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'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

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Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not healthy to be critical of both Western influenced narratives AND CCP influenced ones?

They simply said there is a brigade of "america bad, china good" Also, this film is about Hong Kong. Talking about things the US doesn't do well steers us off topic. We have plenty of other threads to do that in.

> They simply said there is a brigade of "america bad, china good"

And there isn't, but there are comments that refuse to jump to shallow thinking and consider how we'd see the protests, reactions and outcomes had they happened elsewhere. That's very different though.

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#72
post #26

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/18/hong-kong-huge... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48656471 At many different times in 2019, 1.7M-2M Hong Kong citizens, or 25% of the population, proudly protested in the streets and requested for their freedom. If only something good had came out of it. Now it's sunk to what China's best at: false arrests: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/mc5bah/young…

Regarding arrest for accessing online information, I have become fascinated lately with the concept of legal warfare. It is the use of legal constructions to align other governments or subordinate bureaucracies to your strategic goals. For example, when Russia invaded Ukraine, they used the pretext that only volunteers from Russia were traveling to Ukraine to support a legal separatist movement. Now none of these cla…

I understand very well what Russia seeks in Donbass. What I fail however to understand is what the hell your country doing in Iraq and Syria and why you think you have any right to blatantly interfere in Chinese internal affairs.. Neither China, nor Russia supported occupy wall street and BLM. But you do foment civil unrest in these states!

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#73
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All things considered, the Hong Kong police did what they had to given their precarious position. Compare the 2 deaths during a year of protesting to the 19 deaths within a couple weeks of the George Floyd protests. Keep in mind that they're stuck with the Hong Kong police even if they are allowed to become independent, so it doesn't make sense to demonize them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Hong_Kong…

> Keep in mind that they're stuck with the Hong Kong police even if they are allowed to become independent It’s worth noting that a lot of the “Hong Kong police” that were involved in breaking up protests seemed to come from the mainland and only spoke mandarin, not cantonese. Edit: https://twitter.com/AmyWong01217912/status/11822963227720908... is one of many sources

This is complete hearsay. If China could so easily violate one country, two systems, they wouldn't have cared about a formal extradition bill to begin with.

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#74
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All things considered, the Hong Kong police did what they had to given their precarious position. Compare the 2 deaths during a year of protesting to the 19 deaths within a couple weeks of the George Floyd protests. Keep in mind that they're stuck with the Hong Kong police even if they are allowed to become independent, so it doesn't make sense to demonize them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Hong_Kong…

I would be interested in seeing normalized comparisons, data allowing - e.g., X deaths per person-protest-hour, that sort of thing.

Protests in some countries might be mild and orderly, or put little pressure to the government and mostly ignored - but this wouldn't necessarily be a sign that the government is more open to protest, just that protests happen to be more "for show" than threatening.

It's also about the culture of police violence. In the US citizen life is cheaper (and one would guess, in China too), judging from the number of police shootings alone, and the excessive police force used for everything and anything, that to have deaths in a protest/riot etc is kinda taken as granted or "the way things are". This extends to protest cop behavior.

In some countries mild or even heavy violence would be tolerated, but a single death in a demonstration could cause resignations or bring down a government. So there are countries with tons of protests for decades involving 10s or 100s of thousands without a single death (mine didn't have a protest death for ages, despite tons of protests and violent clashes and supression by the police), and countries where a protest can turn into deadly suppression almost immediately (e.g. some Latin American countries).

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#75

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/18/hong-kong-huge... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48656471 At many different times in 2019, 1.7M-2M Hong Kong citizens, or 25% of the population, proudly protested in the streets and requested for their freedom. If only something good had came out of it. Now it's sunk to what China's best at: false arrests: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/mc5bah/young…

You won’t have to imagine long, in Canada one can now be imprisoned for using the (in)correct pronoun of a relative, so the CCP model might be globalized sooner than we expected. Each country have his legalized taboos, and those we had in the West aren’t more ridiculous than the Chinese one. Free speech should prevail.

https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/canadas-gender-identi...

“could someone go to jail for using the wrong pronoun?

In the Criminal Code, which does not reference pronouns, Cossman says misusing pronouns alone would not constitute a criminal act.”

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#76

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/18/hong-kong-huge... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48656471 At many different times in 2019, 1.7M-2M Hong Kong citizens, or 25% of the population, proudly protested in the streets and requested for their freedom. If only something good had came out of it. Now it's sunk to what China's best at: false arrests: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/mc5bah/young…

[deleted]

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#77
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, HK protestors grossly over exaggerate for optics, but MSM usually endorses organizer headcount uncritically. Reality consistently closer to police (under)estimates. Professionals at crowd control are better at estimating crowd sizes. Study from HKU of pre 2019 protests: https://graphics.reuters.com/HONGKONG-EXTRADITION-PROTESTS/0... Another analysis with machine learning, about 1/2 protestor estimates.…

The articles you are referring to doesn’t show the full picture. In all protests only a part of the crowd is visible on the streets, the majority of the day is spent trying to get up to the streets from the MTR.

HKU has 15 years of data points on HK protests. There is reliable pattern of protestor organizers significantly overestimating and police mildly underestimating. Overall HKU and Police estimates are much more aligned. These two parties are actual subject matter experts vs protest organizers, ergo based on historic data and expertise, organizer estimates should be presumed to be less reliable / credible. Doesn't mean 2019 protests weren't massive. They're just likely half as massive as what makes for good headlines.

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#78
post #39
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding arrest for accessing online information, I have become fascinated lately with the concept of legal warfare. It is the use of legal constructions to align other governments or subordinate bureaucracies to your strategic goals. For example, when Russia invaded Ukraine, they used the pretext that only volunteers from Russia were traveling to Ukraine to support a legal separatist movement. Now none of these cla…

Some classification of these new forms of interventions: Ukraine is more hybrid warfare. HK is more lawfare. Chinese maritime disputes is more gray zone warfare.

In all cases, the goal is to establish a truth on the ground independent of political posturing. Of course, someone can call your bluff on it!

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious difference is that US citizens elected its Congress representatives, while the PRC 'assigns' the majority of the electors in the Hong Kong parliament. Also while the official death count is low, there are many protestors who simply vanished from HK.

> simply vanished Source?

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/hong-kong-china-prot...

One of the most striking things I have witnessed has been the letters that young protesters have been writing in case they are arrested or disappeared by security services. These “last letters,” to be read in the event that they don’t return from the protests, explain to their families why they are protesting, and also serve as a “no-suicide declaration.” Nine thousand, two hundred, and sixteen people have been arrested during the 12 months of protests, a figure much larger than the total prison population of 7,023. This discrepancy, combined with a series of mysterious deaths and disappearances that have been explained as suicides or accidents, has made protesters wary of their own safety. So the letters serve to say, “I will not be another suicide statistic.” As one young person wrote in their letter, “I have no regrets, not for a moment; even though missing or dead, I will never stay silent in the face of injustice”

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested in seeing normalized comparisons, data allowing - e.g., X deaths per person-protest-hour, that sort of thing.

That would likely be even more extreme, wouldn't it? As far as I remember, the protests in HK were massive (as in 5-10% of the population in a single event).

10s of millions of people participated in protests last summer in the US. 700k is 10% of HK population.

Both are extraordinary, it's not obvious to me who should win the "most well-behaved protest movement" award

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