Betogingen Hong Kong lopen uit de hand

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Op zondag 28 september 2014 13:16 schreef Evienne het volgende:

[..]

Het lijkt niet veel, maar gezien de volgzame aard die na eeuwen aan hersenspoeling de norm leek te zijn, vind ik het toch veelbelovend.

Het protest stond ook eigenlijk gepland voor aanstaande woensdag maar is spontaan vervroegd.

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Op zondag 28 september 2014 13:16 schreef Evienne het volgende:

[..]

Het lijkt niet veel, maar gezien de volgzame aard die na eeuwen aan hersenspoeling de norm leek te zijn, vind ik het toch veelbelovend.

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China’s Hong Kong Mistake

In the summer of 1996, the Chinese Communist Party erected a giant digital clock, fifty feet tall and thirty feet long, beside Tiananmen Square, which counted down the seconds until, as it said in large characters across the top, “The Chinese Government Regains Sovereignty Over Hong Kong.” After a century and a half under British colonial rule, Hong Kong’s restoration, in 1997, was a hugely symbolic moment for China’s national identity, an end to a history of invasion in which, as the Chinese put it, their land was “cut up like a melon” by foreign powers.

Under a deal brokered with the British, China agreed not to alter Hong Kong’s internationalized way of life—including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and other political rights not permitted on the mainland—for half a century. The theory was that, as mainland China continued to climb out of the poverty and political instability of the past, its leaders would gradually allow more political openness on the mainland. After a half century, or so the thinking went, the gap between the mainland and its reunited territory would have narrowed so much that they could mesh without much difficulty.

But, after nearly two decades, things are turning out differently. On Sunday, the Beijing government rejected demands for free, open elections for Hong Kong’s next chief executive, in 2017, enraging protesters who had called for broad rights to nominate candidates. China’s National People’s Congress announced a plan by which nominees must be vetted and approved by more than fifty per cent of a committee that is likely to be stacked with those who heed Beijing’s wishes. If that plan comes to pass, opposition figures who favor more democracy have little chance of making it onto the ballot. (As Boss Tweed liked to say, “I don’t care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.”)

The crisis, which will likely grow, is proving to be a test not only of Hong Kong’s political culture but also of which political ethic will prevail across China in the years ahead: globalism or nationalism, two fundamentally different conceptions of how China will relate to the rest of the world. Hong Kong takes pride in its role as Asia’s original global city, a cultural and political mashup with a raucous, multilingual press corps and hot and noisy local politics—a largely borderless world of money, people, and ideas. Its courts rely on English common law, which is, in theory, free from political influence.

But, on the mainland, even as China’s economy has continued to grow and its population has become more integrated with the world, leaders have set new limits on political liberalization. They have concluded that greater democracy would threaten political stability and sovereignty, and they believe that China must instead adhere to its own centralized, one-party model. Last summer, as the scholar Sebastian Veg described, the Party circulated an internal directive to members that singled out seven “do not mention” topics: “democracy, universal values, civil society, market liberalism, media independence, criticizing errors in the history of the Party (‘historical nihilism’), and questioning the policy of opening up and reforms and the socialist nature of the regime.”

Hong Kong’s growing activist network, known as Occupy Central (named after the city’s downtown) has increasingly alarmed leaders in Beijing, and they now describe the activism as a brush fire that could sweep over the mainland. In a piece published on Saturday, the People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, hinted about foreign agitators “attempting to turn Hong Kong into a bridgehead for subverting and infiltrating the Chinese mainland. This can absolutely not be permitted.”

In theory, China’s President, Xi Jinping, could have sought a middle road that would have opened up the nominating process enough to produce a competitive election. But, when the protests began earlier this year, Beijing worried that backing down would embolden further acts of resistance, not only in Hong Kong but also on the mainland. “If we yield because some people threaten to commence radical, illegal activities, it would only result in more, bigger illegal activities,” Li Fei, a mainland official, told Hong Kong lawmakers.

That is a strategy that points toward confrontation. Beijing chose the safer, short-term solution, but it left in place the ingredients for growing tension. Benny Tai, a law professor and opposition leader, said that the announcement opened a new “era of resistance.” “Today is not only the darkest day in the history of Hong Kong’s democratic development,” he told reporters. “Today is also the darkest day of one country, two systems,” a reference to the relationship between Hong Kong and the government in Beijing.

The most important questions are now up to the opposition: How far will pro-democracy activists go? Historically, Hong Kong’s political culture is loud and demonstrative, but not violent. The protesters have vowed to block Hong Kong’s financial district, in order to bring it to a standstill. But will it be a symbolic effort or a functional attempt to force a confrontation?

In turn, how will the Beijing-backed local government respond? Not long ago, it would have been unthinkable to imagine People’s Liberation Army vehicles on the streets of Hong Kong, but in the past quarter century the Party has shown that it is prepared to take whatever steps it deems necessary to tamp down public protests. On Sunday, hundreds of local police, and dozens of their vehicles, were arrayed around Hong Kong’s government headquarters. Last week, at least four P.L.A. armored personnel carriers were spotted in the streets.

Most important, if the confrontation becomes more acute, how will Hong Kong’s largely moderate middle class respond? So far, it has provided ambivalent support for the Occupy Central movement, fearing that unrest, even for popular ideas, could undermine the city’s business climate or invite harsher measures from Beijing. But how many of Hong Kong’s citizens will see a show of force as a reason to back down, and how many will see it as a reason to join the more radical pro-democracy camp?

The struggle over political values at the center of this crisis runs much deeper than the technical debate over Hong Kong’s elections. It is likely to get worse before it gets better. In a statement on Sunday, the Occupy Central activists described a sense of desperation, a belief that “all chances of dialogue have been exhausted and the occupation of Central will definitely happen.” It did not say when that occupation will begin.

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Op zondag 28 september 2014 13:10 schreef HighVolume het volgende:
Het volk een keuze geven

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Op zondag 28 september 2014 13:10 schreef HighVolume het volgende:
Het volk een keuze geven

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Hong Kong citizens urged to continue protests as police withdraw

Numbers of pro-democracy demonstrators rise, paralysing parts of financial hub, after riot police are taken off streets

An organiser of Hong Kong’s civil disobedience movement has urged thousands of citizens to keep up pro-democracy protests across the city until the government addresses their demands.

Crowds of demonstrators blocking key roads swelled again on Monday afternoon, despite an apparent step back by police, with others saying they planned to join the throng as soon as they finished work.

Police attempts to use teargas to clear huge protests from Admiralty and Central in downtown Hong Kong late on Sunday backfired, instead spurring more people to take to the streets, with numbers peaking in the tens of thousands. New protests sprang up in Causeway Bay and Mongkok, in Kowloon.

“What we have seen is spontaneous – without leadership, without prior organisation, of its own volition … a people’s movement. We simply want basic dignity. We simply want to be respected,” said lawmaker Alan Leong of the Civic party.

Parts of the financial hub, generally known for its orderliness, were paralysed by the protesters on Monday. Banks, schools and some businesses were closed. But in Central, businesses operated as usual and in Causeway Bay, tourists and shoppers made their way around the demonstrations.

The government announced on Monday morning that riot police had been taken off the streets – though a few were later seen on duty – as citizens had “mostly calmed down”. It urged people to unblock roads and disperse. Police later told a press conference they had used what they believed to be a minimal level of force.

Chan Kin-man, one of Occupy Central’s leaders, said Hong Kong residents should continue to protest as long as there was no risk of escalated force, pointing out that the chief executive of Hong Kong, Leung Chun-ying, had said police would not shoot at protesters or seek help from the People’s Liberation Army. But he told the South China Morning Post: “We’re worried that there are people infiltrating to cause trouble.”

Protests have been peaceful to date, with participants holding their hands in the air as they confronted police.

Hong Kong enjoys considerable autonomy under the “one country, two systems” framework and China has long promised universal suffrage for the election of the next chief executive in 2017. But protesters are furious that rules announced by Beijing will impose such tight controls on candidates that a democrat could not even stand. They see the decision as part of a broader attempt to tighten controls on the region.

The non-violent civil disobedience movement was expected to start on Wednesday, a public holiday. But it kicked off over the weekend after students who had been running class boycotts invaded the government compound at Admiralty, which police had blocked off.

The organisers spent months planning Occupy Central with Love and Peace, but it has now taken on a life and perhaps a name of its own. Some dubbed it “the umbrella revolution” in reference to the umbrellas that have sprung up over protesters’ heads each time they fear a teargas or pepper spray attack. Demonstrators are also equipped with masks, and hardware stores said they had sold out of goggles.

“This is a watershed,” said Hung Ho-fung of Johns Hopkins University, noting that mass protests in the past had occurred with police approval.

“This time people are using civil disobedience and setting up barricades. There’s also the disruptive aspect; in the past, they emphasised that demonstrations would not affect everyday life. This time they really don’t care. I really haven’t seen anything like this in Hong Kong history.”

But, he warned: “Beijing has put itself in a corner and I don’t think it can back down. I think it’s out of Beijing’s expectations that Hong Kong people would be so persistent and so provoked by the decision.”

In previous cases where protests against Chinese government plans have led to those plans being dropped – such as 2012’s plans for compulsory “national education” – the decisions have formally been made by the Hong Kong leadership. This time, the framework for reforms was announced by the standing committee for Beijing’s National People’s Congress, meaning Beijing is explicitly tied to it and cannot portray a shift as a decision by the Hong Kong government.

Hung predicted that they would use loyalists to mobilise the counter-argument, with people warning of the need to prevent chaos.

“That might gain ground over time. But people see very clearly that the chaos has been created by the government’s use of force,” he said.

In some parts of the city, commuters cheered protesters. But Agence France-Presse reported that there were angry confrontations in Mong Kok between the activists and people annoyed by the disruption.

The Hong Kong dollar fell to a six-month low when trading opened, and shares slipped to a three-month low.

More schools have gone on strike – students had already announced that last week’s class boycott was now an indefinite campaign – and the government decided to close schools in the Central, Wanchai and Western districts. Several banks closed branches and around 200 bus routes were suspended, the South China Morning Post reported. Civil servants were sent home early.

The government has cancelled plans for the annual firework display to celebrate China’s national holiday on Wednesday, when a surge in mainland visitors is expected.

Coca-Cola transport workers went on strike in support of the protests, as did some social workers.

Officials say 41 people, including police, have been injured since protests began and 78 arrested for offences including forcible entry into government premises, unlawful assembly and obstructing police.

Occupy Central and others appear to be prioritising the demand to oust Leung, the highly unpopular chief executive. That seems a more achievable outcome than a rolling back of the electoral reform plans. Although, since the protests have taken on a momentum of their own, uniting all those on the streets could prove difficult.

In a statement, Occupy Central said Leung’s refusal to enter direct talks with people had driven Hong Kong into a crisis of disorder, which would be defused by his resignation.

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Op maandag 29 september 2014 13:11 schreef Igen het volgende:
Interessant.

Als ik kijk naar een paar statusupdates op de sociale media van mensen uit mainland China:

Eén iemand is geïrriteerd dat Instagram geblokkeerd

En iemand heeft een link naar een artikeltje "It's the economy, stupid!" (maar dan in het Chinees) gepost, maar de inhoud is gecensureerd.

Met de titel is het nog wel terug te vinden hier. Met een vertaalprogramma begrijp ik dat het een opiniestuk is dat stelt dat Hong Kong eigenlijk nog steeds een koloniaal bestuur heeft. Een uitsluitend uitvoerend apparaat, dat voor strategische visies altijd van Londen afhankelijk is geweest en nu stuurloos is geworden, en lukraak heen en weer zwalkt al naar de waan van de dag in de publieke opinie. Een angstige publieke opinie, die alleen maar bedreigingen ziet in plaats van kansen - wat uiteindelijk ook de economie afknijpt. De suggestie wordt gewekt dat de mensen van Hong Kong daarom mainland China als vervanging voor Londen als strategische beleidsbepaler zouden moeten zien, en zichzelf in de voet schieten door zich daartegen te verzetten.

Maar dat is blijkbaar toch ook weer niet de boodschap die de Chinese internetcensureerders graag zien.

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Protest marches and vigils are fairly common in Hong Kong, but what began on Friday and escalated dramatically on Sunday is unprecedented. Mass acts of civil disobedience were met by a shocking and swift police response, which has led to clashes in the streets and popular outrage so great that analysts can only guess at what will happen next.

What's going on in Hong Kong right now is a very big deal, and for reasons that go way beyond just this weekend's protests. Hong Kong's citizens are protesting to keep their promised democratic rights, which they worry — with good reason — could be taken away by the central Chinese government in Beijing. This moment is a sort of standoff between Hong Kong and China over the city's future, a confrontation that they have been building toward for almost 20 years.

This began with a movement called Occupy Central but escalated when police surprised them with force

On Wednesday, student groups led peaceful marches to protest China's new plan for Hong Kong's 2017 election, which looked like China reneging on its promise to grant the autonomous region full democracy (see the next section for what that plan was such a big deal). Protest marches are pretty common in Hong Kong so it didn't seem so unusual at first.

Things started escalating on Friday. Members of a protest group called Occupy Central (Central is the name of Hong Kong's downtown district) had planned to launch a "civil disobedience" campaign on October 1, a national holiday celebrating communist China's founding. But as the already-ongoing protesters escalated they decided to go for it now. On Friday, protesters peacefully occupied the forecourt (a courtyard-style open area in front of an office building) of Hong Kong's city government headquarters along with other downtown areas.

The really important thing is what happened next: Hong Kong's police cracked down with surprising force, fighting in the streets with protesters and eventually emerging with guns that, while likely filled with rubber bullets, look awfully militaristic. In response, outraged Hong Kong residents flooded into the streets to join the protesters, and on Sunday police blanketed Central with tear gas, which has been seen as a shocking and outrageous escalation. The Chinese central government issued a statement endorsing the police actions, as did Hong Kong's pro-Beijing chief executive, a tacit signal that Beijing wishes for the protests to be cleared.

You have to remember that this is Hong Kong: an affluent and orderly place that prides itself on its civility and its freedom. Hong Kongers have a bit of a superiority complex when it comes to China, and see themselves as beyond the mainland's authoritarianism and disorder. But there is also deep, deep anxiety that this could change, that Hong Kong could lose its special status, and this week's events have hit on those anxieties to their core.

This all goes back to a promise China made in 1997 — and might be breaking

This began in 1997, when the United Kingdom handed over Hong Kong, one of its last imperial possessions, to the Chinese government. Hong Kong had spent over 150 years under British rule; it had become a fabulously wealthy center of commerce and had enjoyed, while not full democracy, far more freedom and democracy than the rest of China. So, as part of the handover, the Chinese government in Beijing promised to let Hong Kong keep its special rights and its autonomy — a deal known as "one country, two systems."

A big part of that deal was China's promise that, in 2017, Hong Kong's citizens would be allowed to democratically elect their top leader for the first time ever. That leader, known as the Hong Kong chief executive, is currently appointed by a pro-Beijing committee. In 2007, the Chinese government reaffirmed its promise to give Hong Kong this right in 2017, which in Hong Kong is referred to as universal suffrage — a sign of how much value people assign to it.

But there have been disturbing signs throughout this year that the central Chinese government might renege on its promise. In July, the Chinese government issued a "white paper" stating that it has "comprehensive jurisdiction" over Hong Kong and that "the high degree of autonomy of [Hong Kong] is not an inherent power, but one that comes solely from the authorization by the central leadership." It sounded to many like a warning from Beijing that it could dilute or outright revoke Hong Kong's freedoms, and tens of thousands of Hong Kong's citizens marched in protest.

Then, in August, Beijing announced its plan for Hong Kong's 2017 elections. While citizens would be allowed to vote for the chief executive, the candidates for the election would have to be approved by a special committee just like the pro-Beijing committee that currently appoints the chief executive. This lets Beijing hand-pick candidates for the job, which is anti-democratic in itself, but also feels to many in Hong Kong like a first step toward eroding their promised democratic rights.

It's about much more than one election: democracy, Tiananmen, and an uncertain future

People in Hong Kong have long wondered whether the Chinese government, famous for its heavy-handed authoritarianism and its fear of democracy, would really allow Hong Kong to become fully democratic or even keep what freedoms it had under British rule. The 2017 election was going to be a test case. So when China began to break its promises for the election, it raised a very scary question: is Beijing just going to erode Hong Kong's freedoms a little bit, or is it going to impose the same dictatorial rule it uses in mainland China, one of the least free societies in the world?

So these protests aren't just about Beijing's plan to hand-pick candidates for the 2017 election, they're about whether Hong Kong will remain fundamentally free, an ongoing and open-ended question that will continue for years no matter how these protests resolve.

The other thing you have to understand is that the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, in which the Chinese military mowed down 2,600 peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Beijing and other cities, looms awfully large in Hong Kong. While Hong Kong was unaffected by the massacre (it was under British rule at the time), the city holds an annual vigil in memory of the event, which has been so heavily censored in China itself that many young people have never heard of it.

Hong Kongers feel they have a responsibility to keep memory of Tiananmen for the fellow Chinese who cannot, but they also earnestly fear that it could happen to them. So that is a big part of why Hong Kong's residents are so upset to see their police donning military-like uniforms and firing tear gas this weekend; it feels like an echo, however faint, of 1989's violence. And in July, when Hong Kong residents protested the Chinese "white paper" implicitly arguing that China could revoke their freedoms, some pro-Beijing officials seemed to warn, even so subtly, that China's military could hypothetically put down any unrest in Hong Kong.

The protesters and Beijing are both hoping to force Hong Kong's divided public to decide on their future
This crisis comes in the middle of a political division among the citizens of Hong Kong, who embrace their freedoms but also tend to be conservative, over their future as part of China. Some are okay with integrating with the rest of China, or at least accept it as inevitable and don't want to kick up too much of a fuss, while some want to fight for democracy and autonomy. (There are other layers to this debate, such as Chinese nationalism versus Hong Kong exceptionalism; there's also a strong law-and-order constituency.)

You saw that split in a mid-September opinion poll asking Hong Kongers whether or not they should accept Beijing's plan for the 2017 election: 48 percent said Hong Kong should reject the plan as insufficiently democratic, while 39 percent said they should accept the deal despite the tradeoffs.

That public opinion split among Hong Kong residents is what makes this week really important. The protesters were hoping to galvanize public opinion against Beijing's plan for the 2017 election, and against China's more gradual erosion of Hong Kong's freedoms. But Beijing (and Hong Kong's pro-Beijing chief executive) seemed to hope that, by unleashing this highly unusual crackdown, they could nudge Hong Kong's ever-conservative mainstream against the protesters and in favor of the status quo.

In other words, both the pro-democracy protesters and Beijing are hoping to force Hong Kong's public to choose whether or not to accept, at a fundamental level, China's growing control over Hong Kong politics. If the public tacitly accepts Beijing's terms for the 2017 election, it will likely be taken as a green light for more limits on Hong Kong's democracy and autonomy, however subtle those limits end up being. But if Hong Kong residents join the protesters en masse, they will be rejecting not just the 2017 election terms, but the basic terms of Hong Kong's relationship with the central Chinese government.

It is simply too early to tell which direction these protests will go. Although early indications suggest that thousands of residents began joining the students in protest on Sunday, it's not clear if this will grow significantly larger, as is probably necessary to force change, or will fizzle out under police pressure. However it resolves, though, this is a potentially decisive moment for Hong Kong and the uncertainty that has hung over its future ever since 1997.

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Op maandag 29 september 2014 13:21 schreef Igen het volgende:

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Lijkt erop alsof de Chinese overheid bang is dat elke aandacht voor het probleem, hoe slijmerig dan ook, toch aandacht is en toch burgers kan laten nadenken of het misschien niet toch anders is, en het daarom maar liever gewoon helemaal dood wil zwijgen. Over de protesten op het Plein van de Hemelse Vrede van 25 jaar geleden is immers ook geen officiële lezing, dat wordt ook gewoon compleet doodgezwegen.

Hier trouwens nog een interessant achtergrondartikel:
http://www.vox.com/2014/9(...)shes-china-explainer

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From Gary Pollard (former head of RTHK English TV):

"The overseas news reports keep trying to explain why so many Hong Kong people are so dispirited and angry, and they keep only scratching the surface. Start with this: that the parents or grandparents of almost every Hongkonger came here to escape the politics and the chaos of mainland China.

Today, they look at a local government made up almost entirely of people chosen for their loyalty to the PRC, irrespective of their ability or their personal ethics. Almost every government minister has profound "communist" sympathies or former DAB or leftist connections. That is the only reason they are there. It feels to many Hong Kong people that they are trapped, ruled by these people. No one voted for them.

That would not seem so bad if the Legislative Council could impose any restraints on the government. But too few observers understand or care that the Legislative Council is half made up of functional constituencies who are either kowtowing to Beijing or to big business. There is a split voting system where legislation must be passed both by geographically elected legislators and these special interest legislator, who are basically lobbyists. The public did not vote for them, but they can veto ANY legislation aimed at controlling the government or supporting grassroot interests.That is why Legco becomes solely a space for political theatre. Because democrats and pro-grassroots legislators can achieve nothing there. NO WORTHWHILE LEGISLATION THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT LIKE CAN BE PASSED. EVER. It feels to many Hong Kong people that they are trapped, ruled by this system.

More and more young people feel they can't have children. Many cannot even afford to get married. Rents sky rocket. Homes of their own are too expensive. Prices are being driven up by property developers and mainland investors. The government and the CE hare the idea of rent control or seriously changing this. If you send your kids to public school, the government wants to feed them a propagandist version of history. The compulsory application of this is blocked for now, but some schools are doing it anyway. If you want to send them to a good private school, forget it. You probably can't afford it. It feels to many Hong Kong people that they and their next generation are trapped, ruled by these circumstances.

The media could help. But look at the people given pride of place when the tycoons went to Beijing. And you know that the media are not inclined to help. Hong Kong has about one and a half papers that do not toe the line. Its commercial TV stations are both pandering to political interests. Self censorship is rife. Local broadcast media are turning away from international English-language programming, which lowers HK's profile worldwide. It feels to many Hong Kong people that they are finding no help there, so they turn to social media instead. But they feel the forums for debate are shrinking.

And then there's the influx of mainlanders. This is nothing against the mainlanders themselves, but Hongkongers do feel they are being used as a deliberate part of assimilation: to mainlandise their home and remove it of its identity.

So, international press, look deeper. This is NOT just a petty argument about public nomination for the Chief Executive. It's about having room to breathe. It is about a sense of complete despair, of seeing no direction open.

Hongkongers are not stupid. I to not believe they would choose a Chief Executive that the PRC has the ability to reject anyway. They just want to breathe and not feel they are being boxed into an ever tighter and tighter corner where someone is about to turn the lights out for good. This is no rebellion. It's desperation."

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Opnieuw grote protesten in Hongkong

De protesten voor democratie in Hong Kong breiden zich uit. Op steeds meer plekken in de Chinese stad verschenen maandag betogers.

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Op maandag 29 september 2014 13:50 schreef One_conundrum het volgende:
https://www.facebook.com/(...)911.686680699&type=1

Het zal aanzwellen, tot er woensdag makkelijk meer dan 200k mensen in de benen zijn.

twitter:

libdave twitterde op zondag 28-09-2014 om 19:41:34 Chinese TV describes #OccupyCentral crowds 'a mass celebration of Oct 1st National Day'. Utterly shameless http://t.co/7cDw62RwNr reageer retweet