Posted on 05/11/2022 12:28:06 PM PDT by Kaslin
Hong Kong “elected” a new chief while the world wasn’t paying attention.
Hong Kong’s current chief Carrie Lam will retire at the end of June. The selection of her successor has followed the rules Beijing dictated since it took control of Hong Kong in 1997. Beijing stamped out any hope of universal suffrage in Hong Kong in 2004.
Rather than letting more than 7 million residents in Hong Kong have a say in whom the city’s chief should be, Beijing created a “nominating committee” (which has more than 1,400 members today), the majority of which are pro-Beijing elites. The committee would “vote” for a candidate from a list of candidates approved by Beijing. Beijing has ensured that Hong Kong’s chief executive will always be its puppet through this arrangement.
In previous “selections,” Beijing usually approved two or three candidates for the nominating committee to choose from, giving an illusion of an “election” even though the committee knew which candidate Beijing preferred. This year, Beijing dropped all pretense, so John Lee was the only candidate on the ballot.
Lee served as Hong Kong’s security chief under Lam’s administration. He helped Beijing crack down on the city’s pro-democracy movement and enforced the draconian National Security Law.
The National Security Law criminalizes any act of so-called secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with a foreign country or external elements, with a maximum penalty of life in prison. The National Security Law also gives Beijing unprecedented extraterritorial power to punish anyone anywhere in the world for advocating for democracy in Hong Kong.
Lee’s hard-line approach didn’t win him much public support. According to polls before last Sunday, Lee’s approval rating was only 35 percent. He probably would have had little chance of becoming the city’s chief had a general election been held.
However, with Beijing’s blessing, 1,416 out of the 1,428 members of the nominating committee “voted” for Lee. This means Lee will become Hong Kong’s new chief executive by winning 99 percent of the ballots cast. Such irony has demonstrated how pathetic the Beijing-sanctioned “selection” process is.
Another irony about Lee’s “election” is that he will be the first Hong Kong chief under U.S. sanctions long before his term begins. In August 2020, the Trump administration imposed economic sanctions against a dozen Hong Kong officials, including Lee and Hong Kong’s current chief Carrie Lam, for “undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy after Beijing’s imposition in 2020 of the national-security law.”
These Hong Kong officials’ U.S. assets are frozen and U.S. persons and companies are banned from commercial transactions with them. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, called Lee’s selection as Hong Kong’s chief “yet another step in the dismantling of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle.”
Unfortunately, the selection of Lee is hardly the only bad news out of Hong Kong. Reporters without Borders recently released the 2022 edition of the World Press Freedom Index, which assesses the state of journalism in 180 countries and territories.
When this index was first established in 2002, Hong Kong ranked 18. Twenty years later, Hong Kong’s press freedom score has dropped to 148 out of 180, only slightly better than Communist China’s 175 out of 180. Calling Hong Kong once “a bastion of press freedom,” RSF said the city had seen “an unprecedented setback since 2020 when Beijing adopted a National Security Law aimed at silencing independent voices.”
According to RSF, examples of Hong Kong’s deterioration of press freedom include the government’s forceful closure of two major independent local news outlets, Apple Daily and Standard News, in 2021 under the pretext of national security threats. In addition, “numerous smaller-scale media outlets ceased operations” due to increasing legal risks. Dozens of Hong Kong journalists and media personalities have been arrested for “national security” crimes since 2020, and some, including Apple Daily’s publisher Jimmy Lai, are still languishing in prison.
What’s sadder than Hong Kong’s demise as a free society is the silence and indifference from the rest of the world. While activists, corporations, and governments are taking a stand to help Ukraine preserve its democracy and resist Russia’s invasion, very few talk about Hong Kong’s worsening political environment. They have forgotten that Hong Kongers courageously fought for democracy in their city for more than two decades, including the famed “Umbrella Movement” in 2014 and the anti-extradition bill protests in 2019.
There are likely three reasons for this collective silence and indifference to Hong Kong’s deterioration. First, the draconian National Security Law and its broad applications have silenced many people, including those who live abroad, from expressing any support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and activists. People are understandably worried they may have to face the Chinese government’s harsh punishment if they speak up.
Second, the danger Ukraine faces is immediate and highly visual due to Russia’s invasion. Ukraine leaders such as Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky have gotten the world’s sympathy by framing Ukraine’s resistance to Russia as a historical fight for democracy.
Hong Kongers didn’t lose their political freedom overnight. It took more than two decades, and people outside of the city have been less alarmed by the gradual corrosion of residents’ liberty.
It is a typical “boiling the frog” syndrome, “the failure to accept, acknowledge, or act against a problematic situation that will gradually increase in severity until it reaches calamitous proportions.” Hong Kongers also have the misfortune that most of their city’s elites, including many government officials, are more willing to sell out the city for fame and fortune than to advocate for people’s political rights.
Third, foreign governments and businesses have avoided criticizing China over Hong Kong due to economic interests. It is easier to take a stand against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because Russia’s economy is no bigger than South Korea’s. Other than the energy sector, criticizing Putin or ceasing business operations in Russia hasn’t presented much economic sacrifice for many governments and businesses.
China is the world’s second-largest economy. Many foreign governments and businesses not only count on exporting their goods and services to China’s large consumer market but also rely on China for supplies, from clothes to toys, to solar panels and materials for batteries for electric vehicles. Communist China has long weaponized its economic power to compel foreign governments and businesses to bend their knees and compromise their democratic values. China’s approach is less bloody than Russia’s invasion but still presents a serious threat to democracy.
Hong Kong’s fall from being one of the freest places in the world to merely another city under the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian rule is one of the most tragic events in our lifetime. It’s no less devastating than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If the rest of the world truly cares about defending democratic values, they should speak up and take a stand for Hong Kong, the same way they do now for Ukraine.
Singapore is larger than Hong Kong
Singapore can survive on it’s own water and food sources for a while. Hing kong can not.
Singapore is an entrepot, hong Kong isn’t.
I was referring to the lease of 1898.
“I was referring to the lease of 1898.”
Obviously, since it is the only one.
I will repeat.
And read the Joint Declaration. It is not based on the New Territories lease expiring.
“the lease was unfortunately fully legal for China to end”
Groundless assertion. I say ludicrous.
And the proof is ChiComs did not end the lease, the exchange was not based on CCP ending the lease.
How could they?
“Singapore is larger than Hong Kong”
Wrong again.
Hong Kong 1100 square km
Singapore 725 square km
“Singapore can survive on it’s own water and food sources for a while. Hing kong can not.”
Singapore imports water and energy.
Interesting and accurate points. Thank you.
I’m going to go back and read more — you’ve proven my above statements as wrong. Thank you
But they didn't actually fight in military sense as is happening in Ukraine. Don't get me wrong - Hong Kong had no real chance militarily against China and it would have been a futile gesture. I'm not blaming them for not committing suicide.
I'm just pointing out that armed resistance presents a much easier, more clear opportunity for the rest of the world to support the cause. Ukraine is fighting militarily, we can all see or at least imagine the direct horrors of that war, and can help tangiblyby sending armaments and war material. Perhaps most importantly, supporters see there is a real chance to actually win.
There is really no equally tangible way we could have supported Hong Kong, and the takeover was inevitable. Realistically, Hong Kong's situation was hopeless.
“But they didn’t actually fight in military sense as is happening in Ukraine.”
Are we supposed to take you seriously?
I was answering the question posed by the thread title: "Why doesn't the tragic subjugation of Hong Kong get the same attention as Ukraine?"
And I stick by my answer - because Ukraine is an ongoing war, and Hong Kong isn't. There was no war, no dramatic pictures of Chinese tanks blowing up, etc.. It's done, over, finished. That's not going to change, and that's why it no longer gets attention. Nobody talks about Macao anymore either, do they?
Ukraine is the first major European war in 80 years, and you wonder why it is getting so much attention??
Are you serious?
Are you under the impression Hong Kong had a military?
No, but at least your question confirms that you never actually read my initial post, which said:
"Don't get me wrong - Hong Kong had no real chance militarily against China and it would have been a futile gesture. I'm not blaming them for not committing suicide.
My answer to the question posed by the thread title remains the same - There was no attention-grabbing shooting war between Hong Kong and China as there is between Russia and Ukraine, so it gets less attention from the public and the press. That's not blaming or faulting the citizens of Hong Kong - they were not in the same position to fight militarily as was Ukraine. But the lack of a shooting war meant fewer headlines, and less attention because there was no world-startling singular moment equivalent to Russia tanks rolling over the Ukraine border.
And, of course, the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong was a fait d'accompli, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine isn't.
Where exactly is the flaw in that reasoning?
“”Don’t get me wrong - Hong Kong had no real chance militarily against China and it would have been a futile gesture. I’m not blaming them for not committing suicide.”
Ok, but I don’t think it is an explanation for the question.
That’s not why Ukraine gets the coverage and obsession whereas Hong Kong is ignored.
And there was a lot of street fighting among youth and police. It was not meant to kill anyone though on either side.
Firebombs and Molotov cocktails, barricades. Meant to show their resistance and to delay police from getting to demonstrations.
Wars always dominate the news.
What is your alternative explanation? I honestly have do idea.
It’s actually pretty easy. We’ve always understood that Hong Kong was going to revert back to Chinese control when the “lease” expired. Sure there was lots of talk, especially towards the end, about getting assurances from China that they’d let Hong Kong be Hong Kong. But anybody with a brain knew that would only last until China figured nobody was looking and bring it under full control.
Ukraine is its own country. It has a weird unfortunate history of being conquered a LOT, but still, in the end it’s own place. We knew (well people who paid attention knew) it was a conquered territory in the USSR days, and that if the USSR ended it would be looking to be independent. Which is what happened. And now for 30 years it has been. Until Russia decided to get pissy.
So it’s two vastly different things.
Wars certainly do not dominate the news.
Only certain wars.
The explanation is, I think, two-fold and intertwined. It is an example of actual racism and appeasement of the ChiComs with leftover respect, even adulation, of the regime from the 60’s New Left days when “China” was seen as at the forefront of human evolution, socially and politically (remember Shirley MacClaine?). Simultaneously it became the cheap labor utopia. Unlimited slave or neo-slave labor.
If China were a European nation the outrage over their despotism would be never ending. But they are just Chinese. Our liberals don’t care.
They serve as a great market and partner for the technototalitarinism that our companies invented which is implemented in China, slowly being phased in here and in other “western” nations.
[Ok, but I don’t think it is an explanation for the question.
That’s not why Ukraine gets the coverage and obsession whereas Hong Kong is ignored.
And there was a lot of street fighting among youth and police. It was not meant to kill anyone though on either side.
Firebombs and Molotov cocktails, barricades. Meant to show their resistance and to delay police from getting to demonstrations.]
Ultimately, if you want foreign support, you need to risk your lives in large numbers, and be able to pose, in manpower and material terms, some likelihood of at least keeping your cause alive. Ukraine fits that classification. Hong Kong doesn’t. And if Taiwan continues along its present course, and doesn’t put tens of thousands of Chinese troops in the ground if they attempt to cross the Formosa Strait, the nation will be treated more or less the same way as Hong Kong.
If the Taiwanese are prepared to fight, we will probably back them with weaponry and non-military supplies. That will likely also involve sinking Chinese shipping and shooting down Chinese aircraft if they mount a blockade or declare an exclusion zone covering the island and its waters. But if Taiwan falls to a Chinese invasion in short order, the way Kiev was supposed to be occupied in 3 days, I doubt the cavalry is going to show up for a war the Taiwanese aren’t willing to fight themselves.
If there was active fighting going on between Hong Kong troops and Chinese invaders, complete with videos of Chinese ships being sunk, it would be all over the news. I’m not exactly sure what you expect anyone to cover on a day to day basis at this point, though. There are no battles, no speeches, no videos...it’s just sort of the same mundane oppression that’s been going on all over the world for a long time. Hell, it didn’t dominate the news even when it was the old Soviet Union oppressing white people in Eastern Europe. Not unless there was actual shooting like in 1956 or 1968.
“The problem is that demonstrations by tiny numbers of people in the streets, combined with little more than contrary opinions from the vast majority of the populace suggest that discontent isn’t anywhere like that in Ukraine.”
There were literally millions of people demonstrating for years and when the law was introduced, it went in for weeks.
The district elections also showed near universal support for Hong Kong’s continued autonomy.
It’s hard to know why you say such ludicrous things.
You obviously did not follow the events.
You are subtle but show yourself as 共匪 a fair amount.
[There were literally millions of people demonstrating for years and when the law was introduced, it went in for weeks.
The district elections also showed near universal support for Hong Kong’s continued autonomy.
It’s hard to know why you say such ludicrous things.
You obviously did not follow the events.
You are subtle but show yourself as 共匪 a fair amount.]
You want Uncle Sam to risk anything significant on your behalf, you’d better show that you are able and willing to do what is necessary. And that involves both killing and risking death.
You just make crap up.
[You just make crap up.]
You want the West to open its collective wallet and risk war with China - you need to take risks. Failing that - there’s always the UK, where literally millions of Hongkongers are eligible for working papers and eventual citizenship, which is more than it has provided to its fellow white European Christians from Ukraine.
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