The Hong Kong Thread

Rage Racer
My initial source was a Russian blogger who lives in HK and highlights all these protests. From what I understand, the current system without direct elections was set by the colonial government and can't be changed for at least 50 years after the HK's handover to China (i.e. until 2047).
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Incorrect UK wanted a Proper democracy well before 1997 but China was making sure that the current system stayed since the 80s as part of the handover deal.
 
Obviously independence and leaving Hong Kong the 🤬 alone would have been the best course of action but it's really weird that Hong Kong is probably the only place in the world that would have been better off under British rule.

There really aren't too many places where that could be said to be true. Being handed over to China is a case of meet the new boss, even worse and more tyrannical than the old boss.
 
At this point I would say for those that live in Hong Kong if you can, move to Taiwan. Hong kong at this point has no hope of keeping their freedoms being within CCP control of influence and other countries can't protect your freedoms.
 
YouTube has been automatically deleting negative comments and other criticism of China in light of the protests in Hong Kong. YouTube isn't even available in China, yet it is trying to censor itself worldwide.

We live in the shadow of very dangerous times. China has a disgusting government.
 
Liquid
Hong Kong is doomed.

HK representatives are forcibly removed from the session by CCP so pro-CCP lawmakers can do what they want and force a vote.

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Yeah, the usual structural violence in the legislative body from the pro-CCP legislators, except this time they are actually pushing HK over the tip of the cliff, for one last time.

But the national security law doesn't involve the HK legislative branch (the scene in the GIF probably comes from one of the meetings subsequent to the pro-Beijing camp's removal of a democratic chair of a committee to push through another law, the national anthem law, I think), because the legislative process is going to be completely within China's legislature, which, after passing the law, will put it to a smaller Standing Committee to work out the details of the law, and the law will be put under effect in what insiders guess is some time around August/September this year. That timing is rather convenient as well, as the upcoming HK Legislative Council election, which will see all members of the next term getting elected, is going to be held on early September, so there will be ample time for the Chinese government to disqualify running/elected democratic legislators or to put them in jail until the pick is just right for them.

As for the national security law, I'm pretty sure most of you know what it is (considering the reverberations from the international community recently), but just in case you don't, it's practically one of the most controversial laws in China with the most controversial enforcement and ruling being carried over to Hong Kong. The CCP has said that it will be targeted at actions that constitute subversion of state power, secession (e.g. HK independence), terrorism, and interference by foreign forces. These are mostly words that are associated with the Chinese rhetoric on Xinjiang and political dissidents, although I suspect it will also offer the legal and constitutional backing for the CCP to retaliate if any government in the western world imposes sanctions on it, no matter government or individual, if there wasn't any already.

So to sum it up, after almost a year of resistance, the CCP has pretty much said this to all Hongkongers: "We are quick in responding to changes with policies, but it took us 3 months to listen to demands and scrap the extradition bill. You still enjoy freedom of speech, of assembly and of the press. But we will not permit your asking for permission if the protest is an anti-government one, we will arrest or pepper-spray journalists if they are not standing on our side. If teachers or other professionals say anything that can be considered anti-government in their private spheres, we reserve every right to hold them accountable, but if a prosecutor that works for the Department of Justice is found calling protestors 'cockroaches' on her Facebook page, that probably does not go against the code of conduct. Ask for the police's help if you got beaten up by mobs cladded in white, but you probably won't receive a response. Oh, and the fault is on you for calling the police hotline."

Unfortunately, the absurdity won't stop here, and I mean it will spread to other places as well, other than even more absurdity here in the future. Before it's Tibet/Xinjiang, now it's Hong Kong, next up will be Taiwan, and finally, the world.

Rage Racer
My initial source was a Russian blogger who lives in HK and highlights all these protests. From what I understand, the current system without direct elections was set by the colonial government and can't be changed for at least 50 years after the HK's handover to China (i.e. until 2047).
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That's definitely wrong. Articles 45 and 68 of the Basic Law stated very clearly that there should be progress in the elections for the legislative branch and the head of government in terms of popular legitimacy, with the final goal being universal suffrage for all elected members of the 2 branches, which should be done before 2047. The 'Unchanged for 50 years' you're talking about is referring to the economic and societal systems.

Rage Racer
What he says about the current National Security Law thing is that this law was being tried to pass for 23 years but the Hong Kong government still couldn't give birth to one that would satisfy everyone. Beijing is annoyed by this (spiced up by the violent riots and terrorism) so it's stepping in with force.
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It's not that legislators of the democratic camp are against the law being introduced by any means and at all times. In fact, I think the democratic camp suggested the government to consult the public on Article 23 around 5 to 6 years ago (not entirely sure, so don't take my word completely, but the two democrat-endorsed Chief Executive candidates in 2017 did have that in their manifestos), but only after true universal suffrage that aligns with international standards has been achieved, and they probably suggested such a prerequisite due to some of their concerns being that the CCP would be exploiting the law to the detriment of Hongkongers' rights, and HKers would be left with no options for resisting (within the establishment, that is) then, which is a fear made very real by the recent happenings.

Rage Racer
Those rioters who thought that breaking private & state property, throwing Molotov cocktails and attacking police and bypassers will cause the PRC government to back down only angered it instead.
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But we did try the peaceful way of protesting at first. We tried it in 2014, and we tried it in 2019 when the movement was still just beginning. What we got in return for those two times was tear gas and a response that is the equivalent of a message that says 'Noted' from the government respectively.
 
AerodyManiac
Unfortunately, the absurdity won't stop here, and I mean it will spread to other places as well, other than even more absurdity here in the future. Before it's Tibet/Xinjiang, now it's Hong Kong, next will be Taiwan, and finally, the world.
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This is sad to know. Ultimately, I guess we are, each of us all alone, individuals and special interests, each of us at the other's throat, a Hobbesian nightmare world where we submit to absolute authority.
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), whose current reputation rests largely on his political philosophy, was a thinker with wide-ranging interests. In philosophy, he defended a range of materialist, nominalist, and empiricist views against Cartesian and Aristotelian alternatives
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.
 
AerodyManiac
But we did try the peaceful way of protesting at first. We tried it in 2014, and we tried it in 2019 when the movement was still just beginning. What we got in return for those two times was tear gas and a response that is the equivalent of a message that says 'Noted' from the government respectively.
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Doesn't help that there is video and picture evidence of police members disguising themselves as protestors and causing havoc to, presumably, continue the justification of the brutality of the HK police force on the protestors.

Or the time they failed to show up at the Yuen Long train station until 39 minutes after the attacks on protestors (and bystanders), coincidentally the same time when the attackers have just dispersed, and how a pro-Beijing politician was videotaped thanking the attackers.

Yup, nothing suspicious going on in Hong Kong at all, just a small minority of citizens causing a big stir, instigated by foreign governments who also somehow managed to meddle in the 2019 HK elections, allowing the pro-democracy camp a landslide victory.
 
It's hypocritical given that the UK recently deported people who came from families that had been invited to the UK in the 1950s. Deported "back" to countries that they had never known.

But generally as pertaining to Hong Kong, it's headline grabbing. Nothing but bluster to look good and sound like one of the heroes. UK is under China's thumb.

Edit: I would like to point out, as I have done previously, that I hear and read very little about the situation in Macau, China's other Special Administrative Region. Maybe if I was in Portugal or Brazil I might?
 
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It does annoy me intensely that UK seems to be under China thumb.

Not that I am asking for them to raze them over, but to more talk to them as an equal and to make China understand if its an equal partnership, things will be better going forward.

But that hasn't really been happening as far as I can see and it disappoints me, on both sides.

For me, I find China's statement a load of bollocks basically, but with the UK government having its balls cut off in this case, I don't know anymore
 
Isn't he offering it to the Hong Kong Residents who picked up the British Hong Kong Passport pre 1997 Handover?
 
mustafur
Isn't he offering it to the Hong Kong Residents who picked up the British Hong Kong Passport pre 1997 Handover?
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Which is something that cannot legally be refused and makes the offer of residency less valiant and altruistic.

I don't know how many Hong Kong native British citizens there are in Hong Kong so my flippant cynicism might be invalid.

It is very difficult for anyone in Hong Kong to apply for British citizenship, even if they lived there before 1997 or are descendants thereof. Unsurprisingly, China has taken a very strong view of its own nationality law, especially with regards to those born after 1997, and the position is that everyone of Chinese descent in Hong Kong must be, and is, a citizen of China. It's different if you're a Nepalese or Indian Hong Konger because of Chinese racism, naturally.

Even then, it took several High Court battles in the 2000s to enable Nepalese Gurkhas who served in the British army to reside in the UK or gain British citizenship despite the obvious but qualitative qualification of having served that country.

Given that coupled with the last 10 years including Windrush deportations of British residents born in Britain and Brexit, welcoming "citizens of the former Empire" is doubtfully high on the list in my opinion.

If it is, there is a gaping chasm of selectivism and hypocrisy.
 
Liquid
Which is something that cannot legally be refused and makes the offer of residency less valiant and altruistic.

I don't know how many Hong Kong native British citizens there are in Hong Kong so my flippant cynicism might be invalid.

It is very difficult for anyone in Hong Kong to apply for British citizenship, even if they lived there before 1997 or are descendants thereof. Unsurprisingly, China has taken a very strong view of its own nationality law, especially with regards to those born after 1997, and the position is that everyone of Chinese descent in Hong Kong must be, and is, a citizen of China. It's different if you're a Nepalese or Indian Hong Konger because of Chinese racism, naturally.
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I'm not sure what about mustafur's post you are specifically saying that cannot be refused. To clarify, all those who were permanent Hong Kong residents with the right of abode prior to the handover could have applied for a specific type of British passport called British National (Overseas), abbreviated to BNO. That application period ended when Hong Kong was handed over back to China, and no new, first time registrations will be granted after the handover. If you didn't get it prior to the handover, then too bad, you can't retroactively claim it even if you would have been eligible previously. If you were born after the handover, you were never eligible for BNO status.

However, if you were granted that passport/status prior to the handover, then it is yours to keep for life. Even if the passport itself expires, the status doesn't go away, and the BNO holder can renew for a passport at anytime. One quirk about the BNO status, it does not transfer to partners or children, unlike British citizenship. This means that the number of BNO holders is only going down as time passes due to people dying. Eventually, the entire BNO category will die out.

Those who were granted a BNO passport hold the status of British National, but they are not British Citizens. BNO holders currently have extended visa privileges to the UK among a few other benefits, but BNO does exclude rights provided to citizens like permanent residency, right to vote, ability to access welfare, and ability to work without a visa. So BNO holders really are not citizens even though they have a burgundy passport that bears the seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on the front.

In the article, Johnson says that there are ~350k active BNO passport holders, and up to ~2.5 million more eligible. I suspect most of the total eligible BNO holders (active plus inactive) would not move to the UK. For one, many of them already hold additional foreign passports (e.g. US, Canada, Australia), so UK residency does not offer much. Secondly, those who do not already hold another foreign passport, a good number of those people probably do not have the means or desire to leave Hong Kong. Emigration is expensive and can be a traumatic change to your surroundings and habits.

There are people who don't fall neatly into this (like the folks who don't have Chinese heritage and thus China does not consider them to be Chinese citizens), but their numbers are small, and for the most part, have already been granted full British citizenship.
 
Crash
I'm not sure what about mustafur's post you are specifically saying that cannot be refused. To clarify, all those who were permanent Hong Kong residents with the right of abode prior to the handover could have applied for a specific type of British passport called British National (Overseas), abbreviated to BNO. That application period ended when Hong Kong was handed over back to China, and no new, first time registrations will be granted after the handover. If you didn't get it prior to the handover, then too bad, you can't retroactively claim it even if you would have been eligible previously. If you were born after the handover, you were never eligible for BNO status.

However, if you were granted that passport/status prior to the handover, then it is yours to keep for life. Even if the passport itself expires, the status doesn't go away, and the BNO holder can renew for a passport at anytime. One quirk about the BNO status, it does not transfer to partners or children, unlike British citizenship. This means that the number of BNO holders is only going down as time passes due to people dying. Eventually, the entire BNO category will die out.

Those who were granted a BNO passport hold the status of British National, but they are not British Citizens. BNO holders currently have extended visa privileges to the UK among a few other benefits, but BNO does exclude rights provided to citizens like permanent residency, right to vote, ability to access welfare, and ability to work without a visa. So BNO holders really are not citizens even though they have a burgundy passport that bears the seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on the front.

In the article, Johnson says that there are ~350k active BNO passport holders, and up to ~2.5 million more eligible. I suspect most of the total eligible BNO holders (active plus inactive) would not move to the UK. For one, many of them already hold additional foreign passports (e.g. US, Canada, Australia), so UK residency does not offer much. Secondly, those who do not already hold another foreign passport, a good number of those people probably do not have the means or desire to leave Hong Kong. Emigration is expensive and can be a traumatic change to your surroundings and habits.

There are people who don't fall neatly into this (like the folks who don't have Chinese heritage and thus China does not consider them to be Chinese citizens), but their numbers are small, and for the most part, have already been granted full British citizenship.
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You make good points and there's no doubt inaccuracies in what I posted.

Wasn't trying to mislead.
 
The Communist Party really is taking advantage of the Covid Sceniaro to push their Facist garbage into law while protests are crippled.

I'm not sure Hong Kong can be considered an Autonomous Region anymore thanks to this law as well.
 
The Hong Kong government has decided to bar 12 candidates from the democratic camp from running in the forthcoming election for the Legislative Council, quoting their 'objection in principle' to the National Security Law and their intention to veto any government-introduced proposals, including the annual financial budget, as some of the reasons for their ineligibility, after the candidates have replied by mail to the electoral returning officers to answer their questions relating to their eligibility. Some of them are disqualified on the basis of the evidence that they participated in a roundtable discussion between incumbent Legislative Council members and US officials in March 2020, which saw legislators from both camps in HK participating in it. Among the disqualified candidates, Civic Party, a party that belongs to the moderate side of the democratic camp, has got 4 of its 6 candidates disqualified, with the remaining 2 in limbo. No legislators who belong to that party have been disqualified in previous elections.

Barely a day after the decision to bar the candidates was known, the government has announced that the election would be postponed for a year, citing the high number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 lately and prevention of infection as reasons. When asked if incumbent lawmakers disqualified from running for the next term will be able to continue acting as LegCo members during this one year, the Chief Executive said that she didn't know for sure, and replied that "from her understanding", the decision by the returning officers to disqualify them should have no effect on their identity as incumbent lawmakers, but furthered that by saying that the national parliament in China will make the decision (and the final say) on if they get to retain their identity in LegCo meetings during this one year.

But perhaps the biggest news story that will impact HKers, as well as any living person that is anti-CCP on this planet, recently, is that the HK police has ordered the arrest of 6 pro-democracy HK activists that have been living in exile in western countries on the accusations that they have been 'inciting secession from the country and colluding with foreign forces'. Some of the evidence quoted for the violation include participation in Congressional hearings in the US and being interviewed by western media, although several of the 6 are wanted due to their Facebook posts, with one activist on the list simply for making posts that are related to HK independence and contain the HK independence flag. It's also worth noting that you don't necessarily need to have Chinese citizenship to break this law; one of the wanted people do not hold Chinese citizenship (or any Hong Kong ones, I think), and is a US citizen instead. This, together with the fact that 4 students in HK were arrested after the police entered their home for making posts on Instagram advocating HK independence and had samples of their DNA taken afterwards, probably signals that the National Security Law is beginning to deliver its full sting.
 
It's Purge time and Covid is stopping public resistance, with the way they are pushing on this by the time Covid is over Hong Kong will be no different to the Mainland.

They are not hiding the true intentions anymore they don't care.
 
Today the Chinese authorities in Hong Kong went to the next level & arrested Jimmy Lai, billionaire business tycoon, democracy activist & owner of the Hong Kong Apple Daily newspaper.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/09/media/hong-kong-security-law-jimmy-lai-intl-hnk/index.html

I have never met Jimmy, but know his twin sister, Si Wai, quite well, as she lives across the street from me. They have both lived extraordinary lives.

From Wikipedia: Jimmy Lai was born in Guangzhou, China in December 1948. At the age of 12, he entered Hong Kong as a stowaway on a boat. Upon his arrival, Lai began work as a child-laborer in a garment factory for a wage of $8 per month.

Si Wai upped the ante on this by swimming 30 hours from mainline China to Hong Kong in 1965 at the age of 17. She told me that she navigated through the dark of the night by swimming towards the lights from Hong Kong. The irony of this escape is that the Chinese authorities had picked her out as a young girl to train her as a potential olympic swimmer.

Among the holdings of Jimmy Lai (& Si Wai) are most of the the hotels & restaurants in my home town & in nearby Niagara Falls (Canada). Their rags-to-riches life story is amazing.
 
A few days ago, at the request of the Chief Executive, the NPCSC, China's top legislative body, has passed a resolution to disqualify the 4 legislators that were barred from running in the now-postponed LegCo election. After the news was confirmed, the remaining 15 legislators from the Democracy Camp's alliance announced they would resign in protest to the decision. As a result, 41 out of the 43 currently remaining legislators belong to the pro-Beijing camp.

In spite of this, Carrie Lam, the HK government's leader, denied that HK's legislative branch would be relegated to a 'rubber stamp'. She also denied that Beijing's decision was prompted by the democrats' continuous filibustering employed since the interim legislature began, despite media reports claiming this to be the case circulating several days before the news was confirmed.

Also, the National Security branch of the HK Police has set up a hotline for citizens to anonymously blow the whistle on acts or persons they deem to be potentially violating the National Security Law, and it has received around 10,000 messages barely a week after it has been activated. Critics have harshly condemned this act by the Police to be reviving the practices that were last seen in China's Cultural Revolution, a political movement initiated by Mao that saw intellectuals, and many others, denounced to death.
 
AerodyManiac
A few days ago, at the request of the Chief Executive, the NPCSC, China's top legislative body, has passed a resolution to disqualify the 4 legislators that were barred from running in the now-postponed LegCo election. After the news was confirmed, the remaining 15 legislators from the Democracy Camp's alliance announced they would resign in protest to the decision. As a result, 41 out of the 43 currently remaining legislators belong to the pro-Beijing camp.

In spite of this, Carrie Lam, the HK government's leader, denied that HK's legislative branch would be relegated to a 'rubber stamp'. She also denied that Beijing's decision was prompted by the democrats' continuous filibustering employed since the interim legislature began, despite media reports claiming this to be the case circulating several days before the news was confirmed.

Also, the National Security branch of the HK Police has set up a hotline for citizens to anonymously blow the whistle on acts or persons they deem to be potentially violating the National Security Law, and it has received around 10,000 messages barely a week after it has been activated. Critics have harshly condemned this act by the Police to be reviving the practices that were last seen in China's Cultural Revolution, a political movement initiated by Mao that saw intellectuals, and many others, denounced to death.
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Is the mass emigration of Democracy supporters a thing that you have noticed?

It's only going to make it worse when the voting base of opposition is leaving as well.
 
mustafur
Is the mass emigration of Democracy supporters a thing that you have noticed?
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I'm not exactly sure about the democracy camp supporters, because there're no statistics available about the political stance of people emigrating, but generally many people are preparing to move abroad. The amount of people applying for a Certificate of No Criminal Conviction, a document usually required for emigration, has risen from around 23,000 in the previous years to around 33,000 in 2019, with the number noticeably higher in the months since the anti-extradition bill movement began. In fact, most of the surplus could be attributed to applications made since then. The trend of comparatively higher application numbers continued until March 2019, when the COVID-19 broke out in other countries as well and applications dropped. It's started rising again since June this year, which coincides with the National Security Law's introduction. No causation has been proven though, I must admit.

If I had to answer based on personal experience, then I'm inclined to answer yes; several of my friends have mulled over the possibility of returning to their home countries, with some going so far as to applying for a passport and making plans for emigration. For those who didn't, chances are they can't. I think there probably are many people who have no intention of leaving (because of affinity to the city or whatnot), although there's also a sizeable chunk who don't want to live here anymore.

mustafur
It's only going to make it worse when the voting base of opposition is leaving as well.
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The loss of Democracy supporters is not so much of an issue at hand; the plan to leave is, I think, something that takes time to materialise, and the effects won't be seen until several years down the line. Even if there is a certain amount of democratic supporters leaving, I think there will also be moderate pro-Beijing voters leaving due to unenviable financial prospects in the city. What is a much bigger headache for people who still believe in parliamentary methods of resistance, is that the government is planning to allow HK residents who don't even have an address in HK and are living in mainland China to vote in as soon as next year's election, because it's pretty much guaranteed that most of these votes will go to the pro-Beijing parties, and there's quite a lot of these people. The government will probably announce these measures in the coming weeks, together with the decision to let police officers (surprise surprise!) and the elderly vote earlier, if the rumour is true.

Thanks for asking. It helps break this routine of only me posting. :lol:
 
Hong Kong's largest and longest-running pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, will stop all operations in HK today (June 23), with its final issue going to newspaper stands tomorrow. Citing an inability to pay its staff and in order to avoid violating labour laws, the 26-year-old news corporation is forced to close days after the National Security Unit of the Police Force arrested 5 senior management and editorial figures (including its CEO and Editor-in-Chief) and froze its 3 companies' 18 million dollars' worth of assets on accusations of conspiring to collude with foreign powers, with its founder Jimmy Lai already arrested on a similar charge in August last year. The company requested authorities earlier to release the frozen assets in order to make payments but was unsuccessful.

www.bbc.com

Apple Daily: Hong Kong pro-democracy paper announces closure

The tabloid's closure, days after its assets were frozen, is a blow to media freedom in Hong Kong.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

And so another hallmark of HK's freedoms crumbles.
 
TexRex
This is entirely believable.
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If you’re saying that the closure was only caused by the company’s inability to pay its staff, I’d say yes, it’s the immediate cause, but I’d also say that this cause was, primarily or not, brought by the police’s freezing of assets, since Lai’s adviser said that Apple Daily was in healthy financial condition immediately before the arrests and freezing, or at least it could pay its bills on time.

www.reuters.com

EXCLUSIVE HK’s Apple Daily to shut within days, says Jimmy Lai adviser

Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily will be forced to shut "in a matter of days" after authorities froze the company's assets under a national security law, an adviser to jailed owner Jimmy Lai told Reuters on Monday.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

I could have misunderstood you, though, and if that’s the case, do tell me what you originally meant.
 

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