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Comment by bitanarch | Hacker News Reader

The new protests happened because a new round of violence from the HK Police, towards both protesters and people unrelated to protests.

e.g. Firing less-lethal rounds directly at head level, causing permanent blindness

https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cowgje/a_female_p...

e.g. Planting evidence into protester's backpack

https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/coypg7/police_put...

e.g. Firing tear gas in subway station, which was being used by the general public

https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cp8qyy/hong_kong_...

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I will add that there is now suspicion of police infiltrating protest to start violent clash: https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1474213-20190812.h...

I wouldn't be very surprise if it was the case as it is often a tactic use, even in our western democracies, to justify stronger and more violent police operation and also tarnish the image of the protest.

Hong Kong is a matter of national security to China. Something countries go to wars till the last man over. So what you mentioned is nothing, China has a lot more goodies in the bag. Here's one: Granting pardons or giving immunity to top criminal gangs as a long as they kill xxx revolt leaders.

Why is this comment downvoted ?

In my country, Belgium, headlines were along the lines of "The real question now is: how patient is Beijing inclined to be ?".

There seems to be a lot of downvoting irrespective of post quality.

I wonder if this is i) thread-specific due to possible brigading, or ii) a more wider tribalistic phenomenon. I have perceived (lost my old account from years ago) that downvoting more and more is plain disagreement with the opinion, not whether a comment is substantive. Could be completely off and biased, but at least in this thread it seems to be the case.

Just a friendly reminder that "matter of national security" refers to the security of those currently in a position of power, the people here is incidental.

Hong Kong is viewed as a matter of national security to China. The only way it threatens the "national security" of China is by opening the door for people to question the goodness and wisdom of the Communist Party.

Where does the influence of China end and Western influence begin? Despite the political handover, there was no sudden change on this influence boundary in 1997. That is still being fought over year by year, and it's a highly legitimate national security issue.

> justify stronger and more violent police operation and also tarnish the image of the protest.

Agent provocateurs. And, yes, that's exactly what they're doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur

I agree with your sentiments, except

> Planting evidence into protester's backpack

Look at the video. The officer bends over to pick something off the ground and is not being subtle in any way in placing the items into his backpack. It's impossible to tell from the video what the items actually are, but it doesn't look suspicious to me. Perhaps a length of tube he was using to transport a protest banner? Whatever it is it looks like the sort of thing that would easily fall out of a loose backpack like his in a minor skirmish.

It could be the planting of evidence, but I don't think we have enough facts to make that assertion without strong qualifiers.

Well, some of those 'protesters' threw firebombs toward the police. [0]

and some of them met officials from the U.S. [1]

[0] https://www.foxnews.com/world/firebombs-set-off-near-2-hong-...

[1] https://stillnessinthestorm.com/2019/08/evidence-of-cia-meet...

they met the "political unit chief of US Consulate General" from the article. Where is the relation with the CIA.

The fox news article also mention "one protester". Seems like a isolated incident. Why talk about "the protesters" ?

EDIT: The parent post was saying "meeting" the CIA before they change it to "official of the US", hence my mention of the CIA.

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