From the just finished 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress we learned three things. First, Xi Jinping gives an awful speech.
Second, confirmation of what we long knew, Xi is a dictator with no democratic leanings. Xi is taking a second term while stacking the deck for a third. The first and only goal of a dictator is to prolong his own rule, and everything that happened in Beijing last week was designed to help Xi stay in power as long as he desires.

Sinologists will pick over every detail of Xi's speech, analyse each new member of the Politburo Standing Committee, and spend night and day boring us with the details of each move Xi made last week in Beijing. But the third and most important happening last week in China, in fact the most important happening in the world, was Xi donned the black hat.

Last week Xi Jinping sauntered out to the podium like a Texas cowboy, reached down, pulled out a black cowboy hat, put it on, and said to China and the world, there's a new Sheriff in town. A sheriff that makes the laws, enforces the laws, and the basis of all laws are what works for the Sheriff. Problem is, the new Sheriff is an old version of past repressive nationalistic tyrants, just with a Chinese version of the same dark message.

China's military build up will continue, Chinese across the globe are expected to serve the motherland, the United States and its allies in Asia will be second to Xi's China, and it will be Xi that determines if North Korea is a threat to the world, not Trump or Abe anyone?

What change this means for Hong Kong, I really don't know. A crackdown is already underway, so it's hard to predict the future. But just as Xi has now self identified as a threat to freedom, so to will his minions in Hong Kong have to put on their own versions of a black hat out of loyalty to Xi.

This actually makes life easier, for no longer will we have to pretend there are competing visions of what is best for Hong Kong. After the 19th Party Congress we may not always know what the collection of white hats, clown hats, and rainbow coloured hats, that make up the pro-democracy movement in our city, is up too. But we will always know the black hats are doing in Hong Kong what their leader is doing in the world.....nothing good.