News The Hong Kong Protests / Distortion of truth and media

Juno

Juno

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    I'm not sure how many people have tuned in to this bit of news, but it's an issue that's been quite close to the hearts of my family since my parents are from Hong Kong.

    A quick rundown for those unfamiliar, Hong Kong has been in a state of disarray (to put it mildly) as hundreds of thousands of people (possibly even between 1-2 million according to some sources?) are protesting a bill that will allow the government to extradite people from Hong Kong to mainland China. Hong Kong is an autonomous state that used to be a British colony but was given back to China still pretty recently (1997), so while it is still a part of China, it has a lot of its own rules, political and economic systems and functions differently from the mainland, most notably the fact that it is more of a democratic than communist state. Hong Kong, unlike the mainland, also has free press and an open internet, and this bill is being perceived as a threat to the people of Hong Kong's freedom of speech and civil liberties, as there have been instances in the past where Hong Kong journalists have been targeted by the government, but they can do so more freely if the bill passes.

    So at home, we've actually been quite divided on the issue and have had a few arguments within our family about it, since my parents are pro-China - their stance is basically these demonstrations won't do anything anyway, and the Chinese government will get its way eventually, so there is no use in protesting. And they are "pro-China" in the sense that my parents seem to attribute a lot of China's success to the work of the communist party, so they support a lot of their actions and choices. My parents also almost exclusively consume Chinese media, and it's only recently come to my attention that the news they are consuming is quite skewed and contradict with a lot of the news sources outside of China and Hong Kong.

    So I also wanted to talk about how scary and interesting it is that the reach of China's propaganda goes so far, hence the second part of the thread's title. You won't find a lot of information about this outside of HK/China, but a lot of people including my parents, from news articles and photos circulated by their friends and family in Hong Kong, actually believe these riots are instigated by the US government.

    When I was arguing with my parents, I could not understand how they can still be under the influence of Chinese media, but this video I saw last week actually explains a lot. My parents, living in Canada, of course have access to a lot more than just what people from China can see, but it is incredibly frustrating talking about this with them because they are so convinced this is all the result of "US meddling" and that any news sources I bring them can't be trusted because obviously North American media is going to spin the story in their favour, and they can't see the irony in that while they believe what they see out of Hong Kong and China with no question.

    ​

    This isn't, of course, a 100% reputable source or anything, just something I came across while scrolling through my feed but there is definitely some truth to it. The kind of stuff coming from their friends is so ridiculous, my parents are literally texting me pictures of just... white people who happen to be in Hong Kong, but newspapers and articles are using these images as "proof" of US interference. Just. White people, some of whom very clearly look like tourists.

    Spoiler:


    Anyway, I know this kind of turned into me rambling about my situation and thoughts, but I do want to know your guys' thoughts on the situation in general, even not in response to anything I said here but just how you feel about the protests and the bill, new information that has come out since, etc.
     
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    First off I just want to say I'm so proud of the Hong Kong people for mobilising with such determination and strength.

    So the PR spin on why this has come about in the first place is because of that Hong Kong guy who killed his girlfriend in Taiwan was able to flee back to Hong Kong and is currently unable to be extradited. Of course it's just an excuse for China to use to exert more control over territories it claims sovereignty over and will absolutely be used to extradite political challengers if passed even though they claim it won't for that reason...sure China.

    Very little is getting reported on it in the mainland and what is getting reported is basically just the violence but nothing about the police brutality side of it. Just that the protesters are basically ALL rioters.

    It's quite funny of China to say outside nations should mind their own business, specifically Britain, considering we have an agreement with them about Hong Kong's freedoms that is set to last until 2047 but in 2017 they declared it an archaic document because it didn't suit them anymore.

    I was in Hong Kong last week and the city is functioning fine by the way. Hong Kong people are very good at protesting because they have a lot of experience with it so they know how to do it in regards to organisation. And I know the government building was stormed but looking at the bigger picture when you have literally millions out of Hong Kong's 7 million population protesting they have done a fantastic job.

    What do I think will happen in the end though? China will ultimately win, if not now in 2047 for sure (but I think HK will become mainland much sooner to be honest). Hong Kong isn't as crucial to China as it was in 1997, and with China's status on the world stage it can afford to be swift and harsh with its China-fying of Hong Kong if its want to which won't really cause any long term damage.
     
    Your parents' behaviour are not unbelievable tbh. Every single Chinese person (immigrants to this place or not) that I've met around these parts seem to still have this communistic hivemind mentality wherever they go, with regards to what news arrive here. Obviously, it is getting frustrating towards the community here because they just act as if they are above everyone else, even if the reports prove otherwise.
     
    Yue Han said:
    First off I just want to say I'm so proud of the Hong Kong people for mobilising with such determination and strength.

    So the PR spin on why this has come about in the first place is because of that Hong Kong guy who killed his girlfriend in Taiwan was able to flee back to Hong Kong and is currently unable to be extradited. Of course it's just an excuse for China to use to exert more control over territories it claims sovereignty over and will absolutely be used to extradite political challengers if passed even though they claim it won't for that reason...sure China.

    Very little is getting reported on it in the mainland and what is getting reported is basically just the violence but nothing about the police brutality side of it. Just that the protesters are basically ALL rioters.

    It's quite funny of China to say outside nations should mind their own business, specifically Britain, considering we have an agreement with them about Hong Kong's freedoms that is set to last until 2047 but in 2017 they declared it an archaic document because it didn't suit them anymore.

    I was in Hong Kong last week and the city is functioning fine by the way. Hong Kong people are very good at protesting because they have a lot of experience with it so they know how to do it in regards to organisation. And I know the government building was stormed but looking at the bigger picture when you have literally millions out of Hong Kong's 7 million population protesting they have done a fantastic job.

    What do I think will happen in the end though? China will ultimately win, if not now in 2047 for sure (but I think HK will become mainland much sooner to be honest). Hong Kong isn't as crucial to China as it was in 1997, and with China's status on the world stage it can afford to be swift and harsh with its China-fying of Hong Kong if its want to which won't really cause any long term damage.
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    Especially since what's coming from a lot of pro-Beijing news sources is how extremely violent the protests are, how much they are trying to paint these as wild riots when in reality 2 million people marched peacefully for the most part at the height of the protests. There will always be outliers, and there is a lot of anger here, so to pretend and expect that no one will get hurt and things won't be broken would be foolish, but that 2 million people conducted themselves the way they did is incredible. But no, like you said you will not hear that from the pro-Beijing sources, they really like to distract people like my parents from the bigger picture with the violence and the poor cops that are getting hurt.

    My parents haven't seen any of the pictures or videos of individual, defenseless protesters getting mobbed by cops, beaten down and excessively manhandled, don't know if they even know about the deaths or suicides at this point, but my mom still texts me picures of bloodied cops who - and I want to stress that while no one should be getting hurt and no one deserves to be hurt, but if anyone should expect it and know how to conduct themselves in a situation like this, it's armed police officers - frankly speaking should be trained to handle protests with more tact and have the expectation to put themselves on the line in efforts to deescalate and protect citizens, not beat them down even to protect yourself. Which, in some cases are still largely unjustified because the majority of the protesters were unarmed and a lot of the cops were in full riot gear.

    That some people can look at this situation still as "darn kids making trouble for everyone with their silly protests, this is such an inconvenience" is astounding. People who are passionate about their future, the future of their home and children, are literally being dismissed as angry, childish and entitled kids, because they feel threatened and are taking action to protect their home as best as they can, as respectfully as they can. The other day my dad tried to argue that only 2 million people marched, in a population of about 7 million, so that means this is a minority and not representative of what the Hong Kong people want. You know. Just a casual 20-30% of the entire population of Hong Kong.

    For the most part we have tried to be civil and just stay away from this topic entirely at home, which I prefer, but their words still ring in my head when I read the news and it's so hard to not just jump up and be like LOOK AT THIS PLEASE OPEN YOUR EYES TO WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING

    which I'm sure is what they want to do to me too, haha. I love my parents but damn this has not been easy

    I am not sure what to make of the "bill is dead" statement, I know people are still angry but is it basically regarded as a stalling tactic to try and appease protesters while not actually doing anything? What's the end goal, wait it out until 2047?
     
    I hope no one minds me bringing this back up but these last two days have been pretty bad in Hong Kong, the police were shooting tear gas into the subway, making it difficult to escape the gas, a woman was shot in the eye, and the protesters were able to shut down Hong Kong airport for almost two days now. The Chinese Government has labeled the protest as "terrorism" and military forces and police officers are training to take action if Hong Kong does not take action soon.
     
    EnglishALT said:
    I hope no one minds me bringing this back up but these last two days have been pretty bad in Hong Kong, the police were shooting tear gas into the subway, making it difficult to escape the gas, a woman was shot in the eye, and the protesters were able to shut down Hong Kong airport for almost two days now. The Chinese Government has labeled the protest as "terrorism" and military forces and police officers are training to take action if Hong Kong does not take action soon.
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    I honestly don't see any way this ends well for Hong Kong at this point.
     
    EnglishALT said:
    I hope no one minds me bringing this back up but these last two days have been pretty bad in Hong Kong, the police were shooting tear gas into the subway, making it difficult to escape the gas, a woman was shot in the eye, and the protesters were able to shut down Hong Kong airport for almost two days now. The Chinese Government has labeled the protest as "terrorism" and military forces and police officers are training to take action if Hong Kong does not take action soon.
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    It's extremely problematic. I honestly wish Britain would finally put their shoe in and at least offer protection to Hong Kong, we're partly to blame for the mess in the first place.

    Of course, China is literally the key player in every capitalist market in the Western World now, so Britain won't speak up out of fear of China cutting us off, since we outsource so much to them already.
     
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    The protesters crossed a line at the airport, and that kind of incident was just what the Chinese government needs. They have been more open about their condemnation of the protests lately, and they had been painting even the peaceful protests as "riots" for a while now, but now they really have an excuse to call this "terrorism" and violence and openly fire back against the protesters (as in public statements, not physically - the police haven't really been holding back on that front).

    The protesters have been very apologetic for the chaos they caused at the airport, and for tying up two mainland Chinese individuals (I think they were wearing pro-police t-shirts/openly rallying for the police in the midst of all that), but the Chinese government will for sure use this to their advantage to the best of their ability to dismiss the protesters' cause and their demands.
     
    I'm going to be controversial now but I still will defend the HK protesters completely and will not give criticism towards them. They're getting desperate and understandably so. Blame the powers that be that created this situation by ignoring perfectly reasonable demands not the people acting so out of desperation. (Yes I'm fully aware China doesn't do listening to reasonable demands but I still feel the HK protesters have the moral high ground).
     
    Is that a controversial opinion? While the actions many of the protesters took at the airport are not defensible in itself, I would think most people do understand the desperation and predicament they have been in for many weeks now, they are tired and angry and yeah, while it was not right, they took it out on people they perceived as "the enemy". I could be wrong but I don't feel like this is the moment where people who were already sympathetic and supportive of the pro-democracy movement would turn on the cause, but it certainly fans the flames for people who were already condemning the protests in the first place.

    I hope I didn't come off as blaming the protesters, I guess the only thing I am disappointed in is their actions give the Chinese government more of the narrative that they want, that the protesters are violent and unreasonable, which is what they have been pushing the whole time anyway. Had they been largely peaceful throughout everything, (which I think they did intend to do but kinda lost control at the airport), it's harder to twist the narrative.
     
    What I'm saying that could possibly be seen as controversial is that I do feel their holding the airport hostage is a defensible action given the situation. Like how they held the MTR hostage after the attack on protesters wasn't dealt with properly at all (and is highly suspect on the side of the authorities anyway). They need their voices to be heard and sometimes pacifism just doesn't cut it. As excellently as the HK people have protested with such organisation for weeks China does not listen to words and the HK people know this.
     
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    So three months later, the original extradition bill that sparked the protests in the first place has finally been formally withdrawn by Carrie Lam, but many feel this is too little, too late at this point, as the protests have spiraled into something much bigger than just this bill. For those who don't know, protests have been centered around 5 demands now - in addition to the withdrawal of the bill, the other four have been:


    • setting up of an independent body to investigate police violence
    • a halt to/retraction of the characterization of protests as "riots"
    • amnesty for those arrested
    • democratic reforms to give Hong Kong residents universal suffrage

    The discontent has grown exponentially since the start of the protests and it doesn't look like the withdrawal of the bill now will do much to placate the majority of the protesters. The phrase "五大诉求, 缺一不可" ("five key demands, not one less") has become a big slogan for the protests the past few weeks, and having let the situation come so far, the CCP/Carrie Lam will have to at least address most of these at the very least (lbr they're not going to be met). To my knowledge, she has so far already commented on the independent police investigations and said that will not happen, as it is already being handled by the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Council).
     
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    It's a monumental achievement but you're right it will not placate protesters and at this stage I would see little reason to why it should. The government handling of this has been disastrous. Carrie Lam is not resigning anytime soon, well or so she's saying. As we've learned from that leaked tape she most certainly wants to but later in a public statement """cleared up""" that she would never dream of resigning now. She's Beijing's puppet.

    I'm quite favouring the theory that they only withdrew the bill at this stage as an attempt to calm things down because of China's approaching national holiday which is going to be a day to watch itself.
     
    Has the extradition bill actually been formally withdrawn or are we still at the "promise to withdraw" stage? Only source I see a "formally withdraw" in the headlines from is the South China Morning Post, a source on this issue that has enough bias that I'd only use their articles as kindling for a campfire.

    This reeks strongly of an attempt to try to get the international spotlight off of Hong Kong enough for harsher enforcement against the protesters to be employed.
     
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