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HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

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Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#11

Post by an_opabinia »

wyager wrote: post #5

I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”. I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerabl…

> the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective.

I understand you are making a stylized appeal for liberal political change via violence. China's leadership has peaks and troughs of liberalism, and violence there, in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran and in many other places around the world was followed more often by a hardening, not a softening, of daily life.

Violence in Hong Kong would delay liberalization and usher a vicious and oppressive crackdown.

> legitimization strategy for political changes that were already in development before the protest started.

Here you appear to know that the real strategy is waiting. Eventually, Xi will die, and it's more likely than not that his successors will liberalize.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#12

Post by npunt »

wyager wrote: post #5

I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”. I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerabl…

I'm not actually sure if you polled westerns that they would assume protests alone are the impetus for change, this may be a straw man.

A more generous line of thinking would be 'do peaceful protests help bring about change?', which many in the west would probably agree to, and many in HK probably not. And they'd both be right - peaceful protest likely works better in certain contexts (democracies) than others (authoritarian regimes).

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#13

Post by jawkx »

wyager wrote: post #5

I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”. I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerabl…

Hongkongers are not protesting peacefully lol. They literally burned people that say that they love China.

I think it is a perfect case study on how creating chaos (running into parliament building and vandalise), doxxing and threaten the family of police officers and supporting Donald trump (for whatever reason) is not helping.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#14

Post by JumpCrisscross »

an_opabinia wrote: post #11
wyager wrote: post #5

I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”. I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerabl…

> the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. I understand you are making a stylized appeal for liberal political change via violence. China's leadership has peaks and troughs of liberalism, and violence there, in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran and in many other places around the world was followed more often by a hardening, not a softeni…

> Eventually, Xi will die, and it's more likely than not that his successors will liberalize

It is more likely there will be a contest for power.

It could become violent, though that is unlikely. In that event, I see no reason to ensure like-minded Chinese are sufficiently armed, or at the very least informed. China's path changed when Xi installed himself as dictator for life. It's foolish to ignore that seismic shift.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#15

Post by throwawaycities »

northwest65 wrote: post #10
someperson wrote: post #7

The best way to put pressure on the Chinese Communist Party and help pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong (and the reduce Uygher genocide) is to avoid buying Made in China goods where possible. This means buying Western, Korean and Japanese brands that aren't manufactured in China. Eg, a Samsung phone over Apple (made in Vietnam than Made in China), a Western Digital hard drive (made in Thailand) etc. There are an incre…

Maybe a better way would be to stop selling them food. We still want to buy Apple products, but they need to buy food.

Remember during the pandemic when China threatened to stop selling masks, PPE and IVs? Immediately Trump stopped calling it “The China Virus” and then China “donated” millions of masks to the US for the international PR.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#16

Post by jawkx »

northwest65 wrote: post #10
someperson wrote: post #7

The best way to put pressure on the Chinese Communist Party and help pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong (and the reduce Uygher genocide) is to avoid buying Made in China goods where possible. This means buying Western, Korean and Japanese brands that aren't manufactured in China. Eg, a Samsung phone over Apple (made in Vietnam than Made in China), a Western Digital hard drive (made in Thailand) etc. There are an incre…

Maybe a better way would be to stop selling them food. We still want to buy Apple products, but they need to buy food.

"Starving the Chinese to own the CCP" and then blamed China for the famine after that, westerner are playing 4d chess man

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#17

Post by samirillian »

wyager wrote: post #5

I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”. I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerabl…

I think both of these points hold, in their own way, in the Western world. As Guy Debord writes in The Society of the Spectacle:

> [The Spectacle] defines the program of the ruling class and presides over its formation, just as it presents pseudo-goods to be coveted, it offers false models of revolution to local revolutionaries.

Or as Zizek once said (in paraphrase): It's not Jihad vs. McWorld, it's McJihad vs. McWorld.

Do you think that the West exported this spectacle-based theory of change?

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#18

Post by tablespoon »

someperson wrote: post #7

The best way to put pressure on the Chinese Communist Party and help pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong (and the reduce Uygher genocide) is to avoid buying Made in China goods where possible. This means buying Western, Korean and Japanese brands that aren't manufactured in China. Eg, a Samsung phone over Apple (made in Vietnam than Made in China), a Western Digital hard drive (made in Thailand) etc. There are an incre…

> The best way to put pressure on the Chinese Communist Party and help pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong (and the reduce Uygher genocide) is to avoid buying Made in China goods where possible.

Decoupling could be helpful on several fronts, but it's not going to happen via individualist boycotts. Those are useless, and just too many things are made in China without realistic alternatives. If it's going to happen, it'll be through increasing tariffs (preferably slowly over time) and other government policy.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#19

Post by xxpor »

wyager wrote: post #5

I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”. I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerabl…

>The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerable to bad PR,

I mean we're talking about the same government on the bad side of the Tank Man photo. I think that's kind of obvious.

The difference is in HK I don't think people were anticipating China to completely break the Basic Law and the handover agreement. They were protesting the elected HK government, not Beijing directly.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#20

Post by tablespoon »

xxpor wrote: post #19
wyager wrote: post #5

I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”. I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerabl…

>The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerable to bad PR, I mean we're talking about the same government on the bad side of the Tank Man photo. I think that's kind of obvious. The difference is in HK I don't think people were anticipating China to completely break the Basic Law and the handover agreement. They were protesting the elected HK government, no…

> They were protesting the elected HK government, not Beijing directly.

I don't think it's ever been correct to say the HK government was elected. It had some elected elements, but they were never in the majority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Council_of_Hong_Ko....

IIRC, one of the five protest demands was for a fully elected government.

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