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Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

latimes.com

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Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#261

Post by pimmen »

dirtyid wrote: post #129
GuiA wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally serious question: Why do you want to plant seeds of doubt? I suspect you are likely to answer something like “because it’s for their own good”, or “because they have a right to the Truth”. Have you considered that what is good/true for people is heavily dependent on their personal circumstances? If, after planting those seeds of doubt, your friend or one of their family members suddenly disappears and you nev…

The amount of anecdotes of "my Chinese coworker/girlfriend/wife" (never boyfriend/husband) is brainwashed and the savior complexes that arise is intriguing. In general, mainland Chinese nationals / ex-Citizens who work in the west are typically well educated and intelligent. Why is it so hard to believe that they have reconciled both Chinese and Western narratives and arrived at the conclusions that they feel is appr…

> "If seeing your extended families quality of life improve every year and experiencing first hand Chinese tier1 cities and infrastructure eclipsing development in the west is brainwashing, then I hope the West adopt it."

This is not what the West is criticizing and calling "brain washing". Rather it's locking up critical book publishers and journalists, lying through state sponsored media and doing actual brain washing to millions of muslims. These are all things the West has done too, and we realized that was all bad and not in the least necessary for economic growth, so we created strong constitutions founded in human rights to try to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#262

Post by jialutu »

president wrote: post #258
jialutu wrote: post #256

I have lived in the UK for over 20 years since I was 8, and I have to say I don't understand the Hong Kong riots. For starters, does any of you even know how it all started? The extradition bill? To do what? To extradite a Hong Kong teen that killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan so he can be prosecuted there, at the request of Taiwan! I don't ever see that mentioned anywhere. Let me say, this video absolutely ril…

Not saying you're wrong but you're way too confident on your stance when most people don't even have all the facts aside from cherry-picked bits from biased media (regardless of side). I have been following the protests since the beginning and I seem to remember things were peaceful until bad actors (violent police and hired thugs) came into the picture. There has also been evidence of false flag operations so how wo…

Hired thugs? I assume you mean in Yuen Long right? Here is my question, do you know where Yuen Long is? It's quite far out of the city of Hong Kong (I mean the name has far in it). So the story goes that the "protesters" went there to do what exactly, and then got beaten up right? So why were they so far out in the first place? Since it's quite far out of the city center, do you really think someone can quickly pay thugs to create a coordinated attack against these rioters when it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment type of thing?

Personally, I am more convinced that the "protesters" are the agitators of all of these, you are more than welcome to show me otherwise.

As for violent police, the UK deals with protests are even worse, but I've not seen escalation to this sort of level.

Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#263

Post by president »

Premise of the question is completely wrong. It's not a matter of not understanding the protests. It's more that they want the outcome benefits their own "kind". Chinese priorities are in optimizing for family, riches, and career. Anything that gets in the way of that whether it's the environment, human advancement, HK protests will be quashed.

Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#264

Post by seppin »

markus_zhang wrote: post #47
1propionyl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience meeting a friend of a coworker at a social function. Someone brought up the Dalai Lama and Tibet, and she seemed completely unable or unwilling to accept that Tibet had even ever _not_ fully and totally willingly been an administrative division of China, or that China had acted in any way inappropriately. As far as she was concerned, Tibetans were Chinese, not a distinct group. It was eye o…

It just says how different views different people can have. I'm pretty sure it was eye opening for her too... I have been living in the West long enough to not argue those stuffs. The Chinese government has its bad and its good, but so far it's doing OK, and I can't imagine any other government could do better, or even on par.

> The Chinese government has its bad and its good, but so far it's doing OK

Are people really just ok with concentration camps in 2019?

Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#265

Post by pas »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #159
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the protesters will offer a different slant. From what I've read, they genuinely understand that what is at stake is their freedom to choose their own path. They've watched as China has gradually taken control of the governing body, the media, the financial management and the police. Each transpired more or less over a number of years, but each was also worrisome and that worry and anxiety pent up. The trigge…

> From what I've read, they genuinely understand that what is at stake is their freedom to choose their own path. Unfortunately that's not what's at stake because they won't succeed; freedom isn't actually an option. They think it is, but they'll fail. > Liberty is what they are fighting to keep. Not wealth. That might be what they tell themselves, but I can guarantee that if all the HK youth got cushy finance jobs l…

> that if all the HK youth got cushy finance jobs like the previous generation, ...

sources? yes, finance was always big in HK, but how many people got those cushy jobs really?

Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#266

Post by jialutu »

codeddesign wrote: post #259
jialutu wrote: post #256

I have lived in the UK for over 20 years since I was 8, and I have to say I don't understand the Hong Kong riots. For starters, does any of you even know how it all started? The extradition bill? To do what? To extradite a Hong Kong teen that killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan so he can be prosecuted there, at the request of Taiwan! I don't ever see that mentioned anywhere. Let me say, this video absolutely ril…

No, it was more like the final straw that set all of the events in motion. It started with the Taiwanese matter that mainland China took advantage of to assert control. Mainland has been actively working to integrate Hong Kong into China for quite some time now both on the cultural side by encouraging Chinese to move to Hong Kong, and on the political side by removing complete authority away from Hong Kong. If you ha…

I've been to both places, and I am fully aware that the system in Hong Kong is very different to that of the mainland, to the point where in certain aspects I see Hong Kong as a separate country (although things could have changed in the past few years, so I am not so certain).

From what I've seen though, I don't think China really wants to fully integrate Hong Kong (probably not even in 2047) as it doesn't make to much sense to do so, but would rather create an offshore haven like what Jersey is to the UK. But here lies the problem, while Jersey is seen as really well off due to the number of high networth bank accounts kept there, there is a real sense of poverty in Jersey and I think that's the issue HK is facing right now. If that is the case, calling for democracy is not going to solve their problems, so instead of rioting, maybe they should have sat down to work out a better solution.

Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#267

Post by pas »

age_of_stone wrote: post #248
yardie wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you're very poor, economic circumstances matter more than political freedom. I consider the 2 to be intertwined. If you are not free to pursue a better way of life, economic circumstances matter very little. The Arab Spring was sparked by a Tunisian street vendor having all his possessions confiscated by the local police. Out of frustration he set himself on fire. Authoritarian regimes are rarely fair and are…

"Authoritarian regimes are rarely fair and are not particularly interested in the financial well being of the population." if you think Chinese government is authoritarian, then it is an exception coz it does care and try its best to improve the financial well being of the population. and it is the social contract between China government and its people. you need to realize that even "authoritarian" governments are q…

sure, oppressive regimes usually favor the "people". in this case if you are Han Chinese and don't have any strange ideas (eg Falun Gong, democracy, liberalism), then you can get ahead pretty well.

Otherwise not so much. See Xinjiang, Tibet, and so on.

Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#268

Post by dragonsh »

khc wrote: post #257
dragonsh wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's again wrong. British did give HK some democracy and definitely more freedom than what's currently given (at least in reality if not on paper) British were in Hong Kong for 150 years and only granted enough freedom to Hong Kong to align with their own interest of generating profits and economic dividends for Britain. This is how they treated all their colony including Hong Kong. This is not freedom, its like…

> British were in Hong Kong for 150 years and only granted enough freedom to Hong Kong to align with their own interest I don't want to speculate why the British did what they did, and that's not the point > Hong Kong never had democracy including during British time. If you have any written evidence in law or regulation on the contrary let me know. So far I couldn't find any evidence except the "Basic Law" which gua…

> I don't want to speculate why the British did what they did, and that's not the point

There is no need to speculate, history offers a clear answer. I can understand that it's hard to swallow bitter truth.

> Democracy and freedom

I have voted myself and know how the system worked before Chris Patten and afterwards. It was a from caged zoo turned to open zoo not really democracy.

Regarding freedom Britain offered BNO and UK passport to selected few(not the same rights or freedom as a UK citizen) also please show me any document from UK government which offered Hong Kong same rights and freedoms as UK citizens. Chinese offered full Chinese nationality along with additional freedoms defined in Basic Law.

> Cherrypick

I picked the first instance when Hong Kong asked for reinterpretation of article 22, in spite of legal repurcussions in the long run. Society at large liked it because it was beneficial economically. In history there are enough examples to prove my point that Britain always worked for their own economic interest and I picked the excerpts from the example you posted.

Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#269

Post by pas »

nailer wrote: post #179
notyourday wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is correct. Chinese people truly are in a support of China's leaders and China's policies, just like Soviet people were in support of the Soviet policies. Had it not been the case, there would have been no government capable of stopping the rebellion: if one solider can control a 100 citizens (via say bullets) then in order to control 1.3 billion, China would need to give bullets to 130 million peopl…

Authoritarianism breeds corruption. When the next scandal hits, and the corruption is revealed, maybe the citizens will revolt (again) against the CCP.

Nah, it doesn't work that way. It never did.

In feudal times ther were many instances of folks from higher classes abusing the folks from the lower ones. Nothing really happened, some isolated instances of retribution happened, and that was it.

Scandals/abuses worked the same way in the USSR. The very worst offenders eventually got shifted around the system. (source: https://www.libri.hu/konyv/majtenyi_gyorgy.kommunista-kiskir... alas no English translation, but there are probably similar surveys of historically documented real stories about how the men of the ruling party were somehow always more powerful than the official propaganda stated how equal everyone is)

Re: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests

#270

Post by schuke »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #30

I 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…

They protest not because they don't have money, but because Beijing is essentially taking their money away by eating into their legal system, which is ultimately what makes HK competitive.
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