Ref: https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/29/full-open-letter-hong-...
Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
221–230 of 376 posts
Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
#222Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
#223The phenomenon that young HKers, regardless of economic status even young kids of post-97 mainland immigrants, almost unanimously support liberal democratic ideas should probably thanks to pro-democratic narration in their k-12 education.
That's said, I agree with this LA Times piece, narration in education (or call it propaganda or brainwash) really matters. Unless there are properly crafted counter message in western education, majority of oversea Chinese students will continue to live in their WeChat walled garden of post truth[1].
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post-trut...
Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't think it's clear that the protestors started the violence. Most reports seem to indicate otherwise. Its clear from the videos of protest supporters and media outlet without China's influence like BBC, CNN, The Guardian that there was violence in the protest (not small enough to be ignored). This is just deflecting the reality to create confusion. Hong Kong is China according to handover and follows "Chinese…
> British kept it the same without granting freedom or democracy Well they tried. Shortly after the Chinese revolution, HK was receiving an influx of refugees from China. Mostly well educated and skilled people. Britain was moving to bring in democratic reforms in the 1950s. China threatened to invade to "liberate" the territory if such reforms continued. https://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of-hong-kongs-still..…
They didn't try but abandoned any efforts due to self interest of profits and economic extraction from a colony. The article put this in a better context, I just put excerpts from the link you shared:
Brits wanted to make sure they’d protected their economic interests before they departed, much the way they did in Singapore and Malaysia.
Another one:
In fact, in 1982, when negotiations began, the Hang Seng Index was already shaky due to fears that if China took over, the Communist Party would gut Hong Kong’s rule of law or nationalize wealth, causing the market to crash and capital to flee. The Brits needed to calm markets and ensure financial stability. That meant making sure the handover agreement protected British financial interests.
Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Biased reporting that selectively misrepresents Chinese perspectives and in this case, deliberate omissions to dismiss the publication as purveyor of fake news is crux to many Chinese complaints against western MSM. See all the Huawei 5G hit pieces from a nominally free 5th estate that somehow manages to replicate the manufactured consent of state propaganda. IMO people who lived under propaganda, especially journali…
> Biased reporting that selectively misrepresents Chinese perspectives and in this case, deliberate omissions Was there bias in the reporting? sure. Is there bias against China in the MSM? sure. That isn't a rebuttal. > >The editor claimed that during their talks, he explained to Zhang how much effort the publication put into fact-checking and confirming references. But none of these went into the final piece. This i…
Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Notice how you can link to an US website for a lot of information on it, which in turn is linking to 100+ more. Compare this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings#Memorials... with this https://vimeo.com/44078865 and also compare " Twenty-eight guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds " with this, which itself is just a tip of the iceberg: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comm…
Wow I haven't seen those before. The reddit images were really powerful and disturbing. There's no arguing that the Chinese government has committed atrocities and is trying to cover them up. My point is just that, I feel like the Western dialogue is often "Look at these horrible things that happen in China. Isn't propaganda sad?" My point is that propaganda is happening everywhere. Yes, it's happening in China blata…
Yes, I totally agree. To scapegoat the CCP as "the" evil power center would not only be unfair and hypocritical, it would be dangerous.
For me as a German, I a lot of beef with "my" country, "the West" etc. But that doesn't make me like Putin or the CCP, etc. If anything, the more corruption or tyranny there already is, the worse any additional "amount" of it becomes, if you know what I mean.
Of course that also means I cannot excuse "our" crimes with that of the CCP. For me that'd be like using the misdeeds of others to excuse one's own, which is actually worse than just doing the misdeed. And criticizing elsewhere is easy.
But so is looking the other way, and I also must not do that, I can't. If I want to secure and deserve what freedom I have, I have to support that of others, at least in principle, always.
> But this was seemingly mistranslated in the videographer's favor? I point this out, not to argue with the message of the video, but to show that there is nuance/spin happening everywhere.
No disagreement here either. And it really disheartens me when causes with legitimate grievances "give it a little extra". I wish people were more strict about that, it's a real problem. And making such small corrections, no matter how benign or factual, gets people labeled as "being in the other camp" so quickly, which is the worst part, apart from people thinking in terms of "sides" alll the time in the first place. So thanks for pointing this out.
And thank you for taking the time as well :)
Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
> British kept it the same without granting freedom or democracy Well they tried. Shortly after the Chinese revolution, HK was receiving an influx of refugees from China. Mostly well educated and skilled people. Britain was moving to bring in democratic reforms in the 1950s. China threatened to invade to "liberate" the territory if such reforms continued. https://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of-hong-kongs-still..…
> Well they tried. Shortly after the Chinese revolution, HK was receiving an influx of refugees from China. Mostly well educated and skilled people. Britain was moving to bring in democratic reforms in the 1950s. China threatened to invade to "liberate" the territory if such reforms continued. They didn't try but abandoned any efforts due to self interest of profits and economic extraction from a colony. The article…
In the post-war decolonisation period GB had a policy of no independence before majority rule. They were putting in place democratic reforms elsewhere, and ensuring minority rule (ie South Africa) didn't continue after independence.
Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
#228I think a lot of people who were born in the west don't understand that, when you're very poor, economic circumstances matter more than political freedom. After all, having money (or not) affects what you can or cannot do far more than whoever's in charge. Chinese people today have lived through an economic miracle. If I lived there I doubt I'd criticize their system, especially considering people still can remember…
"For young Hong Kongers however, they didn't live during British rule. They were born into wealth, and now their own career prospects (like many millenials around the world) aren't great. So they protest." Almost everything in these sentences are wrong. It's not just the young people who are protesting in Hong Kong, and most people in Hong Kong have never been born into wealth. There's a great divide between the weal…
HK has long had a GDP per capita on par with western nations. Versus China which has had a GDP per capita on par with developing nations until fairly recently.
Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
#229I think a lot of people who were born in the west don't understand that, when you're very poor, economic circumstances matter more than political freedom. After all, having money (or not) affects what you can or cannot do far more than whoever's in charge. Chinese people today have lived through an economic miracle. If I lived there I doubt I'd criticize their system, especially considering people still can remember…
Economic concerns elected Trump.
Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests
#230One of my colleagues was a stanford-undergraduate, harvard-grad-school (at the time biochemistry postdoc) who grew up in china. He was somehow fed information that Muslims don't eat pork because they worship pigs. I tried to correct him but he was insistent that he was correct. An otherwise extremely intelligent human who had no difficulty reconciling conflicting evidence and information (e.g. in science)