The Siege of Carrie Lam
idlewords.com
idlewords.com
Living in HK the last few months has been frustrating for me, primarily because of growing spread of misinformation and the untrustworthy reporting on the situation. It's getting hard to know what information to believe, and that's even for myself living here, who has seen all of it from my own eyes. How could you expect anyone reading the news or social media from a foreign country to be reacting to valid information?
The western media is making it sound like Hong Kong is Syria. Protester private channels makes wild unfounded claims about mass-scale executions and rapes. Chinese media makes it sound like HK is under siege by terrorists. SCMP's reporting is increasingly suspiciously lacking and pro-establishment. The government is entirely untrustworthy and straight up lying about everything and anything.
There are a few people doing good work (e.g. OSINT HK), but it's not enough to rise about the noise drowning it all out.
Of course the real situation is more nuanced. It's also all entirely pointless, with no hope for de-escalation or positive resolution.
That said, it's also not nearly as dramatic and disrupting to daily life as you'd expect. Living in HK is still far safer than in downtown San Francisco (or anywhere in the US for that matter). For those wishing to stay out of it, avoiding protests is fairly easy (I mean — unless you live in Mong Kong or Prince Edward). The handful of times I ended up right in the middle of it, nobody really cared to bother any bystanders.
The government seems to be on a mission to do anything in its power to make things worse, from repeatedly escalating the situation through violence, inflammatory policy, and generally being a party-pooper and cancelling all ordinary celebrations (e.g. Halloween).
Today, walking down the street in Sai Ying Pun, I observed workers replacing the wooden paneling they've been installing in front of the mainland Chinese banks to protect them from the thrashings with welded metal paneling. It was somewhat of a sign that they're getting ready for this to continue in the long term.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/search/?country=38361
And while their reports don't "make it sound like Hong Kong is Syria" they do sound pretty bad, with reports about police behavior including widespread beatings and denial of access to council and medical care, arrest of human rights monitors, and in some cases shootings, vehicular assaults, torture, and sexual assault.
Man-Kei Tam, Director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, said:
“These are not policing measures – these are officers out of control with a mindset of retaliation.”
Joshua Rosenzweig, Head of Amnesty International’s East Asia Regional Office, said:
“Rather than deescalating the situation, Hong Kong’s authorities have chosen to grant themselves sweeping new powers to quash protests, demonstrating the extent of their growing intolerance for freedom of peaceful assembly,”
And Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia Director at Amnesty International, said
“The evidence leaves little room for doubt – in an apparent thirst for retaliation, Hong Kong’s security forces have engaged in a disturbing pattern of reckless and unlawful tactics against people during the protests.”
That sounds similar to what I've heard in western media.
That's making a pretty bold assumption that we can see all possible or likely outcomes. As with most of history, the flow of events carves it's own course, with developments surprising contemporary onlookers and only becoming obvious through hindsight.
Yes, I was going to say I never got this impression listening to NPR.
This comment struck me as odd, especially in this particular context. Have you lived in Syria also, or is your impression based on western media reports?
Except she could have chosen to take the HKer's side. She is after all a HK citizen and its representative even without true election. Seven million rebels can parallelize a city, but pissing off a few thousand bureaucrats in the politburo simply leads to tantrums and rhetorics. If she had done that, HK's economy would not have stalled, HKers would rally behind her, and the whole Two System debate could be channelled into a consultation process that can remain civil and reasonable.
HKers will not forgive her for her missteps and police brutality that led to thousands of arrested and hundreds of maimed/injured/raped/dead. That will always be her legacy.
But HKers can thank her incompetence for triggering the nationalistic feeling of a Hongkonger. The city of immigrants and world refugees has never been so clearly in sync, and the common enemy so in focus.
Could she ? Wouldn’t she have been "disappeared" as well as her family ?
Not trying to excuse anything of course, she chose her side a long time ago, but still…
But let's say you believe that dark scenario. In that case, even small gestures, like visiting a school or hospital, or not calling protesters "enemies of the people", would have been a sign of sympathy.
She did visit the local mosque to apologize when the police blasted it with tainted water, after she was called out on it. She did not visit nor apologize to local churchs which experienced worse behavior.
She simply refuses to learn what Hong Kongers truly think of her. The district elections were a stinging rebuke to her administration, yet she believes that she is right.
We Hong Kongers will remember her and her cronies forever, in the same way we remember the June 4th crackdown.
China is, and Hong Kong is part of China. This is the root of the entire problem.
If she decided to "make Beijing happy", then what's the endgame?
She thought this was going to end well? And she was going to get rewarded by the CCP?
Any large movement has divisions within it with different priorities.
Interesting part of the article is that it says different. Carrie Lam initiated the crisis on her own without instructions from Beijing.
Lam's own leaked statements say otherwise [1].
[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3025579...
> “But, of course, I’m sure in your hearts you will feel, and I’m sure a large number of people feel that I do have a solution, that is a political one. But I have to tell you that this is where the crux of the matter lies."
> “Once an issue has been elevated to the situation [name redacted], to a national level, to a sort of sovereignty and security level, let alone in the midst of this sort of unprecedented tension between the two big economies in the world.
> “The room, the political room for the Chief Executive who, unfortunately, has to serve two masters by constitution, that is the central people’s government and the people of Hong Kong, that political room for manoeuvering is very, very, very limited."
Assuming she was being honest (no reason not to, given this was a private meeting behind closed doors), if she has no political power of her own, how is she not executing CCP policy?
Also, I would take what Carrie Lam says here (and anywhere) with a grain of salt.
I don't say anything. I refer to the specifics mentioned in the article.
Does China have anything to loose with an independent inquiry into police violence ?
The Hong Kong situation is still quite baffling. I initially thought that the emotional motivation was independence. But it seems like that’s not the crux of the issue
CLam is clearly under the duress of the CCP - and not just for the simplistic reasons of her maintaining her own face/position/power/etc...
She is the lynchpin of CCP control in HK.
So, lets assume she caves to the protesters... (wont happen), she would wreak the ire of the CCP - and obv, she is as much of a leach oligarch as the rest - so she clearly cant choose the cup in front of her.
Now, if she were to take the strong arm of the CCP against the protesters, she would wreak the havoc of the international sanction prospects of the world abroad.
So she clearly cannot choose the cup in front of you...
What she does know is that the global authoritarian regimes have spent the last few years building an immunity to Protester-Murder Requiring-Protester-Backlash-in-the-face-of-economic-and-geo-political-gains.
Thuggery is not a new thing, common to all crime families is a "protection" for the foot soldiers. If a foot soldier messes up the boss takes responsibility, admonishes the criminal, and the criminal is thankful for getting off without justice. We see this common behaviour in the American mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, and currupt police departments, and clearly China's Hong Kong occupiers.
More like autonomy: apparently Hong Kong citizens don't mind being part of China as long as they can keep their self-governance.
And that ties in to your question:
> Does China have anything to loose with an independent inquiry into police violence ?
Such an inquiry would emphasize HK's autonomy (and also paint government as potentially fallible, something the party doesn't like to see discussed). On the other hand: does China have anything to win with such an inquiry? I can't see anything (there are four more demands and giving in on this would likely increase support for demanding the rest), so for them it's all risk and no gain.
So they don't mind being a part of China so long as they aren't actually a part of China. I can't blame them either, the current system has worked out well for the island, and China's internal polices have not had quite as much success on the mainland.
But Chinese officials were pretty clear from the start that they intended to integrated HK eventually and that the semi-detached existence was only temporary. They see this as inevitable and the HL population is just dragging their heels on something that has to happen in the end.
Instead China is implementing totalitarianism on a first world region and the Cantonese hate it.
- cause PRC citizens to also start demanding accountability
- cause nationalistic protests about kowtowing to what was described as terrorists
EDIT: It's worth pointing out that this is why Ecuador gave Assange asylum: it was clear that the UK and US legal systems were being politically corrupted. The political corruption of the legal system is just much more systematic in China.
Plenty of atrocities committed - people being shipped off in train cars reminiscent of pre-WWII photos that I have only learned about in school.
Best wishes.
[EDIT] I agree I should have said alleged atrocities. Sadly, hardly anyone left in HK is impartial but hopefully independent enough investigations are opened.
To the trains - I was referring to this I saw a few weeks ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dxz3xd/transporti...
It is not a good look loading anyone in trains who is captive. True, we don't know where they're headed, could be fine - it's a bad look given the situation.
There is absolutely no corroborated evidence whatsoever that this happened. Just like the alleged rapes. I'm not saying that these things did not happen, but absolutely no credible evidence on these claims up until now.
There is video and photo evidence from multiple sources on Twitter. There have been extensive reports of victims like British consulate worker Simon Cheng being abducted to the mainland and being tortured. Obviously there wont be any "corroboration" from the PRC state security agency or police...
Did you even see his interview with the BBC? Legally would not say anything about his hiring of prostitutes. No medical evience of the torture he claimed. The only hard evidence that was provided were CCTV tapes of him going into local massage joint. You would think that if he didn't obtain the services of sex workers he would come out and say it. Interesting that the British also let him go.
I've seen those videos. You have to be kidding if that's sufficient evidence to say they are being shipped off to Chinese black camps. As for the alleged rapes - the evidence is even more lacking. The primary source used is a facebook account using a pseudonym who claims he's an emergency doctor who then says he "swears" that he's telling the truth.
Everyone needs to be held to a basic standard of logic and scrutiny, not a double standard simply because one might agree with the ideals of a group. There are numerous ludicrous claims on the government and police side. But the same stands for protesters as well.
provided by who? Would Chinese authorities provide evidence against themselves?
Cheng was not abducted to the mainland; he was arrested on the mainland side of the boundary crossing at the high-speed rail station in Kowloon, coming back from Shenzhen. The fact that there's a border crossing in downtown Hong Kong is its own issue, but his case can't be called an abduction (unlike the case of the booksellers a few years ago).
Anyway, please stop spreading falsehoods, there's enough of that going around.
There's a difference between one person getting arrested and mass deportation. One should be able to criticize the former without falsely claiming that it's the latter.
Even clarifying to people he hadn't made it across the border yet, it still feels different than if he was picked up in Shenzhen.
People who support CCP believe that it is the greedy capitalism caused the problem. Implementation of the CCP regime can rebuild HK. People who support democracy believe that it is the CCP iron fist caused suffocating.
No one is backing down. It ended up with a civil war.
Humans repeat their mistakes generation after generation.
Yesterday I talked about just that with an HKer who works in marketing. Democracy supporters acknowledge that this trend is hurting the economy, though on bright side they welcome businesses starting to target local long-term customers more.
The number of restaurants and bars I see closing on an almost daily basis is getting sad. My friends in the F&B industry here confirm that they're hurting. Bad.
Hospitality is hit even harder with hotels at 30% occupancy and many having to offer rates at 50% or higher discounts, and having to lay off staff.
If the CCP had let HK be autonomous as they agreed this wouldn't have happened.
So it's not exactly altruistic support, but the economic entanglement means that if the mainland decided to embargo Hong Kong, the effect would be devastating.
The Mainland hasn't been supporting Hong Kong as much as taking it over and adding to it's historic role as a gateway for FDI into China, it is now using it as a gateway for businessmen and CCP to ship money out of China into safe assets (into Hong Kong and overseas).
What the CCP has done to Hong Kong is basically neocolonialism.
In addition, China is happy to let Carrie and HK stumble...to a certain extent of course. But they truly have been very hands off on the HK protests. I think it's worth noting that China is perfectly fine with HK getting burned by itself just as long certain lines aren't crossed (independence, violence against PLA, etc.). They weren't worried about losing HK when it was under British colonial rule, they certainly aren't worried now.
Furthermore, things really aren't that bad considering how the media has been reporting HK. It's still an extremely well-to-do city and life goes on in most parts.
At least, if they get pummeled, in the end, it will be extremely clear that whatever happened was not consensual and will set them up to fight another round down the line.
The issue with the current HK government at the end of the day is that Carrie Lam is a second rate administrator and is wildly unqualified for handling the current situation in HK. Worse yet, she has one of the worst cabinets / teams ever assembled (you would need to be familiar with local HK politics to know this). In other words, HK couldn't have had a worse group to lead the city at this point in time.
Having said that, Carrie is completely reliant on the police force at this stage. There is no way she agrees to an independent inquiry or any major moves against the police. At least not right now.
I'd say that the independent inquriy may be something that can be compromised on at some point. But universal suffrage is out of the question, and demands 3 and 4 would never be accepted by the rest of Hong Kong nor would any reasonable person accept it given what has taken place since the original protests. In fact one of the key issues is that "the protest" isn't just one unified movement that has been moving forward since its inception.
Why wouldn't any reasonable person accept an independent inquiry into police brutality? That doesn't sound very reasonable to me.
"Analysts generally believe that the bill was the initiative of Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, not a measure suggested or strongly pushed from Beijing. Lam may have been aiming to please the Chinese authorities and strengthen her position, or it may have been an attempt to put a formal procedure in place in order to circumvent the Chinese authorities from simply kidnapping Hong Kongers."
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/03/why-is-hong-kong-erupti...
I think earthquakes are a good illustration of what's happening. Energy that builds up, friction developed between tectonic plates that gets released, either violently or smoothly, with varying levels of impact depending on the geological conditions surrounding it.
In the US, I mostly agree with the high level view that Andrew Yang ascribes (which is actually just the technocrat doom and gloom point of view) - economic changes that created waves of discontent, with an unconscious realization that problems have become too big for individuals alone to deal with, demanding escalation to the government level to solve, bringing in a feeling that we need something radically different (Trump) to handle the observed radical differences that the 21st century world is bringing in.
In Asia, the socio-economic changes that are happening are the same as the US, except instead of having the strongest economy in the world with a wealth of resources, education, a progressive history and lots of national-level experience in dealing with shocking changes, you have... exactly what you see in HK. Asian culture, stemming from confucian values, encourage and promote people to power who like to keep things the same way and discourage adaptation (harmony in society is defined as minimizing conflict which usually means not rocking the boat).
While the US (at least compared to other countries) has a system in place that can handle mistakes, has a rich history of how to handle change and how to properly push for progressive value shifts, the whole of Asia lacks all of that experience as a culture. What you have is a bunch of the older generation who are used to the old way of doing things, and see the world more similar to the godfather era rather than modern society. The rest of society has a value to not rock the boat and to care for outward harmony over bring up legitimate issues. This yields an environment where people are just not "trained for change". The actions that the current Asian political powers are taking look primitive to anyone who has lived in modern society and has observed how progressive shifts actually take place (and many have taken place over the last 5-10 years).
It will be very interesting to see how Asia adapts because modern society isn't going anywhere, it's actually speeding up and clashing more and more with how the older generation wants things to be.
ABC?