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Protests In Hong Kong


Stuart Galbraith

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I appreciate the gesture of Hongkongese demonstrators making their appeal to Japan and Japanese for support in person, but the last time Japan intervened to liberate Hong Kong cannot be called a success, unfortunately.

 

Unfortunately, yes, like when RADM Iwabuchi tried to prevent Americans from conquer liberated Manila.

 

 

Iwabuchi was an idiot and murderer.

 

 

Agree very much, especially on the murdering thing.

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Another day of demonstrations in Hong Kong, drawing almost 2 million people in the protest.

 

 

Hong Kong rose up in defiance a day after leader Carrie Lam suspended a contentious extradition bill, jamming the streets with hundreds of thousands of people and drawing a formal apology from the embattled chief executive.
Protesters wanted the complete withdrawal of the bill, which opponents say threatens the former British colony’s tenuous autonomy from Communist Party-ruled China. The largely peaceful crowds showed up in significantly greater numbers even after Lam indefinitely paused efforts to pass the legislation. A top government adviser said Monday there was now “no chance” debate on the bill would resume.
The central government headquarters in Admiralty, near the city’s core financial district, was shut Monday. A few hundred protesters remained on the streets near the complex as of 10 a.m., despite police requests that they move to the sidewalks and let traffic pass. Opposition lawmakers urged Lam to come forward and speak with them.
While the Civil Human Rights Front said more than a quarter of the city’s 7.5 million residents responded to its call to march, police said some 338,000 joined the protest’s main routes during the peak. Either way, the gathering was larger than the historic march on June 9, when organizers put the number at just more than 1 million and police said 240,000.
The government moved to release activist Joshua Wong, 22, who was jailed over his role organizing the pro-democracy Occupy protests in 2014. Wong would’ve been eligible for early release Monday and it was unclear whether the move was linked to the march.
The swollen crowds seemed strong proof that Hong Kong was in no mood for half-measures from the Beijing-backed government. The protest appeared to be the biggest since Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997.
Asked Monday if the bill was essentially dead, top Lam adviser and Executive Council Convener Bernard Chan said “yes.”
“The chief executive makes it very clear that this is suspension indefinitely and back to consultation with the public,” Chan told Bloomberg Television. “You know that would take months and months. And since the legislative term ends just next year, there’s no chance the bill will be reintroduced back to the legislature.”
Lam issued a formal apology Sunday night, casting new doubt about her ability to survive the uproar. The government said in a statement that she “pledged to adopt a most sincere and humble attitude to accept criticisms and make improvements in serving the public.”
Her decision to suspend the bill was considered a shocking reversal. But protesters noted that her apology did not go much further in substance -- leaving open the options of fully killing the measure or her resigning.
“The suspension is just a postponement. The plan is just being delayed. It’s not the matter of what, it’s a matter of when,” opposition lawmaker and protest leader Claudia Mo said in an interview. Lam “has completely lost any credibility among Hong Kong people. She must go.”
Demonstrators clad in black chanted and carried homemade signs as they stretched from the North Point area 5 kilometers (3 miles) westward to Admiralty, spilling out from the official route and choking major thoroughfares.
Read more: Hong Kong People Power Makes U.S. Case on China’s Home Turf
“Hong Kong people are running out of ways and ideas to save their city,” said Savana Ho, a 25-year-old student. “The government is forcing citizens to just make any effort we can.”
Wednesday saw clashes between riot police and protesters attempting to storm the legislature to stop debate over the bill, which would allow extraditions to China for the first time. Opponents say it would further erode the city’s autonomy amid increased pressure from Beijing.
“The suspension of the bill has to be seen as a signal that protests can still be effective in Hong Kong in achieving specific results -- and that’s a very big deal,” said Jeffrey Wasserstrom, professor and China historian at the University of California, Irvine. “But all sorts of unresolved or only partially resolved issues remain, which will make it important to keep international attention on Hong Kong, rather than let it slip away.”
Resign, Retract
At the the march’s intended starting point in Victoria Park, student Venus Leung -- folding white paper flowers as she and her friends waited to join the crowd -- said she would keep protesting until the chief executive resigned. There is “nothing Carrie Lam can do to win back our hearts,” said Leung, 19. “She can only step down.”
The Extradition Law Stirring Protests in Hong Kong: QuickTake
As the afternoon wore on, marchers near the park chanted “Retract!” over and over -- seeking a more formal withdrawal of the bill. One cafe in Admiralty posted a sign to its front window: “Everyone keep up the hard work... if you are tired, come in and we’ll give you a glass of water.”
Betty Tam, 65, sat in her wheelchair outside government headquarters Sunday. She said this was the first time she had joined a Hong Kong protest since the historic vigils after China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown three decades ago.
“We have sat in silence for 30 years. But I think we have to come out now to support our Hong Kong people,” she said. “Carrie Lam has hugely disappointed us. She has to step down and we need someone politically neutral to become the chief executive.”
hong%2Bkong%2Bmarch.jpg

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-16/protests-swell-as-hong-kong-rejects-leader-s-compromise

 

Edited by JasonJ
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The Filipino wife of a co-worker has had some choice words for Chinese/Hongkongese in the past. Her mother was apparently a live-in housemaid there, with all the rights and privileges of lower-caste citizenship thereof.

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Well we are all trading with them, so we must all like and support them on some level.

 

You can only blame Bill Clinton so far. You cant blame him for the continued appeasement across the west as the PRC inexorably eases across the line of civilized behavior with nothing so much as a wagged finger. When the Soviets did it, we had Charter 77. What have we got now? Nothing.

 

This was on the BBC the other day, describes what China has been doing to its largely forgotten Muslim population. Muslims today, Hong Kong next week I suppose.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
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Well we are all trading with them, so we must all like and support them on some level.

 

You can only blame Bill Clinton so far. You cant blame him for the continued appeasement across the west as the PRC inexorably eases across the line of civilized behavior with nothing so much as a wagged finger. When the Soviets did it, we had Charter 77. What have we got now? Nothing.

 

This was on the BBC the other day, describes what China has been doing to its largely forgotten Muslim population. Muslims today, Hong Kong next week I suppose.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps

 

Yes, the Clintons were up to their eyeballs in ChiCom money, technology transfer and appeasement and every president until the current one let them get away with murder on trade and IP theft, but they didn't leave HK to it's fate, that was another country. You can argue that there was no choice or there was an agreement or whatever but everyone knew where it would end up eventually.

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One good thing that the Clinton administration did do was send US carriers next to Taiwan when Taiwan was having their first presidential election and so all the PRC did was launch a bunch or rockets into the sea. But yeah, the rest...

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Well we are all trading with them, so we must all like and support them on some level.

 

You can only blame Bill Clinton so far. You cant blame him for the continued appeasement across the west as the PRC inexorably eases across the line of civilized behavior with nothing so much as a wagged finger. When the Soviets did it, we had Charter 77. What have we got now? Nothing.

 

This was on the BBC the other day, describes what China has been doing to its largely forgotten Muslim population. Muslims today, Hong Kong next week I suppose.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps

 

Yes, the Clintons were up to their eyeballs in ChiCom money, technology transfer and appeasement and every president until the current one let them get away with murder on trade and IP theft, but they didn't leave HK to it's fate, that was another country. You can argue that there was no choice or there was an agreement or whatever but everyone knew where it would end up eventually.

 

 

Alright, here is my alternative history novel. Call it the Bum of All Fears for want of a better title.

 

Its 1996. Prime Minister John Major, increasingly popular with the British Public due to his virile and decisive nature, decides to hold onto Hong Kong. He call's up the Chinese Premier. he tells him to fuck off. He then sails the immense British fleet into the South China Sea, and backed by the increasingly assertive President Bill Clinton, keen to prove his anticommunist credentials, they defeat the Chinese Navy in a vast fleet on fleet action with zero casualties. Millions of PRC chinese drown. Hong Kong is saved, liberty breaks out in China, its party time on the Pacific Rim.

 

Erm, no. We could not have held onto Hong Kong in any circumstances. About the best we could do is give it independence, and as Taiwan proved, Independence from the PRC is a chancy thing. And they had a good Army, Navy and Air Force. Hong Kong had a good police force, and that was about it. Oh, and a good tram service apparently.

 

 

The history leaves us where we are. We can wag fingers at each other about who has betrayed Hong Kong more, but its irrelevant. Now matters, not then. Then is unfixable. Now isnt, if we apply ourselves.

 

But we dont. We would rather buy cheap rubber dogshit, and screw the civil rights. An attitude that in the long term will do much more to fuck us than them. Watch this space.

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
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Erm, no. We could not have held onto Hong Kong in any circumstances. About the best we could do is give it independence, and as Taiwan proved, Independence from the PRC is a chancy thing. And they had a good Army, Navy and Air Force. Hong Kong had a good police force, and that was about it. Oh, and a good tram service apparently.

 

Do you really think China would have risked war over HK? Even they had to recognize the lethality of the British Minesweeping fleet.

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Well, go look at any number of ships, used to be they had Paravanes on things up to battleship size for mine clearance.

Mind you the whole LCS thing is an example of the whole fitted for but not with nonsense. So you might want to stop tossing stones in your summer house.

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7152947/Beijing-backed-Hong-Kong-leader-Carrie-Lam-apologise-protesters-person.html

 

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam today apologised to the public a second time over a controversial extradition law that sparked some of the city's most violent mass demonstrations.

'I have heard the people loud and clear ... I offer my most sincere apology to each and every Hong Kong citizen,' the chief executive said during a press conference. 'This incident has made me realise that I have to do better.'

The apology came after protesters rejected a brief government statement she put out on Sunday following an unprecedented march, which organisers said drew nearly two million people. The statement failed to pacify many marchers who said they no longer trusted her and doubted her ability to govern.

The Beijing-backed leader refused to say whether the legislation would be withdrawn, only that it was 'very unlikely' the government could pass the bill before the current legislative session expires next year.

Lam said that unless the government was able to address concerns about the proposed laws 'we will not proceed with the legislative exercise again'.

She also ignored calls for her resignation, saying she intends to finish her five-year term as the city's chief executive and wants a second chance to 'meet the aspirations of the Hong Kong people.'

 

'Because this bill over the past few months has caused so much anxiety, and worries and differences in opinion, I will not - this is an undertaking - I will not proceed again with this legislative exercise if these fears and anxieties cannot be adequately addressed,' Lam told reporters in a closely-watched press conference.

Lam, elected in 2017, also said she was saddened by the fact that some people, including police officers and members of the press, were injured during the clash last Wednesday.

'I personally have to shoulder much of the responsibility. This has led to controversies, disputes and anxieties in society,' she said.

'I hope those injured in the protests can recover soon and that the rift in society can be quickly mended,' she added.

Someone is going to have a new career as director of the Hong Kong Dog pound at this rate.

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/rebecca-grant-hong-kong-china-beijing-protests-trump

Hong Kong’s message to Beijing is loud and clear. That city won’t succumb to creeping Chinese control, and the rest of the world shouldn’t either.

The crowds filling the streets between Hong Kong’s thin skyscrapers want to protect their autonomy, free speech, and basic rights against an insidious tide of Chinese Communist party influence. What started as a rally at the legislature against an extradition bill is now an unforgettable moment for this city of 7 million.

“Before this week I’d never been on a protest,” one 28-year-old Hong Kong resident told Britain’s The Guardian.

 

“We are watching the people of Hong Kong speak about the things they value,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.

Hong Kong’s protests are a massive repudiation of Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power. Hong Kong is also showing the world that Trump was right. It’s high time to confront China.

Beijing would love to make Hong Kong shut up. Hong Kong was a thriving British colony from 1842 until 1997. But Hong Kong depended on supply from the mainland, China was getting stronger, and it seemed like time to welcome China to the Western economic and financial system. Still, when Britain handed over control in 1997, Hong Kong made a good deal. China’s leader Deng Xiaoping promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy until 2047. Hong Kong kept its own court system, and most of the legal and institutional protections of a Western democracy under the doctrine of “one country, two systems.”

That included free speech and unrestricted internet access and street rallies – privileges rarely seen in mainland China. Hong Kong remains a prosperous financial hub and residents exercise their free speech rights with events like the so-called umbrella protests of 2014 and annual remembrances of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square incident. A cherished element of the agreement was that Hong Kong would not allow extraditions to mainland China. You can imagine why.

 

The new bill to permit Taiwan, mainland China, and other jurisdictions to extradite fugitives was sneaky. Just plugging a loophole and catching criminals, Hong Kong’s leadership claimed. Not so fast. China does not have an independent justice system. Hong Kong does. The extradition measure, if passed by Hong Kong’s legislature, would let Beijing pick up political dissidents, or really anyone, in Hong Kong.

In this jewel of a city, people could just disappear.

Small protests began in March. Hong Kong Executive Carrie Lam said the bill would not apply to political crimes. Few believed her. Lam was appointed directly by Beijing, and she had put the extradition bill on a 20-day fast track.

Then in June, protests grew. This past weekend, organizers estimated 2 million out of Hong Kong’s population of over 7 million took to the streets. Hong Kong police counted several hundred thousand at a minimum. The protests brought Hong Kong to a standstill.

Consider that Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs on August 28, 1963, tallied about 300,000, according to the National Park Service.

Whatever the exact headcount, the point is Hong Kong won’t succumb quietly.

Yes, there is a brutal murder case at the center of it all. Back in February 2018, 20-year old Chan Tong-Kai killed his pregnant girlfriend, stuffed her in a pink suitcase, and dumped the body on the outskirts of Taipei, Taiwan. Then he stole money from her bank account and fled back to Hong Kong. Chan confessed. Taiwan indicted him in late 2018, and that’s when the extradition problem arose. Sadly, the brutal murder case was basically exploited as a political smokescreen.

For its part, Taiwan has sided with Hong Kong’s protestors. Taiwan said back in May they no longer wanted fugitive, Chan. The political fate of Hong Kong is just too important.

For Xi, the scenes in the streets of Hong Kong are a nightmare. Xi hates unrest. Most of China’s 1.3 billion people won’t even see what’s happening in Hong Kong because China blocks news and internet access.

The lesson of Hong Kong? Hold firm when China won’t play by the rules. Trump saw that early on. Hence the tariffs and trade talks. Great Britain realized it too, deciding to remove Huawei devices from sensitive emergency response networks.

 

Xi could do better as a world leader, for instance, by overt help with North Korean denuclearization and by cutting out the mischief in the South China Seas. Internally, China’s challenge is how to allow more freedoms alongside its prosperity.

Or there is the dark choice: more crackdowns, more control. Thanks to Hong Kong, the world will be watching.

 

 

 

 

Actually im not sure she is right about removing Huawei devices. The debate is still out on that. But spot on with the rest.

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
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Nice to see you have recovered from the flu, Stuart!

 

Well we are all trading with them, so we must all like and support them on some level.

 

You can only blame Bill Clinton so far. You cant blame him for the continued appeasement across the west as the PRC inexorably eases across the line of civilized behavior with nothing so much as a wagged finger. When the Soviets did it, we had Charter 77. What have we got now? Nothing.

 

This was on the BBC the other day, describes what China has been doing to its largely forgotten Muslim population. Muslims today, Hong Kong next week I suppose.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps

Before the Muslims, there were mistreated Tibetans. Quite roughly in fact, up to forced abortions.

Edited by sunday
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These are some truly fine people, they really dont give a flying fuck for authority. Maybe we taught them something worth learning after all. :D

 

Union Jacks have been waved on the demonstrations. Theoretically the treaty for handing over guaranteed that Hong Kong keeps its democratic institutions, but that has of course been undermined by Beijing. One country two systems. Yeah, right.

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Nice to see you have recovered from the flu, Stuart!

 

Well we are all trading with them, so we must all like and support them on some level.

 

You can only blame Bill Clinton so far. You cant blame him for the continued appeasement across the west as the PRC inexorably eases across the line of civilized behavior with nothing so much as a wagged finger. When the Soviets did it, we had Charter 77. What have we got now? Nothing.

 

This was on the BBC the other day, describes what China has been doing to its largely forgotten Muslim population. Muslims today, Hong Kong next week I suppose.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps

Before the Muslims, there were mistreated Tibetans. Quite roughly in fact, up to forced abortions.

 

 

The one child policy was applied all over the PRC. Or was that earlier?

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These are some truly fine people, they really dont give a flying fuck for authority. Maybe we taught them something worth learning after all. :D

 

Union Jacks have been waved on the demonstrations. Theoretically the treaty for handing over guaranteed that Hong Kong keeps its democratic institutions, but that has of course been undermined by Beijing. One country two systems. Yeah, right.

 

 

Yeah I noticed that too. Its helped Chris Patten, not perhaps historically the most politically decisive figures ive ever seen, has spoken up in their defence too.

 

Hammond the Chancellor the other day was talking about trading with China, and how we have systems to deal with any damages to our national security. One might wonder at the point of signing deals with a country that is happy to violate them in less than 2 decades. Which in a country with their age is seriously broadband speed.

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Nice to see you have recovered from the flu, Stuart!

 

Well we are all trading with them, so we must all like and support them on some level.

 

You can only blame Bill Clinton so far. You cant blame him for the continued appeasement across the west as the PRC inexorably eases across the line of civilized behavior with nothing so much as a wagged finger. When the Soviets did it, we had Charter 77. What have we got now? Nothing.

 

This was on the BBC the other day, describes what China has been doing to its largely forgotten Muslim population. Muslims today, Hong Kong next week I suppose.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps

Before the Muslims, there were mistreated Tibetans. Quite roughly in fact, up to forced abortions.

 

 

Getting there still, but thank you for the kind thoughts. :)

 

And you are right. Its nothing they havent done before.

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These are some truly fine people, they really dont give a flying fuck for authority. Maybe we taught them something worth learning after all. :D

 

Union Jacks have been waved on the demonstrations. Theoretically the treaty for handing over guaranteed that Hong Kong keeps its democratic institutions, but that has of course been undermined by Beijing. One country two systems. Yeah, right.

 

 

Yeah I noticed that too. Its helped Chris Patten, not perhaps historically the most politically decisive figures ive ever seen, has spoken up in their defence too.

 

Hammond the Chancellor the other day was talking about trading with China, and how we have systems to deal with any damages to our national security. One might wonder at the point of signing deals with a country that is happy to violate them in less than 2 decades. Which in a country with their age is seriously broadband speed.

 

 

The People's Republic of China has a very different understanding what democratic means obviously.

 

And honouring treaties, well, the UK has a long history of not doing so. Perfidious Albion, remember? The USA has broken an international treaty recently and very loudly. The list goes on. State actors do this all the time, when they believe they can get away with it.

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I am disappointed at how quickly this Carrie Lam backed down, as Chinese-on-Chinese disunity and violence has historically been a thing to nurture and take advantage of, much like an ambitious warlord in various ways.

 

Interestingly, the number of Hongkongese who turned out to protest second-class-citizen laws for their domestic servant population was around 50. How easily the Hongkongese definition of oppression changes depending on which side of it one is on.

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