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Comment by system16 | Hacker News Reader

The CPC propaganda department has ordered its local media to stagger the Oscars this year and downplay the event because this documentary short was nominated. https://variety.com/2021/film/asia/china-tells-media-stagger...

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.

View on HN

People are saying this film is anti-China propaganda. I'd say it's pro because it shows the hopeless, illogical, ineffective, futility of HK looters and terrorists, and how deluded, manipulated and used they were.

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.

> The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.

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.

#nostradamus

> 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

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.

They were being ironic.

Not really. I believe that's the future of China. I don't think it'll come any time soon though.

Deep informal connections between both "sides" might substitute rule of law to some degree.

> Deep informal connections between both "sides" might substitute rule of law to some degree

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.

I might agree with you that it might be risky but I think exchange of top formal power every few years could keep unseen connections fresh and intergenerational.

You are assuming that the corresponding figureheads would have a real power, they are not.

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.

> actors, reality tv stars

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.

> The breathless levels of corruption at the top of the CCP would also have to go

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.

> while still colectively controlling everything of value

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?

I read this similarly. In the US, there are lots of things that the government doesn't control, and even for things the government does control the federal, state and local governments can be controlled by different parties that have conflicting priorities. Also, the way that the political parties are structured in the US is very different, where there are national party organizations, but also local party organizations that do as much influencing over the national parties as vice versa.

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.

This somehow misses the Supreme Court.

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.

The US is designed with the idea of checks and balances. It is a half-truth that the Supreme Court can make up whatever interpretations it wants. It can only consider cases that come before it, and it can only take so many cases in a year. With the cases before it, in practice, there are a whole host of things limiting what interpretations are possible, such as precedent, the desire to reach consensus on a more limited ruling, the possibility of setting a precedent that could later be used against the justice's goal, and the fact that justices have to work together even though they strongly disagree with each other. These are in addition to the other checks and balances spelled out in the Constitution, such as the possibility of impeachment of justices.

The issue is that literally every single check and balance in the US is controlled by either the Democrat or Republican Party.

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.

Again, your summary is a simplistic half truth. There are lots of prominent examples of intra-party checks.

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.

> Who exactly is controlling everything of value in this theory?

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.

> splitting into two parties and exchanging highest power between the two every few years ... is way more resilient system.

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.

The polarisation is actually a good thing. As long as it's about stuff that doesn't matter for the normal economic activity. If they can still work with each other and live in mixed communities it's all fine.

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.

This is unlikely to happen as it would contravene basic doctrine of Marxism-Leninism about the purpose of establishing a party (which is supposed to take over the the state, and then gradually become obsolete). The Maoist development of this is supposed to stop the party from becoming ossified by continually measuring how well it is meeting the needs of the people similar to product development or marketing, except that their service is civil/industrial administration. I don't know enough about later developments in their official ideologies, or enough about China to say to what extent their governance is a reflection of their cultural mores, but it seems to me that communists start with a rationalistic view of economics and production (ie beginning with axioms identified by Marx) and then try to build empirically on top of that by trying out different policies in pursuit of the general goal of maximizing collective utility.

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.

Wait a min... that sounds suspiciously specific..

I mean they censored Winnie the Pooh because of light hearted comparisons between Pooh and Xi (that were arguably positive). [0][1]

Once you're doing that, pretty much anything is going to clear that bar.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping#Censorship

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_in_China

I'm really skeptical that's true.... Winnie the Pooh is such a popular theme in products in China, I've never heard anything remotely close to such a ban....

> I'm really skeptical that's true.... Winnie the Pooh is such a popular theme in products in China, I've never heard anything remotely close to such a ban....

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...

Well it's definitely not censored on social media: https://s.weibo.com/weibo?q=%E7%BB%B4%E5%B0%BC%E7%86%8A&wvr=...

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.

It's not noise - the censors drop specific comms over time when there's focus.

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'.

I'm not sure it's censored for the reason you've stated (the mildest 'threat' part). But I take your point. The censoring regarding June every year is a very different story. I just hope I can contribute to a more meaningful discussion here as there are simply too much misunderstanding.

Yeah - I'd guess it's less 'threat' and more 'things that embarrass the party leader'.

Winnie the Pooh was censored in the Chinese version of the video game Kingdom Hearts III [0][1]. Do you think a massive white blot around Winnie the Pooh in every appearance is a “misunderstanding”?

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...

I can not verify your claim since I don't play Kingdom Hearts. That's exactly my point; if the issue is very trivial then over-iterate on it seems a bit sensationalist. Official censoring some posts and 'chinese-cut' version of some imported art/entertainment are very much loathed and aware in China, 'banning' a whole commercial theme is a very different story.

"(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.

> I can not verify your claim since I don't play Kingdom Hearts

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.

It's rather strange you assume that I support all the exaggerated points above (none of them mine). I was trying to use respectful language to engage in a meaningful discussion. I never said google results are fake or dislike english source either. 4 million results of trivia is still trivia. I don't know where these assumptions of me personally come from but I hope it's for a better understanding of the issues, not a lecture on my googling skills.

> you assume that I support all the exaggerated points above (none of them mine)

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

>Because you have never admitted censorship of Winnie the Pooh happened on Chinese social media.

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 also apologize for my overly confrontational approach. I mistook you as one of the wumaodang (fifty-cent party) who keeps denying and apologizing CCP behavior. (There is one such user with exactly this user name in some of the comments in this post.)

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 have no doubts that most platforms have censored these keywords for whatever bizarre reason and it's nothing new. I refer it as 'noise' because people may have the wrong impression that all products related to Winnie and the whole thought have been banned. It is a bit different from reality.

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.

I disagree that incomplete censorship is noise. Any ban is a ban, even if incomplete. Trivializing and rationalizing CCP censorship acts is why it can keep censoring so many for so long.

(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...

Censorship is bad, no one is doubting that, the majority of chinese people would agree with you (and loathing as before). See the strong backlash from banning yyetss https://www.reuters.com/article/china-video-piracy-idINKBN2A...

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.

Over these years a lot of words and characters got banned, some with good intention like to stop lewd or not-suit-for-kiids content from spreading, most other times with intention to stop people from talking about things CCP not willing to let people discuss about.

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 share your sentiment. I couldn't agree more with the funny and sad cipher text. Zhihu could have been a good site for idea exchange but it too became obvious a target. I was very envious of online forum culture in Taiwan such as PTT and you never know there may be many chinese netizens from the mainland posing and hiding in disguise.

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.

It was the most censored Weibo post in 2015, according to Dr. Fu Kingwa, who ran the Weiboscope censorship tracker out of Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/china-top-5-censored-po...

> The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.

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?

American viewership of the Golden Globe awards sank to a new record low this year (likely the same will hold true of the Oscars) [1].

What percentage of Chinese mainlanders do you think watch American awards shows?

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/entertainment/golden-globe-ra...

Percentage? Not many. But as an absolute number? Probably the same number that watched them in the United States.

> The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.

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.

> The fragility of American imperialism and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.

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.

> documentaries that criticize both the effectiveness and wisdom of our own military efforts

So the criticism is on how to carry out imperialism more effectively?

No. The items I linked to all criticise the entirety of the events they describe, not just how to be a better imperialist. Please point out where in the linked to items you get your interpretation.

In the US you have freedom of speech until you start to impact the status quo. See: McCarthyism, Fred Hampton, etc.

I didn't know anything about Fred Hampton, so I looked him up (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton). I suppose his example highlights the difference between the US and China, as his family was paid $1.85 million for his death, which is probably still not what they have wanted, but an acknowledgement of government wrongdoing. When is the last time CCP acknowledged wrongdoing?

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.

> When is the last time CCP acknowledged wrongdoing?

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?

All things considered, the Hong Kong police did what they had to given their precarious position. Compare the 2 deaths during a year of protesting to the 19 deaths within a couple weeks of the George Floyd protests. Keep in mind that they're stuck with the Hong Kong police even if they are allowed to become independent, so it doesn't make sense to demonize them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Hong_Kong_prot... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests

I would be interested in seeing normalized comparisons, data allowing - e.g., X deaths per person-protest-hour, that sort of thing.

That would likely be even more extreme, wouldn't it? As far as I remember, the protests in HK were massive (as in 5-10% of the population in a single event).

That sounds like exactly the kind of meaningful information I’d be interested in.

10s of millions of people participated in protests last summer in the US. 700k is 10% of HK population.

Both are extraordinary, it's not obvious to me who should win the "most well-behaved protest movement" award

I wasn't aware that there was a single protest event that included 10s of millions of people in the US. If you count all people that were involved in any protest during the last year, I'd expect the numbers in HK to be significantly higher still.

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.

Protests in some countries might be mild and orderly, or put little pressure to the government and mostly ignored - but this wouldn't necessarily be a sign that the government is more open to protest, just that protests happen to be more "for show" than threatening.

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).

> Keep in mind that they're stuck with the Hong Kong police even if they are allowed to become independent

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

Source please?

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.

"Note how docile Chinese mainlanders are when they travel around the world." what would this have to do with Chinese police sent to stop a protest

Yes, that's the confusing part.

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?

This is complete hearsay. If China could so easily violate one country, two systems, they wouldn't have cared about a formal extradition bill to begin with.

There are dozens of videos. Google “hong Kong police only speak mandarin” if you want sources. Here is one of many: https://twitter.com/AmyWong01217912/status/11822963227720908...

That tweet is exactly what I mean by hearsay. A few clips cherrypicked from thousands of hours of footage, showing a police officer speaking a few words in the second most popular language in the area is not evidence that they're undercover Chinese officers.

Depending on what figures you look at, English may be more popular. Fairly close these days, though.

"Second most popular language in the area" is a gross distortion of reality. It would make zero sense for a local police officer to choose to yell at local protestors or local colleagues in a non-native language that carries significant stigma in HK.

It's not a "gross distortion of reality" to question a interpretation a clip in a way that you disagree with, especially since you lack the context as well. It doesn't change how little evidence there is that Chinese officers were secretly policing Hong Kong.

No it isn't. The people of Myanmar have been sharing lots and lots of videos and media showing china has sent police officers and soldiers to the military government to keep order. It's totally in the CCP playbook to replace local police with their own cadres.

Again, complete hearsay that China is supporting the military coup. They had good relations with incumbent government due to the belt and road initiative.

>> The people of Myanmar have been sharing lots and lots of videos...

> complete hearsay...

Um, what? How do you go from video evidence to "complete hearsay"?

So where are these videos?

CCP saw democracy in Burma as the West gaining influence in the region.

Which was correct - given that democratic Burma was a crown jewel of Obama's Asian Pivot.

> They had good relations with incumbent government due to the belt and road initiative.

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.

I disagree (but don't think your comment deserves oblivion).

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 have to deal with the police on an almost daily basis in the last couple years. They've gotten infinitely worse… they're unnecessarily aggressive, confrontational, and unreasonable. Everyone (almost) hates them here, with good reason. They've basically decided that the public is their enemy and their mission is no longer to protect but to harass.

(I live in HK)

I also live in HK, and agree with everything you say. But I would change the harass to control. Disagreement and disrespect is what triggers them most. It reminds me of police in the US cities. Grandparent says it's just like they were in the 60s again.

Unfortunately it's like sports teams. People's lenses are colored by which team they're on, and it's hard to be objective.

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.

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