The Shadow of Tiananmen Falls on Hong Kong
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Now, the salient question: were they charged and convicted with subversion, treason, or anything like a felony? Because that's what happen in HK.
If US kids trespassed, vandalized, assaulted the police well the US doesn't put up with either. And they are charged commensurately.
What I can tell you is the police and political class are not threatened by saying British, slavery or any other touch word from our past. You won't get a subversion conviction for that.
> Carr obtained indictments against 61 people, alleging violations of the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, over ongoing efforts to halt construction of Cop City. Indicted activists, including a protest observer, face steep penalties of up to 20 years in prison. Three bail fund organizers face additional money laundering charges, and five people also face state domestic terrorism charges. [0]
Is it ok because the prosecutor isn’t seeking life sentences? Do you contend that the activists are being treated fairly as one expects in a democratic society that values rule of law? Is it acceptable because America is 66% less repressive than China and against a narrower range of views (like socialism/communism, see Debs et al)? Have you really even interrogated your positions?
[0] https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/rico-and-domestic-terr...
Okay and comparable are planets part. The prosecutor is prosecuting. They aren’t a general opening machine gun fire at the protesters. The false equivalence is beyond ridiculous.
To find an American analog to the Tiananmen massacre, you have to go back to when we were fighting Indians. (The Ludlow massacre, in 1914, comes close in kind but not scale [1].)
Not yet. But it’s obtuse bordering on disingenuous to claim this isn’t on the table, given rhetoric from politicians (current and former). Or is eliminationist rhetoric and political repression okay as long as it isn’t done the way China does it?
Also, are you familiar what how the anti-Cop City protest movement has been treated in Georgia?
Honestly I want to know if you’re speaking from ignorance or malice.
Naïve comparison.
The CCP declared martial law. It had its troops, not police, indiscriminately fire machine guns into protesters and bystanders alike while other units drove tanks over crowds of kids [1]. Thousands died, thousands more were disappeared, and to this day the government is so scared it will jail anyone who talks about it.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protes...
Even the PLA was really provincial. They first brought in local garrisons made up of Beijingers who sympathized with the protesters and the beijingers who rioted after the army came in. They had to bring in remote garrisons to actually shoot people.
China made lots of mistakes and fixed them in many ways:
* the PAP was greatly expanded to provide something between police and the PLA for dealing with protests.
* They stopped garrisoning PLA troops in their hometowns.
* political obedience to the party was given priority over merit in PLA promotions.
Everything else is about right. They don’t want to talk about it. Even the middle school students involved are all 50 now, so it’s disappearing from memory. Also, it stopped a period of non-economic liberalization that was going on in the 80s, and stunted much liberalization afterwards.
Beijing had experience with riot control in Tibet [1]. One month prior to Tiananmen, they put down protests in Urumqi [2].
Agree that the police were unprepared. But the decision to violently suppress was made by the CCP’s top leadership. This wasn’t an accident. It was a deliberate massacre of protesting children.
> China made lots of mistakes and fixed them in many ways
Beijing switched from open to covert killing. Were China party to the ICC or ICJ, Xi would be open to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in Tibet and Xinjiang/East Turkestan [3]. The continued fear and repression in Hong Kong is noteworthy not because it’s unstable, but because it’s still visible.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_and_uprisings_in_Ti...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_unrest
[3] https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/un-reports-...
In the same way Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand’s prime ministers serve at the King’s pleasure. It’s ceremonial, much like the monarchy itself.
> elections where "Hong Kong’s chief executive be drawn from candidates vetted by Beijing" actually seems closer to self determination
They had a full democracy after 1997. That was self determination.
It was a British colony, ruled partly by increasingly-elected councils and executives, including the Governor, appointed by London (not the monarch, except in name) with consultation with the locals. The last time the Hong Kongese rioted against the British was in 1967 [2].
There isn’t a comparison between British Hong Kong circa 1990 and the present iron grip Beijing holds over it; freedom of speech, for instance, prevailed as did the rule of law. There is much less comparison one can make between free Hong Kong after 1997 and the mess Xi has turned it into today.
From TFA, also 1981, 1982, and 1984. (Admittedly, these were generally economics-driven)
>> After the [1967] riots, the British Hong Kong government publicly reflected on its failure to address certain social grievances and carried out major social reforms. However, another series of riots would occur in 1981.
Given that the 1967 riots were explicitly CCP-supported, they've a clearer line to regime change as a goal.
And given the CCP was somewhat busy in the late 70s and early 80s rendering Mao's excesses anathema [0], it's unlikely they saw formenting revolution in Hong Kong as a priority.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform#1979...
This is incorrect: the British monarchy is not ceremonial. Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand were self-governing dominions of the British Empire, with their own parliaments, and each nation still has a governor-general who is nominally approved by the monarch but who is actually selected by the government of each nation from time to time. Hong Kong was a Crown Colony, a.k.a. Overseas Territory, and had a governor who was selected by the British government in London and approved by the monarch. Governors-general and governors are quite different things. Governors-general are the representatives of the monarch and exercise the monarch's reserve powers according to the constitution of the nation. The Hong Kong governor was a colonial governor and had much more power over administration than the governor-general of a dominion.
>They had a full democracy after 1997. That was self determination.
This is incorrect: The creation of a democratically elected administration in Hong Kong was fiercely opposed by the People's Republic of China from 1949 onwards, even threatening violence to prevent it. The last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, created a parliament, the Legislative Council, which was partially elected by universal suffrage. The Legislative Council was declared illegitimate by the PRC and was immediately and permanently shut down after the PRC takeover of Hong Kong. The government of Hong Kong since the handover consists entirely of people selected and appointed by Beijing who are all, or mostly all, members of the Chinese Communist Party.
Sorry, badly worded on my part. The monarch’s role is entirely ceremonial in the appointment of the Governor of Hong Kong much as they don’t actually select the governors or PMs of Britain nor Australia.
> The government of Hong Kong since the handover consists entirely of people selected and appointed by Beijing who are all, or mostly all, members of the Chinese Communist Party
Wasn’t aware. Do you have a good source? I thought there was opposition in the LegCo.