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Comment by notwumao | Hacker News Reader

I am a mainland-born Chinese who studied in the US and have been living in HK for over a decade. Just want to share what I saw recently: an overwhelming majority of Chinese people who grew up in mainland, regardless of where they live and work now, disapprove of the HK protesters' activities. Many mainland Chinese living in HK, who were largely not interested in politics in the past, have started donating money to pro-government causes. Supportive comments of the mainland government have risen dramatically among private chatters. It seems to me that the HK protesters' messages do not resonate well with most Chinese people.

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The Hong Kong protests are about democratic values, which were instilled in Hong Kong by the British for 150 years. Ideas like the Magna Carta (everyone has inherent rights and no one is above the law), freedom of the press, Common Law.

People who grew up in mainland china do not have that cultural context. Opposite values were taught (no 'inherent rights' outside of government policy, censorship of press to maintain harmony, no Common Law).

Unless they have advanced degrees in political theory, I imagine it would be very hard for people who grew up in mainland china to understand why the Hong Kong people are protesting at all, much less sympathize. The values are that far apart.

> everyone has inherent rights and no one is above the law

I don't see how these are "democratic values". They're extremely important things to have obviously, but they're orthogonal to whether the system is democratic or not.

How many non-democratic systems have you seen, which upheld this and the other principles GP referred to?

At least one. It doesn't matter though because the principle holds.

Hong Kong was very far from a democracy for the vast majority of British rule. Patten, the last governor, did start installing some from the 1990s, much to the everlasting ire of the Chinese Communist Party, and it's certainly taken root quite fast.

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

> Hong Kong was very far from a democracy

True, to an extent, yet it had civil liberties and the rule of law to a larger extent than China. So, I think GP's argument still stands.

I'd counter there're three reasons for the strong response from the general public of HK.

1. The suppression tactics used by the HK police affects both protesters and non-protesters.

Hong Kong is a very high density place. There was a recent incident where HK police threw tear gas in a residential district in Tai Wai; another one in Shum Shui Po. Let's say I'm not a protester and I live in some high density apartment complex nearby - I get gassed anyway. If I have someone with respiratory issues in my home it could be life threatening.

2. Triads are involved in protester suppressions

These people are lawless. If you appear in the wrong place at the wrong time, you get beaten, or worse, sliced. Again, this concerns both protesters and the general public.

3. The government is breaking the rule of law

It is one thing for some protesters to break laws, but it's quite another thing for the government to do it. It means the government is not keeping the peace and let everyday people carry on with their lives. Which again, concerns a lot of people who were originally not protesters.

Hong Kong is a different case from mainland China, because Hong Kong is a small place. If something bad happens in Causeway Bay, it's very close to home if you're in Wan Chai. Mass protests and crackdowns also happen in China. But let's say it happens in Beijing, it doesn't really concern you if you're in Suzhou or Xi'an.

As a Canadian living in Shenzhen, I can confirm that most Chinese people here appear to genuinely resent/disapprove the HK protesters.

May I ask you why you are against the protests? Also would you support the CCP making a public statement taking a step back and agreeing to listen to the protesters' concerns?

Cannot speak for OP but my Chinese mainland friends do not condone of the protests because they simply do not want to rock the boat in any way. Just live life, make money (preferably lots of it, so expensive brands can be bought), raise a family, help your neighbor. Let the gov run the country and keep your interests and discussions out of it. They believe HK will be a better, easier, more organized and more peaceful place when it joins the motherland. Normal people will be able to get houses again as the gov will redistribute them and life will be organized; no need for all this noise and violence.

But it’s the CCP that’s been pushing changes. If they just stopped pushing for changes between Hong Kong and the mainland, they would largely (if not entirely) placate the protesters. The CCP is the one rocking the boat!

It depends on your analogy. Mainland Chinese “learned from experience” that the CCP is the sea (i.e. out of control of people), not part of the boat.

Yep, but that is not what mainlanders think. Well, the ones I know. Very small group of well-off engineers. I have not been to HK for a few months now but I have friends in both camps. I am pro HK (but I am western so).

> why you are against the protests?

Note that GP never stated that. They gave an assessment (correct, in my view) of mainland opinion about the protests, they never said that they subscribed to that opinion.

Regarding the second question, I felt humiliated by the protestors' vandalism on the Chinese flag and emblem, which are symbols of our national identity. If my government ended up making concessions to the protestors' demand, it would be a hard pill for me to swallow.

This got me thinking about my own situation.

I've been living abroad in various places for a few years now, and I feel like if someone were to vandalise the flag of my home country in an act of protest I don't think it would trigger much of an emotional response in me at all. No more, probably, than someone vandalising the flag of my sports team (that's to say, not much).

I wonder where this emotional attachment to tribal symbols starts and ends. I haven't done much at all in my life (voted a few times, otherwise just lived within the system) to create my home nation. It's just the part of the world where I happened to be born.

Even if I had fought hard to change my country and later become proud of what it had become, I would question whether someone defacing a symbol of that country would trigger an emotional response.

Am I alone in this? Is this tribalism something which is usually considered innate or learned / forgotten?

The emotional attachment is rooted in the rapid rise of China in the past four decades.

Before the 1990s the opinions and actions of Chinese people hardly mattered on the world stage. People living in China had relatively low quality of life, and those living overseas were often neglected or treated with biases. There was a society-wide desire to build a stronger nation.

Many factors contributed to China's subsequent success in this endeavor, but I would say that most Chinese people attribute it to their own hard work. And this is a source of immense national proud. This proud is frequently associated with the Chinese flag and emblem when, for example, Chinese atheletes won medals in international contests. They've become symbols that unite a wide range of Chinese people.

Many Chinese who grew up in this period genuinely felt that they lived in good times, and saw China very favorably. They're also likely in prime age today and form the backbone of "mainstream" society. When the HK protesters operate in a context where almost everything about China as a country is interpreted negatively, their messages immediately lose credibility in the mainland.

> and I feel like if someone were to vandalise the flag of my home country in an act of protest I don't think it would trigger much of an emotional response in me at all.

This very much depends on a country's history and it is impossible to generalise, although I would suspect that burning an American flag in the US (for example) would not go well with many Americans (and probably same for other countries).

China's current regime is partly a reaction to foreign aggression and humiliation.

An enduring symbol of this aggression and humiliation was Hong Kong itself.

This what makes attacking state symbols (or waving the British/American flags as I have seen some protesters do on TV) in Hong Kong so potent.

I think that for many Chinese seeing people protesting against the extradition bill and for more democracy is one thing (which they may be somewhat sympathetic to, actually) but attacking national integrity is quite another, which is guaranteed to produce general anger.

Two possibilities present themselves.

Either the protestors don't know any history, or have learned such a skewed version of history that they internalize the perspective of the 19th century British victors in an ultimately self-defeating way, or;

They know very well the potency of the symbolism and are deliberately declaring themselves aligned with the Western camp out of political expediency, and elevating the conflict to the level of a battle of spheres of influence.

Neither possibility will be looked upon kindly by mainland Chinese firmly rooted in their own historical and political understanding, because it is against their interest.

You are not alone in this. The country flag itself does not have any true meaning other than representing the country. To the people from mainland China, it may symbolise launching rocket to fly round the moon, the 2nd largest economy, etc., but to the people in Hong Kong, it may mean uighur genocide, tiananmen massacre, years of WTO rules violations, etc..

However people grew up in China are trained to be punished and even disappeared when they speak or act against the chinese official rhetoric, where as being patriotic in the officially approved ways is rewarding.

This extends to them enjoying watching people get punished and disappeared when they speak or act against the chinese official rhetoric. It's immoral and irrational, but it's also human nature. These brainwashing started even before they have the ability to reason.

The original extradition law weakened the strength of the Common Law system of Hong Kong - which, for many Hong Kongers, had concerns on both their ability to continue to do business with international entities; and the rule of law itself.

The more recent police brutality concerns Hong Kongers because, well, now your home and the subway station you use everyday is gassed. And the government is doing it. It's now beyond just abstract concepts like the rule of law and it's a concern of your personal safety - even if you're not a protestor.

The issue of the Chinese flag / emblem being dirtied / thrown away / etc. during protests may be a concern of many in China... but ignoring the more immediate and practical concerns from everyday HKers is not helpful for anyone. Even from the perspective of the Party, such rhetoric only creates more division and problems down the road.

So what about the problems themselves? The extradition bill? Police brutality? Unjustified arrests? And ultimately, the HK government not answering to the people's demand?

You'll never get perfect behaviour from even a military, let alone a barely cohesive group of random protestors. Requiring that for allowing concessions is just pretence.

I’m sure if concessions were made, the protesters probably wouldn’t be as likely to do such things. Would you be willing to meet them in the middle?

You are being way too charitable. The five demands materialized out of one demand ("don't rush the bill") after Carrie Lam made a concession to suspend the bill. Middle-of-the-road concessions are not what the protestors are looking for now, if they ever were. Indeed they have indicated a strategy to use this moment to extract the maximal concession. That's a fairly extremist position that is probably unwise, and leads to all sorts of problems like having to buttress their own weak power position with borrowed foreign leverage.

The PRC leadership is not stupid, either. They see the suspension of the bill as test of whether this whole thing was about the bill or something else. As suspected, it was about something else. Given that, no concession the PRC is willing to make will be enough. This is bigger than HK now and frankly out of HK'ers hands as to how it evolves next.

> concession to suspend the bill

Suspending the bill with the implication of rushing it through when the protests have ended is not a concession, merely a move achieve PRC goals more quietly. Protesters have recognized and called it out as such. The fact that you don't seem to know that makes your statements suspect.

Thank you for sharing your perspective!

Cognitive dissonance?

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