BEIJING – A secret dossier written by the Communist Party of China’s Central Standing Committee and seen by Breaking in Asia staff envisages Hong Kong’s central district – the island’s pulsating business, retail and cultural heart – as a Lego-like playland of mainlander tourist trolleys, low-rent bubble tea shops and phlegm-hacking old guy mahjong mini-parks all operating within the confines of a massive gilt-domed Hello Kitty theme park by the time China is scheduled to take full control of the runaway Special Administrative Region in 2047.
The plan, written on thick lotus-root parchment in traditional Chinese characters to give it the veneer of an officially sanctioned CCP document without necessarily conjoining any legal imprimatur so as to give cover to the jumped-up Commie officials who wrote it, shows the stark transformation of Hong Kong from its present state of an international financial and Asian cultural hub to a scattershot hypescape of saccharine, overbuilt platitudes to the Motherland.
The new structures devoted to the singular worship of Beijing include a new Bank of China building featuring a Mount Rushmore-like facade of gigantic granite bobble-headed figures from Chinese and Hong Kong history, including Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping, Yao Ming, Jackie Chan and Suzie Wong.
The Chinese officials said they hoped that by including Wong, a fictional figure from Hong Kong’s demimonde-soaked history, the rest of Hong Kong outside of Central District could continue to operate in its traditional manner – as a secondary recreational/financial area devoted to the sensory needs of Chinese officialdom, given that whores were totally outlawed in mainland China by Supreme Leader Xi in 2014.
The centrepiece of the Beijing’s Hong Kong 2047 Plan, though, is the Hello Kitty theme park and biosphere. The domed Meowsterpiece will cover an area of 38 square kilometres, spanning the harbourfront to Queen’s Road. Every building presently occupying the space will eventually be razed, except for banks, Ebeneezer’s kebab shops and Jockey Club betting parlours. The rest of the space will be taken up by Hello Kitty-themed rides, gaming, hotels and retail establishments.
Tourists visiting the park will pay the Chinese government royalties for use of the facilities, with a token amount of those fees going to the Japanese owners of the Hello Kitty trademark, which will be placed in a special fund called “Japan Die Now Motherfucker” – so named in keeping with China’s policy of using Japan as a whipping boy for all its historical and present-day grievances.
Perhaps the most notable element of the park will be found in the special biosphere section. There, visiting mainland tourists as well as permanent mainland residents will be able to enjoy the company of a wide variety of fauna indigenous to China and Hong Kong. In keeping with the Hello Kitty theme, some of these animals will include the Caspian tiger, the Siberian tiger, the snow leopard, the Amur leopard and the Asian golden cat.
At the end of each Wednesday, all will be available for eating during Endangered Species Buffet Night, with mainland tourists able to sink their gluttonous chops into a wide variety of animals lying precipitously on the edge of extinction yet so delicious that not eating them could only be viewed as an egregious offense to the Motherland.