
Eyewitnesses describe brutal beatings by HK police - baylearn
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-02/hong-kong-police-violence-protesters-eyewitnesses
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RcouF1uZ4gsC
What can you do about this? Pretty much nothing. China is the second largest
economy in the world, and has the second most powerful military. In addition,
what they view as the integrity of China is one of their biggest priorities.
In addition, they have always viewed British control of Hong Kong as a
national humiliation and are bent on erasing all traces of that memory.

The way it stands right now, China can inflict a lot more pain, and is likely
willing to endure more pain that the rest of the world is likely willing to
inflict on China because of their behavior in Hong Kong.

Basically, the fate of Hong Kong was decided in 1985 with the Sino-British
Joint Declaration which ceded Hong Kong back to China in 1997. If Great
Britain, and the rest of the world did not have the will to resist China
taking control of Hong Kong in 1985 and 1997 when China was a lot less
powerful, a lot less developed, and a lot more susceptible to pressure from
the rest of the world, there is no hope for now.

~~~
dragonsh
Well even though my minority position on this issue will downvote my comment I
will still write it. As most on this thread are not willing to talk the real
culprit behind this protest which is economic inequality and no hope for
future development.

As I mentioned in my earlier posts, these protests are manifestation of
inherent economic inequality in Hong Kong society.

The youth in Hong Kong cannot afford a house. The whole economy is standing on
a giant real estate bubble under the control of 14 rich billionaires.

This protests can already be foreseen when property was becoming unaffordable
without an increase in salary, it was just a matter of time.

Britain is as much to blame for this situation, they never had intention to
grant autonomy to Hong Kong and didn't do it for 150 years, they were very
clever, as they did in every colony, to let the subsequent administration take
the blame in this case Chinese which indeed granted more autonomy than British
to Hong Kong.

Britain can cry crocodile tears now as much as they like trying to align with
protestors. But they are the one to blame. Hopefully they can correct the
mistake by granting full citizenship to Hong Kong permanent residents who
wants it, otherwise whatever they say is a farce. Same goes for USA, if they
want solidarity with Hong Kong protestors grant them unconditional asylum or
permanent residence, rest all talks are worthless.

~~~
notzuck
So why haven't the protesters said this is one of their main issues?

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Aeolun
Universal suffrage is a great way to get a lot of this changed. If your only
choices for CEO are billionaires or their friends, there isn’t much you can do
(if you can vote at all).

~~~
dragonsh
Economic issue should have been raised in protest and could have converted to
mass movement to reject a house of car park size or make it illegal for
developer to build such home. Force government through peaceful protest to
take measures like Singapore for house, health and education.

Universal suffrage is not a panacea, indeed in many democracies money decides
who become the head of state. In two largest democracy USA and India its not
possible to win elections without the support of billionaire or being a
billionaire.

Funny part in Hong Kong Uber is illegal and Taxi license is traded at
astronomical prices and govt can't do anything due to powerful taxi union
lobby (consisting mostly of taxi owners), they also involve in HK CEO
election. In universal suffrage it will still be similar large number of
bodies with vested interests.

So a structural change won't happen unless it's really part of the protest.

Recently read one another view on democracy quite interesting, although do not
agree with it. [1]

[1] [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/08/shawn-
ros...](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/08/shawn-rosenberg-
democracy-228045)

~~~
y2kenny
Are you familiar with Hong Kong's public housing system? [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Hong_Kong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Hong_Kong)

~~~
dragonsh
I am pretty familiar with it and how it failed the Hong Kong people, when
government worked in the interest of billionaire real estate developers. The
house ownership ratio will itself reveal the reality.

Singapore learned from Hong Kong but did it much better and today one of the
best example of public housing (they call it Housing Development Board - HDB).
I will not go into details but its a topic of its own to discuss issues of
Hong Kong real estate and get rich quick ideas based on it.

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Pulletwee12549
Why don’t they include some videos from the scene? People today don’t read and
they only include one photo of a guy with his head in his hands...

I’m glad they talk about it but I wonder how much impact this article actually
has...

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skitout
During yellow vest protests, we've seen thing as violent, and France is not
China...

~~~
skitout
I realized my post was not clear. I 100% support HK protester! I 100% condemn
HK police and authorities.

Just wanted to point that despite the fact most of us live in democracy,
police can act super violently against protestors, and we don't necessarily
realize it before it happens. We need to support HK protestor, and also keep
fighting for democracy where we live

~~~
eznoonze
In a democracy you have recourse when abused by the police. In a dictatorship,
police is just a tool of the ruler to control the population.

~~~
skitout
In France you officially have recourse, but there are many ways to make it
ineffective most of the time... Very few policemen end up in a court, and they
(quite) never goes to jail even if they had a protestor eye out. And decision
makers are never bothered...

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tomohawk
Once the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) consolidates control, this is what HK
protesters have to look forward to:

[https://chinatribunal.com/final-judgement-
report/](https://chinatribunal.com/final-judgement-report/)

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adamnemecek
How can people in Europe and US help?

~~~
__m
By staying out of it. Hongkong belongs to China just as Catalonia belongs to
Spain, or California to the US. Imagine China interfering with that.

~~~
VK538FY
I'm probably a bigger fan of self-determination than you: if the people of HK,
Catalonia or California wish to follow their own road, I support them, but
they need to work that out on their own. When those movements are even partly
the product of foreign intervention and are given uncritical coverage in the
western press, that is a giant warning sign. We've been there before many
times yet we never learn.

~~~
duxup
>When those movements are even partly the product of foreign intervention

Do you think that is the case in HK?

~~~
VK538FY
Yes, I think that that is the case, based on the following elements.

1\. Contacts between US consular staff and HK opposition leaders.

2\. Funding by the US 'National Endowment for Democracy' of several Hong Kong
groups.

3\. My observations of the western media coverage of the events in the
province of Xianjiang.

4\. My observations of the similarities between the events in Hong Kong and
other 'colour revolutions' that have the fingerprints of Washington all over
them.

~~~
duxup
Would any contact with locals or funding of any organization of any kind that
might be sympathetic to the protesters cause be "foreign intervention"?

It seems like this is such a low bar that it would mean that nobody else could
associate with people in HK without it declared "foreign intervention".

Let alone that you could declare just about anything "foreign intervention".

~~~
VK538FY
I agree partially. The limits of 'acceptable' foreign intervention are not
black and white. My feeling, based on what I observe, is that western
intelligence services are all over this. Foreign intervention in Syria and
Lybia started quietly enough alright through unofficial meetings with
opposition groups. It's obvious that many Hongkongese are legitimately
concerned about their political and economic future. Foreign money and
promises at just the right moment can be wielded to manipulate people that are
more or less well intentioned initially.

~~~
duxup
It's strange the differences in perspective here as with Syria and Libya ...
IIRC there was little in the way of any mystery as far as who sided with who
and their involvement, yet some folks portray those events as some sort of
semi secret war.

Those events have also become the poster child for some regimes to use to warn
people about opposing them.

~~~
VK538FY
A semi-secret war? Surely a very mysterious war, at least to me because
conventional reasoning does not allow me to understand why western governments
encouraged putches that destroyed stable governments (imperfect but far, far
superior to the alternative) and subsequently armed 'moderate' groups whose
morbid ideology differed little from the ideology that we're all supposed to
combat ('...right?').

Unfortunately, our press doesn't ask the hard questions. No one is held
accountable for the death and destruction that these policies have created. So
western governments go on and try to apply the magic formula again. I believe
that they are doing the same in HK.

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tomtompl
More brutal than in France?

Funny how everyone just moved on about French protests.

~~~
Huycfhct
Because you were rioting over a fuel price increase and destroyed a city.
That's embarrassing. I wouldn't hijacked a thread to compare yourself to HK
people fighting the CCP for the right to vote.

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techsin101
World has no balls

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mexus
Why did this story get flagged? I found it interesting and learned a bit more
about the topic.

~~~
aedron
I flagged it. It is political news and has no place on HN. It's a slippery
slope to even more stories about politics and current events, that have
nothing to do with the site's raison d'être.

(BTW I'm just a regular user, not an admin or speaking for any admin)

~~~
vorpalhex
HN is not only technical news. It is all news which is of interest to the
community at large including economics, politics, philosophy and so on. HN is
not slashdot.

~~~
magduf
Slashdot still exists?

Anyway, yes, HN isn't just tech news, but it does seem to have a strong
aversion to highly political topics because they always, always devolve into
angry arguments and HN values "civility" over all else. So the parent is right
IMO: this really doesn't seem to be a good place to discuss this.

~~~
vorpalhex
It doesn't seem to usually devolve into arguments (heated exchanges), but it
does tend to include debates. Just because not everyone agrees with you (or
even each other) doesn't mean the topic isn't worth discussing, or that the
comments are uncivil.

~~~
magduf
>Just because not everyone agrees with you (or even each other) doesn't mean
the topic isn't worth discussing, or that the comments are uncivil.

Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but these discussions usually do tend
to devolve to incivility. Whether the topic is worth discussing is another
matter; this site doesn't like uncivil discussion and tends to quickly ban
people when this happens, so it makes sense that it would simply avoid these
discussions altogether. These days, if you want civil political discussion,
you either need to keep out people with very different opinions (so more like-
minded people can discuss finer policy points instead of constantly arguing
over extremely fundamental differences of worldview), or you need to have an
extremely involved and active full-time moderation team to keep things civil.

~~~
vorpalhex
> These days, if you want civil political discussion, you either need to keep
> out people with very different opinions

That's called an echo chamber. That isn't discussion, it's just playing with
yourself.

> these discussions usually do tend to devolve to incivility

This the internet, anyone is free to comment, and some amount of those
comments will be in-civil. Don't reply to them, flag/report/downvote as
appropriate. However - if a comment is one you disagree with, and you think
it's uncivil, it's probably best to just take a step back because human bias
(whether it's me, or you, or any other random HNer) is strong.

> you need to have an extremely involved and active full-time moderation team
> to keep things civil

In my experience, while a moderation team can do a lot of good, they can also
simply turn a given community into an echo chamber of the moderation staff's
views. See /r/politics on reddit for an example of this.

Next time you find yourself headed down the path of what seems like a
disagreement turning into a real argument, take a moment to restate the points
of your opponent you agree with. I usually use something like "So here are the
points I think we agree on..."

Then, I usually like to highlight what seems to be the fundamental difference
between the two statements, "It seems like we're in disagreement over X".

Don't assign value statements or qualifiers here. Your goal isn't to help or
hinder any side of the argument when you do this, it's just to re-align the
participants.

Often when people get upset in a discussion, it's because they feel like
they're not being heard. They're making a case, and you're arguing something
else, which causes frustration and anger. Taking a moment to re-align
indicates you are listening to your discussion partner (or if you aren't being
a good listener, will help find where you went off track).

~~~
magduf
It's not an "echo chamber" if you just don't want to talk to people with
polar-opposite views. You're not going to have a productive discussion
between, for instance, anyone on the left and a group of neo-Nazis. Excluding
neo-Nazis from a discussion doesn't make it an "echo chamber".

As for being heard, maybe the problem is no one wants to waste their time and
breath dealing with people with such different views. When literal decades
have gone by and those people still cling to same views, there really isn't
much point in trying to change their minds now.

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mikelyons
China is too big and needs to be broken up!

