View Full Version : U.S. Intelligence Positions Hong Kong as Proxy Conflict With China ? President Trump Sees Trap
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/13/u-s-intelligence-positions-hong-kong-as-proxy-conflict-with-china-thankfully-president-trump-sees-trap/
The situation in Hong Kong is a geopolitical dynamic that will likely become much more volatile in the next few weeks, months and/or years. One constant in an ever-changing universe is how the UniParty in DC will attempt to drag the U.S. into the issues.
Hong Kong is not our issue.
The CIA will try to make it our issue. The State Department will try to make it our issue. The UniParty in DC will try to make it our issue. John Bolton will try to make it our issue. Activists in Hong Kong will try to make it our issue. All of the far-left globalists will try to make it our issue?. Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney will try to make it our issue; but it?s not our issue.
What do you think? I agree with the actions President Trump is taking with Hong Kong, they lost when the British rolled over for the Chinese, they're done, nothing for us to do.
President Trump is exposing the Chinese for the duplicitous lying bastards that they are and the US elites don't like it. Time for the truth about how previous administrations rolled over to the Chinese and other nations.
Every company that off-shored their manufacturing lost their technology secrets to China, that is why we can do business with Huawei. Huawei is owned by the Chinese government, and every bit of techonolgy Hauwei touches in our networks will be stolen and the Chinese will use it against us later. China has a grand plan of becoming a dominant world power, they won't be a beneficial world power like the United States, they'll be a detriment to every nation on earth.
wctriumph
08-14-2019, 14:06
Agreed, we need to stay out of it.
There is nothing we can do to help Hong Kong, it is part of China afterall.
Not our problem, we gain nothing by interfering.
Make sure the world sees how China rolls over HK, but there's really nothing in it for us. I'm pretty sure Jackie Chan isn't participating in the protests either.
Actually, thinking about this, Trump should immediately enact the tariffs that he pushed off to December. Then double them each week. We can survive without the Chinese junk.
JohnnyDrama
08-14-2019, 20:34
The U.S. has nothing to gain from getting involved in any business there. I think President Trump sees that, and I think the British saw that when the lease expired and they had to give Hong Kong back. This whole thing reminds me of a radio interview I heard about that time regarding Tibet (anybody remember "Free Tibet!"). The host was asking a recent visitor to Tibet some leading questions trying to get the guest to say something to get more listeners on board Free Tibet. The guest avoided a direct answer and told the radio audience to watch China. He saw the Hong Kong thing happening twenty years ago.
So many people want Trump to start a war so they can be right about him.
Of course they care very little for the people who would die, especially our forces.
Singlestack
08-17-2019, 06:37
So many people want Trump to start a war so they can be right about him.
Of course they care very little for the people who would die, especially our forces.
Very true.
I have an American contact in HK. I asked him about the situation, and he sent me the following:
There is no reason for me to be concerned regarding discussing the happenings in Hong Kong. It is a very complex matter but I can give a summary as well as a tl;dr: the Western media has it all backwards.
For a little bit of background, I first note that HK has a long history with protests, so much so that they are almost a weekly occurrence, albeit no where as large as of late. HKers protest like Americans go out to watch football - it is the local pastime to take to the streets and air grievances. As such the government and people have a long history of conducting these peacefully - the protest group applies to the police for a specific route to be marched, the police grant it and block the roads to allow for a safe family-friendly environment in which the city can enjoy its pastime.
So when the latest protests began 3 months ago it was nothing out of the ordinary. But then it quickly developed into a 2 million man march, not as abnormal for HK as an outsider might think, but none the less very large indeed. From there the face of the protest took a very sharp turn that is very uncharacteristic for Hong Kong. The next protest was against the LegCo office, like Capitol Hill for HK, and it resulted in the protesters sieging the building, sacking it and vandalizing its interior. Prior to breaking into LegCo, police had occupied its interior (merely standing there inside) and as protesters broke glass doors, they threw acidic powder on the police (HK has a strange history of acid attacks).
Prior that day they also laid siege to the nearby police HQ and began throwing bricks at it while the police remained inside. This was a dramatic change in the face of the protest, from a protest into the beginnings of a riot. It has been a riot ever since.
A lot has gone on since then but the general details remain unchanged. About three days a week now protest groups apply for a march, the police grant it, hundreds of thousands show up and march. Upon reaching the end a very large minority (tens of thousands) begin rioting. They begin hurling bricks at the small police squad present. They block roads and shut down traffic. They use metal and bamboo poles to chase down the few police present. They lay siege to local police stations, hurling petrol bombs into them, using large slingshots to catapult bricks into windows and wherever police stand, flash hundreds upon hundreds of high power lasers into all police station windows and wherever police stand with the goal of blinding them, throwing large industrial metal trashcans from pedestrian crosswalks onto police cars as they drive under, sometimes throwing acidic powder when police are near, using small slingshots to shoot steel ball bearings at police, chasing separated small groups of police and beating them with metal rods, and so on so forth. Hours later (literally hours later), the riot police show up (extremely belatedly, every single time) and unfurl a series of colored banners, first telling people to disperse, then warning them of impending force, then warning immediately prior to the (excessively belated) tear gas. This is when the media then snaps all of their photos and plasters it across the world, with captions that the HK police are crushing peaceful protesters. What they ignore are the hours upon hours prior of violent, unprovoked and relentless assaults on the small police contingents present (those whom were there to facilitate the legal aspect of the protest, such as in blocking roads so the peaceful protesters can do their legally applied for march). The media ignores that the rioters literally lay siege to multiple police stations, throwing petrol bombs and bricks at them for hours.
It really is absolutely insane. It is total black is white, war is peace, up is down. The rioters violently attack the police for hours, the police come out and exercise Herculean levels of restraint in merely firing some tear gas and sometimes beanbag rounds, and then the whole world goes insane and condemns the police as if they were Hitler. And it is not a mere one-off event, this happens about 3 times a week now for 12 weeks straight. It is the same thing each time, and yet the police do almost nothing to stop it, and are calumniated against beyond belief.
But the rioters have grown uncontented with merely violently attacking the police and relentlessly laying siege to their police stations. They've upped their assault by targeting the city at wide. Two weeks ago they called for a city-wide strike. Fine, strike, we are all ok with that. But that was not enough for them, they then proceeded to block almost every MTR (subway) line, shut down all the major roads, and blocked the tunnels. First some more background - only about 7% of HKers own cars, the rest of us plebes all are completely reliant upon the MTR and bus system. And given how densely packed the city is, shutting down the major roads quickly shuts down all your major bus systems. Blocking the doors from closing on one MTR train shuts down the entire line. And so rather than merely peacefully strike by staying home, they set out to shut down the entire city and prevent everyone from living their normal lives. Tunnels that cross the harbor (from Kowloon peninsula [mainland] to Hong Kong Island] were stormed with rioters, trapping ordinary citizens in the tunnel and preventing traffic from flowing. As always, after hours of chaos, the riot police show up around dusk and begin firing tear gas (after innumerable warnings) and then the whole world cries foul.
But that was still not enough. A few days later two Sundays ago, during a riot a lady had her eye shot out. The city immediately went berserk and screamed that the police were now executing their citizens. The claim was she was hit with a beanbag round and lost her eye. That same night video came out on Youtube which shows rioters shooting slingshots in a direction towards firemen, the camera then runs in that same direction to the firetrucks and what do we see? A lady on the ground bleeding profusely out of her eye. No police anywhere in sight, just rioters shooting steel ball bearings with slingshots in the same direction that this lady was standing. But don't let that stop anyone, the narrative had been set and the rioters were now out for blood.
So that Monday the rioters descended en masse upon the very critical Hong Kong International Airport. For a bit of background, the HKIA is an all-international airport (every single flight is international) and has about 200k people pass through it every single day. One international flight departs approximately every 45-60 seconds. It is a critical hub in Asia. So the rioters decided that because this lady lost her eye, it was time to shut down this international airport. And shut it down they did. Every single flight was cancelled as the rioters streamed in and packed the entire airport. Untold tens of thousands of foreigners were stranded with no where to go, surrounded by lunatic rioters blocking their every move. Flights cancelled, no hotels for them to go to, surrounded by crazy nuts, it was a total disaster. But one day was not enough, so the rioters did it again on Tuesday, further locking these trapped foreigners in our crazy city.
And as things go, the beast always needs to be fed more. A little bit of mayhem needs to be upped by more and more. So that Tuesday night the rioters decided to take hostages, kidnapping two mainland Chinese gentlemen and tying them down with zipties. At least one was beaten until he fell unconscious. To make matters worse, they then blocked medical access for up to three hours as they detained the tied down, beaten, unconscious man. When riot police showed up, again eons later than they should have, the rioters beat and hurled airport luggage trolleys at their vehicles as they pulled in. The riot police slowly lined up at the entrance and, in my opinion, very casually made their entrance, merely shooting some pepper spray at the rioters that had assaulted their vehicles, taken two men hostage, and beaten them severely. And as it goes, the riot police got separated and video camera caught one poor officer being cornered by ~10 rioters whom had sticks. One stole the officers' baton and proceeded to beat him with it while he was trapped in the corner, at which point the officer (extremely belatedly) withdrew and aimed his pistol, and again showing complete Herculean restraint, fired not a single shot despite being in extreme danger.
I could go on and on, it just gets worse and worse. I am not sure if what is worse is the violence towards the police or the complete violence done towards the truth. Both make me very angry.
Just last night in the neighborhood my office is in (I am here right now as I type), there was another massive riot. I watched videos of it and saw the same story as always, the rioters destroy everything, the police show up, the rioters throw fire bombs at them, bricks, metal poles, and then an hour or two later tear gas is fired. The riot continued late into the night and I saw one video in which a small group of five police got separated from the rest and were chased through the neighborhood, surrounded on all sides by rioters swinging metal poles and bamboo sticks. They were violently being wailed upon and retreating for their lives at which point two officers drew their guns and one fired a shot into the air. Well that did it. In HK anytime an officer shoots a gun the city goes insane. All newspapers are showing this officer firing his gun "at the protesters" and ignoring that they were running for their lives from a mob set to kill them.
I remember about 6 months ago when a crazy guy with a box cutter was in a massively busy MTR station during rush hour. The police were called and the crazy guy tried to attack people with his box cutter. A female officer shot him one time and they arrested the man, with no injuries other than a non-critical gunshot wound. Good job officer, right? Nope, not in Hong Kong. The city went insane again, vilifying this officer for daring to shoot a gun in a crowded MTR station, condemning her for risking their lives in doing so. In HK, a city of 7 million, maybe one gun gets fired every few years, and so when it happens it is frontpage headline news.
The police force here used to be majorly corrupt about 40 years ago. But since then they have cleaned themselves up and are perhaps the most professional force in the land. They are like the Andy Griffith of police forces. They just casually patrol, help answer questions, and very peacefully help resolve disputes. Throughout the chaos that has been aimed at them, they've shot no one. And yet the HKers call them black police and repeatedly call to kill them. A nurse called for them to be injected with diseases when they come to the hospitals. A vice principal of a "Christian" school wrote that he hopes all children under age 7 of police die (and he hasn't been fired yet!!!!!). It is total madness, I really cannot stand the violence done towards the truth and towards these excessively restrained officers.
The rioters even attack the families of police now. In HK the police are given public housing so they live together in large apartment towers. During some of the riots the rioters throw bricks at these apartments housing police family and yell death threats at them. And yet the police have shot no one at all! In America not only would we have shot these people dead 12 weeks ago, but we'd probably just nuke the city from orbit. I read of recent ANTIFA riot in Portland in which the police cracked open the head of one of the rioters. In America we have zero tolerance for this crap. But here these nuts think they can be as violent and criminal as they want and the police are not allowed to do anything to stop them. And they wave the American flag while they do it! If only they knew what the American police would do to them! This is a failed French Revolution in the making.
The whole situation is absurd beyond belief. These rioters want independence, that is laughable. Hong Kong is a tiny rocky island & peninsula on the coast of China. About 90% of its drinking water is imported from the mainland. Almost all of its food comes from the mainland. About half of its electricity comes from the mainland. 100% of its economy is in relation to the mainland. This city has absolutely nothing without a continual handout from China, and yet they bite the hand that feeds them. Back in the 80s HK was very important to China. In the early 90s it was about 25% of China's entire GDP. Today the city is nothing - under 2% of national GDP. The mainland ports are bigger than HK. The mainland airports are bigger than HK. The major banks and lawfirms are now in China. Foreigners now have had about 30 years of experience operating directly in China, they no longer need HK as their safespace outpost. China gives HK water, food, electricity, and its entire economy as a handout to try and unify these people back into the nation. And what do they get for it? Endless grief locally and internationally.
The HKers cry for democracy. They already have it! The city has elections for LegCo every couple years. There is a vote coming up in November. HK was run by the Brits for 156 years, 150 of which had zero, count it zero, elections. Immediately prior to the handover in 1997, with 6 years left, the Brits decided now was the right time for elections to begin in Hong Kong. So after denying them democracy for 150 years, and immediately prior to leaving, they decide that HKers are due their inalienable human right to vote. And even at that the voting was very limited to electing only a small portion of the LegCo. Since handover in 1997 every single year under "communist" rule has been democratically run. All 22 out of 22 years have had elections, whereas only 6 out of 156 did under British control. And during these 22 years Beijing has actually increased the number of LegCo seats which are democratically elected to where now about 60% are directly chosen by the people (the rest are elected by trade groups, like the Tourism lobby, the Medical lobby, the Finance lobby, etc). It all seems quite democratic and representative to me, especially in comparison to the Brits which ruled with zero public input.
But the pot has to call the kettle black - the Brits continue to condemn Beijing for not offering 100% democratic elections in Hong Kong, despite that they offered 0% democracy for 150 years.
The reality of what is going on here has nothing to do with democracy. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has nothing to do with China. It is 99% about one thing: the local plutocracy. HK is not run by Beijing. HK is not run by the local government. HK is run by a plutocracy of local billionaires whom own almost everything in the city. In HK the cheapest, the truly cheapest housing, is about $1,300 USD by square foot. No, I did not make a math error, it is that expensive at the CHEAPEST. Housing for an exurb is about $2,000 per square foot, $3,000 for a suburb and $5,000+ for city center. The average house size is about 500 sqft and costs about a million USD to purchase. If you are upper middle class maybe you have 800 sqft, and if you are a rich lawyer maybe 1,500 sqft. The city is half public housing and the wait list is 8+ years to enter. Several hundreds of thousands of single men live in cage homes, tiny ~100 sqft cages illegally sublet out of industrial factory buildings.
Work here is on average 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. There is no overtime pay and no holiday pay. Factoring in 1 hour commutes by bus & subway, you are looking at at best 10 hours at home, which is basically just "flop down in bed after a grueling day of work, and wake up and run out the door." This is the life for your normal Hong Konger. Entry work salaries for college graduates are *down* in **nominal** terms since the late 90s. Not even in real terms, just in nominal terms salaries are down, yet housing costs are up about 4x! Average salaries are about $2,000 USD per month but a 500sqft home costs a million USD. To make housing more affordable the plutocrats did not lower their prices, they instead shrunk the houses! They now build and sell houses that are 180 sqft in size! It is smaller than a parking spot and costs about $300k USD to buy, in an exurb! Who can live in that? Who can afford that? Who can have a family in that? In HK it is so crippling that after marriage many spouses live separately, as they cannot purchase a family home, so husband lives with his elderly parents and wife with her elderly parents. It is totally messed up.
What has happened ever since 1997 was that the British control was replaced with a plutocracy of local billionaires. These tycoon families grind the city into dust. And unlike America where you can always move to somewhere cheaper, go somewhere further away with better jobs or housing, in HK you cannot go anywhere. It's a small little city and if you want to get cheaper housing, you literally are forced to immigrate and leave, for there is no refuge in this city.
Beijing's influence in HK is beyond minimal. Beijing lets the city run itself and once in a blue moon introduces legislation that it wants. Basically HK operates itself, and for super big picture things, Beijing has a hand. I can count 4 times that Beijing has intervened, and in all four cases HKers rejected it and Beijing backed off.
1) Beijing wanted a security law outlawing talk of independence. HK shot it down, law never passed
2) Beijing wanted a law requiring patriotic education, teaching HKers about mainland culture, law never passed
3) Beijing wanted to increase the % of democratically voted LegCo seats, radicals demanded 100% or no deal, law never passed (this is what sparked Occupy Central 2014)
4) Beijing wanted an extradition law allowing criminals between Macau / HK / Taiwan / China to be extradited. Law never passed (this is what sparked the current riots)
So four times Beijing has showed up and said "here is what you need to do." Four times HK has given Beijing the middle finger, and four times Beijing has shrugged its shoulders and walked away. And this is the tyranny that these nuts are screeching about. If only they knew what the US Federal government foists upon its people!
Beijing has a giant PLA base in the heart of Central, right on the harbor front. Its a giant barracks with a giant ~20 floor military office looking out across the city. And before we think this is a sign of the commies being crazy, this was actually built by the Brits and taken over by the commies in 97. The PLA military is a stone's throw away from these riots and yet Beijing has done nothing. And despite the enormous restraint the HK police and PLA have shown, the locals and Westerners call them tyrannical.
The plutocrats have ground HKers into dust for 22 years now, and how do the HKers respond? They try to kill the police. Its really messed up. But living here I get to see first-hand how irrational people are. Its the madness of crowds. Its the influence of the media. Its the power of the narrative. Its beyond obvious why everyone is so angry, and yet they've directed all their anger at Andy Griffith. To boot, the local media tycoon (Jimmy Lai) is literally a convicted fugitive. He was found guilty in Macau (which is a mere 30 minutes away by boat) and he fled home to Hong Kong, which does not have an extradition agreement with Macau (despite these both being two Chinese cities). And so when this extradition law was introduced by Beijing, guess who rallied his media forces to whip the city into a frenzy? The billionaire media tycoon who does not want to be extradited back to Macau where he belongs in prison. And what has Jimmy Lai, convicted fugitive been up to? Leading protests (riots) and flying to America to meet with Mike Pence! And then when Beijing says America is influencing the chaos in Hong Kong, the Western media calls Beijing a conspiracy theorist. The violence towards truth is almost too much for me to bear.
Overall I am looking forward to leaving. My wife and I decided to leave back in the Spring, and now that these riots have since broken out and show no sign of ending, it looks all the more like a good decision to say adios. Unfortunately we cannot leave for another year and a half, but once we can we will likely move on.
Turning to much better things in life, my wife has to complete her RCIA course before she can be baptized. Technically I could baptize her myself whenever I want, but that would be disobedient if nothing else. But yes the lack of baptism is something that is always on my mind and I pray for her daily. I was so very surprised and elated when, last August, she said she wanted to join the Church. What a lovely surprise that was and I am most thankful to God for having moved her.
Thank God for homeschooling as well. That is great that homeschooling is so deeply entrenched in Oklahoma. We started homeschooling last year and it has been wonderful so far. I am much looking forward to learning many things that my public school "education" denied me.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Let him know that ANTIFA is basically treated the same way here though.
Thanks for the post, nice to have inside angles. Foreign influence and media manipulation inducing devisiveness* coupled with cyber warefare are the new fronts of the 21st century - nukes are not what we should fear, it's the manipulation of each other that is concerning.
What does he say about that the non-rioter or media people feel about the situation?
Hong Kong leader pulls extradition bill, but too little too late, say some (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests/hong-kong-leader-pulls-extradition-bill-but-too-little-too-late-say-some-idUSKCN1VP05B)
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Wednesday withdrew an extradition bill that triggered months of often violent protests so the Chinese-ruled city can move forward from a “highly vulnerable and dangerous” place and find solutions.
Her televised announcement came after Reuters reports on Friday and Monday revealing Beijing thwarted an earlier proposal from Lam to withdraw the bill and she had said privately that she would resign if she could.
“Lingering violence is damaging the very foundations of our society, especially the rule of law,” a somber Lam said as she sat wearing a navy blue jacket and pink shirt with her hands folded on a desk.
It was not clear when the recording was made. The withdrawal needs the approval of the Legislative Council, which is not expected to oppose Lam.
The bill would have allowed extraditions to mainland China where courts are controlled by the Communist Party. Its withdrawal is a key demand of protesters but just one of five. The move came after pitched battles across the former British colony of 7 million. More than 1,000 protesters were arrested.
Many are furious about perceived police brutality and the number of arrests and want an independent inquiry.
“The government will formally withdraw the bill in order to fully allay public concerns,” Lam said.
“I pledge that the government will seriously follow up the recommendations of the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Council) report. From this month, I and my principal officials will reach out to the community to start a direct dialogue ... we must find ways to address the discontent in society and look for solutions.”
The protests began in March but snowballed in June and have evolved into a push for greater democracy for the city which returned to China in 1997. It was not clear if killing the bill would help end the unrest. The immediate reaction appeared skeptical.
“FIVE DEMANDS, NOT ONE MISSING”
Some lawmakers said the move should have come earlier.
“The damage has been done. The scars and wounds are still bleeding,” said pro-democracy legislator Claudia Mo. “She thinks she can use a garden hose to put out a hill fire. That’s not going to be acceptable.”
Many people on street corners after nightfall were shouting: “Five demands, not one missing.”
Riot police officers search people and their belongings, after an anti-extradition bill protest, at Po Lam Mass Transit Railway (MTR) station, in Hong Kong, China September 5, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
“We still have four other demands. We hope people won’t forget that,” said a woman speaking for the protest movement who declined to identify herself except by the surname Chan. “The mobilization power won’t decrease.”
Riot police fired beanbag guns and used pepper spray on Tuesday to clear demonstrators from outside the Mong Kok police station and in Prince Edward metro station, with one man taken out on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face, television footage showed.
The four other demands are: retraction of the word “riot” to describe rallies, release of all demonstrators, an independent inquiry into perceived police brutality and the right for Hong Kong people to choose their own leaders.
“Too little, too late,” Joshua Wong, a leader of pro-democracy protests in 2014 that were the precursor to the current unrest, said on his Facebook page.
Colorado Osprey
09-05-2019, 05:11
Actually, thinking about this, Trump should immediately enact the tariffs that he pushed off to December. Then double them each week. We can survive without the Chinese junk.
Agreed! We dont need computers, cell phones, air conditioners, shoes, solar energy, any type of masonry or cement, car parts, aircraft parts, etc, etc, etc.
If we could get China to stop exporting as the #1 manufacturer in the world of everything but making junk we would be in great shape!! (sarcasm) Those tarrifs or taxes to raise product prices on end users need to be really high also. We don't pay anywhere enough money for products we need every day. (sarcasm again) Yes tariffs hurt manufacturing and importing/exporting by both ends but what they primarily do is cause inflation on pricing of end goods to consumers and in turn cause inflation across the board.
Now if Americans only took economic classes the people would be outraged with what the leaders are proposing and doing as they realize inflation makes your savings worth less and the national debt lower in valve per dollar.
What does he say about that the non-rioter or media people feel about the situation?
Just saw this. I'll have to ask him.
The biggest factor with the "trade war" is that our POTUS has to go through an election cycle. China's is dictator for life. So regardless of what "pain" you're willing to tolerate; China only has to live with it for a year. And then Trump goes bye bye. Then they "renegotiate" something with the successor (ultra progressive socialist) that will be far better for China than the original agreement ever was. Xi will be a much celebrated Chinese hero, while Trump is vilified even more than now even by his own base.
China gets what it wants in the long game, and is playing the long game. Geopolitical reality.
"dig two graves" adage applies.
We could take the tarriffs to 100,000% of their current levels and it wouldn't change this fact. Xi only has to wait a year, and he knows it.
...unless the economic decline causes the people to rise up against the communist machine.
...unless the economic decline causes the people to rise up against the communist machine.
[ROFL1][LOL]
If it was 1780, maybe. But the gov't has complete and utter control over communications, so any such thing gets stopped about as quick as it reaches three people. Instead, you get a handful of lone wolfs here and there that,.... oh that's right, ultimately induce even further gun control.
Any opportunities for your suggestion are gone, no matter what the will of the people. OPSEC is so key, and so compromised, that yeah, it isn't happening even if they start executing people for "future" crime.
[dig] <--kid repeatedly keeps asking for "the digging one". Ignore this post.
What does he say about that the non-rioter or media people feel about the situation?
Here's his response to that question (removed some geographically ID'ing stuff which could point to him):
It is very split and it is hard to gauge where a local falls unless you ask. I've spoken with taxi drivers and lobby concierges whom are very against the riots. I've spoken with mothers whom are very pro-riot (not that they view these as riots, they instead view the police as thugs). My wife is in a local mother's chat group and it is often filled with anti-police hatred. I've talked with many elderly neighbors whom think these rioters are killing the city, but I've also seen many eldery out there supporting the riots. In the news we've seen doctors and nurses speaking out harshly against the police and we've seen some lawyers and editorialists carefully indicating their disapproval of the riots.
On the few days when the rioters try to shut down the MTR (the direly critical subway system) you can see videos of locals screaming at the rioters to get out of the way, but then later you can see other locals berating the cops as scum when they show up to remove the rioters. When the rioters wreck streets and force businesses to close (keeping in mind how brutally high rent costs are... a small shop will rent for $2,000 USD per DAY in key areas), some shops express their disdain while others are handing out free drinks to the rioters to support them.
My immediate neighbors said disagreeing with the government is fine but the riots are unacceptable. Meanwhile I talked with some young local Catholic trads who insinuated sympathy for the rioters.
In my "small" island community of XXXXXXXX, which is quite relaxed and middle class family oriented, removed from the rest of the city, the other week some nutters started screaming at 10pm every night to liberate HK. The screaming reverberated off the towers and was very loud, I felt like I was living in the third world with crazy people screaming out of the windows to one another.
So the local response really is all over the map. I sense more than a majority support the riots and strongly hate the police, which is deeply disturbing. Everytime the police come in to clear a riot the locals (non-rioters, just people living up in the buildings on the street) yell at the police to get lost. It has become a saying here that everything will be peaceful as long as the police don't show up (which is utter baloney as they cause all sorts of damage and actively besiege the police stations).
The rioters blockaded the singular road to the airport last Sunday. Coming back from Holy Mass we were to take a bus on that road over the bridge to XXXXXXXXX, but my parents warned me of the traffic. Instead we took the ferry home and sailed under the bridge and its interconnecting highways which feed the one path to the airport. The highways were a parking lot of double decker buses as far as the eye could see. The roads were ground to a halt for hours with some simply abandoning their vehicles.
The rioters ended up sacking the MTR station next to the airport and threw metal scrap bars onto the train tracks, forcing the MTR and Airport Express trains to stop service. As they themselves wrecked all means of transport to and from the airport, they had no way out from there but to do a long ~15km hike back down that one path (the airport is on a man-made island which is at the tip of a relatively undeveloped and very large mountainous island). Anyhooo, as the thousands of rioters, metal bars in hand, trooped on down the highway to go home, walking against the traffic jam they caused, some drivers were giving them water bottles. And as congestion cleared up but the march home continued, some drivers acted as taxis to take the rioters back to the city as to avoid the police whom were allegedlg at the other end of the bridge. So some of those whom suffered the hours of gridlock were very supportive of it all.
In related news, recently an officer got stabbed at night by three men while walking out of the station. An MTR manager was assaulted on the streets (very strangely the rioters' hatred has turned against the MTR company itself, they're even doxxing managers and some train drivers). Carrie Lam, the city's Chief Executive (mayor), announced she was officially withdrawing the much hated extradition bill. She had long since ago said it was "dead", but like spoiled children the rioters demanded it to be officially withdrawn. So now she's done it and the rioters are just saying even worse things about her and the government.
What I now realize is that a major element of this is HK hatred of the mainland Chinese. But I can offer my thoughts on that another night.
Thanks for posting. It sounds like there is some pretty complex cultural stuff going on that I won't be able to understand. I can't get my head around what the rioters actually want. Interesting times.
CS1983, is your American friend Chinese?
Loose lips sink ships. If he's not a confidant of whom he's speaking to, it's very possible that he's not getting honest answers. If the government cracks down, nobody wants to be implicated.
If you know anybody that's Dutch and lived through the German occupation of Holland, you'll understand what I'm talking about.
CS1983, is your American friend Chinese?
Loose lips sink ships. If he's not a confidant of whom he's speaking to, it's very possible that he's not getting honest answers. If the government cracks down, nobody wants to be implicated.
If you know anybody that's Dutch and lived through the German occupation of Holland, you'll understand what I'm talking about.
I don't think that's so much of an issue in HK. You don't see most of the rioters bothering to cover up their faces or mask their identities at all. It isn't Kumar. They openly attack LEO without repercussions. China doesn't operate the way most American's think it operates - even mainlanders. They have hordes of regulations and laws, but NOBODY, and I mean, NOBODY even pretends to follow them, even standing in front of the police. They - (much like our country) - are only rarely, rarely enforced if you get on the wrong side of the "right" people.
China is even more reserved in cracking down on this type of thing than it used to be. Even the infamous imagery of Tienanmen square, do you know how many American's think the tank ran over the guy and squished him? Bystanders on the street eventually pulled him away from the tank column, and he was blocking something like 14+ tanks for a long time. None of them wanted to run over him - and that was what, 30 years ago? They haven't gotten any more violent towards their people since. It isn't like North Korea or Los Angeles, Chinese people really aren't overly concerned about speaking their mind. (Just don't post pictures of Winnie the Pooh on Weebo). Yeah - they have state control and censorship. And gradually, social credit and cameras. But I'd be far more concerned for your safety speaking your mind in San Fransisco, tbh. On the other hand, they can be brutally harsh to criminals - leading the world in executions, but we're talking things like theft, rape, burglary, etc.
If China cracked down on hong kong citizens for speaking their mind, it would have to be a nuclear crater.
Point being: Everything Americans assume about China is pretty far off the mark. And the reverse is probably largely true as well, especially while DJT is in office.
Americans having strong opinions on things that they don't really understand? Imagine that! Haha
https://spectator.imgix.net/content/uploads/2019/07/Leader.jpg
A view from the other side of the pond:
The Hong Kong protesters deserve Britain’s full support (https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/07/the-hong-kong-protesters-deserve-britains-full-support/)
When the tanks were rolling into Tiananmen Square and the Cold War hadn’t yet formally come to an end, it seemed obvious: freedom and democracy were prerequisites for economic success. Yet over the past three decades, China has challenged that notion by creating a model previously unknown to the world: consumer capitalism combined with autocratic government. Under Xi Jinping’s rule, China’s new middle class now enjoys near-western living standards. So long, that is, as it does not question the legitimacy of its leaders.
The success of the Chinese model has presented a conundrum for western governments: how to deal with a country that continues to have little regard for human rights and yet nevertheless offers lucrative opportunities for investors. So far, western leaders have followed the money while putting up only the feeblest defence of freedom and democracy. On some occasions, they have not even bothered to do this. When Theresa May visited Beijing last year to encourage what she described as a ‘golden era’ in Anglo–China relations, state media noted with approval how visiting European leaders had now given up discussing human rights.
Yes, a million Uyghurs might have been herded into re-education camps — but China had lucrative contracts to offer, so the West looked the other way. But the awkward compromise between economic interest and concern for human rights is suddenly under huge strain, partly on account of the trade war which Donald Trump is waging — and partly because of the growing unrest in Hong Kong. The protests which have taken place recently show that, unlike the British government, the citizens of Britain’s former colony are no longer prepared to ignore China’s various human rights abuses.
It was an error on the part of the John Major government not to grant Hong Kong’s industrious people the right to settle in Britain before the handover. Most were condemned to be handed over to China along with their city — albeit with the promise that they would enjoy special privileges. In theory, Hong Kong citizens — unlike their counterparts on the mainland — have the right to protest against the Chinese Communist party. But some who exercised this supposed freedom have found themselves spirited away and sent to mainland China for detention. The trigger for the current protests, which this week included an invasion of the Hong Kong legislature, was an initiative brought in by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam to create powers for felons to be extradited directly from Hong Kong to China.
Lam says this was her doing, and was not inspired by Beijing. But it fits a general pattern: of rising over-reach from emboldened Chinese officials who think a new chapter in history has opened. The Chinese believe the West will look the other way, and see notions of democracy, liberty and human rights as cultural issues relevant to the West but a lot less relevant to Asia. The citizens of Hong Kong, it seems, beg to differ.
For some time now, Xi has been making misjudgment after misjudgment when it comes to relations with the West. In particular, he has not understood that American patience has snapped. China’s economic model involved sucking up western industrial secrets and taking lots of foreign business while refusing access to its own markets. The ongoing trade war — which reached an almost certainly temporary ceasefire this week — was wrongly seen in Beijing as a Donald Trump hissy fit. It was thought that, if this strange president was thrown a bone, he’d go away and China could go on as before. But American opinion is on the turn. Listen to Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat leader of the House, or any of the would-be Democrat contenders, and you can hear exactly the same concerns about China.
Xi has over-reached. This will worry others in his politburo, some of whom will be asking if his recent decision to become emperor for life is turning out to be wise. His Belt and Road Initiative, a $90 billion attempt to create a high-tech equivalent of the Silk Road, is already looking like an expensive vanity project, the kind of legacy of a leader whose ego far outgrew his position. Various other innovations — like the app containing the thoughts of Chairman Xi — are worryingly reminiscent of an uglier era. But Britain has been woefully absent from this debate, as if all our would-be leaders are primarily interested in lucrative contracts and terrified of upsetting Beijing.
It need not be this way. There is a clear path for China’s peaceful rise, evident only a few years ago: one based on co-operation and mutual respect. In the rush to offer the hand of friendship, western leaders have looked supine, which has further emboldened Beijing. And the most eloquent rebuke has come not from the White House or No. 10, but the streets of Hong Kong.
Xi must now answer a difficult question: does he back down and risk sending a message that he caves in when under pressure? Or should he carry on and risk a wider conflagration? Managing China’s rise has always been a question of finding the right balance. The people of Hong Kong have shown the world that they wish to push the balance back in support of liberty. They deserve Britain’s full support.
China Is Waging a Disinformation War Against Hong Kong Protesters (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-china.html)
BEIJING — When a projectile struck a Hong Kong woman in the eye this week as protesters clashed with the police, China responded quickly: Its state television network reported that the woman had been injured not by one of the police’s bean bag rounds, but by a protester.
The network’s website went further (http://m.news.cctv.com/2019/08/12/ARTIZFDwhpv8u9PFBzzWbYhP190812.shtml): It posted what it said was a photo of the woman counting out cash on a Hong Kong sidewalk — insinuating, as Chinese reports have claimed before, that the protesters are merely paid provocateurs.
The assertion was more than just spin or fake news. The Communist Party exerts overwhelming control over media content inside China’s so-called Great Firewall, and it is now using it as a cudgel in an information war over the protests that have convulsed Hong Kong (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-communist-party.html?module=inline) for months.
In recent days, China has more aggressively stirred up nationalist and anti-Western sentiment using state and social media, and it has manipulated the context of images and videos to undermine the protesters. Chinese officials have begun branding the demonstrations as a prelude to terrorism.
The result, both in mainland China and abroad, has been to create an alternate version of what, seen from Hong Kong, is clearly a popular demonstration movement. In China’s version, a small, violent gang of protesters, unsupported by residents and provoked by foreign agents, is running rampant, calling for Hong Kong’s independence and tearing China apart.<Snip>
I thought the article was an interesting perspective.
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