Of course the CCP used those photos as propaganda to reenforce the arguably false narrative presented to mainland Chinese that the CIA was behind the resistance. The psychological aspect of warfare never ceases to amaze me.
This is also the reason China took hardline on Hong Kong as they see it as strategic weak spot. Moreover actions of China in Hong Kong are supported by majority of people in China. This tyranny of majority exists in democracy too, what happened in Kashmir is 100 times worse than HK.
Given the way US president pardoned people who committed genocide in Afganistan and killed scores of kids and unarmed civilians. There is hardly any ground left for them to teach others.
No real death in over an year of violent protests by police firing in Hong Kong vs 5 deaths in capitol building siege speaks volumes about the professionalism with which Hong Kong police handled the protests.
China is built by hard work of its people not by CCP [1].
May be work there for a while and than you can see why Korea, Japan and Greater China did so well not others in growth. It’s easy to talk rhetoric, but hard to do hard work to bring about transformation.
The Chief Executive election has been delayed for 2 decades requiring the CCP to "pre-filter" candidates which the public rejected.
The legislative council election has been controlled by disqualifying candidates as well as the mass arrest of 53 pro-democracy candidates for simply organizing the primaries and engaging in debates. [3]
TLDR; China wasn't as strong in 90s so took a softer stance. Later decided to go back on its words so had to find ways to control the elections or the results.
> No real death in over an year of violent protests by police firing in Hong Kong vs 5 deaths in capitol building siege speaks volumes about the professionalism with which Hong Kong police handled the protests.
This is not true. After witnessing the 2019 movement and the real police behavior captured on live tv/news[4], I have a much better understanding of the Stanford prisoner experiment.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law [2]https://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclawtext/chapter_4.html [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Hong_Kong_Legislative_Cou... [4]https://tl.hkrev.info/en/police-timeline/
People who support govt and not protestors their shops, restaurants, businesses vandalised and were constantly harassed. It became politically impossible to voice against the protestors due to fear of violence, know this first hand not by talking but living through it.
Please read the Basic Law and also the extradition bill [1]. Extradition being better was still opposed and ultimately National security law was passed to give teeth to administration to stop violent protests.
It’s the vehement majority of Hong Kong people who gave rights to reinterpret Basic Law to stem the flow of people from mainland China (since court of final appeal was going to allow spouses and children of Hong Kong residents from other parts of China to settle in HK). This is the same provision used for implementing National security law. So in HK people got what they asked for and also majority Chinese supported this action on HK. So like any democracy like USA and India a law which appease majority pass easily same happened here.
[1] https://www.legco.gov.hk/yr18-19/english/bills/b201903291.pd...
> So in HK people got what they asked for and also majority Chinese supported this action on HK. So like any democracy like USA and India a law which appease majority pass easily same happened here.
Both statements are false. The first reinterpretation of the Basic Law on the right of adobe in 1999 wasn’t the result of ANY DEMOCRATIC PROCESS involving the majority of Hong Kongers.
Some polls may show that a large fraction of Hong Kongers prefer the RESULTING VERDICT on right of adobe, but the reinterpretation is unlike any democratic process as in the US or India, that has a rigorous and formal voting process. And certainly not a majority of Hong Kongers support repeated interpretations of the basic law by people not directly elected in Hong Kong.
The end doesn’t justify the means. You have confused the end and the means.
You mean Hong Kong people wholeheartedly supported the spouses and Children to settle in Hong Kong from other parts of China in millions?
Even if you support violent protestors please don't be double face, even during one year of protests there was a constant call for throwing people from other parts of China back to China from Hong Kong, they were called locusts and what not.
The reinterpretation had a majority support of Hong Kong people and they liked that Tung Chee Hwa was able to stem the flow (instead of court of final appeal which in earlier ruling allowed spouses and childrent to settle in HK) and make it limited to 150 people / day instead of over million moving to HK.
> Democratic Process
Hong Kong is not a democracy, UK never granted it autonomy and always controlled it with appointed chief executive. With handover at least China made the committee which selected the chief executive. So not sure which is more democratic an appointed head by UK or a person elected by people from various sections of society (although it's flawed as most or rich and has allegiance to China, but it's still better than what UK had in Hong Kong).
Source for your claim?
Contrary to your claim, “The Democratic Party strongly believes that reinterpretation of the Basic Law by the NPCSC is unacceptable” https://books.google.com/books?id=1nccBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA348&lpg=...
> UK never granted it autonomy and always controlled it with appointed chief executive
UK didn’t grant democracy to Hong Kong because of the threat from China. China is to blame, not UK.
Quotes from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-pu...
> beginning in the 1950s, the colonial governors who ran Hong Kong repeatedly sought to introduce popular elections but abandoned those efforts in the face of pressure by Communist Party leaders in Beijing.
> Chinese leaders were so opposed to the prospect of a democratic Hong Kong that they threatened to invade should London attempt to change the status quo.
The way to slow China's growth most efficiently is through economics; it's not the people of China that we want growth to slow for, the purpose and intent is to take power away from the CCP - to free the people of China, as in America and other Democracies, we inherently trust - have faith - that individuals can make the right, good, best decisions for themselves.
"Moreover actions of China in Hong Kong are supported by majority of people in China" - this is the functional result of control-oppression systems on free speech with threat of a spectrum of potential harm that can come to you, your family, even your place of work. This isn't the positive argument point you think it is. The CCP can control the narrative and suppress the truth as they see fit.
"Given the way US president pardoned people who committed genocide..." - this is a very weak argument considering the US compared to the China is an apples to oranges comparison to begin with: every 4 years the US has an election vs. in China it's the CCP in control always; this is a weak foundation to argue from on its own. It's an even weaker argument when you don't understand that Democracy - and the freedom to vote - is literally polling the population to understand that state of the union, of the nation, their health and their beliefs. Trump is a symptom of multi-generational dis-ease progression, where the efficiencies of capitalism, along with the duopoly that's been able to form and solidify - along with the regulatory capture that has occurred for 4+ decades, industrial complexes and bad actors tightening their grip of society by extracting more and more resources from the average person, and allowing suffering and dis-ease progression to occur. Mainstream media has played a role as well, the amalgamation of it into just a small handful of controllers - for TV and newspapers - has allowed the narrative to be more easily controlled; not as much as the CCP's control but it gets close to it, resulting in only 2 main narratives - of the duopoly. It’s incorrect, a mistake to believe Trump is America, he simply made his way up through broken-weak systems that I just described - that exist via currently inadequate policy, this current state - status quo - that we can and have learned from - and will evolve from with new, updated policy to help steer, right this ship called America.
Sorry but the "no deaths" is a false dichotomy - the treatment of these people can be like of the Uighurs if they don't fall in line with whatever rules they want to enforce; and certainly the CCP will be looking into everyone in HK's past to then see what they should do with them on a case-by-case basis.
"China is built by hard work of its people not by CCP." - you're injecting an argument that that makes it seem like I or other people believe Chinese people aren't hard workers? I bet no reasonable person would put forward that argument, no reasonable person would think Chinese people are lazy. It sounds more like propaganda/narrative that the CCP would want to perpetuate to try to demonize the "other" - so the Chinese population will think "we" think lesser of them, to cause them to dislike, be angry with, or hate "us."
The majority of reasonable people of Democratic nations only want the best for the Chinese people, and the majority are reasonable - however there are for example the ~74 million Americans who have been mislead, manipulated, by Trump, the captured Republican party and mainstream media that these people watch - to believe Trump was the answer to "Make American Great Again" - except Trump isn't an entrepreneur or a businessman, he's a con artist and a pathological liar, and archetypical narcissist; someone like Andrew Yang, who's an entrepreneur and has been successful, learning through experience and understanding the foundation, math, and exponentials of how policy propagates - is the type of person, along with his holistic-foundational policy proposals, are the polar opposite to Trump; and the slogan play of MATH - "Make America Think Harder" is simply a beautiful refinement and contrast to MAGA.
And seriously - we only want the best for the people of China, and a foundational part of what's best for EVERYONE in the world - to avoid the pitfalls of tyranny and avoid potential scenarios like Uighurs "re-education" camps (genocide by internationally agreed standards) - is freedom of speech.
Happy to continue this discussion or clarify anything.
Chinese system is different politically and it’s hard to say it’s good or bad for its people, given on the ground it has proved good for majority with suppression of minority (see the same happening in any democracy too, tyranny of majority). So unless democratic system can really save its minority they can’t be on higher ground. Also if one needs over a billon dollar to fight election and win top positions there are favours to be done, like what happens in two largest democracies of India and USA. So every system has its positive and negative.
If you want to bring about change in China then may be go there do something great for the people and if they find it better than existing system for their livelihood and better life they will change.
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_...
If you truly believed the Chinese people were strong, capable, if you truly believed the CCP system would be what the majority of Chinese people would want (once their fear is diminished) the CCP's control in place, then the CCP should become a Democratic nation where people can vote - where you trust your people, and the current government not have fear or fear their people. In fact the reason there isn't a voting system is the CCP knows that their citizens wouldn't vote the CCP in, and whatever truths they're trying to keep hidden will be able to come to light - whether the majority of those truths are relatively benign or malicious in nature, I don't know - whether the CCP keeps records of all of their behaviours or not, I don't know either.
Tyranny of majority? That's not tyranny. If the majority of people vote in a legitimate, fair polling with adequate systems in place to make sure there isn't cheating/fraud - then the direction of who they voted for is what the majority want and policy will be changed/evolve based on whomever is currently in power. This is in fact a feature of Democracy, not a bug. Voting is literally polling to see the state of the union and what people's current beliefs and understanding of everything is, to understand how they're doing personally - are they suffering, are they thriving, etc; it's like a Litmus test to see where on the spectrum of abundance vs. scarcity mindset they are, state of health vs. dis-ease state.
Re: "So unless democratic system can really save its minority they can’t be on higher ground" - Yes, yes they can be on higher ground - and that happens because ultimately the government, party - the group of people/politicians who's policy and policy proposals align with the benefit of EVERYONE in the population - not just those who voted them into power will result in a higher quality of life for EVERYONE; the party who wins power, gets into government, and who attempts to punish or suffocate their non-voters (Republicans/Trump and party who clearly, multiple times attempted to harm Democratic voting states) is the opposite of this, and will cause non-voters and other citizens to start voting, the impetus will exist and strengthen because their suffering and ability to survive is lessening to a degree that they realize the system needs change, a course correction for the ship called America.
"Also if one needs over a billon dollar to fight election and win top positions" - Indeed, you're correct but Democracy is evolving and the duopoly that has formed due to current policy can be EASILY broken apart with the correct policies; Andrew Yang, who was a Presidential candidate, and his core policies are what will lead to the duopoly to break apart - along with disempowering the few mainstream media channels the majority of Americans watch: Democracy Dollars, Journalism Dollars, Ranked Choice Voting, and Freedom Dividend/Universal Basic Income - I'd urge you to research those policy proposals and read his book, if you're genuinely interested in understanding how Democracy is a better system; it's highly unlikely I'd be able to even have this discussion with you in China, or at least once I gain a large enough following to worry the CCP then I'd be punished God only knows how. Andrew Yang's book is called The War On Normal People.
The problem with your final paragraph is that the CCP will prevent/ban/block ideas and efforts, say in book form, that would present and provide a better solution than what the CCP is allowing. I don't know if you're arguing in bad faith or gaslighting, or you just haven't thought this through fully to include into your thinking how the CCP would influence such things to prevent change? Can you at minimum agree the CCP does ban/suppress certain speech and ideas - and I can easily be blocked if I was to try to present to the Chinese people a better system than their existing one? Do you actually believe the CCP would allow this?
I'd really love to continue this conversation after you've read Andrew Yang's policy proposals. I'm curious what resistance you may have with them, and I'd be happy to make clarifications or correct misunderstands of the policies if I see that you're misinterpreting something in them.
It’s just that the Hong Kong police is better at cover-ups.
A female protestors was found fully naked and dead at sea. A whistle-blower police officer confessed on a KBS documentary that the case was initially investigated as a murder case, but the higher-ups later forbade murder investigation, and hastily classified it as a “suicide”. [0]
Another man was seen suspiciously thrown out of a window at a disciplined services quarters (whose tenants are mostly police) [1], and yet the case wasn’t even investigated.
Neither of these cases is definite proof of Hong Kong police killing protestors. And yet without proper investigation, you can easily hide casualties even when there are.
I must stress that guns are forbidden in Hong Kong, whereas guns appeared in the Capitol Hill on Jan 6 among some protestors. It’s not surprising that Hong Kong police may have a milder response than the US police. You can’t compare apples to oranges.
[0] https://youtu.be/7y8f3l2Eve8?t=542
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/eo1l01/zoomed_ver...