Politics incoming...
This is what media is reporting as a "general strike". In fact there were some transport workers who striked but a lot of this kind of thing - violent mobs shutting down roads & trains, forcing businesses to close because people can't get to work.
HK is in the midst of a neoliberal cultural revolution while Washington has China in its crosshairs. Such a coincidence...
NED Hong Kong grants for 2011-2013
(3 votes)
Comments
(Old Spike)
Why you don't stop & get out:
(sounds retarded)
I really haven't been following these protests so I don't know what is really going on. With that said, I was under the impression that the protest started/are about China implementing extradition process as well as taking more of HK autonomy. Am I missing something? You seem to be following the protest, what are they about?
(Old Spike)
The initial excuse was an extradition bill being put through the HKSAR government. The bill would have allowed criminals to be extradited to the Chinese mainland. HK is a funny city, it's like a country in some ways. It's basically the same colonial setup as when the Brits handed it over in 1997.
It's enjoyed a lot of neoliberal "freedom" in the past 20 years - wages haven't risen but housing & living costs have tripled. Great for the haves, sucks for the have nots. So there is geniune animosity towards the government there & the kids who are protesting behave like everything is the fault of the leader & the central government in Beijing. There are a lot of things driving the protests but needless to say, they're ideological college kids with not much grasp on how the real world works, or economics.
Anyway the bill was essentially killed but the protests had gained so much energy they just changed their focus. Now they have 5 demands. Carrie Lam (HK leader) resign, Police undesignate the riots as riots, and a few others about democracy. Some of those involved are pro-independence for HK.
The violence fom the protesters has been massive compared to the police response. I think the strategy (that would have likely been dictated by Beijing) is to allow them to run out of steam & maintain order as best as possible until then. I think it's finally working because the violence is everywhere in social media (nowhere in western mainstream media) so the regular HK citizens are getting fed up & losing sympathy for the protesters .... even though everyone in HK knows their government is not very good & pretty corrupt.
Hope that's a decent summary, there is much more to say, I've been watching closely & studying the economics & already am familiar with China a bit. In a way I'd like to see HK get humbled because they still have a bit of a snobby colonial attitude where whites are on top, HKers in the middle & they look down their noses at mainlanders. I don't like that.
(Old Spike)
Oh, and the extradition bill itself was totally reasonable. The stories of Beijing being able to arrest people are false. People would have to be guilty of a crime under HK law that comes with at least a 7 year sentence & tried in HK courts before being sent anywhere like what normally happens with extradition. They even put extra measures in place to quell the fears of being easily sent to mainland (mainland prisons are pretty hard). So anyway this automatically rules out the idea that political dissidents would be targetted etc. Problem is, like a lot of rich cities - London, NYC etc, HK is a place used to launder money via real estate. So there was some pushback from the elites & a lot of manipulation of the kids to fight against it. Not to mention the usual US color-revolution tactics - US would like to weaken China any way possible & they're experts at this kind of thing. So yeah, a lot of factors, not cut n dry.
(sounds retarded)
Huh, ok. Thanks for the info!