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Is the U.S. Secretly Egging On Hong Kong Protesters?
The mass demonstrations in Hong Kong are dramatic, indeed. And given that Hong Kong has long enjoyed a more liberal existence under British rule, protests against a more authoritarian Chinese government (at least it used to be more authoritarian) are not entirely surprising.
But Chinese officials accuse the U.S. of egging on the protests. As the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time blog reports:
On Thursday, Wen Wei Po published an “expose” into what it described as the U.S. connections of Joshua Wong, the 17 year-old leader of student group Scholarism.
The story asserts that “U.S. forces” identified Mr. Wong’s potential three years ago, and have worked since then to cultivate him as a “political superstar.”
Evidence for Mr. Wong’s close ties to the U.S. that the paper cited included what the report described as frequent meetings with U.S. consulate personnel in Hong Kong and covert donations from Americans to Mr. Wong. As evidence, the paper cited photographs leaked by “netizens.” The story also said Mr. Wong’s family visited Macau in 2011 at the invitation of the American Chamber of Commerce, where they stayed at the “U.S.-owned” Venetian Macao, which is owned by Las Vegas Sands Corp.
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This isn’t the first time that Beijing-friendly media have accused foreign countries of covert meddling in the former British colony. China’s government has long been concerned that Western intelligence agencies might try to exploit the city’s relatively more open political environment to push democracy in the rest of the country. The various “color revolutions” that ushered in democratic governments across the former Soviet Union in the early 2000s, and which were partly organized by foreign-funded NGOs, heightened those concerns.
Allegations of foreign intervention in Hong Kong have become particularly intense in the run-up to 2017, the earliest that Beijing has said Hong Kong residents can begin to directly elect their leaders. Wen Wei Po and another Beijing-leaning Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao, for example, have accused the U.K. of stationing British spies across Hong Kong institutions. Pro-Beijing publications have also accused Hong Kong media mogul and staunch Beijing critic Jimmy Lai of having connections with the CIA. Mr. Lai is the founder of Next Media Ltd., which owns the Apple Daily newspapers in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and is a major donor to pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong.
In its report on Mr. Wang, Wen Wei Po said that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is making a pointed effort to infiltrate Hong Kong schools, for example through the Hong Kong-America Center, a group headed by former U.S. diplomat Morton Holbrook that promotes H.K.-U.S. ties. It also alleged that the CIA is actively training a new generation of protest leaders in Hong Kong through sponsoring students to study in the U.S., with an aim of stoking future “color revolutions” in the city.
Tony Cartalucci writes:
Behind the so-called “Occupy Central” protests … is a deep and insidious network of foreign financial, political, and media support. Prominent among them is the US State Department and its National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as well as NED’s subsidiary, the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
Now, the US has taken a much more overt stance in supporting the chaos their own manipulative networks have prepared and are now orchestrating. The White House has now officially backed “Occupy Central.” Reuters in its article, “White House Shows Support For Aspirations Of Hong Kong People,” would claim:
The White House is watching democracy protests in Hong Kong closely and supports the “aspirations of the Hong Kong people,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday. “
The United States supports universal suffrage in Hong Kong in accordance with the Basic Law and we support the aspirations of the Hong Kong people,” said Earnest, who also urged restraint on both sides.
US State Department Has Built Up and Directs “Occupy Central”
Image: The US through NED and its subsidiaries have a long history of
promoting subversion and division within China.
Earnest’s comments are verbatim the demands of “Occupy Central” protest leaders, but more importantly, verbatim the long-laid designs the US State Department’s NDI articulates on its own webpage dedicated to its ongoing meddling in Hong Kong. The term “universal suffrage”and reference to “Basic Law” and its “interpretation” to mean “genuine democracy” is stated clearly on NDI’s website which claims:
The Basic Law put in place a framework of governance, whereby special interest groups, or “functional constituencies,” maintain half of the seats in the Legislative Council (LegCo). At present, Hong Kong’s chief executive is also chosen by an undemocratically selected committee. According to the language of the Basic Law, however, “universal suffrage” is the “ultimate aim.” While “universal suffrage” remains undefined in the law, Hong Kong citizens have interpreted it to mean genuine democracy.
To push this agenda – which essentially is to prevent Beijing from vetting candidates running for office in Hong Kong, thus opening the door to politicians openly backed, funded, and directed by the US State Department – NDI lists an array of ongoing meddling it is carrying out on the island. It states:
Since 1997, NDI has conducted a series of missions to Hong Kong to consider the development of Hong Kong’s “post-reversion” election framework, the status of autonomy, rule of law and civil liberties under Chinese sovereignty, and the prospects for, and challenges to democratization.
It also claims:
In 2005, NDI initiated a six-month young political leaders program focused on training a group of rising party and political group members in political communications skills.
And:
NDI has also worked to bring political parties, government leaders and civil society actors together in public forums to discuss political party development, the role of parties in Hong Kong and political reform. In 2012, for example, a conference by Hong Kong think tank SynergyNet supported by NDI featured panelists from parties across the ideological spectrum and explored how adopting a system of coalition government might lead to a more responsive legislative process.
NDI also admits it has created, funded, and backed other organizations operating in Hong Kong toward achieving the US State Department’s goals of subverting Beijing’s control over the island:
In 2007, the Institute launched a women’s political participation program that worked with the Women’s Political Participation Network (WPPN) and the Hong Kong Federation of Women’s Centres (HKFWC) to enhance women’s participation in policy-making, encourage increased participation in politics and ensure that women’s issues are taken into account in the policy-making process.
And on a separate page, NDI describes programs it is conducting with the University of Hong Kong to achieve its agenda:
The Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL) at the University of Hong Kong, with support from NDI, is working to amplify citizens’ voices in that consultation process by creating Design Democracy Hong Kong (www.designdemocracy.hk), a unique and neutral website that gives citizens a place to discuss the future of Hong Kong’s electoral system.
It should be no surprise to readers then, to find out each and every “Occupy Central” leader is either directly linked to the US State Department, NED, and NDI, or involved in one of NDI’s many schemes.
Image: Benny Tai, “Occupy Central’s” leader, has spent years associated with
and benefiting from US State Department cash and support.“Occupy Central’s” self-proclaimed leader, Benny Tai, is a law professor at the aforementioned University of Hong Kong and a regular collaborator with the NDI-funded CCPL. In 2006-2007 (annual report, .pdf) he was named as a board member – a position he has held until at least as recently as last year. In CCPL’s 2011-2013 annual report (.pdf), NDI is listed as having provided funding to the organization to “design and implement an online Models of Universal Suffrage portal where the general public can discuss and provide feedback and ideas on which method of universal suffrage is most suitable for Hong Kong.”
Curiously, in CCPL’s most recent annual report for 2013-2014 (.pdf), Tai is not listed as a board member. However, he is listed as participating in at least 3 conferences organized by CCPL, and as heading at least one of CCPL’s projects. At least one conference has him speaking side-by-side another prominent “Occupy Central” figure, Audrey Eu. The 2013-2014 annual report also lists NDI as funding CCPL’s “Design Democracy Hong Kong” website.
Civic Party chairwoman Audrey Eu Yuet-mee, in addition to speaking at CCPL-NDI functions side-by-side with Benny Tai, is entwined with the US State Department and its NDI elsewhere. She regularly attends forums sponsored by NED and its subsidiary NDI. In 2009 she was a featured speaker at an NDI sponsored public policy forum hosted by “SynergyNet,” also funded by NDI. In 2012 she was a guest speaker at the NDI-funded Women’s Centre “International Women’s Day” event, hosted by the Hong Kong Council of Women (HKCW) which is also annually funded by the NDI.
Image: Martin Lee and Anson Chan belly up to the table with US Vice President Joseph Biden in Washington DC earlier this year. During their trip, both Lee and Chan would attend a NED-hosted talk about the future of “democracy” in Hong Kong. Undoubtedly, “Occupy Central” and Washington’s support of it was a topic reserved for behind closed doors.
There is also Martin Lee, founding chairman of Hong Kong’s Democrat Party and another prominent figure who has come out in support of “Occupy Central.” Just this year, Lee was in Washington meeting directly with US Vice President Joseph Biden, US Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, and even took part in an NED talk hosted specifically for him and his agenda of “democracy” in Hong Kong. Lee even has a NED page dedicated to him after he was awarded in 1997 NED’s “Democracy Award.” With him in Washington was Anson Chan, another prominent figure currently supporting the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong’s streets.
The U.S. has certainly promoted regime change worldwide, often by using non-governmental organizations as front groups to funnel money to dissidents who will overthrow the government.
For example, USAID has been called the “new CIA”, and FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds told Washington’s Blog that the U.S. State Department is involved in many “hard power” operations, often coordinating through well-known “Non-Governmental Organizations” (NGOs). Specifically, Edmonds explained that numerous well-known NGOs – which claim to focus on development, birth control, women’s rights, fighting oppression and other “magnificent sounding” purposes or seemingly benign issues – act as covers for State Department operations. She said that the State Department directly places operatives inside the NGOs.
Edmonds also told us that – during the late 90s and early 2000s – perhaps 30-40% of the people working for NGOs operated by George Soros were actually working for the U.S. State Department.
If this all sounds too nutty, remember that historians say that declining empires tend to attack their rising rivals … so the risk of world war is rising because the U.S. feels threatened by the rising empire of China.
The U.S. government considers economic rivalry to be a basis for war. And the U.S. is systematically using the military to contain China’s growing economic influence.
And U.S. sanctions against Russia are not having the desired effect … largely because China is picking up the slack by trading with Russia and even loaning it money.
Indeed, China, Russia, India and Brazil have formed what some top economists say is an alternative to the Western financial institutions, the World Bank and IMF. And China is challenging the petrodollar.
So it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the U.S. (and the former owner of Hong Kong, Britain) egged on democracy protesters in Hong Kong in order to try to shake up the Chinese regime.
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Mi Naem: Your revelation that grassroots revolutions are not what they seem or claim to be is a step toward understanding. But like every "theory of everything" this needs to be explored to discover the boundaries of its usefulness.
Two things need to be distinguished here: the grassroots revolutionary impulse and the organization of a revolution.
The revolutionary anger in the minds and hearts of the regular people, the "grass roots", is very real, and smolders all around us, pretty much everywhere. It is as real here among my neighbors, a mix of working class, middle class and small entrepreneurs, as it is in Hong Kong, though not burning as brightly yet. But the anger and impulse are insufficient in themselves incapable of generating much more than mayhem followed by greater repression.
The actions and "propaganda" (propagating of ideas, be they based on truth or falsehoods) of "highly-organized ... conscientious and professional organizers" is the other side of a revolution, providing the essential organization, coordination, communication and allignment on direction and purpose.
This is where it gets tangled and convoluted. Organizing, especially when taken beyond the level of organizing a small community, local interest group or a single shop, takes money and resourses - to support and train organizers and administrators and for communications. Plus, the legacy of organizing during normal times is tied to the system by the necessity of winning concessions from power and is not so easily pried away even when the need becomes urgent.
The organizers themselves may emerge from and swear their loyalty to the grass roots. They may be recruited from the grass roots and swear their loyalty to the agency that recruits them, while in their hearts believing they and that agency work for the grass roots from which they came. Or they may be trained and injected into communities, some as conscious agents and others naively believing that their imitation of grass roots activism is or can become real.
Yet, although revolutions may look synthetic when seen through this lense, the threat and power of revolution still smolders unquenchably in the grass roots, in the hearts and minds of the people whose oppression is integral to the system they draw their living from. It is a powerful well of instability underlying every modern society.
Ruling classes and factions, in their battles with each other, have learned how to draw on this power - the revolutionary anger of the people, the grass roots, against their rivals at home and abroad. They increasingly bring to bear resources of money, skills, modern social science, networks of informers, paid agents and most especially the science of manufacturing and propagating illusions. This has arguably found its highest expression in the art and science of the "color revolution".
The people of Hong Kong and China now face a terrible dilemma. The just aspirations and righteous anger of the regular people is evidently being mobilized by secret forces - foreign nations and their domestic collaborators - whose aim is the destruction of their very nation. The result will be the plunder and ruin of everything they and their ancestors have won in bloody battles and built with generations of work and struggle. But their way forward can't just be a defense of the status quo, which is in any case collapsing.
This drama puts us also, we in "the belly of the beast", in a dilemma.
Everything in us cries out to support the protesters in Hong Kong, who are fighting for what we also believe. The yearnings and anger of the grass roots flaring forth there is clearly genuine. Yet the timing of this rebellion and the overwhelming evidence of recent history lends strong credence to the Chinese government's claims that it is being controlled by sinister forces directed against Chinese sovereignty.
If that this is probable, or that it could be leading the Chinese people to disaster, was still unclear to anyone, the ghastly spectacle in Ukraine should dispell all doubts.
This same dilemma is reflected here in the West. Two fundamental principles that some of us live by, loyalty to our people and resistance to the wars and madness of Empire, are once again being placed in opposition. Our challenge is to refuse to choose, in spite of all evidence, but to rather insist on and continue to seek a break-away of the grass roots organizers from the control and hidden agendas of the puppet-masters.
Perhaps there's a silver lining to the horrifying gathering global system collapse. The oligarchs, as they turn on each other with ever greater ferocity and exploit the revolutionary anger of their rivals' "grass roots" against them with ever greater recklessness, will destroy the illusions essential to their control. We can hope the webs of grass roots organizers and leaders will at some juncture break free and take the reins of the rebellion in their hands on behalf of the people they work with.
It won't happen tomorrow, it won't be pretty and it won't happen everywhere at once. But it's a possible dream, and that is something we urgently need.
So Mi Naim, if you see that your thinking has led you to a conclusion which seems to leave no space for a future, consider. A future will happen with or without your participation, and it won't look like the past. Your challenge is to find your own way out of your mental cul-de-sac. I've offered you mine, knowing yours will be different.
Cheers!
My "mental cul-de-sac", huh? Seems a bit presumptuous, but I'm sure you meant well.
"The oligarchs, as they turn on each other with ever greater ferocity and exploit the revolutionary anger of their rivals' "grass roots" against them with ever greater recklessness, will destroy the illusions essential to their control. " Now there's some optimism. Some would call it Hopium.
It seems to me that I have simply re-stated a fact with regards to "Grass Roots" revolutions or movements, and that I have correctly deduced the likely covert influences for Hong Kong's current civil disturbances. I wish the people of Hong Kong, and of greater China, all the best: if they are able to obtain new leadership under an new system, I hope it works well for their peace and prosperity, even if there are CIA/MI6/... operatives pulling strings to make it happen.
I do not get it. If they identified this Wang , as the CIA-NED asset, why is he and his family still arround? Whay does not he and his family dwell in a prison? or why does not he dwell under 2 meters of soil?
The ways are the same, like Mike Hastings case....
"why does not he dwell under 2 meters of soil"
Let your enemies reveal themselves in a false sense of safety.
The US fucks are again sticking dicks into another hornest nest.
Funny how members of Occupy Wall Street had been hunted, sprayed and beaten by the brave and great US police.
I did not see Obama endorse Occupy Wall Street!
And the moron school kids think otherwise. PATHEIC, NAIVE and CLUELESS!
Shame on them for thinking about anything other than cartoons and video games.
Odd that nobody's mentioned Tiananmen in connection with these protests.
People in Hong Kong haven't forgotten:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-27702206
That was 25 years ago, so anyone who was a student back then probably has kids participating in the current protest.
I don't doubt the US is trying to influence events, but these things don't come out of nowhere. There are legitimate grievances here that go back a long way, and as much as the US may try to use that to their advantage, they are also vunerable to being used themselves. Just because you support me, doesn't mean you own me, a point made clear by the present situation in Iraq and Syria.
A faint idealism link is there, the people have little physical links. Hk's protests are about HK's local issues, Tiananmen was about mainland's issues.
Most of the Tianenmen Square protestors, those that got out, are almost all living in the west, only a few settled in HK.
most of them are disllusioned and not interested in joining in further movements and wouldn't have anything to do with the HK protests.
how do I know, I know a few of them from the DC area.
Back then, HK and mainland China were two different worlds with little connection between them.
Guess I should have been clearer. The protests in Tiananmen had sympathy protests in Shanghai, Guangzhou AND Hong Kong, so it's entirely possible that some of the HK protesters of that era have children in the current protest. As for the mainland protesters, there were thousands of them and most were not persecuted because they were never identified, or they left when ordered to just before the crackdown. It wasn't just students in those protests either - especially in Shanghai where many workers and even housewives joined the students.
I should add that I was seeing a Chinese national at the time - she was over here studying for her Phd and kept me informed of goings on through friends back home.
A further point of interest - the military leadership in Guandong prov. refused orders to move against the protesters there, and were later removed from their positions as a result. It isn't just HK that feels itself to be different from the north. Regionalism plays a strong role in Chinese politics.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/09/30/china-is-a-paper-tiger/
"That was 25 years ago, so anyone who was a student back then probably has kids participating in the current protest."
I doubt it.
Taken litterally, that would imply that 100% of people who was a student 25 years ago (let's say, conservatively, 100 million of people) has kids in the current protests. Now, even if they had all married each other and considering the one kid for family law, I do n't see 50.000.000 people descending from all over China to protest in Honk Kong.
Alternatively, that might mean that anyone who was a student 25 years ago in Honk Kong has now a kid in the protest, and, even discounting the fact that the protest movement has only a 48% support among young people in HK so that is highly unlikely to be the case, there still would be no ideal link to Tienanman as back then Honk Kong was still under British rule (altho the devolution agreements had already been signed) and the average Honk Kong person couldn't actually travel to Beijing so it's unlikely that any HK student would had participated in the Tienanmen protests.
That said, I wish the protesters good luck, even if I don't think it will end well.
I think I answered that in the above post - there were definitely sympathy protests in HK in 1989. Also, some who fled China post the crackdown ended up in HK - there was even an underground RR of sorts which helped get people out. But yeah... I can see how I might have overstated the numbers.
I was in China in 88, and the train I took from HK to GZ was filled with overseas Chinese (and all the material goods they could carry) so travel was not a problem for them. I doubt it was a problem for HK chinese wanting to visit their relatives either. Travel for Chinese nationals was restricted, but I don't think it ran the other way for HK people.
Personal anecdote: I had a Chinese GF back then who was studying for her Phd in Canada. Back then you could study abroad if your spouse stayed behind - a way of making sure you'd come back. Entirely ineffective of course - plenty of fake marriages in those days. She defected of course, as did many others in that era, though more for economic than political reasons. Life in China was a huge drag back then. Still is for most.
So your GF had left her spouse behind? Naughty! And I wonder what happened to him after she defected...
No idea. I only learned about it after the fact. Funny thing is, I dated a HK woman not long before I met her, and she too was married, which again, I learned after the fact...lol. I stopped dating Chinese after that.
Henry Kissenger was a big fan of the Tienanmen crackdown. I think he was consulted before hand.
"Now the US has taken a much more overt stance in supporting the chaos their own manipulative networks have prepared and are now orchestrating. The White House has now officially backed “Occupy Central.”
They just couldn't back "Occupy Wall Street"
"As the neocons have foolishly opened fronts in the Ukraine and Middle East, the Chinese probably fear that they may use other alternatives to weaken country's coherence, exploiting probably semi-autonomous regions."
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/09/cold-war-20-chinas-moves-to-a...
HK is a territory of China and not a sovereign nation. It is a financial center with a currency pegged to US $. It has a pop of 7m with wide disparity of income thus its middle class is no more that 2m. It has benefitted enormously under the one country two systems from China's 30 years of economic growth.
China is deep in its current economic woes and even in normal times will not adopt wholesale the "corrupted free market financial model" promoted by the West. This state captilatlist economy that rides on a collapsing export machine do need financial reforms but not a crony captive financial model. Today, any financial reforms shall be on the back burner given more pressing economic priorities. (The financial sector of China economy including Hk is no more than 15%).
China has a middle class of at least 100 m and they largely viewed HK people as ingrates with no demostrable loyalty to China. This middle class is a key support base of President Xi as he reforms the economy and appease them with eradication of corruption. The middle class (stabiilzer to the country) largely will stay within their culture/system to be the favored class to build the economy further than embrace the broken debt ridden US/EC economic models. (Are these educated technocrats really brainwashed moron ?)
The window to the global economy from China need not be confined to HK. Shanghai can replace HK as the center for real economic trade and investment flows over time. With the long term internal consumption model where the financial sector shall be the supporting service, China will not embrace a "tail that wags the dog" financial model.
Hence, HK is a growing anachronism to China and they may just have made China more determined to turn it into an economic wasteland.
This is no Arab Spring. Hk is no leader that can champion democracy that appeals to 1B Chinese. Chinese leaders much caricatured by Western Media as Oppressors of its people are not Morons. All they need is to do nothing and let HK commit its economic suicide. A dream that this demonstration will escalate by sparking any massive contagious political/social upheaveals in China.
US Foreign Policy has gone asinine in picking the wrong place and time to destabilze China.
Very well said, hedgiex.
Most Chinese people with some brain will realize that the much boasted democracy and freedom are not their own main objective to achieve the betterness in life. And the Anglo-American that have been preaching those values and putting them into practice are just displaying the high distortions and the rotting political and socioeconomic systems. The flawed systems are definitely not giving any good example or incentive to follow.
It's quite ridiculous if anyone ever thinks that a greater China is more reliant upon its tiny enclave, HKSAR, for its economic welfare than the opposite situation.
And as one Indian author did mention:
"Western democracies are ossified bastions of self-perpetuating interest groups, aided and abetted and legitimitised by the ritualised spectacle that we call elections"
In the war of ideas, Hong Kong could become a powerful symbol. I wish every honest person involved the wisdom to stay out of a trap.
Wither goes Hong Kong should shipments of important things like food and oil don't make it to the Island?
[quote]
All they need is to do nothing and let HK commit its economic suicide. A dream that this demonstration will escalate by sparking any massive contagious political/social upheaveals in China.
US Foreign Policy has gone asinine in picking the wrong place and time to destabilze China.
[/quote]
Precisely!
I have it on the best authority that Xi Jinping, Jiang Zimin, Wen Jiabao, Li Peng, Zhu Rongji, and so on are al covert CIA, Soros funded stooges and we have evidence and photos of all of them bellying up to the table at the White House. What Hanjian! I read it in the Wen Wei Po and the Ta Kung Pao serving the motherland since 1948!
And yes 'George' you do sound 'nutty'
Basically, mainland China is building up a case for judging Wong on charges of high treason andintelligence with a foreign country once the troubles are over.
I'm afraid his family will have to pay for the bullet used to execute him soon enough.
The self loathing fag on ZH who calls herself George Washington is always occupying the wrong side. And go fuck yourself before you even respond to me bitch, everything you write is bullshit.
Wrong side? You like Vicky Knoodleman-Kagan and her bankster driven take-over mob?
as a small reminder, China does not want to take the vote away from Hong-Kongers. it just wants to restrict the choice of candidates
That is very similar to the way it happens in the US and not many people care about it. Funny.
That's like Democrat or Republicans here. Something that people think are candidates they decided by their votes...
Yes that is true. But restricting the candidates to true red vetted candidates negates the vote. Remember, Beijing's White Paper on this listed the criteria--Aiguo ren-- no one else. Define that.
And thats different than here how ?
I don't know what 'here now' means. However from what I have read on this board is that posters represent Americans as having no choice between the two established political parties because they think they are just a front for some unnamed and mysterious higher nefarious power that cannot be named. Or, there are a host of stereotypical nemeses they trot out with tedious regularity (I won't go there or the idiots will show up). It is a specious argument especially considering the civil liberties that may be used by the disaffected (freedom to spew on the internet a case in point).
To think that only State-vetted candidates (approved according to criteria by the State) and then allowed to be confirmed by the subjucated (but, oh my privileged voters--thank you Overlords) voters is not different than what every average thinking and non-engaged American voter may exercise is pure an unadultered BS.
Sorry Winston. I have enjoyed your posts but please rethink this.
The choices are restricted by campaign financing and the two party system, not government openly telling you you can only vote on the candidates gov approves. Semantics and making gov seem like less of the problem. Otherwise though, it's the same. Hmmm Obaba or Mittens? Gore or Bush II? So many great choices to select from, it's why I don't vote, I simply can't decide which turd truly is shinier.
and so I'm still a proponent of multi-party systems, and feel validated in this. a political party must feel the danger of becoming extinct
Excellent points, all, Ghordius.
Beijing seeks nothing other than what the oligarchs in the U.S. have constructed to maintain power indefinetly: a rigged voting process that reduces it to theatre and ensures your choices are ones they selected ahead of time. Of course, it isn't that straight-forward or obvious - it can't be otherwise people would scream bloody murder. There has to be enough degrees of separation that it just seems like some kind of democratic process has coughed up the final few candidates. They could care less how much people argue and debate before the vote because all the candidates are their candidates. They always win.
The U.S. has had years to engineer the voting process to work the useless way it does today. China just does't have the experience or the machinery in place in HK yet. They are simply falling back on the methods they know: decree who the candidates will be.
No doubt, the U.S. TBTF two-party model and corrupt campaign-financing laws will serve China well for their HK model. It has to be the right mix of theatre, apparent fairness and plausable deniability. After that, it runs on auto-pilot. You can let the rubes argue all they want about the candidates. In the end, it doesn't matter who they end up picking.
All .gov-type 'systems' are owned. "Give me control of the $$ and I care not who makes the laws".
Two interesting summaries on the illusion of a US 'democratic republic'. Very worth a look:
By The 'Consent of the Governed'- Steve Bates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMjPbbM5fPU&feature=youtu.be
Connections: Birth Certs/Who 'owns you' (if you consent)/US historical lies.
http://worldtruth.tv/40-outrageous-facts-most-people-dont-know/
And:
Corbett Report excellent doco on the Fed:
Century of Enslavement: The History of The Federal Reserve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IJeemTQ7Vk
Harbanger seems to feel that all freedom-pushing forces are right, including in this case of Hong Kong. I feel this is a valid position, and a clearer point than GW's
I feel too with GW's point, then all the groups that help other groups in foreign countries can be subverted and misused for the Great Game by national actors like secret services, but also by oligarch-sponsored orgs
we have several excellent ZH commenters based in Hong Kong. yet you won't hear from them. too dangerous for them to comment on Hong Kong, and this is telling, in it's own way
I share both views ... when the protests started, I was originally excited that people were rising up against authoritarian rule from afar.
But as I learned more about U.S. meddling - as with Ukraine, Syria, etc. - my feelings became more conflicted.
'George' You have a case of 'Cognitive Dissonance'. Again, this is not about you. Your post reads like a Beijing approved article, discrediting the protesters for what end? You obviously have no knowledge of Chinese people or their history. I used to enjoy your posts but now you are dead to me. You sound like the CCP Central Committee. Live with that. You are not for liberty. I now think you are a statist.
doubt is the reserve of the wise. I was completely wrong on a different aspect, after having stated it very authoritatively
An unwelcome guest is one who antagonises his host by lecturing him and his spouse on how they should run their household.
This is why the news media move their people around constantly, because this is what they do.
Having said that I will deliver the following objective observations:
1. Roughly 2-3 weeks ago the Occupy Central Movement conceded that it was a bust. The students came out of left field and were simply not considered a driving political force until this past weekend. For this reason students quietly resent grandstanding by the OC leaders.
2. The people, as such, are now angry because the government ordered the police to break with the customary rules of engagement vis local demonstrations. Most of the local TV street interviews feature people who felt compelled to offer their support after watching the police action. Evidently they, the gov't, wanted to shove the students out of the way lest they cause a blight on the 65 China Day Celebration (now cancelled). At the Mongkok venue I visited, there were lots and lots of signs shaming the police, demanding an apology and expressing the local affinity of Hongkongers. Yes there were pro-democracy banners as well. But I do not think this issue is what vastly mobilized the public.
In other words, they blundered by over escalating crowd handling tactics (which incidently were disciplined and measured compared to what we have seen in places like Bloomfukistan and Ferguson).
3. This week is a short work week because Wednesday and Thursday are Bank Holidays. This is further fueling the turnout. The whole thing is now morphing into a sort of Woodstock like happening. Except at the buildings be guarded, the police are nowhere to be seen.
4. The City did not shut down because the transportation system is the best in the world.
5. The air is noticeably fresher due to the reduction of cross harbor traffic.
6. The main economic impact of this so far has been the loss of China tourist revenues during a National holiday week.
Now read this:
http://biglychee.com/?p=12676
The Big Lychee blog article was great. Hong Kong: Interesting as ever and the politics never disappoint.
Can you help translate a bit, WB:
"...I had a suspicion that a few within the police force were looking for an opportunity to do Leung’s bidding and sink the slipper in a bit of they ever got the chance..."
"...Bang on!..."
"...read the scmp comments and the 50centers are out in force..."
"...I did a lunchtime walk around Causeway Bay and saw both Albert Ho and Short Hair..."
"...Buy lots of imperishable food and get lots of beer tokens from the bank..."
"...It started with the Brits in about 1967, when the PTU came into existence..."
"...the protesters are 99% all young Chinese – all student age – not school kids..."
I'm quite serious. I'm entirely not sure what any ofthese mean, exaxtly.
Sink the slipper in a bit - like a boot in the ass?
SCMP - no idea. 50 centers - seem to be online shills paid 50 cents per posting
Short Hair - some well-known person in HK (presumably with short hair)
Bang on - probably is not an encouragement to continue copulating.
Beer tokens - slang for some kind of HK coin?
PTU - no idea
"all student age - not school kids" - school kids are all students and vice-versa in the U.S. - anything from first- through twelfth-grade.
The slang used is what is called Hongkie...someone who really knows the shit around here because they have been around a long time...longer than me ;-)
SCMP is South China Morning Post
PTU is Police tactical Unit
Bang on is like Keep on Trucking
Student Age is refering to university students.
I have to think about the others you listed...
http://hk-magazine.com/city-living/article/hemlock
Thanks! That's the best reporting I've seen anywhere of some of the real dynamics.
One more tidbit. About two weeks ago Beijing invited a delegation of billionaire tycoons from HK for high level discussions on how to deal with social instability.
I would say this was not a very savvy thing to do. It did not go unnoticed.
The Great Firewall of China excludes Hong Kong!
Intense media blackout as well, no stories in MSM China and HK Yahoo and such are all blocked from the mainland. It's not on the news, it's not on iFeng or Hao123 or such, and no one is talking about it.
I'm not excelllent but I am commenting. Danger is in the eye of the beholder. Yes , perhaps 'other groups in foreign countries can be subverted and misused by the Great Game' (whatever that is Ghordius). But, once again you fail in giving agency to Chinese people. We are not foreign pawns nor passive reactors to western definitions. We have our own history and reference points. And, despite GW's idiotic Beijing talking points you both fail in understanding. It;s NOT ABOUT YOU.
"It;s NOT ABOUT YOU"
Of course it is about us! If it is not about us who could it be about? Who else it there really?