Rally for Democracy in Hong Kong

Amazing and inspiring. Solidarity!

The battle for Hong Kong’s future: there’s no going back

Hong Kong: Workers Strike in Support of Student Democracy Movement

Ghislaine wrote:

I think the big difference with what happened 25 yrs ago at Tiannamen square is that it is a lot more difficult to keep Chinese people (whether in Hong Kong or the rest of China) from seeing imagine of what the police and gov are doing to the protesters.

According to one piece I read around the time of this year's 25th anniversary, most of the people interviewed said "yes we know it happened; so what?" in the same way that people here or anywhere else turn a blind eye to similar monumentous events.

Speaking of which, I noticed that anniversary passed here with no mention at all.

And yes, it will be very interesting to see what happens in Hong Kong.

And while this is not even the biggest backlash in China, it is understandable that it would get more attention, given the history of Hong Kong, and the fact it is a world business center.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26414016

But for all the differences between this and Tienanmen, I think those in the media talking about China's limited ability to respond and this being a turning point are engaging in wishful thinking . Perhaps it will be different, but there is no indication of that yet.

Agreed with a lot of that...but can we all please STOP calling the Chinese government "Communists"?

If you've got luxury hotels and bazillionaires in the police state you're running, it's damn sure stopped being "red".

The leadership in Beijing, like the leadership in Moscow, is a right-wing nationalist kleptocracy, and both should be regarded as such by the Left.  

Communism is not the problem; the problem is right-wing élitism government. Capitalist democracies are no better that communist states, they all have totalitarian governments. 

I think we can learn a great deal from those young protesters in Hong Kong, they want change and are not affraid to show it. Whether they succeed or not, the seed will be planted. China may remain under the same facist government for now, but eventually democracy will prevail.

If only Canadians were as concerned about democracy like the people of Hong Kong.

Thing is, they didn't have democracy under British colonial rule either, and most sleepwalked through it. But I can see why they might be paying a bit more attention now.

Well said.

Hong Kong Is Ready for Democracy, but China Isn’t Ready for a Free Hong Kong

http://time.com/3447838/hong-kong-democracy-china-protests-anson-chan/

Occupy Hong Kong: Macro scale, micro-adaptations

https://github.com/cshirky/occupyhongkong/tree/master

Have the Commies blinked or is it a trap?

Hong Kong leader refuses to step down amid protests but opens door to talks

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/02/world/asia/china-hong-kong-protests/index....

Really. I'd have to have to start hijacking this thread with hackneyed old 1950s American propaganda pics. I'd just hate it.

And no. No one has blinked:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/03/hong-kong-violent-clashes-r...

Protest group rejects talks with Hong Kong government

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/03/world/asia/china-hong-kong-protests/index....

NR..1950 called,they want their meme back.

Threatened Hong Kong Leader Offers Talks But Refuses to Step Down

Hong Kong’s chief executive has refused to quit but offered talks to pro-democracy protest leaders minutes before their deadline for him to resign at midnight on Thursday.

Student leaders had threatened to occupy government facilities if he refused to go, but they urged demonstrators to stay calm as thousands gathered around his office building in the Admiralty area.

Leung Chun-ying said in a press conference that he would not resign, but announced he had asked chief secretary Carrie Lam to speak to student representatives, as they had requested. He made it clear talks would have to be within the framework laid out by Beijing.

It was the first sign of movement in a stand-off that has lasted for days, with tens of thousands of protesters taking over a large area of downtown Hong Kong. The street demonstrations are the biggest challenge to Beijing’s authority in the former British colony since its handover to China in 1997.

Lam said she would seek to arrange talks as soon as possible, adding: “I hope both sides will be satisfied … Students had wanted a public meeting but I hope we can have some flexibility to discuss details.”...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/02/hong-kong-leader-offers-tal...

Terrorism and Turmoil: US Containment of China  -  by Tony Cartalucci

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.ca/2014/10/terrorism-and-turmoil-us-contai...

"With Hong-Kong's 'Occupy Central' fully exposed as US-based sedition, readers should be aware that this latest turmoil is but one part of a greater ongoing campaign by the United States to contain and co-opt the nation of China..."

Ken Burch wrote:

...can we all please STOP calling the Chinese government "Communists"?...The leadership in Beijing, like the leadership in Moscow, is a right-wing nationalist kleptocracy, and both should be regarded as such by the Left.  

It's abundantly clear that the trajectory of the regime in China is not towards a "dictatorship of the proletariat." For lack of a better term, we still have to call them the Chinese Communist Party or CCP, but I agree with Ken, don't call them "communists" or "commies" - cuz they're NOT.

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In 2010, in analyzing China’s progress toward ensuring its citizens enjoy fundamental labor rights, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) wrote: “Workers do not have the right to organize in trade unions of their choice.  Legal trade unions have to be affiliated to the ACFTU and accept its control.  Although there have been some efforts to establish collective wage consultation systems, the right to collective bargaining is restricted as is the right to strike, both in law and in practice.  The lack of proper representation is reflected in the number of protests and labor disputes that have been rising over the years.”

from Labor Rights in China

China's so-called leaders are part of the global plutocratic network, eroding labour rights and wages around the world. Another example of China's exemplary egalitarianism:

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“Corruption in education has become rampant,” says Transparency International’s Liao. “In China you are supposed to be able to enjoy free education. But in every good school, all the children are from families with money or connections,” says Guo Jing, 38, who tried to get her daughter into a key school in 2008. “Good connections are all based on spending.”

Chinese Education: The Truth Behind the Boasts

Ghislaine wrote:

I am sure Taiwan is watching very closely.

Absolutely.

However, President 9% Ma (a nickname earned from his approval rating) represents the views of Taiwan tycoons who benefit from cheap labour in China. His rhetoric supporting democracy is showmanship, since his party the KMT, as bloody (I mean that literally) rich as it is, still needs to win votes in upcoming elections.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2014/10/05/2003601303/1

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As the Ma administration continues its attempt to convince the public that Taiwan cannot suffer the same fate as that plaguing Hong Kong, and the public sees the way Beijing is handling the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, anti-China sentiment in Taiwan is likely to be inflamed. There is a clear attempt to mitigate this on the part of the Ma administration.

Taiwanese show solidarity via Taipei sit-in

Protesters storm HK office in Taipei in a display of solidarity

from Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central” is US-backed Sedition by Tony Cartalucci:

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Benny Tai regularly attends US State Department, National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its subsidiary the National Democratic Institute (NDI) funded and/or organized forums. Just this month, he spoke at a Design Democracy Hong Kong (NDI-funded) conference on political reform. He is also active at the University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL) - also funded by NDI. CCPL’s 2013-2014 annual report lists Benny Tai as attending at least 3 of the center’s functions, as well as heading one of the center’s projects.

Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai, and Joseph Zen are all confirmed as both leaders of the “Occupy Central” movement and collaborators with the US State Department. Martin Lee, founding chairman of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong, would even travel to the United States this year to conspire directly with NED as well as with politicians in Washington. Earlier this year, Lee would even take to the stage of NED’s event “Why Democracy in Hong Kong Matters.” Joining him at the NED-organized event was Anson Chan, another prominent figure currently supporting the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong’s streets.

Media mogul Jimmy Lai was reported to have met with Neo-Con and former president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz in June 2014.

Alright, assume this is good information. I honestly don’t know enough about the HK leaders mentioned, but I would say they are people primarily fighting for a democratic Hong Kong. Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai, and Anson Chan have been at it for pretty much all their adult lives.

So HK democracy advocates have found ready allies and funders in US neo-con circles, who may in turn want to undermine China in multiple ways. This would give some justification to the CCP to raise its guard and react more strongly. I need to see more, though, to be convinced that the HK leaders mentioned subscribe to the full US neocon agenda.

What would be unfortunate is that the HK leaders did not seek to build alliances with more progressive (though perhaps less moneyed) supporters of democracy, who do not seek to destabilize China, for example: http://globaldemocracymanifesto.wordpress.com/current-signatories/.

UK must end all arms sales to Hong Kong

This weekend saw serious unrest breaking out across Hong Kong. A student-driven movement drew tens of thousands on to the streets of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, calling for a truly free election for the Chief Executive of the territory in 2017. The police used considerable amounts of tear gas on the peaceful protesters, in an attempt to disperse them. Sadly, it appears that some of the tear gas used in the attempt to crush the pro-democracy protests was licensed for export by the UK Government.

Images circulated by people on the ground in Hong Kong suggest that at least some of the gas used was provided by UK arms company Chemring, which has subsequently confirmed that it is a long term provider of tear gas to Hong Kong.

This isn't the first time Chemring weapons have been associated with oppression against pro-democracy protesters. There is evidence that they were used in Egypt during the uprising. There is also evidence of plastic bullets made by Haley and Weller (owned by Chemring since 1992) being used in Kuwait....

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/uk-must-end-all-arms-sales-to-hong-kong/

[url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/10/hong-kong-protests-faq/]Hong Kong Protests FAQ[/url]

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[b]When did the protests start and why? What was the turning point?[/b]

The protest was actually a result of a long battle for democracy. When the British handed Hong Kong back over to China in 1997, the Chinese government promised both in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the mini constitution of Hong Kong (the Basic Law) that a democratic system eventually would be implemented in Hong Kong. After decades of delay and making excuses, in August this year the National People’s Congress of the PRC declared that the so-called democracy that Hong Kong would have is a system where Beijing will basically vet two to three candidates for voters to choose from. Also, the candidates would have to gain at more than 50 percent of nominations from a tiny electoral committee of 1,200 people, most of whom are representatives of business interests in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) began organizing a student strike that started on September 22. More than 13,000 university students boycotted classes and joined the strike. On September 26, around 1,500 secondary school students also joined the strike. During the strike, university professors held public lectures in the open area outside the Hong Kong government HQ and parliament.

On the last day of the strike, HKFS students and members of the public stormed past police barricades to reclaim a public area in front of the government HQ called “Civic Square,” which had been sealed off arbitrarily. The police used pepper spray and three key student leaders were arrested and illegally detained. This prompted thousands of citizens to come out and protest, demanding the release of the students. In the early hours of September 27, the civil disobedience campaign Occupy Central (OCLP) was launched.

The next day, tens of thousands of people poured into the street and started occupying main roads in Admiralty and Wan Chai. The police began to use pepper spray and later, tear gas. The violence outraged people in Hong Kong and up to one hundred thousand people came out on September 29. Since then, the police have held back and the occupation has been going on, with as many as two hundred thousand people occupying four zones across the city in the peak times.

Bec.De.Corbin wrote:

It's not really an "independence from China" thing at all; it's more of a "stay the fuck out of our politics" thing.

Yes, but although it did not start out as the former, and has been about the latter, independence is rising as a radical option. Independence has become close to impossible in Hong Kong’s case, but the fact that people now entertain the idea in this very pragmatically-minded place, is evidence of the growing frustration with Beijing’s rule.

At the time of the Sino-British Joint Declaration governing the handover, it was thought China would gradually liberalize and become more like Hong Kong. But in the 17 years since then, it has become apparent that wealthy PRC elites only view Hong Kong as a colony handed over from another colonizer.

This is 20/20 hindsight, but it was unfortunate that the British colonizers did not implement true democracy in Hong Kong before handover negotiations even began. I would have regarded that as some restitution, given at least to the hard-working people of Hong Kong, for the "unequal treaties" that humiliated China at the gunpoints of racist opium pushers. I don’t wax romantic and give the British credit for creating a great jewel in the "fragrant harbour" — they didn’t finish the job by making it, if not independent like other commonwealth territories, then self-ruling and democratic. Instead the British kept it as a subjugated colony right up to the handover.

So it would be quite disingenuous for the British government to berate China for not upholding democratic values in Hong Kong. A firmer basis for a truly democratic Hong Kong is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, rather than the Joint Declaration and HK Basic Law. Such being the case, it’s up to the world, not only the British, to support Hong Kong's democracy movement, and to encourage Beijing to allow it to develop peacefully.

Hong Kong: Now The Hard Part, Kick US Out, Build National Consensus

When protests in Hong Kong exploded, knowledgeable people looked for US involvement. It was not hard to find. The overt intrusion of the US is available in budgets, documents and websites; the covert involvement has not yet been uncovered but is no doubt there.  What does US involvement mean for the credibility of the protest movement and the future of Hong Kong? How should Hong Kong activists respond?

The issues raised by the protests, lack of democracy and an unfair economy, are very real. But so are the concerns of Beijing for economic growth and continuing to lift people out of poverty, something China has done remarkably well. Those who seek to transform governance and create a more equal economy now have a more challenging task than protests, they must build national consensus on their issues in Hong Kong and in China’s leadership. The Chinese People’s Daily quoted a Chinese-American author who wrote the Occupy Central leadership, Yin Haoliu, said: “Democracy is a step-by-step process that cannot be approached in haste, otherwise it will bring about troubles.” How quickly those steps advance depends, in part, on how well the democracy movement organizes.

Now that the US has been exposed, it needs to be removed. US goals are very different than the people in Hong Kong. The US is in the process of encircling China militarily and economically. It sees China as a competitor, a nation that can undermine the US as the single world superpower.  Conflict between Hong Kong and Beijing would serve US interests but undermine the Hong Kong economy which is tied to China. The protest movement has already begun to separate itself from people too close to the US. Hong Kong’s people and government need to go further and expel US influence, remembering the historic imperialism of the US in China and noting the current strategic goals of the United States....

quote:

Already there are signs that the Occupy Central and Democratic Party leadership, which has US ties, is not trusted. One participant on the ground reports “the dynamic the movement has taken on” its own energy and is now “the actions of ordinary people in their struggle for democracy.” “The movement can now be considered largely leaderless.” The author points to the protest beginning two days before Occupy Central leaders wanted and the refusal to follow their order to leave after police attacks last Sunday, instead thousands stayed. Revolution News reported how a group of students climbed over the fence of the Central Government Office Complex, remaining there and facing arrest the entire time, without the support of Occupy Central elders for the next 2 days. Thankfully students came to their rescue.

http://www.popularresistance.org/hong-kong-now-the-hard-part-kick-us-out...

epaulo13 wrote:

The Chinese People’s Daily quoted a Chinese-American author who wrote the Occupy Central leadership, Yin Haoliu, said: “Democracy is a step-by-step process that cannot be approached in haste, otherwise it will bring about troubles.” How quickly those steps advance depends, in part, on how well the democracy movement organizes. Now that the US has been exposed, it needs to be removed. US goals are very different than the people in Hong Kong. The US is in the process of encircling China militarily and economically. It sees China as a competitor, a nation that can undermine the US as the single world superpower.  Conflict between Hong Kong and Beijing would serve US interests but undermine the Hong Kong economy which is tied to China. The protest movement has already begun to separate itself from people too close to the US. Hong Kong’s people and government need to go further and expel US influence, remembering the historic imperialism of the US in China and noting the current strategic goals of the United States....

Agreed. HK’s democracy movement ≠ US interests. I'd say it is within the reach of the leaders in Beijing to bring Hong Kong peacefully into the fold, but they will have to use their ears, not their arms.

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...during some special times—like the 2008 Olympics in Beijing—larger proportions of Hong Kong people identified themselves as Chinese. These trends are reflected in the University of Hong Kong's polls on Hong Kong identity, which have been conducted annually since 1997. Dubbing it “situational patriotism,” Mathews explains: “People said that we are Chinese when China won a lot of gold medals. But when the melamine milk scandals hit, people said that we are Hongkongers and not Chinese. It is very opportunist and pragmatic.”

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Beijing Meeting Considers Imposing Martial Law on Hong Kong

At a Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office meeting held on Sep. 15, Zhang Dejiang, Politburo Standing Committee member and National People’s Congress Standing Committee chairman, claimed that by order of the Politburo, the “one country, two systems” status quo between Beijing and Hong Kong would be terminated should the situation become critical.

So the CCP charade might end prematurely. The big problem with the "two systems" is that the smaller one threatens to be more popular and usurp the larger one, throughout the "one country". Over the long term this might be inevitable regardless of official policy, so the CCP would be wise to oversee a controlled, gradual democratization, instead of being overwhelmed trying to manage an unraveling in which foreign interests seize advantage of and exacerbate discontent and factionalism in China. That would be a messy situation.

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Six Conditions for Imposition of Martial Law on Hong Kong

At the meeting, Zhang announced the strategies set by the Central Military Commission of China’s State Council. The Hong Kong Garrison of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will be ordered to impose martial law under the following circumstances:

1. Large-scale political disturbances erupt and paralyze the government of the special administration (Hong Kong) and the police cannot maintain social order. Approval from Beijing will be required.

2. Foreign political interests openly join and lead the local political powers. The special administrative government has lost control of the situation which escalates to include all of Hong Kong demanding autonomy from the central government.

3. Large-scale armed riots erupt and lethal force is used by the crowd. The crowd fails to disperse after police warnings are issued.

4. The crowd attacks or occupies the Liaison Office or the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong and fails to disperse after police warnings are issued.

5. Crowds attack PLA Hong Kong Garrison bases, ports, and barracks and fail to disperse after police warnings are issued.

6. Crowds attack the airport, ports, checkpoints, or other transportation hubs and fail to disperse after police warnings are issued.