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Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

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Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#41

Post by 317070 »

oraphalous wrote: post #17
ninedays wrote: post #6

"Not sure what the HK protesters endgame is here." People are fed up about how the system works and about their life and the life of people they know. They want things to be "better" without having to clearly define and write a 167 page law that will probably not benefit them. People are expressing their dissatisfaction and IMHO that's a valid justification for protesters and good enough for me.

The protesters may not clearly understand their own endgame, but the CIA certainly understands its own... which is to precipitate an armed crackdown that diminishes Chinese prestige - giving the U.S. further leverage in the current battle for global pre-eminence that is occurring between the two powers. And no - I don't have evidence of CIA involvement, except for the somewhat co-incidental timing of the unrest relat…

Just a thought, but the cause-and-effect relationship you suggest between the protests and the trade war might be the other way around? I.e. the protests causing the timing of the trade war?

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#42

Post by Multicomp »

pasiaj wrote: post #13
ninedays wrote: post #6

"Not sure what the HK protesters endgame is here." People are fed up about how the system works and about their life and the life of people they know. They want things to be "better" without having to clearly define and write a 167 page law that will probably not benefit them. People are expressing their dissatisfaction and IMHO that's a valid justification for protesters and good enough for me.

Everything you say seems correct. The problem is that movements without specific, clearly defined policy goals tend to fail. It is easy to come together to oppose some bad thing , but it is really hard to find consensus on what to do after the bad thing has been defeated. So while movements without specific policy goals can win elections, the usually cannot bring effective change. Is independence the goal here?

That's what's different about this protest, there in fact five basic demands that they have been pretty consistent with.

The first demand that originally sparked the protest was to have the extradition to China bill officially withdrawn, not simply referred to as dead yet left in legal suspension but still theoretically possible to push through as soon as the protesters went home.

The second demand is to have all of the people who were officially declared as rioters to be officially declared as peaceful protesters on a protest from early June because people who are declared rioters can face up to 10 years in prison. These protesters were once occupying the legislative house and even though they were graffitiing the walls with slogans, people went around and posted papers on refrigerators holding drinks and foods that said 'we are protesters not thieves' and no one took any of the food. Talk about being polite. Yet they were declared rioters (ok clearly I've come to a conclusion)

The third demand is for Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam to resign.

The fourth demand is for an independent commission to be formed to investigate police brutality as alleged by the protesters during the protests over the last 10 weeks. Heavy use of tear gas and rubber bullets.

The fifth demand is for all protesters to be unconditionally freed.

I'd recommend reading https://www.hongkongfp.com to keep up with what's going on in HK. I've followed it since May and it has been quite insightful.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#43

Post by maeln »

bitanarch wrote: post #28

The new protests happened because a new round of violence from the HK Police, towards both protesters and people unrelated to protests. e.g. Firing less-lethal rounds directly at head level, causing permanent blindness https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cowgje/a_female_p... e.g. Planting evidence into protester's backpack https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/coypg7/police_put... e.g. Firing tear gas in…

I will add that there is now suspicion of police infiltrating protest to start violent clash: https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1474213-20190812.h...

I wouldn't be very surprise if it was the case as it is often a tactic use, even in our western democracies, to justify stronger and more violent police operation and also tarnish the image of the protest.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#44

Post by danieltillett »

baybal2 wrote: post #11

PLA was doing innuendo charged manoeuvres for the past 2 months all over the province. Today, they were finally moved to the HK bridge terminus. They even plastered banners with something like "you got it" on their APCs

I have been wondering how long it will be before the HK gov calls in the PLA to 'restore order'.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#45

Post by pjc50 »

ninedays wrote: post #6

"Not sure what the HK protesters endgame is here." People are fed up about how the system works and about their life and the life of people they know. They want things to be "better" without having to clearly define and write a 167 page law that will probably not benefit them. People are expressing their dissatisfaction and IMHO that's a valid justification for protesters and good enough for me.

There are really only two possible endings. One is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956 , and the other is Taiwan.

Either China consolidates control over HK and it loses critical political freedoms, ceasing being a democracy even in the slight way that it already is; or, somehow, incredibly, the protestors win and HK gets to retain its quasi-independence while China claims to be sovereign but lacks practical ground control.

(I suppose a third ending is somehow they return to the status quo ante of nominal control with little practical interference, but that was never entirely stable from the British withdrawal onwards. Getting back there would require everyone forgetting the whole thing, disabling injuries and all.)

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#46

Post by oraphalous »

yshnurxghtfh wrote: post #39
oraphalous wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The protesters may not clearly understand their own endgame, but the CIA certainly understands its own... which is to precipitate an armed crackdown that diminishes Chinese prestige - giving the U.S. further leverage in the current battle for global pre-eminence that is occurring between the two powers. And no - I don't have evidence of CIA involvement, except for the somewhat co-incidental timing of the unrest relat…

why has this been downvoted? Of course everyone who plays the game will evaluate what they can make out of a new situation.

I'll just leave this here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#47

Post by bitanarch »

oraphalous wrote: post #17
ninedays wrote: post #6

"Not sure what the HK protesters endgame is here." People are fed up about how the system works and about their life and the life of people they know. They want things to be "better" without having to clearly define and write a 167 page law that will probably not benefit them. People are expressing their dissatisfaction and IMHO that's a valid justification for protesters and good enough for me.

The protesters may not clearly understand their own endgame, but the CIA certainly understands its own... which is to precipitate an armed crackdown that diminishes Chinese prestige - giving the U.S. further leverage in the current battle for global pre-eminence that is occurring between the two powers. And no - I don't have evidence of CIA involvement, except for the somewhat co-incidental timing of the unrest relat…

The extradition law, which was proposed by CE Carrie Lam, was indeed proposed and supposed to be passed by the legislature, at around the time frame as the Trump-Xi meeting.

If you infer the cause of the protests is the CIA, then CE Carrie Lam would be a CIA agent.

The much more likely explanation to all these is incompetence, rather than conspiracy.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#48

Post by pjc50 »

oraphalous wrote: post #46
yshnurxghtfh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why has this been downvoted? Of course everyone who plays the game will evaluate what they can make out of a new situation.

I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird

This is very interesting, but what does it have to do with the CIA?

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#49

Post by kitsune_ »

I don't think this will end well, the more this drags on, the more violent it will probably become. At some point the state will probably have a pretty good excuse to declare martial law and enforce order by military means, ultimately it might fasten the integration of Hong Kong into the PRC instead of delaying it.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#50

Post by nobody0 »

bitanarch wrote: post #28

The new protests happened because a new round of violence from the HK Police, towards both protesters and people unrelated to protests. e.g. Firing less-lethal rounds directly at head level, causing permanent blindness https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cowgje/a_female_p... e.g. Planting evidence into protester's backpack https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/coypg7/police_put... e.g. Firing tear gas in…

Well, some of those 'protesters' threw firebombs toward the police. [0]

and some of them met officials from the U.S. [1]

[0] https://www.foxnews.com/world/firebombs-set-off-near-2-hong-...

[1] https://stillnessinthestorm.com/2019/08/evidence-of-cia-meet...

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