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Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

#71

Post by AWildC182 »

sevilo wrote: post #17
psychometry wrote: post #5

Haven't these pro-Beijing students ever tried to access uncensored information online that was denied to them until they arrived in their host countries? Why are they content to continue believe in the propaganda? You'd think that even a casual search for a subject like Tiananmen Square would be a wake-up call.

That’s not how propaganda works, I assume the vast majority of these students haven’t left the country until close to adulthood. I completed elementary school in China and the teaching begins in grade 1 for students to believe in communism and patriotism. When you have been raised in that belief for your entire life, changing your belief system is not as simple as “look what other people with a different view say!”.…

Probably the guns.

Americans are going to look at the broader issue here and think "Last time this happened for us we just shot at them until they left" and disregarding the practicality of such notions, it's nevertheless baked into the collective consciousness and constitution.

Tl;dr this is the one major situation where guns, as they exist in the US constitution, can be justified unequivocally.

Re: Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

#72

Post by HueHueKK »

They are being censored by proxy groups that have been indoctrinated to do and follow what their sovereign tells them to. Assuming 16-20 years of propaganda and being told what to do is not enough, different tools such as: 1. Financial reward 2. Threats to life and family 3. Cuts to loan & grants 4. Harrassment 5. Social exclusion

Are used to put you in line. It will only get worse from here onwards, if you think you are safe where you live, ask yourself "If they mistreat their own population and use the media to misguide the truth, what will they do to 'these damn foreigner'?"

Re: Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

#73

Post by JumpCrisscross »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #68
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think Americans are going to hate their country after reading about MKUltra? One, we don’t censor that information. Two, I’d expect most Americans to freely criticise those government actions, as well as the people and agencies responsible. The latter is prohibited in China.

So what? I’m talking about why anybody would expect a Chinese student to change their attitude because of 6/4. Your response and the others here have nothing to do with that.

> I’m talking about why anybody would expect a Chinese student to change their attitude because of 6/4

I wouldn’t, but that’s because of something deeper than anything we experience in America or Australia.

Consider pre-Snowden public opinions on mass surveillance. The public didn’t know and didn’t believe. Once the information came out, however, people believed. Some actions were taken, and on many fronts activism got aggressive. (A large minority accepted the new facts while deeming it acceptable. A smaller minority thinks the disclosures themselves were a conspiracy.)

It would be surprising if a majority of Chinese students, after learning about the massacre at Tiananmen Square [1], rejected it as a global propaganda campaign. Some will. More than in America, given the energy given to brainwashing by Beijing.

The difference will be in the number who believe it happened but defend it as having been necessary. Teaching the worth of democratic values is tough. The violence exhibited towards the Hong Kong protesters, and Beijing’s emissary’s support of it as patriotism, exemplifies that.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of...

Re: Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

#74

Post by psychometry »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #22
sevilo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how propaganda works, I assume the vast majority of these students haven’t left the country until close to adulthood. I completed elementary school in China and the teaching begins in grade 1 for students to believe in communism and patriotism. When you have been raised in that belief for your entire life, changing your belief system is not as simple as “look what other people with a different view say!”.…

This is one reason I decided to go back to America once we had a kid. I’m not a big fan of nationalism. Unfortunately, I’m a bit worried about American schools, many now require daily pledge of allegiance here in Washington state, which was definitely not true when I was a kid. It just feels like something China would do but the USA shouldn’t.

Students saying the pledge is pointless and inane, but I'm pretty sure most just say the words without really thinking about them.

Re: Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

#75

Post by monksy »

addicted wrote: post #67
monksy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be caught, tried and charged under Australian laws. Most countries have in their laws that people will be removed for the major crimes (violence etc). If you're in a country where you are not a citizen you are a guest. You wouldn't go to someone's house, create a lot of trouble, and then expect to be able to stay do you?

The guest framing applies equally to the people supporting the Hong Kong protests. Students shouldn't behave like guests in countries which value freedom of speech. However, students who engage in violence and intimidation should certainly be removed from the University based on the rules almost every University has regarding what constitutes acceptable behavior, and in this case it seems they would also have broken…

I got the impression he was referring to the counter "protestors", (if you're "protesting" in a violent way.. that's a riot, not a protest).

My understanding of the counter-protesters were not citizens of Australia. Despite being a student, it doesn't change that they're guests. This is frequently warned on the State department's travel guides. NEVER join in on foreign protests, not all countries have the same rights in those reguards.

Re: Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

#76

Post by SamReidHughes »

ginko wrote: post #56
skdkdk wrote: post #12

Kids will be kids, but the consul generals words do frighten me. It’s whistle blowing to Chinese kids that it’s okay to incite violence. Patriotism is never an excuse for harming others.

Sorry, but in what way, other than the most colloquial, are university students kids?

Maturity?

Re: Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

#78

Post by projproj »

psychometry wrote: post #5

Haven't these pro-Beijing students ever tried to access uncensored information online that was denied to them until they arrived in their host countries? Why are they content to continue believe in the propaganda? You'd think that even a casual search for a subject like Tiananmen Square would be a wake-up call.

William Shirer was an American living in Germany during Hitler's reign. Here's what he said about how successful propaganda can be:

"I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. Though unlike most Germans I had daily access to foreign newspapers, especially those of London, Paris and Zurich, which arrived the day after publication, and though I listened regularly to the BBC and other foreign broadcasts, my job necessitated the spending of many hours a day in combing the German press, checking the German radio, conferring with Nazi officials and going to party meetings. It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one’s inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one’s mind and often misled it. No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime’s calculated and incessant propaganda. Often in a German home or office or sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, a beer hall, a café, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler and Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were."

[edit] The quote is from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, which is very good and a surprisingly easy read for how long it is.

Re: Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

#79

Post by tepidandroid »

lxe wrote: post #35

Is HN exactly like Boomer Facebook now? What's with this "kick them out of the country" rhetoric? If people are assaulting peaceful protesters, arrest them, charge them, try them, and punish them according to the law. It's literally right there on camera. But no, please continue inciting outrage and controversy. China bad. Hong Kong good.

It's outrage-porn peddled as world news by the BCC, plain and simple. The tell-tale sign is that they didn’t bother to get both sides of the story. There are videos of the incident readily available on Youtube [1] which show what exactly happened.

There’s one group of HK/Australian pro-Hong Kong protestors on one side. There’s another group of Mainland students exercising their right to free speech by playing and singing the Chinese national anthem on the other. Was this extremely annoying to the pro-HK protestors? Definitely. Was it offensive to the Australians? Yes. Were the pro-China crowd offended by the signs saying “free Hong Kong”? Yup.

You can see the ensuing minor scuffle ("violent clashes" according to the BBC) between between a tiny handful of students from both sides. I saw exactly one sign being torn down. The vast majority of the students were just standing there peacefully.

The BBC article makes it seem as though the Chinese students strong-armed their way into the crowd and started beating people, which is objectively not the case. This is the narrative of the two pro-HK students who they interviewed. If there is evidence of threats and intimidation, then that evidence should be brought forth and those students should be formally reprimanded at the very least, or expelled/criminally charged/deported at worst if the complaints are proven to be valid.

It’s easy to see why they’d write a story like this though when you see the emotional response elicited even from people here -one can only imagine the effect it'd have on the less educated masses.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CkH3zqoGWw

edit: Another longer video of the "violent clashes" or "Lennon wall violence in University of Queensland" as described by the Youtube uploader (warning: extremely long and boring video where nothing happens)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRmRPsJ-sM

Re: Hong Kong protests: 'I'm in Australia but I feel censored by Chinese students'

#80

Post by __sy__ »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #34
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many now require daily pledge of allegiance here in Washington state Haven’t court decisions rendered pupils’ participation in the pledge of allegiance optional in all 50 states?

Yes. But that doesn’t mean they still can’t require time be set aside for it and for it to be socially awkward to opt out.

> socially awkward to opt out

random aside, there was a kid in my Texas high-school who stopped saying the pledge around the time of the 2003 Iraq war. While I didn't necessarily agree with the method, a few of us did appreciate the fact that he did that; it showed that sometimes the most patriotic thing you can do is not blindly support your government.

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