'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]
fieldofvision.org
fieldofvision.org
I watched it recently and thought it didn't go nearly far enough in highlighting the abuses by the HK police, and even glossed over or omitted some very important events that triggered the continued protests. I actually felt it was far too fair to the HKSAR government and police.
The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.
That's what happens under a "Western system" running loose, is one message that HK could be helping to shape. China made 1 law, and order is restored. Yeah, I'd say it's pretty much pro for China, despite the incessant shrill whining of the terrorist wannabes.
That's because they have single party system. Eventually they'll figure out that splitting into two parties and exchanging highest power between the two every few years while still colectively controlling everything of value is way more resilient system.
Then they will be able to let themselves to be hated because half of the people will hate one half of the party and the other half of the people will hate the other half of the party. And thanks to periodic swaps they can pretty much keep it indefinitely because people will never rebel. Instead people will be waiting patiently few years for their favorite half of the party to take highest offices.
But untill then they can't let people hate the party even a little bit. China has a history of multiple revolutions and costly turmoil when people hated those in power and toppled them.
They also have to find enemies for people to hate as far away from the party as possible.
This requires rule of law to function. Otherwise, one set of elites won't trust handing power to the other. The breathless levels of corruption at the top of the CCP would also have to go, which is a difficult transition to peacefully navigate.
It's a poor substitute. To the point that I think single-party rule may be preferable. Informal power sharing arrangements almost deterministically go to shit after a single generation. They also calcify the elites' ranks.
Need I mention the Trump and Clinton foundations? The Bush family and the Carlyle group (complete with the Bin-Ladens)? And that's while ignoring Trump's over-the-top stuff, like getting the government to use his personal resorts and hotels, as an outlier.
Do you think it is a coincidence that actors, reality tv stars elected to the highest political seats? A monkey would perform as well if not better.
Do you think the deep state is responsible for this? I don't think there's any evidence to inicate that these elected idiots aren't actually popular. The same thing happend in the Philippines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Estrada). Idiots electing idiots they like is a tale as old as democracy.
I am not so sure of that. Doesn't this lead to what some call the polarization of the public? Time will tell how this one plays out.
They can always hope that their side will be on top in few years and restrain themselves. Such polarisation is no more dangerous than polarisation around sports teams.
And channeling and managing people's hatered is very important for stability. Otherwise it could be directed towards system of power as a whole, or the rich, or some ethnic group.
If this post is meant as a whataboutist critique of US democracy then this line gives it away as over the top conspiracy theory. Who exactly is controlling everything of value in this theory?
To reduce the difference between China's political situation and the US's to be the difference between 2 parties and 1 is not accurate.
The American Supreme Court can basically make up interpretations on essentially whatever, and it has and will so long as the Democratic and Republican party agree on it.
China also has local CCP organizations, and they have a significant level of influence on the national party (and vice-versa), but ultimately just like in the US the DNC and RNC chair can basically make up whatever arcane rules for nomination and get an agreeable candidate.
In effect, these are checks and balances between two parties.
The desire to reach consensus is yet again a mechanism of partisan conflict resolution. Impeachment of justices is a partisan political process. The lower courts are also at the mercy of either of the two parties.
Ultimately, there is literally no process in the entirety of the USA to legally prevent something that both parties durably agree on.
Trump recently was opposed in political processes by his own Vice President and Supreme Court nominees, as well as some members of Congress.
Within the Democratic party, there are also examples of these checks happening within the party. DeBlasio (mayor of NY) and Cuomo (governor of the state of NY) have been fighting against each other for years.
More generally though, not everything in the US is a political decision. There are other practical checks on the political process itself, like the freedom of speech Many Americans either don't like either party, or at least don't like the leadership if either party right now. We don't have songs like "Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_the_Communist_Party,...). While unlikely, in the US parties can go, and have gone, extinct through the normal political process. And every four years (depending on who wins the Presidential election) there are opinion pieces considering one party or the other's demise. If people disappear for comparing the CCP's leader to Winnie the Pooh, I can't imagine it's very safe to write about the CCP's demise within China.
In US? Same as everywhere. Network of people who make the laws and people who amass capital thanks to those laws.
It wasn't meant as whataboutism or as a critique of US. It was meant as praise of US and potential direction China should evolve towards to protect their rulers with less fragility.
My impression is that one succeeds in Chinese public life by successfully innovating in pursuit of received (and perhaps arbitrary) goals, such that being good at the means eventually allows you to have input on what the appropriate ends may be, and this is why many Chinese VIPs come from an engineering background. But success in civil administration or development of infrastructure is built upon getting results in response to specific conditions rather than the articulation or application of general principles, and is judged by administrative peers rather than the public.
I don't feel one can understand China in terms of just capitalism v communism both because they have a sort of mixed economy that that is hypersocialistic in some respects and hypercapitalistic in others, and because of the different philosophical currents in Chinese culture like the hierarchism of Confucianism, the legalism of Mencius, and the oddness of Taoism, which can seem like pure solipsism or all encompassing systems theory. But it does seem to me that once the emergence of distinct factions would be regarded as an existential problem to be resolved as urgently as possible through some kind of intra-party showdown rather institutionalized duopoly. Harmonious stability has been a strong cultural more there for ~2000 years, so very dynamic internal politics would risk a sort of national introversion that would weaken China with respect to the rest of the world.
Once you're doing that, pretty much anything is going to clear that bar.
IIRC, it's not a general ban, it's just censored from social media, probably by official directive.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win...
Even if it was slightly true it must have been incredibly insignificant hence my skepticism.
My point is that we could leave out a bit of noise as it is very easy to come across misunderstanding already.
If you can read Chinese, you will found that on some forums people are like talking with magic spells, in extreme cases, whole paragraph or article is composed of word/characters that pronounce same but looks different, or just looks similar enough so people understand what it implys.
Even if Chinese is my native language I can't read ciphertext of that level.
Talking about censorship, I'd like to share my 2 cents. For some time I had been actively browsing Zhihu (a Chinese knowledge sharing social platform), even posting and talking with the users. It's around a decade ago, the censorship back then was much looser. I am a Taiwanese, we even talked about a political incident which is basically Taiwanese people protesting about the ruling signing CSSTA... some Chinese agree, some do not, some just left hatred comments, but people back then was really talking and sharing opiinion. You find no more stuff like this now, the censorship got strengthened over years, a lot of topics are risky and people would rather not talk about it.
I think what you are saying about censorship is true but it's also because we are facing unprecedented challenges both online and in real life. The traditional academic settings of intellectuals on various sites are not the same anymore. I won't say what is better or not but I hope more communications will eventually bridge gaps. If you're skeptical about the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland, look at Republic Ireland / Northern Ireland. It could be much worse until eventually an ambiguous agreement arrived. Sometimes people just need a bit cool down to communicate.
When the Pooh meme was happening if you tried sending it the receiver would never get it.
Now that it has died down it's no longer a focus (though I'm still unsure if that image would be received). The same thing happens around certain events (Tiananmen Square Anniversary) where they get more extreme about the censorship.
The fact that they applied the censors to the Pooh meme shows that they'll do it for even the mildest 'threat'.
As I pointed out in another comment, it was also the content of the most censored Weibo post in 2015 [2], according to the Weiboscope cenorship tracker.
These examples are very easy to find if you Google for them (assuming you can Google from your country).
[0] https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/winnie-the-pooh-china-ba...
[1] https://gamerant.com/kingdom-hearts-3-winnie-pooh-censorship...
[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/china-top-5-censored-po...
"(assuming you can Google from your country)" I think it's a bit unnecessary to assume that given that HN is largely targeting tech space and people will have very diverse reasons of not using Google? Assuming we're discussing this out of good faith one should realise if one can only read english sources it might be a little biased IMHO.
When you Google “Kingdom Hearts III China Cenorship”, Google returns more than 4 million results. Assuming there are repetitions and only 0.1% of them (i.e. 4K results) are genuine and unique. You think all these search results are fake?
I will also claim that atomic bombs exist. Do you need to make an atomic bomb yourself to verify my claim?
The first article I linked above [0] discussed several instances where Winnie the Pooh is banned, and many more it is not. So the censorship is real but not universal.
[0] https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/winnie-the-pooh-china-ba...
> if one can only read english sources it might be a little biased IMHO
Since you don’t like English source, let me Google some Chinese sources for you:
[1] https://dailyview.tw/Popular/Detail/1182
[2] https://www.bcc.com.tw/newsView.4791295
> "(assuming you can Google from your country)"
Because those links are the first few hits when I googled Winnie the Pooh censorhip in China. You seemed unable to find such news.
Because you have never admitted censorship of Winnie the Pooh happened on Chinese social media. You kept questioning many of the evidence I provided (“if one can only read english sources it might be a little biased IMHO”, “I can not verify your claim since I don't play Kingdom Hearts”), or dismissing evidence as “trivia”.
I don’t know if you agree that censorship of Winnie the Pooh actually happened. So I had to keep Googling for alternative sources for you. You need to point out whether you agree with the key points in the above articles, or provide solid counter evidence (with sources).
Until then, there is no way to move the discussion forward.
BTW, more censorship news: https://game.udn.com/game/story/12982/5338115
I never said that censorship never happened ever in the above discussion. Maybe it wasn't clear enough for you I apologise. I'm sorry if that's the interpretation in your mind. I encourage you to read the comments again. You would notice I never denied censorship happened in China either, in multiple places. I merely point out the difference between the sensationalised notion of 'Anything related to Winnie are banned' and 'posts been censored at specific time' in China. My nephew's english name is Winnie so you can see how popular Winnie the Pooh is.
Indeed I agree there's no way to move the discussion further if the initial points were overlooked and just embarking on a path of assumptions.
I just searched for 小熊维尼 and 小熊维 on bilibili, and got the same findings as this thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/m9vziq/%E5%AD%98...
Winnie-the-Pooh videos are clearly censored when you searched for 小熊维尼 (you only get generic Disney videos), but you can bypass the filter and find a few genuine Winnie-the-Pooh videos if you only search for 小熊维. The censorship is ongoing, even though not universal.
I don't like the idea of divisive labels such as wumao, gongzhi, fenqing (they are quite dated as well if you are old as me!) it will only reduce conversations to a low quality brawl. My view is as long as debates are open, rational, and logical, progressive thinking is preserved.
(Case in point: H&M is just censored from all major platforms in China, including Apple Maps [0]. This is totally unacceptable in any free society, hence this article. If people think censorship like this is noise, that’s why you will see more censorship acts in the future.)
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/winnie-the-pooh-china-ba... is an honest evaluation of cases where Winnie-the-Pooh is censored, and where it is not. This article still concludes Winnie-the-Pooh is censored (“China’s ban on that lovable fluff ball may indeed tighten”), despite many cases it is allowed.
Censorship is not binary. Saying “Winnie-the-Pooh is not censored” is misleading and dishonest, when it is clearly censored today on major video sites.
In a Time of Universal Deceit — Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/26/22352357/h-m-western-bran...
However it is like you said it's not so binary. I think there are differences between censoring posts and banning a whole commercial theme. No one is doubting the former but anyone who doesn't understand China would think it's a dystopia if they hear the latter (which is clearly not true in my opinion). It is actually quite logical that Winnie won't be banned because of the popularity and a universal ban is not practical.
I didn't call it "noise" to play down censorship but in relative terms it is still trivial comparing to other concerning issues which are smothered by the amplification of sensationalism (IMHO). Simply ask any chinese person would they care if keywords of winnie are censored, and in comparison if MS word is banned. Such titles are more eye-catching than say 'the subtle difference in the agenda of the chinese congress' e.g
My hope of removing the 'relative noise' is to reveal real issues that affect actual majority of the chinese population and what they really care about. Focusing on sensationalised news just leads to more meaningless us/them argument.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/china-top-5-censored-po...
The next dimension I predict will be the fragility of the CPC for being portrayed in a positive light. What is going to happen when hypernationalism and hyperidealism is at odds with the personal and political projects of its leaders?
What percentage of Chinese mainlanders do you think watch American awards shows?
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/entertainment/golden-globe-ra...
The fragility of American imperialism and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.
That’s why they focus on creating propaganda like this.
I’ve liked some Field of Vision stuff before (shining a light on content moderation practices on Silicon Valley social media platforms), yet this feels part of the larger ‘West hating on China’/sinophobia + red scare stuff. It’s getting boring.
This is 100% unarguably, demonstrably false. Americans write books critical about American imperialism (https://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Cruise-Secret-History-Empire...), we make (and fund with public broadcasting money!) documentaries that criticize both the effectiveness and wisdom of our own military efforts (https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/). Most US media has been very critical of recent military efforts. These are just a few examples.
Is the US perfect? No. Are there examples of it the US behaving in a way that makes its citizens less than proud? Yes. But there is a wide gulf between the US and the CCP and what one can get away with saying and doing in the US vs. what one can say or do under CCP control.
McCarthyism offers another interesting contrast. Read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism. There was lots of opposition to McCarthy. Even a noted anti-communism person such as President Truman criticized McCarthy. Most if McCarthy's victims got their day in court, and ultimately the scale (affecting hundreds of people) is dwarfed by the scale of CCP persecution of pro-democracy or those who wish to practice a religion not endorsed by the CCP, which has damaged the lives of millions.
I don’t know what the last time was, but I know Deng Xiaoping famously described Mao as “70% good, 30% wrong”.
For me, a small payoff a decade later to the family of a victim of a political assassination doesn’t really amount to much. Again, the established order in the US is happy to apologize and tolerate dissent and preach “free speech” as long as its rule isn’t threatened.
It was illegal for union officers in the US to be communist party members up until unions lost their political strength. The Communist Control Act is still on the books but unenforced. Would it remain that way if in the next few years an ascendant communist party like the Black Panthers emerged? I doubt it.
> CCP persecution of pro-democracy
Do you have the slightest idea of how elections work in China? Compare the National People’s Congress to the US Senate. Which is more representative? Which has more minor parties?
> those who wish to practice a religion not endorsed by the CCP
Which religion are you referring to here? Islam? Is that why China has more mosques per capita for their Muslim population than the US?
So the criticism is on how to carry out imperialism more effectively?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Hong_Kong_prot... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests
It’s worth noting that a lot of the “Hong Kong police” that were involved in breaking up protests seemed to come from the mainland and only spoke mandarin, not cantonese.
Edit: https://twitter.com/AmyWong01217912/status/11822963227720908... is one of many sources
> complete hearsay...
Um, what? How do you go from video evidence to "complete hearsay"?
The incumbent government of Myanmar WAS the military, just in a less overt fashion. They were the ones in charge of almost everything, the main change is now they don’t have a facade of democracy.
During covid a lot of people were isolated. I doubt anyone mainlanders wanted to risk life to confront the protestors. Note how docile Chinese mainlanders are when they travel around the world.
Where are the evidences of such government-sponsored activities? As I said, normal Chinese mainlanders usually don't have much impetus to confront others, even if they wholeheartedly stand against the counterparts, in this case, most mainlanders would be against HK protestors. Then these people are organized by CCP, then what are the evidences?
The HK police force was riddled with corruption in the past (1940s to 1970s), but then (after the creation in 1974 of the Independent Commission Against Corruption) turned around and became highly professional, trusted, and respected, I'd say ("Asia's finest").
However, with the 2014 umbrella movement, they were necessarily pitted against the pro-democracy protesters, having to do the government's bidding, and things got polarised. Polarisation got worse with the 2019 (until now) Anti-Extradition Law protests: restaurants etc. declared themselves "yellow" (pro democracy, pro protesters) or "blue" (pro police, pro Beijing). [1]
And, yeah, things got so heated then that the cohesion slipped away and, I think, the HK police did more than "what they had to" while pushing back against the protesters, particularly after Chris Tang's appointment as the Commissioner of Police in November 2019.
Police brutality, excessive force, refusal to show identification (as required by law) [2], maybe even falsification of evidence have severely deteriorated trust.
Now, with the total crackdown by Beijing, using the courts and the police as their tool, things are only getting worse [3]. :-/
[1] https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/yellow-or-blue-i...
[2] https://hongkongfp.com/2019/06/21/hong-kong-activists-compla...
[3] https://hongkongfp.com/2021/01/04/explainer-how-the-national...
(I live in HK)
It's also about the culture of police violence. In the US citizen life is cheaper (and one would guess, in China too), judging from the number of police shootings alone, and the excessive police force used for everything and anything, that to have deaths in a protest/riot etc is kinda taken as granted or "the way things are". This extends to protest cop behavior.
In some countries mild or even heavy violence would be tolerated, but a single death in a demonstration could cause resignations or bring down a government. So there are countries with tons of protests for decades involving 10s or 100s of thousands without a single death (mine didn't have a protest death for ages, despite tons of protests and violent clashes and supression by the police), and countries where a protest can turn into deadly suppression almost immediately (e.g. some Latin American countries).
Both are extraordinary, it's not obvious to me who should win the "most well-behaved protest movement" award
It's also not a competition, nobody is trying to diminish the US protests, but I don't think that events of a similar magnitude would have gone down as peaceful in the US.
I'm actually sad that the one country two systems experiment looks like it's over, at least the political side, not the economic side. But you can't run a city if there are months of people rioting on the streets.
Therefore the only thing they could do is to keep showing up in support of the demands for as long as they could personally afford to do so, and try not to pay attention to the methods of others when they already knew that all methods were probably going to fail.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
There are other platforms (Reddit) where there's plenty of discussion around topics like this.
Not to say that HN should be a bastion of blissful techie ignorance, but it would be nice to be able to filter out sad, political, or controversial content.
Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of leaving it up on Hacker News is that free speech is essential to both Hacking and News.
I hadn't known that such a film had drawn an Oscar nomination nor that the country had attempted to suppress news of the nomination within the mainland.
We may disagree here, but if wholesale suppression of the democratic rights of 7.5 million people living in the first world continues to be advanced, I'd contend that it isn't getting enough discussion.
That said, HN (like most social media) doesn't handle this kind of content very well... in practical terms. Might be best to go with a practical "do what you can do well" approach and avoid topics you can't do well.
Maybe a "no comments" post type for topics like this?
As an example, this video made me instantly realize how much there is a need for truely decentralized technology, that no government could shut down. I already knew it of course, but now i have the faces of those students in my mind. I happen to be working on encryption for a messaging app at the moment.
> Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.
So please, just flag and move on next time.
If it happens, it'll be the closest we get to World War III, so hopefully cooler heads will prevail.
HK is 'dead in the water'.
UK abandoned HK, creating a vacuum, leaving the door open to China to step in and take over; and nobody wants to risk stepping-in to block China from absorbing HK.
China will (literally) fight anyone who will dare step their foot in HK to 'guarantee' its independence. I don't believe anyone is able to stand up to China, apart from Russia or USA. And neither are willing to go to war for HK. It's someone else's problem. Worse case scenario when the transition is complete, HK will die as a global financial centre, and its big-banks operations will move to a more USA-friendly place.
Poor HK-ers could as well replace their flag.
It's a pity, but such is the luck of the ant in front of a elephant.
Our politicians are a disgrace. They scream about democracy when a bunch of hooligans riot at the Capitol, but when a human-rights defiling government legitimately suppresses democracy for 7M people, they stay silent.
They stay silent on organ harvesting, on the quasi-genocide of the Uighurs, and any number of other human rights abuses.
If the politicians, particularly those on the left, had an ounce of principle and even attempted to walk their talk, they would be leading the charge against China at every turn.
Here is a chance to step up for human rights and democracy in a big way, and it's crickets from our leaders.
I did not know that Taiwan is part of mainland China! When did the reunification happen?
In all serious though, the original bill was because HK government wanted to extradite someone who killed his pregnant girlfriend to Taiwan, I wonder when did people spin this into extradition to mainland China now?
I did not know that Taiwan is part of mainland China! When did the reunification happen?
In all serious though, the original bill was because HK government wanted to extradite someone who killed his pregnant girlfriend to Taiwan, I wonder when did people spin this into extradition to mainland China now?
To me, the Hong Kong situation is incredibly sad. Hong Kong was always this unique bastion of feisty entrepreneurism and social liberalism. It was a great place to visit and a fountain of ideas and dynamism that other regions would do well to take notes on, if not to copy outright.
I wish there was cause to be optimistic about Hong Kong, but I don't think that there is.
[1]: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/03/20/china-is-not-j...
If these events occurred in the United States, whose government surveils almost all telecommunications[8], what would its government do? One part of that answer is to have the military occupy a city with limited congressional representation (DC)[9]. This is clearly a much more restrictive measure than the measures taken by the HKSAR government, but its presentation by non-Chinese media has been the exact opposite. For what it's worth (zero), my opinion is that both government responses are consistent with what can be expected given their respective situations. Why are they portrayed differently? Is it ideology, or am I missing something that differentiates the two?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Legislative_Co... [2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50115629 [3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/hong-kong-... [4]: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3036833... [5]: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/14/asia/hong-kong-protest-el... [6]: http://www.legco.gov.hk/general/english/intro/about_lc.htm [7]: http://www.cmab.gov.hk/en/issues/jd2.htm [8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) [9]: https://nypost.com/2021/03/09/pentagon-extends-national-guar...
The Capitol Riots were an attempt to overturn a free and fair democratic election in favor of the rioters preferred candidate.
The HK protests are in relation to freedom from the Chinese Government's dictatorial rule.
Democracy is what is most important in both of these situations. The Capitol Riots were anti democracy. The HK protests are pro democracy.
When someone wants to defend the indefensible, false equivalency seems like the go-to tactic nowadays. It's basically: "After ignoring all the extremely important differences, isn't this thing you like just like this thing you hate? Hypocrite."
At least refer to both of them as "riots" or both as "protests."
I would like to understand the empirical situation. You suggest that I’m equating the two, but I’m actually just ignorant on the _substantive_ arguments. If you would be kind enough to enlighten me on that front, I would truly appreciate it.
Where in HK, people protested against the HK government which is appointed by the CCP, and the HK legislature where half of the seats are appointed by the CCP and the rest is elected with vetting by the CCP. The HK gov (both exec. + leg. branches) don't represent the HK people, they represent the CCP.
That's the non-ideological distinction. US Congress is authorized by the people. But the HK gov (both exec. + leg. branches) are authorized by the CCP. And unlike US, people in HK have no peaceful way to influence the politics in HK by voting.
That's what you said. Plenty of people might disagree about what is most important. Your message in general looks very hypocritical in my opinion.
> free and fair democratic election
Depending on your sources, this can be a questionable statement.
> freedom from the Chinese Government's dictatorial rule.
Depending on your sources, this can be an equally questionable statement. Case in point: most of Chinese mainlander call CCP's rule as people's democracy. And Tiger Yang, the foreign affair chief in CCP, who recently slapped Mr. Blinken, claimed "American Democracy" should not be judged by Americans only, and he believed American Democracy is not fully supported in USA.
Frankly speaking the US is not the only country in the world and in this context why would other countries give a f..k about how it sounds to America's ear. They could be backwards in relation to western view on human rights but you can't really tell independent country how they do their things.
Undemocratic governments like China's don't, except to muddy the waters and troll.
No it's not. The 2020 election was very clearly not rigged. The Trump campaign had every opportunity to bring evidence out that something was wrong in courts, and they didn't.
The Capital Riot wasn't about people with legitimate doubts who weren't being heard, they were people who's doubts were heard, and then dismissed because they didn't have any real evidence and because their claims were clearly wrong.
Democratically elected ? Note that hong kong functional constituency system is fully controlled by CCP.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_constituency_(Hong_...
A lot of government bodies are appointed by US president, and are "elected" only through some behind-curtain political exchanges.
No, this's misinformation. The HK government isn't democratically elected. The CEO of the HK government is selected by a committee appointed by the CCP. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Committee_(Hong_Kong)
Quote: The Election Committee is a Hong Kong electoral college, the function of which is to select the Chief Executive (CE).
Personally, my answer to that question is yes, but I’m willing to apply principles equally. Again, this is beside the point of what I was asking, as I’m not trying to get into an ideological debate.
Also while the official death count is low, there are many protestors who simply vanished from HK.
Source?
One of the most striking things I have witnessed has been the letters that young protesters have been writing in case they are arrested or disappeared by security services. These “last letters,” to be read in the event that they don’t return from the protests, explain to their families why they are protesting, and also serve as a “no-suicide declaration.” Nine thousand, two hundred, and sixteen people have been arrested during the 12 months of protests, a figure much larger than the total prison population of 7,023. This discrepancy, combined with a series of mysterious deaths and disappearances that have been explained as suicides or accidents, has made protesters wary of their own safety. So the letters serve to say, “I will not be another suicide statistic.” As one young person wrote in their letter, “I have no regrets, not for a moment; even though missing or dead, I will never stay silent in the face of injustice”
From US State Department itself on the situation in Hong Kong [0].
>There were no credible reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings.
This is China-Hawk Mike Pompeo's state department BTW, report released in 2020 well after protests ended. If Pompeo couldn't find mystery murders, it probably doesn't exist.
https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-country-reports-on-human-... [0]
[1] “Activist resurfaces to clear 'mystery death'”
https://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news/section/11/22246...
US riot - citizens who enjoy democratic freedom protested against republic/democratic government. protest got violent, government handled it.
Hong Kong riot - citizens who enjoy(ed) democratic freedom protested against encroaching dictatorship. protest was peaceful, but then turned violent when police faking as protestors started violence. protest got violent, government handled it (openly and in secret). The dictatorship increased its power at the end.
This is all about american interests and destabilizing china ir other countries.
I wonder what will happen in q few years. Will americans accept that another super power will dictate them what to do like the US currently does to their allies: europe cant build a pipeline to russia, in order to protect american interests in ukraine and poland. Europe cant use chinese hardware, while its proven that just a few years ago the americans listened to all communication of angela merkel, europe cant do business with the russians because they are sanctioned, nor with iran, etc...
This is a tiring argument. China has only 1 ally - North Korea. The rest of the countries in the proximity of China are adversarial and aligned with US - Japan, SK particularly. If Canada and Mexico were close allies of China, you betchya there would be a lot more going on along the east and west coast of US.
In fact, Japan and SK are counting on US to defend them. Does Canada and Mexico have such relationship with China? No. Instead, the US+Canada have NORAD.
I suggest some reading regarding military alliances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_alliances
So it's the US's fault that China tried to impose an extradition law in HK? Because the USN ... had a port visit in Hong Kong? You know China approved that port visit, right?
The storming of the capital was by a crowd of a couple thousand in a pop of 350m. So something like .0057% of the entire pop
In response to the HK protests individuals running for democratic office were thrown in jail on abstract and vague clauses from the new National Security Law, which coincidentally is a treaty violation to the original Sino-British agreement
In response to the Capitol riots, Trump lost his Twitter and Parler was shut down by private tech companies
It’s not the same.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48656471
At many different times in 2019, 1.7M-2M Hong Kong citizens, or 25% of the population, proudly protested in the streets and requested for their freedom. If only something good had came out of it.
Now it's sunk to what China's best at:
false arrests: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/mc5bah/young_man_...,
arrest for accessing online information https://restofworld.org/2021/hong-kong-journalist-on-trial-f...
brainwashing https://hongkongfp.com/2021/03/23/hong-kong-will-distribute-...
removal of religious freedom https://hk.appledaily.com/news/20210322/ZUYEZROAIFB4NK2274RB...
fake democratic system https://hongkongfp.com/2021/03/16/why-and-how-i-ended-my-par...
Imagine if you were a proud free parisian, and all of a sudden, you now live under nazi regime with concentration camps. That's probably what it feels like.
Now none of these claims withstand any sort of legal scrutiny, but that's not the point. In the year or so it takes the Hague to spell out the obvious, that the Russian military in coordination with the Russian presidency created a bogus legal argument that aligns with their strategic goal of annexing as much of Eastern Europe as possible, the invasion is already completed and Donetsk is effectively a Russian vassal in the middle of Ukranian territory.
Just like in the time of the American Revolution guerilla tactics were innovations to the stodgy preconceptions of war that the British had, where they believed a gentleman's war should be fought by squares of men taken broadsides at regular intervals, we must recognize that armed conflicts today are always accompanied by legal warfare, the legal activities that support broader strategic objectives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_King...
The current difference is that now it's happenning during a live broadcast, and the actions are being tried to be justified (as "justice") through existing legal frameworks.
That's one of the ways Empires grow their periphery regions. Another way is when an Empire spreads its culture and abundance to orbiting regions, so that inhabitants of the periphery get a personal interest in becoming the part of the Empire and bringing a change to their governing bodies to align with the metropolis.
Just as a point of comparison (not justifying russia or the US), the region of donetsk (and crimea) was supermajority ethnically russian, and by the time the US overthrew the hawaiian kingdom, ethnic hawaiians were a minority within the (mostly imported) population, so in the case of both russia and the US's actions the majority of local populace gained political power in the aftermath of the takeovers:
https://www.hawaiiankingdom.org/info-census1890.shtml
By comparison if you consider HKers ethnically distinct from mainland chinese (on cultural bases), the situation is dramatically different.
Seems to me that everyone wants to cast their war as a just war [0]. If that means deniable approaches or false flag operations [1] then so be it. In particular I found this excerpt from [1] ironic in the context of your comment:
> Russo-Swedish War
In 1788, the head tailor at the Royal Swedish Opera received an order to sew a number of Russian military uniforms. These were then used by the Swedes to stage an attack on Puumala, a Swedish outpost on the Russo-Swedish border, on 27 June 1788. This caused an outrage in Stockholm and impressed the Riksdag of the Estates, the Swedish national assembly, who until then had refused to agree to an offensive war against Russia. The Puumala incident allowed King Gustav III of Sweden, who lacked the constitutional authority to initiate unprovoked hostilities without the Estates' consent, to launch the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag
In contrast a good example of psychological warfare would be when Russia organized a protest and an attendant counter-protest in Texas that were made to appear "organic."[0] So the difference between the two is that one proudly has an official "Russia" label on it and the other is clandestine.
[0] https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-pag...
Ukraine is more hybrid warfare.
HK is more lawfare.
Chinese maritime disputes is more gray zone warfare.
https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-outlaw-protest...
Police estimates were definitely wrong, but the estimates from organisers are also always exaggerated, for the same reasons you mentioned the police estimates are wrong.
I live in Paris where most of French demonstrations take place (including the yellow vest movement) but I can't pretend to have better estimates than all local and global media sources and public observers.
https://graphics.reuters.com/HONGKONG-EXTRADITION-PROTESTS/0...
Another analysis with machine learning, about 1/2 protestor estimates.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/03/world/asia/ho...
And another, estimates protesters had to occupy 18 miles of streets to pack 1M protestors, actual protests occupied 1 mile. Acknowledges not exact science, but leans towards conservative estimate of 250k... incidentally close to police estimates.
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/how-many-marched-protests-hong-...
IMO just average protestor and police reports for ball park figure.
Satellite imagery is likely the best way to estimate.
The massive crowds in slow march peaceful protest videos I saw were astonishing.
However if we extrapolate that not everyone who'd support it or are silently supporting it - what % of people available to protest/march were out?
Edit to add: downvoting a question asking for trustworthy, quantifiable sources - you're failing.
And only in one of those cities were there gasoline bombs thrown on the street.
Dnipro – outpost of Ukraine - VR version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AS1cOAm6gI
This one is one step further - with millitary forces and war. Can those communists be former really ...
extremely amusing to watch internet nobodies absolutely nuke reddit with hk posts when chances are they have no idea how to locate hk on a map
Honestly, how do you feel about anything that isn't local news? Most of national news will be reporting about people you will never meet and don't know too.
And HK people's lives were almost unbearable under the tycoons' feudalism, which has nothing to do with Beijing.
Perhaps because China declared that they'd invade if HK was allowed to self-govern?
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-pu...
"documents recently released by the National Archives in Britain suggest that 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.
"The documents, part of a batch of typewritten diplomatic dispatches requested by reporters from two Hong Kong newspapers, reveal that 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."
Of course, British has its own interests, while China also has its own interests. In the end, HK is part of China, and it should be returned to China fully. If British consider Hong Kong's freedom is more important, maybe they should went to war with China instead.
Compare the Google searches:
- "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."
[1] leads to the New York Times article, which I can follow its references.
[2] does not lead to any credible source. In fact, some of the sites appear to be disinformation campaigns (don’t take my words, judge for yourself).
[2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22All+major+democratic+refo...
What is your argument here? They did not had democracy before so they should not complain to not have it now? How twisted is that.
Also, I don't think claiming your constitutional right to democracy can be tagged as "ridiculous". Universal suffrage and democratic election are parts of the "Basic law", the equivalent of the constitution, that the PRC signed as part of the handover "deal".
Why can't it be something else entirely?
This comment is context free: missing critical historical contexts (if not outright misleading).
1967 was at the height of the Cultural Revolution in China, when it was spreading to Hong Kong [1], Macau [2], and elsewhere.
Notably, the local communists (CCP supporters) planted roadside bombs during the 1967 Riots [1], causing 15 deaths and 800+ injuries in Hong Kong.
The Wikipedia articles [1][2] have more details.
There has also been large numbers of people moving from HK because “[they] don’t want to be stuck in HK after mainland China has taken control”.
My impression was the general populace can't see a way out of this. That's pretty far from not caring though.
Any comment that is contrary to 'CCP dogs/propaganda' etc just gets downvoted/reported.