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Hong Kong Protests & The Umbrella Movement

An incredible image from the recent protests...
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People hold up umbrellas and shine lights during a protest against a controversial extradition bill in Hong Kong, Aug. 1.
Isaac Lawrence / AFP / Getty Images
 
There's a lot of talk among the protestors about the police using expired tear gas. Left over canisters appear to show this to be the case. What is more controversial is what this means, with some sources saying it leads to explosions or breaks down into cyanide, and others saying age just renders the tear gas less effective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_gas#Expiration
 
Conspiracy/rumour: the Hong Kong Police Force has been bolstered by members of the PLA (Chinese army).

This video proffered as 'proof' - I can't make much out of it but apparently the police officer uses the phrase 'comrades' in Chinese, which is something a mainland soldier might say, but never a Hong Konger.

 
Video apparently shows police officers changing into 'triad uniform' white T shirts (the implication being that they're doing so so they can beat protestors incognito)

 
May I suggest that the Honk Kong unrest problems were actually started by the Mainland China government to give them an excuse to go in at some later date to 'sort out' the problem that the HK authorities appear unable to do themselves ?
 
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From yesterday's protests. The hokkien gangsters thing is because the North point area has a Hokkien community who I believe emigrated from the mainland in the 60s and are staunchly pro-china. It seems that the march in that area was cancelled because these triads were hanging around with intent: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong...police-ramp-force-firing-tear-gas-inside-kwai

Some of these items are indisputably factual (woman lost an eye to a rubber bullet, year gas was fired inside); others I haven't seen clear evidence for (police/triad collision, agents provocateurs from the police disguising themselves as protestors, police planting items on protestors)
 
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There's reports of large Chinese military build up at the border with HK in the past few days. Seems only a matter of time before they steam in. Everyone there must be on edge..

Unlike Tiananmen Sq, it'll be on video.
 
There's reports of large Chinese military build up at the border with HK in the past few days. Seems only a matter of time before they steam in. Everyone there must be on edge..

Unlike Tiananmen Sq, it'll be on video.

The build up is in Shenzen, which is less than twenty miles outside the New Territories.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...airport-china-military-response-a9055591.html

In the short-run, force of numbers and brutality will end these protests; in the long run, they could be the spark that transforms them into a nascent independence movement.
 
A lot of these people are going to spend a few years farming or taking part in some government programs up by the Mongolian border.

Plenty of time to reflect upon how they stupidly wrecked the freedom they had.

I really don't see much police brutality. In fact they seem to have been markedly restrained.

But all that will change, probably by the end of the week.
 
A lot of these people are going to spend a few years farming or taking part in some government programs up by the Mongolian border.

Plenty of time to reflect upon how they stupidly wrecked the freedom they had.

I really don't see much police brutality. In fact they seem to have been markedly restrained.

But all that will change, probably by the end of the week.

You haven't been paying attention. Have you not seen the videos of gangs running amok beating people with sticks & metal poles? They've been filmed consorting with police & the police don't seem interested in doing much to stop them. They may not openly be doing the beatings but they're more or less giving them carte blanche.
 
A few beatings with truncheons does not police brutality make.

You will see this in any social disorder/ riot situation.

Just wait until the mainland assert their authority. Then you will see just how effectively things can be brought back under control.
 
Yes, that'll be a happy day won't it.
 
It needn't happen. All they have to do is quit the rioting. One has to ask what is the problem with China wanting Hong Kong to extradite people that they (at least in their mind) have a reason to wish to interview. These people must have done something to draw the attention of China.

It is really the mob mentality in full flow. One could speculate a 'spoiled child' mentality on the part of the people who started it.

Honk Kong will probably never recover it's relative freedom if China does take control.

It will definitely not be a happy day.
 
You haven't been paying attention.
:nods:
1 HK
2 Taiwan
3 SC Sea
4 pick your poor pacific nation
5 pick your wealthy pacific economocracy

This entity holds neither ethical compunction nor recourse to international law. It is brute force imperialism on a rapidly expanding scale and our naivety will have catastrophic consequences. It is an inevitability. What we will witness shortly will open all of our eyes to the fact that critical mass has been achieved. I'm bracing for it.
 
So why do you think some Hong Kong residents have chosen to shoot themselves in the foot by instigating something they must have known would grow into this.

It didn't have to be so.
 
So why do you think some Hong Kong residents have chosen to shoot themselves in the foot by instigating something they must have known would grow into this.

It didn't have to be so.
They can roll over and do nothing, or do something about an injustice they perceive. They are choosing the latter.
 
So why do you think some Hong Kong residents have chosen to shoot themselves in the foot by instigating something they must have known would grow into this.

It didn't have to be so.

Because they have lived for generations under a form of comparatively liberal democracy and have no wish to see their future blighted by Chinese totalitarian communism.
 
It started as a protest against the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill

If enacted, the bill would allow local authorities to detain and extradite people who are wanted in countries or territories that Hong Kong does not have extradition agreements with, including mainland China and Taiwan. Opponents of the legislation fear that it would place Hong Kong residents and visitors under the jurisdiction of mainland courts (which are controlled by the Communist Party of China) and apply not only to criminals, but political dissidents as well.

China would be able to extradite anyone they chose for whatever reason they chose. In your view HKers should just accept this without a murmur.

I'm sure they're well aware of what could happen in response to protests. What % of these people do you think are rioters?

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Because they have lived for generations under a form of comparatively liberal democracy and have no wish to see their future blighted by Chinese totalitarian communism.

The Chinese say that they have Socialism with Chinese characteristics. I would say it is Feudalism with Chinese characteristics.
 
The Chinese say that they have Socialism with Chinese characteristics. I would say it is Feudalism with Chinese characteristics.

The point is though that, following the British liberation of Hong Kong from the brutal Japanese occupation in 1945, China agreed not to impose socialism on the colony until the British agreement expired in 1997.
Thus the people of Hong Kong enjoyed 52 years of liberal capitalism. Most of them have never known anything else. The massive show of people-power is ample testimony to the fact that the people will not accept being forced to live as part of a totalitarian state.
I admire the protesters. I certainly wouldn't want to live under socialism/communism or any other form of totalitarianism either.
 
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"PLA trucks in Shenzhen headed south (to Hong Kong?)"

maximus otter
Word of mouth is that the soldiers in those trucks are already here, arriving on Monday night. In the barracks just up the road from me, coincidentally. Let's see.
 
Word of mouth is that the soldiers in those trucks are already here, arriving on Monday night. In the barracks just up the road from me, coincidentally. Let's see.

It's all sounding very ominous.
Keep us posted and stay safe!
 
A few beatings with truncheons does not police brutality make.

You will see this in any social disorder/ riot situation.

Just wait until the mainland assert their authority. Then you will see just how effectively things can be brought back under control.

I teach 'a few' as meaning a small number, often three or four. I have seen videos of dozens of such beatings, and I haven't been closely following this.

The mainland has limited legal scope for asserting authority. It can certainly happen, but they are constitutionally unable to intervene unless the Hong Kong government requests their help because their own police forces are unable to restore order. They may opt to wade in hugger-mugger, but excessive brutality will cause commercial and capital flight from Hong Kong at a time of considerable economic instability. Any government has the option of abandoning the Rule of Law, but the consequences are frequently worse than the situation it seeks to alleviate.

So why do you think some Hong Kong residents have chosen to shoot themselves in the foot by instigating something they must have known would grow into this.

It didn't have to be so.

Because it's easier to stop the thin of the wedge than the fat end.

More generally, this is supposed to be a CONSPIRACY thread.

Has this situation been engineered or perpetuated by the mainland to reassert control over the (I keep on typing crown colony) territory? I doubt it, for the reasons I have given above. In the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, China underwent a plunge in overseas investment, was sanctioned by the U.S. and suffered an economic downturn and a freeze on the economic reforms that had brought China into the modern world.

The Chinese government wants no replay of this. If it gets one, it'll be the product of gross incompetence and the myopia of hubris.

Are there agents provocateur and undercover police attempting to infiltrate the protest groups? Of course. While there is some interest in the details of how they attempt this, there can be no surprise at all that it is taking place.
 
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