As an expat living in Hong Kong, I've noticed a clear change of mood since the ramming-through of the National Security Law last month. Protests have all but died, and people are genuinely aware of having lost their relative freedoms of speech and assembly. Businesses on the "yellow" (pro-protest) side are distancing themselves from their support of the movement. Politicians are quitting opposition parties because they're afraid of being disappeared. Individuals are afraid to go out and protest. A friend recently asked me to keep a hard hat for her because she was afraid that if she was caught with it at her house it'd be evidence she participate in the protests.
China has basically given up any semblance of autonomy for Hong Kong. It's clear who runs the show here. Carrie Lam is universally despised (her approval ratings make Trump look like Mother Theresa). Nobody respects authority anymore. It's clear in daily life.
While the timeline was accelerated this year, it's hard to imagine that there could have been a different outcome. It's been decades now since the UK formally handed over HK to the Chinese central government, and the Chinese have always said they would integrate it slowly into mainland China.
Hundreds of thousands of HKers have been migrating out of China for decades.
I'm unclear why people expected HK to ever be autonomous permanently?
> I'm unclear why people expected HK to ever be autonomous permanently?
No one did, but the treaty said it would semi-autonomous for 50 years. These actions are 27 years early, so they didn't even keep their end of the deal for half the time they promised.
Also, a lot can happen in three decades, and one could have held out hope that the PRC could have undergone some kind of liberal reforms before the treaty expired.
It's not that people expected HK to be autonomous permanently, but that it was expected that opening access to the west for the whole of China, and to western economies, and especially through Hong Kong, would lead to a rising Chinese middle class who would want more liberal democratic values, and a corresponding decrease in paranoia by the ruling elite.
There is historical evidence that suggests that liberal values flourish better with prosperity, just as environmental and anti-pollution awareness increases once people rise above subsistence.
And the answer is yes, his tweets really do threaten China's national security. People internally questioning the CCP delegitimizes the CPP and Xi. That threatens, not China, but the ruling party. They defined their continued rule as the national security of China.
History repeats itself. Just 30 years ago the Soviet Union was dissolved. If you study this dissolution process, you see that demonstrations and the ambition to sovereignty was nothing new in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, but in comparison to the 50s, 60s and 70s, Gorbachev did not use military force to prevent countries from splitting off.
If China lets HK go independent, there is a chance of a chain reaction: Guangdong, Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia.. just to name a few. This would mean to total collapse of the PRC.
But in comparison to the USSR, China's economy is highly intertwined with the global economy.
I would even go that far and say that a successful HK independence movement could have the chance to lead to a total collapse of the global economy on a scale that makes this Corona recession look like a Kindergarden.
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE HK, I lived and worked there. I have also lived and worked in Mainland China. It is sad to see that HK will likely become just a random Chinese city and lose its uniqueness. I just wished that there would be a mutual process of this unification and China would move slower towards it, while HK would accept that the China of 2047 will look different from China today.
But HKers aren't even asking for full independence. They want to retain the democracy and freedom they've had so far.
And the parallels with Soviet Union's collapse is debatable. At that point Soviet Union was on the brink of economic disaster, while China is at the height of their military and economic power.
I have to point out that under British rule, there was no democracy. If they want things exactly like they have before, the central government would send a governor to HK instead of having their own governor.
China wanted HK to be special and successful, to use it as a showcase for the 'one country two systems' model. Now China just want to not lose HK. Huge change in thinking.
The economic collapse seems like a misattributiation of the USSR's collapse's cause. The collapse was because the economy turned out to be a lie fundamentally.
Now China has certainly been cooking the hell out of the books but given the other sides of transactions with the outside world we have an idea of the of the real as quite large.
PRC has total control over mainland China. There is 0 risk of fragmentation.
HK is a separate entity in every sense, so is Taiwan.
USSR collapsed because its economic and political system crumbled from the inside, enabling Poland et. al. to get out from under their thumb, which is what they always wanted to do.
If China had economic turmoil, mainland would stay intact in one way or another.
The CCP might look stronger than it actually is. Due to the restricted flow of information, a lot of the conflicts are not well publicized.
If the CCP were to collapse, it'd be from the inside.
Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan always wanted independence.
It's difficult enough to unify a small group so just imagine with 1.4 billion people.
First of all, there are those who asked for independence but that is definitely not the majority.
Secondly, if we are looking at history, why would we look at USSR instead of the history of China? There is never a regime change until a civil war broke out, and there is always blood involved.
If you're feeling despair, there are real things that you can do. I do one thing that makes me proud every day.
I run an obfs4 Tor bridge on an old Linux Mint box that's just sitting around in my home.*
The bare minimum thing that Chinese and any other country's citizens need is information, and freedom of information. This is where tech truly, truly helps.
[*] Yes, they may first need to connect to a working VPN, but that's OK, to really become free they can then connect to a Tor bridge like mine.
There are substantial number of internet users capable of breaking out of the GFW. At least to my knowledge. The VPN request signature is actually very obvious and prone to be recognised by GFW. There are many other recommended methods. A large market is available for this purpose.
Tor don't work well in China. So is VPN. Chinese don't even know it exist. It's hard for none tech people. Even all Smart tech people in China know how to use these tools, it's still less than 0.00001.
Make some virus-like dummy tools. As far as mobile or PC infected. They will connect global internet not China LAN. It must infect nearby devices as well. That's the only way to help.
I am more worried being implicated with distribution of child pornography. The government is watching what comes through the pipes, and it’s your name on the pipe.
Also promote bitcoin in China. CCP survives on the money it can threaten and coerce out of its popularity. Bitcoin removes people's assets from CCP control
If we are collectively incapable of making any difference in this terrible transformation, then we could do the next thing CCP will hate: do a proper study of how population’s behavior changes as it transitions from a free mentality to the oppressed state mainland’s had been in for years. This is the chance.
I'm not aware of any precedents to date, but a rigorous scientific record of this kind would be extremely valuable as a reference proof against future gaslighting and dubious arguments.
The process is already under way, anecdotally some normally outgoing folks (Hongkongers and involved) are reluctant to post this on social media or discuss it with you unless they trust the channel.
If a scientist studying cancer calls cancer terrible in a casual conversation, they can still produce valid rigorous work about it. We'd have approximately zero research done if we disqualified everybody with a personal opinion about what they're studying. No one's unbiased, but basic science methodology helps us reveal and eliminate/compensate for our biases.
It doesn't matter whether you personally think oppressing human freedom is terrible or not—your work will not be any less useful. Its results may even challenge your own subjective opinion on the matter.
Why do you believe this? It is very much not true. If you wanted to study, for instance, how societies collapse, you don't need to be impartial about the notion of societal collapse. If you wanted to study war, you don't need to be impartial to war.
All science starts with a hypothesis and many of those are rooted in partiality. The point is to have an investigative method which proves or disproves that hypothesis.
The fact that science reveals truth even though it can start with partiality is why the scientific method is the gold standard.
Jimmy Lai is one of the most inspiring democrat activist of HK. With his wealth, he could have arranged a refuge and left HK months ago, instead of staying and being exposed to the increasingly beligerant CCP/Hong Kong bootlickers.
A sad day for HK. I hope the world does not let him be detained indefinitely, like what has happened to Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo.
The world may not have many options to help. They can raise a stink, and they can make things a bit economically painful for China. But China can choose to ignore both of those.
Steve Lookner runs Agenda Free TV on YouTube, and does a great job covering these types of breaking events. Currently wrapping up a live stream of the arrests and searches right now:
As a Chinese, I think it is reasonable to arrest a leader who violated the national security law.
Think of a US media tycoon who went to China to meet with the Secretary of State, used the media to incite riots in his country, appeared on the streets of protest, and publicly called on China to intervene in the United States. What are the consequences of this?
Please read more media from a different standpoint and think about this event in another way.
Chinese people want stability above all. Freedom of speech, the freedom to unbalance the boat is less important than stability. The story is that China has won its stability and peace through so much blood and war, anything is better than going back to those times.
In the west, we use freedoms of speech to balance the boat from one side to the other. Freedom of speech is the mechanism for stability. Freedom of speech is primarily how something is told they are wrong.
Freedoms are also why I can write: Bush destroyed the twin towers on 9 11 and killed thousands but you cannot say the CCP killed thousands on June 1989 in tiannamen square. Both events in history before many users here were even born. It's not only that it's illegal for you but censorship ensures that the boat is stable and the sea is calm. for Chinese, censorship is stability, freedom is the threat. You literally, emotionally, don't want to say those things, and you don't feel bad about it. Most westerners don't understand this. Freedom and difference to China means bloodshed and instability.
there are of course limits to freedom of speech in the west, direct calls to violence are out for example.
However encouraging protests is not encouraging violence even if the protests become violent riots later. In China protests are illegal by default because they might upset the boat potentially.
I think Hong Kong used to be a test field to test how the democratic system will be implemented in China. However, the experience of the past few years has shown a failure. The government's work has been unreasonably opposed by the opposition parties, and the people have been incited to riot.
Under this negative example, people in China who yearn for the American system are already ashamed to speak up. I even suspect that the purpose of Hong Kong’s opposition parties is to prevent democratization in China.
The demonstrators have a slogan "Non Separation", which means that peaceful demonstrations and violent demonstrations are not separated. They are all part of the entire movement. Peaceful demonstrators were hijacked by violent demonstrators.
> Think of a US media tycoon who went to China to meet with the Secretary of State, used the media to incite riots in his country, appeared on the streets of protest, and publicly called on China to intervene in the United States. What are the consequences of this?
That would be a wonderful thing if my government were currently persecuting 1 million people solely based on their religious and cultural identity. The consequences would be carried by hope.
Every time we discuss China's issues, some people always raise Xinjiang. The evidence presented was nothing more than the testimony of a few people and photos of unknown time and place.
Chinese people who know technology can read these reports, and I can say that most of them will not believe them. Because the CCP has always promoted that 56 ethnic groups are one family. If these things happen, they will spread locally and cause riots. Note that media control has never completely prevented the spread of the incident, only weakened.
Because Xinjiang has suffered terrorist attacks, his security measures are higher than other provinces. For example, citizens have to show their ID cards to enter the supermarket, but this is the same for everyone.
About the skills training school, I once had doubts about what facility it is. After watching the BBC interview, I relieved my doubts, because even if they were looking for it with a magnifying glass, the scariest place was just the bathroom with the lights off. [1] If officials prevent them from viewing anything, they will put it on the show.
In summary, I do not believe that the CCP persecutes Uyghurs. I think the media played a big role in our differences of opinion. So I suggest watching more media with different standpoint. For example, I often watch English media, but Westerners rarely read Chinese media. Fortunately, with Google Translate, language should no longer be a problem.
There would be no consequences because we have human rights. Hong Kong used to have those, and now they’ve lost them, which is a sad thing for humanity. Further, they’ve retroactively lost them - he and many others have been arrested for things they did before the national security law was in force, and so were legal at the time in their free society. China, by arresting them ex post facto, has proven them right.
You’re the one who needs to read more and get a new perspective - all you are doing is repeating the very common, very boring mainstream Chinese opinion.
His Twitter account would briefly get more clicks than Trump's, and a swarm of congress-critters would fight each other for the privilege of having him hauled in front of their panel for a grueling, multi-hour session of righteous posturing, all televised live. Then the late night shows would create condensed, only slightly exaggerated but far more entertaining versions of their performance. By day four, everybody would have moved on to the next outrage du jour.
I just want to say thank you for providing your perspective to help balance out all the uninformed China-bashing. And for taking the time to address all the points that others have brought up in their replies.
Thanks for replying, if my comment can bring thinking, it will be enough.
Because of the Chinese culture of "national unity", intervention in Hong Kong is like intervention in China.
I don’t think the analogy of Guam is appropriate. As a strategic priority, Guam is occupied by many countries. Now as a US military base, residents have no right to vote.
Hong Kong belonged to China a long time ago. The British captured him through war in 1842 and returned it to China in 1997. Hong Kong currently retains its own administrative system and will fully integrate into China in the future.
I am not very familiar with the history of the United States, and I cannot offer a better analogy. If the Guam helps to understand the situation, I have no objection. After all, what I want to say is what Jimmy Lai did.
Readit News
China has basically given up any semblance of autonomy for Hong Kong. It's clear who runs the show here. Carrie Lam is universally despised (her approval ratings make Trump look like Mother Theresa). Nobody respects authority anymore. It's clear in daily life.
Hundreds of thousands of HKers have been migrating out of China for decades.
I'm unclear why people expected HK to ever be autonomous permanently?
No one did, but the treaty said it would semi-autonomous for 50 years. These actions are 27 years early, so they didn't even keep their end of the deal for half the time they promised.
Also, a lot can happen in three decades, and one could have held out hope that the PRC could have undergone some kind of liberal reforms before the treaty expired.
There is historical evidence that suggests that liberal values flourish better with prosperity, just as environmental and anti-pollution awareness increases once people rise above subsistence.
Deleted Comment
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/opinion/hong-kong-china-n...
“Do My Tweets Really Threaten China’s National Security?“
Dead Comment
History repeats itself. Just 30 years ago the Soviet Union was dissolved. If you study this dissolution process, you see that demonstrations and the ambition to sovereignty was nothing new in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, but in comparison to the 50s, 60s and 70s, Gorbachev did not use military force to prevent countries from splitting off.
If China lets HK go independent, there is a chance of a chain reaction: Guangdong, Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia.. just to name a few. This would mean to total collapse of the PRC.
But in comparison to the USSR, China's economy is highly intertwined with the global economy.
I would even go that far and say that a successful HK independence movement could have the chance to lead to a total collapse of the global economy on a scale that makes this Corona recession look like a Kindergarden.
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE HK, I lived and worked there. I have also lived and worked in Mainland China. It is sad to see that HK will likely become just a random Chinese city and lose its uniqueness. I just wished that there would be a mutual process of this unification and China would move slower towards it, while HK would accept that the China of 2047 will look different from China today.
But HKers aren't even asking for full independence. They want to retain the democracy and freedom they've had so far.
And the parallels with Soviet Union's collapse is debatable. At that point Soviet Union was on the brink of economic disaster, while China is at the height of their military and economic power.
China wanted HK to be special and successful, to use it as a showcase for the 'one country two systems' model. Now China just want to not lose HK. Huge change in thinking.
Now China has certainly been cooking the hell out of the books but given the other sides of transactions with the outside world we have an idea of the of the real as quite large.
PRC has total control over mainland China. There is 0 risk of fragmentation.
HK is a separate entity in every sense, so is Taiwan.
USSR collapsed because its economic and political system crumbled from the inside, enabling Poland et. al. to get out from under their thumb, which is what they always wanted to do.
If China had economic turmoil, mainland would stay intact in one way or another.
If the CCP were to collapse, it'd be from the inside. Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan always wanted independence. It's difficult enough to unify a small group so just imagine with 1.4 billion people.
Secondly, if we are looking at history, why would we look at USSR instead of the history of China? There is never a regime change until a civil war broke out, and there is always blood involved.
Deleted Comment
I run an obfs4 Tor bridge on an old Linux Mint box that's just sitting around in my home.*
The bare minimum thing that Chinese and any other country's citizens need is information, and freedom of information. This is where tech truly, truly helps.
[*] Yes, they may first need to connect to a working VPN, but that's OK, to really become free they can then connect to a Tor bridge like mine.
Deleted Comment
https://twitter.com/mrkoot/status/1292358618004828160?s=20
Also promote bitcoin in China. CCP survives on the money it can threaten and coerce out of its popularity. Bitcoin removes people's assets from CCP control
I'm not aware of any precedents to date, but a rigorous scientific record of this kind would be extremely valuable as a reference proof against future gaslighting and dubious arguments.
The process is already under way, anecdotally some normally outgoing folks (Hongkongers and involved) are reluctant to post this on social media or discuss it with you unless they trust the channel.
It doesn't matter whether you personally think oppressing human freedom is terrible or not—your work will not be any less useful. Its results may even challenge your own subjective opinion on the matter.
Why do you believe this? It is very much not true. If you wanted to study, for instance, how societies collapse, you don't need to be impartial about the notion of societal collapse. If you wanted to study war, you don't need to be impartial to war.
The fact that science reveals truth even though it can start with partiality is why the scientific method is the gold standard.
A sad day for HK. I hope the world does not let him be detained indefinitely, like what has happened to Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo.
https://youtu.be/Db7ON82kBGA
Think of a US media tycoon who went to China to meet with the Secretary of State, used the media to incite riots in his country, appeared on the streets of protest, and publicly called on China to intervene in the United States. What are the consequences of this?
Please read more media from a different standpoint and think about this event in another way.
In the west, we use freedoms of speech to balance the boat from one side to the other. Freedom of speech is the mechanism for stability. Freedom of speech is primarily how something is told they are wrong.
Freedoms are also why I can write: Bush destroyed the twin towers on 9 11 and killed thousands but you cannot say the CCP killed thousands on June 1989 in tiannamen square. Both events in history before many users here were even born. It's not only that it's illegal for you but censorship ensures that the boat is stable and the sea is calm. for Chinese, censorship is stability, freedom is the threat. You literally, emotionally, don't want to say those things, and you don't feel bad about it. Most westerners don't understand this. Freedom and difference to China means bloodshed and instability.
there are of course limits to freedom of speech in the west, direct calls to violence are out for example.
However encouraging protests is not encouraging violence even if the protests become violent riots later. In China protests are illegal by default because they might upset the boat potentially.
Under this negative example, people in China who yearn for the American system are already ashamed to speak up. I even suspect that the purpose of Hong Kong’s opposition parties is to prevent democratization in China.
The demonstrators have a slogan "Non Separation", which means that peaceful demonstrations and violent demonstrations are not separated. They are all part of the entire movement. Peaceful demonstrators were hijacked by violent demonstrators.
That would be a wonderful thing if my government were currently persecuting 1 million people solely based on their religious and cultural identity. The consequences would be carried by hope.
Chinese people who know technology can read these reports, and I can say that most of them will not believe them. Because the CCP has always promoted that 56 ethnic groups are one family. If these things happen, they will spread locally and cause riots. Note that media control has never completely prevented the spread of the incident, only weakened.
Because Xinjiang has suffered terrorist attacks, his security measures are higher than other provinces. For example, citizens have to show their ID cards to enter the supermarket, but this is the same for everyone.
About the skills training school, I once had doubts about what facility it is. After watching the BBC interview, I relieved my doubts, because even if they were looking for it with a magnifying glass, the scariest place was just the bathroom with the lights off. [1] If officials prevent them from viewing anything, they will put it on the show.
In summary, I do not believe that the CCP persecutes Uyghurs. I think the media played a big role in our differences of opinion. So I suggest watching more media with different standpoint. For example, I often watch English media, but Westerners rarely read Chinese media. Fortunately, with Google Translate, language should no longer be a problem.
[1] https://medium.com/@sunfeiyang/breaking-down-the-bbcs-visit-...
As a Hong Konger, I'm always amused by how much influence the CCP thinks Jimmy Lai / Apple Daily / Next Media wields.
Inciting riots? Really? Can you point to a single Apple Daily article that demonstrates this?
You’re the one who needs to read more and get a new perspective - all you are doing is repeating the very common, very boring mainstream Chinese opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jdp2JviTDA
His Twitter account would briefly get more clicks than Trump's, and a swarm of congress-critters would fight each other for the privilege of having him hauled in front of their panel for a grueling, multi-hour session of righteous posturing, all televised live. Then the late night shows would create condensed, only slightly exaggerated but far more entertaining versions of their performance. By day four, everybody would have moved on to the next outrage du jour.
Deleted Comment
Because of the Chinese culture of "national unity", intervention in Hong Kong is like intervention in China.
I don’t think the analogy of Guam is appropriate. As a strategic priority, Guam is occupied by many countries. Now as a US military base, residents have no right to vote.
Hong Kong belonged to China a long time ago. The British captured him through war in 1842 and returned it to China in 1997. Hong Kong currently retains its own administrative system and will fully integrate into China in the future.
I am not very familiar with the history of the United States, and I cannot offer a better analogy. If the Guam helps to understand the situation, I have no objection. After all, what I want to say is what Jimmy Lai did.