Hong Kong - Tiananmen all over again?

I was hoping to get some insight on the matter, especially from any comrades living in China. So these pro-western uprisings continue to pop up with the full backing of western diplomats on the ground, although the same can't seem to be said the other way round as I have yet to have seen Russian or Chinese officials liaising with say the yellow vest protesters. The Chinese government seems to have been quite restrained thus far, but all of this naturally brings back memories of Tiananmen Square.

The reason I bring up the comparison is the timing. Tiananmen took place when a wave of revolutions swept across the eastern bloc countries, naturally spreading throughout the rest of the socialist world with the support of the west. Now we're sort of seeing the same thing after all the western sponsored colour revolutions that have been taking place recently. This is why I tend to have doubts about the legitimacy of the demands of these protesters, which at first glance don't seem to merit such a reaction.

Opinions comrades? What's the dealio?

Tiananmen square protests were fueled by specifically Chinese grievances after the Deng Xiaoping, namely stripping away of social benefits from state owned enterprises employees (China had a similar system to the USSR, where SOEs provided housing, medical care, etc, but unlike the USSR had no universal guarantees from municipal governments). The big motivation for students was that they saw that after graduation they would not have this kind of employment, meanwhile people connected to the Party on regional and national levels were doing very well, as corruption grew and the government turned a blind eye to Party officials becoming businessmen. So a combination of corruption, growing inequality and lack of good jobs with social guarantees made people see injustice and protest it.

Hong Kong is very different as it was a British colony and only got "democracy" as part of its transition to becoming part of China. Today it is wealthier than any other part of China, but the economy has reached a standstill and there is no affordable housing due to speculation and status as a financial center, so people can't migrate to China as they would be worse off and can't stay because their lives suck and will not improve. Obviously they blame China for this, while China needs Hong Kong as that's where they stash much of their money or funnel it through to investments abroad, especially ill gotten gains from corruption.

I don't think Western interference played much of a role in either, except as propaganda and perhaps advisors on tactics for the latter. Without the social basis the Hong Kong protests are about nothing, and as they lost the social content and became explicitly shit like putting the colonial flag up, they also stopped being like 1/3 of the city marching and just became violence, racism against mainland Chinese, etc, which we have gotten used to seeing from the nativists in past protests. There are also legitimate social grievances though, as life there seems pretty awful even if you are middle class and not rich.

Here is a good article from 24 September 2019: The Hong Kong protests and imperialism: What the corporate media isn’t saying.

Besides that it is important to note the 'one country, two systems' principle that exists within China. I'd find it hard to believe that these protests would expand into the mainland.

Did you guys see the video of the protesters setting a pro-Chinese man alight? What a bunch of fuсking savages. It will be interesting to see how things unfold now that pan-democratic candidates have won in the elections.

Hopefully this topic is not too distant for my post to be considered necro...

The Hong Kong protests are nothing more than the same color revolution formula that the NED and CIA apply to places they cannot take down militarily or through the ballot box, such as Venezuela. The formula worked well in Bolivia and Ukraine, in recent times. Of course for a place like Hong Kong, there is no overthrowing the system, but the unrest is enough to keep China occupied and to score a propaganda victory against China.

Two things to note about these events
1. The western press in Hong Kong make it a point not to report the hooliganism carried out by the nihilistic, US flag waving masked thugs, but will swarm around any notion of a possibly brutal police response.
2. It is noteworthy how much coverage Hong Kong protests get, while the year-long Yellow Vest protests in France barely get any coveragez at least in the US. Sad but very predictable.

It seems like waiting it out is China's best option, although it must be hell for regular Hong Kong citizens.

Not all Communists in the region are supportive of the actions taken by Beijing to squench the protesters . The Japanese Communist Party has come out with this statement . http://www.jcp.or.jp/english/jcpcc/blog/2019/11/20191114-immediate-cessation-of-suppression-in-hong-kong.html And , as one might expect , the Trotskyists of Hong Kong have condemned the PRC in this regard . https://chinaworker.info/en/2019/09/27/21290/ , https://chinaworker.info/en/2019/11/26/22004/ So make of that what you will .

One would hope the message from JCP is not necessarily in opposition, but friendly warning of restraint. Of course, compared to most police forces facing violent protests, the Hong Kong police appears to be restrained in their response.

As for the Trotskyists in Hong Kong, their rhetoric mirrors that of the uncritical soundbites that come from western media, when talking about this being a democracy movement, or of the "concentration camps" of Xinjiang. It does the group a disservice to mimic shoddy western interpretations of the situation.

Marshal Konev wrote:

One would hope the message from JCP is not necessarily in opposition, but friendly warning of restraint. Of course, compared to most police forces facing violent protests, the Hong Kong police appears to be restrained in their response.

As for the Trotskyists in Hong Kong, their rhetoric mirrors that of the uncritical soundbites that come from western media, when talking about this being a democracy movement, or of the "concentration camps" of Xinjiang. It does the group a disservice to mimic shoddy western interpretations of the situation.

From this article I just found , originally printed in the South China Post , the Japanese Communist Party had really come down hard on the Communist Party of China . https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/world/chinese-communist-partys-chauvinism-a-threat-to-peace-japanese-counterpart/ar-BBZ94fB?li=BBr8Mkj While I do not wish to rush to judgment , I do feel that the opinions of dissident comrades from the region , and especially from the territory of the People's Republic of China , and more specifically Hong Kong , should not be easily dismissed . And in addition , I have heard of there being a crack down on Marxists even , in the PRC . { https://www.npr.org/2018/11/21/669509554/in-china-the-communist-partys-latest-unlikely-target-young-marxists , https://www.businessinsider.com/china-communist-party-crack-down-on-student-communists-2018-11 , https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/no-place-for-real-marxists-in-communist-china/ , https://www.newser.com/story/142340/china-cracks-down-on-maoists.html }

Jason24 wrote:

Not all Communists in the region are supportive of the actions taken by Beijing to squench the protesters

Not an expert on law enforcement in 1 Country 2 Systems but has Beijing done anything? I mean the vocally disagreed with the violence but the police in Hong Kong aren't from the mainland China. They're from Hong Kong under orders from Security Bureau of Hong Kong.

Oh , I don't know . I had just assumed that something like the People's Armed Police would have gotten involved . But perhaps not then . Here are some articles I just found on the situation though . https://warontherocks.com/2019/08/the-re-conquerors-of-hong-kong-a-primer-on-chinas-peoples-armed-police/ , https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/08/12/china-slams-hong-kong-protest-violence-terrorism-peoples-armed-police-drive-neighbouring-guangdong/ , https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/18/chinese-military-police-poised-for-action-over-hong-kong-protests-shenzen , https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-11-06/china-s-internal-suppression-troops-have-plans-hong-kong

I wanna talk a little about XinJiang and the situation with the Uyghurs.

The way I see it there’s two possibilities.

The first is that the situation there is being blown way out of proportion mostly by western jerk-off scatophile propagandists who get their hard-ons crapping on everything Chinese or Russian. What’s probably actually happening is a heavy handed crackdown on separatism, which is in turn pervertedly interpreted as a genocide by the aforementioned coprophiles. In this situation I don’t see that big of a problem besides the fact that many innocent bystanders in absolute numbers will probably get caught in the cross fire. Generally speaking, I believe that separatism is something that should be discouraged and fought against for many reasons that I will gladly adumbrate upon request. Theoretically, exceptions of course do exist to my expressed belief but I could not come up with any concrete historical examples of separatism that I unquestionably support out of hand.

The second albeit highly unlikely situation is that there is a sort of cultural genocide going on whereby Uyghurs are being forcibly reeducated on their loyalties. Although there may indeed be a gross violation of human rights on this point, I just can’t bring myself to feel too sorry for these people. Were we all not forcibly educated as children to believe that our countries’ and parents’ beliefs were above all others? Why is it okay for parents and educational institutions to indoctrinate children in whatever bullshit they deem fit but not when adults are by the Communist Party of China? There are far worse things going on with other peoples suffering under the boot of imperialism for any right minded person to be making too big of a fuss of state sponsored vocational trainings and re-educational programs.

I also find it far fetched that Muslims are being persecuted in Xinjiang but no where else in China. Like I said before, it all seems like a war against separatism rather than on Muslims.

The reports coming out of western media don’t make it any better either. I saw this idiotic video by Vice on the subject on YouTube, whereby some of their most compelling evidence is the large number of surveillance cameras at train stations in Xinjiang. For fuсk’s sake I see more cameras in my apartment complex.

Bay Area 415’s most popular video was on debunking the allegations but he’s had to take his channel down due to death threats and the risk of being doxxed. What the fuсk is up with leftists being unable to express their views lately without having their heads handed to them?

Am I right comrades, or am I being your typical Chinese Communist Party boot-licking apologist?

Yeqon wrote:

I wanna talk a little about XinJiang and the situation with the Uyghurs.

The way I see it there’s two possibilities.

The first is that the situation there is being blown way out of proportion mostly by western jerk-off scatophile propagandists who get their hard-ons crapping on everything Chinese or Russian. What’s probably actually happening is a heavy handed crackdown on separatism, which is in turn pervertedly interpreted as a genocide by the aforementioned coprophiles. In this situation I don’t see that big of a problem besides the fact that many innocent bystanders in absolute numbers will probably get caught in the cross fire. Generally speaking, I believe that separatism is something that should be discouraged and fought against for many reasons that I will gladly adumbrate upon request. Theoretically, exceptions of course do exist to my expressed belief but I could not come up with any concrete historical examples of separatism that I unquestionably support out of hand.

The second albeit highly unlikely situation is that there is a sort of cultural genocide going on whereby Uyghurs are being forcibly reeducated on their loyalties. Although there may indeed be a gross violation of human rights on this point, I just can’t bring myself to feel too sorry for these people. Were we all not forcibly educated as children to believe that our countries’ and parents’ beliefs were above all others? Why is it okay for parents and educational institutions to indoctrinate children in whatever bullshit they deem fit but not when adults are by the Communist Party of China? There are far worse things going on with other peoples suffering under the boot of imperialism for any right minded person to be making too big of a fuss of state sponsored vocational trainings and re-educational programs.

I also find it far fetched that Muslims are being persecuted in Xinjiang but no where else in China. Like I said before, it all seems like a war against separatism rather than on Muslims.

The reports coming out of western media don’t make it any better either. I saw this idiotic video by Vice on the subject on YouTube, whereby some of their most compelling evidence is the large number of surveillance cameras at train stations in Xinjiang. For fuсk’s sake I see more cameras in my apartment complex.

Bay Area 415’s most popular video was on debunking the allegations but he’s had to take his channel down due to death threats and the risk of being doxxed. What the fuсk is up with leftists being unable to express their views lately without having their heads handed to them?

Am I right comrades, or am I being your typical Chinese Communist Party boot-licking apologist?

I'm inclined to feel the same way . Based upon articles I have read , and videos I have seen , it would seem that the PRC is combatting an ETIM terrorist insurgency . https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/what-is-etim-the-uyghur-extremist-group-china-wants-taliban-to-crack-down-on/722635/ , https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-07/The-black-hand-ETIM-and-terrorism-in-Xinjiang-MepKpOPAKA/index.html I am not sure , from an altogether objective standpoint , if the deradicalization methods used by Beijing are appropriate or not , but I do recognize that some measures have had to be taken to pacify the region . And I don't see the United States offering suggestions , and assistance in regards to China's own war on terror . This is all that I can say , given my lack of extensive , detailed information . As Mao Zedong himself once said ,

Comrades, does anyone here have an opinion about China invading Taiwan? Up until recently, I never actually believed it to be a possibility, then again, I never thought Russia would invade Ukraine neither.

Personally, I'm against it. I value human life above all else and resort to violence only as the last inescapable resort, which means that on a practical level I've only ever supported countries that are defending themselves.

I understand that Taiwan is legally a part of China, but I don't see it as that big of a threat to merit an invasion and all the death and destruction that comes with it. Besides, I hear more and more young and educated Taiwanese minds especially from the IT sector have been emigrating to mainland China in search of job opportunities. Taiwan is de facto practically on its way to becoming a part of China slowly but steadily, which makes war look all the more inane to me.

I also want to talk about the multipolar world angle in all of this. I can fully appreciate the importance in countering western hegemony; I just fail to see how invasions can help to accomplish that. Wars are unpredictable, and responding to western imperialism with aggressive wars only legitimises what NATO and America have been doing for the past several decades by saying that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It's also creating a horrendous precedent by butchering international law, not to mention the basic norms of human decency, and it fully revitalises the old pernicious maxim that might is right.

Now I've never fully respected borders and I do believe that countries have a right to influence its neighbours because no country is an island on its own, but influence should never come in the form sheer and callous violence. Why is it that recently more and more people are buying into the idea that two wrongs make a right?

In the same vein, I wouldn't support an invasion of South Korea by the DPRK. I'll reiterate, I would have never brought this all up if it weren't in light of recent events. I've always defended the DPRK, China and all the other victims of Western imperialism first and foremost due to western militarist aggression throughout the centuries. Now every day it seems more and more likely that the tides are about to be turned, and I'd like your opinions on where you all stand.

So I guess the question in the simplest Queen's English would be, would you support an invasion of Taiwan by China or of South Korea by the DPRK?

I too am in favor only of peaceful reunification, on the 'one China two systems' model. Not only would an invasion poison Taiwanese Chinese attitudes toward the mainland, but it would be incredibly risky (much, much more so than Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because it would require a well-coordinated sea- and air-based attack, instead of a land-based campaign). The only way I could see China invading is if they get pushed into/manipulated into it, the same way the United States has successfully manipulated Russia into Ukraine (the details of how that happened I think will become clear only in 5-10 years time, but personally I think there was some kind of ultimatum when Biden and Putin met in 2021). For example, Washington could provoke the Progressive Democratic Party into an open independence push, forcing China to act or risking their strategy of just waiting out the West for as long as it takes.

Yeqon wrote:

I also want to talk about the multipolar world angle in all of this. I can fully appreciate the importance in countering western hegemony; I just fail to see how invasions can help to accomplish that. Wars are unpredictable, and responding to western imperialism with aggressive wars only legitimises what NATO and America have been doing for the past several decades by saying that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It's also creating a horrendous precedent by butchering international law, not to mention the basic norms of human decency, and it fully revitalises the old pernicious maxim that might is right.

Agree. In Asia's case it will lead to the creation of an Asian NATO and/or the further militarization of the region and/or hemming in of China, including the militarization of Japan and possibly nukes in Japan or South Korea. China will become less, not more safe. Just like Russia now has more NATO on its border via Finland. Russia's real only hope now is that the West collapses economically and NATO disintegrates, because our leaders' current rhetoric "Finland in NATO, nah that doesn't bother us" is clearly the meme equivalent of this:

Yeqon wrote:

Now every day it seems more and more likely that the tides are about to be turned, and I'd like your opinions on where you all stand.

Man when you get these feelings it makes me nervous. I remember you getting all worked up about an escalation of the Ukraine crisis, and I was like "pfff that'll never happen. Putin's not retarded." But now, well yeah you were totally right. So if you're feeling that same vibe about the situation in Asia, that's bad.

PS. Ditto on North Korea invading the south. Firstly I'm not certain they could overrun the South Korean militarily even if ROK were on their own. If US/Japan etc got involved there's no possibility of victory for the north I don't think.

I want to post more but I don't have time, so I'll make this quick.
The "Hong Kong Freedom Movement" or whatever they call themselves is at this point the Hong Kong branch of QAnon.

Nobody here should support the DPP; they're a bunch of rabid anti-communists, akin to pro-NATO liberals in Eastern Europe. If they lived there, they would be ripping down and defacing Lenin statues and celebrating fascist collaborators. If the Quad controls Taiwan and the SCS, it'll be a noose around China's neck.

The "preemptive DPRK invasion" is as real and as likely as the "preemptive Soviet invasion" that existed in the heads of NATO strategists and the "Ex" Nazis that ran Western Europe well into the latter half of the 20th century.

I also forgot to say that "International Law" died after the Cold War. It binds but does not protect Russia, China or the countries that align with them; likewise it protects but does not bind the G7 countries and those that align with them.

soviet78 wrote:

Man when you get these feelings it makes me nervous. I remember you getting all worked up about an escalation of the Ukraine crisis, and I was like "pfff that'll never happen. Putin's not retarded." But now, well yeah you were totally right. So if you're feeling that same vibe about the situation in Asia, that's bad.

I am not getting that same vibe with China, not to mention North Korea. I like to think that the communists in Beijing are smarter than the decadent opportunists in Moscow, and so I have more faith in China's foresight and judgement.

What made me nervous about Russia leading up to the invasion was most importantly the buildup and mobilisation of forces, which is something we're not seeing with China. In hindsight maybe it should've been clear as day, but it's like you said, I just never believed Putin to be that brash, callous and impetuous. There simply was no precedent for it in his political career.

The number of Russian soldiers also didn't make any sense to me. The Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia with more than 200,000 troops during the initial stages and then increased it up to almost half a million. Yet in the case of Ukraine, a force around half that size was assembled to invade a country which is five times as large as Czechoslovakia by landmass with five times its population to boot.

Also, NATO and America have lied so much during my lifetime that it made me just incapable of believing anything they had to say. It just turned out that this time, when it was most important, they were right. That's why setting a precedent I believe is so important. Nobody believes a liar.

So if the fate of the world lies in my gut feeling, then you have nothing to worry about for the moment. Hehe.

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@Misuzu

You're way more erudite on east Asia than I am. In the case of China though I hear that a lot of people are pissed off about Xi Jinping's changes to the constitution which permit him to govern for longer than was previously permissible. Is that true and do you have an opinion on that?

I just wanted to post an interesting angle to the situation surrounding Taiwan. It’s one I didn’t know about previously and it certainly put things into perspective for me.

Quote:

One aspect of Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan that has been largely overlooked is her meeting with Mark Lui, chairman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC). Pelosi’s trip coincided with US efforts to convince TSMC – the world’s largest chip manufacturer, on which the US is heavily dependent – to establish a manufacturing base in the US and to stop making advanced chips for Chinese companies.

US support for Taiwan has historically been based on Washington’s opposition to communist rule in Beijing, and Taiwan’s resistance to absorption by China. But in recent years, Taiwan’s autonomy has become a vital geopolitical interest for the US because of the island’s dominance of the semiconductor manufacturing market.

Semiconductors – also known as computer chips or just chips – are integral to all the networked devices that have become embedded into our lives. They also have advanced military applications.

Transformational, super-fast 5G internet is enabling a world of connected devices of every kind and a new generation of networked weapons. With this in mind, US officials began to realise during the Trump administration that US semiconductor design companies, such as Intel, were heavily dependent on Asian-based supply chains for the manufacturing of their products.

In particular, Taiwan’s position in the world of semiconductor manufacturing is a bit like Saudi Arabia’s status in OPEC. TSMC has a 53% market share of the global foundry market (factories contracted to make chips designed in other countries). Other Taiwan-based manufacturers claim a further 10% of the market.

As a result, the Biden administration’s 100-Day Supply Chain Review Report says, “The United States is heavily dependent on a single company – TSMC – for producing its leading-edge chips.” The fact that only TSMC and Samsung (South Korea) can make the most advanced semiconductors (five nanometres in size) “puts at risk the ability to supply current and future [US] national security and critical infrastructure needs” .

This means that China’s long-term goal of reunifying with Taiwan is now more threatening to US interests. In the 1971 Shanghai Communique and the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the US recognised that people in both mainland China and Taiwan believed that there was “One China” and that they both belonged to it. But for the US it is unthinkable that TSMC could one day be in territory controlled by Beijing.

Source: Taiwan dominates the world’s supply of computer chips – no wonder the US is worried