SHI: I slightly disagree.
I was really rooting for the Hong Kongers. But the might of People’s Republic of China proved simply too much for them. The PRC leaders are uncompromising jerks: they would have gone all Tiananmen on Hong Kong protesters if needed.
Come on, all they were demanding was to be left alone to run their autonomous island and no interference from Beijing on certain issues. They already have the Chinese flag and wear Chinese symbols. What more should they be asked to give up?
I mean if they could pull that tank stunt in 1989, what would have prevented them from doing it all over again thirty years later? Look at the way the Chinese superstate is detaining Uyghur minorities and brainwashing them in reeducation camps.
They’re not autonomous. Hong Kong is part of China. China’s not a democratic country. It’s a communist dictatorship. These Hong Kongers are living in a communist dictatorship just like all the rest of China. They have to live under the same system everybody else does.
They’ve got no support in the rest of China. 86% of the people like the system. A few of these guys, less than 15%, don’t. Why do they get some special system that everybody else doesn’t get? I don’t understand.
The extradition treaty was a good thing. China wants to go in there and arrest a lot of those corrupt politicians in that lousy place. They can’t do that because of the stupid extradition treaty.
Do you realize the case that set this off? Some jerk in China murdered his wife and then fled to Hong Kong. China tried to extradite him, but no dice. So they’re rioting for a wife murderer.
I have some different opinions on the Tianmen Square riots. I hope to write about this soon. By the way, those former Tiananmen rioters are still walking around in broad daylight saying the exact same stuff they said back then, spouting their mouths off, if not too publicly. Nobody bothers them as long as they are not too public about their views.
I had a friend who lived in China in the Northern Min region. He was a hardcore Christian and he absolutely hated the Chinese government with an extreme passion. I talked to him for a long time, and I never heard that he got arrested. He’s probably still walking around free.
There are probably ~150 million dissidents in China who are opposed to the regime. They walk around freely all through the day. The party is not stupid. You going to arrest 150 million people? How bout killing them? You going to kill 150 million people?
The problem with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is most unfortunate. I can’t say that I support what China is doing over there.
I’m for the Chinese regime in general, but they also do things that I don’t like. They violate human rights a lot, and arrest a lot of harmless dissidents who aren’t particularly doing anything wrong.
But it’s false to see China as some brutal Stalinist regime like North Korea. Do you realize that there are fully 1,000 different political demonstrations in China every single day? It’s true. You don’t have 1,000 different dissident rallies every day in a pure hardcore dictatorship.
In China they let you disagree quite a bit, especially if you are the “loyal opposition,” but at some certain point, you’ve gone too far. They probably warn you first. A lot of dissidents just get a few weeks in jail and then go free.
The people who get arrested publish newspaper and magazine articles, issue political statements and pamphlets, form anti-government organizations, things like that. Just being against the government about this or that is no big deal.
Party officials respond to the needs of a lot of demonstrators and dissidents. If you put enough pressure on some state official somewhere about some particular local issue, a lot of times, the party just caves.
The party wants to stay in power. They read the tea leaves of 1989 well. They want majority support, popular support. They want to give the people what they want, within reason. They realize that an unpopular government will go the way of the USSR.
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Honestly, I wasn’t aware of this point. You really have to substantiate with links and evidence. I thought it was a totalitarian regime that’d never cave in.
I’m not against Communists. I support worker’s rights. I just feel a large nation state like PRC is too powerful for its own good.
The Rapeublic of India is taking a leaf out of the PRC book when it detains Kashmiri politicians and opposition leaders. So every time I read about the Uyghurs in China, it rings close because the Indian fascist regime is engaged in closely similar tactics.
They idolize Chinese methods of oppression and censorship and are replicating the exact genocide models. Are you aware the current fascist leadership of India is planning to send 2 million people in Assam to detention camps? Which template did they learn this from? China, obviously.
There’s however a chance the Rapeublic of India might have slipped so far into totalitarianism that even China looks like a hippie la la land in comparison. Perhaps the two shouldn’t be compared anymore.
It is possible that China might tolerate dissent up to a certain limit. But they are also engaged in ethnic genocide.
They are forcing the Uyghurs, what remains of the Tibetans and the Mongols in Inner Mongolia to intermarry with the Han population so that the country’s Sinicization is complete. They’re already 95% Han Chinese in that country. It’s not good enough for them, so now they want to push it to 100%.
I’ve been studying China for a very long time. It’s true.
Also the local Communist Party cadres are very pro-people. There are several of them even in every village. What do you think those 1,000 demonstrations a day are about?
I mean the protests sometimes go on for a while, sometimes they get violent, people get hurt or maybe even killed, property gets destroyed, and then the CP says, “Whoa! What a great big mess we have here!”, and they just cave in and give the people whatever they want. It’s usually something reasonable anyway.
Or there might be demonstrations about a local corrupt leader. After a while, he might be let go. They don’t immediately give in to any demo, but if you keep it up for a while or if it gets messy, the CP usually steps in to defuse things.
Do you understand Chinese culture. I know there have been revolutions, but Chinese culture mostly values harmony and getting along. They don’t like strife. It implies lack of harmony. That’s why most Hong Kongers are against those riots. It’s just chaos and lack of harmony.
It’s well known that the CCP got very frightened after the fall of the Eastern Bloc. They said this is us if we don’t give the people what they want and remain popular. Tiananmen also really freaked them out. They don’t want any more shit like that.
The CCP is all about “solving the various problems of Chinese society.” That can range from preservation of local dialects (languages) to environmental issues.
They’re not idiots. They want to stay in power.
Hell, North Korea has the same attitude. They really want to stay in power. They’re totally vicious to dissidents, but they also try to give the people whatever they want. That’s the whole purpose of CP’s anywhere: Serve the people and give them what they want. What’s wrong with that?
Mao said, “Serve the people.” That’s always been the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Some Communists have been pretty horrible like Deng in Ethiopia, Ceausescu in Romania, and the Khmer Rogue. Stalin wasn’t a very nice person. Communists in general are pretty vicious bastards, and they definitely are willing to kill people and they generally do just that. I don’t necessarily support Communism, but I don’t really oppose it either unless the people don’t want it. Nobody wanted the East Bloc anymore, so the regimes fell.