Hong Kong is essentially in a civil war with acts of violence being perpetrated by people on both sides.
Just watched Ted Cruz on Face the Nation he is in HK and saying he’s there supporting the protesters even wearing all black as a sign of support.
@rocketsjudoka or anyone else, could you summarize in a succinct way (or point me to a good article) what the primary goals of the protesters are right now? I understood very well the original protests over extradition laws that went over and above existing transfer of power agreements. Okay, success: those were withdrawn. And I know they want all jailed protestors freed (though, to be honest, that will probably not happen, especially if some of the jailed people vandalized property, etc. but even if they didn't). And I've read about concerns over economic conditions and increased surveillance. I know part of the protests now are over this emergency edict about not covering one's face. It just seems like such a mishmash that I don't understand what the local government or the PRC could do that would really normalize conditions there. I mean, PRC is not going to walk away from the transfer schedule. No way. Super ignorantly but trying to figure it out, B-Bob. (Yeah, I guess I wouldn't be comfortable making a big public stand, especially once Ted Cruz joins something, LOL.)
@B-Bob Here is an pretty good primer on the Five Core demands of the HK protestors. https://yp.scmp.com/hongkongprotests5demands
I do not know much about those protest’s mind, no comments on their, but I keep saying that the Xi is bad leader for this country. One thing is clearly as I read yahoo posts, those people are willing to come to USA, UK for a better life. If western countries want to accept this consequence, then welcome to do it. The problem is solved quickly.
A sea of American flags in Hong Kong tonight as thousands of people rally in support of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.
Those are the "Big Demands" there are many other issues too. One is the price of housing in HK is now the highest in the world and many younger people can't afford housing. Also since the handover there have been a lot of mainland Chinese coming into HK. While this number is controlled the amount of mainlanders is increasing. Wealthy mainlanders are viewed as driving up real estate and other costs while poor mainlanders are viewed as taking jobs. Even though HK has been ethnically Chinese as a British colony there were still differences in culture. 20 years ago Mandarin wasn't widely used while now it is very common because of the Mainland influence. For people who don't know Chinese might not realize that the written language is also different. In the PRC and Singapore they use what are called jinti (Simplified) characters while in HK and Taiwan they still use fanti (traditional characters) in some cases they are pretty different such as the character for East in the simplified characters is "东" while in traditional characters it is "東" These are the type of cultural differences that still set apart mainlanders from people in HK and part of the unease of HK is that it's culture and uniqueness will get swallowed up into the PRC.
Hey guys I'm curious what the protesters plan is. Govenrmnt were never gonna agree to the rest of the demands we all know that. With less and less HKers supporting these violence what is the plan going forward? Even if u do get some sanctions going from the US, doesn't seem its going to make much of a difference. Revise the demands maybe? China is working on a deal with Trump and Kurds just joined forces with the Syrian govenrmnt... Nobody like to compromise but that's how the world works u know...
Let's see if they can keep this up until 2021. If they do, let's see what percentage of the population still support it by then.
The strategy used by the protestors is called "mutual destruction", "攬炒" in Cantonese. Basically Beijing has 3 options: A) Wait and let this thing dies out, which is the best option for Beijing and most possible. B) Send in the troops or order the HK Police to crackdown the protest violently. C) Grant the demands, or at least some of them. The protestors understand the chance of winning is very small but they hope to force Beijing to choose between B and C, and thus they've been attacking state-owned businesses and government buildings. There rationale is that even if Beijing crackdown violently, it will still be better than the status quo because Beijing's crackdown would provoke strong reaction from the West which would increase the chances of democracy. The movement as whole still has widespread support as the latest poll shows that Carrie Lam only has 15% support, so the majority of the population are against Lam's administration at least. Their will be an territory-wide election next month and it will be very interesting to see the results, if they don't cancel it. But there are also a lot of debate on whether they should go back to peaceful way, especially after Senator Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley visited Hong Kong this weekend and both appealed to the protestors for less violence. So a peaceful rally has been held yesterday and there will be another one on Saturday.
I see. One comment on Lam's 15% approval rate, that doesn't necessarily show how much support of the movement is getting. Many pro-Beijing people is also angry at Lam for mishandling the situation and allowing it to progress into the current state. I feel less violence is definitely important. Once people start dying, and bombs start to go off across the city, even if Beijing do decide to take military action, it would be much more justified even to the western community. If that happens, we would definitely see some drastic changes in the policies in HK, just not towards the direction the protesters want.
I just think like in other countries there are certain people who use the chaos to do their malicious work of violence, on both sides. This is the evil side of human nature.
These are very common tactics that have long been used by resistance movements. The problem though is that there is a risk that the chaos and hardship alienates many of those on your side who while sympathetic don't want that sort of hardship in their daily lives. The other side is that neither side budges and both sides escalates up their tension. The ideal of HK is your option C that a people power protest eventually forces the PRC to compromise sort of like how the UK peacefully granted devolvement and self-rule to Scotland. On the other hand if there is option B as you describe that could lead to something like what happened in during the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. Irish Republicans took over the Dublin post office and and were crushed in a bloody siege by the British. That siege galvanized support for Irish independence that they won 4 years later. On the other hand HK could end up like Northern Ireland and split into factions of Pro HK democrats and Pro-PRC locked into a protracted struggle with each other and the police. I don't think options C is likely and I think Beijing is not going to do option B for many reasons. I think option A is what is what will continue to happen. Given how deep the feelings are I think things will end up more like Northern Ireland during the troubles.
My family and friends in Hong Kong said it is all very confusing and hard to know who supports what completely. The ones in the more affluent areas say they guess it is close to 50/50 overall. The one exception is the young people, they are overwhelmingly pro protest. One relative said that they support everything the protests want but are very afraid that China will come in and crush Hong Kong.... so many people are refusing to take a position because of fear of physical harm. They were asking me if there is any chance that the USA sends troops, believing that it would force the CCP out....... she was very upset when I said Trump would not do it.
