It is still autonomous. Nothing has really changed.
I lived in HK during the protests. There is a big gap between what was being reported in the western media (which I assume you consumed) and what was actually true.
I lived in HK during the protests. There is a big gap between what was being reported in the western media (which I assume you consumed) and what was actually true.
I was not involved in political activities at all, but still went out to protest for the first (and last, currently) time in 2019. The situation escalated quickly, and for reasons that I cannot understand, some protesters started to act violently, which we know from history that the CCP will not compromise and protestors have no chance of winning the fight... And then there is the national security law, using the pandemic as an excuse to ban every protests, etc. People either leave or become silent.
Actually I am not sure why I would want to write this, perhaps I just wanted to say something like this for a long time but was too afraid to. Some of the protesters were illogical at the time, so saying that their action is naive and will only worsen the situation may cause me trouble. Writing these now may trigger the police, although I don't think they will arrest me due to this alone.
I also lived in Hongkong during the last rounds of protests. One of the comments I frequently heard from foreigners from stable, highly-functioning democracies: "I cannot condone (support) violence during political protests." On the surface, it sounds great -- very pithy (short, succint)! Then, I thought a long time about it. Peaceful protests mostly do not work in non-democracies (dictatorships). For me, this is the reason why transition to democracy in Taiwan, (South) Korea, and Indonesia was so violent. (OMG: Go and read about Korea. It reads like a civil war. Protesters stole automatic weapons from police stations to used against the police. It was crazy!)
If readers are unfamiliar with the transition to democracy for these three countries, or the current state of affairs, I strongly recommend a "rabbit hole" deep-dive on Wiki. You will be impressed! And when you observe these three democracies from afar, you will be further impressed by their passion to create a great society that is governed by the people. People in their 50s sound like high school students from highly functioning democracies when they discuss government affairs. It is very inspiring!
A different angle: When you live in a highly functioning democracy, protests of any size always capture the attentions of politicians (members of parliment, etc.). Why? Because they represent the people, and they can lose the next election if they do not listen. In low functioning/non-democracies, protests can be ignored and protesters arrested / beaten / gassed. Why? Because accountability is so low.
I will never forget walking through a Hongkong wet market to buy groceries (veg, fish, etc.) and being tear-gassed by the HK riot police. Yes, I regularly attended protests, but on that day, I was simply shopping for a weekend meal. Their annoucements were only in Cantonese. The domestic helpers (Indos and Fils) in the market were terrified. It was an all-out assault on humanity. I sent careful documentation of the event and evidence to the police, but my complaint was entirely ignored. I knew this would happen, but still, I filed my complaint.
At the peak of the 2019 protests, there were unjustified, daily beatings by police of protesters. An unimaginable amount of mobile phone video footage was captured, but not a single HK police officer ever faced the court system for their appalling behaviour. They was an incident on the HK metro where police officers boarded a train to confront protesters peacefully delaying service. It was a particularly grotest display of police brutality. They swung metal batons at unarmed civilians causing so much harm. (These YouTube videos were later used in Taiwan election adverts!) It does not mean that every protester was innocent, but you will never win peacefully against a dictatorship. Sadly, violence is required. (See Burma / Myanmar!)
At some point, HK gov't pledged to create an international council to help them decide how to handle arrests on both sides. Once the foreigners selected saw the total lack of accountability, 100% of them resigned from the board. It was a collassal embarassment to the still paper-thin democratic system in HK.
To be honest, I think technology is increasing the power imbalance between the public and the ruler. We have AI for surveillance system that can track the activity of every single citizen. The media and social media can overload most of the people with useless information, distracting them from the important issues. Advanced weapons so people have no chance in winning the fight if the authority don't care about casualties.
During the HK protests, I can imagine the same thing happening. Actually, in only a few cases where a strong leader and organization is involved (MLK, Gandhi, etc...) can protests be largely peaceful and more effective (not giving the other side an excuse to crackdown without losing face, and even these movements weren't perfect).
Yet, planted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur are a well documented and widely used tactic. It has proven to be effective in many cases to justify a reaction in the eyes of public opinion.
A planted agent definitely in the realm of possibility, but it is just more likely that some kids took a chance to get angry, violent, and cause chaos. Some combination could also have happened (e.g. a plant takes advantage of enraging people who are already closed to being enraged). In all cases, better leadership and some practiced discipline that comes with that could have helped avoided the problems.
If we interpret this to mean independent and free to set its own foreign policy, independent of conformance to the global rules-based order, then I think it’s true. There is pride in answering to no-one. Unfortunately they appear to be using that freedom to trample on the freedom of other countries.
They are, of course, utterly delusional.
Slowly increase temperatures so so frogs in the water don’t realize they’re in danger. It’s not a real thing though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
I’ve seen this stated before but it seems very confusing. Widespread poverty sucks. There’s no way people are fine with returning to it because they saw it decades ago. Surely nobody thinks that’s ok?
I think most of us are aware of how propaganda works.
Since the protests, their politics is completely controlled by the mainland; their last bits of wiggle room removed. I remember clearly the lead up to and results of the 2019 district election, with its unprecedented turnout and results. I'm curious what you feel the gap was since I rarely read western media about the protests while I lived there.