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Comment by dymk | Hacker News Reader

Every article I see about the HK protests makes sure to focus on how non-violent the gathering was. I see many people framing that non-violence as a better way to affect change in their government.

I sincerely hope that a non-violent protest gets these people the change they want, but I take real issue in framing violent protests as unnecessary when your historically oppressive government refuses to listen to the will of its people.

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As others have pointed out, HK government is not historically oppressive, physically speaking. So if the protesters initiate violence without being provoked, mass opinions may change real quick.

IMO we better consider this on a case-by-case basis. If non-violent protests can and will work in more places in future, why not?

Like I said, I hope they work, but I see no reason for the HK government or Beijing to respect this, given there's no actual threat of the people protesting in a more forceful way.

There was supposed to be a general strike tomorrow (Monday), but since the government has suspended the legislation, it seems to be called off (I said "seems" because there is no clear leadership in the current protest movement).

It got pretty bad in the late 60s, ironically with pro Mao demonstrators during the cultural revolution (which had some spill over into HK).

You're right, I should have added: "after the 60s riots".

Thanks for the reminder.

I didn't know about this, for anyone else curious -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1967_leftist_riots

The American Revolution was basically a violent protest and is widely celebrated. One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.

The point is that politicians always use the inevitable violence that arises when you have demonstrations to discredit the legitimity of the demonstration.

I'm French and politicians have become very very good at this.

Violent protests in this case directly play into the hands of CCP and gets you PLA with HK Police uniforms on the streets.

Also any change that comes through "gun" rarely turns into ballot friendly. Once armed the erst while "freedom" fighters will start fighting for their clan/class/tribe/interests.

>Also any change that comes through "gun" rarely turns into ballot friendly

The IRA in Ireland used plenty of guns and it helped them win real political power in a ballot friendly way.

Do you understand that PLA can march into HK without any tricks, invariably of that?

I'd also mention that there were many times in the past when Beijing genuinely considered that option.

During yellow umbrella protests last year for examples, 3 regiments in Guandong province were not simply put into high readiness, but actually mobilised, i.e. troops issued ammo, and vehicles fuelled and armed.

I will not be surprised if a bigger operation is underway right now, and we simply don't know it. VPNs have been jammed 24/7 for more than a week, more intensively than even during 4.6 anniversary. New bootstrapping IP ranges are blocked within minutes on major VPNs. I've never ever seen it being so extreme ever.

Violent protests != violent coup

Violent protests brings out the tanks and people start dying literally in the streets. Unless you are talking about actual revolution, violent protest accomplishes nothing and results in losing the moral high ground which is critical if one is to have international support. Violent protest in Hong Kong would result in Beijing sending in soldiers to suppress the rebellion under the guise of “public safety.” You get martial law and its justified (using their calculus) as protecting people from harm from the violent protesters. Violent protest in China would result in thousands dead and Beijing accelerating the 2047 expiration of the two systems, one country agreement. Bad idea.

So if Beijing is just going to send military force if they perceive something that will truly threaten change in HK, but they did not send anything, what does that tell you about the probable outcome of these non-violent protests?

I think the protestors are fighting the good fight, but I'm not holding my breath that anything will actually come about because 2 million people stood in the street.

Violent protest that is not “actual revolution” doesn’t bring change. It just leads to fighting in the streets as the parent said.

compare the violent protests that ignited the Syrian civil war (actual revolution) to the violent protests that resulted in no actual revolution (Rodney King riots, yellow vests in France, etc) to consider the difference, I think.

There is little distinction. One leads to another.

If you can dig news in well, you know that Syria began with some bakers protesting flour price hike and them roughing up some policemen.

A lot of revolutions stared with public disturbance events which had only tangential relation to political context, with Russian revolution being the best known example

It would be a huge risk. China is on the ropes in the political theater. Sending military troops to put down civilians in a free trade capital of the world would not earn them any favors.

I could see the 2047 date being extended. Hong Kong, as a percentage of China's total GDP, is just 2%, whereas back in 1997 it was about a quarter. Hong Kong isn't as economically relevant to China as it once was. So, let it be as-is under "One Country, Two Systems" to keep the peace with trade partners.

I doubt that any of this is even passes by Beijing strategic calculus.

Above protests being violent or non-violent, what concerns Beijing more is them keeping going for that long.

What Beijing truly fears the most is them made look powerless. Pretty much the sole point of propaganda in China is to instill the idea of the state being allpowerful, and omnipotent.

China has learned a lot since 1989, not necessarily the best lessons, but they at least have a well trained non lethal anti riot force (part of the PAP) and wouldn’t resort to the PLA unless as a best last resort even in mainland cities. One of the tragedies of 1989 is that China basically had no non lethal anti riot capabilities.

When a government deploys violence anyway people do have a right of self-defense. There's a broad spectrum of criminality from refusal to disperse following an order to do so, through interferences with public property like removal or deployment of barricades, through interference, confiscation or damage to vehicles, through direct physical confrontation which has its own escalatory tree.

Non-violence is a position but must have limits, otherwise you are demanding that people become punchbags of the state and preemptively invalidating all resistance against oppression, thereby amplifying the oppressor's narrative. A government in sufficient trouble will kill nonviolent people anyway and while it will lose moral legitimacy it is often willing to accept that as the price of strategic advantage, because the reality is that state actors can get away with killing people under many circumstances.

What we sometimes see (as here) is a triangle between government, capital, and people. Capital threatens to depart if government is overly aggressive and likes to pat itself on the back for its regulatory capability, but at the same time capital uses government to keep people subservient to those who control the wealth; one might say it's similar to fleecing sheep and aiming to slaughter as few and as humanely as possible. Large capital interests farm people within the legal and executive infrastructure of states for all practical purposes.

Hong Kong's government is historically not oppressive to its people. It's generally considered to be one of the most libertarian places on Earth. If they were to get violent against their oppressors, they'd be getting violent against mainland China. (They don't want to get violent against mainland China).

The real bottom line here: As long as you can make it back to HK then you are above the law in Macau/mainland China/Taiwan.

That should be mentioned more often.

> As long as you can make it back to HK then you are above the law in Macau/mainland China/Taiwan

Not sure what’s going on with this account’s posting history. That said, this allegation is false.

Taiwan supports the protesters [1]. Taiwan and Hong Kong, both lawful jurisdictions, are free to enter into extradition agreements with each other. This extradition bill was a ham-fisted attempt by Beijing to subjugate Hong Kong. Ironically, in failing, it has shown Xi’s limited power [2].

[1] https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/taiwan-expresses...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/world/asia/hong-kong-xi-j...

What I wrote is not an allegation. It is a fact as there is currently no extradition from HK to Macau/mainland China/Taiwan.

The whole bill was brought forward because of a HK resident accused of murdering his girlfriend in Taiwan and who fled back to HK. You can say that this was a pretext to bring the bill forward but it still highlights a real issue.

The Taiwanese government is being cynical here.

It's also difficult to see how this bill would "subjugate" HK if passed.

I do agree that the HK courts would need to be very thorough in considering extradition requests from the mainland and that their independence should be preserved.

> Ironically, in failing, it has shown Xi’s limited power

Or perhaps people are assuming that "one country, two systems" is a sham when it actually isn't.

They've had extradition for more than 100 years.

http://oelawhk.lib.hku.hk/items/show/2937

> The whole bill was brought forward because of a HK resident accused of murdering his girlfriend in Taiwan and who fled back to HK

Germany broadly prohibits the extradition of its citizens [1]. (As does China [2].) This doesn’t turn Germans and Chinese into lawless actors outside their borders. It just means their international crimes tend to be domestically prosecuted.

There are many ways to solve the problem of cross-border crime. Extradition is one of them. It works when you have two jurisdictions with rule of law. It is a bad solution between Hong Kong and China.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition#Own_citizens

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_law_in_China

Couldn’t you say the same about any pair of counties without an extradition treaty? If an American flees to Russia, he’s “above the law” in America, for example.

What makes HK so special that they must have an extradition treaty with China?

> What makes HK so special that they must have an extradition treaty with China?

Apart from being a Chinese territory?

Hong Kong and China are separate legal jurisdictions, which seems to be the relevant distinction when considering extradition laws.

It’s a bit reductive to describe Hong Kong as a “Chinese territory.”

What do you think would happen if China attempted to forcefully annex Hong Kong?

>What do you think would happen if China attempted to forcefully annex Hong Kong?

Lots of social media posts. Little action. Just like the Crimea.

Crimea has the problem that the annexation was very, very popular among Crimeans, even more so than most separatist movements. That doesn't make it okay, but after the fact, it'd be hard for third parties to justify forcibly reuniting Crimeans with the Ukranian government they don't want to be under.

How would you proceed to "annex" your own territory?

HK is not Crimea (mentioned by someone else), it is Chinese but enjoys a high degree of autonomy until 2047.

You send a bunch of soldiers into the territory and say the treaty is canceled, 28 years early.

The PLA is already stationed in Hong Kong. They moved in during the early morning of 1 July 1997:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koH6lGlcbn8

China annexed Hong Kong in 1997.

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