The Hong Kong Protesters Aren’t Driven by Hope “We might as well go down fighting.”

The Atlantic ^ | November 12, 2019 | Zeynep Tufekci

[Zhang Fei]

HONG KONG—For months now, I’ve been told that Hong Kong’s protests would end soon. They’ll end when school starts, I heard during the summer. School did start, but the protests wore on, only now I saw high-school students in crisp school uniforms joining the protesters’ ranks. Next, the mask ban of early October was supposed to slow protesters down, but the very first day after that ban, I watched streams of protesters in masks and helmets make their way to their usual haunts on Hong Kong Island.

The government shut down many of the subway lines that day, a practice that has become a de facto curfew, because Hong Kong’s über-efficient subway system is the way most people get around. No matter; the protesters ended up walking, sometimes a lot, and I walked with them, asking some of the same questions I had asked for months: Do you think you will continue protesting? What would it take for you to stop?

One of the most popular chants in Hong Kong is “Five demands, not one less.” These include the full withdrawal of the anti-extradition bill, which originally sparked the protests in June; an independent commission to investigate police misconduct; retracting the riot charges against protesters; amnesty for arrested protesters; and, crucially, universal suffrage.

Nothing animates the Hong Kongers I’ve been talking with as much as that final demand. Yesterday, the police shot one protester in the stomach at point-blank range, and another police officer drove into the protesters with his motorcycle, weaving into the crowd to circle back again. Later in the day, Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, gave a press conference and, in chilling language, called the protesters the “enemy of the people.” She was voted into office by 777 people from the 1,200-person “Election Committee,”

[wardaddy]

I’m sure the majority of HK citizens would prefer to stay semi autonomous versus completely integrated into China

But that’s not the precise issue pushing the protests

It is about extradition changes whereby criminal gang members can more easily be snatched

Protestors don’t like that notion for obvious reasons and students of course have joined int

There is also a resentment against the police who are seen as too aggressive although considering it’s China were talking about I haven’t seen that yet

There is also a political revolt against Carrie Lam the fairly new Chief Executive

And there is a strong Triads struggle involved

Posters here think it’s Lexington and Concord

They couldn’t be more more wrong

There might be elements of that but it’s a lot more

What started this was a murder suspect was wanted in Taiwan and HK couldn’t let him go since no treaty existed before with Taiwan

Lam then plugged that loophole trying to allow the suspect to be sent to Taiwan where the pregnant girl was murdered which at the same time would then make it ok to send HK criminals to Macao and a mainland China for crimes and end the non extradition which previously existed

This naturally terrifies criminal gangs which like Yakuza in Japan are a fact of life in Hong Kong and the territories

That is how this started and remains the core issue

Extradition

The man who killed the pregnant girlfriend....?

Let go

I was in HK a fair amount last century on business and particularly when Britain signed the give back treaty which I thought foolish

Given it is Oriental culture there have been a number of public suicides and one kid fell from a building and died and two days ago a old man bystander was killed when hit by a rock thrown by protestors at cops

I’m sorry for patriots here but I’m just not feeling it like y’all are the nature of these protests

Not that there is not some element of freedom loving to it

This is bee hive culture it’ll never ape our republic

I fail to see how anyone could think suicide would be a smart move to influence communist Chinese who kill scores of millions when they get the impulse

[wardaddy]

Arab Spring With soy sauce

[Thud]

It appears that the Chinese government’s mistreatment of Uighurs has convinced the people of Hong Kong that the same fate awaits them when the government eventually takes over entirely, so they may as well go down fighting.

[Thud]

China's "Water Army" (paid internet propagandists) has shown up in this Free Republic thread.

https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/11/how-to-conduct-business-with-chinese-companies-that-see-a-dark-future.html

[ifinnegan]

Thanks.

You’re not wrong in everything you say, but your knowledge is superficial and a bit convoluted. Which is understandable given the amount of BS out there. The Chinese United Front is big and even worse than our own MSM propaganda machine.

It’s ok. I know you’re not a ChiCom netagandist douche.

[wardaddy]

I’d like to see info that differs from mine

[ifinnegan]

Your info isn’t incorrect, generally, but it doesn’t jibe with your conclusion.

Eg

“I’m sure the majority of HK citizens would prefer to stay semi autonomous versus completely integrated into China

But that’s not the precise issue pushing the protests.”

That is the issue.

The extradition bill was directly related to that issue - remaining autonomous.

[Zhang Fei]

[China’s “Water Army” (paid internet propagandists) has shown up in this Free Republic thread.

https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/11/how-to-conduct-business-with-chinese-companies-that-see-a-dark-future.html]

---

Thanks for the link. I read the blog every so often, but haven’t read it in a year or so. These guys are in the trenches fighting the good fight for American business people trying to stay financially afloat in an ocean of Chinese scammers.

[AdmSmith]

Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass is condemning a decision by a board overseeing U.S. government employees’ savings to allow investment in Chinese companies.

“Foreign entities should be forced to follow basic U.S. securities laws,” Bass, founder of Hayman Capital Management, said via email ahead of a Thursday morning briefing in Washington. Bass said that Chinese companies now raise money, in U.S. dollars, from U.S. investors without complying with Dodd-Frank regulations or submitting to audits by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or PCAOB.

“The fact that the U.S. Thrift Savings Plan is forcing active and retired U.S. military officers to invest into Chinese companies that build the concentration camps and the surveillance systems in Xinjiang, that build the Chinese military vessels and Chinese missile systems (building the military threat against U.S. troops) is a severe national security threat for our country,” Bass said. “Our military is funding the Orwellian nightmare that the Chinese Communist Party has created for its people. This must stop.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-14/kyle-bass-says-military-must-stop-funding-china-nightmare

https://twitter.com/Jkylebass

[fieldmarshaldj]

When there is an opportunity for revolution in an oppressive regime, especially one that is the most dangerous organized government on the planet at present, you have to ride it. And make no mistake, this Chinese Communist regime MUST be brought down.

The business class are usually the last folks that want something that might destabilize them and their bottom line for the short term. Money is more important to them, unfortunately, than true freedom for the people.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Red China IS our problem. They supplanted the Soviets in attempting to destabilize our nation and make puppets of our political class. That was the real scandal of the Clintoon regime that the Dems fought tooth and nail to cover up by making it about Lewinsky instead.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Revolutions are not cookie-cutter and are often imperfect (America’s wasn’t, and certainly not when it had to deal with those that wanted freedom for all vs. slavery). Who’d have thought someone imperfect like Trump would be leading a revolution against the corrupt entrenched political class ? You have to play the hand you’re dealt.

[hardspunned]

China is our problem. China dealing with other Chinese is not worth one drop of American blood. After 75 years of bleeding all over the world for countries that don’t give a damn about America, haven’t you had enough?

[fieldmarshaldj]

Your sentiments are not altogether wrong. Involving ourselves in many foreign intrigues has frequently been a fiasco. With respect to China, the reason they went Communist was in great part due to our failure to support Chiang Kai-shek and too many at State (a den of Communist seditionists even then) directing measures to aid Mao (they also helped Castro, too).

Had Truman allowed MacArthur to conduct the Korean War to the fullest and liberated the peninsula entirely and pressed onward to defeat Mao, we would not have had the problems we had in that part of the world for all the decades since.

Indeed, with a Nationalist China, they’d have crushed the Communist uprisings throughout Asia and we might never need to have gotten involved (Vietnam, the premier example).

Sending troops now isn’t going to work, of course, but surely there are covert means to assist the pro-freedom revolutionaries that we can utilize. Also working to destabilize Red China’s economy is another method, too.

[AdmSmith]

If Patton had green light things could have been different:

In early May 1945, as the Allies shut down the Nazi war machine, Patton stood with his massive 3rd Army on the outskirts of Prague in a potential face off with the Red Army. He pleaded for General Eisenhower’s green light to advance and capture the city for the Allies, which also would have meant containment of the Russians. British Prime Minister Churchill also thought the move a crucial and beneficial one for post-war Europe and insisted upon it, but to no avail. Eisenhower denied Patton’s request, and the Russians took the region, which would pay dearly for years to come. Earlier that year, at the February conference in Yalta, President Roosevelt, with Churchill at his side, extended the hand of friendship to “Uncle Joe” Stalin and signed his Faustian pact. In so doing, the destiny of millions was reduced to mass starvation, blood revenge, and distant gulags. At the time, Patton understood the tragedy of this event and wrote, “We promised the Europeans freedom. It would be worse than dishonorable not to see that they have it. This might mean war with the Russians, but what of it?”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/general-patton-cold-war-russia_b_5526514

[fieldmarshaldj]

A large reason I believe Patton was murdered.

[AdmSmith]

This is claimed in this book https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3869117/General-George-S.-Patton-was-assassinated-to-silence-his-criticism-of-allied-war-leaders-claims-new-book.html

[Thud]

A group of peasant soldiers was marching somewhere in China long ago.

"What's the penalty for arriving late?"

"Death."

"What's the penalty for rebelling?"

"Death."

"Hey brothers! I got news for you! We're late!"

[AdmSmith]

Watch this:

“Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared.” Facing riot police in full gear, he comforted her, patting her shoulders.
But he’s a kid too.

https://twitter.com/hongkongching1/status/1196382081594490880

more gif here

https://twitter.com/hashtag/hkpolicestate?f=tweets&vertical=default

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks AdmSmith.