Could CCP Ban Hank Williams?
There is no civil society in mainland China, only the elite between the current emperor and the people. Now civil society - not to mention playful music - is quickly being banished from Hong Kong.
But first - the Hong Kong government has issued a "welcome back to Hong Kong" video aimed at foreigner tourists and business people. A Bloomberg story is here.
The launch video is a bit bizarre - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYIS9DQkAkE.
The welcome back has a sour undertone. CCP is still unhappy. CCP always claims to speak for all 1.4 billion Chinese when their feelings are hurt. And since Hong Kong has been aggressively taken, CCP deigns to speak for those Chinese who don't see themselves as Hong Kongers and whose feelings are hurt by insensitive foreigners.
A good example of the fragility of the feelings of the Chinese people is in the 2023 CCP banishment of the song It Might Break Your Pinky Heart by Namewee and Kimberley Chen. From the Radio Free Asia article - They sing repeated apologies to a dancing panda, who lives in a hobbit-style house and waves a flag bearing the online insult "NMSL," frequently used by Little Pinks to wish death on the mothers of those they believe have insulted China or hurt the feelings of its people. "Sorry that I hurt your feelings," Namewee and Chen sing, amid the sound of breaking glass. "I hear the sound of fragile self-esteem breaking into 1,000 pieces."
Watch It Might Break Your Pinky Heart. You might get the allusions to Xi as the dancing panda and the baskets of cotton in reference to the forced labor in Xinjiang.
So … what CCP has done is banish artists and a song that apologizes (albeit a bit over the top) to those people in Hong Kong who want to kill others for disrespecting CCP.
All while trying to woo foreigners back - "those last four years? That's gone. Never mind. Don't worry. Be happy."
Someone reading this who has more lyrical skill than I should be able to pen a followup song to be banned - a rendition of Hank Williams' Cold, Cold Heart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQmzp-NA5PM with Xi Jinping singing to Hong Kongers -
Yet you're afraid each thing I do is just some evil scheme
A memory from your lonesome past keeps us so far apart
Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold heart
And so my heart is paying now for things I didn't do
In anger unkind words are said that make the teardrops start
Why can't I free your doubtful mind, and melt your cold cold heart
You know you need and want my love yet you're afraid to try
Why do you run and hide from life, to try it just ain't smart
Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold heart
But now I know your heart is shackled to a memory
The more I learn to care for you, the more we drift apart
Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold heart
