in Hong Kong on November 16 has been cancelled. The presenter – the Leisure and Cultural Service Department – has given no reason.
Our sources say China may have banned Kissin over his hostile attitudes to its Russian ally, Putin. Others say the Chinese are offended that he has sandwiched Hong Kong between recitals in Tapiei and South Korea.
Either way, HK fans are upset.
The Russians called Kissin a “foreign agent” back in July over his vocal support of Ukraine, and his composing a piece celebrating Ukraine. This cancellation just happened, and is at odds with Hong Kong cultural policy; it seems unlikely HK had anything to do with the cancellation, which probably originated at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing. But it is possible Kissin withdrew.
Back in the 80s, the Thatcher government negotiated a deal with China about the return of HK to Chinese rule. It created the Special Administrative Region (SAR) with the terms being “one country, two systems” for 50 years after 1997. It was supposed to guarantee the continuing freedom from repression of the Hong Kongers, who had been free, even if their government had not been entirely democratic. That has been chipped away at since the handover, and in the last decade or more has not even been paid lip service. There is probably more freedom on the mainland.
Who would doubt that the CCP finds it an entirely unbearable idea that a bit of China, be it as small as HK, can have more freedom than the mainland? It is already excruciatingly hard for them to know there is a whole island that enjoys more freedom, quality of life, openness to the world, at the other side. The frustrations of dictatorships…. they could not care less about the populations concerned, like the Kremlin.
In response to V. Lind, some of her historical facts are not wholly accurate. It is not true to say that prior to 1997 the Hong Kong government was even remotely democratic. There was not even a democratic party in Hong Kong until 1990. Until Christopher Patten unilaterally – and let’s also recall, secretly – attempted to overturn the provisions contained in the 1984 Sino-British Agreement on Hong Kong’s future and later in the 1990 Basic Law a mere 4 years prior to 1997, Britain had resolutely opposed any form of democracy throughout its previous 151 year history in running Hong Kong. As a former HK Director of Home Affairs John Walden wrote in the Huffington Post, “If I personally find it difficult to believe in the sincerity of this sudden and unexpected official enthusiasm for democratic politics, it is because in the 30 years I was an official myself from 1951 to 1981 ‘democracy’ was a dirty word . . .(it would be) the quickest and surest way to ruin Hong Kong’s economy and create social and political instability.” That was the official Hong Kong government and British government position.
I agree, though, that the concept of ‘one country two systems’ has certainly been chipped away. My own view is that had Patten stuck to the detail of the two Agreements made voluntarily by both Britain and China and not attempted seriously to undermine them at the very last minute as the clock ticked down to 1997, Hong Kong would be in a much better position today.
I do not know what the reason is, but the suggestion that it is due to the Hong Kong recital being sandwiched between others in Taipei and South Korea is surely nonsense. Artists and orchestras routinely appear in both these countries on tours that also include China. One Beijing based promoter regularly presents artists and events in both mainland China and Taiwan.
From my discussions with colleagues in Hong Kong, it is also unlikely Beijing was involved. The recital has been advertised for months. Any displeasure would have been made known much earlier than merely a month in advance.
Long live Evgeny Kissin. I think of him as one of the three greatest living pianists. He’s a treasure to the world. As a musician, he just seems to get better and better as time passes.
There have been plenty artists touring in far east among Korea, China, Taiwan, Hongkong etc. so it simply doesn’t stand that his itinerary results so.