Matt Treacy looks at developments in Hong Kong.
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That would be in line with both Beijing’s increasingly hardline rhetoric and the extreme measures currently being implemented in China itself, the most severe since the mid 1970s during the Gotterdammerung of former leftie poster boy and world’s leading mass murderer Mao Tse Tung.
The Peoples Congress is simply a Communist Party charade to provide the illusion of consultation. It usually meets twice a year to rubber stamp decisions by the Party leadership. This year’s Congress began on May 22 and is due to end on Thursday 28th.
So the proposals on Hong Kong will be passed before then. In anticipation, the Hong Kong democracy activists have organised rallies over the next number of days. The reaction will be interesting as China has ominously referred not only to subversion, but to breaches of social distancing regulations to deal with Covid 19.
The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, “elected” by an almost exclusively Beijing approved corporate Electoral Commission, has claimed that the proposals will have the support of the people of Hong Kong in further undermining the democratic freedoms of the 1997 Basic Law. The evidence suggests otherwise. In November the local elections saw the pro-democracy groups win 388 of 452 seats, to control 17 of 18 municipal districts in Hong Kong.
Popular support for the democracy parties mirrors mass resistance which has manifested itself in public protests. The protests were successful in forcing a Chinese climbdown on extradition but Beijing countered with moves to have the secret police operate with full legal status and expanded powers in Hong Kong.
While the United States has tended to ignore China’s appalling human rights record since the Nixon detente, the Trump administration has been highly critical and this has expanded to include accusing China of a malign role in the Covid 19 crisis, a criticism strongly backed by Taiwan, Australia and others.
Trump signed a Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in November 2019 although not seemingly without reservations regarding his ability to deal with China as issues arose, much the same way as he has dealt successfully with other key foreign policy areas like North Korea.
Predictably, most of the left supports China with its usual Pavlovian logic that if the Americans are on one side, they must be on the other. Former Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins was one of the few exceptions to that rule and deserves an honourable mention. I wrote about Sinn Féin’s support for the repression in Hong Kong last November.
For some Irish republicans, Britain’s former colonial role in Hong Kong is cited as a reason for their support for China. There is no doubt that Britain played a shameful role in China in the 19th century most notably fighting two wars to force the Chinese to allow the mass importation of opium sold by British merchants. That interference concluded in the treaty of 1898 which gave Britain a 99 year lease that ended in 1997 after the 1984 agreement to transfer sovereignty to China.
To cite this as a reason to support the totalitarian repression of the people of Hong Kong in 2020 is ludicrous. It is apparent that the vast majority of the people of Hong Kong do not want to be subsumed into the totalitarian nightmare that is Xi’s China.
That is the bottom line, and why they ought to be supported. Just as all the other victims of Chinese terror; the Uighirs, Tibetans, Falun Gong, trade unionists, Christians, Buddhists and many others deserve the attention of those claiming to value freedom and democracy and human rights.
Well said, Matt. That China is set to be the 21st uber superpower is very concerning for everyone dedidated to the promotiom of human rights and democracy.
ReplyDeleteHundred per cent. It's hilarious how some 'progressives' if I'm using that term right, are silent on China. I think some of it is to do with China being Trump's enemy.
ReplyDeleteOr more to do it with being an officiaLLY "socialist" state. More a Lenist state capitalist society.
ReplyDeleteI Saw protesters in Hong Kong singing “Rule Britania” and suddenly I lost interest in Them and their cause. Sorry about that but I can’t help it.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that Matt is wrong on almost all counts. There was no democracy in Hong Kong under British rule. it is part of China and therefore subject to Chinese law. the British are lying about the treaty. There is nothing in it that allows Britain any say in what goes on there. The Uighirs are not being terrorised. About ten percent of them are Jihadis and are causing terror in China. The Dalai Lama is not a democrat. He is an old right winger who travels the world rubbing shoulders with anyone who will support him and bad mouthing China. The protesters are pro-British just like the Unionists. what do you think would happen if a gang of students invaded the British parliament and threw a Chinese flag over the speakers chair and demanded socialism? China hasn't invaded any country and yet is being depicted as an aggressor but Britain and the US have invaded half the world without criticism. Israel is constantly bombing its neighbours with impunity. its a bit rich to support Muslims in China when the west has murdered them in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as Libya and Syria. some of you need to do some wider reading and get a few new sources of information.
ReplyDeleteThe protestors are humnan beings demanding democratic rights such as the vote, freedom of assembly, of expression and movement.
ReplyDeleteThe Uighurs are being subjected to genocidal measures such as forced sterilsations and abortion, suppression of their Islamic culture and forced labour.
In case Eddie has forgottenb, China invaded Tibet in 1959 and has settled Han Chinese there and in Xinjiang province ever since. Sounds like Imperialism and settler-colonialism to me.
But, of course in Eddie's mind, only Western govts can be guilty of imperialism and humnan rights abuses.
We are bloody twitchy about Sino-expantionalism in the region, here in Oz.
ReplyDeleteThe main problem is that the ruling CCP cohort and in particular their leader Xi Jinping tackle every source of dissension in the same way, with outright hostility.
Why wouldn't they? It's worked for the West for centuries. The rest of the world would do well to remember that China doesn't give a solitary fuck what the rest of the planet thinks of them. Nobody has helped them in the past, Communisim was gutted in Russia and Europe and they will never tolerate any existential threat to their emerging hegemony.
Hong Kong will be the example China wants the rest of the world to see.
Well Barry it's hardly inspiring to look at the human rights record of the UK/US and other western powers. It's intellectually lazy to just accept the western propaganda about Russia and China. Cuba and Venezuela are also in the gun sights of US imperialism. It's not human rights that motivate the UK/US. Julian Assange wouldn't be interned without trial if they were concerned about human rights. Black people in the US wouldn't be murdered on the streets by paramilitary police if that was the case. Western capitalism is in deep shit. Many countries in the West are becoming more authoritarian as a result. The US empire is crumbling and of course the dying beast is still dangerous. I'm not suggesting that Russia and China don't have problems. I've been to both. The idea that they are a threat to the people of Ireland or the US/UK is complete nonsense. I hope the spinless creeps in Leinster house don't allow rich people from Hong Kong to set up a community in Ireland as is being suggested. When Martin Lee from the HK CBI came to Britain in 1997 to try to get passports for himself and his friends Ted Heath told him to make peace with his fellow Chinese and get on with the rest of his life. It's a shame he didn't tell the Unionists the same but there you go. The devious Boris Johnston is pretending that he's going to issue 3 million passports to them. That shouldn't fool anyone.
ReplyDeleteEddie
ReplyDeleteYou are just engaging in a game of whataboutery. The persecution of the Uighurs is no more acceptable or justifiable than what happened at Guantanamo Bay and the other dark sites of the War on Terror.
Similarly there is no moral differecne between the indiscriminate death and destruction being poured on the people of Yemen by Western armed Saudi Arabia and its allies and that being perpetrated on the people of Syria by Assad and his Russian partners in crime.
Human rights causes should never be judged on what geo-political interests are involved.
Eddie, would you fancy living under the Nationbal Security law that China is proposing for Hong Kong? I swould guess not.
Barry it's not whataboutery. I just refuse to believe the western propaganda about any country. The hypocrisy of the British media should be no surprise to you. I've written to Jon Snow of C4 news several times about Julian Assange. He refuses to reply. He interviewed a Turkish journalist a week or so ago who was threatened with imprisonment for just doing her job. He showed great concern for her plight but refuses to even mention Assange. The media will raise issues abroad whilst ignoring injustice at home. Assad is being accused of crimes he didn't commit. British Foreign office funds the white helmets as a way to achieve regime change in Syria and if it wasn't for the Russians it would be like Libya now. The stories about gassing his people have been proven false but used to attack Syria by the US. Britain is aiding the Saudi war in Yemen so I don't believe anything they say. I've read the agreement between Britain and China. There's nothing in it to justify British claims that China is not honouring it. There's 10 million Uighirs in China most of them perfectly happy there. About 10% have been radicalised by Saudi clerics who are planting bombs and slashing people in the streets. These are the same people who are being armed and funded by the West in Syria. What do you want the Chinese and Syrian governments to do? Surrender to them. The US/UK are reaping what they sowed in Afghanistan and Iran. They created the problem and are now pretending to give a shit. The Chinese and Russians are not stupid. They know what's in store for them if they try to appease the West. Western propaganda is designed to blind their own people to their real intentions. It's working well so far. Hermann Goering said it was easy to fool the people with propaganda about an external threat. Look what happened to Corbyn. Sums it up really.
ReplyDeleteEddie
ReplyDeleteYou are rehashing allegations about the Syrian White Knights that haVE been comprehensivdely refuted as lies. Your statement that Aasad is not guilty of war crimes would do credit to Walter Duranty. Accxording to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights , the Assad regime has been responsible for 92% of the vioient deaths in the Syrian conflict. It is beyond question that only the Assad regime had the capability to carry out the Gouta sarin gas atrocity that killed 1,400 civilians in August 2013 and the later chemical attacks on Douma anbd elsewhere.
Have you heard of the Ceasar prison complex outside Damascus where 13,000 people have been tortured and murdered. Your defecne of Assad and Putin is reprensibnle but sadly not umknown amongst the regressive left.
If you are so enamoured of repressicve states like Russia, China and Veneuezela then how about trying to live in them.
Lastly waht happned to Corbyn waq that he got a massive thumbs xdown from the British electorate. Simple as.
ReplyDeleteIt is not sensible for me to continue this conversation as you seem to be completely taken in by the Western propaganda. You don’t have to believe me about any of this, go look at the evidence from people like General Wesley Clarke who exposed the US plan for the destruction of nearly all the countries in the Middle East. Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran being the main ones. This plan was formulated under the Program for the new American Century.
I will leave you with this document which casts doubt on the whole narrative on Syria. It is just one item of information that is out there if you are interested. its doubtful that you are.
as for Corbyn, its a bit naïve to believe that it was that simple. the whole power of the British state was utilised to make sure that a man who couldn't be bought could never become PM. Four years of daily smears by the corporate media and even an intervention from an unnamed army general were wheeled into action.
This is an extract from an article by Vanessa Beeley, a journalist who actually lives in Syria unlike some of the reports from hacks living in London writing about the illegal attack on a sovereign nation which is an act of aggression, illegal under international law.
In 2013 the UN produced the weapons inspectors' report on the chemical attack that took place in a Damascus suburb on August 21.
Although the 38-page report did not apportion blame, and in spite of plenty of evidence to the contrary, the Syrian government was deemed the culprit by Western powers.
But a classified document, dated August 2013, leaked to US media outlet WND shows that the Syrian rebels are capable of using poison gas.
"The document reveals that sarin was confiscated earlier this year from members of the al-Nusra Front, the most influential of the rebel Islamists fighting in Syria," the site reports.
"Sarin from al-Qaida in Iraq had made its way into Turkey and while some was seized, more could have been used in an attack last March on civilians and Syrian troops in Aleppo."
So while UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon can condemn "the most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them in Halabja in 1988," it's dangerous to jump to conclusions about who was responsible.
Ban added: "The international community has a responsibility to ensure that chemical weapons never re-emerge as an instrument of warfare."
The US, of course, is a veteran when it comes to using chemical weapons.
The destroyed generations of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and - now emerging - Libya, with their cancers and unimaginable deformities, are silent, ignored witnesses.
On September 11, as the US mourned its New York dead, a little-noticed, long-delayed World Health Organisation (WHO) report was released.
It studied birth defects, cancers and health anomalies in Iraq linked to its 20-year bombardment by the US and Britain with depleted uranium - chemical, radioactive weaponry.
White phosphorus and other yet to be identified exotic child-exterminators were also used.
The US has done a shameful job of burying the staggering, horrific health epidemic that resulted.
Former UN undersecretary-general Hans von Sponeck, who also served as the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq, notes: "The US government sought to prevent the WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where depleted uranium had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers."
His colleague Denis Halliday, also a former UN humanitarian co-ordinator there, adds that "the WHO has categorically refused - in defiance of its own mandate - to share evidence uncovered in Iraq that US military use of depleted uranium and other weapons have not only killed many civilians, but continue to result in the birth of deformed babies."
good luck.
Vanessa Beeley is a totally descredited, conspiracy theory shill for the Assad regime. Note her use of the word "could". She provideds absolutely no forensic evidence to suggest that rebel groups were responbsible for any of the sarin gas attacks rightly attributed to the Assad regime. I have written about Ms Beeley's role in smearing the White Knights in a TPQ article.
ReplyDeleteBut you are dead right, Eddie. there is no point continuinhg this conversation as you seem quite happy for homicidal dictatorships like those of Ghadaffi and Assad to smash with extreme violence peaceful uprisings for democracy yet scream blue murder at every action of the United States; not that I have any objection to that but it is the sheer fucking hypocrisy of regressive leftists such as yourself in relation to war crimes committed by non-Western actors that i find repellent.
Good night and good luck.
"You are rehashing allegations about the Syrian White Knights that haVE been comprehensivdely refuted as lies." Absolute pish.
ReplyDeleteBeeley and Peter Ford have more integrity than you will ever have. And I don't say that lightly about the sassanaigh.
The White helmets have been exposed as buddies of the jahadis. They have been whitewashed by Holiwood and are funded by the British foreign office. Unfortunately Barry has been indoctrinated by western propaganda. He called me a regressive lefty whatever that is. Does he really think that the US cares about people in foreign lands? He is like a religious fundamentalist. He refuses to listen to anything that contradicts the conventional wisdom. he is concerned only with human rights in other countries. The British ran death squads in the north and have Julian Assange interned without trial and intend to hand him over to the US. His only crime was exposing US war crimes. So the US will let him die in prison for exposing their war crimes but we're expected to believe that they give a shit about people in China and Syria. It's rather sad that people like Barry are so gullible but that's the power of propaganda.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that people like Eddiue are useful idiots for Putin.
ReplyDelete