China’s State Media Show Hong Kong Protest Images, Fanning Public Anger
wsj.com
wsj.com
An authoritarian government like China's has no real mandate - they have no right to be running the country and no legitimacy that can be claimed. They're a bunch of men that the army listens to. They have the guns and the power and that's it. With such a government, symbols and flags are the proxies for legitimacy. I don't know whether the translation is faithful, but the vandalism was actually translated to the English word "desecrate". That's some powerful language for wooden sign.
Many people feel the same towards their country's flag, which is merely a piece of fabric.
Legitimacy is also in the eye of the beholder, with one's perception of history, cultural or ethnic identity, and politics playing significant roles.
All of these are of course abstractions, just like symbols like the flag and like the very notion of a country itself. Yet there's no shortage of people willing to kill and die for them.
China was attacked, invaded, humiliated from the end of the 18th century until 1945. This is what created a reaction that led to the collapse of imperial rule and to the rise of the modern parties (Nationalists and Communists).
The communist government did manage to rid the country of foreign occupation and to recover some breakaway provinces.
Hong Kong, lost to the British in the Opium Wars, was a very bitter symbol and a source of humiliation and most Chinese do credit the current government with getting it back at last.
This is a real source of legitimacy.
This is why showing the protests may be so potent on Chinese public opinion.
Protesters should be worried because if the Chinese government changes policy and starts showing these images this can only mean that they plan a more serious crackdown. Public opinion will demand it.
In this scenario, is there public opinion that isn’t faked?
It's not faked. As mentioned Chinese nationalism is what created today's China, not the other way round. The very existence of Hong Kong as a British colony is partly responsible for today's China.
The funny and sad thing is that, one could say it's the CCP themselves who killed the most Chinese in the last century, speaking figuratively.
There are many things I don't agree with or quite understand about the front line protesters, but one thing I'm pretty sure is that they don't give a shit about the CCP image being tarnished.
They were shouting for revolutions in the streets already (whether it's a good or workable idea is up for debate), Xi's feeling is not their concern now.
> China was attacked, invaded, humiliated from the end of the 18th century until 1945. This is what created a reaction that led to the collapse of imperial rule and to the rise of the modern parties (Nationalists and Communists).
For a discussion of the birth of nationalism and patriotism in China, see this Chinese article [1] by Wai Kin Chung 鍾偉健.
Like anything in social science, nationalism–including the Chinese one–is a social construct. The nationalism of China, in particular the term 中華民族 Zhonghua minzu, was first coined towards the end of the 19th century [1], and before that China was much more receptive of people of different ethnicity: in the past dynasties many famous poets and generals were of a different race. More precisely, Chinese back then didn‘t care much about differing ethnicities, but they care about differing cultures. The Chinese nationalism (esp. stressing the humiliation by foreigners) was socially constructed near the end of the last dynasty (Qing) in China, and clearly played an important role to its demise, in the way you pointed out.
For comparison, Japan or Germany do not stress their defeat and humiliation by the Allied power for their nationalism, because their source of legitimacy is democracy.
[1]: https://gushi.tw/you-are-also-chinese/
> (Nationalism) This is a real source of legitimacy.
Exactly, completely agree.
Xi, like his predecessors, is trying to equate the party with the nation (mostly the Han race) to fuel this modern Chinese nationalism for legitimacy, and the latest attempt is a revival nationalism called Chinese dream [2]. In the last decade, a main source of legitimacy for CCP was fast GDP growth, but this source is drying up quickly due to excess production, unsustainable credit expansion, and aging population. So Xi is trying to promote another source of legitimacy for CCP in case the economy is not performing well, again stressing 中華民族 Zhonghua minzu or effectively the Han race and their humiliation by foreigners, as you elaborated.
[2]: https://www.eurasiareview.com/08122018-the-contours-of-xis-c...
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWarNerd/comments/85ewei/all_nati...
I wonder what happens when the tension comes to a precipice and China sends in security forces to "maintain the peace". I hope for Hong Kong and the global economy's sake, it doesn't come to that. Although it seems like that's exactly what the Chinese state government is gearing up for.
Are you equally shocked that other nations are unwilling to take sides in the various political conflicts that we've lived through in the past decade in the United States?
Generally, it's prudent, in the geopolitical arena, for nation states to keep their noses out of other nations' domestic politics.
We don't have protests at the same scale, nor organized crime being hired to beat people.
> The white-clad activists are suspected to be linked to local organized crime gangs known as triads that operate in the villages on Hong Kong’s more remote fringes, a Hong Kong Democratic Party official told The Wall Street Journal.
I gather that the Triads have had a long and complex relationship with Chinese governments. Going back centuries. So I think that there's more to it than hiring criminals. But I'm not clear just what it is.
The politicians he interacts with are, for the most part, smart enough to keep their opinions about his character to themselves... At least, when he's within earshot. If you recall the election, nearly any time some foreign leader was asked about Trump/Hillary, their response would be the inevitable 'We are going to work with whomever wins.'
Other nations (and international bodies like the UN) have voiced fairly strong opinions on various internal US policy controversies in the last several years.
2. Exactly how much of a care does the citizenry & political leaders give about some UN sub-committee condemning the US?
One interesting constraint that Beijing is operating under, though, is Taiwan. The government has argued in favor of reunification for years now, under a similar one-nation-two-systems framework. If they send the tanks and the shock-troops in to Hong Kong, then no one can deny that that's all bullshit.
Given that their economy is already slowing (dramatically faster than the official numbers by many reports) and their massive debt loads -- sanctions could pack a real punch.
But it is a piece on the chessboard, for sure.
Of course people can still deny it. Tiananmen Square happened after all. The PRC has never governed Taiwan yet essentially no governments call their imperialism what it is and tacitly accept their “unification” language. At the end of the day countries can argue up is down if money is involved.
Taiwan is internationally recognised as being part of China. What happened is that the Chinese government of the time fled there during the civil war.
The communists founded the PRC and the ROC government kept control of Taiwan.
Since then the question has been who to recognise as legitimate government. And this has changed over time.
What you're saying is like saying that South Korea never governed the North (or vice versa) or that East Germany never governed West Germany (or vice versa). While obviously factually true this does not diminish the fact that they are part of Korea or Germany as a whole. 'reunification' is the correct term, it's nothing to do with colonisation (what imperialism relates to).
Regardless you’re basically proving my point. People can argue anything if they want to. And when money’s involved people will argue whatever you want.
I am describing the historical reality.
I think the point of HN is to be able to do that without receiving insults in return.
> They are two separate countries regardless of what either sides political claims.
They are of course are de facto separate states. This does not change a thing to my previous comment.
'China' is made of the mainland and Taiwan, like 'Germany' was made of East and West Germany.
Really, the mistake of the PRC is to have prevented the use of the official name of what Taiwan is as a state: The Republic of China. That would have nipped all those "Taiwan v. China" narratives in the bud.
No you’re really not. The PRC and the ROC are two separate countries with (extremely large border disputes). Everything else is just propaganda. There is a landed region vaguely referred to as “China” made up of land that one time or another contained the mainland as well as Taiwan. That region is not a “country” today and is definitely not represented by either the PRC or the ROC regardless of what the acronyms stand for.
> I think the point of HN is to be able to do that without receiving insults in return.
I didn’t insult you. I called your argument nonsense. I mean that literally and it is true. You are parroting old propaganda that there is “one China” which was first put forward by the ROC when it was a member of the UN and trying to assert its claims to the mainland. That propaganda continued to be used by the PRC attempting to make similar claims. But it can’t hide the fact that they are two countries and that propaganda simply makes no sense. Hence the “nonsense” of your argument.
> Really, the mistake of the PRC is to have prevented the use of the official name of what Taiwan is as a state: The Republic of China. That would have nipped all those "Taiwan v. China" narratives in the bud.
I have no idea what this refers to. The ROC refers to itself the “Republic of China”. It considers itself a state.
The real mistake of the PRC is the one it continues to make: not accepting reality and stopping it’s interference in the ROC’s international relations (including its blocking of admittance is the ROC to the UN). It was a farce when the ROC kept the PRC out of the UN and it’s a farce now.
> I have no idea what this refers to.
You are arguing on a topic you obviously know very little about and that you don't understand, judging by your nebulous comments. And you're doing it in a very dismissive and rather rude way.
I would suggest you take a step back.
You clearly didn't read my posts. Your "historical reality" is simply a delusion.
> You are arguing on a topic you obviously know very little about and that you don't understand, judging by your nebulous comments. And you're doing it in a very dismissive and rather rude way.
As I demonstrated in my comments, I in fact know quite a bit about this topic. As far as I can tell from this thread, I know more about it than you do. So if you'd like to elucidate me about your post, feel free. If not that's alright. But you shouldn't take your inability to explain yourself as some kind of a badge of honor.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Note that they include: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
It’s not totally clear to me what you’re referring to, but East and West Germany and North and South Korea were (are in the Korean case) separate countries by any sane meaning.
As soon as a foreign nation takes sides, then those in the country on the same side can be easily cast as collaborators, or just tools of the foreign nation. E.g. it turns Protesters vs. Chinese Government into Tools of US Imperialism vs. China.
There is a famous commencement address of Solzhenitsyn delivered at Harvard, I think in the 80s, illustrating how West seems to deeply misunderstand Eastern cultures, but it seems to me, we are where were then, and nothing has been learned.
And the most radical of the protesters aren't getting what they want (independence) anytime soon, if ever. I'd say the CCP would keep trying to deal with it with domestic assets for the time being.
It appears that the leadership's patience has run out and it is nervous that it will spread to other cities like Wuhan, in which there's currently a massive protest ongoing.
This almost certainly means elevated levels of violence. They've already deployed tanks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y1ezo6m8V8) in Wuhan which means the Hong Kong PLA garrison's APCs will be making a world media debut soon.
Just look at the case of Liu Xiaobo.
The Hong Kong government thus far has failed to rein in the protests using the police force.
Situation is still fluid, but the thug thing may backfire. (or may it not)
What did they expect after a long period of democracy and western rule of law and capital wealth, that hong kongers just roll over peacefully like in Mainland???!
This critical short sight from the current chinese leadership is incredible! now it has 2 major international scandals (falun gong organ harvesting and uighur concentration camps) from which it faces a threat to its powerbase and its about to get another one if they use excessive force in Hong Kong. but who knows! they might not give a damn.
However, they attacked even ordinary citizens in the restricted area of train stations and even inside the carriages.
https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/ch/component/k2/1469828-20190722.h...
This afternoon and evening, there were rumors that the thugs would get their hands dirty again in the western parts of Hong Kong, but so far (3AM now) it hasn't materialized.
But it's surely instilled terror in people's heart. The streets have become strikingly empty.
BTW, I'd have quite a few reservations about calling the HK political system a "democracy". But that's a topic for another day.
Arguably, Trump's economic actions and continued threats against the EU has led to EU countries cooperating with China in ways they refused to before.
It seemed more like we were being bullied into allowing US companies to bulldoze our institutions for their profit, while not giving much in return.
Perhaps CCP see themselves as guardians of a country, a system thousands of years old. In comparison the existence of the modern democratic West has been for a mere ephemeral duration, and look who likes to lecture whom..
Everything else is hot air.
Democracy isn't new its older than communism. Democracy also took time to develop in the West. It's unfathomable to someone who has never been fed information that the Party didn't change.
Democracy has been in America for well over a 100 years, so it has china beat.
If we're going to play this game: 243 years to be more precise. While communism as a nascent ideology was only invented in 1848... (that's 171 years). 97 years in place as an established government if you count what the USSR called communism as such...and yes ~70 years since the end of the Chinese Civil war.
Many anthropologists would disagree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_communism#Nature_of_...
> Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump said Monday that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had acted responsibly in his handling of the Hong Kong protests, which Mr. Trump described as “relatively nonviolent.”
> “He has allowed that to go on for a long time,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Xi.