Why are there protests in Hong Kong? | Hacker News Reader

Why are there protests in Hong Kong?

bbc.com

31 pointsakbarnama13 comments

Hong Kong. Now Moscow. If you're out there and you feel abandoned by the world remember that we're here with you in spirit; we're not being too aggressive because we know your governments will turn that against you and claim that we are responsible for your protest. In fact you are looking out for yourselves and we commend you for that.

This is hands down the best comment I've read on hacker news.

We need to really and truly do more than just send "thoughts and prayers". Freedom is not the default state of world politics, totalitarianism is. If we don't fight and help others with actual on the ground armies, then when our freedom is taken no one will be left to help us.

Ever since Korea, US interventionism just seems to make things worse. We just don't seem to have the will to do a good job, and I don't think we should do a job unless we're going to do it right.

I don't think we want a was

I think it really hard to say how many HKers identify themselves as 'Chinese', because 'Chinese' is such a complex term. Even in Taiwan where many pro-independence youngsters call themselves Taiwanese, many of the older generation still consider themselves as Chinese, and they refuse to call their country 'Taiwan', and use 'Republic of China' instead. People from Puerto Rico may first identify themselves as Puerto Rican, and then US citizen.

Chinese can be an adjective or a noun. Most will accept the adjective e.g "Chinese culture" but will not accept the noun e.g "Wong is a Chinese"

Puerto Rican call themselves Puerto Ricans because (1) they're not yet a state, and (2) the term defines both a region and an ethnicity.

There's little similarity between their relation to the U.S. and HK or Taiwan's relation to China, especially since the U.S. and its territories are all democracies.

In the age of post-truth news cycle, it’s so easy to read only the reports (or just the headlines) that you care about, and dismiss the other side. This type of article should be on the front page every day.

If it’s difficult to keep up with current affairs, imagine to form an opinion about something that happened 30 years ago. (Oh, the curse of year ‘*9.) If they are protesting for Lam’s resignation, it’s still not too late for Beijing to take a step down; if as they say they are demanding free election, no way it will happen under Xi and it’s anyone’s guess how it will all end. My opinion is that they badly need someone (all the ex chief executives and also nonpolitical figures) whom both sides trust, just like some Republican elders need to come out and stop/rein in Trump. Both are unlikely to happen.

If all this happened back in 2015/16 when the bookshop keepers were taken, it would have been a clearer if not stronger message, and depending on the outcome the discontent/distrust might not have risen so high as it is now.

Part of me wonders if it's at all possible if the protestors represent only a vocal minority of opinions in Hong Kong. I mean, maybe busy families around HK would prefer to stay as part of china. I'm certainly not informed enough to know if that's the case or not. If a small vocal minority in SF wanted to make the city an independent nation, wouldn't you want the US government to step in to stop anything radical from happening?

> wouldn't you want the US government to step in with tanks and so fourth to stop anything radical from happening?

No. I'd want a referendum.

Scotland had a referendum on becoming independent. They chose to stay in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Scottish_independence_ref...

Britain had a referendum on leaving the EU. They chose to leave the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit

So why not simplify everything and allow Hong Kong to hold a Chexit referendum? Let the people of Hong Kong decide what they want for themselves.

Chexit would never happen. We mainly want the status quo, preferably with universal suffrage so that we can have a say in which policies are tabled and so that our leaders are accountable to us rather than the central government.

The status quo won't get you what you want. One country, two systems was always going to end in 2047.

Estimates of the number of protesters from non prc sources are around 1-2 million. For reference the HK population is 7.4 million. This in an incredibly large fraction of the population. Moreover, these are just the people who felt it so important that they were willing to risk their own safety by physically taking to the streets. Support for the protests among the population is likely much higher. In fact i think these protests are notable because of the agreement among hk citizens.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com