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> The extradition bill? To do what? To extradite a Hong Kong teen that killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan so he can be prosecuted there

You're being disingenuous. The extradition bill is ostensibly about that case but here's the reality: the bill would allow Hongkongers to be extradited to mainland China, where the legal system is a joke.

The prospect of being arrested in HK and shipped to authoritarian China is completely untenable.

Chinese agents have already being kidnapping and 'disappearing' Hong Kong dissidents. This would legalise and streamline the process.

Neither I nor any of my family have been tried in China (I am guessing you haven't either), so I cannot comment on the legal system, but in reality, the legal system in the UK is not perfect either. There was a really good book released 2018 about how the legal system is broken here, if you are interested, it's a really good read:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law-Broken...

Onto the topic of the extradition bill though, it specifically excludes extraditing politial dissidents, so it would not streamline the process. What I hear some people say that China will just make some excuses in other areas, which then I don't see the point, since kidnapping and disappearing people would surely be easier right, and since they can already do that, then why would they need the bill? But you know what the bill does allow HK to do, is to extradite a baby murderer to face charges of the crime he commited.

what is the relevance of the UK legal system here? The discussion is about China

Secondly, it could easily be argued that a legal extradition route would be a lot easier than secretly kidnapping and disappearing people over the border. Why do you think it would be easier to kidnap?

Why is the UK legal system relevant here? Well, it's really not, but I am just comparing it to a legal system that I am familiar with, which is a bit of a joke as well; I am happy to hear how the legal system works where you are from if you are willing to tell. Additionally, the Chinese legal system uses civil law, which is based on the Roman system that is used throughout Europe, I mean if I had a spin of it in the UK, can make it look like a horrible system, even though it works.

As for what's easier, let's look at it this way. For me to kidnap someone, I can just find where they are staying, break into said place and then take them away; if I am super careful, I will do it when there is no one around. For me to create a legal extradition route, then I would need to look into your history, financial dealings etc, find out somewhere that looks dodgy, and try to use that as evidence; sometimes I cannot even use that as evidence given it may not even be committed in China. Remember, Al Capone was sentenced not due to the other crimes he committed (due to lack of evidence) but rather due to his tax evasions, so proving something legally when you haven't done it is very hard. If given that you can just go around "kidnapping and disappearing people" as you have stated, why would you want to bother create the legal route right?

No, it was more like the final straw that set all of the events in motion. It started with the Taiwanese matter that mainland China took advantage of to assert control. Mainland has been actively working to integrate Hong Kong into China for quite some time now both on the cultural side by encouraging Chinese to move to Hong Kong, and on the political side by removing complete authority away from Hong Kong. If you have ever visited both places you can easily see that they are 2 separate cultures. Hong Kong does not want to be China, they want to govern themselves. This is what these issues are about. China is increasingly trying to assert control while Hong Kong wants to be sovereign.

I've been to both places, and I am fully aware that the system in Hong Kong is very different to that of the mainland, to the point where in certain aspects I see Hong Kong as a separate country (although things could have changed in the past few years, so I am not so certain).

From what I've seen though, I don't think China really wants to fully integrate Hong Kong (probably not even in 2047) as it doesn't make to much sense to do so, but would rather create an offshore haven like what Jersey is to the UK. But here lies the problem, while Jersey is seen as really well off due to the number of high networth bank accounts kept there, there is a real sense of poverty in Jersey and I think that's the issue HK is facing right now. If that is the case, calling for democracy is not going to solve their problems, so instead of rioting, maybe they should have sat down to work out a better solution.

Not saying you're wrong but you're way too confident on your stance when most people don't even have all the facts aside from cherry-picked bits from biased media (regardless of side). I have been following the protests since the beginning and I seem to remember things were peaceful until bad actors (violent police and hired thugs) came into the picture. There has also been evidence of false flag operations so how would you even know how to pick apart the real protestors from the provocateurs?

Hired thugs? I assume you mean in Yuen Long right? Here is my question, do you know where Yuen Long is? It's quite far out of the city of Hong Kong (I mean the name has far in it). So the story goes that the "protesters" went there to do what exactly, and then got beaten up right? So why were they so far out in the first place? Since it's quite far out of the city center, do you really think someone can quickly pay thugs to create a coordinated attack against these rioters when it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment type of thing?

Personally, I am more convinced that the "protesters" are the agitators of all of these, you are more than welcome to show me otherwise.

As for violent police, the UK deals with protests are even worse, but I've not seen escalation to this sort of level.

It is far but some protesters actually live in Yuen Long. There was a large protest in Victoria Park happened earlier in the same day. After the peaceful protest, they went home and found themselves trapped by the white shirted locals.

"Trapped by the white shirted locals", so then not by hired thugs? If locals would somehow trap "peaceful protesters" to beat them up, then man, HK must be a violent place!