Guadio & Wong - The New Generation of Pro-West 'Saints'
"The new generation of 'pro-western heroes and 'saints' is clearly failing to impress the world. Juan Guaido and Joshua Wong are definitely as right-wing as Mother Teresa was, but not as credible..."
"Video from another angle showing Hong Kong protesters assaulting one Hong Kong citizen."
https://twitter.com/liamstone_19/status/1181190833095135238
WATCH: "No this is not the Hong Kong Police...This is how police in Texas, USA deal with people who attack them with sticks."
https://twitter.com/kroslav/status/1179452183680606214
Escobar: Tracking Foreign Influence in Hong Kong
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/10/article/tracking-foreign-interference-...
"...So it's no secret, all across the Global South, under the cover of a benign umbrella promoting democracy and human rights, the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) works as a soft-power mechanism actively interfering in politics and society. Recent examples include Ukraine, Venezuela and Nicaragua. In many cases, that is conducive to regime-change.
The NED's board of directors includes Elliot Abrams, who was instrumental in financing and weaponizing the Contras in Nicaragua and Victoria Nuland, who supervised the financing and weaponizing of militias in Ukraine that some but not all experts have described as neo-fascist. These are some of the grants offered by the NED in Hong Kong...
In sum...for Washington, what matters is to 'make China's island of Hong Kong as difficult to govern for Beijing as possible. Hong Kong will thrive only if plugged [into China], not unplugged. That may be the ultimate - profitable - argument against any form of foreign sabotage."
Keiser Report: Will China Announce It's Got 20,000 Tons of Gold? (Ep 1449)
@ 15:00 "If America continues its attacks on China, China could declare its true gold reserves causing a huge US dollar crisis in the not too distant future...This financial war could end up making China financially independent of the West."
Banks to Blame for Hong Kong Mess
"RT America's Michele Greenstein joins live from Hong Kong to discuss Chief Executive Carrie Lam's new initiatives to promote welfare and land reform to make living more affordable for residents. The opposition rejects her reforms and say they don't go far enough. She also discusses the links between Hong Kong's 'pro-democracy camp' and US officials."
China Officially Launches 'One of the World's Largest 5G Networks' With Plans Available For as Low as $18
"Chinese mobile operators have offered 5G services to the country's consumers as the world's largest market officially made the network available on November 1. The fifth-generation of mobile internet connectivity (5G) promises much faster data download and upload speeds, wider coverage and more stable connections. The three state-backed operators China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicorn had initially scheduled the launch for next year, but accelerated the rollout.
The superfast service is now available to consumers in 50 Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Prices for monthly plans start from 128 yuan ($18), providing users with 30GB data and 500 minutes of voicechat..."
Open question regarding China.
Why do you think that they have not really opposed the GHG emissions model that uses production and not either profit or consumption to allocae which countries create more problems for climate change?
I can see why North America is happy to offload responsibility for consumption but not sure why China goes along with this. It seems against their interests.
The model is promoting China to do more but countries like Canada to do less and think our contribution to the problem is less than it is.
'In Case You're Still in Denial'...
https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1192247563195469824
"Right-wing oligarch Jimmy Lai declared openly in an interview on CNN: 'The new Cold War is actually a rivalry of competing values...We in Hong Kong are fighting for the shared values of the US against China. We are fighting their war in the enemy camp."
Sharing decolonial left perspectives on Hong Kong
Lausan 流傘 is a collective of writers, researchers, activists and artists from Hong Kong and its diasporas, engaging with the city’s political struggle. Through translation, creation, and education, Lausan 流傘 aims to build solidarity on the international left with Hong Kongers’ unfinished fight to imagine emancipatory futures after colonialism, against both Chinese and Western imperialism.
‘San’ 傘 is the character for umbrella, referencing our critical engagement with Hong Kong’s ongoing movements for self-determination, including the 2014 Umbrella Movement. 流傘 is also a homophone of 流散 (diaspora/dispersal), which speaks to our location across the Hong Kong diaspora and our ambition to connect Hong Kongers’ struggles against capital, colonialism, and state power with unfolding histories of resistance around the world.
We are 100% independent and volunteer-run.
.....
Insurgent politics amid Hong Kong’s existential crisis
A new politics born out of the old.
Even in a city like Hong Kong, where mass protests are commonplace, it is undeniable that the current resistance sparked by the government’s introduction of legislation to allow extradition to China is historic in scale and substance. For the past few months, there have been protests with attendances in the millions, almost daily confrontations with riot police, “non-cooperation movement” involving acts of civil disobedience targeting Hong Kong’s infrastructure, a general strike, and even multiple suicides as political acts, with no end in sight. The protest movement has coalesced around five demands: withdrawal of the extradition bill, retraction of the riot designation for the June 12 protests,[1] amnesty for arrested protesters, inquiry into police conduct, and implementation of universal suffrage.[2]
Unfortunately, the coverage of these struggles both in the West and in China have been marred by oversimplification. There have been ongoing attempts by people to impose narratives on to an amorphous and divergent protest movement. For example, Western media and Chinese state media have been inundated with images of Hong Kong protesters flying colonial and American flags, despite flag bearers representing a small segment of the crowds. For Western far-right activists, it shows that the Hong Kong protest movement is serving as a flashpoint for the defeat of communism, “[a]s Berlin was to the Cold War.” For the Chinese state and its supporters, these flags are evidence that the protests are symptomatic of a colonial mindset instilled by British colonizers and mobilized by Western forces.
Lost in the coverage is the fact that the waving of these flags have not gone unopposed. During a protest at the Wan Chai police headquarters on June 21, protesters chanted “take back the flag” at a colonial Hong Kong flag bearer who had climbed up a fence. Posters on LIHKG, a message board that has served as the main organizing platform for the protests, have also consistently criticized Western flag bearers. Conversely, the British colonial regime and its political framework is perpetuated in Hong Kong’s current governance model—not in opposition to but intertwined with the Chinese state. Many of Hong Kong’s Chief Executives and high ranking police officers have been inherited from the colonial government, as have police tactics and technology.[3]
The imposition of narratives by outside forces, including various regimes and capitalists, has been a consistent feature of Hong Kong’s existence, with Hong Kong’s raison d’etre limited to that of an interface between China and global capital, or a pawn for geopolitical conflict. But Hong Kongers are fighting back and staking a claim for self-definition. One of the more prominent slogans of these protests has been Bruce Lee’s “be water,’’ a call for protesters to be adaptive to changing conditions. But Bruce Lee also reminds us that water does not just flow, it “can crash.” Just as water crashes against the shore, slowly eroding cliff faces, imposed narratives are being eroded away by the tenacity, organicity, and participatory nature of the protest movement, creating challenges and opportunities for the imagination of a new politics in Hong Kong and beyond.
What the Movement Is: Grassroots Appeal, Mutual Aid, and Participatory Democracy
Despite attempts to characterize the movement through cohesive and singular narratives, the reality is that the movement as it stands is inchoate. There is involvement from right-wing nativists, liberals, and anti-authoritarian leftists in the movement, but many of its participants are newcomers to political organizing and articulation. Au Loong Yu, a local leftist organizer, states that the protesters
genuinely believe in democracy but have a rudimentary understanding of politics. They can be xenophobic towards mainland Chinese, but this has not yet hardened into a program or perspective. At the same time, many young people think it is important to win over mainland Chinese [….] So there are contradictory positions.
While the threat of far right nativist elements within the movement needs to be taken seriously, this is a movement still trying to find a direction and to make sense of itself.....
..more from above
quote:
What the Movement Can Be: A New Politics Born Out of the Old
With millions of participants in open defiance of the state, this is a historic moment for Hong Kong. It is also a important moment for the development of an insurgent politics in Hong Kong, as the mass movement has provided a platform for anti-authoritarian leftist activists to critically engage with the current political context and illustrate new possibilities. These activists situate the current struggle in the broader context of Hong Kongers’ historical struggle for self-determination, whether it is against British colonizers, Chinese and local authoritarians, or globalized capital, as well as connect with the ongoing histories of resistance across the globe. With this historical and internationalist lens, activists interrogate how the protest movement serves as “both a chance and a challenge” for those fighting for emancipatory goals.
The movement provides a chance for protesters to practice prefigurative politics, as organizing practices like participatory democracy and mutual aid serve as an articulation of the movement’s goals. Just as the 2014 Occupy Central Movement involved efforts to “cultivate a culture of participatory democracy,” protesters have explicitly expressed this desire to model the type of society they aim to create. The lessons learned on the streets can also inform a more substantive critique that can serve as the basis for a new politics. One such critique is drawn from the daily confrontations with the police. Protesters no longer understand criminality as self-evident, given its malleability when used to justify arrests. This has allowed for a shift by protesters from the narrow focus on extradition and towards “questioning the right of the HKPF—and the government from which it takes its orders—to uphold law and order, and what ‘law and order’ even means”. This questioning is apparent with the multiple posts advocating for the abolishment of the Hong Kong Police on LIHKG receiving significant support, the constant rallies at police stations, and the chant “black police” that rings out at any interaction with the police—a reference to the Cantonese term for triads. In fact, an August 4 survey indicated that police violence has overtaken the extradition bill as people’s primary motivation for joining protests.
Thx epaulo that was the best article I have read for explaining the full range of the protests and protestors. I think that people around the globe are both tired of ideology and tired of being oppressed. Marching for democracy, when the term is not clearly defined, is not a recipe for fundamental change. I doubt whether universal suffrage for all offices is going to change anything especially the class of people the elected politicians will be beholding to.
..the struggles that are happening around the global today are learning from each other. it is only a matter of time before they begin connecting to one another..if they aren't already. these are exciting times. imho.
..p.s....i was quite fortunate to run across the lausan site
"If protesters vandalized one subway station in New York or London it's terrorism. Even [though] Hong Kong rioters vandalized 85 metro stations, biased politicians or reporters are still yelling 'Stand with Hong Kong'!"
https://twitter.com/liamstone_19/status/1191593182384906242
"Even [though] this suicidal girl's mother has told the press several times that her daughter's death has nothing to do with Hong Kong protests, and begging the protesters not to disturb her life anymore, Hong Kong protesters are still taking advantage of her death for propaganda purposes."
I see no takers on my comment above. I consider this to be a major issue related to climate change mitigation.
Many Canadian and US residents point to China as being a bigger cause of GHG than they are despite that these emissions are being created making the stuff they consume. If the GHG emissions were allocated by consumption rather than generation we would be able to recognize the true nature of the problem of North American consumption and this would put an emphasis on what needs to be done.
I realize China has significant programs in place and is looking at more related to GHG emissions. Still I cannot see why theya re willing to accept responsibility for the GHG emissions produced to make stuff for NA when North America claims it does not make a difference or China produces more.
I would be wealthy if I had $100 for every person who has told me that Canada is not responsible for much in GHG and that China is.
This should be part of the trade discussions in my view.
We urgently need a consumption rather than solely a production model for GHG.
I think the best solution may be to double count these emissions and products from emissions-- once when produced and a second time when consumed and focus on reducing both.
WATCH: "Get inside the minds of Hong Kong's violent student protesters. Listen to student leader Joey Siu. They're the people who believe they should lead Hong Kong into the future."
https://twitter.com/DanielDumbrill/status/1192734336316919808
"If you thought this was a one-off, here is Joshua Wong's thoughts on the matter. Joshua was the poster boy of the occupy central protests, the star of a Netflix documentary that celebrated him as a hero, and is supported by the US. He is also asked if he condemns the violence..."
https://twitter.com/DanielDumbrill/status/1193084915975409664
Hong Kong Protesters & the 'Wonderful' Things They Do...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-police-shoot-protesters-022016870.html
Well, the cop did warn him...
"While the US-backed coup unfolds in Bolivia, US-backed protesters in Hong Kong show their demand for 'democracy' by throwing dumpsters onto a highway."
https://twitter.com/dancohen3000/status/1193747594234781696
"Every sane person knows that grabbing a cop's gun is almost guaranteed to get them shot. That seems to be the idea..."
How real estate hegemony looms behind Hong Kong’s unrest: an interview with Alice Poon
Unaffordable rents, while not explicitly addressed by the movement’s key demands, shape every facet of Hong Kong’s civic life. Nearly half of Hong Kong flats rent for upwards of 20,000 HKD (2,550 USD) a month, more than 70% of median household income—making it the world’s costliest housing market. Even with the availability of underutilized land, the government has failed to build more public housing or reduce rents. This is partially due to Hong Kong’s residual colonial institutions, where authorities tasked with land reacquisition and planning also act as land developers and land premium negotiators; they use taxpayer funding to finance private development without public consultation or oversight.
quote:
Brian Ng: Your 2011 book, Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong, popularized the concept of real estate hegemony (地產霸權) in the city’s political discourse. You argue that historical land supply ceilings, alongside collusive legislation that benefits incumbent monopolies and real estate developers, have consolidated wealth and influence in the hands of a few dynastic property moguls. How has the city’s real estate hegemony changed, or not changed, since then?
Alice Poon: As much as the Chinese version of my book was a huge bestseller and a hot discussion topic in Hong Kong in the couple of years following its 2010 release, the successive HKSAR governments have done practically nothing to remedy the fundamental flaws in the land and tax systems which have always been skewed in favor of the wealthy landed class. All they could manage was a slight slap on the wrist through regulating, if belatedly, developers’ fraudulent sale practices. The Donald Tsang, C. Y. Leung, and Carrie Lam administrations have all adamantly refused to re-introduce residential rent control, a measure that had proven effective in keeping rents in check in the pre-handover days and should never have been retired in the first place.
As the HKSAR government is the largest land supplier and it relies on land revenue as a key fiscal income source, it follows that it is as much invested as the big developers in the high land price policy, which has worked over decades to spike consumer prices and widen the wealth gap at the expense of the unpropertied class in society. This is the Gordian knot in Hong Kong’s land and housing issue.
Worse, all land income, instead of being channeled in an equalizing effort to areas like public housing, education, medical care, seniors’ welfare, and so on, is put in the Capital Works Reserve Fund which is earmarked for financing new, often unnecessary, infrastructure. Such expenditure then translates into a land value booster—that is, a subsidy for the land-rich developers, and more land receipts for the government. And the government itself is a major player in the property market through its real estate arm, the MTR Corporation. The land and tax systems have bred injustices that go in a vicious spiral.....
I am disapointed that nobody here has an opinion about the issue of GHG emissions being placed exclusively on the producer and not allocated to the capital source or consumption source of anything produced.
This changes the perception of China, Canada and the US as pollutors radically and puts the emphasis on what I think is the wrong country. It speaks to environmentalism as well as trade and exploitation. I have raised this poitn several times here -- more than five and nobody gves a shit.
China is set to overtake all other countries in GHG emissions under this model when the reality is that they consume a lot less. Does anyone care about this? Is this not an issue for a progressive board interested in sustainability and the politics of exploitation?
That said does anyone know any place where there are actually people interested in talking about this sort of thing rather than dueling propaganda over conspiracy theories?
[quote=Sean in Ottawa]
China is set to overtake all other countries in GHG emissions under this model when the reality is that they consume a lot less. Does anyone care about this? Is this not an issue for a progressive board interested in sustainability and the politics of exploitation?
[quote=NDPP]
Clearly an important issue worthy of discussion, perhaps even deserving its own thread?
Clearly an important issue worthy of discussion, perhaps even deserving its own thread?
I did create one in the past under the environment but got no takers. The issue also relates to imperialism and is unfair to perceptions of China so have raised the issue here more than once. That is why I am writing with frustration now. I though this was the kind of thing this place was built to address as it si both environment and imperialism although there is no great consipracy angle to it -- just straight up unfairness from North America and a strange acceptance from China (in my view).
Well, 'no takers' on important topics and especially 'unfairness from North America' re perceptions of China is nothing new here. Perhaps since you know more on this than I do, repost here a link to the info you previously posted elsewhere on this?
Hong Kong Rioters Set Man on Fire for Not Backing Anti-China Protests (Disturbing Video)
"A deeply disturbing video shows Hong Kong rioters dousing a man in flammable liquid and setting him on fire, reportedly because the victim disagreed with their increasingly violent political movement. Angered by his insistence that 'We are all Chinese', the rioters drench the man in a flammable substance and then set him on fire. The terrifying video shows flames consuming the man's face and body as he tries to flee. Bystanders can be heard screaming as the rioters run away..."
Well, 'no takers' on important topics and especially 'unfairness from North America' re perceptions of China is nothing new here. Perhaps since you know more on this than I do, repost here a link to the info you previously posted elsewhere on this?
I tried to look for the old thread and cannot remember where it was. I have raised it in a number of existing threads.
My point was always the same -- that GHG emissions that are allocated by emmission are not effective becuase they penalize a country based on activity volume without taking account of exports. They allow consumers to import and do not count their consumption which causes GHG to be tallied against their countries. This is a big problem now that manufacturing China is counted for what it produces and is consumed elsewhere. The wealthy countries are able to export their emissions offshore by importing product.
The result is that countries that are high consumers like Canada do not get the message that they are a large part of the problem.
Here is one discussion of it - the best explanation I found was at wiki but there are others
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_accounting
"There are two conflicting ways of measuring GHG emissions: production-based (sometimes referred to as territorial-based) or consumption-based. Production-based emissions take place “within national territory and offshore areas over which the country has jurisdiction”.[2] Consumption-based emissions encompass those emissions from domestic final consumption and those caused by the production of its imports.[3][4] This means the importing country takes responsibility for emissions related to production of the exporting country's exports. By these definitions production-based emissions include exports but exclude imports and emissions embodied in international trade, whereas consumption-based emissions refer to the reverse (Table 1)."
"The application of production-based emissions accounting is currently favoured in policy terms, although much of the literature favours consumption-based accounting. "
My argument has been that the production based model favours capital, wealthy countries and consumers and penalizes producers.
There are other accounting issues:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05905-y
A point that could be made in Canada relates to oil from Alberta. There is a hypocrisy that is exposed in the consumption model that is hidden in the production model. If consumption is the issue we should be paying nationally to reduce reliance rather than focus just on production. Alberta has a problem as well with the issues of transportation and pipelines - particularly without permission on Indigenous territory. But still, getting off consumption of oil should be just as strong a priority. I do not think it is. I realize that would be controversial here.
As well the polution created by consumer goods and electronics is all offshored in the production model but is accounted for here in the consumption.
Perhaps you can make a good argument that both models should be sued together. However, the use of a production only model without consumption smacks of hypocrisy to me and it leads consumers to not recognize how much of a problem they are.
To make matters worse, the carbon tax focuses on both consumption of transportation and heating in Canada and carbon released here but does not address the carbon released in the production of consumer goods imported. This way the carbon footprint of people in urban East is largely ignored while the carbon footprint of the rural and west is taxed more heavily since they use and produce more taxable carbon as a percentage of the total production of GHG that would be allocated to them in a comprehensive consumption model.
I am all for a carbon tax and a rethink on the use of oil. However, I think this is not being fairly distributed in cost and I think Canadians are folling themselves into thinking their footprint is smaller than it is.
This affects our relationship with China and will increase as a factor as China becomes the greatest producer of GHG emissions even though they do not consume the resulting products to that great a degree.
Your analysis seems accurate and its conclusions sound. Clearly the present model is fundamentally flawed and requires correction if it is to be fair or useful in its determinations - with China or in other applications. At this juncture in history with such momentous implications obviously these important calculations must be gotten right. I would suggest that serious environmental or academic researchers working in this area might be the obvious first stop in seeking clarification and interest in raising the public profile of the serious deficiencies you cite.
Your analysis seems accurate and its conclusions sound. Clearly the present model is fundamentally flawed and requires correction if it is to be fair or useful in its determinations - with China or in other applications. At this juncture in history with such momentous implications obviously these important calculations must be gotten right. I would suggest that serious environmental or academic researchers working in this area might be the obvious first stop in seeking clarification and interest in raising the public profile of the serious deficiencies you cite.
When I first objected to the idea of emission based models over consumption I did appoach a couple experts who said that those whoa re very knowledgable are aware of this. The problem is that the wider populaiton is not and this model is used by countries who consume a great deal to avoid real accountablility.
I just wanted people to discuss it here in a more open non scientific place. As well, my interpretation of this is really that it is very much part of the modern imperialism some people say is not longer happening but really is.
I have no difficulty at all in apprehending it is imperialist - on its face and I fear we will see much more of the same, fatally flawed and cynically leveraged in the interest of capital by exploiting fear and desperation about the very real existential planetary crisis we collectively now face.
Battle-Ground Hong Kong!
"Rioters armed with catapults and javelins destroy university campuses and metro-stations, clashing with police.."
And reportedly somehow still managed to find the time to send solidarity-greetings to their USAID fellow-travelling fascist coup friends in Bolivia as well!
Brown shirts come in all colours.
Hong Kong: the occupation of Poly U
The week-long occupation of the Polytechnic University (Poly U) in Hung Hom is today’s flashpoint in Hong Kong’s heroic struggle for democracy. The campus and the surrounding streets have been the scene of bitter battles between protestors and the cops. The government and the police have clearly decided that crushing the resistance at Poly U will represent a decisive victory in their struggle against the protestors. Occupations of other universities, notably that of Chinese University, ended last week with the protestors leaving without interference. In contrast, police bottled the protestors into the Poly U campus and arrested anyone, even journalists and medical staff, trying to leave.
Thousands of Hong Kongers have come onto the streets in support of the occupation. They have tried to march to relieve the campus but have been stopped by tear gar and rubber bullets. Others have occupied major arteries and fought running battles with the police to try to divert their attention and resources away from the siege of Poly U in order give the occupiers a better chance to break out. Some of the occupiers have managed to escape by climbing down from a bridge and being whisked away by volunteers on motorcycles. The police have offered the others a stark choice: surrender and be arrested for rioting or face a violent assault and be arrested for rioting. A delegation of senior figures, including prominent pro-Beijing politician Jasper Tsang, did persuade the police to allow them into the campus to negotiate a peaceful exit. They managed to evacuate around 200 protestors under 18 on condition that they gave details of their identities, but the 100 or so adults who left with them were immediately arrested.
The government and their backers in Beijing have decided that it is only through violence and mass arrests that they can stop the movement. Since Sunday, more than 400 people have been arrested. That is around ten per cent of the total of more than 4,500 over the last five months of protest. Today, the total of arrests is even higher than that during the 1967 struggle against the colonial government. Senior figures are already arguing that Sunday’s upcoming District Council elections, in which candidates supporting the democratic movement are almost certainly to win a landslide, should be postponed or cancelled.
Beijing, for its part, has hardened its line. On Sunday, for the first time, PLA troops from the local garrison came out of their barracks. In a well-judged PR stunt, they ventured a few hundred metres from their Wellington Road barracks in Kowloon Tong to clear the road barricades built by students from the adjacent Baptist University. They wore gym clothing rather than combat fatigues and met with no resistance from the deserted campus. The image they tried to present was of a helpful force intervening only to solve a problem facing Hong Kongers, just like when they helped in clearing the wreckage from the last big typhoon. There was a harder edge to the exercise, however. The gym kit that they wore carried the insignia of an elite anti-terror battalion usually stationed in Western China for use against separatist militants. Alongside the message that the PLA is on the streets of Hong Kong only to help there was the threat that Beijing has the will and the means to employ the same ruthless tactics as they have in Xinjiang.....
..more
quote:
At the time of writing (19.00 Hong Kong time on 19 November) around 100 protestors were still occupying Poly U. Those that remain are exploring every possible avenue of escape. They are enduring cold, hunger and exhaustion, but it can only be a matter of time before they either surrender or the cops storm their last strongholds. The occupation of fixed sites like university campuses represented a change of tactics by the protestors. Previously, their slogan has been ‘Be water’. Whenever the police massed sufficient forces to attack them, the demonstrators melted away, only to gather again in another place. This tactic favoured the protestors. It fitted very well with their astonishing powers of spontaneous self-organization and It minimized the number of arrests, forcing the police to rush around trying to stem the latest demonstration. Static operations shift the balance towards the police. It allows them to concentrate their resources in one place and deploy their superior equipment – water cannon, armoured cars, even firearms – at their leisure. It has also meant that protestors have far fewer opportunities to evade arrest and regroup elsewhere.
On the other hand, of course, the courage and determination of the protestors to defend the campus is an inspiration to others. The siege of Poly U will go down in political history alongside earlier heroic defences of universities against the police and army, like the occupation of Athens Polytechnic. That took place almost 46 years ago to the day, on 17 November 1973. The occupation ended with the military storming into the building and evicting the students. It was, however, the beginning of the end for the military junta that then ruled Greece, which fell to an internal coup a few days later. The new leader was in turn overthrown six months later after he backed a failed coup attempt in Cyprus that led to a Turkish invasion, and Greece became a democracy once again. The students’ struggle remains living memory. Every year, thousands of Greeks march co commemorate the occupation: the most recent memorial took place last Sunday.
HK Protesters Sing Star-Spangled Banner in Appeal to Trump for Help
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/hong-kong-protesters-to-take-their-dem...
What an outrageous hoax to compare the bought-and-paid-for violent and racist 'Old Glory' waving gangs of HK to the brave students of the 1973 Athens occupation. No city nor police force in the western world would have permitted these hooligans to rampage and destroy for as long as they have.
"Mainland Chinese netizens donate more than 2 million RMB within 8 hours to help two old HK men (Uncle Li and Uncle Lo) and their families. Uncle Li was set on fire by HK protesters and life in danger. Uncle Lo was killed by HK protesters when cleaning street."
https://twitter.com/liamstone_19/status/1196935977823981568
WATCH: "Hong Kong silent majority no longer silent. More and more HK citizens stand up to protesters when protesters block public transportation. Some scene happened so many times..."
https://twitter.com/liamstone_19/status/1197193903272681472
"What have Hong Kong protesters accomplished by their last stand in HK Uni other than fire-bombing a fleet of civilian cars and blocking major HK roads? Unless their goal is to provide impetus for Marco Rubio's 'Hong Kong Democracy and Human Rights Act."
“The Hong Kong Card”: Against the New Cold War
On June 9, 2019, approximately one million people marched toward the Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) to protest the second reading of a controversial extradition bill between Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite the intensification of the protests that saw 2 million take to the streets on June 17 in response to the police crackdown on an earlier protest, the government continued to stonewall and refused to formally withdraw the bill. Henceforth, the movement has gone on to reach multiple points of no return. From the storming of the Legislative Council by frontline protesters on July 1 to the attack on protesters and civilians by squads of armed triads in Yuen Long three weeks later, the opposition against the bill has expanded into a series of interlocking demands for democracy and freedom from authoritarian repression.
quote:
This brutal reality has generated in recent weeks a “sixth demand”: dissolve the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF). It is not yet clear what this dissolution would entail—abolition or reformation—but the HKPF, often lauded as “Asia’s finest,” up until this summer enjoyed the public’s robust goodwill and trust. This seems to belie the fact that Hong Kong is not only the fifth most heavily policed territory in the world but also records the highest rate of incarcerated women. While the sixth demand may appear to have developed in organic reaction to rampant police violence, the positive reception of police in Hong Kong history may conversely signify the radical nature and potential of such an abolitionist objective.
***
These protests that have upended Hong Kong for the past four months did not just spring up ex nihilo. Hong Kong has long been a site of PRC’s focused insecurity about the slipperiness of its control, an anxiety that also encompasses Taiwan, Tibet and, most recently, the forceful subjugation of East Turkestan (Xinjiang) through a vast matrix of surveillance, detention and genocide. From the Greater Bay Area megapolitan project to unrelenting hegemony in Southeast Asia and Africa through the Belt and Road Initiative, the unificatory violence of Han Chinese centrism also dovetails directly with the expansionist project of the PRC. This escalation of strongman politics is part of Xi Jinping’s rollback of years of liberal reform under his predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao in order to consolidate his own authority. News to no one in Hong Kong, Xi is only speeding up an already creeping program of CCP repression against the city’s promised semi-autonomy.
The protracted turmoil over a single bill is underwritten by a long history of protests over similar encounters with tyrannical legislation: the attempted introduction of a draconian National Security bill (Article 23) in 2003, which drew what was then one of the highest protest turnouts in the city’s history at half a million, and a “Moral and National Education” reform program in 2011-2012 that was denounced by critics as the CCP’s attempt at “brainwashing and political indoctrination.” In 2014, proposed electoral reform that reaffirmed the Central People’s Government’s prerogative to pre-screen candidates for administrative leadership precipitated the Umbrella Movement. Some have already given “One Country, Two Systems” up for lost, sensing the PRC’s readiness to overstep its fragile bounds and the UK’s limited ability to defend the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. In this new reality, it may be more accurate to turn our analytical attention instead to what Yiu-Wai Chu calls “One World, Two Systems.”
That US politicians across the political spectrum have lined up in support of Hong Kong through their promotion of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (HKHRDA) is predictable, given the “pivot to Asia” President Obama announced in 2011. It also highlights the re-emergence of a Cold War model of antagonistic geopolitics that imagines a battle between two superpowers––except this time between the US and the PRC. This pivot is exceptionally ironic considering it was US President Jimmy Carter and CCP Chairman Deng Xiaopeng that normalized relations in 1978 because both leaders wanted to open the PRC for trade and thus massive capitalist accumulation. Carter called this his “China card,” by which friendly relations with the PRC could be used to apply pressure to the USSR on issues such as arms control. This bargain spelled the end of any real socialist project in the PRC. In this moment, broad bipartisan support for the HKHRDA reveals the same strategy at play, with the US this time applying the “Hong Kong card” against the PRC and its allies. Prominent activist Joshua Wong picked up on this “new Cold War” rhetoric, warning that lack of international support for Hong Kong could turn the city into the “next West Berlin.” The US’ penchant for political reversals, in addition to mutual US-PRC interest in putting open markets ahead of workers, should be a clarion call to skeptics and protesters alike to refuse a retrenchment in binarism and the use of entire peoples as bargaining chips.
quote:
Many of the most innovative protest tactics, including the “Be Water” ethos that centers mobility over occupation, have been adapted by other contemporaneous movements from Indonesia to Catalonia to Atlanta, decisively mapping the Hong Kong site of resistance onto an ongoing wave of concurrent international uprisings. Against the containment of its pathbreaking dynamism within a single local context, the portability of these tactics paradoxically highlights Hong Kong’s extraordinary resourcefulness just as it de-exceptionalizes its anti-government struggle. Instead, the dissemination of strategy opens new pathways that link together workers across the world under shared conditions of struggle in an age of ever tightening neoliberal austerity and capitalist hyper-exploitation.
While the protesters continue the struggle on the ground, the future of the movement remains uncertain in the face of an endlessly arrogant Lam administration and a patient, resource-heavy Xi regime. What we can be sure of is that succumbing to the renewal of Cold War rhetoric narrows considerably our avenues for insurrection and, as ever, works only in the service of the elites. Heterogeneous uprisings occurring this very moment across the globe including Egypt, Chile, Ecuador, West Papua, and Paris, of which Hong Kong is but one node, demonstrate precisely that the reimposition of a binary worldview has been and will be constantly challenged, and that that challenge has always come from below.
Hong Kong Out of Hand As China Supporters are Set on Fire...
"...Western hatred of China cannot be palliated by becoming a punchbag for the marauding wreckers in Hong Kong. The flag of China has been burned, thrown in the sea, while the flags of the foreign patrons of the mobs are hoisted even in government buildings. It's alleged that the funding of the ringleaders was coming from abroad. Foreign NGOs, even if their names are written in Chinese characters, are the Trojan Horses in the corner of the room..."
Okay people its time to get a handle on the fact that not all protestors are progressive. It is obvious to me that from the Ukraine to Hong Kong and Venezuela and Bolivia that right wing attack squads have been trained and unleasehed in tandem with protests of regular citizens.
In Canada we have given someone 100 days in jail for peacefully protesting in front of TMX in Burnaby. He was a arrested a fourth time so his time in jail will likely escalate again. We sent anarchists to prison for between six months and and year for organizing protests to disrupt Toronto businesses. They didn't even get to protest they were arrested prior to the events.I am supposed to be outraged at the Hong Kong authorities for treating violent demonstrators the same way Canada treated hockey hooligans in Vancouver.
In the meantime I hope that the people of Hong Kong get the peace and security to march peacefully without having "brown shirts" deliberately causing chaos.
..delete
WATCH: "Rubio Turns A Deaf Ear to Voices Against Violence and Rioters From Hong Kong People..."
https://twitter.com/CGTNOfficial/status/1197163940255543297
Nancy Pelosi: 'Both Branches of the US Congress Stand With You'
https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1196972437503643653
"The US Senate has now joined the House of Representatives in passing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The people of Hong Kong have woken up to the news that both branches of the US Congress stand with you in your fight for democracy and the law."
Who said Dems and Repugs can't come together to defend 'democracy and the law'?
This is a good article but the headline doesn't make much sense except as wishful thinking. The Lausan article is also great reading but again at this point it is an aspirational document.
The left is really small in Hong Kong, therefore you know it has not really been able to shape the debate and try to steer the movement toward a more social democratic or even socialist direction.
https://therealnews.com/stories/hong-kong-protests-socialist-students-la...
..when the recent demos began to happen i couldn't trust what was being reported. here on babble over and over again it was said that the uprising was all about the us directing it all. that the uprising wasn't real but created as part of the geopolitical wars going.
..i didn't accept that back then and i don't accept it today..even though there is some truth to it. so what i see now is a glimpse and just a glimpse of the grassroots struggle that set things off. this is what is important to me. not only because it provides insight as to the ruthlessness of the powerful but the tactics used by the locals in their own defence. ie: be water. but also in how it is connected to what is going re the more recent global uprisings.
..i believe little by little these connections are the paths to a different world..if we don't destroy ourselves first.
..i think your right krop to point out the aspirational aspect and that the left is small. but we must also see that struggle here is not a new thing. this struggle is based in it's own historical struggles.
I think there is a lot of black and white thinking on this board.
Movements like this are described as being created entirely by external parties or entirely organic. This is just about never the case.
I think most of the protest you see begin locally - rarely does an outside power have the means to create mass protest. That said, once created they do what they are meant to do and attract attention. Those who have an interest may choose to help them and amplify the problem.
I think it is simplistic to declare that a protest is illegitimate becuase it has been helped by extrernal forces we are opposed to or that they are legitimate if they are helped by those we appreciate. Legitimate protest can happen and then have others try to influence it -- with or without success. It can get support that comes with a bad motive but still support a good cause.
I think things are not as simple as some lay out here. I think at times whole movements are slammed for political reasons here that have little to do with what is happening on the ground or an understanding of the complexity of the way movements get supported.
From the various things I read it seems that people around the world are tired of rhetoric from politicians of all stripes and are taking to the streets because our world is becoming a hopeless place. However it also appears to me that all the movements have a component that is violent and often associated with US/NATO support and training. We have people in the streets and we also have modern brown shirts. The people trying to overthrow the governments of Bolivia and Venezuela are totally different than the people mobilizing in the streets of those countries to support the government they voted for. The majority of people in Hong Kong are not US dupes or thugs but it is clear that some are. I feel sorry for the people in Hong Kong because there is little in the way of an exit strategy. No government will allow rioters in the streets indefinitely. They either overthrow the government or they lose. If Hong Kong left Chinese control does anyone think that the masses would not be under the control of the same oligarchy that is now in control and was in control under the British as well. Those local overlords don't much care what flag or ideology is ascendant as long as they get to rule over their capitalist dystopia.
From the various things I read it seems that people around the world are tired of rhetoric from politicians of all stripes and are taking to the streets because our world is becoming a hopeless place. However it also appears to me that all the movements have a component that is violent and often associated with US/NATO support and training. We have people in the streets and we also have modern brown shirts. The people trying to overthrow the governments of Bolivia and Venezuela are totally different than the people mobilizing in the streets of those countries to support the government they voted for. The majority of people in Hong Kong are not US dupes or thugs but it is clear that some are. I feel sorry for the people in Hong Kong because there is little in the way of an exit strategy. No government will allow rioters in the streets indefinitely. They either overthrow the government or they lose. If Hong Kong left Chinese control does anyone think that the masses would not be under the control of the same oligarchy that is now in control and was in control under the British as well. Those local overlords don't much care what flag or ideology is ascendant as long as they get to rule over their capitalist dystopia.
Yes, sober and sobering.
I think this is the kind of understanding that is needed when interpreting these events.
I have felt at times that it is hard here to express concern for what is happening to people caught up in movements that may both be legitimate in terms of grievances and also taken advantage of from outside. We should insult the sincerity or dismiss the suffering of people in places where we also suspect others are trying to take advantage.
I also think that all-to-often there are unsavory characters involved on both sides with interests nothing to do with the people and people rightly or wrongly caught up but who are still sincere and have legitimate local concerns. Imperialism is not just a manufacturer of discontent -- it is also about cruel opportunism. The best lie they say has at least a grain of truth and the best attck follows a weakness.
I appreciate this post, Kropotkin, as it is more nuanced than we sometimes see here where analysis and humanity is too often shunted aside for advocacy.
..txs sean and krop
Hong Kong is exporting its protest techniques around the world
The “Be Water” nature of Hong Kong’s protests—fluid, flexible, and fast-moving—has taken on a new form half way across the world in Catalonia: as a tsunami.
quote:
They were referring to what had happened at the Hong Kong airport almost exactly two months prior, when thousands of protesters forced the international transport hub to shut down. At Barcelona airport on Monday, strikingly similar scenes played out as thousands occupied both the terminal and the roads outside the building, eventually forcing the cancellation of at least 100 flights. Tsunami Democrátic even distributed some 130 boarding passes (link in Spanish) via the messaging app Telegram so that protesters could enter the airport, in a move reminiscent of some Hong Kong protesters who purchased cheap flights in order to enter the airport and circumvent a court ban on demonstrations at the building.
The months-long protests in Hong Kong have also been studied in Indonesia by students who took to the streets to oppose new laws, and Extinction Rebellion climate activists in the UK, but it is the Catalonia protests that appear to be most directly inspired by the Hong Kong playbook. For weeks, Catalan activists have examined the techniques of Hong Kong’s protesters closely, taking notes on what works and what might be successfully replicated in Catalonia. In late September, the grassroots group Assemblea Nacional Catalana even held a public forum titled, “Experiences of the use of new technologies in the nonviolent struggle: the case of Hong Kong.”.....
..catalan
Behind A Made-For-TV Hong Kong Protest Narrative, Washington is Backing Nativism and Mob Violence
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/17/hong-kong-protest-washington-nativism...
"Hong Kong's increasingly xenophobic protests are devolving into chaos with help from US government regime-change outfits and a right-wing local media tycoon with close ties to hardliners in Washington..."
Behind A Made-For-TV Hong Kong Protest Narrative, Washington is Backing Nativism and Mob Violence
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/17/hong-kong-protest-washington-nativism...
"Hong Kong's increasingly xenophobic protests are devolving into chaos with help from US government regime-change outfits and a right-wing local media tycoon with close ties to hardliners in Washington..."
Not just one side of the story approaches these things in a binary way. When it comes to the Hong Kong protests one of the most intersting observations could be that the sides of the conversation are talking past each other engaging in what-aboutism. Why not just for a day assemble the talking points of each side? Then eliminate all arguments that do not contradict what the other side is saying. You may have nothing left.
The argument about interference may be valid but so is the argument that there is a local legitimate anger sourced in something real. Each side is pointing to a side that is really being ignored rather than disputed. The sheer volumes of people taking the risks they are suggests something is amiss in the conspiracy theories. The fact that they seem desperate enough to wave flags of imperialism is not just some indication that the imperialists did all this but could also be seen as an indication of desperation that the imperialists could look at all attractive at this point by thousands of people should give pause.
This is the politics of today in many places. It is easier in our lazy world of repeating volumes of political infomration without thinking about it to repeat and make a comment without engaging what the other side is saying or what the inconvenient facts might possibly show.
This is a place of thought - or was meant to be. We should be able to discuss ideas and deconstruct both sides. Instead we have been turned into a place of advocacy where any dissenting voice is shouted down as disloyal or supporter of some evil or other or. Now we just get more shouting past each other and demands for purity tests of references than any independent thought and analysis.
I happen to be on the left of the spectrum but I am confident that the philosophies I hold can be subjected to criticism and analysis -- that they do not need to be protected from analysis. Protection makes them less strong. All-to-often we have a competition here to show loyalty to the cause and proclaim our virtue in being left enough. This is a diservice to these beliefs. They are loud in this echo-chamber but untested by criticism and analysis once they go out in the rest of the world where people are not as pure as they are here.
As I said before -- the forces we disagree with here do not just create division. They exploit it where it truly exists.
Here we should move past the binary and deconstruct the elements that are from the imperialists and the elements that represent local people with real grievances who may be taken advantage of. Minimizing the grievances that peoplea re risking their lives to proclaim, standing up for what in many cases could also be oppression to oppose a conflicting oppression does not add credibility to our voices. Taking a view that not all conflicts are between good and evil is a step that is needed here. In most cases the source of power is the same shit different flavour. Standing up for people does not mean that we have to take sides among the oppressors choosing whichever one has the favourable political pedigree.
If you can accept the idea that those in power should be suspect everywhere this applies to all countries and all governments. Why be as pure as the driven snow in Canadian politics and then be willing to accept any old bullshit from elsewhere? We could be speaking for people against all forms of oppression rather than just one side. We could acknowledge that in most conflicts in the world both sides reek of it. We don't need to take the trouble to wash the sins of one side in order to criticize both. We do not even need to keep saying which is worse. That is a pathetic competition when we could stand up for truth on both sides.
This site is too often turned into a propaganda tool by people claiming to be against propaganda -- only they just see only one side of it.
"FREELAND's China-hate policy resulted in Beijing ban on canola exports worth $4B, mostly lost by western provinces. Trudeau is now free, advisors say, to cut deal with Beijing, release hostages, restore trade, keep Freeland busy apologizing to Alberta. No Russia deal though."
US-China Tensions Could Lead To A Conflict Worse Than First World War, Henry Kissinger Warns
"...Left unchecked, the brewing rivalry between China and the United States could spark a conflict more devastating than the First World War, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has cautioned. He warned that de-escalation between the world's two largest economies was 'essential' in order to avoid disaster. Washington and Beijing are at odds over a number of heated issues. A tit-for-tat tariff war has been exacerbated by a dispute over the South China Sea, over which Beijing claims full sovereignty. The two countries also continue to quarrel over the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. China has repeatedly accused the US of providing support to the increasingly violent demonstrations..."
China Warns Canada Against Efforts to Impose Sanctions on Hong Kong Officials
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-china-warns-canada-agai...
"China's new ambassador to Canada is warning that any effort by Ottawa to copy US legislation that paves the way for sanctions against Hong Kong officials will seriously hurt Canada-China relations. 'If anything happens like this, we will certainly have very bad damage in our bilateral relationship and that is not in the interest of Canada,' envoy Cong Peiwu told reporters at his first major interview with Canadian media. 'We are firmly opposed to any foreign interference.
US legislation expressly says in its text that Washington should work with allies such as Canada 'to promote democracy and human rights in Hong Kong.' Mr Cong said however that the US legislation would only encourage the protesters, whom he referred to as 'rioters' to continue..."
WATCH: "Former British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Hong Kong protesters' tactics when interviewed by BBC:
''Some protesters seem to have an objective to provoke a military confrontation with China. They seem to want a Tiananmen Square outcome as success."
China Warns Canada Against Efforts to Impose Sanctions on Hong Kong Officials
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-china-warns-canada-agai...
"China's new ambassador to Canada is warning that any effort by Ottawa to copy US legislation that paves the way for sanctions against Hong Kong officials will seriously hurt Canada-China relations. 'If anything happens like this, we will certainly have very bad damage in our bilateral relationship and that is not in the interest of Canada,' envoy Cong Peiwu told reporters at his first major interview with Canadian media. 'We are firmly opposed to any foreign interference.
US legislation expressly says in its text that Washington should work with allies such as Canada 'to promote democracy and human rights in Hong Kong.' Mr Cong said however that the US legislation would only encourage the protesters, whom he referred to as 'rioters' to continue..."
I know that countries are often desperate to get heard by each other. However, this tactic of sanctioning officials - for any reason other than their personal behaviour - I think is not a good idea. Officials of a country (including diplomats) have to be responsible for their behaviour -- like following the law of a country they are in. But officials who speak for their countries including but not limited to diplomats need to be heard and we do not gain by shutting them down.
Generally I am in favour of keeping embassies open and continuing conversation regardless of differences.
The problem here is that if Canada does not sanction it will appear that they are bendng to pressure and if they do it would be the wrong policy. Either way we lose.
Unlike some people here, I do think that the HK protests are about a legitimate grievance. Despite this, I totally disagree with this approach.
Hong Kong's Opposition Unites With Washington's Hardliners to 'Preserve the US's Own Political and Economic Interests'
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/22/hong-kong-opposition-unites-washingto...
"While claiming to fight for 'self-determination', Hong Kong opposition leaders are collaborating with regime-change neocons in Washington to 'preserve the US's own political and economic interests.' A new DC lobbying front has become their base of operations..."
WATCH: "Good relations with Russia & China 'in our interest' - Merkel at CDU conference...
