A lot of claims made here pitching the CCP position. Except that it is not really that easy at all. So called color revolutions can be assisted by some one paying for all those flags placards and the like, but it still demands a million boots on the ground.
In Hong Kong, even that is hardly necessary. Plenty of serious people do not like the obvious signs of CCP intent and are quite willing to confront it now. That means helping the folks on the street.
China's best choice is to simply walk away and allow it all to die down. They have a much bigger game in regards to Taiwan and pushing Hong Kong can easily trigger a premature from foreign powers. Assume that is what will happen.
Canada though needs to openly offer Canadian citizenship rights to all Hong Kong citizens not having a criminal record with no strings attached. This is plausibly aggressive but it would spike Chinas authoritarian behavior immediately and restore citizen morale as well by throwing a completely new factor into everyone's calculations.
This would be viewed a meddling by the CCP, but this already an issue.
. . .
Don't Kid Yourself, Hong Kong is a Straight-Up Color Revolution Stoked by West
Whenever Hong Kong protesters are destroying public property,
there are no cameras of Western media outlets in sight. But when police
decide to intervene, protecting their city, Western media crusaders
emerge in full force.
On September 15, 2019, huge US flags were waving in the air. A
massive demonstration, consisting of mainly young people, was moving up
from the old British-built downtown area of the city towards the US
Consulate General, often erroneously called the “embassy.”
The
temperature was well over 30 degrees Celsius, but the number of
‘protesters’ kept growing. Many of the main arteries in Hong Kong were
entirely blocked.3
Western
media were there in full force, wearing yellow fluorescent vests, their
‘Press’ insignia, helmets and masks. They mingled with the crowd,
filming US flags, clearly enjoying the show.
“President Trump, Please Liberate Hong Kong,” I read on several posters.
“Liberate from whom?” I asked a cluster of protesters, all of them in ninja outfits, metal bars in their hands, black scarves covering their faces.
Several of them replied, mumbling something incomprehensible. One girl shouted defiantly:
“From Beijing!”
“But Hong Kong is China, isn’t it?” I asked. “How could it be liberated from itself?”
“No! Hong Kong is Hong Kong!” came a ready-made reply.
Nearby, I spotted British Union Jack, with old colonial-era Hong Kong coat of arms.
The big demonstration was clearly treasonous. Its members delivered a petition to the US consulate general, demanding that
the US Congress pass legislation that would require its government to
monitor and decide whether Hong Kong is ‘autonomous enough’ from the
PRC, and whether it should then qualify for US trade and economic
benefits.
All
over the downtown area, hundreds of ‘ninjas’ were shouting pro-Western
slogans. Here British-era HK flags were being waved, alongside the US
flags.
I approached a young couple among the protesters, who were resting on a bench:
“Do your friends realize how brutal, undemocratic and oppressive
was British rule? Do they know in what misery many Hong Kong citizens
had to live in that era? And about censorship, humiliation…?”
“No!” They shouted at me, outraged. “It is all propaganda!”
“Whose propaganda?” I wondered.
“The propaganda of Beijing!”
At least they spoke some English. A bizarre thing about Hong
Kong is that, while some people here would like to (or are perhaps paid
to say that they’d want to?) have the British colonial administration
back, a great majority of the people hardly speak any English now, while
also refusing to speak Mandarin. Little wonder that Hong Kong is
quickly losing its edge to the pro-Chinese and highly cosmopolitan
Singapore!
But the demonstration was not where ‘the action’ really was and I knew it, intuitively.
The flag-waving march was a big staged event for the Western mass media.
There, ‘pro-democracy’ slogans were chanted in an orderly manner.
Nothing was burned, vandalized or dismantled wherever Western press
cameras were present!
A few blocks away, however, I witnessed monstrous vandalizing,
of one of the entrances to the Central subway (MTR) station. Hooligans
who call themselves ‘protesters’ were ruining public property, a
transportation system used by millions of citizens every day.
While they were at it, they also dismantled public metal
railings that separate sidewalks from roadways. Metal bars from this
railing were later utilized for further attacks against the city
infrastructure, as well as against the police.
Umbrellas in the hands of ‘protesters’ were covering the crime scene.
Umbrellas similar to those used in 2014, during the previous, so-called
‘Umbrella Uprising.’
No foreign reporters were in sight! This was not for the world. This was raw, real, and brutal.
“Don’t film!” covered mouths began shouting at me.
I
kept filming and photographing. I was not wearing any press jacket or
helmet or Press insignia. I never do, anywhere in the world.
They left me alone; too busy destroying the street. As they
were dismantling public property, their backpacks, stuffed with portable
players, were regurgitating the US national anthem.
My friend from Beijing wrote me a brief message:
“They are selling their own nation and people. We have very bad words for them in Chinese.”
But it is not only mainland China that is disgusted with what is
happening in Hong Kong. Three major Hong Kong-based newspapers, Wen Wei
Po, Ta Kung Pao and Hong Kong Commercial Daily, are all pro-Beijing,
pro-police and are defining ‘protesters’ as “rioters” or “troublemakers” (in Chinese).
Among the big ones, only Ming Pao and Apple Daily, which are
traditionally anti-Beijing, are defining ‘protesters’ as ‘gatherers’,
‘protesters’ and even “liberators.”
Local citizens are mainly (as they’d been during the 2014 riots)
hostile to the ‘protests’ but are scared to confront the mainly young,
covered and armed (with metal bars and clubs) gangs. Some tried to, even
in a luxury mall in the center of the city, and were brutally beaten.
‘Protesters’ seem to be on adrenalin, and in a highly militant mood.
They gather and move in hordes. Most of them refuse to speak.
What is important to understand is that, while the rioters are trying
to spread the message that they are ‘fighting for democracy,’ they are
actually highly intolerant to all those who disagree with their goals.
In fact, they are violently attacking those with different opinions.
Furthermore, and this I have to spell out, after covering protests in
literally hundreds of cities worldwide, from Beirut to Lima, Buenos
Aires, Istanbul, Paris, Cairo, Bangkok and Jakarta: what is happening in
Hong Kong is extremely mild when it comes to police responses! Hong
Kong police run well and fast. It created human chains, flashed a lot of
light and sporadically used tear gas. It defends itself when attacked.
But violence?
If you compare police actions here to those in Paris, it is all
politeness and softness. Hardly any rubber bullets. Tear gas is ‘honest’
and not mixed with deadly chemicals, like it is in many other places,
and administered in small doses. No water cannon spitting liquid full of
urine and excrement, as in many other cities of the world. Trust me: I
am an expert in tear gas. In Istanbul, during the Gezi Park uprising,
protesters had to use gas masks, so did I. Otherwise you’d faint or end
up in a hospital. People are also fainting in Paris. No one is fainting
here; this is mild stuff.
As for the ‘other side,’ the level of violence from the protesters is
extreme. They are paralyzing the city, ruining millions of lives. The
number of foreign arrivals in Hong Kong is down 40 percent.
Reception at
the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which is right next to Sunday’s battles,
told me that most of the rooms are now empty, and during the ‘events’,
the hotel is cut off from the world.
And what about their traitorous demands? Would this be accepted
anywhere in the world? Flying flags of a foreign country (in this case,
of the USA) and demanding intervention?
Hong Kong “pro-democracy activist leaders” like Joshua Wong
are clearly colluding with Western interests and governments. He and
others are spreading, constantly, what anywhere else would be described
as fake news. For instance, “My town is the new Cold War’s Berlin,”
he recently declared. Yes, perhaps, but not because of the HK
government, but because of his own actions and the actions of people
like himself.
Coverage of events by Western mass media is clearly selective and
that is putting it mildly. Actually, many media outlets from Europe and
North America are ‘adding fuel to the fire.’ They are encouraging
rioters while exaggerating the actions of local police. I am monitoring
and filming their work and what I see is outrageous!
I am writing this report in Tai Kwun Center. Now world-famous art complex (of the “new, Chinese Hong Kong”), this used to be the Central Police Station under the British occupation, as well as so-called Victoria Prison Compound.
Mr. Edmond, who works for the center, explains:
“If there was a referendum now, the so-called protesters would
not win. They would lose. This is an internal issue of China, and it
should be treated as such. A continuation of the 2014 events. What
changed this time is that the protesters are opting for extreme violence
now. People of Hong Kong are scared; scared of them, not of the
authorities.”
Here, prisoners were confined and executed,
during British rule. Not far away from here, monstrous slums were
housing deprived subjects of the queen. After the Brits left, those
slums were converted to public parks.
Life in Hong Kong improved. Not as fast as in neighboring Shenzhen or
Guangzhou, but it improved. The reason Hong Kong is being ‘left behind’
is because of its antiquated British-era laws, rules and regulations,
its extreme capitalist system; because of “too little of Beijing”, not “because of too much of it.”
These hooligans are going against the interests of their own people,
and their own people are now cursing them. Not loudly, yet, as rioters
have clubs and metal bars, but cursing.
Western media chooses not to hear these curses. But China knows. It hears. I hear Hong Kong people, too.
Chinese curses are terrifying, powerful. And they do not dissolve in thin air.
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora”and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. His Patreon
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