
China Is Waging a Disinformation War Against Hong Kong Protesters - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-china.html
======
jammygit
I wonder if there was a way to help the protestors. They have shown amazing
resolve and discipline so far

~~~
baby
Is there a way to donate? I've heard that because of the daily protests people
are losing a lot of money, and protestors can't afford food/masks/protections.

~~~
cltsang
[https://www.facebook.com/612Fund/](https://www.facebook.com/612Fund/)

This fund is the most popular among locals.

~~~
sktrdie
Wow so nobody gives props to Facebook for making their channels available for
this.

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reaperducer
"Just send a few tanks over to clean them up."

It's ironic that this was written by someone whose government has made it
illegal for him to learn what happened the last time his government cleaned up
some protestors with tanks.

~~~
bobbylarrybobby
Not really ironic — it’s to be expected

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dawhizkid
I was taken aback by a recent conversation with an very Americanized Chinese
Harvard grad (grew up in Northern Cal) who genuinely asked me after having
said my parents are from Taiwan whether it's true if the people of Taiwan
think China is "a part of Taiwan."

I couldn't believe that any person in the West could believe such a thing, and
the only explanation is that Chinese disformation spreads far and wide beyond
China's own borders.

~~~
CommieBobDole
Isn't that the official position of the Taiwanese government, though - that
they are the only legitimate government of all of China and the current
administration of the PRC are not legitimate?

I understand that there's a diversity of opinion among the people of Taiwan
(and some mixed messages from the government itself) regarding the issue, but
it doesn't seem unbelievable that someone might think that the people of
Taiwan share a belief in their country's official policy.

Is there something I'm missing?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
When the nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949, they wound up killing a lot of
the intelligentsia already there. So you had a huge divide between pre-1949
Chinese (mainly of fujian descent), who became the populous working class of
the island, and the minority 1949 mainlanders, who became the richer factory
owners and such (and also ruled the country in a dictatorship until the 80s).
To add more kindling to the fire, the Japanese treated the Taiwanese pretty
fairly before the war ended, with Taiwanese considered almost as full Japanese
citizens (unlike the Koreans). So whenever these questions are addressed, it
isn’t just antagonism against the PRC that comes through, but also a lot of
antagonism for the ROC.

Now that the opposition can easily win elections, they have mostly become the
ROC government, but they don’t buy those original tenants of mainland unity at
all (though they don’t have the power to change them, nor do they want to
antagonize the PRC as much as they would if they could).

~~~
uranusjr
> though they don’t have the power to change them, nor do they want to
> antagonize the PRC as much as they would if they could

I want to also add that the oppositions, although not antagonize the PRC as
much as they would, is also antagonizing the PRC _more than the nationlists_ ;
the PRC-hating original tenants died off (it’s been 60 years after all), and
the nationalists transformed themselves to fully embrace PRC in the name of
economy. You have the nationalists (Kuomintang) occupying both ends of the
pro/anti-PRC spectrum, and this weird situation is arguably one of the
prominent problems of Taiwanese identity.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The richer nationalists have lots of business interests in China now (think
Foxconn), so they are firmly aligned with the PRC as a matter of interest. It
doesn’t help that the opposition are primarily working class and their
interests are actually hurt as the good jobs go to China (think republicans vs
Democrats in the states without the Trump populism, and very counter intuitive
to communism).

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sixothree
Not related to China, but I am noticing more disinformation on sites I would
not expect - like even imgur for example.

~~~
OrgNet
Imgur is not any better then reddit in this regard...

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larryme
For anyone "wish" Chinese gov send tanks or armies, you will be disappointed,
this gov really learned a lot from 1989. Those videos about military movements
in Shenzhen are released by official medias from China, which is obvious
bluffer: if they want to do sth, they will definitely do it secretly, and just
another reminder, China do have a lot legal armies in HK.

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DeonPenny
Also doing the same thing to Taiwan, Australia, the US, and a bunch of other
places.

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n-exploit
Anyone have a mirror?

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xvf22
[http://archive.is/I7axm](http://archive.is/I7axm)

~~~
n-exploit
Thank you!

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Causality1
It's strange, but information like this makes me more sick to my stomach than
if they were just crushing the protests with brute force.

~~~
ziddoap
Careful what you wish for, looks like they might add in the brute force option
soon:

[https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/chinese-military-
ama...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/chinese-military-amasses-
outside-hong-kong-as-protests-continue)

> _" Beijing’s latest response to protesters came as a grave threat issued
> Tuesday morning through state-run media, saying Hong Kong citizens are
> "asking for self-destruction,"_

------
baby
Btw. There was another thread[1] which got a bunch of points and comments very
quickly and got bounced out of the front page very quickly as well. Are posts
about China/Hong Kong being penalized on HN?

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20687266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20687266)

~~~
jerf
Probably people flagging it. I tend to flag stories that are "just news" and
don't have a particularly compelling link to standard HN topics, or ones in
which HN isn't going to have any particularly interesting angle to add to the
conversation unique to the community's strengths, or ones that are coming up a
lot, like this one. (I mean, yes, nominally everything is on topic, but
there's still boundaries.)

There's a strong attractor basin around discussing the same news as everybody
else that's worth pushing HN away from, in general.

~~~
baby
I really hope people can stop flagging these then. One of the world's capital
is about to go down and this is going to impact all of us.

~~~
dfabulich
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> _Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they
> 're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic._

~~~
condercet
Okay, then let's talk about the protester's novel tactics and use of
technology to coordinate a distributed, leaderless protest.

That seems like it should be fair game.

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mc32
>”The assertion was more than just spin or fake news.”

Wait, is there a difference, or is it just a matter of scope?

Surely we know China is a great propaganda power. This is the bread and butter
of any serious socialistic regime on the left and right. It’s no surprise and
no revelation. What is surprising to me is the nonchalant approach to fake
news western media is prone to when it comes to both domestic as well as
foreign issues. So, yes China is foing bad things, but come on NYT, you also
do the lesser evil when it fits your agenda (or doesn’t fit the agenda of the
day)

~~~
mLuby
>serious socialistic regime on the left and right

What's the connection between "great propaganda power" and "serious
socialistic regime"?

Also what's a "socialistic regime on the right"?

~~~
nindalf
Not the person you were replying to but there's this strange idea amongst alt-
right folks that Nazis were socialists because the party called itself the
National Socialist party. Could be referring to that.

~~~
ceejayoz
Interestingly, these same folks are somehow able to see through the
"Democratic Republic" part of "Democratic People's Republic of Korea". An odd
blind spot.

~~~
drak0n1c
It's not a blind spot. They are not conservatives, they do not believe in
liberty and God-given individual rights. Actual alt-righters oppose capitalism
and believe in economically socialist and communitarian ideas. Similarly but
to a lesser degree, "far-right" parties in Europe are oftentimes more
economically socialist than their mainstream center-left and center-right
opponents. Le Pen vs Macron is an example.

------
justicezyx
What's the formal demands from the HK protests?

Can someone point to some official documents from the protesters?

~~~
dawhizkid
Carrie Lam's resignation, plus:

The complete withdrawal of the proposed extradition bill

The government to withdraw the use of the word “riot” in relation to protests

The unconditional release of arrested protesters and charges against them
dropped

An independent inquiry into police behaviour

Implementation of genuine universal suffrage

Source: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/13/what-do-the-
ho...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/13/what-do-the-hong-kong-
protesters-want)

~~~
justicezyx
> The complete withdrawal of the proposed extradition bill

Reasonable.

> The government to withdraw the use of the word “riot” in relation to
> protests

Unfortunately, not reasonable.

OK, now it's no longer factual to say that it's not a "riot". I do not defend
either side, but let's be sure to use the word correctly.

> The unconditional release of arrested protesters and charges against them
> dropped

Sorry, not reasonable.

What about the protester who is claimed to bite off a police's finger:
[https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-
crime/article/30...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-
crime/article/3018831/hong-kong-protester-appears-court-accused-biting)

> An independent inquiry into police behaviour

Reasonable.

But there will be an independent inquiry being requested on the protesters as
well. I am not suggesting that, I am just saying obviously Chines government
is going to demand that as well.

> Implementation of genuine universal suffrage

Moderately reasonable. You are asking a country to adopt a different political
system in a prominent area.

But if you want to retrieve the skin of a lion by asking politely, or assume
you only suffer minor scratch, you'd better prepare to get killed.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Universal suffrage in the election of the Chief Executive was definitely, and
I think - though I'm not certain - of the legislative council was in the
handover agreement. The Sino British agreement China was happy to sign and see
lodged with the UN as binding international agreement.

The one China says doesn't matter any more.

------
justicezyx
I do not meant to defend either side. But the first comment on the NYT article
has the following statement:

""" Well dear reporters, you failed to mention the fact that the story
actually first started on Facebook. Some guy who claimed himself the victim’s
brother posted on FB saying his sister was actually shot by her fellow
protesters accidentally. This incident is now heartedly discussed on a popular
online community in
HK([https://www.discuss.com.hk/viewthread.php?tid=28439217](https://www.discuss.com.hk/viewthread.php?tid=28439217)).
Those who can understand written Cantonese can take a look. Anyway dear
reporters, those above may not qualify to be a reliable source but still...the
“state-run” media didn’t make up the story out of nowhere. """

My feeling is just that the news report in modern time is simply no longer
fact-driven.

~~~
pwinnski
My feeling is that I'm seeing a lot of comments from people whose usernames
are a common word plus three characters that defend China in a backhanded way.

It's just a feeling, but I'd say that's about as credible as these comments.

~~~
reaperducer
It doesn't have to be a feeling. It's been well documented that the Chinese
government has a group of people that it employs to spread pro-Chinese
propaganda and downvoted perceived threatening speech on social web sites
around the world.

HN has been a target of this brigade for years.

~~~
dang
This comment breaks the HN guideline against insinuating astroturfing. If you
have evidence, I'd like to see it—we take actual evidence seriously and always
look into it. But the overwhelming majority of comments like this one turn out
to be nothing more than the commenter imagining an explanation for comments
they disagree with. Such imagination feels extremely convincing, but it is
imagination nonetheless.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

