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Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

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Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#71

Post by rqs »

frequentnapper wrote: post #59
rqs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, well, as a "mainlander", I tell you: Hong Kong citizens WILL lose all their rights, and it will come sooner than you think. If you watched this protest and all their other protests, it is very easy to see one thing: Their action is isolated， they don't have the power to unite people other than themselves. Nobody besides themselves will stand for them. Nobody in mainland support them, nobody in mainland understand…

A bit hypocritical of you to complain about them not protesting for your rights, when you are unwilling to protest for theirs.

I was actually expecting this kind of comment.

People in HongKong only have this few years left to able conduct protest at that scale while keeping themselves relatively safe.

In China mainland, you do that, you're in prison for life or worst.

You know what, "worst" is not good enough to describe what could happen. There was a case that might show you what could happen if the police got you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Jia

Yang Jia was a man who killed 6 police mans in 2008. Why? Because the police interrogated him for riding an unregistered bicycle. The method of interrogation which the English version of Wikipedia does not fully mention (But mentioned in the Chinese version) including electrically shock this man's genital cause it to dysfunction.

Let me ask you this: Will you risk your life to protest for your right knowing there will be no good end for you after?

So that's why currently, the safest thing for mainlanders to do is focus on earning money, and use the money to trade for freedom (For example: to have a better social status and/or to be able to move to another country etc), and hope for things could change for the better in the future.

I hope now you can understand why I'm so "hypocritical" on this.

Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#72

Post by rqs »

hker wrote: post #63
rqs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, well, as a "mainlander", I tell you: Hong Kong citizens WILL lose all their rights, and it will come sooner than you think. If you watched this protest and all their other protests, it is very easy to see one thing: Their action is isolated， they don't have the power to unite people other than themselves. Nobody besides themselves will stand for them. Nobody in mainland support them, nobody in mainland understand…

Disclosure: Hong Konger > Why? Because they are protest only for their own rights, on their own little land that nobody cares anymore. It's not about greater good, not "making the entire China democratic". Just "We're Hongkongers, we are special, so we must have those rights", while don't give a damn when the rest of China is been stripped clean. Every year on 4 June, Hong Kong people hold a vigil in Victoria Park fo…

> Then what have mainlanders done for Hong Kong?

Nothing good, and it will continue to be this way.

And it's NOT out of despision, no, it's simply because it's impossible to do it safely in China. The political climate here is so toxic and dangerous, it is unethical to even think to put people on street.

But, one thing HongKongers must understand is, your future is linked with mainlanders, for better or worse. We may not see each other eye to eye on other many topics, but this, this is the problem we both facing.

Also, many mainlanders is actually quite supportive about some protests. Simply search Twitter with the right keyword you can find many https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%E6%9...

Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#73

Post by tempguy9999 »

confusedhnguy wrote: post #41
tempguy9999 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is. It seems to me to be playing right into the hands of the chinese gov't. "we gave you what you want then you protest some more? Clearly you are liars and deceivers". Then more violence by the police, completely justified this time because protesters must be just troublemakers. It seems a very risky strategy. I would advise against it, or at least think very carefully, but what do I know.

The protesters get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan. The protesters couldn't get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan. Next time please just say that the Chinese government is evil, save all the typing.

> The protesters get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan

The protesters didn't get what they want hence are considering further protests. Whether they are wise or not was my point.

There's no absolute but...

Imprisoning over a million Uighurs for their religion, and disappearing people for their political beliefs is evil, so yes, the chinese gov't is evil in that sense.

Let's look at your prior history:

"Also, the UK is extremely famous for intentionally or unintentionally leaving a mess when it leaves..."

"Little did I know about all the ignorant and arrogant comments I was about to see. The West needs a new enemy"

"The average westerners only want to accuse China so they can feel good about themselves for a while"

Anything to declare?

Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#74

Post by confusedhnguy »

atr_gz wrote: post #68
confusedhnguy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK I admit that I didn't read the whole thing. So I go back and read every single line of that link. OK, the Provisional Legislative Council was questionable in your view, I understand. But how exactly does this proves that the Chinese government blocked the democracy for 60 years? How about the existence of LegCo? Also I still don't think we agree on what the word "return" means. Yes there are thousands of links tha…

Okay, maybe you're more reasonable than it seemed at first. I understand some paranoia about foreign opinions. But, how often does the news need to talk about the Opium Wars? I would say there are plenty of long-form articles talking about it, but does every article about Hong Kong need to give century-old context? It's brought up in Chinese media far more often because it's useful for the CCP to remind people. It he…

The history of the opium wars need to be as well know as the history of slavery in the US, until then, leaving this important context out of the discussion makes people think that the UK is the victim.

What I was trying to say is that media in the West pay far less attentions to the wrong doings of their allies. For example, the anniversary of the Tiananmen square incident made it to the front page of HN, but I have never seen anything on HN when it's the anniversary of the Nanjing massacre. These two are comparable because the Japanese leaders are still visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. Also, I have personally almost never see news about bad things that happened in Taiwan on Western media, does this mean that Taiwan is heaven on earth?

You may have freedom of speech, but I don't think your people are well-informed when they are flooded by cherry-picked facts, and this leads to bias against your non-allies.

About what HKers think, here is an image of the flyers they distributed during the protest: https://twitter.com/liuyun2018/status/1133227121713659904

Translation for the main bullet points:

> You don't get to have a lawyer: they will be unavailable or disappear before court.

> Imprison without trail: you will spend one or two years in prison at minimum.

> "Disappear": no one will hear from you when you are in prison, not even your families.

> Judges follow CCP's instructions: the CCP decides what happens on court.

> Super-high conviction rate: 99.94% nation wide conviction rate.

> Lighting-fast trails: No lawyers no family members, 5 minutes and it's done.

> Secret trails: When your family knows you are already in prison.

> Collective punishment： your family members are equally guilty.

Even in mainland China the situation is no where near this bad. These false accusations makes me question their motives. If you don't believe me and think we have North Korea levels of speech control, then I would ask you to please update your views or better, visit China if you get a chance.

Listing several individuals arrested for their political actions doesn't justify this baseless conjecture about the future of HK.

> Give an inch, give a mile.

Yes I know you don't trust the CCP, the CCP doesn't trust the West either. Today we implement democracy (as you defined) in HK, tomorrow you want HK to declare independence. Who's next? Shenzhen? Shanghai? We are aware of how the West has been "liberating" people in the Middle East and we are afraid of it.

Which brings me to my final point: we share completely different views of the world, and some words

You have been using the word democracy like it's some kind of panacea and refusing it is unacceptable. I (and the CCP) don't agree. Democracy is guaranteed to never be the worst, but it doesn't necessarily be the best, in all situations. Besides, based on the actions of the US after WWII, we have every reason to believe that the US doesn't want other parts of the world to stay in peace, or at least, does not have the ability to resolve the problem it created. Despite what the Western media has been saying, the CCP is actually bad at media manipulation, not nearly as good as the West. CCP thinks that if we implement democracy defined by the West, then the people will fall to Western values extremely fast and the whole country will become a huge mess. Yes, we are thinking about the Brexit drama and the likes, only more bloody.

Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#75

Post by confusedhnguy »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #70
atr_gz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, maybe you're more reasonable than it seemed at first. I understand some paranoia about foreign opinions. But, how often does the news need to talk about the Opium Wars? I would say there are plenty of long-form articles talking about it, but does every article about Hong Kong need to give century-old context? It's brought up in Chinese media far more often because it's useful for the CCP to remind people. It he…

60 years is right. Governors were repeatedly seeking democracy and proper elections, but pressure from Beijing forced them to back down. The papers are now publicly available at the National Archive, and linked in this NYT piece: "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" https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/w…

"Positive actions" is equivalent to "invasion"?

Also is the West stronger than China or not? I am confused. If it is, then this threat means nothing. If the China is stronger, then why bother to create the one country two systems policy? Also, if China was strong enough to threaten the West, why is Taiwan still an issue till today?

The reference in the article you posted says:

> not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories liberated” if the Brits allowed self-governance.

So the Chinese government doesn't want HK do declare independence instead of returning to China, and will take positive actions if that is about to happen.

Again, you and I don't agree on what the word "return" means.

Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#76

Post by confusedhnguy »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #73
confusedhnguy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The protesters get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan. The protesters couldn't get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan. Next time please just say that the Chinese government is evil, save all the typing.

> The protesters get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan The protesters didn't get what they want hence are considering further protests. Whether they are wise or not was my point. There's no absolute but... Imprisoning over a million Uighurs for their religion, and disappearing people for their political beliefs is evil, so yes, the chinese gov't is evil in that sense. Let's look at your prior…

> Imprisoning over a million Uighurs

Have you tried to image what kind of resource does it need to do this? How many prisons and guards are needed? How many hospitals, power stations and other related facilities are required to support this? Where are the satellite images?

If we are arresting them for their Islamic religion, how come I still have a large amount of Hui friends hanging out with me just as usual? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hui_people

Trusting the Western media unconditionally without thinking about how ridiculous the news are, truly ignorant and arrogant. Surely your media will never lie or leaving important facts out, like the terrorist attacks happened in China. But I am sure your media has already painted them as some kind of freedom fighters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack

Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#77

Post by atr_gz »

confusedhnguy wrote: post #74
atr_gz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, maybe you're more reasonable than it seemed at first. I understand some paranoia about foreign opinions. But, how often does the news need to talk about the Opium Wars? I would say there are plenty of long-form articles talking about it, but does every article about Hong Kong need to give century-old context? It's brought up in Chinese media far more often because it's useful for the CCP to remind people. It he…

The history of the opium wars need to be as well know as the history of slavery in the US, until then, leaving this important context out of the discussion makes people think that the UK is the victim. What I was trying to say is that media in the West pay far less attentions to the wrong doings of their allies. For example, the anniversary of the Tiananmen square incident made it to the front page of HN, but I have…

Things aren't always that bad in China, but all of the things on the signs have happened and continue to happen. You're simply wrong that those are false accusations. If these things have happened even one time, they can happen again. It's the opposite of baseless.

I've witnessed the Chinese judicial system secondhand, as experienced by native Chinese people. Fortunately, I haven't had to experience anything firsthand. And I've read countless articles and books to the point where I know the specific incidents those signs are referring to.

I'm sorry, but I really can't spend any more time digging up sources for you. Hopefully you have a VPN or live abroad and can look for this stuff yourself.

You can probably understand why they wouldn't want to be subject to that justice system.

You keep putting words in mine and other people's mouths. I never said democracy is a panacea. I agree that Western media is biased about China. Average people are not well-informed anywhere. At least outside of China, people can easily learn if they choose to.

I agree that Japanese politicians downplaying or refusing to apologise for Nanjing is somewhat comparable to the CCPs handling of the Tiananmen incident, although Japan obviously has nothing like the censorship in China. Both are wrong. And I think if you talk to more people you'll find they agree.

Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#78

Post by hker »

rqs wrote: post #72
hker wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: Hong Konger > Why? Because they are protest only for their own rights, on their own little land that nobody cares anymore. It's not about greater good, not "making the entire China democratic". Just "We're Hongkongers, we are special, so we must have those rights", while don't give a damn when the rest of China is been stripped clean. Every year on 4 June, Hong Kong people hold a vigil in Victoria Park fo…

> Then what have mainlanders done for Hong Kong? Nothing good, and it will continue to be this way. And it's NOT out of despision, no, it's simply because it's impossible to do it safely in China. The political climate here is so toxic and dangerous, it is unethical to even think to put people on street. But, one thing HongKongers must understand is, your future is linked with mainlanders, for better or worse. We may…

> And it's NOT out of despision, no, it's simply because it's impossible to do it safely in China. The political climate here is so toxic and dangerous, it is unethical to even think to put people on street.

We, Hong Kong people as a whole, understand that mainlanders face much more difficulty in speaking up, and we are sympathetic. We definitely do not despise mainlanders for not speaking up in a way that we can see. The current protest does not mention democratic movement in China because we want to have a focus: on the extraditions law itself.

> But, one thing HongKongers must understand is, your future is linked with mainlanders, for better or worse. We may not see each other eye to eye on other many topics, but this, this is the problem we both facing.

Hong Kong people understand and agree that we are facing the same opposition--the oppressive regime in China--and our time is dated: Hong Kong people are counting the number of years until 2047, which is 50 years after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, after which the "two systems" may disappear. And we are also questioning if the "two systems", the promised anatomy of Hong Kong from China, may disappear before 2047. One reason you see so many Hong Kong people in the current protest, is the fear that if they don't speak up now, they cannot speak up later.

> Also, many mainlanders is actually quite supportive about some protests. Simply search Twitter with the right keyword you can find many https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%E6%9....

We thank the support from mainlanders given their difficulty, and also for the support from the whole world. Such attention on Hong Kong is very much needed and appreciated.

I read from your comment in another thread that many mainlanders are trying to earn money to trade for freedom: better social status in China, or to move to another country. In fact, I think there are lots of mainlanders who went overseas, and they are enjoying the freedom and protection in another country. If we, Hong Kong people and overseas mainlanders, unite together, there is a lot more that we can do.

Your speaking up here in Hacker News is a good start, and we together can try to do more.

Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#79

Post by confusedhnguy »

atr_gz wrote: post #77
confusedhnguy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of the opium wars need to be as well know as the history of slavery in the US, until then, leaving this important context out of the discussion makes people think that the UK is the victim. What I was trying to say is that media in the West pay far less attentions to the wrong doings of their allies. For example, the anniversary of the Tiananmen square incident made it to the front page of HN, but I have…

Things aren't always that bad in China, but all of the things on the signs have happened and continue to happen. You're simply wrong that those are false accusations. If these things have happened even one time, they can happen again. It's the opposite of baseless. I've witnessed the Chinese judicial system secondhand, as experienced by native Chinese people. Fortunately, I haven't had to experience anything firsthan…

We have finally come to the dead end (which I expected): you think that China is a 1984-like society and I disagree, and we can't convince each other. This is fine.

For all the stuff you want me to look up online, I already know, and I know more context than you do. For example, we can talk about the cultural revolution to each other freely and we understand the long list of reasons why it happened, contrary to the simplistic "evil communists" viewpoint held by some Westerners. Go to Beijing, talk to a taxi driver, listen to how they curse our government for their wrong doings, or learn Chinese and read Weibo every now and then, and you may change your mind. Hey, my English is better than 99% of mainlanders and I read Western news all the time, but I still don't think I am remotely qualified to talk about US's internal affairs. Please don't assume someone from China knows less than you do just because you have read some second-handed materials.

You didn't use the exact word "panacea", but you have been using "blocking democracy" as some kind of crime, which suggest that democracy is the only right way to go, and I disagree.

Westerners keep talking about how bad censorship is, and this is exactly why I said the CCP is terrible at media manipulation. The state of the art, as used by the West, is to report partial truth and take words out of context. Look at the link posted by NeedMoreTea, "if the Brits allowed self-governance" was conveniently omitted.

Re: Hong Kong Leader Backs Down on China Law But More Protests Planned

#80

Post by tempguy9999 »

confusedhnguy wrote: post #76
tempguy9999 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The protesters get what they want: this is the Chinese government's evil plan The protesters didn't get what they want hence are considering further protests. Whether they are wise or not was my point. There's no absolute but... Imprisoning over a million Uighurs for their religion, and disappearing people for their political beliefs is evil, so yes, the chinese gov't is evil in that sense. Let's look at your prior…

> Imprisoning over a million Uighurs Have you tried to image what kind of resource does it need to do this? How many prisons and guards are needed? How many hospitals, power stations and other related facilities are required to support this? Where are the satellite images? If we are arresting them for their Islamic religion, how come I still have a large amount of Hui friends hanging out with me just as usual? https:…

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