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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

#111

Post by icebraining »

rado wrote: post #71
loriverkutya wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been to China and Hong Kong. In China people looked relaxed, spent time relaxing in parks and socialising. I assume you did not visited Xinjiang where Uyghurs are not really relaxing in parks.

His point stands when you compare the streets of the major cities to the onslaught of Western propaganda that ignores everyday life. Propaganda against "communism" which just isn't there. A large portion of the lawmakers in Beijing are industrialists.

Can you point to some representative examples of that onslaught of Western propaganda against communism in China?

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#112

Post by notwumao »

jddj wrote: post #99
notwumao wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the second question, I felt humiliated by the protestors' vandalism on the Chinese flag and emblem, which are symbols of our national identity. If my government ended up making concessions to the protestors' demand, it would be a hard pill for me to swallow.

This got me thinking about my own situation. I've been living abroad in various places for a few years now, and I feel like if someone were to vandalise the flag of my home country in an act of protest I don't think it would trigger much of an emotional response in me at all. No more, probably, than someone vandalising the flag of my sports team (that's to say, not much). I wonder where this emotional attachment to t…

The emotional attachment is rooted in the rapid rise of China in the past four decades.

Before the 1990s the opinions and actions of Chinese people hardly mattered on the world stage. People living in China had relatively low quality of life, and those living overseas were often neglected or treated with biases. There was a society-wide desire to build a stronger nation.

Many factors contributed to China's subsequent success in this endeavor, but I would say that most Chinese people attribute it to their own hard work. And this is a source of immense national proud. This proud is frequently associated with the Chinese flag and emblem when, for example, Chinese atheletes won medals in international contests. They've become symbols that unite a wide range of Chinese people.

Many Chinese who grew up in this period genuinely felt that they lived in good times, and saw China very favorably. They're also likely in prime age today and form the backbone of "mainstream" society. When the HK protesters operate in a context where almost everything about China as a country is interpreted negatively, their messages immediately lose credibility in the mainland.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#114

Post by mytailorisrich »

jddj wrote: post #99
notwumao wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the second question, I felt humiliated by the protestors' vandalism on the Chinese flag and emblem, which are symbols of our national identity. If my government ended up making concessions to the protestors' demand, it would be a hard pill for me to swallow.

This got me thinking about my own situation. I've been living abroad in various places for a few years now, and I feel like if someone were to vandalise the flag of my home country in an act of protest I don't think it would trigger much of an emotional response in me at all. No more, probably, than someone vandalising the flag of my sports team (that's to say, not much). I wonder where this emotional attachment to t…

> and I feel like if someone were to vandalise the flag of my home country in an act of protest I don't think it would trigger much of an emotional response in me at all.

This very much depends on a country's history and it is impossible to generalise, although I would suspect that burning an American flag in the US (for example) would not go well with many Americans (and probably same for other countries).

China's current regime is partly a reaction to foreign aggression and humiliation.

An enduring symbol of this aggression and humiliation was Hong Kong itself.

This what makes attacking state symbols (or waving the British/American flags as I have seen some protesters do on TV) in Hong Kong so potent.

I think that for many Chinese seeing people protesting against the extradition bill and for more democracy is one thing (which they may be somewhat sympathetic to, actually) but attacking national integrity is quite another, which is guaranteed to produce general anger.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#115

Post by jddj »

chychiu wrote: post #113

New to Hacker News - Is there a reason why this has disappeared from the front page within minutes? It was on the top of the front page as of 9:02pm AEST (4:02AM PDT).

It may have been gaining far more comments than upvotes for a time?

This is seen as a red flag by the algorithm, as it suggests that the thread is overly controversial.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#116

Post by high_derivative »

johnchristopher wrote: post #93
onetimemanytime wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hong Kong is a matter of national security to China. Something countries go to wars till the last man over. So what you mentioned is nothing, China has a lot more goodies in the bag. Here's one: Granting pardons or giving immunity to top criminal gangs as a long as they kill xxx revolt leaders.

Why is this comment downvoted ? In my country, Belgium, headlines were along the lines of "The real question now is: how patient is Beijing inclined to be ?".

There seems to be a lot of downvoting irrespective of post quality.

I wonder if this is i) thread-specific due to possible brigading, or ii) a more wider tribalistic phenomenon. I have perceived (lost my old account from years ago) that downvoting more and more is plain disagreement with the opinion, not whether a comment is substantive. Could be completely off and biased, but at least in this thread it seems to be the case.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#117

Post by pimmen »

vijucat wrote: post #68

Complicating the nature of these protests is that the 5 overt demands put forth by protestors (all related to the Extradition Bill) do not reflect a large cause of the latent / tacit discontent: the inability of youngsters to buy a home and raise a family due to collusion between property developers and government to restrict land supply. This author has stated the problem better than I can: https://www.scmp.com/comm…

South China Morning Post to me doesn't have the credibility to make claims about representing Hong Kong's actual sentiment or discontents. When they interview Gui Minhai between torture sessions and publish his forced confession, not even questioning Beijing why neither his daughter nor Swedish authorities hadn't been allowed any contact with him, they lose a lot of faith from me in their journalistic integrity.

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/04/daughter-confronts-scm...

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#118

Post by kthejoker2 »

yorwba wrote: post #103
mushufasa wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have very specific "5 demands" 1. no extradition to china 2. retract characterization of protests as riots 3. exonerate arrested protestors 4. investigate police misconduct 5. resignation of the PRC-appointed executive and... democracy they are literally protesting for democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extraditio...

> they are literally protesting for democracy Protests don't achieve democracy, voting does. If all participants in the recent protests were willing to volunteer, printing a few million ballots and distributing them to improvised polling stations wouldn't be insurmountable. The Hong Kong Identity Card means that voter ID can be implemented without access to government records, simply by assigning a range of ID number…

> Protests don't achieve democracy, voting does.

History strongly begs to differ - assembly to address grievances is just as crucial a step in achieving democracy as a vote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta#Great_Charter_of_1...

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

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

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#119

Post by cdmckay »

hvidgaard wrote: post #53
cdmckay wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has already stated their real intentions. After 50 years of autonomy, there will be no 1 country, 2 systems. They stated this when they took over control of HK and Macau. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems

From the very first paragraph of your link > Under the principle, each of the two regions could continue to have its own governmental system, legal, economic and financial affairs, including trade relations with foreign countries. Yet they're trying to pass a law that essentially allow China to extradite people in HK to mainland China, for any reason mainland China makes up. That is not 1 country, 2 systems as the le…

My impression would be that China isn't going to flip a switch after 50 years and suddenly switch to the Chinese system.

I would imagine they would do it gradually like they're doing now.

Re: Hong Kong Airport shuts down as protesters take over

#120

Post by nimrod0 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #114
jddj wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This got me thinking about my own situation. I've been living abroad in various places for a few years now, and I feel like if someone were to vandalise the flag of my home country in an act of protest I don't think it would trigger much of an emotional response in me at all. No more, probably, than someone vandalising the flag of my sports team (that's to say, not much). I wonder where this emotional attachment to t…

> and I feel like if someone were to vandalise the flag of my home country in an act of protest I don't think it would trigger much of an emotional response in me at all. This very much depends on a country's history and it is impossible to generalise, although I would suspect that burning an American flag in the US (for example) would not go well with many Americans (and probably same for other countries). China's c…

Two possibilities present themselves.

Either the protestors don't know any history, or have learned such a skewed version of history that they internalize the perspective of the 19th century British victors in an ultimately self-defeating way, or;

They know very well the potency of the symbolism and are deliberately declaring themselves aligned with the Western camp out of political expediency, and elevating the conflict to the level of a battle of spheres of influence.

Neither possibility will be looked upon kindly by mainland Chinese firmly rooted in their own historical and political understanding, because it is against their interest.

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