I watched it recently and thought it didn't go nearly far enough in highlighting the abuses by the HK police, and even glossed over or omitted some very important events that triggered the continued protests. I actually felt it was far too fair to the HKSAR government and police.
The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.
People are saying this film is anti-China propaganda. I'd say it's pro because it shows the hopeless, illogical, ineffective, futility of HK looters and terrorists, and how deluded, manipulated and used they were.
That's what happens under a "Western system" running loose, is one message that HK could be helping to shape. China made 1 law, and order is restored. Yeah, I'd say it's pretty much pro for China, despite the incessant shrill whining of the terrorist wannabes.
> The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.
That's because they have single party system. Eventually they'll figure out that splitting into two parties and exchanging highest power between the two every few years while still colectively controlling everything of value is way more resilient system.
Then they will be able to let themselves to be hated because half of the people will hate one half of the party and the other half of the people will hate the other half of the party. And thanks to periodic swaps they can pretty much keep it indefinitely because people will never rebel. Instead people will be waiting patiently few years for their favorite half of the party to take highest offices.
But untill then they can't let people hate the party even a little bit. China has a history of multiple revolutions and costly turmoil when people hated those in power and toppled them.
They also have to find enemies for people to hate as far away from the party as possible.
> they'll figure out that splitting into two parties and exchanging highest power between the two every few years while still colectively controlling everything of value is way more resilient system
This requires rule of law to function. Otherwise, one set of elites won't trust handing power to the other. The breathless levels of corruption at the top of the CCP would also have to go, which is a difficult transition to peacefully navigate.
> Deep informal connections between both "sides" might substitute rule of law to some degree
It's a poor substitute. To the point that I think single-party rule may be preferable. Informal power sharing arrangements almost deterministically go to shit after a single generation. They also calcify the elites' ranks.
I might agree with you that it might be risky but I think exchange of top formal power every few years could keep unseen connections fresh and intergenerational.
> The breathless levels of corruption at the top of the CCP would also have to go
Need I mention the Trump and Clinton foundations? The Bush family and the Carlyle group (complete with the Bin-Ladens)? And that's while ignoring Trump's over-the-top stuff, like getting the government to use his personal resorts and hotels, as an outlier.
Do you think the deep state is responsible for this? I don't think there's any evidence to inicate that these elected idiots aren't actually popular. The same thing happend in the Philippines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Estrada). Idiots electing idiots they like is a tale as old as democracy.
The polarisation is actually a good thing. As long as it's about stuff that doesn't matter for the normal economic activity. If they can still work with each other and live in mixed communities it's all fine.
They can always hope that their side will be on top in few years and restrain themselves. Such polarisation is no more dangerous than polarisation around sports teams.
And channeling and managing people's hatered is very important for stability. Otherwise it could be directed towards system of power as a whole, or the rich, or some ethnic group.
> while still colectively controlling everything of value
If this post is meant as a whataboutist critique of US democracy then this line gives it away as over the top conspiracy theory. Who exactly is controlling everything of value in this theory?
I read this similarly. In the US, there are lots of things that the government doesn't control, and even for things the government does control the federal, state and local governments can be controlled by different parties that have conflicting priorities. Also, the way that the political parties are structured in the US is very different, where there are national party organizations, but also local party organizations that do as much influencing over the national parties as vice versa.
To reduce the difference between China's political situation and the US's to be the difference between 2 parties and 1 is not accurate.
The American Supreme Court can basically make up interpretations on essentially whatever, and it has and will so long as the Democratic and Republican party agree on it.
China also has local CCP organizations, and they have a significant level of influence on the national party (and vice-versa), but ultimately just like in the US the DNC and RNC chair can basically make up whatever arcane rules for nomination and get an agreeable candidate.
The US is designed with the idea of checks and balances. It is a half-truth that the Supreme Court can make up whatever interpretations it wants. It can only consider cases that come before it, and it can only take so many cases in a year. With the cases before it, in practice, there are a whole host of things limiting what interpretations are possible, such as precedent, the desire to reach consensus on a more limited ruling, the possibility of setting a precedent that could later be used against the justice's goal, and the fact that justices have to work together even though they strongly disagree with each other. These are in addition to the other checks and balances spelled out in the Constitution, such as the possibility of impeachment of justices.
The issue is that literally every single check and balance in the US is controlled by either the Democrat or Republican Party.
In effect, these are checks and balances between two parties.
The desire to reach consensus is yet again a mechanism of partisan conflict resolution. Impeachment of justices is a partisan political process. The lower courts are also at the mercy of either of the two parties.
Ultimately, there is literally no process in the entirety of the USA to legally prevent something that both parties durably agree on.
Again, your summary is a simplistic half truth. There are lots of prominent examples of intra-party checks.
Trump recently was opposed in political processes by his own Vice President and Supreme Court nominees, as well as some members of Congress.
Within the Democratic party, there are also examples of these checks happening within the party. DeBlasio (mayor of NY) and Cuomo (governor of the state of NY) have been fighting against each other for years.
More generally though, not everything in the US is a political decision. There are other practical checks on the political process itself, like the freedom of speech Many Americans either don't like either party, or at least don't like the leadership if either party right now. We don't have songs like "Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_the_Communist_Party,...). While unlikely, in the US parties can go, and have gone, extinct through the normal political process. And every four years (depending on who wins the Presidential election) there are opinion pieces considering one party or the other's demise. If people disappear for comparing the CCP's leader to Winnie the Pooh, I can't imagine it's very safe to write about the CCP's demise within China.
> Who exactly is controlling everything of value in this theory?
In US? Same as everywhere. Network of people who make the laws and people who amass capital thanks to those laws.
It wasn't meant as whataboutism or as a critique of US. It was meant as praise of US and potential direction China should evolve towards to protect their rulers with less fragility.
This is unlikely to happen as it would contravene basic doctrine of Marxism-Leninism about the purpose of establishing a party (which is supposed to take over the the state, and then gradually become obsolete). The Maoist development of this is supposed to stop the party from becoming ossified by continually measuring how well it is meeting the needs of the people similar to product development or marketing, except that their service is civil/industrial administration. I don't know enough about later developments in their official ideologies, or enough about China to say to what extent their governance is a reflection of their cultural mores, but it seems to me that communists start with a rationalistic view of economics and production (ie beginning with axioms identified by Marx) and then try to build empirically on top of that by trying out different policies in pursuit of the general goal of maximizing collective utility.
My impression is that one succeeds in Chinese public life by successfully innovating in pursuit of received (and perhaps arbitrary) goals, such that being good at the means eventually allows you to have input on what the appropriate ends may be, and this is why many Chinese VIPs come from an engineering background. But success in civil administration or development of infrastructure is built upon getting results in response to specific conditions rather than the articulation or application of general principles, and is judged by administrative peers rather than the public.
I don't feel one can understand China in terms of just capitalism v communism both because they have a sort of mixed economy that that is hypersocialistic in some respects and hypercapitalistic in others, and because of the different philosophical currents in Chinese culture like the hierarchism of Confucianism, the legalism of Mencius, and the oddness of Taoism, which can seem like pure solipsism or all encompassing systems theory. But it does seem to me that once the emergence of distinct factions would be regarded as an existential problem to be resolved as urgently as possible through some kind of intra-party showdown rather institutionalized duopoly. Harmonious stability has been a strong cultural more there for ~2000 years, so very dynamic internal politics would risk a sort of national introversion that would weaken China with respect to the rest of the world.
It's not a criticism, but a praise. Political stabilitiy is of immense value to everybody. US is doing it correctly as the track record shows. No revolutions while other countries had multiple in the same timespan.
I might sound a bit cynical but I prefer to think about this as non-idealistic. Because reality very rarely seems to align with any sort of idealism for me.
The framing is cynical, though I agree with you that stability is valuable.
I'd argue the reason the framing is cynical is because the two party system wasn't intentionally crafted as some sort of 'nothing changes' power structure, but is the outcome from the current incentives of our democratic system. The two parties bit is arguably a flaw the founders tried unsuccessfully to prevent (because it can lead to instability).
Your comment also implies that little changes as the parties switch power back and forth, but this isn't true. Policy is a large ship and things take time and arguing to change (which is what you want for stability, and the inevitable outcome in a democracy). But policy does change and decade over decade - things can change a lot as people struggle to improve the society.
"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."
I don't believe intentions matter all that much. Certainly not more than than the outcomes.
Stumbling upon a pragmatic solution while pursuing idealistic goals doesn't sanctify the solution. And introducing a solution just for pragmatic reasons witout any pretense of idealism doesn't vilify it.
> But policy does change and decade over decade
That's a very low bar. It happens in single party systems as well. China went from communism into capitalism with single party system, without revolution.
Washington quote shows that he had some awareness of what qualities parties should have to improve the stability. Basing them on geography would be a terrible idea. Also picking two too comabative ideologies to center the parties on would be bad. You want two halves but not in open war with one another. You want them to agree on everything that matters, like that the rich and ruling should stay rich and ruling, army should be funded as much as it wants, and business should proceed, and differ only on conceptual issues that don't really connect all that much with anything really important.
Just ask yourself how would you design a two party system for China.
> "China went from communism into capitalism with single party system, without revolution."
I'm not sure Deng Xiaoping would agree with this framing, though he was eventually able to shift things after Mao. There was a lot of violence during the cultural revolution. Deng reversed a lot of this, but it was in a revolutionary context (right after the cultural revolution).
"And introducing a solution just for pragmatic reasons without any pretense of idealism doesn't vilify it."
I agree that it doesn't necessarily vilify it (pragmatism is good), but if it's done only as an illusion/lie to maintain authoritarian control by one group then that is villainous. This is also not what occurs in the USG (and the underlying suggestion that it is, is what I took issue with).
> "Stumbling upon a pragmatic solution while pursuing idealistic goals doesn't sanctify the solution."
No, but the thing I'm taking issue with is the 'pragmatic solution' being a dead locked two party system that exists only for stability. That's the cynical view I think is wrong. I think the US is a democratic system with rule of law where policy moves forward via arguing. Though recently, party risk and extremism has made this less effective and entrenched incentives make these issues hard to fix. This is a bug though and not by design. Parties form because it's an effective way to coordinate even though there are risks.
> "That's a very low bar. It happens in single party systems as well."
I'd argue that it's not as resilient in single party systems, both because unelected leaders that serve infinite terms gives some short term advantage at the increased risk of long term instability and because the amount of control used against the public leads to resentment. Wild swings in policy can cause problems, making year over year progress which culminates in big changes over decades is a stable way to improve things. Particularly if it happens in a context where new politicians are being elected all of the time and power is peacefully changing.
If you're not stress testing that system (even if you are) with peaceful changes of power, then you're unlikely to survive your first attempt. One party governments can be more efficient at doing things in the short-term, but long term they fail. Without elections the failures are violent.
> I'm not sure Deng Xiaoping would agree with this framing, though he was eventually able to shift things after Mao. There was a lot of violence during the cultural revolution. Deng reversed a lot of this, but it was in a revolutionary context (right after the cultural revolution).
Deng reforms came 12 years after cultural revolution. After the death of Mao. And his coming to power and his reforms were realized as internal party affair, without engaging Chinese population in any form of novel revolutionary activity. And the spirit of those reforms directly contradicted last revolution. To the point of admitting mistakes of this revolution and its leader.
> I agree that it doesn't necessarily vilify it (pragmatism is good), but if it's done only as an illusion/lie to maintain authoritarian control by one group then that is villainous.
Good and evil, heroes and villains. World really doesn't seem to work in this way. Creating two party system to solidify system of power and safeguard it against revolution is not an illusion. It's an action. If CCP right now split into two parties it would not be any more illusory two party system than the one in US. Sure it may vary in corruption levels or balance between local power centers and nationwide power but those are just parameters that would evolve to their optimum values. Optimum for the rulers of course.
> No, but the thing I'm taking issue with is the 'pragmatic solution' being a dead locked two party system that exists only for stability. That's the cynical view I think is wrong.
It's not a deadlock. It's carefully maintained to be exactly this. What do you think would happen if one party was winning all elections for decades? Would two party system survive?
Do you think people really neatly divide equally between the ones who want more progress and the ones that prefer things to stay as close as possible to the way they used to be? Democrats are winning popular votes for some time now and yet they are loosing elections occasionally. Gerrymandering is used to tip the balance back towards 50/50. Wouldn't you think that whenever democrats come to power it should be their utmost priority to deal with gerrymandering? So they can win every time? But they don't want to win every time, because stability of the system which is prerequisite of their wealth and power depends on them loosing from time to time. And gerrymandering is useful tool for ensuring that.
> I think the US is a democratic system with rule of law where policy moves forward via arguing.
It's true to some degree. The question remains how much of the policy moves forward via arguing and how much of it moves through mostly (publicly) silent agreement same way as it does in single party system. And also how fast the policy moves.
You noticed that two party system moves things slower than single party system because of the speed/stability trade off.
I'd argue that it also moves slower than the democracies with multiparty systems, that can allow themselves to loose a party or two completely if their reactions to changing environment were not sufficiently fast and adequate. Where parties have to join forces and compromise to rule.
Two party system can't loose a party. Can't even allow one party to fracture. Republicans had to accept Trump. Because if not, he'd fracture their voter base. Same way they still have to accept him because, he still could create his own party and steal significant portion of republican voters. And that would mean democrats winning all the time and we can't have that because that would ultimately lead to unrest.
Two party system is more stable (and stagnant) than both single party and multiparty system and I think China will pick it up as soon as it significantly overtakes US in economy and military. There's no point of doing it sooner because it would just slow them down. And there's no point in trying multi-party democracy because it's very risky even though, when it succeeds it combines decent speed with decent stability.
Until then China must be very careful about who their citizens hate and quench every spark.
Thanks for the thoughtful back and forth despite my provocative first comment. It's been flag-killed (possibly 50cent party? maybe just people disliking my abrasiveness) so this thread won't be seen, but I thought it was an interesting conversation.
> "Deng reforms came 12 years after cultural revolution."
I think this makes it seem less connected than it was and depends on what time you're talking about. The below excerpt suggests it was closer in time.
"Deng was publicly disgraced and criticized nationwide alongside then President Liu Shaoqi and was sent to work in a tractor factory in rural Jiangxi from 1969 to 1973. Deng briefly came back to power until the Tiananmen Incident in 1976, after which he was again stripped of all official titles and only kept his party membership.
Following Mao's death in September 1976, Deng outmaneuvered the late chairman's chosen successor Hua Guofeng and became the de facto leader of China in December 1978"
He also set term limits that were unfortunately removed by Xi.
> "Gerrymandering is used to tip the balance back towards 50/50. Wouldn't you think that whenever democrats come to power it should be their utmost priority to deal with gerrymandering? So they can win every time? But they don't want to win every time, because stability of the system which is prerequisite of their wealth and power depends on them loosing from time to time. And gerrymandering is useful tool for ensuring that."
I think this verges on conspiracy theory - democrats very much care about fixing gerrymandering (among other vote suppression tactics), it's just hard to fix. The recent failure in the Supreme Court makes it even harder. I think you buy too much into the idea that the current state is a preferred state that's quietly agreed on or seen as strategic, rather than a result of current incentives creating a local maximum.
> "Do you think people really neatly divide equally between the ones who want more progress and the ones that prefer things to stay as close as possible to the way they used to be?"
I actually wouldn't frame the right that way - I think they want different things (arguably even more revolutionary than the left in some cases), but I don't think they want things to stay the way they used to be. Given Trump's take over of the party it's not clear to me there's much consistent ideology there at all (at least among the voters)
> "Two party system can't loose a party. Can't even allow one party to fracture."
It's happened before with the Whigs and the 'know-nothing' party, but I generally agree that it leads to extremism and elevating people like Trump (which was the risk Washington was talking about).
> "And that would mean democrats winning all the time and we can't have that because that would ultimately lead to unrest."
Or it could lead to a center-right party that's more sane that can get a larger share of the population to vote for them. The Trump experiment was a risky one and resulted in a one-term presidential election and losing the house and senate. The margins were close, but the popular vote was not. Arguably gerry-pandering incentivizes this extremism and without it we'd have more moderate candidates that appeal to a larger amount of Americans.
I'd argue the risk isn't democrats winning all the time, but that currently a pretty small minority of people has disproportionate power in the USG - I think this can lead to instability over time too.
I agree with the Chinese concern of 'quenching every spark', but I'd be surprised if Chairman Xi gave up any power in the form of a 'second party' - it's very much against the CCP's rhetoric.
> It's been flag-killed (possibly 50cent party? maybe just people disliking my abrasiveness) so this thread won't be seen, but I thought it was an interesting conversation.
That's a shame. I'm not sure if the whole thread is hidden. I got 3 karma points (base 1 + 2 upvotes) for some comments in our thread below your flagged post.
> I think this verges on conspiracy theory - democrats very much care about fixing gerrymandering (among other vote suppression tactics), it's just hard to fix.
They keep very quiet and mild about it. This should be like the most important issue that affects their voters. Their voters were denied what should be theirs (democrats in power), for decades in total at this point.
I don't think it's a conspiracy theory. Nobody conspires if it's a shared understanding that democrats should loose roughly 50% of the time for the good of everybody. It doesn't require any conspiratory action. Just inaction, which is way easier to implement even if not everybody understand that it should be implemented and why.
However, whether they are aware what they are doing or not, they are still doing it (tolerating Gerrymandering to a huge degree). And it has an effect of increased stability.
> I think they want different things (arguably even more revolutionary than the left in some cases), but I don't think they want things to stay the way they used to be.
At the root of republican vs democrat is this divide between orthodoxy and progress. Of course further details are built upon that. Especially since the country, economy and government can't stay in its orthodoxy.
Still, my observation was, why would that divide be roughly 50/50?
>> "And that would mean democrats winning all the time and we can't have that because that would ultimately lead to unrest."
> Or it could lead to a center-right party that's more sane that can get a larger share of the population to vote for them.
On last election a single win by democrats caused some unrest. I think democrats winning for few decades would just radicalize part of republicans and made the other part to withdraw from voting. I'm sure eventual peaceful return to some equilibrium would be possible like with Whigs. But I don't think it would be business as usual and economy likes to have business as usual.
Thank you for this discussion, but I don't want to speculate about future US too much, as I don't have a clear idea what will happen, apart from things staying pretty much the same and US really struggling to accept reality when China overtakes them.
> The US political system is not some secret power sharing conspiracy.
It's not "secret" and not a "conspiracy". There is a lot of effective agreement and continuity between Republican and Democrat administrations. GP is phrasing it more colorfully for dramatic effect.
which party do I vote for if I want to stop US imperialism? which party do I vote for if I want MFA? Its not the Republicans, and its definitely not the Democrats.
Its no conspiracy theory to say the duopoly shuts down a lot of issues from being ever being addressed
However, my personal opinion is that it is more important to develop anti-imperialism in the context of organizing independent labor unions, unemployed people's organizations, neighborhood committees, student unions and such. This has many reasons IMO which I won't go into in this thread.
Congratulations, Citizen! You have discovered that you live in a democracy, and you hold a minority viewpoint. This is a feature of the system, not a bug. The benefit is: There are countless other minority viewpoints (some of which involve your immediate execution) that will also not be automatically scheduled for implementation.
The solution here is to start campaigning! Not for political office, you've got little chance of that - but rather to shift the public consciousness so that the entire body politic is more sympathetic to your viewpoint. Your political opponent is the Overton Window.
No matter how the population feels on a particular issue, as long as the elites of both parties disagree, there is no way for it to be implemented. A wedge issue will be substituted and strategic voting will ensure compliance.
Then, the issue will be substituted in the public discourse with a choice between the status-quo and something even worse, or something marginaly better and something significantly worse.
In the end, there is no way to campaing as long as you have both political institutions against you.
In the United States, there is no statistically significant correlation between the sympathy of the "body politic", if you take that to be the mass of voters, and actual policy[0].
Put simply, your rationalization is a feel-good narrative. And that's not even considering media capture, manufactured consent, ideological indoctrination through cultural hegemony, etc...
Well there is the Aloha ʻĀina Party that seeks Hawaiian sovereignty, Several Cascadian independence movements that seek to seceded the Cascadian bioregion from the US. There is the Second Vermont Republic. Puerto Rico has a few parties advocating for independence, as are parties that advocate for Samoan unification.
I’m less familiar with the federal level, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find the dissolution of the US (or at least the defederation in favor of a decentralized union) on the political left including several socialist and anarchist parties.
There seems to be a selfish trend where someone with a legitimate though perhaps unpopular opinion expects to be given more consideration than others. Complains that the game is rigged since their unpopular opinion is not allowed to jump the line and be given immediate attention.
Healthcare is consistently ranked as a top 2 priority amongst Americans polled and has over 70% support. It even have majority support amongst republican voters. This is a false equivalency.
I think that is generally true- though there is great disagreement over the implementation.
Healthcare has 70% just in general? So is that public option, Medicare for All, or single payer? What does the support for these items look like when broken down?
I think it is a bit unfair to ask for a specific implementation detail on policy which the general population overwhelmingly supports. You can always arbitrarily make a policy look less popular by taking only the subset of the general population that supports a specific implementation.
An example: Say 90% of the people of Madeupistan supports some sort of increased autonomy from the Roman empire (which just became a democracy after 2000 years of imperial rule). But a disingenuous pollster wants to make it look like the support isn’t that great. So instead they will point to the fact that only about 40% of the population supports independence. This is ignoring the fact that 30% of the population want something similar to home rule, and 20% want to be in a federation with neighboring states.
I'm really skeptical that's true.... Winnie the Pooh is such a popular theme in products in China, I've never heard anything remotely close to such a ban....
> I'm really skeptical that's true.... Winnie the Pooh is such a popular theme in products in China, I've never heard anything remotely close to such a ban....
IIRC, it's not a general ban, it's just censored from social media, probably by official directive.
Over these years a lot of words and characters got banned, some with good intention like to stop lewd or not-suit-for-kiids content from spreading, most other times with intention to stop people from talking about things CCP not willing to let people discuss about.
If you can read Chinese, you will found that on some forums people are like talking with magic spells, in extreme cases, whole paragraph or article is composed of word/characters that pronounce same but looks different, or just looks similar enough so people understand what it implys.
Even if Chinese is my native language I can't read ciphertext of that level.
Talking about censorship, I'd like to share my 2 cents. For some time I had been actively browsing Zhihu (a Chinese knowledge sharing social platform), even posting and talking with the users. It's around a decade ago, the censorship back then was much looser. I am a Taiwanese, we even talked about a political incident which is basically Taiwanese people protesting about the ruling signing CSSTA... some Chinese agree, some do not, some just left hatred comments, but people back then was really talking and sharing opiinion. You find no more stuff like this now, the censorship got strengthened over years, a lot of topics are risky and people would rather not talk about it.
I share your sentiment. I couldn't agree more with the funny and sad cipher text. Zhihu could have been a good site for idea exchange but it too became obvious a target. I was very envious of online forum culture in Taiwan such as PTT and you never know there may be many chinese netizens from the mainland posing and hiding in disguise.
I think what you are saying about censorship is true but it's also because we are facing unprecedented challenges both online and in real life. The traditional academic settings of intellectuals on various sites are not the same anymore. I won't say what is better or not but I hope more communications will eventually bridge gaps. If you're skeptical about the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland, look at Republic Ireland / Northern Ireland. It could be much worse until eventually an ambiguous agreement arrived. Sometimes people just need a bit cool down to communicate.
It's not noise - the censors drop specific comms over time when there's focus.
When the Pooh meme was happening if you tried sending it the receiver would never get it.
Now that it has died down it's no longer a focus (though I'm still unsure if that image would be received). The same thing happens around certain events (Tiananmen Square Anniversary) where they get more extreme about the censorship.
The fact that they applied the censors to the Pooh meme shows that they'll do it for even the mildest 'threat'.
I'm not sure it's censored for the reason you've stated (the mildest 'threat' part). But I take your point. The censoring regarding June every year is a very different story. I just hope I can contribute to a more meaningful discussion here as there are simply too much misunderstanding.
Winnie the Pooh was censored in the Chinese version of the video game Kingdom Hearts III [0][1]. Do you think a massive white blot around Winnie the Pooh in every appearance is a “misunderstanding”?
As I pointed out in another comment, it was also the content of the most censored Weibo post in 2015 [2], according to the Weiboscope cenorship tracker.
These examples are very easy to find if you Google for them (assuming you can Google from your country).
I can not verify your claim since I don't play Kingdom Hearts. That's exactly my point; if the issue is very trivial then over-iterate on it seems a bit sensationalist. Official censoring some posts and 'chinese-cut' version of some imported art/entertainment are very much loathed and aware in China, 'banning' a whole commercial theme is a very different story.
"(assuming you can Google from your country)"
I think it's a bit unnecessary to assume that given that HN is largely targeting tech space and people will have very diverse reasons of not using Google? Assuming we're discussing this out of good faith one should realise if one can only read english sources it might be a little biased IMHO.
> I can not verify your claim since I don't play Kingdom Hearts
When you Google “Kingdom Hearts III China Cenorship”, Google returns more than 4 million results. Assuming there are repetitions and only 0.1% of them (i.e. 4K results) are genuine and unique. You think all these search results are fake?
I will also claim that atomic bombs exist. Do you need to make an atomic bomb yourself to verify my claim?
The first article I linked above [0] discussed several instances where Winnie the Pooh is banned, and many more it is not. So the censorship is real but not universal.
It's rather strange you assume that I support all the exaggerated points above (none of them mine). I was trying to use respectful language to engage in a meaningful discussion. I never said google results are fake or dislike english source either. 4 million results of trivia is still trivia. I don't know where these assumptions of me personally come from but I hope it's for a better understanding of the issues, not a lecture on my googling skills.
> you assume that I support all the exaggerated points above (none of them mine)
Because you have never admitted censorship of Winnie the Pooh happened on Chinese social media. You kept questioning many of the evidence I provided (“if one can only read english sources it might be a little biased IMHO”, “I can not verify your claim since I don't play Kingdom Hearts”), or dismissing evidence as “trivia”.
I don’t know if you agree that censorship of Winnie the Pooh actually happened. So I had to keep Googling for alternative sources for you. You need to point out whether you agree with the key points in the above articles, or provide solid counter evidence (with sources).
Until then, there is no way to move the discussion forward.
>Because you have never admitted censorship of Winnie the Pooh happened on Chinese social media.
I never said that censorship never happened ever in the above discussion. Maybe it wasn't clear enough for you I apologise. I'm sorry if that's the interpretation in your mind. I encourage you to read the comments again. You would notice I never denied censorship happened in China either, in multiple places. I merely point out the difference between the sensationalised notion of 'Anything related to Winnie are banned' and 'posts been censored at specific time' in China. My nephew's english name is Winnie so you can see how popular Winnie the Pooh is.
Indeed I agree there's no way to move the discussion further if the initial points were overlooked and just embarking on a path of assumptions.
I also apologize for my overly confrontational approach. I mistook you as one of the wumaodang (fifty-cent party) who keeps denying and apologizing CCP behavior. (There is one such user with exactly this user name in some of the comments in this post.)
Winnie-the-Pooh videos are clearly censored when you searched for 小熊维尼 (you only get generic Disney videos), but you can bypass the filter and find a few genuine Winnie-the-Pooh videos if you only search for 小熊维. The censorship is ongoing, even though not universal.
I have no doubts that most platforms have censored these keywords for whatever bizarre reason and it's nothing new. I refer it as 'noise' because people may have the wrong impression that all products related to Winnie and the whole thought have been banned. It is a bit different from reality.
I don't like the idea of divisive labels such as wumao, gongzhi, fenqing (they are quite dated as well if you are old as me!) it will only reduce conversations to a low quality brawl. My view is as long as debates are open, rational, and logical, progressive thinking is preserved.
I disagree that incomplete censorship is noise. Any ban is a ban, even if incomplete. Trivializing and rationalizing CCP censorship acts is why it can keep censoring so many for so long.
(Case in point: H&M is just censored from all major platforms in China, including Apple Maps [0]. This is totally unacceptable in any free society, hence this article. If people think censorship like this is noise, that’s why you will see more censorship acts in the future.)
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/winnie-the-pooh-china-ba... is an honest evaluation of cases where Winnie-the-Pooh is censored, and where it is not. This article still concludes Winnie-the-Pooh is censored (“China’s ban on that lovable fluff ball may indeed tighten”), despite many cases it is allowed.
Censorship is not binary. Saying “Winnie-the-Pooh is not censored” is misleading and dishonest, when it is clearly censored today on major video sites.
In a Time of Universal Deceit — Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act
However it is like you said it's not so binary. I think there are differences between censoring posts and banning a whole commercial theme. No one is doubting the former but anyone who doesn't understand China would think it's a dystopia if they hear the latter (which is clearly not true in my opinion). It is actually quite logical that Winnie won't be banned because of the popularity and a universal ban is not practical.
I didn't call it "noise" to play down censorship but in relative terms it is still trivial comparing to other concerning issues which are smothered by the amplification of sensationalism (IMHO). Simply ask any chinese person would they care if keywords of winnie are censored, and in comparison if MS word is banned. Such titles are more eye-catching than say 'the subtle difference in the agenda of the chinese congress' e.g
My hope of removing the 'relative noise' is to reveal real issues that affect actual majority of the chinese population and what they really care about. Focusing on sensationalised news just leads to more meaningless us/them argument.
It was the most censored Weibo post in 2015, according to Dr. Fu Kingwa, who ran the Weiboscope censorship tracker out of Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre:
IMO in this particular post, I was simply providing direct evidence refuting the claim that Winnie the Pooh is banned in China and not engaging in a nationalistic flamewar.
I can point out many examples of nationalistic, flamewar-instigating posts in this thread (such as the top comment) far more deserving (again, IMO) of reprimand than my little comment.
Obviously you can’t comment on them all, but I feel slightly targeted for my relatively benign remarks when there are much lower hanging fruit.
Regardless, I respect your judgement and the moderation that you do here, so i’ll do my best to refrain from directly responding to propagandistic lies and disinformation.
The issue in this case is that you created an account specifically to get involved in flamewars about China. That's an abuse of HN regardless of which side you're on.
I don't think most of the comments you listed were egregious. The last three, sure - but at least one of those accounts is already banned, and in any case, if posts are flagged/dead then they're already marked as unacceptable to this community, meaning the immune system is functioning. I'm not sure what more you can ask than that, and it certainly doesn't justify making things worse.
> The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.
The next dimension I predict will be the fragility of the CPC for being portrayed in a positive light. What is going to happen when hypernationalism and hyperidealism is at odds with the personal and political projects of its leaders?
Not if most of us keep claiming laziness and buy stuff that clearly say "made in China", when there are alternatives readily available either online or next to it in the aisle.
> Not if most of us keep claiming laziness and buy stuff that clearly say "made in China", when there are alternatives readily available either online or next to it in the aisle.
Somewhat US centric, but you may not know that the top trading partner of the US is no longer China. Also labor costs in china have gone up so "made in china" no longer carries a price premium for "lazy" consumers.
Agreed. I made a personal decision years ago, never to buy any Made in China products. There’s always better alternatives, of higher quality and also by supporting local manufacturers.
Be careful what you wish for. Toppling a horrible government does not always solve problems. I'm not saying we should just throw the oppressed under the bus to get stability, but an actual downfall of CCP would probably be like Saddam Hussein only exponentially worse.
There are many different definitions of "downfall". Nobody's suggesting the US ride in and dethrone the CCP, leaving a power vacuum in its wake. There are several reasons that would (and should) never happen.
All I'm suggesting is that there is rot at the heart of the CCP, which over time could hopefully eat away at their effectiveness, favorability, and eventually their power over Chinese society. Even then I'm not holding my breath, but it's a nice thought.
> Be careful what you wish for. Toppling a horrible government does not always solve problems. I'm not saying we should just throw the oppressed under the bus to get stability, but an actual downfall of CCP would probably be like Saddam Hussein only exponentially worse.
I'm not so sure about that. Iraq has an unstable ethnic configuration that the US was in the position to preserve for dubious geopolitical reasons. If it had been allowed to fragment along those lines, toppling Saddam would have probably gone better. China does have some minority ethnic regions, but I doubt anyone would care if they broke away except Han Chinese nationalists. I'd say it's break up would be more like the Soviet Union's, except it would probably go better since the Chinese economy is far more competitive.
You might want to check the historical record, there.
There have been a bunch of government collapses and insurrections in China over the last few hundred years, featuring an occasional Chinese Jesus (seriously) or sometimes mystical wushu boxers (also seriously). They all killed 10s of millions, some of them close to 100m.
You may get a Soviet Union's relatively peaceful breakup if you follow Soviet Union's relatively gradual transition from power. It's not a given, even the Soviets had their 1991 coup attempt.
Also, it's not like Soviet Union's breakup didn't leave any problems. Post-breakup Russia has a track record of military conflicts - Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine. Post-breakup Belarus fell back to dictatorship.
I don't think we have a reliable recipe for low-harm transitioning away from authoritarian regimes.
> The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.
The fragility of American imperialism and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.
That’s why they focus on creating propaganda like this.
I’ve liked some Field of Vision stuff before (shining a light on content moderation practices on Silicon Valley social media platforms), yet this feels part of the larger ‘West hating on China’/sinophobia + red scare stuff. It’s getting boring.
> The fragility of American imperialism and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.
This is 100% unarguably, demonstrably false. Americans write books critical about American imperialism (https://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Cruise-Secret-History-Empire...), we make (and fund with public broadcasting money!) documentaries that criticize both the effectiveness and wisdom of our own military efforts (https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/). Most US media has been very critical of recent military efforts. These are just a few examples.
Is the US perfect? No. Are there examples of it the US behaving in a way that makes its citizens less than proud? Yes. But there is a wide gulf between the US and the CCP and what one can get away with saying and doing in the US vs. what one can say or do under CCP control.
I didn't know anything about Fred Hampton, so I looked him up (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton). I suppose his example highlights the difference between the US and China, as his family was paid $1.85 million for his death, which is probably still not what they have wanted, but an acknowledgement of government wrongdoing. When is the last time CCP acknowledged wrongdoing?
McCarthyism offers another interesting contrast. Read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism. There was lots of opposition to McCarthy. Even a noted anti-communism person such as President Truman criticized McCarthy. Most if McCarthy's victims got their day in court, and ultimately the scale (affecting hundreds of people) is dwarfed by the scale of CCP persecution of pro-democracy or those who wish to practice a religion not endorsed by the CCP, which has damaged the lives of millions.
> When is the last time CCP acknowledged wrongdoing?
I don’t know what the last time was, but I know Deng Xiaoping famously described Mao as “70% good, 30% wrong”.
For me, a small payoff a decade later to the family of a victim of a political assassination doesn’t really amount to much. Again, the established order in the US is happy to apologize and tolerate dissent and preach “free speech” as long as its rule isn’t threatened.
It was illegal for union officers in the US to be communist party members up until unions lost their political strength. The Communist Control Act is still on the books but unenforced. Would it remain that way if in the next few years an ascendant communist party like the Black Panthers emerged? I doubt it.
> CCP persecution of pro-democracy
Do you have the slightest idea of how elections work in China? Compare the National People’s Congress to the US Senate. Which is more representative? Which has more minor parties?
> those who wish to practice a religion not endorsed by the CCP
Which religion are you referring to here? Islam? Is that why China has more mosques per capita for their Muslim population than the US?
No. The items I linked to all criticise the entirety of the events they describe, not just how to be a better imperialist. Please point out where in the linked to items you get your interpretation.
All things considered, the Hong Kong police did what they had to given their precarious position. Compare the 2 deaths during a year of protesting to the 19 deaths within a couple weeks of the George Floyd protests. Keep in mind that they're stuck with the Hong Kong police even if they are allowed to become independent, so it doesn't make sense to demonize them.
> Keep in mind that they're stuck with the Hong Kong police even if they are allowed to become independent
It’s worth noting that a lot of the “Hong Kong police” that were involved in breaking up protests seemed to come from the mainland and only spoke mandarin, not cantonese.
This is complete hearsay. If China could so easily violate one country, two systems, they wouldn't have cared about a formal extradition bill to begin with.
That tweet is exactly what I mean by hearsay. A few clips cherrypicked from thousands of hours of footage, showing a police officer speaking a few words in the second most popular language in the area is not evidence that they're undercover Chinese officers.
"Second most popular language in the area" is a gross distortion of reality. It would make zero sense for a local police officer to choose to yell at local protestors or local colleagues in a non-native language that carries significant stigma in HK.
It's not a "gross distortion of reality" to question a interpretation a clip in a way that you disagree with, especially since you lack the context as well. It doesn't change how little evidence there is that Chinese officers were secretly policing Hong Kong.
No it isn't. The people of Myanmar have been sharing lots and lots of videos and media showing china has sent police officers and soldiers to the military government to keep order. It's totally in the CCP playbook to replace local police with their own cadres.
Again, complete hearsay that China is supporting the military coup. They had good relations with incumbent government due to the belt and road initiative.
> They had good relations with incumbent government due to the belt and road initiative.
The incumbent government of Myanmar WAS the military, just in a less overt fashion. They were the ones in charge of almost everything, the main change is now they don’t have a facade of democracy.
During covid a lot of people were isolated. I doubt anyone mainlanders wanted to risk life to confront the protestors. Note how docile Chinese mainlanders are when they travel around the world.
Where are the evidences of such government-sponsored activities? As I said, normal Chinese mainlanders usually don't have much impetus to confront others, even if they wholeheartedly stand against the counterparts, in this case, most mainlanders would be against HK protestors. Then these people are organized by CCP, then what are the evidences?
I disagree (but don't think your comment deserves oblivion).
The HK police force was riddled with corruption in the past (1940s to 1970s), but then (after the creation in 1974 of the Independent Commission Against Corruption) turned around and became highly professional, trusted, and respected, I'd say ("Asia's finest").
However, with the 2014 umbrella movement, they were necessarily pitted against the pro-democracy protesters, having to do the government's bidding, and things got polarised. Polarisation got worse with the 2019 (until now) Anti-Extradition Law protests: restaurants etc. declared themselves "yellow" (pro democracy, pro protesters) or "blue" (pro police, pro Beijing). [1]
And, yeah, things got so heated then that the cohesion slipped away and, I think, the HK police did more than "what they had to" while pushing back against the protesters, particularly after Chris Tang's appointment as the Commissioner of Police in November 2019.
Police brutality, excessive force, refusal to show identification (as required by law) [2], maybe even falsification of evidence have severely deteriorated trust.
Now, with the total crackdown by Beijing, using the courts and the police as their tool, things are only getting worse [3]. :-/
I have to deal with the police on an almost daily basis in the last couple years. They've gotten infinitely worse… they're unnecessarily aggressive, confrontational, and unreasonable. Everyone (almost) hates them here, with good reason. They've basically decided that the public is their enemy and their mission is no longer to protect but to harass.
I also live in HK, and agree with everything you say. But I would change the harass to control. Disagreement and disrespect is what triggers them most. It reminds me of police in the US cities. Grandparent says it's just like they were in the 60s again.
Protests in some countries might be mild and orderly, or put little pressure to the government and mostly ignored - but this wouldn't necessarily be a sign that the government is more open to protest, just that protests happen to be more "for show" than threatening.
It's also about the culture of police violence. In the US citizen life is cheaper (and one would guess, in China too), judging from the number of police shootings alone, and the excessive police force used for everything and anything, that to have deaths in a protest/riot etc is kinda taken as granted or "the way things are". This extends to protest cop behavior.
In some countries mild or even heavy violence would be tolerated, but a single death in a demonstration could cause resignations or bring down a government. So there are countries with tons of protests for decades involving 10s or 100s of thousands without a single death (mine didn't have a protest death for ages, despite tons of protests and violent clashes and supression by the police), and countries where a protest can turn into deadly suppression almost immediately (e.g. some Latin American countries).
That would likely be even more extreme, wouldn't it? As far as I remember, the protests in HK were massive (as in 5-10% of the population in a single event).
I wasn't aware that there was a single protest event that included 10s of millions of people in the US. If you count all people that were involved in any protest during the last year, I'd expect the numbers in HK to be significantly higher still.
It's also not a competition, nobody is trying to diminish the US protests, but I don't think that events of a similar magnitude would have gone down as peaceful in the US.
Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN, and especially please don't take threads further into nationalistic and ideological flamewar.
Comments like this point discussion in extremely predictable, tedious, and nasty directions.
How is this a CCP talking point? If anything, the fact that Western HN commenters can't differentiate Hong Kong and the CCP actually paints the CCP as less violent than they actually are.
> the fact that Western HN commenters can't differentiate Hong Kong and the CCP
This is not a fact. Do you have a citation?
edit: it's also a pretty vague statement that could be satisfied by finding any two people who "can't differentiate" between HK and the CCP. You didn't say "the majority of Western HN commenters".
> The comment I replied to was equating my defense of the Hong Kong police as "a CCP talking point." How else am I supposed to interpret it?
Not as equating HK with the CCP?
You wrote "How is this a CCP talking point?". I don't know if touting "only 2 deaths by HK police" is or isn't a CCP talking point, but it ignores the question of how many HK residents were extradited[0] to the mainland, never to be heard from again. So omitting that discussion makes it a statement favorable to the CCP (or at least neutral).
[0] if you even want to call the process "extradition" and not straight up "abduction"
Also, the top comment who replied to me is using a single cherry picked clip of an officer speaking a couple Mandarin words as evidence that Hong Kong police are secretly CCP.
> I don't know if touting "only 2 deaths by HK police" is or isn't a CCP talking point, but it ignores the question of how many HK residents were extradited[0] to the mainland, never to be heard from again.
I explained why the film wasn't overly harsh to the Hong Kong police. This has nothing to do with the extradition bill.
Unfortunately it's like sports teams. People's lenses are colored by which team they're on, and it's hard to be objective.
I'm actually sad that the one country two systems experiment looks like it's over, at least the political side, not the economic side. But you can't run a city if there are months of people rioting on the streets.
The whole point of "not splitting" is a lesson learned in 2014, to continue showing support for the goals no matter the methods seen in protest. Nobody knew whether another in the group is an agent provocateur or a genuine radical. Nobody knew who were throwing the molotovs. Nobody even thought that the protest was likely achieve any its goals. The only thing that could not be faked is the sheer volume of people showing up; nobody could pay that many people to show up at a protest.
Therefore the only thing they could do is to keep showing up in support of the demands for as long as they could personally afford to do so, and try not to pay attention to the methods of others when they already knew that all methods were probably going to fail.
This is the kind of content I'd like to see less of on Hacker News.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
There are other platforms (Reddit) where there's plenty of discussion around topics like this.
Not to say that HN should be a bastion of blissful techie ignorance, but it would be nice to be able to filter out sad, political, or controversial content.
The suppression of democracy is something I'd like to see less of globally.
Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of leaving it up on Hacker News is that free speech is essential to both Hacking and News.
I hadn't known that such a film had drawn an Oscar nomination nor that the country had attempted to suppress news of the nomination within the mainland.
We may disagree here, but if wholesale suppression of the democratic rights of 7.5 million people living in the first world continues to be advanced, I'd contend that it isn't getting enough discussion.
Most isn't all, and I would make the case for an exception here... at least in ideal terms. The HK protests had a vanguard element that qualifies as "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." This film captures some of that.
That said, HN (like most social media) doesn't handle this kind of content very well... in practical terms. Might be best to go with a practical "do what you can do well" approach and avoid topics you can't do well.
Maybe a "no comments" post type for topics like this?
I don't even think political content is inherently not HN worthy, but the comment section just always devolves into flamewars and "x is bad" vs "y is bad". I would really like to see a filter or harder moderation on the submitters of this type of content.
End-user technology (as opposed to military) starts to play a broader and broader role in political events those days, and places like HN are a very good place to have people actually designing those tools realize what the implication are for real people around the world.
As an example, this video made me instantly realize how much there is a need for truely decentralized technology, that no government could shut down.
I already knew it of course, but now i have the faces of those students in my mind. I happen to be working on encryption for a messaging app at the moment.
I know I'm contributing to the problem here by replying to you, but the guidelines also say:
> Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.
There is no doubt in my mind that Taiwan is the next target unless another axis of power comes to its aid. It's only a matter of time and the success in HK would have only bolstered CCP's conviction. Because China is hosting the winter Olympics, I don't think they will do anything of this scale before that.
I've been on a bit of an youtube archiving kick lately. Does anyone know of a good list of youtube videos that were uploaded during the protests (e.g. documenting the protest, police brutality, etc)? I'm probably too late to the party though, since I understand a lot of protesters took down their social media uploads in support of the protests after the national security law was enacted.
UK abandoned HK, creating a vacuum, leaving the door open to China to step in and take over; and nobody wants to risk stepping-in to block China from absorbing HK.
China will (literally) fight anyone who will dare step their foot in HK to 'guarantee' its independence. I don't believe anyone is able to stand up to China, apart from Russia or USA. And neither are willing to go to war for HK. It's someone else's problem. Worse case scenario when the transition is complete, HK will die as a global financial centre, and its big-banks operations will move to a more USA-friendly place.
Poor HK-ers could as well replace their flag.
It's a pity, but such is the luck of the ant in front of a elephant.
In the US I've been sadly unsurprised by how little coverage Hong Kong has gotten recently.
Our politicians are a disgrace. They scream about democracy when a bunch of hooligans riot at the Capitol, but when a human-rights defiling government legitimately suppresses democracy for 7M people, they stay silent.
They stay silent on organ harvesting, on the quasi-genocide of the Uighurs, and any number of other human rights abuses.
If the politicians, particularly those on the left, had an ounce of principle and even attempted to walk their talk, they would be leading the charge against China at every turn.
Here is a chance to step up for human rights and democracy in a big way, and it's crickets from our leaders.
> to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China
I did not know that Taiwan is part of mainland China! When did the reunification happen?
In all serious though, the original bill was because HK government wanted to extradite someone who killed his pregnant girlfriend to Taiwan, I wonder when did people spin this into extradition to mainland China now?
> to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China
I did not know that Taiwan is part of mainland China! When did the reunification happen?
In all serious though, the original bill was because HK government wanted to extradite someone who killed his pregnant girlfriend to Taiwan, I wonder when did people spin this into extradition to mainland China now?
The Economist did a comprehensive piece on the future of Hong Kong [1] recently. The CPC has little to lose by crushing Hong Kong's democracy, which they are most assuredly doing. Even if HK loses a healthy proportion of its best and brightest citizens (many are moving or have moved already), Hong Kong represents only a tiny fraction of China's overall GDP. In the long time horizon of China's development, Hong Kong's health is viewed as inconsequential.
To me, the Hong Kong situation is incredibly sad. Hong Kong was always this unique bastion of feisty entrepreneurism and social liberalism. It was a great place to visit and a fountain of ideas and dynamism that other regions would do well to take notes on, if not to copy outright.
I wish there was cause to be optimistic about Hong Kong, but I don't think that there is.
The rioters set fire to the bank. How is this okay. Regular people like you and I work at the bank and now their livelihoods could be lost. Violence begets more violence. I cannot sympathize with the rioters.
I'll try to strictly source my remarks and refrain from commenting on the political content of the HK demonstrations to keep this purely factual, as I think this could be a rather controversial thread; however, it's interesting how different the reception to these demonstrations is to the reception to the US Capitol riots and the BLM demonstrations of last year. Hong Kong demonstrators have stormed government buildings[1], thrown gasoline bombs at police[2], attacked plainclothes police[3], and the like. In total, one pro-liberalization demonstrator died after falling from a parking garage[4], and one anti-liberalization demonstrator died after being bludgeoned with a brick by pro-liberalization demonstrators[5]. To keep this in context, the current Hong Kong SAR government is democratically elected[6] according to the provisions of an international treaty signed by the PRC and the UK which took effect in 1997[7].
If these events occurred in the United States, whose government surveils almost all telecommunications[8], what would its government do? One part of that answer is to have the military occupy a city with limited congressional representation (DC)[9]. This is clearly a much more restrictive measure than the measures taken by the HKSAR government, but its presentation by non-Chinese media has been the exact opposite. For what it's worth (zero), my opinion is that both government responses are consistent with what can be expected given their respective situations. Why are they portrayed differently? Is it ideology, or am I missing something that differentiates the two?
When someone wants to defend the indefensible, false equivalency seems like the go-to tactic nowadays. It's basically: "After ignoring all the extremely important differences, isn't this thing you like just like this thing you hate? Hypocrite."
I understand your point, but what I was asking for is a non-ideological distinction. Every point you have made is from the ideological position that supports liberal democracy, but those who support people’s democracy would levy the same accusations in reverse. I’m not interested in hearing either of those points of view, because there simply cannot be a productive discussion on those terms.
I would like to understand the empirical situation. You suggest that I’m equating the two, but I’m actually just ignorant on the _substantive_ arguments. If you would be kind enough to enlighten me on that front, I would truly appreciate it.
In DC, people tried to overturn the US Congress, which's elected by and representing the American people.
Where in HK, people protested against the HK government which is appointed by the CCP, and the HK legislature where half of the seats are appointed by the CCP and the rest is elected with vetting by the CCP. The HK gov (both exec. + leg. branches) don't represent the HK people, they represent the CCP.
That's the non-ideological distinction. US Congress is authorized by the people. But the HK gov (both exec. + leg. branches) are authorized by the CCP. And unlike US, people in HK have no peaceful way to influence the politics in HK by voting.
You can't just ignore the ideological elements of this, because they are at the heart of why people feel differently about these events. If I attack someone because I want to rob them, I'm the bad guy. If I attack someone because they are about to hurt some children, I'm the good guy. The only difference here is the intent of both parties, and you can't simply brush that aside because it isn't "empirical".
To curb this type of simplistic view on Sino-US relationship, and give both sides some light equally:
> free and fair democratic election
Depending on your sources, this can be a questionable statement.
> freedom from the Chinese Government's dictatorial rule.
Depending on your sources, this can be an equally questionable statement. Case in point: most of Chinese mainlander call CCP's rule as people's democracy. And Tiger Yang, the foreign affair chief in CCP, who recently slapped Mr. Blinken, claimed "American Democracy" should not be judged by Americans only, and he believed American Democracy is not fully supported in USA.
That kind of comparison relies on leaving the definitions of important concepts undefined. For instance the word "democracy" in "CCP's rule as people's democracy" and "free and fair democratic election" is being used to refer to incompatible things. To an American's ear, the CCP's use is an Orwellian inversion akin to "Freedom is Slavery."
"To an American's ear, the CCP's use is an Orwellian inversion akin to "Freedom is Slavery"
Frankly speaking the US is not the only country in the world and in this context why would other countries give a f..k about how it sounds to America's ear. They could be backwards in relation to western view on human rights but you can't really tell independent country how they do their things.
> Frankly speaking the US is not the only country in the world and in this context why would other countries give a f..k about how it sounds to America's ear.
Undemocratic governments like China's don't, except to muddy the waters and troll.
> Depending on your sources, this can be a questionable statement.
No it's not. The 2020 election was very clearly not rigged. The Trump campaign had every opportunity to bring evidence out that something was wrong in courts, and they didn't.
The Capital Riot wasn't about people with legitimate doubts who weren't being heard, they were people who's doubts were heard, and then dismissed because they didn't have any real evidence and because their claims were clearly wrong.
> To keep this in context, the current Hong Kong SAR government is democratically elected[6] according to the provisions of an international treaty signed by the PRC and the UK which took effect in 1997[7].
Democratically elected ? Note that hong kong functional constituency system is fully controlled by CCP.
Functional constituencies are part of the Hong Kong legislature. Imagine that half of the US Congress is appointed by the President of the United States.
> To keep this in context, the current Hong Kong SAR government is democratically elected[6] according to the provisions of an international treaty signed by the PRC and the UK which took effect in 1997
Many countries, including the US and UK, have indirect elections for high offices. Are they also non-democratic?
Personally, my answer to that question is yes, but I’m willing to apply principles equally. Again, this is beside the point of what I was asking, as I’m not trying to get into an ideological debate.
Indirect elections imply that the members who could vote are elected by the people.
In HK, the people who could "vote" are appointed by the CCP. This isn't indirect election. This's indirect appointment.
The obvious difference is that US citizens elected its Congress representatives, while the PRC 'assigns' the majority of the electors in the Hong Kong parliament.
Also while the official death count is low, there are many protestors who simply vanished from HK.
One of the most striking things I have witnessed has been the letters that young protesters have been writing in case they are arrested or disappeared by security services. These “last letters,” to be read in the event that they don’t return from the protests, explain to their families why they are protesting, and also serve as a “no-suicide declaration.” Nine thousand, two hundred, and sixteen people have been arrested during the 12 months of protests, a figure much larger than the total prison population of 7,023. This discrepancy, combined with a series of mysterious deaths and disappearances that have been explained as suicides or accidents, has made protesters wary of their own safety. So the letters serve to say, “I will not be another suicide statistic.” As one young person wrote in their letter, “I have no regrets, not for a moment; even though missing or dead, I will never stay silent in the face of injustice”
From US State Department itself on the situation in Hong Kong [0].
>There were no credible reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings.
This is China-Hawk Mike Pompeo's state department BTW, report released in 2020 well after protests ended. If Pompeo couldn't find mystery murders, it probably doesn't exist.
US riot - citizens who enjoy democratic freedom protested against republic/democratic government. protest got violent, government handled it.
Hong Kong riot - citizens who enjoy(ed) democratic freedom protested against encroaching dictatorship. protest was peaceful, but then turned violent when police faking as protestors started violence. protest got violent, government handled it (openly and in secret). The dictatorship increased its power at the end.
I think the main difference is that the chinese would not dare to dock their aircraft carrier in new york, while the US did so to provoke the chinese communust party in hong kong.
This is all about american interests and destabilizing china ir other countries.
I wonder what will happen in q few years. Will americans accept that another super power will dictate them what to do like the US currently does to their allies: europe cant build a pipeline to russia, in order to protect american interests in ukraine and poland. Europe cant use chinese hardware, while its proven that just a few years ago the americans listened to all communication of angela merkel, europe cant do business with the russians because they are sanctioned, nor with iran, etc...
> I think the main difference is that the chinese would not dare to dock their aircraft carrier in new york, while the US did so to provoke the chinese communust party in hong kong.
This is a tiring argument. China has only 1 ally - North Korea. The rest of the countries in the proximity of China are adversarial and aligned with US - Japan, SK particularly. If Canada and Mexico were close allies of China, you betchya there would be a lot more going on along the east and west coast of US.
In fact, Japan and SK are counting on US to defend them. Does Canada and Mexico have such relationship with China? No. Instead, the US+Canada have NORAD.
> I think the main difference is that the chinese would not dare to dock their aircraft carrier in new york, while the US did so to provoke the chinese communust party in hong kong.
So it's the US's fault that China tried to impose an extradition law in HK? Because the USN ... had a port visit in Hong Kong? You know China approved that port visit, right?
2m out of 7.5m showed up to protest the loss of Hong Kong Sovereignty, that’s more than 1 in 4 of the entire pop
The storming of the capital was by a crowd of a couple thousand in a pop of 350m. So something like .0057% of the entire pop
In response to the HK protests individuals running for democratic office were thrown in jail on abstract and vague clauses from the new National Security Law, which coincidentally is a treaty violation to the original Sino-British agreement
In response to the Capitol riots, Trump lost his Twitter and Parler was shut down by private tech companies
At many different times in 2019, 1.7M-2M Hong Kong citizens, or 25% of the population, proudly protested in the streets and requested for their freedom. If only something good had came out of it.
Imagine if you were a proud free parisian, and all of a sudden, you now live under nazi regime with concentration camps. That's probably what it feels like.
Regarding arrest for accessing online information, I have become fascinated lately with the concept of legal warfare. It is the use of legal constructions to align other governments or subordinate bureaucracies to your strategic goals. For example, when Russia invaded Ukraine, they used the pretext that only volunteers from Russia were traveling to Ukraine to support a legal separatist movement.
Now none of these claims withstand any sort of legal scrutiny, but that's not the point. In the year or so it takes the Hague to spell out the obvious, that the Russian military in coordination with the Russian presidency created a bogus legal argument that aligns with their strategic goal of annexing as much of Eastern Europe as possible, the invasion is already completed and Donetsk is effectively a Russian vassal in the middle of Ukranian territory.
Just like in the time of the American Revolution guerilla tactics were innovations to the stodgy preconceptions of war that the British had, where they believed a gentleman's war should be fought by squares of men taken broadsides at regular intervals, we must recognize that armed conflicts today are always accompanied by legal warfare, the legal activities that support broader strategic objectives.
The current difference is that now it's happenning during a live broadcast, and the actions are being tried to be justified (as "justice") through existing legal frameworks.
That's one of the ways Empires grow their periphery regions. Another way is when an Empire spreads its culture and abundance to orbiting regions, so that inhabitants of the periphery get a personal interest in becoming the part of the Empire and bringing a change to their governing bodies to align with the metropolis.
Just as a point of comparison (not justifying russia or the US), the region of donetsk (and crimea) was supermajority ethnically russian, and by the time the US overthrew the hawaiian kingdom, ethnic hawaiians were a minority within the (mostly imported) population, so in the case of both russia and the US's actions the majority of local populace gained political power in the aftermath of the takeovers:
fair point, my reference to "the current difference" was more about the ongoing Crimea situation rather than the HK situation, I should have been more clear in that regard. I still believe that in the HK case there's a vested interest of certain political elite (rather than economic) strata to be aligned with Beijing.
Seems to me that everyone wants to cast their war as a just war [0]. If that means deniable approaches or false flag operations [1] then so be it. In particular I found this excerpt from [1] ironic in the context of your comment:
> Russo-Swedish War
In 1788, the head tailor at the Royal Swedish Opera received an order to sew a number of Russian military uniforms. These were then used by the Swedes to stage an attack on Puumala, a Swedish outpost on the Russo-Swedish border, on 27 June 1788. This caused an outrage in Stockholm and impressed the Riksdag of the Estates, the Swedish national assembly, who until then had refused to agree to an offensive war against Russia. The Puumala incident allowed King Gustav III of Sweden, who lacked the constitutional authority to initiate unprovoked hostilities without the Estates' consent, to launch the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790).
We can define propaganda in contrast to psychological warfare. Whereas psychological warfare is the dissemination of cultural products by a military to the population of a foreign adversary in pursuit of a strategic objective, propaganda is the dissemination of cultural products by a government to their own people in the pursuit of strategic objectives. This definition serves the discussion of propaganda in the broader context of warfare well.
That would be considered propaganda. I was too strict by claiming propaganda can only be done to a government's own citizens.
In contrast a good example of psychological warfare would be when Russia organized a protest and an attendant counter-protest in Texas that were made to appear "organic."[0] So the difference between the two is that one proudly has an official "Russia" label on it and the other is clandestine.
So you might consider acts such as arresting journalists for accessing public databases as a form of legal warfare, where the strategic goal is to incapacitate any sort of democratic activity in Hong Kong, and abusing the legal system to criminalize the behavior of democracy activists ex post facto can then be considered a sort of "weapon" in an extremely broad sense of the word.
IMO the political posturing is paramount. Ultimate goal is to provide an sufficient truth calibrated to deter bluff calling. Fundamentally most countries don't want to or have capability to intervene, so the purpose is to give competing parties a credible "out" with manageable political cost, i.e. reduce bluff calling to angry letters / sanctions versus hard military retaliation. Gain objective while deter / mitigate the most unwanted responses.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a scholar's opinion on the application of the law, not the law. What courts make of it, and how they develop the law over time, cannot be concluded at this point.
And it goes on to say, a few lines below what you quoted:
If someone refused to use a preferred pronoun — and it was determined to constitute discrimination or harassment — could that potentially result in jail time?
It is possible, Brown says, through a process that would start with a complaint and progress to a proceeding before a human rights tribunal. If the tribunal rules that harassment or discrimination took place, there would typically be an order for monetary and non-monetary remedies. A non-monetary remedy may include sensitivity training, issuing an apology, or even a publication ban, he says.
If the person refused to comply with the tribunal's order, this would result in a contempt proceeding being sent to the Divisional or Federal Court, Brown says. The court could then potentially send a person to jail “until they purge the contempt,” he says.
“The path to prison is not straightforward. It’s not easy. But, it’s there. It’s been used before in breach of tribunal orders.”
Time will tell... For the moment an arrestation over a trivial matter like this is a very big deal. Also the red guards are actively brigading here, elsewhere on the net and irl to impose their cultural revolution, in addition of hijacking the legal system, so the comparison with communist China is very apt.
Contempt of court is anything but minor. Violating a court order, in particular a gag order regarding an ongoing case, is a very serious offense. Casting it as a law banning speech in any way similar to what Beijing is doing in Hong Kong is dishonest.
This modern red gaurd you worry about is built on top of what social media enables, amplifies and rewards.
Two points worth making about "revolutions" built on top of social media -
1. They dont generate outcomes.
We now have 15 years of data on social medias bullshit revolutions that prove it. Best example would be what has happened in Tunisia or what outcomes that Hope and Change guy produced beyond getting himself a job at Netflix.
2. The clueless buffoon class behind social media algos of the last 15 years have finally woken up to their own cluelessness, so the algos are changing. Reward mechanisms are changing. What gets amplified is changing. Who gets thrown off the network is evolving. And even though all these changes are still in the realm of half baked shit, one thing they ensure is the type of "revolutions" and "revolutionaries" propped up over the last 15 year wont resemble what gets propped up in the next 15.
So I wouldnt loose too much sleep. Especially in Canada.
"The orders instruct him to not make public any information that would identify A.B., or the medical professionals involved, to call A.B. by the child’s preferred name and gender pronoun, and to not share his opinions of the case publicly."
"In June 2020, C.D. gave an interview to a YouTube channel, where he’s alleged to have identified health-care providers, revealed information about A.B.’s mental health, medical status or treatments, and gave out information that could reveal C.D., A.B. and the mother’s identity."
"“This order should not restrict C.D.’s right to express his opinion in his private communications with family, close friends and close advisors, provided none of these individuals is part of or connected with the media or any public forum, and provided C.D. obtain assurances from those with whom he shares information or views that they will not share that information with others,” the court said."
It sounds like his arrest is more due to him repeatedly discussing the case in public rather than the pronouns he used.
That's a specific court order involving a specific parent and a specific child. There are all sorts of idiosyncratic orders like that, not just in Canada but in the US.
From online source: "Bill C-16 does not allow for Canadian citizens to be jailed or fined simply for using the wrong gender pronoun when addressing a person.
Bill C-16 could lead to an organization having to pay damages to a person, but only if proof of a wider pattern of discrimination can be established."
The irony is that HK is being used as a model to get rid of peaceful protest in the U.K. - 10 years in jail for peacefully walking up the road with a sign that annoys an MP.
It is not an exaggeration. I was there, joining several protests including the CHRF 2M protest. In addition, the police estimates is always wrong (of course they want the numbers to be as low as possible). One example was a protest around Victoria Park. According to “official police figures” it was 180k attending - but they only counted the people in the limited Victoria Park square, it was completely PACKED. They didn’t count the hundreds of thousands of people outside the square who couldn’t fit in, they also didn’t count the people stuck in the MTR next to the park, who couldn’t even fit on the streets. The “official police statistics” is always off by a magnitude of x.
I was also there, but in my opinion 1.7M was an exaggeration. Don’t get me wrong, there were A LOT of people, the whole area from Victoria Park to Tamar Park was packed with people. There was also a constant flow of people coming in from North Point, a good 20 minute walk to the starting point.
Police estimates were definitely wrong, but the estimates from organisers are also always exaggerated, for the same reasons you mentioned the police estimates are wrong.
What is your estimate, and how did you measure it?
I live in Paris where most of French demonstrations take place (including the yellow vest movement) but I can't pretend to have better estimates than all local and global media sources and public observers.
Historically, HK protestors grossly over exaggerate for optics, but MSM usually endorses organizer headcount uncritically. Reality consistently closer to police (under)estimates. Professionals at crowd control are better at estimating crowd sizes. Study from HKU of pre 2019 protests:
And another, estimates protesters had to occupy 18 miles of streets to pack 1M protestors, actual protests occupied 1 mile. Acknowledges not exact science, but leans towards conservative estimate of 250k... incidentally close to police estimates.
The articles you are referring to doesn’t show the full picture. In all protests only a part of the crowd is visible on the streets, the majority of the day is spent trying to get up to the streets from the MTR.
HKU has 15 years of data points on HK protests. There is reliable pattern of protestor organizers significantly overestimating and police mildly underestimating. Overall HKU and Police estimates are much more aligned. These two parties are actual subject matter experts vs protest organizers, ergo based on historic data and expertise, organizer estimates should be presumed to be less reliable / credible. Doesn't mean 2019 protests weren't massive. They're just likely half as massive as what makes for good headlines.
Flamewar comments like this will get you banned here, regardless of which side you're flaming for or against, or what about. They make discussion reliably terrible, such as in the thread below. No more of this please. You also broke the site guidelines egregiously in other ways. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules.
Edit: we've had to warn you about this repeatedly in the past. If you continue to abuse the site like this we will have to ban you, so please fix this.
> They simply said there is a brigade of "america bad, china good"
And there isn't, but there are comments that refuse to jump to shallow thinking and consider how we'd see the protests, reactions and outcomes had they happened elsewhere. That's very different though.
Why are we treating this as an either/or? China and America largely use the same tactics to suppress protest, and they're bad in both places.
The only significant difference is that in China, the media suppression comes from the government, and in America, it comes from the leaders of the media itself.
Large American media outlets, large swaths of vocal people and bots on social media, well known american politicians, and people playing coy on the internet.
This sort of flamewar comment will get you banned here. It's obviously not what this site is supposed to be for. Grandiose meta rhetoric is particularly tedious. No more of this, please. Same with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26570724 and using HN for ideological/political battle generally.
Understood but what I'm taking home here is that you are taking a side to issues regarding the CCP and it's abuse of human rights as "ideological and grandiose meta rhetoric".
You were more than happy to allow discussions of human rights abuses in America and elsewhere. I'm having trouble understanding why the CCP is restricted.
Here's another CCP human rights related discussion you shut down. I can name more examples. Please explain.
This is why passionate users on all sides of every topic are convinced that the moderators are secretly in cahoots with their opponents: it's the same psychological mechanism producing a galaxy of contradictory conclusions. The site and mods are the same for everybody; what varies are the passions of the perceiver. Those are what determine the conclusions people come to because they determine which datapoints you notice and how you weight them (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...).
People on the opposite side from you feel like the mods are biased the opposite way. It's the same mechanism that makes sports fans feel like the refs are against them and drivers feel like they're the one who always gets pulled over for a speeding ticket.
To assess things more accurately, here are some points to consider: (1) We moderate discussions that break the site guidelines and/or go against the intended spirit of HN when we see them happening, regardless of what the topic is or which sides different commenters are taking. (2) We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). People can help with that by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. (3) We really don't care what side you're on, and a lot of the time don't even notice. That may sound weird, but it's just what happens to the brain after doing anything hundreds of thousands of times over enough years.
2. Hong Kong people, add oil (basically a statement of encouragement)
3. Five demands, not one less
4. There are no rioters, only tyranny
5. The Hong Kong Police know the law, yet break the law (I haven't seen this one around in many English-speaking circles so I can't really give an accurate translation from the eyes of HKers)
These were basically the slogans used by the protestors back in 2019. Unfortunately, saying any of these is now considered an "act of sedition" by the Hong Kong government, after the passing of the National Security Law last year.
I'd like to share this strong stance openly. I fully support both sides to openly discuss their standings and rationale, not the "cancelling" tactics that suffocates constructive debates.
It's a fundamental issue of the kind of people who will do whatever it takes to have power over others. You meet plenty of people like this that work in corporations stepping on others and backstabbing to get promoted or get that raise.
Exactly this - Chinese people are not fundamentally different from us. We have more or less the same desires or worries and the same type of people usually come to power. Politicians of all sides always wanted to exert a degree of control over the society and today's technology finally can make it happen. There is no way they'll pass on such opportunity. It is taking small steps - they start with the control of money - the equivalents of IRS have live access to individuals and corporation bank accounts. Then you have promotion of cashless society. Once they'll get control over your means to eat, they'll take on controlling behaviours. It's going downhill.
You need to get recalibrated. 25% of the people of HK were involved in protests in some form or the other.
Boogaloo Boys do not consist of 80 million US citizens. They're a fringe group trying to be a militia. HK citizens were violent because their voices were not heard, they're not a militia, nor are they fighting to oppress and upend democracy, they're fighting for the exact opposite.
The people who were violent were definitely nowhere near 25%, most probably not even 5%.
You can see in video after video that they're mostly young people (20s), and their message was "burn with us" [1]. Carrie Lam withdrew the bill and that still wasn't enough for them. Realistically, they were never going to get the 5 demands met, and it was clear they wanted to incite police violence.
There were plenty of people, especially those who were a bit older and those who owned small businesses who wished they would go away, and the national security law has guaranteed that. I know HK culture is quite separate from Mainland culture in quite a few aspects, but I can't see how any of the violence has helped.
anyone else have family/friends working/born and raised in hk and have zero care about the "protests" ? yeah most people go about their lives while the media bread and circus blasted this to western audiences when it was trendy.
extremely amusing to watch internet nobodies absolutely nuke reddit with hk posts when chances are they have no idea how to locate hk on a map
Well, it's hardly surprising that media reports about the integration of a fairly liberal city into a very repressive dictatorship.
Honestly, how do you feel about anything that isn't local news? Most of national news will be reporting about people you will never meet and don't know too.
Liberal yes. But they insist on "democracy" which is ridiculous, as it didn't happen under the British. They "almost" instated it shortly before the handover, but didn't succeed for some reason. Extremely amusing indeed.
And HK people's lives were almost unbearable under the tycoons' feudalism, which has nothing to do with Beijing.
"documents recently released by the National Archives in Britain suggest that beginning in the 1950s, the colonial governors who ran Hong Kong repeatedly sought to introduce popular elections but abandoned those efforts in the face of pressure by Communist Party leaders in Beijing.
"The documents, part of a batch of typewritten diplomatic dispatches requested by reporters from two Hong Kong newspapers, reveal that 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."
Grantham convinced London to scrap all plans for political reform on the basis that it did not "interest the British electorate". Later, when confronted by the Hong Kong public, he blamed London.[12] All major democratic reforms for Hong Kong were dropped by British Cabinet decision. In October 1952, the British Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton announced that the time was "inopportune for...constitutional changes of a major character".[16]
Of course, British has its own interests, while China also has its own interests. In the end, HK is part of China, and it should be returned to China fully. If British consider Hong Kong's freedom is more important, maybe they should went to war with China instead.
The phrase "All major democratic reforms for Hong Kong were dropped by British Cabinet decision." does not lead to any credible source, only some mentions on a small number of websites or Reddit.
Compare the Google searches:
- "the colonial governors who ran Hong Kong repeatedly sought to introduce popular elections but abandoned those efforts in the face of pressure by Communist Party leaders in Beijing."
[1] leads to the New York Times article, which I can follow its references.
- "All major democratic reforms for Hong Kong were dropped by British Cabinet decision."
[2] does not lead to any credible source. In fact, some of the sites appear to be disinformation campaigns (don’t take my words, judge for yourself).
> But they insist on "democracy" which is ridiculous, as it didn't happen under the British.
What is your argument here? They did not had democracy before so they should not complain to not have it now? How twisted is that.
Also, I don't think claiming your constitutional right to democracy can be tagged as "ridiculous". Universal suffrage and democratic election are parts of the "Basic law", the equivalent of the constitution, that the PRC signed as part of the handover "deal".
Democracy has never existed (except on paper) and never will. How twisted is the US system whose main goal is to separate people and control them more easily?
This comparison presumes a false choice between either close governance by China, or governance that resembles the old British order ("tycoon feudalism").
Yeah I'm interested to know if OP actually has any first-hand experience of this, because when I was there it was not difficult to find people who were despondent about the situation, even though none of them were directly involved with the protests anymore.
My impression was the general populace can't see a way out of this. That's pretty far from not caring though.
My friends in Hong Kong care a lot. They were born and raised there. They're all making plans to leave because they don't want their children to grow up in a CCP-dominated Hong Kong.
I watched it recently and thought it didn't go nearly far enough in highlighting the abuses by the HK police, and even glossed over or omitted some very important events that triggered the continued protests. I actually felt it was far too fair to the HKSAR government and police.
The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits.