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The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders

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Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#21
post #5

We knew this going in. We decided to trade human rights and to empower an authoritarian government for cheap pants and blood-electronics. I’ve prayed just now, but I did so with a new iPad Pro 12.9” in my lap. I have no idea how to help.

Are you referring to Nixon/Kissinger opening up a bit with China or Clinton (mostly?) opening up trade with China or the whole process? IIRC the UK only had a 99 year lease on Hong Kong due to the western powers winning the Opium Wars and it had to go back to mainland China (unless the UK wanted to go to war again I suppose) so I was always kind of fatalistic about the fate of Hong Kong under China - it was always go…

Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were ceded by the Qing Dynasty in perpetuity. The New Territories were leased (Boundary Street being the dividing line). Even with the New Territories though HK is dependent on the mainland for things like fresh water, so some accommodation with the PRC was going to have to be reached regardless.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#22
post #12

>Wong is open about his Christian faith and how it catalyzed his activism against Beijing’s tightening control over Hong Kong. Christianity's role in Chinese society is interesting. There are something like 100 million christians in China, and based off of stories from friends, a lot of cults in that space as well. A lot of organizations play off of that. For example multi-level marketing stuff talk a lot about being…

The Taiping Rebellion resulted in 20-30 million deaths so I think it's fair to say that Christianity has already caused major political change in China.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#23
Everyone knew it would happen and nothing can really be done (see Tibet). No one will start a trade or real war with China . They have veto power in UN ad that makes them powerful. So reality sets in.

Treaties and agreements can be enforced only with smaller nations.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#24
post #5

We knew this going in. We decided to trade human rights and to empower an authoritarian government for cheap pants and blood-electronics. I’ve prayed just now, but I did so with a new iPad Pro 12.9” in my lap. I have no idea how to help.

I'd say there's one non-violent way to fight back that could significantly hurt China. Host an open source repo on GitHub that highlights China's suppressed history, and use QQ/WeChat/Weibo/etc to spread it to Chinese locals. Do the same for Reddit, and every other western service that isn't blocked in China. (It would likely also help to leave 1-2 star app/play store reviews of WeChat and mention the fact that all private messages/pictures are accessible to the government, and they use the service to limit free speech.)

Imagine how much western companies would suffer if GitHub disappeared overnight. It would quickly become known to the Chinese that a freaking repo containing nothing besides accurate Chinese history was responsible.

If you already obtained a decent reach within Chinese social media apps, then you should consider this: China can easily "shadow-block" certain phrases like tiananmen, hong kong + protest in same message, etc. and you can be certain most of these imagines you find online will also be "shadow-blocked". However, all it takes to beat their current system is to modify a single pixel.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#25
post #14
post #12

>Wong is open about his Christian faith and how it catalyzed his activism against Beijing’s tightening control over Hong Kong. Christianity's role in Chinese society is interesting. There are something like 100 million christians in China, and based off of stories from friends, a lot of cults in that space as well. A lot of organizations play off of that. For example multi-level marketing stuff talk a lot about being…

100 million isn't anywhere close to what I've seen reports of before, and I can't imagine it being true. Do you have any non-religiously motivated sources for that claim?

I'm not sure where the 100 million estimate comes from, either, but on the other hand, I have no idea what your reports have stated.

I'm not clear on how religious motivation should exaggerate their data. Does it help to intentionally overreport and claim that religious people are underrepresented? Is it better to intentionally underreport and go for the angle of persecuted minority group, so that the greater international community, and perhaps even the general populace would have sympathy? Maybe both, depending on the situation.

Are there studies on the difference in accounting of the number of self-professing religious believers in a population as reported by religious and nonreligious sources?

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#26
post #5

We knew this going in. We decided to trade human rights and to empower an authoritarian government for cheap pants and blood-electronics. I’ve prayed just now, but I did so with a new iPad Pro 12.9” in my lap. I have no idea how to help.

I'd say there's one non-violent way to fight back that could significantly hurt China. Host an open source repo on GitHub that highlights China's suppressed history, and use QQ/WeChat/Weibo/etc to spread it to Chinese locals. Do the same for Reddit, and every other western service that isn't blocked in China. (It would likely also help to leave 1-2 star app/play store reviews of WeChat and mention the fact that all p…

I think they could block that Github repository/repositories but not the entire Github. Also I don't want them to DDOS Github and affect other uses.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9275041

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#28
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say there's one non-violent way to fight back that could significantly hurt China. Host an open source repo on GitHub that highlights China's suppressed history, and use QQ/WeChat/Weibo/etc to spread it to Chinese locals. Do the same for Reddit, and every other western service that isn't blocked in China. (It would likely also help to leave 1-2 star app/play store reviews of WeChat and mention the fact that all p…

I think they could block that Github repository/repositories but not the entire Github. Also I don't want them to DDOS Github and affect other uses. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9275041

they would have to block all the Forks as well

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#29
post #5

We knew this going in. We decided to trade human rights and to empower an authoritarian government for cheap pants and blood-electronics. I’ve prayed just now, but I did so with a new iPad Pro 12.9” in my lap. I have no idea how to help.

I'd say there's one non-violent way to fight back that could significantly hurt China. Host an open source repo on GitHub that highlights China's suppressed history, and use QQ/WeChat/Weibo/etc to spread it to Chinese locals. Do the same for Reddit, and every other western service that isn't blocked in China. (It would likely also help to leave 1-2 star app/play store reviews of WeChat and mention the fact that all p…

Before you(or anyone else) commits to this plan, consider that your point of view may not be shared by the chinese people themselves. Your activism may have a negative effect for a variety of reasons - the people you're trying to educate don't have the same values as you, and they don't really see American intervention into local affairs as benevolent and virtuous.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#30

Everyone knew it would happen and nothing can really be done (see Tibet). No one will start a trade or real war with China . They have veto power in UN ad that makes them powerful. So reality sets in. Treaties and agreements can be enforced only with smaller nations.

> They have veto power in UN a[n]d that makes them powerful.

I'm interested in this idea. Obviously, they have veto power in the UN because they are powerful. But if they weren't already strong, how would the veto power help?

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