I don't think it is. It seems to me to be playing right into the hands of the chinese gov't. "we gave you what you want then you protest some more? Clearly you are liars and deceivers".
Then more violence by the police, completely justified this time because protesters must be just troublemakers.
It seems a very risky strategy. I would advise against it, or at least think very carefully, but what do I know.
You are absolutely right. This happens over and over in history and people never learn (or intentionally don't want to). Politics is a game and there is a thing called overreach. Now is the time to consolidate on the gains, not to do something obviously impossible and way outside the procedural norm like removing Carrie Lam from office by street demand. Fight it out in future elections. At least there are real seats in the HK LegCo.
The protesters get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan.
The protesters couldn't get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan.
Next time please just say that the Chinese government is evil, save all the typing.
Yes, they still need to push further if they want to make sure the bill never get passed.
> suspension were quietly lifted in the future when the world has moved on from the protests
Very unlikely to happen in the social media era. Even in mainland China, where most of the Westerners fantasize about being a 1984-like society, someone on social media can always dig eye-catching new bills/laws/regulations out and raise some attention on Weibo/various online forums.
Out of all the 7.4 million people in HK, it only takes one guy to discover the attempt and post it online (even on HN), and the West will be all over it.
> The protesters get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan
The protesters didn't get what they want hence are considering further protests. Whether they are wise or not was my point.
There's no absolute but...
Imprisoning over a million Uighurs for their religion, and disappearing people for their political beliefs is evil, so yes, the chinese gov't is evil in that sense.
Let's look at your prior history:
"Also, the UK is extremely famous for intentionally or unintentionally leaving a mess when it leaves..."
"Little did I know about all the ignorant and arrogant comments I was about to see. The West needs a new enemy"
"The average westerners only want to accuse China so they can feel good about themselves for a while"
Have you tried to image what kind of resource does it need to do this? How many prisons and guards are needed? How many hospitals, power stations and other related facilities are required to support this? Where are the satellite images?
If we are arresting them for their Islamic religion, how come I still have a large amount of Hui friends hanging out with me just as usual? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hui_people
Trusting the Western media unconditionally without thinking about how ridiculous the news are, truly ignorant and arrogant. Surely your media will never lie or leaving important facts out, like the terrorist attacks happened in China. But I am sure your media has already painted them as some kind of freedom fighters.
> Have you tried to image what kind of resource does it need to do this?
Imprisoning 0.1% of your population is quite doable
> How many prisons and guards are needed?
Quite a few: "As easy as it may be to silently whisk away thousands of people to new re-education centres, skyrocketing prisoner would also require a huge recruitment drive. According to Zenz, from May 2017, counties with large ethnic minority populations “initiated a wave of recruitments” for so-called education and training centres". From <https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-many-people-are-impri...
So now I am a wumao right? If someone disagrees with the Western media, just say he/she is a wumao and you automatically win, how convenient.
The image in your link makes me laugh. I can do the same, just get an image of an Amazon fulfillment center and say it is holding thousands of supporters of Edward Snowden against their will.
> I dunno, you tell me.
Because we don't arrest people for their religions.
Odd. Most westerners wouldn't have that word to hand. I myself was trying and failing to remember it.
But to answer the question, I asked, I did not accuse. And you did not answer. Why?
> The image in your link makes me laugh
You asked for evidence. It's evidence, not proof because pix can be faked, I agree. But anything I put in front of you you can dismiss as fake so what can I do - specifically, what do you want?
> Because we don't arrest people for their religions.
Seems you do, and put them in giant camps. And you explained why with all the links you post.
> it's not just 31 people btw
Re this link, of course it's more than 6, but the link you gave was to that specific attack in which 6 people were killed. Which I acknowledged. Don't fudge things.
And you have not denied that the crackdown on Uighurs occurred, and you yourself gave the reason why - so you don't deny any of this.
I don't think you are thinking for yourself, as you suggest me of not doing, and you have not said who you work for. Which is interesting.
I don't mean to pick on you personally at all, but I have to reply to you a third time in this thread.
This comment not only broke the site guidelines terribly, it became aggressive enough to count as harrassment. You simply can't bully another user like that on HN. We ban people for that.
Let's look at the larger picture for a minute. Geopolitics between China and the West have taken a polarizing turn. Hacker News' audience is highly international but majority Western, so most users here identify with one side of the story. That's natural, but it means that people representing the other side are in a minority position. No matter how wrong you think their position is, you and other HN users need to treat the people you're arguing with respectfully. Otherwise we get a mob dynamic, which is vastly more destructive to HN than comments being wrong about China—and unfortunately there has been a lot of it lately. HN users who have a Chinese background, or have lived in China and so on, have a right to present their side of the story without being accused of being spies or foreign agents and run out of town. The site guidelines ask you to "assume good faith" for good reason: when people don't, it turns a functioning community into a tire fire.
Our experience with the issue of astroturfing is that internet users are all too eager to imagine it about commenters they just happen to disagree with. Having imagined it they then feel entitled to sling the accusation to twist the knife a bit further in an argument. That's not ok. If you're genuinely concerned about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. But it's not ok to casually insinuate it in the threads: most of the time there's no evidence for it, and the accusation is a powerful poison in its own right.
Posting in the flamewar style like this will get you banned on HN. Insinuating astroturfing ("By the way, who do you work for?") is particularly not allowed here—it's pure poison in internet discussions. I've posted about this at great length: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Please review the site guidelines and stick to them regardless of how wrong you think someone else is.
Edit: all HN users who have been using this issue to vent aggression and flame enemies ought to read this exchange between a Hong Kong user involved in the protests, and a mainland Chinese user: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20197903. If they can be that civil and respectful, what excuse do the rest of us have for not doing so?
“During her news conference, Ms. Lam pinned blame for the chaos on the government failing to effectively explain to people why the bill was needed, rather than conceding protesters’ arguments that the law was flawed.”
Politically savvy approach, but completely ridiculous. HKers understand exactly what this bill would do to them.
Nothing makes me more angry than bureaucrats with bad intentions treating the people that pay their salaries like children.
Well she may be from HK and she gets paid by HK government but we all know she's a mainland shill and was chosen for that reason. She is 100pc in the pocket of the mainland government
> The leader of Hong Kong, the Chief executive, is currently elected by a 1200-member Election Committee, though Article 45 of the Basic Law states that "the ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures."
The election committee is more pro-CCP than the general Hong Kong populace, and the current leader, Carrie Lam, is widely held to be a puppet of Beijing.
It’s worth taking a moment to reflect that the PM in the UK is also not elected by popular suffrage. The next PM will (literally) be elected by 100,000 members of the Conservative party, not by general election. It’ll be the second time in recent memory this has happened, after Gordon Brown.
But people elect the parliament and the parliament electthe PM, so it's OK, there's a chain of accountability to the populace. In HK, the parliament has only 70 seats of the 1200-member committee, and only 35 of those are geographical constituents representing the people, the rest are "functional" constituencies mostly representing businesses). Laws have to be passed by a majority of the LegCo however, and the Chief Executive can be impeached by a 2/3 majority in the LegCo, so the LegCo is still very important. The main tragedy is that only 50% of the LegCo is elected democratically.
One interesting - and HN-relevant! - point is that the current member of HK's parliament representing 'Information Technology' is one of the leaders of the pro-democracy camp, and there was a semi-viral video this week of him confronting police inside the parliament building. He is one of the few pro-democracy members among the functional constituencies, and as a Hong Kong permanent resident and IT professional, I want to make sure I get the papers sorted to vote for him in the next elections...
longer version - she was elected by an electoral college carefully constructed to be pro-Beijing whilst superficially appearing representative. Votes must be publicly declared beforehand so Beijing can apply pressure.
Every single chief exec election has been a mess democratically speaking with extensive controversies, pressure from Beijing, veiled and not so veiled threats or talk of finding the trouble makers.
Her discourse is really manipulative, in it you can find your typical attempt to divide people by focusing on the downside of demonstrations (injuries, crime, etc.), on the lie that it is a divisible bill, and on fake low numbers (10,000? more like millions).
This is very concerning. It feels like Hong Kong is doomed to lose more and more of its independence, and freedom of speech, and freedom of press, as the years go on.
I have a lot of friends and family there, and as much as I love China and can understand their politics due to the size of their country, I do not wish Hong Kong citizens to lose any of their rights.
Of course it is going to lose more and more independence. The one country two system was designed to integrate, not dividing China and HK. The independence movement concentrate too much on 'two systems', bringing 'HK is not China' banner in parliament, trying to make China disappear in text books, do you think the central government is going to extend two systems after 50 years expires?
It was always meant to, but people naively assumed that like every other Asian developing country (South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Phillipines) rising incomes would eventually result in a democratic China.
It's not even half time to 50 years. Also, given that there is the "One Country" part, the moral argument would stand on firmer ground if that reality were recognized and the new generation of HK-only protestors paid more attention to improving China itself because, as much as it is understandable that they only care about their own wellbeing, it is having the exact opposite effect on the likelihood of them achieving it. For better or for worse, the fate of HK is tied to the fate of China.
They tried that for a really long time, but Hong Kongers have no power to affect change in China. The traditional pro-democracy camp was always about Chinese democracy and assumed that China was going to go down that path. But all those Victoria Park Tiananmen vigils were the most that anybody could achieve and those didn‘t get anything done. By the time Chinese authorities were kidnapping booksellers off the street it was clear that China would not take any recommendations or receive any change.
The current protests are a mix of a culmination of two decades of waiting, then despair and anger at what looks like the inevitable outcome of twenty years of stonewalling and tightening.
China would not but that's not the target. The audience is Chinese people, but what do HK'ers do? Call them locusts and put peeing children on social media to demean them. Again, the sentiment is understandable, but they're not making their case very well with the people who ultimately matter to HK'ers because they can shape what China looks like after 2047.
You're being shortsighted if you think the Victoria Park vigils don't do anything. People watch silently but it has a bigger effect than all the loud protests combined. The strongest argument needs no words at all.
Wouldn't write that off altogether for longer values of "eventually". The current government's political legitimacy is in part tied to delivering economic development. But obviously rapid exponential growth can't continue forever. After that levels off (and with incomes/education/institutions etc more developed), it doesn't seem unthinkable that some sort of political reform will need to be on the table again in order to maintain legitimacy. Maybe not from Xi Jinping, but he's 66, he won't be president of China forever.
I believe people shape politics, not the other way around. Fundamentally, economy shape politics. Bad economy will not result in good political reform, it is actually the opposite. I cannot expect people to behave rational when there is a food crisis for example. Democracy is a luxury, and it is only useful that way.
You would. Actually rising incomes would bring more democratic everything. As you can see around the world, the rise of rights are correlated with the declining of economy, in US, Europe and other countries. The opposite is true as well. Democracy is about compromising. You cannot compromise when you have nothing. If the world is a perfect place, the income will keep rising at good speed, and everyone would be happy. Unfortunately, it is not the case. The problem is the population size, for Indonesia and Philippine to develop, it will require a lot of resources, and it doesn't come from thin air. Jobs will come at the cost of developed countries. And that's something people in developed countries won't like.
I am certain once the income reach a certain threshold, North Korea would be a democratic country.
“as much as I love China and can understand their politics due to the size of their country”
The size of China is not the source of their politics; the source is a totalitarian state that ruthlessly suppresses any dissent and maintains constant surveillance of its people. Not to imply that you meant otherwise, but the citizens of mainland China are no less deserving of political rights than those of Hong Kong; rather, they have simply been denied them by those in power. The 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre was only last week —- it could have ended similarly in Hong Kong. Also, unsurprisingly, Chinese media has been almost completely silent about these protests and many on the mainland are completely unaware that anything is happening at all.
I'm curious why you're all over this thread pretending that China didn't block the UK from making Hong Kong democratic for over 60 years.
Which is something I learned about in the Western media, by the way, and that it would be nearly impossible to learn in Chinese media.
Also the claim that these protests were caused by foreign influence is wrong and insulting. It also echos what the higher-level CCP members have been saying.
> block the UK from making Hong Kong democratic for over 60 years
Citation needed. Also, the UK is extremely famous for intentionally or unintentionally leaving a mess when it leaves, any sane government will not just let the British do whatever they want.
It is also nearly impossible to learn anything about the opium wars in Western media, or how the governors of HK are all appointed by the British monarch directly. So I guess we are even here.
> Also the claim that these protests were caused by foreign influence is wrong and insulting.
Regardless of whose fault it is, it doesn't have any bearing on whether or not the people of HK should have self-determination.
>It is also nearly impossible to learn anything about the opium wars in Western media, or how the governors of HK are all appointed by the British monarch directly.
I don't know about that, I learned about it in high school. Here's a more recent book and review about it:
So the existence of the NED proves to you that a large portion of the protestors in Hong Kong are foreign-influenced? Okay. Personally, I think it's more likely that they're concerned about their rights and it's insulting to say otherwise.
So, preventing HK from declaring independence is equivalent to blocking democracy? Straw man argument.
> Regardless of whose fault it is
God I wish I am from the West, I don't have do be responsible for the mess I created. Just say this sentence and I am invulnerable to accusations and should be trusted again.
That's one link about the opium wars, it is completely unhelpful to resolve the issues created by the massive amounts of news that do not talk about the opium wars when they talk about HK.
If more people know what happened during the opium wars, the it will not be so hard to understand that HK should be returned with no strings attached, and the one country two systems policy is already a big step back from the Chinese government that takes the welfare of the people of HK into account.
About your last point, I don't plan to convince you. If you think the West is innocent after you see what a mess this world is, good for you. But please bear in mind that this is also insulting to the countless people who suffered in other parts of the world. People didn't just wake up and decide to dislike you.
Wow, you only read the thread title of the first link I gave you. Obviously you aren't interested in learning anything. If you change your mind, read a little further.
You claimed that it's impossible to read about the Opium Wars in Western media, I say I learned about it in high school history and give you one of thousands upon thousands of links about it that will come up when you search.
I never claimed the West was innocent, nor that they should be forgiven about anything. You're just adding all that stuff in to further muddle the discussion when you've been proven wrong.
I hope you learn to challenge your own beliefs, because after your comments I don't think it's a good use of my time to continue discussing things with you.
OK I admit that I didn't read the whole thing. So I go back and read every single line of that link.
OK, the Provisional Legislative Council was questionable in your view, I understand. But how exactly does this proves that the Chinese government blocked the democracy for 60 years? How about the existence of LegCo? Also I still don't think we agree on what the word "return" means.
Yes there are thousands of links that talk about the opium wars, and you have learned about it in school, but that doesn't help because the news don't talk about it. If you decide to include every wrong doings of the CCP when you talk about HK, it is dishonest to exclude the UK's dirty history.
I would also ask you to challenge your beliefs about why some parts of the world is unstable. I do not have proofs about whether there is someone behind this event in HK, but the protesters also have no proof that this bill is going to make HK a 1984-like society. China is a country surrounded by enemies, it isn't a bad thing to be paranoid, especially when people are clearly overreacting.
Okay, maybe you're more reasonable than it seemed at first. I understand some paranoia about foreign opinions.
But, how often does the news need to talk about the Opium Wars? I would say there are plenty of long-form articles talking about it, but does every article about Hong Kong need to give century-old context?
It's brought up in Chinese media far more often because it's useful for the CCP to remind people. It helps keep them in power and feeds their narrative that China must never be seen as weak again. And while I personally don't think excessive nationalistic propaganda is a good thing, it's at least understandable.
However, my point is that this part of history being brought up more often in Chinese media doesn't mean it's the natural state of things, or that it should be brought up more often in Western media. No one reasonable thinks the British or other foreign powers involved did the right thing there.
You claimed straw-man really easily before. Don't you think saying that HKers think this one bill will turn HK into a 1984-like society is a bit of a straw-man? I think most of them might say that the problem is not one bill, but more of a slippery slope type thing. Give an inch, give a mile.
What beliefs do I have about why parts of the world are unstable? I don't think I've expressed any, so you must be making an assumption there. And actually, if you ask around, I don't think you'll find many westerners who think colonialism was a good thing, although I'm sure there are some.
Finally, about the British wanting Hong Kong to be democratic. After further reading, 60 years might not be right. There was a plan in the 40s and 50s for democracy, but it sounds like it was the British governor of the time who blocked it for unclear reasons. I don't know if there were other attempts before the negotiations for the handover began. The 1980s are more accurate, so maybe about 20 years before Chinese rule.
That said, I still think it can be assumed that the CCP opposed democracy in Hong Kong. If you want me to say Britain messed up with Hong Kong by not allowing democracy, then I can agree with that. And I'll certainly agree that Western colonialism was for the most part a terrible thing that made the world a worse place.
60 years is right. Governors were repeatedly seeking democracy and proper elections, but pressure from Beijing forced them to back down. The papers are now publicly available at the National Archive, and linked in this NYT piece:
"Chinese leaders were so opposed to the prospect of a democratic Hong Kong that they threatened to invade should London attempt to change the status quo"
Also is the West stronger than China or not? I am confused. If it is, then this threat means nothing. If the China is stronger, then why bother to create the one country two systems policy? Also, if China was strong enough to threaten the West, why is Taiwan still an issue till today?
The reference in the article you posted says:
> not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories liberated” if the Brits allowed self-governance.
So the Chinese government doesn't want HK do declare independence instead of returning to China, and will take positive actions if that is about to happen.
Again, you and I don't agree on what the word "return" means.
"We shall not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories liberated..."
liberated - freed from enemy occupation.
OK What could China do to achieve that? Break diplomatic ties? Economic sanctions as a huge importer of HK goods and services whilst 50s China's economy was a broken mess? Close the already mostly closed border? Write an angry letter?
What's left?
Invasion. What possible alternative interpretation can you suggest? Military blockade and starve them out? That's effectively war too, but with a much greater chance of escalating if you militarily prevent other nation's shipping...
"However, the present status of Hong Kong is to our benefit" ... "Through Hong Kong we can trade..."
Clearly the Chinese benefited from the huge economic success of Hong Kong so preferred not to invade or bomb the place to oblivion. They'd already backed off destabilising the Hang Seng as they got far more benefit from that decadent Western capitalism. The whole Chinese propaganda around the democracy of Hong Kong is exposed as blatant lie.
"is the West stronger than China or not? I am confused. If it is, then this threat means nothing."
Having had two of them nations generally seem to prefer avoiding a third world war. That one can doesn't always mean one wants to, even if one is as strong as the USA. Allies may not want to join to protect a territory being handed back in 50 years. Taiwan has no such time limit.
"Chinese government doesn't want HK do declare independence instead of returning to China"
Democratic elections are not declaring independence. The people of Hong Kong could have elected their own government whilst still being a British territory until 1997. The elected body would give local powers and the state would retain others. Just as California elects a government whilst remaining part of the USA. The fact that California and other US states have a state government does not make them independent nations. There is no Californian foreign policy, diplomatic service or military, that's for the nation - the USA.
Hong Kong would still have returned to China as agreed in the treaty, whilst retaining a local, democratic government. I imagine even cities in China have some form of city government - just they are entirely non-democratic. Of course it should be noted Hong Kong itself was granted in perpetuity.
As it turned out, China threw out many of the limited democratic changes Chris Patten made in 1994, as last Governor and put in place a much less democratic regime. Giving HKers the absurd "show elections" of the Chief Executive. Patten, who was hugely unpopular with Beijing for the reforms he did put through, did so in the hope that some might stick after handover.
The history of the opium wars need to be as well know as the history of slavery in the US, until then, leaving this important context out of the discussion makes people think that the UK is the victim.
What I was trying to say is that media in the West pay far less attentions to the wrong doings of their allies. For example, the anniversary of the Tiananmen square incident made it to the front page of HN, but I have never seen anything on HN when it's the anniversary of the Nanjing massacre. These two are comparable because the Japanese leaders are still visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. Also, I have personally almost never see news about bad things that happened in Taiwan on Western media, does this mean that Taiwan is heaven on earth?
You may have freedom of speech, but I don't think your people are well-informed when they are flooded by cherry-picked facts, and this leads to bias against your non-allies.
> Lighting-fast trails: No lawyers no family members, 5 minutes and it's done.
> Secret trails: When your family knows you are already in prison.
> Collective punishment： your family members are equally guilty.
Even in mainland China the situation is no where near this bad. These false accusations makes me question their motives. If you don't believe me and think we have North Korea levels of speech control, then I would ask you to please update your views or better, visit China if you get a chance.
Listing several individuals arrested for their political actions doesn't justify this baseless conjecture about the future of HK.
> Give an inch, give a mile.
Yes I know you don't trust the CCP, the CCP doesn't trust the West either. Today we implement democracy (as you defined) in HK, tomorrow you want HK to declare independence. Who's next? Shenzhen? Shanghai? We are aware of how the West has been "liberating" people in the Middle East and we are afraid of it.
Which brings me to my final point: we share completely different views of the world, and some words
You have been using the word democracy like it's some kind of panacea and refusing it is unacceptable. I (and the CCP) don't agree. Democracy is guaranteed to never be the worst, but it doesn't necessarily be the best, in all situations. Besides, based on the actions of the US after WWII, we have every reason to believe that the US doesn't want other parts of the world to stay in peace, or at least, does not have the ability to resolve the problem it created. Despite what the Western media has been saying, the CCP is actually bad at media manipulation, not nearly as good as the West. CCP thinks that if we implement democracy defined by the West, then the people will fall to Western values extremely fast and the whole country will become a huge mess. Yes, we are thinking about the Brexit drama and the likes, only more bloody.
Things aren't always that bad in China, but all of the things on the signs have happened and continue to happen. You're simply wrong that those are false accusations. If these things have happened even one time, they can happen again. It's the opposite of baseless.
I've witnessed the Chinese judicial system secondhand, as experienced by native Chinese people. Fortunately, I haven't had to experience anything firsthand. And I've read countless articles and books to the point where I know the specific incidents those signs are referring to.
I'm sorry, but I really can't spend any more time digging up sources for you. Hopefully you have a VPN or live abroad and can look for this stuff yourself.
You can probably understand why they wouldn't want to be subject to that justice system.
You keep putting words in mine and other people's mouths. I never said democracy is a panacea. I agree that Western media is biased about China. Average people are not well-informed anywhere. At least outside of China, people can easily learn if they choose to.
I agree that Japanese politicians downplaying or refusing to apologise for Nanjing is somewhat comparable to the CCPs handling of the Tiananmen incident, although Japan obviously has nothing like the censorship in China. Both are wrong. And I think if you talk to more people you'll find they agree.
We have finally come to the dead end (which I expected): you think that China is a 1984-like society and I disagree, and we can't convince each other. This is fine.
For all the stuff you want me to look up online, I already know, and I know more context than you do. For example, we can talk about the cultural revolution to each other freely and we understand the long list of reasons why it happened, contrary to the simplistic "evil communists" viewpoint held by some Westerners. Go to Beijing, talk to a taxi driver, listen to how they curse our government for their wrong doings, or learn Chinese and read Weibo every now and then, and you may change your mind. Hey, my English is better than 99% of mainlanders and I read Western news all the time, but I still don't think I am remotely qualified to talk about US's internal affairs. Please don't assume someone from China knows less than you do just because you have read some second-handed materials.
You didn't use the exact word "panacea", but you have been using "blocking democracy" as some kind of crime, which suggest that democracy is the only right way to go, and I disagree.
Westerners keep talking about how bad censorship is, and this is exactly why I said the CCP is terrible at media manipulation. The state of the art, as used by the West, is to report partial truth and take words out of context. Look at the link posted by NeedMoreTea, "if the Brits allowed self-governance" was conveniently omitted.
If you already know all that stuff, why are you saying that flyer is wrong? It's all true. I assumed you didn't know about it because you said it was lies.
I don't think it's literally as extreme as the book 1984, but yeah China has a lot of problems. A non-independent judicial system will never be as just as an independent one.
You've been shown to be wrong so many times in this thread and then your response is always to expand the scope of the discussion and put words in my mouth. I think it's really dishonest.
By the way I live in China, have a Chinese wife, and Chinese friends. My Chinese is far from fluent but I'm working on it. I never claimed to be an authority on China, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. I don't have a simplistic view and I don't think China is totally evil. You're just using that to dismiss everything I say, even though you're the one who's been repeatedly factually wrong in this discussion. I am open-minded to your viewpoint, but you simply aren't very convincing when you argue like this.
No kidding, a cab driver can discuss his problems with the government in his own cab? Sometimes a gently disagreeing post on Weibo briefly trends and gets discussion before it's removed? Amazing.
Chinese media tells partial truths and takes things out of context constantly. The Western media are not some evil masterminds that CCTV can never match.
With that, I'm really finished here. Good luck to you.
> For example, the anniversary of the Tiananmen square incident made it to the front page of HN, but I have never seen anything on HN when it's the anniversary of the Nanjing massacre. These two are comparable because the Japanese leaders are still visiting the Yasukuni Shrine.
On the other hand, Japan and its leaders have made lots of war apology statements, or at least statements of remorse [1], including on the Nanking Massacre. One could argue that some Japanese leaders are still visiting the Yasukuni Shrine because they think both the South East Asians (including Chinese) and the Japanese soldiers were victims to the Japanese wartime Militarism craze, which they are avoiding: note that they visit the Yasukuni Shrine not to promote Militarism or expansion, but for remembrance. And their actions elsewhere speak the same.
Chinese leaders have not made comparable statements (on the Tiananmen square crackdown), or acted in similar way (towards universal values of independent jurisdiction or respecting the constitution, etc).
If you wish the anniversary of the Nanking massacre on the front page of HN, make the leaders of China make comparable statements regarding the Tiananmen square crackdown--this will show that they share the same value as the HN crowd.
Note also that ethnic/national difference (we Chinese vs them Japanese or them United States) is not the same as value difference (we believe in rule by law vs they believe in rule of law). The HN focuses on the latter.
> Listing several individuals arrested for their political actions doesn't justify this baseless conjecture about the future of HK.
Some Hong Kong people are abducted into China for publishing books that some members of CCP do not like [2], and lost their freedom. Political actions or not, such freedom of speech is protected by Hong Kong's Basic Law, while the abduction is lawless (unless you say the party is the law, and they are above the constitution in China etc).
Chinese officials repeatedly stated that they do not respect an independent jurisdiction.
This is not a baseless conjecture, and is not due to lack of trust in CCP, because they admitted it themselves and acted in the same way.
> Besides, based on the actions of the US after WWII, we have every reason to believe that the US doesn't want other parts of the world to stay in peace, or at least, does not have the ability to resolve the problem it created.
> Japan and its leaders have made lots of war apology statements
In the link you provided: As of 2010, 24% of South Koreans still believe that Japan has never apologized for its colonial rule, while another 58% believe Japan has not apologized sufficiently. So apparently I am not alone.
Until the names of the "1,068 convicted war criminals" are removed from the Shrine, visiting it hurts people's feelings, period. This has nothing to do with what they visited it for. Even if you ignore other parts of Asia, those people did great harm to their own country, leaving their names in the Shrine makes people question whether the Japanese government realize how much tragedies were caused by them.
> This is not a baseless conjecture
True, I apologize. Putting myself in your perspective, I can see how scary the bookstore incident is, and the CCP really fucked up its (already bad) reputation with this one.
> Japan and US coexist peacefully.
US-Japan relationship really is the best the US can do and I still don't think they are independent from each other enough so that their relationship can be described as "peaceful". Would you say you and your shoes have a peaceful relationship? Your shoes really have no choice but to stay with you. BTW, I was thinking about the Middle East when I talk about how the the mess created by the US.
The foreign-infueced theme and "anarchists" are obvious responses from central power using force when a large protest happens. They will never admit that they are the ones who created the problem in the first place.
It appears Britain only tried to give them democracy when they knew the writing was on the wall. That seems disingenuous to suggest it was China that blocked them.
While technically true, if Britain truly wanted to help the Hong King people, they would have offered citizenship and let them immigrate, like Portugal did for Macau.
Instead, the British tried to stop Portugal from doing so, because they didn’t want to offer the people of Hong Kong citizenship.
Interesting. I can promise you I'm not being disingenuous, even if I'm wrong. And I think "brigading" is more of a Reddit thing - it usually means when people from an opposing subreddit mass downvote a post.
I definitely think Britain should have offered citizenship. I'm surprised they didn't want to.
What you can count on to never be reported in the Western press is that hk wasn't a democratic society under nearly all of British colonial rule. It wasn't until right before the handover that the Brits instituted elections to create hostility between hk and China, as they had a habit of doing in their colonies like between sunnis/shiites in the middle east whenever such division benefits them.
Of course their political allies like the us can be counted on to trump up "democracy" as a wedge issue when it clearly never cared so long as hk was ruled by Brits, same as it never cared when toppling democratic leaders it doesn't like.
So please don't pretend to be the good guys given how much it insults the intelligence of anyone who's ever paid attention beyond the propaganda.
This is a simplistic assessment of the situation, given the UK's attempts in the 1940s/1950s (The Young Plan) and prior to the handoff to do exactly what you claim they had no interest in.
Being a tech-oritented online community, I assumed that the average HN readers at least care about basic facts. Little did I know about all the ignorant and arrogant comments I was about to see.
The West needs a new enemy. Until China folds and become a puppy state like Japan, or get turned into a mess like the Middle East, this propaganda wagon will go stronger and stronger.
So you care about facts and freedom. Now tell me how being abducted by a drug dealer after the opium wars was a free choice of the people in HK, and also, how they enjoyed the freedom to choose their governor from the exactly one candidate appointed by the British.
Oh, well, as a "mainlander", I tell you: Hong Kong citizens WILL lose all their rights, and it will come sooner than you think.
If you watched this protest and all their other protests, it is very easy to see one thing: Their action is isolated， they don't have the power to unite people other than themselves. Nobody besides themselves will stand for them. Nobody in mainland support them, nobody in mainland understand them. Many mainlanders even developed Schadenfreude when looking at those protests.
(OK, "Nobody" is a bit of over exaggeration, but fairly right if you want to feel the situation)
Why? Because they are protest only for their own rights, on their own little land that nobody cares anymore. It's not about greater good, not "making the entire China democratic". Just "We're Hongkongers, we are special, so we must have those rights", while don't give a damn when the rest of China is been stripped clean.
How many HongKonger protested when Xi changed the Constitution? Not this much.
Nobody cares about your right if you don't defend the right of the others. 50 years, if they don't change China for the better, China will change them, as simple as that.
People in HongKong only have this few years left to able conduct protest at that scale while keeping themselves relatively safe.
In China mainland, you do that, you're in prison for life or worst.
You know what, "worst" is not good enough to describe what could happen. There was a case that might show you what could happen if the police got you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Jia
Yang Jia was a man who killed 6 police mans in 2008. Why? Because the police interrogated him for riding an unregistered bicycle. The method of interrogation which the English version of Wikipedia does not fully mention (But mentioned in the Chinese version) including electrically shock this man's genital cause it to dysfunction.
Let me ask you this: Will you risk your life to protest for your right knowing there will be no good end for you after?
So that's why currently, the safest thing for mainlanders to do is focus on earning money, and use the money to trade for freedom (For example: to have a better social status and/or to be able to move to another country etc), and hope for things could change for the better in the future.
I hope now you can understand why I'm so "hypocritical" on this.
> Why? Because they are protest only for their own rights, on their own little land that nobody cares anymore. It's not about greater good, not "making the entire China democratic". Just "We're Hongkongers, we are special, so we must have those rights", while don't give a damn when the rest of China is been stripped clean.
Every year on 4 June, Hong Kong people hold a vigil in Victoria Park for the Tiananmen square crackdown [1][2], and one main theme of the vigil is to continue the spirit of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests: to make the entire China democratic (one of the slogans is 建設民主中國, literally to make China democratic). In these years, this vigil in Hong Kong is the largest gathering to demand making the entire China democratic in the whole world.
Given that Hong Kong people are doing that every year on 4 June, I think it is reasonable that in this case--anti extraditions law protests on 9 June and 16 June this year--Hong Kong people are doing something else. But this does not mean that Hong Kong people do not fight for democracy in China or for greater good--to say the least, this anti extraditions law protest also benefits foreigners who stay in Hong Kong, or merely in transit.
Also, there are 6000 PLA troops stationed in Hong Kong, and there were cases of Hong Kong people getting abducted into China for publishing books that some members of CCP do not like [3]. There are not much more that Hong Kong people can do for themselves and for mainlanders... if you have better suggestions, please let us know.
I think they are doing their best.
> Nobody cares about your right if you don't defend the right of the others.
Nothing good, and it will continue to be this way.
And it's NOT out of despision, no, it's simply because it's impossible to do it safely in China. The political climate here is so toxic and dangerous, it is unethical to even think to put people on street.
But, one thing HongKongers must understand is, your future is linked with mainlanders, for better or worse. We may not see each other eye to eye on other many topics, but this, this is the problem we both facing.
> And it's NOT out of despision, no, it's simply because it's impossible to do it safely in China. The political climate here is so toxic and dangerous, it is unethical to even think to put people on street.
We, Hong Kong people as a whole, understand that mainlanders face much more difficulty in speaking up, and we are sympathetic. We definitely do not despise mainlanders for not speaking up in a way that we can see. The current protest does not mention democratic movement in China because we want to have a focus: on the extraditions law itself.
> But, one thing HongKongers must understand is, your future is linked with mainlanders, for better or worse. We may not see each other eye to eye on other many topics, but this, this is the problem we both facing.
Hong Kong people understand and agree that we are facing the same opposition--the oppressive regime in China--and our time is dated: Hong Kong people are counting the number of years until 2047, which is 50 years after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, after which the "two systems" may disappear. And we are also questioning if the "two systems", the promised anatomy of Hong Kong from China, may disappear before 2047. One reason you see so many Hong Kong people in the current protest, is the fear that if they don't speak up now, they cannot speak up later.
We thank the support from mainlanders given their difficulty, and also for the support from the whole world. Such attention on Hong Kong is very much needed and appreciated.
I read from your comment in another thread that many mainlanders are trying to earn money to trade for freedom: better social status in China, or to move to another country. In fact, I think there are lots of mainlanders who went overseas, and they are enjoying the freedom and protection in another country. If we, Hong Kong people and overseas mainlanders, unite together, there is a lot more that we can do.
Your speaking up here in Hacker News is a good start, and we together can try to do more.
...at the cost of the lives of most of our friends and family.
No thanks, like one of the other posters said, focusing on earning more money is the best way of making it.
Freedom's overrated when food/shelter/amenities/relaxation options are plentiful. And if these start to suffer, having enough money gives access to other areas of the world.
These types of protests are largely encouraged by the West to deepen division within it's enemies, same as with sunni/shiites in the middle east, or gop/democrats by the Russians. You can tell because the West didn't give a single shit when hk wasn't democratically ruled by the Brits, but now democracy there is headline propaganda.
The UK only tried to introduce it after they knew they couldn’t hold on to Hong Kong anymore. So they did it out of spite.
But the UK did try to convince Portugal not to offer the people of Macau citizenship, because they didn’t want to do the same for the people of Hong Kong.
Give an inch and they'll take a mile. The slippery slope is a very valid concern with one of the most powerful potential adversaries actively wanting to integrate you and dismantle your system of government.
From their perspective it's not hard to imagine China trumping up charges (or getting one of the other listed nations to do it) to get their hands on someone they want. Likewise, having the law on the books at all makes it a (comparatively) very small step to simply add more things to the list of acceptable extradition reasons.
China's domestic actions have not given HKers much reason to trust them, and they know that they won't have any chance of clawing back any measure of sovereignty in their system that they give up now.
China has a lot of vague laws and a history of making up accusations to fit the occasion, with no way for HK judges to examine evidence, and trial with presumption of guilt. This excellent comment on reddit by IosueYu answers the question better than I ever could: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/bvux0z/hong_kong_...
93 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadThen more violence by the police, completely justified this time because protesters must be just troublemakers.
It seems a very risky strategy. I would advise against it, or at least think very carefully, but what do I know.
Next time please just say that the Chinese government is evil, save all the typing.
It would not surprise me if the suspension were quietly lifted in the future when the world has moved on from the protests.
> suspension were quietly lifted in the future when the world has moved on from the protests
Very unlikely to happen in the social media era. Even in mainland China, where most of the Westerners fantasize about being a 1984-like society, someone on social media can always dig eye-catching new bills/laws/regulations out and raise some attention on Weibo/various online forums.
Out of all the 7.4 million people in HK, it only takes one guy to discover the attempt and post it online (even on HN), and the West will be all over it.
The protesters didn't get what they want hence are considering further protests. Whether they are wise or not was my point.
There's no absolute but...
Imprisoning over a million Uighurs for their religion, and disappearing people for their political beliefs is evil, so yes, the chinese gov't is evil in that sense.
Let's look at your prior history:
"Also, the UK is extremely famous for intentionally or unintentionally leaving a mess when it leaves..."
"Little did I know about all the ignorant and arrogant comments I was about to see. The West needs a new enemy"
"The average westerners only want to accuse China so they can feel good about themselves for a while"
Anything to declare?
Have you tried to image what kind of resource does it need to do this? How many prisons and guards are needed? How many hospitals, power stations and other related facilities are required to support this? Where are the satellite images?
If we are arresting them for their Islamic religion, how come I still have a large amount of Hui friends hanging out with me just as usual? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hui_people
Trusting the Western media unconditionally without thinking about how ridiculous the news are, truly ignorant and arrogant. Surely your media will never lie or leaving important facts out, like the terrorist attacks happened in China. But I am sure your media has already painted them as some kind of freedom fighters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack
> Have you tried to image what kind of resource does it need to do this?
Imprisoning 0.1% of your population is quite doable
> How many prisons and guards are needed?
Quite a few: "As easy as it may be to silently whisk away thousands of people to new re-education centres, skyrocketing prisoner would also require a huge recruitment drive. According to Zenz, from May 2017, counties with large ethnic minority populations “initiated a wave of recruitments” for so-called education and training centres". From <https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-many-people-are-impri...
> Where are the satellite images?
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china...
> how come I still have a large amount of Hui friends hanging out with me just as usual
I dunno, you tell me.
> Trusting the Western media unconditionally without thinking about how ridiculous the news are, truly ignorant and arrogant
True, and I do try to. You don't seem to be similarly encumbered.
> Surely your media will never lie or leaving important facts out, like the terrorist attacks happened in China
So that's why they're imprisoning a million people! for an attack by six people (which killed 31 people others).
You agree that it's happening now because you've explained why it's happening
> But I am sure your media has already painted them as some kind of freedom fighters
They have not.
By the way, who do you work for?
The image in your link makes me laugh. I can do the same, just get an image of an Amazon fulfillment center and say it is holding thousands of supporters of Edward Snowden against their will.
> I dunno, you tell me.
Because we don't arrest people for their religions.
It's not just 31 people btw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_rio...
If you don't think your media could lie, there is nothing I can do.
Odd. Most westerners wouldn't have that word to hand. I myself was trying and failing to remember it.
But to answer the question, I asked, I did not accuse. And you did not answer. Why?
> The image in your link makes me laugh
You asked for evidence. It's evidence, not proof because pix can be faked, I agree. But anything I put in front of you you can dismiss as fake so what can I do - specifically, what do you want?
> Because we don't arrest people for their religions.
Seems you do, and put them in giant camps. And you explained why with all the links you post.
> it's not just 31 people btw
Re this link, of course it's more than 6, but the link you gave was to that specific attack in which 6 people were killed. Which I acknowledged. Don't fudge things.
And you have not denied that the crackdown on Uighurs occurred, and you yourself gave the reason why - so you don't deny any of this.
I don't think you are thinking for yourself, as you suggest me of not doing, and you have not said who you work for. Which is interesting.
This comment not only broke the site guidelines terribly, it became aggressive enough to count as harrassment. You simply can't bully another user like that on HN. We ban people for that.
Let's look at the larger picture for a minute. Geopolitics between China and the West have taken a polarizing turn. Hacker News' audience is highly international but majority Western, so most users here identify with one side of the story. That's natural, but it means that people representing the other side are in a minority position. No matter how wrong you think their position is, you and other HN users need to treat the people you're arguing with respectfully. Otherwise we get a mob dynamic, which is vastly more destructive to HN than comments being wrong about China—and unfortunately there has been a lot of it lately. HN users who have a Chinese background, or have lived in China and so on, have a right to present their side of the story without being accused of being spies or foreign agents and run out of town. The site guidelines ask you to "assume good faith" for good reason: when people don't, it turns a functioning community into a tire fire.
Our experience with the issue of astroturfing is that internet users are all too eager to imagine it about commenters they just happen to disagree with. Having imagined it they then feel entitled to sling the accusation to twist the knife a bit further in an argument. That's not ok. If you're genuinely concerned about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. But it's not ok to casually insinuate it in the threads: most of the time there's no evidence for it, and the accusation is a powerful poison in its own right.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the spirit of this site when posting here, we'd be grateful.
Please review the site guidelines and stick to them regardless of how wrong you think someone else is.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: all HN users who have been using this issue to vent aggression and flame enemies ought to read this exchange between a Hong Kong user involved in the protests, and a mainland Chinese user: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20197903. If they can be that civil and respectful, what excuse do the rest of us have for not doing so?
Politically savvy approach, but completely ridiculous. HKers understand exactly what this bill would do to them.
Nothing makes me more angry than bureaucrats with bad intentions treating the people that pay their salaries like children.
> The leader of Hong Kong, the Chief executive, is currently elected by a 1200-member Election Committee, though Article 45 of the Basic Law states that "the ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures."
The election committee is more pro-CCP than the general Hong Kong populace, and the current leader, Carrie Lam, is widely held to be a puppet of Beijing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Appointments_System
longer version - she was elected by an electoral college carefully constructed to be pro-Beijing whilst superficially appearing representative. Votes must be publicly declared beforehand so Beijing can apply pressure.
Every single chief exec election has been a mess democratically speaking with extensive controversies, pressure from Beijing, veiled and not so veiled threats or talk of finding the trouble makers.
This is very concerning. It feels like Hong Kong is doomed to lose more and more of its independence, and freedom of speech, and freedom of press, as the years go on.
I have a lot of friends and family there, and as much as I love China and can understand their politics due to the size of their country, I do not wish Hong Kong citizens to lose any of their rights.
The current protests are a mix of a culmination of two decades of waiting, then despair and anger at what looks like the inevitable outcome of twenty years of stonewalling and tightening.
You're being shortsighted if you think the Victoria Park vigils don't do anything. People watch silently but it has a bigger effect than all the loud protests combined. The strongest argument needs no words at all.
Wouldn't write that off altogether for longer values of "eventually". The current government's political legitimacy is in part tied to delivering economic development. But obviously rapid exponential growth can't continue forever. After that levels off (and with incomes/education/institutions etc more developed), it doesn't seem unthinkable that some sort of political reform will need to be on the table again in order to maintain legitimacy. Maybe not from Xi Jinping, but he's 66, he won't be president of China forever.
I am certain once the income reach a certain threshold, North Korea would be a democratic country.
The size of China is not the source of their politics; the source is a totalitarian state that ruthlessly suppresses any dissent and maintains constant surveillance of its people. Not to imply that you meant otherwise, but the citizens of mainland China are no less deserving of political rights than those of Hong Kong; rather, they have simply been denied them by those in power. The 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre was only last week —- it could have ended similarly in Hong Kong. Also, unsurprisingly, Chinese media has been almost completely silent about these protests and many on the mainland are completely unaware that anything is happening at all.
Were they ignorant of what they meant at the time or did they not care so long as others were ruled by their own?
Which is something I learned about in the Western media, by the way, and that it would be nearly impossible to learn in Chinese media.
Also the claim that these protests were caused by foreign influence is wrong and insulting. It also echos what the higher-level CCP members have been saying.
Citation needed. Also, the UK is extremely famous for intentionally or unintentionally leaving a mess when it leaves, any sane government will not just let the British do whatever they want.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/opinion/india-pakistan-pa...
> nearly impossible to learn in Chinese media
It is also nearly impossible to learn anything about the opium wars in Western media, or how the governors of HK are all appointed by the British monarch directly. So I guess we are even here.
> Also the claim that these protests were caused by foreign influence is wrong and insulting.
Then what is this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democra...
BTW he/she said "largely encouraged".
Here ya go (he has further citations at the bottom if you're really interested):
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/...
Regardless of whose fault it is, it doesn't have any bearing on whether or not the people of HK should have self-determination.
>It is also nearly impossible to learn anything about the opium wars in Western media, or how the governors of HK are all appointed by the British monarch directly.
I don't know about that, I learned about it in high school. Here's a more recent book and review about it:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/book...
>Then what is this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democra....
>BTW he/she said "largely encouraged".
So the existence of the NED proves to you that a large portion of the protestors in Hong Kong are foreign-influenced? Okay. Personally, I think it's more likely that they're concerned about their rights and it's insulting to say otherwise.
> Regardless of whose fault it is
God I wish I am from the West, I don't have do be responsible for the mess I created. Just say this sentence and I am invulnerable to accusations and should be trusted again.
That's one link about the opium wars, it is completely unhelpful to resolve the issues created by the massive amounts of news that do not talk about the opium wars when they talk about HK.
If more people know what happened during the opium wars, the it will not be so hard to understand that HK should be returned with no strings attached, and the one country two systems policy is already a big step back from the Chinese government that takes the welfare of the people of HK into account.
About your last point, I don't plan to convince you. If you think the West is innocent after you see what a mess this world is, good for you. But please bear in mind that this is also insulting to the countless people who suffered in other parts of the world. People didn't just wake up and decide to dislike you.
You claimed that it's impossible to read about the Opium Wars in Western media, I say I learned about it in high school history and give you one of thousands upon thousands of links about it that will come up when you search.
I never claimed the West was innocent, nor that they should be forgiven about anything. You're just adding all that stuff in to further muddle the discussion when you've been proven wrong.
I hope you learn to challenge your own beliefs, because after your comments I don't think it's a good use of my time to continue discussing things with you.
OK, the Provisional Legislative Council was questionable in your view, I understand. But how exactly does this proves that the Chinese government blocked the democracy for 60 years? How about the existence of LegCo? Also I still don't think we agree on what the word "return" means.
Yes there are thousands of links that talk about the opium wars, and you have learned about it in school, but that doesn't help because the news don't talk about it. If you decide to include every wrong doings of the CCP when you talk about HK, it is dishonest to exclude the UK's dirty history.
I would also ask you to challenge your beliefs about why some parts of the world is unstable. I do not have proofs about whether there is someone behind this event in HK, but the protesters also have no proof that this bill is going to make HK a 1984-like society. China is a country surrounded by enemies, it isn't a bad thing to be paranoid, especially when people are clearly overreacting.
https://www.investigaction.net/en/trojan-horses-and-color-re...
But, how often does the news need to talk about the Opium Wars? I would say there are plenty of long-form articles talking about it, but does every article about Hong Kong need to give century-old context?
It's brought up in Chinese media far more often because it's useful for the CCP to remind people. It helps keep them in power and feeds their narrative that China must never be seen as weak again. And while I personally don't think excessive nationalistic propaganda is a good thing, it's at least understandable.
However, my point is that this part of history being brought up more often in Chinese media doesn't mean it's the natural state of things, or that it should be brought up more often in Western media. No one reasonable thinks the British or other foreign powers involved did the right thing there.
You claimed straw-man really easily before. Don't you think saying that HKers think this one bill will turn HK into a 1984-like society is a bit of a straw-man? I think most of them might say that the problem is not one bill, but more of a slippery slope type thing. Give an inch, give a mile.
What beliefs do I have about why parts of the world are unstable? I don't think I've expressed any, so you must be making an assumption there. And actually, if you ask around, I don't think you'll find many westerners who think colonialism was a good thing, although I'm sure there are some.
Finally, about the British wanting Hong Kong to be democratic. After further reading, 60 years might not be right. There was a plan in the 40s and 50s for democracy, but it sounds like it was the British governor of the time who blocked it for unclear reasons. I don't know if there were other attempts before the negotiations for the handover began. The 1980s are more accurate, so maybe about 20 years before Chinese rule.
That said, I still think it can be assumed that the CCP opposed democracy in Hong Kong. If you want me to say Britain messed up with Hong Kong by not allowing democracy, then I can agree with that. And I'll certainly agree that Western colonialism was for the most part a terrible thing that made the world a worse place.
"Chinese leaders were so opposed to the prospect of a democratic Hong Kong that they threatened to invade should London attempt to change the status quo"
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-pu...
Also is the West stronger than China or not? I am confused. If it is, then this threat means nothing. If the China is stronger, then why bother to create the one country two systems policy? Also, if China was strong enough to threaten the West, why is Taiwan still an issue till today?
The reference in the article you posted says:
> not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories liberated” if the Brits allowed self-governance.
So the Chinese government doesn't want HK do declare independence instead of returning to China, and will take positive actions if that is about to happen.
Again, you and I don't agree on what the word "return" means.
"We shall not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories liberated..."
liberated - freed from enemy occupation.
OK What could China do to achieve that? Break diplomatic ties? Economic sanctions as a huge importer of HK goods and services whilst 50s China's economy was a broken mess? Close the already mostly closed border? Write an angry letter?
What's left?
Invasion. What possible alternative interpretation can you suggest? Military blockade and starve them out? That's effectively war too, but with a much greater chance of escalating if you militarily prevent other nation's shipping...
"However, the present status of Hong Kong is to our benefit" ... "Through Hong Kong we can trade..."
Clearly the Chinese benefited from the huge economic success of Hong Kong so preferred not to invade or bomb the place to oblivion. They'd already backed off destabilising the Hang Seng as they got far more benefit from that decadent Western capitalism. The whole Chinese propaganda around the democracy of Hong Kong is exposed as blatant lie.
"is the West stronger than China or not? I am confused. If it is, then this threat means nothing."
Having had two of them nations generally seem to prefer avoiding a third world war. That one can doesn't always mean one wants to, even if one is as strong as the USA. Allies may not want to join to protect a territory being handed back in 50 years. Taiwan has no such time limit.
"Chinese government doesn't want HK do declare independence instead of returning to China"
Democratic elections are not declaring independence. The people of Hong Kong could have elected their own government whilst still being a British territory until 1997. The elected body would give local powers and the state would retain others. Just as California elects a government whilst remaining part of the USA. The fact that California and other US states have a state government does not make them independent nations. There is no Californian foreign policy, diplomatic service or military, that's for the nation - the USA.
Hong Kong would still have returned to China as agreed in the treaty, whilst retaining a local, democratic government. I imagine even cities in China have some form of city government - just they are entirely non-democratic. Of course it should be noted Hong Kong itself was granted in perpetuity.
As it turned out, China threw out many of the limited democratic changes Chris Patten made in 1994, as last Governor and put in place a much less democratic regime. Giving HKers the absurd "show elections" of the Chief Executive. Patten, who was hugely unpopular with Beijing for the reforms he did put through, did so in the hope that some might stick after handover.
What I was trying to say is that media in the West pay far less attentions to the wrong doings of their allies. For example, the anniversary of the Tiananmen square incident made it to the front page of HN, but I have never seen anything on HN when it's the anniversary of the Nanjing massacre. These two are comparable because the Japanese leaders are still visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. Also, I have personally almost never see news about bad things that happened in Taiwan on Western media, does this mean that Taiwan is heaven on earth?
You may have freedom of speech, but I don't think your people are well-informed when they are flooded by cherry-picked facts, and this leads to bias against your non-allies.
About what HKers think, here is an image of the flyers they distributed during the protest: https://twitter.com/liuyun2018/status/1133227121713659904
Translation for the main bullet points:
> You don't get to have a lawyer: they will be unavailable or disappear before court.
> Imprison without trail: you will spend one or two years in prison at minimum.
> "Disappear": no one will hear from you when you are in prison, not even your families.
> Judges follow CCP's instructions: the CCP decides what happens on court.
> Super-high conviction rate: 99.94% nation wide conviction rate.
> Lighting-fast trails: No lawyers no family members, 5 minutes and it's done.
> Secret trails: When your family knows you are already in prison.
> Collective punishment： your family members are equally guilty.
Even in mainland China the situation is no where near this bad. These false accusations makes me question their motives. If you don't believe me and think we have North Korea levels of speech control, then I would ask you to please update your views or better, visit China if you get a chance.
Listing several individuals arrested for their political actions doesn't justify this baseless conjecture about the future of HK.
> Give an inch, give a mile.
Yes I know you don't trust the CCP, the CCP doesn't trust the West either. Today we implement democracy (as you defined) in HK, tomorrow you want HK to declare independence. Who's next? Shenzhen? Shanghai? We are aware of how the West has been "liberating" people in the Middle East and we are afraid of it.
Which brings me to my final point: we share completely different views of the world, and some words
You have been using the word democracy like it's some kind of panacea and refusing it is unacceptable. I (and the CCP) don't agree. Democracy is guaranteed to never be the worst, but it doesn't necessarily be the best, in all situations. Besides, based on the actions of the US after WWII, we have every reason to believe that the US doesn't want other parts of the world to stay in peace, or at least, does not have the ability to resolve the problem it created. Despite what the Western media has been saying, the CCP is actually bad at media manipulation, not nearly as good as the West. CCP thinks that if we implement democracy defined by the West, then the people will fall to Western values extremely fast and the whole country will become a huge mess. Yes, we are thinking about the Brexit drama and the likes, only more bloody.
I've witnessed the Chinese judicial system secondhand, as experienced by native Chinese people. Fortunately, I haven't had to experience anything firsthand. And I've read countless articles and books to the point where I know the specific incidents those signs are referring to.
I'm sorry, but I really can't spend any more time digging up sources for you. Hopefully you have a VPN or live abroad and can look for this stuff yourself.
You can probably understand why they wouldn't want to be subject to that justice system.
You keep putting words in mine and other people's mouths. I never said democracy is a panacea. I agree that Western media is biased about China. Average people are not well-informed anywhere. At least outside of China, people can easily learn if they choose to.
I agree that Japanese politicians downplaying or refusing to apologise for Nanjing is somewhat comparable to the CCPs handling of the Tiananmen incident, although Japan obviously has nothing like the censorship in China. Both are wrong. And I think if you talk to more people you'll find they agree.
For all the stuff you want me to look up online, I already know, and I know more context than you do. For example, we can talk about the cultural revolution to each other freely and we understand the long list of reasons why it happened, contrary to the simplistic "evil communists" viewpoint held by some Westerners. Go to Beijing, talk to a taxi driver, listen to how they curse our government for their wrong doings, or learn Chinese and read Weibo every now and then, and you may change your mind. Hey, my English is better than 99% of mainlanders and I read Western news all the time, but I still don't think I am remotely qualified to talk about US's internal affairs. Please don't assume someone from China knows less than you do just because you have read some second-handed materials.
You didn't use the exact word "panacea", but you have been using "blocking democracy" as some kind of crime, which suggest that democracy is the only right way to go, and I disagree.
Westerners keep talking about how bad censorship is, and this is exactly why I said the CCP is terrible at media manipulation. The state of the art, as used by the West, is to report partial truth and take words out of context. Look at the link posted by NeedMoreTea, "if the Brits allowed self-governance" was conveniently omitted.
I don't think it's literally as extreme as the book 1984, but yeah China has a lot of problems. A non-independent judicial system will never be as just as an independent one.
You've been shown to be wrong so many times in this thread and then your response is always to expand the scope of the discussion and put words in my mouth. I think it's really dishonest.
By the way I live in China, have a Chinese wife, and Chinese friends. My Chinese is far from fluent but I'm working on it. I never claimed to be an authority on China, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. I don't have a simplistic view and I don't think China is totally evil. You're just using that to dismiss everything I say, even though you're the one who's been repeatedly factually wrong in this discussion. I am open-minded to your viewpoint, but you simply aren't very convincing when you argue like this.
No kidding, a cab driver can discuss his problems with the government in his own cab? Sometimes a gently disagreeing post on Weibo briefly trends and gets discussion before it's removed? Amazing.
Chinese media tells partial truths and takes things out of context constantly. The Western media are not some evil masterminds that CCTV can never match.
With that, I'm really finished here. Good luck to you.
On the other hand, Japan and its leaders have made lots of war apology statements, or at least statements of remorse [1], including on the Nanking Massacre. One could argue that some Japanese leaders are still visiting the Yasukuni Shrine because they think both the South East Asians (including Chinese) and the Japanese soldiers were victims to the Japanese wartime Militarism craze, which they are avoiding: note that they visit the Yasukuni Shrine not to promote Militarism or expansion, but for remembrance. And their actions elsewhere speak the same.
Chinese leaders have not made comparable statements (on the Tiananmen square crackdown), or acted in similar way (towards universal values of independent jurisdiction or respecting the constitution, etc).
If you wish the anniversary of the Nanking massacre on the front page of HN, make the leaders of China make comparable statements regarding the Tiananmen square crackdown--this will show that they share the same value as the HN crowd.
Note also that ethnic/national difference (we Chinese vs them Japanese or them United States) is not the same as value difference (we believe in rule by law vs they believe in rule of law). The HN focuses on the latter.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements...
> Listing several individuals arrested for their political actions doesn't justify this baseless conjecture about the future of HK.
Some Hong Kong people are abducted into China for publishing books that some members of CCP do not like [2], and lost their freedom. Political actions or not, such freedom of speech is protected by Hong Kong's Basic Law, while the abduction is lawless (unless you say the party is the law, and they are above the constitution in China etc).
Chinese officials repeatedly stated that they do not respect an independent jurisdiction.
This is not a baseless conjecture, and is not due to lack of trust in CCP, because they admitted it themselves and acted in the same way.
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...
> Besides, based on the actions of the US after WWII, we have every reason to believe that the US doesn't want other parts of the world to stay in peace, or at least, does not have the ability to resolve the problem it created.
Japan and US coexist peacefully.
In the link you provided: As of 2010, 24% of South Koreans still believe that Japan has never apologized for its colonial rule, while another 58% believe Japan has not apologized sufficiently. So apparently I am not alone.
Until the names of the "1,068 convicted war criminals" are removed from the Shrine, visiting it hurts people's feelings, period. This has nothing to do with what they visited it for. Even if you ignore other parts of Asia, those people did great harm to their own country, leaving their names in the Shrine makes people question whether the Japanese government realize how much tragedies were caused by them.
> This is not a baseless conjecture
True, I apologize. Putting myself in your perspective, I can see how scary the bookstore incident is, and the CCP really fucked up its (already bad) reputation with this one.
> Japan and US coexist peacefully.
US-Japan relationship really is the best the US can do and I still don't think they are independent from each other enough so that their relationship can be described as "peaceful". Would you say you and your shoes have a peaceful relationship? Your shoes really have no choice but to stay with you. BTW, I was thinking about the Middle East when I talk about how the the mess created by the US.
Even if you don't agree with me about how Japan is a "client state", you should at least acknowledge that their relationship is far from peaceful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forces_Japan#Uni...
Imagine if the PLA in HK did something similar.
It appears Britain only tried to give them democracy when they knew the writing was on the wall. That seems disingenuous to suggest it was China that blocked them.
While technically true, if Britain truly wanted to help the Hong King people, they would have offered citizenship and let them immigrate, like Portugal did for Macau.
Instead, the British tried to stop Portugal from doing so, because they didn’t want to offer the people of Hong Kong citizenship.
I definitely think Britain should have offered citizenship. I'm surprised they didn't want to.
Of course their political allies like the us can be counted on to trump up "democracy" as a wedge issue when it clearly never cared so long as hk was ruled by Brits, same as it never cared when toppling democratic leaders it doesn't like.
So please don't pretend to be the good guys given how much it insults the intelligence of anyone who's ever paid attention beyond the propaganda.
Here's a basic fact: it's better to have more freedom instead of less. Wrap your brain around that simple fact.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If there's misinformation, providing correct information neutrally at least has a chance of helping.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you watched this protest and all their other protests, it is very easy to see one thing: Their action is isolated， they don't have the power to unite people other than themselves. Nobody besides themselves will stand for them. Nobody in mainland support them, nobody in mainland understand them. Many mainlanders even developed Schadenfreude when looking at those protests.
(OK, "Nobody" is a bit of over exaggeration, but fairly right if you want to feel the situation)
Why? Because they are protest only for their own rights, on their own little land that nobody cares anymore. It's not about greater good, not "making the entire China democratic". Just "We're Hongkongers, we are special, so we must have those rights", while don't give a damn when the rest of China is been stripped clean.
How many HongKonger protested when Xi changed the Constitution? Not this much.
Nobody cares about your right if you don't defend the right of the others. 50 years, if they don't change China for the better, China will change them, as simple as that.
People in HongKong only have this few years left to able conduct protest at that scale while keeping themselves relatively safe.
In China mainland, you do that, you're in prison for life or worst.
You know what, "worst" is not good enough to describe what could happen. There was a case that might show you what could happen if the police got you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Jia
Yang Jia was a man who killed 6 police mans in 2008. Why? Because the police interrogated him for riding an unregistered bicycle. The method of interrogation which the English version of Wikipedia does not fully mention (But mentioned in the Chinese version) including electrically shock this man's genital cause it to dysfunction.
Let me ask you this: Will you risk your life to protest for your right knowing there will be no good end for you after?
So that's why currently, the safest thing for mainlanders to do is focus on earning money, and use the money to trade for freedom (For example: to have a better social status and/or to be able to move to another country etc), and hope for things could change for the better in the future.
I hope now you can understand why I'm so "hypocritical" on this.
> Why? Because they are protest only for their own rights, on their own little land that nobody cares anymore. It's not about greater good, not "making the entire China democratic". Just "We're Hongkongers, we are special, so we must have those rights", while don't give a damn when the rest of China is been stripped clean.
Every year on 4 June, Hong Kong people hold a vigil in Victoria Park for the Tiananmen square crackdown [1][2], and one main theme of the vigil is to continue the spirit of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests: to make the entire China democratic (one of the slogans is 建設民主中國, literally to make China democratic). In these years, this vigil in Hong Kong is the largest gathering to demand making the entire China democratic in the whole world.
Given that Hong Kong people are doing that every year on 4 June, I think it is reasonable that in this case--anti extraditions law protests on 9 June and 16 June this year--Hong Kong people are doing something else. But this does not mean that Hong Kong people do not fight for democracy in China or for greater good--to say the least, this anti extraditions law protest also benefits foreigners who stay in Hong Kong, or merely in transit.
Also, there are 6000 PLA troops stationed in Hong Kong, and there were cases of Hong Kong people getting abducted into China for publishing books that some members of CCP do not like [3]. There are not much more that Hong Kong people can do for themselves and for mainlanders... if you have better suggestions, please let us know.
I think they are doing their best.
> Nobody cares about your right if you don't defend the right of the others.
Then what have mainlanders done for Hong Kong?
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=64+hong+kong+vi...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorials_for_the_1989_Tiananm...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...
Nothing good, and it will continue to be this way.
And it's NOT out of despision, no, it's simply because it's impossible to do it safely in China. The political climate here is so toxic and dangerous, it is unethical to even think to put people on street.
But, one thing HongKongers must understand is, your future is linked with mainlanders, for better or worse. We may not see each other eye to eye on other many topics, but this, this is the problem we both facing.
Also, many mainlanders is actually quite supportive about some protests. Simply search Twitter with the right keyword you can find many https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%E6%9...
We, Hong Kong people as a whole, understand that mainlanders face much more difficulty in speaking up, and we are sympathetic. We definitely do not despise mainlanders for not speaking up in a way that we can see. The current protest does not mention democratic movement in China because we want to have a focus: on the extraditions law itself.
> But, one thing HongKongers must understand is, your future is linked with mainlanders, for better or worse. We may not see each other eye to eye on other many topics, but this, this is the problem we both facing.
Hong Kong people understand and agree that we are facing the same opposition--the oppressive regime in China--and our time is dated: Hong Kong people are counting the number of years until 2047, which is 50 years after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, after which the "two systems" may disappear. And we are also questioning if the "two systems", the promised anatomy of Hong Kong from China, may disappear before 2047. One reason you see so many Hong Kong people in the current protest, is the fear that if they don't speak up now, they cannot speak up later.
> Also, many mainlanders is actually quite supportive about some protests. Simply search Twitter with the right keyword you can find many https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%E6%9....
We thank the support from mainlanders given their difficulty, and also for the support from the whole world. Such attention on Hong Kong is very much needed and appreciated.
I read from your comment in another thread that many mainlanders are trying to earn money to trade for freedom: better social status in China, or to move to another country. In fact, I think there are lots of mainlanders who went overseas, and they are enjoying the freedom and protection in another country. If we, Hong Kong people and overseas mainlanders, unite together, there is a lot more that we can do.
Your speaking up here in Hacker News is a good start, and we together can try to do more.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989
No thanks, like one of the other posters said, focusing on earning more money is the best way of making it.
Freedom's overrated when food/shelter/amenities/relaxation options are plentiful. And if these start to suffer, having enough money gives access to other areas of the world.
1. https://www.police.gov.hk/info/doc/nono/POERN19007953E.pdf
But the UK did try to convince Portugal not to offer the people of Macau citizenship, because they didn’t want to do the same for the people of Hong Kong.
From their perspective it's not hard to imagine China trumping up charges (or getting one of the other listed nations to do it) to get their hands on someone they want. Likewise, having the law on the books at all makes it a (comparatively) very small step to simply add more things to the list of acceptable extradition reasons.
China's domestic actions have not given HKers much reason to trust them, and they know that they won't have any chance of clawing back any measure of sovereignty in their system that they give up now.