Posted on 08/13/2019 3:03:52 AM PDT by robowombat
Sputnik News
22:00 12.08.2019
Fears of Beijing intervening in the Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests were raised Monday after footage emerged showing several armored trucks belonging to China's People's Armed Police traveling through Shenzhen, which borders the autonomous city.
On Monday, both the Global Times and People's Daily posted a short video clip showing dozens of Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) traveling in a convoy to Guangdong province's Shenzhen ahead of what a Beijing military expert claims are regular exercises.
The APCs' guns are noticeably missing from their turrets during the display.
"The central government has repeatedly stated it will only interfere if there are large-scale riots and the Hong Kong government has applied voluntarily for support," China military specialist Zhou Chenming told the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
However, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Political Science Professor Dixon Sing Ming asserted the armored vehicles' presence is a blatant "psychological warfare tactic," meant to thin out protester morale and numbers in Hong Kong.
"The drill is part and parcel of a well-coordinated attempt by Beijing to pressure the protesters and the general public to give up their five demands, including the one for universal suffrage immediately."
The demonstrators' demands, according to the SCMP, include: a withdrawal of the extradition bill, the resignation of two chief executives, a government denouncement of Hong Kong's labeling of police-protester clashes as "riots," an independent inquiry or third-party investigation into the actions of the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) in the past several weeks and the unconditional freeing of those arrested in relation to the demonstrations.
Protests have grown increasingly violent over the past two weeks, and the autonomous city has seen an increase in clashes between police and those organizing.
One anti-extradition bill demonstrator sent an HKPF officer to the hospital with burn injuries after hurling a Molotov cocktail on Sunday. Throughout the night, law enforcement returned fire on protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets.
The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office condemned demonstrators' use of "dangerous tools" in a Monday statement that claimed the weekend clashes showed "the first signs of terrorism emerging" the autonomous city.
Additional rumors of Beijing's covert interference in Hong Kong's affairs were raised last week by Hong Kong Baptist University's Jean-Pierre Cabestan in the French newspaper Le Figaro.
"Beijing has secretly added to the HKPF, which is 30,000-strong, a number of policemen who speak Cantonese like Hong Kong from the neighboring Guangdong province, so that they can better integrate," Cabestan said on August 6, citing multiple anonymous sources. He later added that "recent sources indicated the number of deployed mainland troops "could be around 2,000"
Hong Kong's government released a statement on August 8 denouncing the rumors, which were amplified by Chinese social media platform Weibo and heightened by Shenzhen's recent 12,000-officer anti-riot training session.
The HKPF also deployed their own armored personnel carriers last Monday following protests along the narrow streets of Mong Kok. These vehicles, however, are said to function only as "defensive" units, capable of duties such as transporting injured individuals from the scene and destroying protester-constructed barricades.
I’m actually surprised that they aren’t there with Tanks and an infantry brigade or two, instead of just trucks.
“I’m actually surprised that they aren’t there with Tanks and an infantry brigade or two, instead of just trucks.”
That’s the sign of a totalitarian government.
By any rational standard the above is unthinkable and barbaric.
My experience is only several years, but that includes Taiwan and China. Notably, BEFORE the initial protest in Tiananmen.
I have been to Hong Kong several times, just to visit.
But I really, really think Hong Kong people are out of their flipping minds, to be so out of control. What in the world do they imagine they will accomplish, with China, this way?
Just my thoughts, as an American observer, with no particular agenda.
You may be right, but then again the Chinese government has never encountered people who HAD actual freedom. Before Hong Kong was handed over to the Chinese they were a capitalist success, and a big one.
Unless China plans on killing everyone who remembers those times, it’s going to be tough to crush these protests.
It is going to be tough on someone.
I really am not entirely optimistic. As you mention, Hong Kongers are very, very, very accustomed to being in Britain.
China, is not Britain.
There are only 2 ways for the PLA to enter into Hong Kong according to the Garrison Law of Hong Kong:
1) Article 6 In the event that the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress decides to declare a state of war or, by reason of turmoil within the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region which endangers national unity or security and is beyond the control of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, decides that the Region is in a state of
emergency, the Hong Kong Garrison shall perform its duties in accordance with the provisions of national laws decided to be applied in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by the Central People’s Government.
2) Article 14 In accordance with the provisions of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region may, when necessary, ask the Central People’s Government for assistance from the Hong Kong Garrison in the maintenance of public order and in disaster relief.
Currently, the protesters are occupying the airport. That may last all week and disrupt flights. This is not a way to gain support from international travelers.
After that, more protests are planned. One of the planned protests is the police station across the street from where I live in Hong Kong. Protests have never been peaceful and usually end up with tear gas and arrests and beatings.
If the Communist Chinese decide to pull the plug on this confrontation I am sure some scrap of paper is in no way going to restrain them.
There appear to be enough “slippery words” in the laws quoted in comment #7 to allow China to mount any type of offensive they want. But, as you mentioned, they don’t need no stinkin’ paper.
I lived in HK for 20 years.
The people there had no freedom under the British. The place was run basically by the British military
The legco was appointed and there were whole neighborhoods where Chinese couldn’t even live.
Egads. So a British cheap labor state? Thanks for posting that. I am curious to hear a few examples.
You stuck it out 20 years, huh? Does this fall under the terms better the devil you know?
I see.
I suppose that will be better under Chinese communism.
[That’s the sign of a totalitarian government.
By any rational standard the above is unthinkable and barbaric.]
[I lived in HK for 20 years.
The people there had no freedom under the British. The place was run basically by the British military
The legco was appointed and there were whole neighborhoods where Chinese couldn’t even live.]
I’ve been to Hong Kong a lot in the 80s
That’s a bit of an exaggeration
Chinese ethnics still ran the place economically
You make it sound like apartheid
That’s not true and posters here know no better will eat it up
I agree the immigrants or squatters as they were once known from China and elsewhere who migrated to the HK territories were restricted and underpaid by our standards but they were still free by Chinese standards
Or why the hell were they risking life and limb to get to Hong Kong...
And the established British citizen or British colonial dependency Chinese did very well and had members who were counte amongst some of the worlds richest folks
Hong Kong between the he Japanese occupation and 1997 was a colonial dependency run by a governor without general elections but it was hardly a military dictatorship
“Gunning these people down in cold blood could lead to a Western-led trade embargo. “
Yes.
I’ve said on these threads before no way Xi is that stupid.
The British were tolerant as long as you just talked.
The red line you mentioned didn’t exist in Singapore and nobody voted there until after 1960 when it became independent. The same is true of Malaysia and India.
The British put down the pro China riots (Communist instigated) in the 1960’s rather forcefully. My wife, then a child watched them from the window of the building her family lived in.
The “anti-British” movies by Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee never called for the over throw of the government.
It was against the law for Chinese to live in the mid-levels or the Peak until (I think) 1988. The wealthy Chinese lived in Kowloon Tong. Hong Kongers were definitely 2nd class citizens who needed a VISA to travel to the UK or any place else. They were expected to happily work in the textile and industrial mills for a pittance forever. They were not even considered to be UK citizens. Almost all of the government officials and all the higher officials were British because they didn’t think the Chinese were smart enough to be clerks in the bureaucracy. The Chinese men in the police force were not armed until after WW2. All the professors at HKU were imported from 2nd tier UK universities, often with only a Master’s degree
There is a LOT of resentment against the British in the middle class and down in HK.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.