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Hong Kong protest: Why are pro-democracy supporters staging a sit-in?

independent.co.uk

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Re: Hong Kong protest: Why are pro-democracy supporters staging a sit-in?

#31

Post by JDShu »

xux wrote: post #28
Shad0w59 wrote: post #22

The amount of hyperbole in this thread (and in the protest) is unbelievable. Protesters are quick to talk this up as the next Tiananmen Square when in fact looking at the ground it's nothing like it. You just need to look at Hong Kong culture to see that this is being overblown. It's the HK style, there's no middle ground, it's either the end of the world or nothing worth mentioning. Of course the people have a right…

I was wondering why they're using the Occupy brand. Is it now just used for everything remotely related to protests?

Well they're literally occupying Central, the financial district, aka Hong Kong's Wall Street.

Re: Hong Kong protest: Why are pro-democracy supporters staging a sit-in?

#32

Post by dang »

idlewords wrote: post #2

All this "article" says is that Hong Kong protesters are using two hashtags on twitter, while giving no further information on the nature or purpose of the protests. Much better to read the linked Independent piece: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/hong-kong-prote...

Thanks. Url changed from http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/28/amid-crackdowns-protestors-....

Re: Hong Kong protest: Why are pro-democracy supporters staging a sit-in?

#33

Post by ant_sz »

I'm from Chinese mainland, a student at Shanghai.there is not even a piece of information about this leaked to the mainstream media. many of my classmates managed to get information from multiple sources but more have no idea what happened.

it's quite strange that the blocking turns a political event into a technical one.

I'm not a 100% supporter for the protest, but I extremely dislike the government's passion of blocking everying. it makes me feel hopeless in the country knowing more and more interesting things are becoming far away from us.

Re: Hong Kong protest: Why are pro-democracy supporters staging a sit-in?

#35

Post by wyuenho »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #23
Shad0w59 wrote: post #22

The amount of hyperbole in this thread (and in the protest) is unbelievable. Protesters are quick to talk this up as the next Tiananmen Square when in fact looking at the ground it's nothing like it. You just need to look at Hong Kong culture to see that this is being overblown. It's the HK style, there's no middle ground, it's either the end of the world or nothing worth mentioning. Of course the people have a right…

Those delusional freedom lovers with their low-class demands for better representation. Next thing you know, they might start looting tea and throwing it in the harbour.

https://twitter.com/HemanChong/status/516383686355202048?utm...

Re: Hong Kong protest: Why are pro-democracy supporters staging a sit-in?

#36

Post by coupdejarnac »

ant_sz wrote: post #33

I'm from Chinese mainland, a student at Shanghai.there is not even a piece of information about this leaked to the mainstream media. many of my classmates managed to get information from multiple sources but more have no idea what happened. it's quite strange that the blocking turns a political event into a technical one. I'm not a 100% supporter for the protest, but I extremely dislike the government's passion of bl…

From what I've gathered, even protests within mainland China do not make the news there. Unless the protests involve Uighurs or the Japanese embassy.

I lived in Beijing from 2004 to 2006, and during my time there a bunch of websites became blocked, including Wikipedia. It drove me nuts.

Re: Hong Kong protest: Why are pro-democracy supporters staging a sit-in?

#37

Post by edwincheese »

JDShu wrote: post #17
asdfologist wrote: post #14

Honest question: how effective are these sorts of protests in achieving their intended goals? Maybe I'm suffering from confirmation bias, but it seems all the major demonstrations in the last few decades (Tiananmen Square, Iraq War, Occupy Wall Street, post-Iranian election, etc) have sizzled out and failed. The one exception I can think of is the anti-Proposition 8 protests, but Prop 8 was defeated in the courts thr…

In my opinion, that's a very good question and one that demonstrators rarely think about. Frankly, and until somebody convinces me otherwise, I think that Occupy Central was and is a strategic failure if the end goal is gain a better form of democracy in Hong Kong. China has shown time and again that it will not back down when things get physical, and in for example, the case of Tiananmen square, the government got m…

The movement does not happen in vacuum. The Occupy Central movement was initiated by Tai Yiu-ting in January 2013, and Hong Kong democracy movements dates back to 1990s. From the very beginning, Tai Yiu-ting and the two other leading organizers of Occupy Central have stressed that they want to negotiate with Beijing. They even took a very mild stand in the political reform discussion that many other opinion leaders in Hong Kong condemned as "too mild".

Yesterday's events is triggered by Beijing's "ruling" for Hong Kong's 2017 elections. While citizens would be allowed to vote for the chief executive, the candidates for the election would have to be approved by a largely Beijing controlled nominating committee. Beijing's plan is obviously non-democratic, and it is no different than a categorical rejection of all demands made by previous Hong Kong democracy movements.

It is fair to say that the large-scale non-violent civil disobedience movements in last few days and very likely in coming weeks are the result of failing to negotiate, which I think the government with the power should take the responsibility. Since the economic and diplomatic situation of China today is very different than that of 1989, it is not likely that the government could repeat what it has done before. Reopening the negotiation is not something unimaginable IMO.

Re: Hong Kong protest: Why are pro-democracy supporters staging a sit-in?

#38

Post by khc »

ant_sz wrote: post #33

I'm from Chinese mainland, a student at Shanghai.there is not even a piece of information about this leaked to the mainstream media. many of my classmates managed to get information from multiple sources but more have no idea what happened. it's quite strange that the blocking turns a political event into a technical one. I'm not a 100% supporter for the protest, but I extremely dislike the government's passion of bl…

I've seen screenshots of mainland media reporting the event as a massive celebration: https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/t31.0-8/106...

Re: Hong Kong protest: Why are pro-democracy supporters staging a sit-in?

#39

Post by gurkendoktor »

ant_sz wrote: post #33

I'm from Chinese mainland, a student at Shanghai.there is not even a piece of information about this leaked to the mainstream media. many of my classmates managed to get information from multiple sources but more have no idea what happened. it's quite strange that the blocking turns a political event into a technical one. I'm not a 100% supporter for the protest, but I extremely dislike the government's passion of bl…

I have seen this in my Twitter stream today, and I can't really believe it - does the PRC state media really try to re-brand the photos as a "celebration"??

https://twitter.com/libdave/status/516281577001590785

Then again, I think that's pretty much what they did with pictures from the Taipei student protests earlier this year...

(Edit: Whoops, duplicate of a sibling post :) )

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