The Pulse：Li Fei at Basic Law seminar, William Kirby on Trump's China visit & cryptocurrencies

On Thursday Li Fei, deputy secretary general of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee and chairman of the Basic Law Committee came to Hong Kong for a three-day visit. At a Basic Law seminar on Thursday, he not only echoed Xi Jinping’s insistence that the central authorities had “comprehensive jurisdiction” over Hong Kong, but went on to say that without the mainland’s constitution, there would be no Basic Law and no HKSAR.
Last week Donald Trump visited China for the first time as president. Notably absent was his previous talk about climate change hoaxes and what he previously described as China’s deeply unfair trading policies. Instead he went as far as giving “China great credit” for taking advantage of America for the benefit of its own citizens.
He also claimed that during his visit, deals totalling more than $250 billion had been signed between American and Chinese companies. With us in the studio is William Kirby, T.M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Monero, Zcash. All are among the so-called cryptocurrencies vying to change the face of financial transactions. They’re made possible by technologies like blockchain, a system that records financial transactions and simultaneously updates users about the nature of the transaction. As cryptocurrencies do not belong to states with all this entails, and they are not what we all know as hard cash, deals can be struck between users in different nations unhindered by state financial controls. That, as you can imagine, doesn’t go down well in certain circles. Meanwhile, major investment firms have differing views on all this. Goldman Sachs is launching a new trading operation focusing on bitcoin, while JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, Jamie Dimon calls Bitcoin a “fraud” that “won’t end well”.
On Monday night, RTHK and the South China Morning Post launched their 30th Operation Santa Claus, the annual charity fundraising event. This year donations will go to 14 Hong Kong projects. We’ll end with images of the opening ceremony at the Maritime Museum. And, in the spirit of giving, see you next week. Goodbye.