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About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

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Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#111

Post by pimmen »

guilhas wrote: post #82

Some notes * French yellow vests are ignored week after week. This is all over the place. * HK already has extradiction with the USA. * USA debacle demanding a journalist extradition to prosecute. * Protesters posters are in english. * Mainstream narrative, small HK will be successful independent. UK brexit will be terrible because it will be a insignificant country.

France has a democratic system, Hong Kong has no democratic way to get rid of Lam.

USA has due process, the right to council and many other fundamental human rights.

Most of the posters are in Chinese.

Brexit will be worse for the UK economically, leaving China would be good for HK democratically. And, also, the UK has an enshrined right to leave thanks to article 50, HK does not have that right at all.

Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#112

Post by swjz »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #101
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chief executive is basically a pawn of Beijing, where democracy is limited and many delegates who elect the CEO are appointed by pro Beijing groups. If HK got rid of their appointed delegates, the anti-Beijing group would have a clear majority.

It's not clear who would have the majority if functional constituencies were eliminated. The pro-Beijing camp got a higher proportion of the popular vote than the anti-Beijing camp in the last Legislative Council election. Yes, democracy is limited in Hong Kong. The city has never been ruled democratically. The issue now is that Beijing will not take the risk of allowing separatists to take power. As for the Chief Ex…

> As for the Chief Executive's actions, it's not entirely clear to what extent she's responding to popular pressure, business groups in Hong Kong that want stability, or the central government.

I would say, the Chief Executive is more like a coordinator between Hong Kong and Beijing on such big issues. I don't think she is able to make important decisions like this on her own.

Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#113

Post by RaceWon »

loyukfai wrote: post #58
briandear wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2/7th is huge. The Bolsheviks had a tiny, tiny percentage of the population and they took over Russia. Also 2/7 participation doesn’t mean 2/7th support. A lot of people might support the movement but are unwilling for various reasons to take to the streets. 2/7 is historic and huge.

The other 5/7 may watch TVB - a HK TV channel of which to many people is their only news source, and which has since been bought by mainlanders, just like many other media and publishing assets in HK - and believe in something totally else. No joke, if you watch only TVB news, you will think the HK government is doing a great job and these protesters are arrogant, dis-obedient trouble-makers. The gap in understanding…

> No joke, if you watch only TVB news, you will think the HK government is doing a great job

I get that: we have the same thing here in the USA with many newspapers and some TV stations. Heck, because of this, some people actually believe President Trump is a Russian Agent, you know, despite the fact that he is one of the great capitalists of all time, and he never ran for Any elected office until he won the Presidency--a feat which was all but impossible... still they think Putin made that happen, because that is what they are told.

Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#114

Post by loyukfai »

GordonS wrote: post #95
loyukfai wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but many of the HK protesters, somehow, became obsessed with the terminology. It's part of a broader war between the government and the opposing faction.

I don't think this is quibbling over terminology - "suspending" is a temporary measure, and governments being governments, there's every chance it would be "unsuspended" once the protesters melt away.

>because even if the government had completely retracted the amendment, they could draft another amendment anytime anyway.

Now that Carrie Lam has realised that she cannot do whatever she wants (at least on this issue). The criteria, if or when the this amendment will re-surface, will depend on public opinions, instead of whether it's temporarily suspended, or retracted.

Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#115

Post by guilhas »

riffraff wrote: post #102
ksec wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be fair, Yellow Vest has been going on for months. And France has a democratic system in place. Use it! >* Protesters posters are in english. There are just far too many Chinese Poster you don't get to see.

Also, yellow vests protests at the top were less than 200k people, in a country of tens of millions. The only reason they made the news is because protests were violent.

First the yellow never realy made headlines.

The focus on the violent parts is intentional. HK poor people repressive police, France poor police violent protestors. Both are supposedly peaceful with clashes with the police.

In France. 15 protestors dead, 0 policeman. 4000 injured. 8000 arrested.

Estimation was 282k one single time, and after lower than that. But it has been continuous, with people every week all over the country. And all unions and society sectors participating.

Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#116

Post by trappist »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104
loyukfai wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The damage is done. It will take quite some time for the opinions of the Taiwanese people to change again, if ever.

We’re used to Beijing thinking for the long term. When they rotated leaders, this was largely true. With Xi as leader for life, however, the short-term decision making and incompetent bureaucracies that characterises dictatorships are beginning to emerge. Hong Kong shouldn’t have been a problem. Most Hong Kongers, until recently, identified as Chinese moreso than Hong Konger. The transition in 2047 would have been un…

This is the sort of thing predicted by Hans Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy: The God that Failed", the basic premise of which is that short term leaders as found in democracies will try to get as much as they can in the short time they have, whereas lifetime leaders as in monarchies will treat the country more like a property owner would his own property.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy:_The_God_That_Failed

Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#117

Post by hker »

pimmen wrote: post #103

I live on the other side of the world, but this still strikes a deep chord with me. I'm Swedish, born and raised in Gothenburg. After the Umbrella protests in 2014 five people connected to the Causeway Bay Books store in Hong Kong disappeared. One of them is a naturalized Swedish citizen, his daughter was raised in my home town. He is now imprisoned and can't communicate with his daughter, or with the Swedish authori…

We, people from Hong Kong, appreciate your view a lot.

Your view is particularly relevant to the current protest on anti-extraditions law: the focus is on what if more people will be transferred to China when CCP does not like what you have done outside of China.

Without the extraditions law, CCP has to go into great length to abduct others into China--for the case of the five missing book publishers (including a Swedish national) [1] who did not violate any law in Hong Kong or elsewhere (ignoring some made-up non-sense of drink-drive accidents), likely CCP used secret agents reaching as far as Thailand, because there were no travel documents necessary to have the five people crossing the border through legal channels.

But once the extraditions law is passed, China can use Hong Kong to bring people into China, regardless of their nationality, and foreigners merely transiting in Hong Kong could be arrested and then extradited into China.

The results weren't pretty. The Swedish national, Gui Minhai, in this case were forced to made a "confession" on CCTV for his "crime", in addition to losing his freedom [1].

China has shown repeatedly that they could retaliate by charging foreigners. What follows the Huawei incident is a recent example.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...

Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#118

Post by griffinkelly »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104
loyukfai wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The damage is done. It will take quite some time for the opinions of the Taiwanese people to change again, if ever.

We’re used to Beijing thinking for the long term. When they rotated leaders, this was largely true. With Xi as leader for life, however, the short-term decision making and incompetent bureaucracies that characterises dictatorships are beginning to emerge. Hong Kong shouldn’t have been a problem. Most Hong Kongers, until recently, identified as Chinese moreso than Hong Konger. The transition in 2047 would have been un…

There's been a stronger identity as being a Hong Konger recently, but my family has always identified as being from Hong Kong. Looks like young people have dramatically shifted in their views. Found this saying the same: https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/06/21/hku-poll-3-1-young-hon...

Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#119

Post by loyukfai »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #94
loyukfai wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have pointed out, HK government is not historically oppressive, physically speaking. So if the protesters initiate violence without being provoked, mass opinions may change real quick. IMO we better consider this on a case-by-case basis. If non-violent protests can and will work in more places in future, why not?

It got pretty bad in the late 60s, ironically with pro Mao demonstrators during the cultural revolution (which had some spill over into HK).

You're right, I should have added: "after the 60s riots".

Thanks for the reminder.

Re: About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests

#120

Post by JumpCrisscross »

trappist wrote: post #116
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re used to Beijing thinking for the long term. When they rotated leaders, this was largely true. With Xi as leader for life, however, the short-term decision making and incompetent bureaucracies that characterises dictatorships are beginning to emerge. Hong Kong shouldn’t have been a problem. Most Hong Kongers, until recently, identified as Chinese moreso than Hong Konger. The transition in 2047 would have been un…

This is the sort of thing predicted by Hans Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy: The God that Failed", the basic premise of which is that short term leaders as found in democracies will try to get as much as they can in the short time they have, whereas lifetime leaders as in monarchies will treat the country more like a property owner would his own property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy:_The_God_That_Failed

> short term leaders as found in democracies will try to get as much as they can in the short time they have, whereas lifetime leaders as in monarchies will treat the country more like a property owner would his own property

The evidence shows the opposite. Political leaders (in any system) want to act in the short term. Democracies simply constrain them.

No “lifetime leaders” are guaranteed a life term. They must continuously fight for political survival. (And with that, often, actual survival.) Dictatorships deploy, with limited constraint, their immortal nation’s power on mortal time scales.

(Democracies’ rotation of leaders also allows for fixing mistakes. Dictators are constrained in terms of backing away from bad decisions. They thus have a bad habit of doubling down on stupid decisions.)

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