
Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists - thomasjoulin
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/22/just-chaos-bloodshed-hong-kong-district-hundreds-masked-men-assault-protesters-journalists-residents/
======
croo
There are a few good summary comments about the situation on /r/worldnews
like:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/cg1sh2/chaos_and...](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/cg1sh2/chaos_and_bloodshed_in_hong_kong_district_as/euefgdk/)

What I personally find astounding that the police were pulled out right before
the fight, the 999 operators hanged up for the callers and nearby police
stations were closed during the event.

~~~
huffmsa
What's surprising about that? The HK government is necessarily compliant with
the Mainland. Isn't that one of the root issues here?

It'd be unexpected if they didn't stand down while PLA grunts, I mean "triad
gangsters", put a beating on the protestors.

~~~
yorwba
The Hong Kong police is made out of people. Unless they have an incredibly
accurate filtering process for new hires, at least some police officers will
support the protests, and even those who don't probably have some pride that'd
make standing aside for criminal gangs hard to swallow.

Of course the leadership could've arranged for the police force to retreat
without informing them about the purpose. In that case, the rank-and-file
officers are probably quite unhappy about that decision.

~~~
huffmsa
The latter seems like the likely answer. If your unit is pulling back, then
you have to decide on an individual level if you're going to follow the herd
or go AWOL. Pretty easy groupthink situation.

~~~
wybiral
That's exactly how leadership manipulated soldiers during the Tiananmen Square
massacre [0]. They weren't given clear orders and were basically only told
where to go and when. With that much force and tension anything can set it
off.

But... As a counter argument, that could be exactly why law enforcement were
pulled away this time. If they started cracking down on violent anti-
protestors the peaceful protestors could have gotten caught in the mix and it
could have escalated rapidly. I'm not defending Honk Kong leadership, but
hopefully they're aware of the risk of concentrating armed forces amidst this
tension.

If shots are fired it turns into a chain reaction.

[0]
[https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/06/02/317996805/...](https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/06/02/317996805/for-
one-soldier-at-tiananmen-a-day-never-forgotten)

------
riffraff
I am very curious, but worried, of the situation in HK.

Concretely, it seems HKers can protest as much as they want, but when push
comes to shove, the PRC will just end up crushing them and the parts of
democracy they still have.

I can't imagine how they may get any other outcome. Even if I wish they could
just gain independence, it seems unlikely, and it's not like any foreign power
would go to war to protect HK.

~~~
underthebus
> Even if I wish they could just gain independence, it seems unlikely, and
> it's not like any foreign power would go to war to protect HK.

I never understood this. Why would HK gain 'independence'? Why would a foreign
power 'protect' HK? (protect from what?)

HK has been used to build a narrative that is rather strange... Frankly people
in HK calling for independence are a bit like, say, the Texas Nationalist
Movement or calling for Seattle independence. It's a fringe movement at best.

~~~
benj111
The population of Hong Kong is apparently 7+ million, and 2 million went on
one of the marches. Doesn't seem 'fringe' to me.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-
china-48656471](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-48656471)

~~~
underthebus
Trying to claim that these 2 million people campaign for HK independence is
not honest.

~~~
skosch
Well of course – almost nobody is really campaigning for independence. HK is
very much dependent on the mainland, and that's understood. The demands are
much more narrow: for the extradition bill to be scrapped, for Carrie Lam to
step down, for elections to be free and fair, etc.

------
keanzu
Excellent analysis here on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20492145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20492145)

The Chinese and HK governments have realized they've lost the culture wars and
public opinion so they've resorted to the tried and tested handbook of
authoritarian governments, to create a cycle of violence to create
justification for cracking down.

This is a provocation. Protesters will now counter arm themselves with similar
bats and sticks, which in turn will give the police extra justification when
they uncover "weapons". It will be used by the Chinese domestic media as
justification to crack down hard.

~~~
nabla9
Non-violent resistance is an option, but it requires very tough attitude.

If people would just take the beating and lay down, like Gandhi-led resistance
against Brits did, it could break down the violent strategy.

~~~
Santosh83
May not work these days. The British were half decent and still they killed
thousands of people before they left India. If the protestors continue non-
violently, we'll simply see them shot with rubber bullets and carted off, or
barricaded and starved out. Countries these days are willing to escalate into
violence since every major country has more than enough blood on its hands and
prefers tacitly looking the other way unless there is something in it for
them.

~~~
wavefunction
One wonders if the British were even half decent when you consider their long
history of colonial and imperial oppression. One might conclude they were
fully indecent, in fact.

~~~
cevn
Half decent? Has the GP heard of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, or how
Churchill starved 3m in Bengal?

~~~
kjeetgill
I don't think the point was about half decent vs. a quarter decent.

As evil/bad as the situation was; non-violence only helps if _someone_ loses
more than they gain by just killing you. In this case it was by losing the
moral high-ground that was valued by _some_ British people at least. Sure it
probably wasn't decent people among the perpetrators, but the pearl clutchers
back home.

~~~
objektif
How is this even related to the discussion?? You dont think there are some
decent Chinese somewhere?

~~~
kjeetgill
Mainly just clarifying to the parent what Santosh83 meant. I think it's not
about x% decent but rather x% decent able to sway ruling class decisions based
on the optics of attacking non-violent dissidents.

------
spiderdev
A co-worker of mine just returned from visiting mainland China. She said
everyone she spoke to, did not know about the protests in Hong Kong. They had
no idea that something was happening there.

~~~
sho
Claiming not to know was a way to avoid talking about it. Anyone in China who
wants to know, knows. Of course the people in Shenzhen, less than 30km away,
are aware of what's happening in HK. They just have no desire whatsoever to
get into a political discussion with foreigners.

Don't underestimate the "them and us" mentality in China. It's very pervasive.
Your co-worker was assuredly on the "them" side of the equation.

~~~
unicornfinder
This. Not to mention in my experience most Chinese actually support the
government.

------
nabla9
Back to low-tech solutions like paid mobs to control the situation.

People in HK use Chinese apps and Chinese intelligence probably has
comprehensive mass surveillance system in place, but it could not predict
recent events. Chinese and HK leaders were caught by surprise.

~~~
my_username_is_
People in HK typically don't use Chinese apps to communicate. WhatsApp and
Telegram seem to be the most popular right now, and both use end-to-end
encryption. Suggesting communication over WeChat to your average Hong Konger
is laughable.

------
modi15
Seems to me this is Tiananmen part 2 unfolding before our eyes. And doesnt
look like anyone will come to Hongkongs help.

Hoping India will step up and do something. Seems unlikely though.

~~~
verttii
No foreign power would ever dare to intervene with HK. Every country is simply
too horny about Chinese money nowadays

~~~
huffmsa
Last time we got hot and bothered about Chinese money, the British crashed the
entire nation via illicit drug sales. No reason something like that won't
happen again.

~~~
verttii
Not sure what you're implying here - that the British will roll out illegal
drugs to the Chinese market again?

Look at how everyone is treating Taiwan. That should tell you enough about how
nobody will be willing to compromise anything for the sake of Hong Kong.

~~~
huffmsa
The implication is that the west has bled China dry without the cooperation of
the Chinese government before and there's no reason it won't happen again. The
West doesn't necessarily need to play softball with China to get its money.

~~~
echaozh
Yeah, great idea to rob the Chinese again and put the blame on themselves.

------
ryanlol
Lots of footage with clear faces, shouldn’t be very difficult to put names
next to those.

Does anyone know of any co-ordinated efforts to do so?

~~~
bitskits
Is that really the right course of action, given the protests are a push back
against China asserting control and surveillance over HK's citizens?

~~~
BubRoss
The protests are over a law allowing China to extradite people without any
process.

Also government mass surveillance and identifying people who were recorded in
public by a citizen commiting violence aren't the same thing. I wish I didn't
have to explain this.

~~~
underthebus
> The protests are over a law allowing China to extradite people without any
> process.

That is not true that there would not have been any process.

There would have been a full legal process like any extradition: I.e.
extradition would have been requested based on a legal case, this would have
been examined by a HK court with the 'accused' able to defend, then that HK
court would have made a decision. [That's the actual bill]

------
jammygit
Update: no arrests made of attackers

[https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/22/hong-kong-police-
made-...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/22/hong-kong-police-made-no-
arrests-mob-assaulted-commuters-protesters-journalists-yuen-long/)

~~~
ferest
6 arrests [https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/23/5-arrests-hong-kong-
mo...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/23/5-arrests-hong-kong-mob-attacks-
districts-become-ghost-towns-amid-fears-violence/)

------
chvid
Does these protest still have broad support?

It seems obvious that the HK administration is simply drawing out time and
hoping the daily troubles the demonstrators are creating in time will kill
their cause.

~~~
salawat
Broad support by whom?

If you're including population not under the sphere of influence of the
Chinese Communist Party, I'd say most likely yes.

If not, of course there isn't broad support in the sense that Hong Kong is a
drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the Mainland.

I hate to say it, but I'm expecting that an inevitable Tiananmen 2.0 is in the
works; and I have seen nothing to convince me that pushed to the wall, the
Chinese Communist party won't write off an entire city to restore "Peace";
excepting the continued existence of Taiwan. That though, in no small manner
being a diplomatic stalemate with the rest of the world however.

~~~
verttii
Actually Taiwan's de facto independence has probably more to do with them
having a relatively large defense force ready to inflict heavy casualties to
an invader.

Hong Kong has no such asset.

------
bllguo
this is bizarre to me. I don't really see how this move makes sense for the
CCP. Maybe I just wanted to think that things have changed since 1989..

------
ferest
This is just too obvious and they tried to get attention, which isn't really
like what China gov would do. The HK gov's announcement and action so far are
de-escalating the situation, it just not making any sense to support/allow
such thing from happening. The aggressive protesters are only ones i could see
benefits from it

------
bitL
Triads made a deal with PRC? Couldn't be better news for HKers! :-/

~~~
odiroot
It's funny, decades ago China (CCP government) tired to get rid of Triads from
Guangdong (especially prostitution and drug trade). They were probably happy
Triads focused mostly on HK and Macau (and Taiwan + overseas?).

Now they "need" the Triads.

Also it seems this movie
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years_(2015_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years_\(2015_film\))
is actually becoming reality.

------
benj111
Is there a symbolism with the white? Or was it an arbitrary colour?

I believe Brown was chosen for the Nazi SA uniforms because they were cheap.

~~~
chewz
> I believe Brown was chosen for the Nazi SA uniforms because they were cheap.

No, it was taken from Harvard's University colors, I believe.

> Hanfstaengl composed both Brownshirt and Hitler Youth marches patterned
> after his Harvard football songs and, he later claimed, devised the chant
> "Sieg Heil"

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

~~~
benj111
"Brown-colored shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large number of
them were cheaply available after World War I"

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung)

Harvard university is Crimson?

------
not_a_cop75
Masked men -> This is the new face of the communist party.

~~~
soared
None of them wore masks.

~~~
brokenmachine
Then why is the title of this post, "Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of
_masked_ men assault protesters, journalists"?

------
hmx48
At what point do we stop calling it the Hong Kong Protests and instead call it
the Hong Kong Riots?

~~~
FabHK
Well, they are distinct - there are the peaceful HK protests by huge
proportions of the population, and then there are some riots, with indications
that they're staged by the triads close to pro-Beijing factions.

------
shuzheng407
you need to know the whole chain of events to understand what happened at Yuen
Long last night. also you need to know the unique identity of Yuen Long in
order to comprehend the situation. Yuen Long is a village of people from
several big family names, they are all relatives in a way. have their own
system and rules and really hate outsiders telling them what to do. in
history, they fought with British, fought with Japanese, with government, HK
government and Police then realize the best way is to allowing
local'daddies'to run local affairs with minimum intervene,except serious
crimes like rape, murders, drugs etc. Protesters dont get this, last week,
they entered Yuen Long enforcing 'democracy', got told off and kicked out.
Local warned, they dont want protesters in their area, if they come back ,YL
locals will teach them a lesson about not to invade into others' community.
but protesters took it as a challenge to their righteousness and claim they
will 'liberal' Yuen Long. Locals got super irritated and with gang history of
this area, they are not afraid of confronting with anyone,violently or not.
so, they did it as they have always done when outsiders disrespect them. local
police did not stand by protesters. but take what happened during last few
weeks, like an officer got a finger bitten off but then was criticized
'excessive violence'etc. of course police have their own emotions, they are
human beings after all, not robots. anyway, this is a tragic situation which
is inevitable to happen , not after so many weeks of tolerance of violence and
breaking law. the protesters once shouted at police asking them to disappear.
and police disappeared. you call for lawlessness, then you have to live with
lawlessness. you dont want to get punished by beating others, then you have to
live with being beaten without anyone punished.

~~~
Renaud
So basically it's ok for the Police to leave an area they were pre-warned will
become violent because that district is controlled by thugs and criminals who
can basically do what they want?

I think you have a distorted view of what the role of Police is in a society.

~~~
basementcat
Authorities are simply leveraging "thugs and criminals" as a force multiplier.

~~~
shuzheng407
Although I dont agree what you said but I understand where it comes
from.having said that, is worth pointing out, in East Asian Society, gangs
have a much more complicated face than in west. there has been a culture of
gang in Easter Asia, actually, nearly every modern party functioning in Japan,
China and Korea has a gang root. China republican party relied on Shanghai
gangs to maintain resistance under Japanese occupation. Japanese Yamaguchi-
gumi is a crucial local power to maintain rules and help with social crisis.
yes, they do bad things,really bad things. but Gangs in East Asia is not only
about bad things. they sometime act like a rule keeper. like in the
heartbroken earthquake in Japan in 2011, local gangs are required to help with
injured and transporting supplies etc, they have their own ways doing
things.police sometimes have some kind of agreements with local
gangs：restraint your people, help us when we need, and we keep one eye closed
for your business.

------
0898
Could one make a case in favour of China's one party system by likening it to
Apple's tightly integrated ecosystem?

I mean, people argue that technology works better when one system controls the
hardware, the software and the ecosystem around it.

Could the same principle apply to human society? Which is an order of
magnitude more complex than a piece of technology.

Again, I don't know if this argument has been made before – or if it's even
one I'd want to make. But I'm just curious if this is something people say?

~~~
abtinf
A hundred million dead in the 20th century wasn’t enough for you?

~~~
0898
If you read my post instead of downvoting, I'm not calling for the end of
Western democracy.

I'm just curious whether people who are in favour of the One Party system use
arguments or metaphors like these.

~~~
FabHK
Yes, this argument has been made.

China apologists frequently cite the higher efficiency of the one party system
compared to democracies hampered by due process.

During the Roman Republic, in time of crisis a dictator could be installed
(for a 6 month period) to "sort things out".

So, the tradeoff between accountability and efficacy has been around for a
while.

~~~
hker
> China apologists frequently cite the higher efficiency of the one party
> system compared to democracies hampered by due process.

In fact, China cannot even claim superiority in terms of economic growth,
because their per capita GDP grows _much slower_ than Taiwan, South Korea, and
Japan for the same period during high growth (see the graph in [1]).

Hence the argument for higher efficiency is in fact misplaced, mostly based on
her accumulated power largely due to huge population. But her population is
aging quickly, and so will her productivity and growth.

[1]: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-state-driven-growth-
mode...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-state-driven-growth-model-is-
running-out-of-gas-11563372006)

------
AFascistWorld
This follows protesters' siege of The Liaison Office of the Central People's
Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

PS: I'm just stating a fact not endorsing anyone here. The "siege" of CCP
office is a very bad move. They are hurting the face of the mainland, provided
excuses and received the ruthless response this political machine was designed
to do.

~~~
y2kenny
No, you did not state fact. The protest at the Liaison Office and the Yuen
Long terrorist attack happened at the same time. The Yuen Long attack is also
now shown (via various news outlet) to be planned well ahead (as early as 7/20
if not earlier.)

