Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

** 27-Jul-2019 World View: Hong Kong protests continue

• Protesters on Saturday preparing for teargas

It's Saturday, and there was (and is ongoing) another large
anti-Beijing demonstration in Hong Kong. The protests have been going
on for seven weeks.

The protesters' strategy has changed. In 2014 umbrella protests, the
protesters were static, staying in one place for weeks. The 2019
protests have been different in that they've been taking place in
different part of the city and suburbs every week.

The protests have been peaceful, but the protesters have been
provoking Beijing by disobeying police orders and by displaying
British flags, British colonial flags, and American flags.

Beijing media has become much more belligerent in the last week,
calling the protests "violent" and "riots," and accusing foreigners,
including the US, of instigating the protests. This could be a sign
that the Chinese military is about to intervene, as they did in the
1989 Tiananmen Square (Beijing) massacre of thousands of young college
students.

However, some analysts have pointed out that there is an important
difference between Hong Kong today and Tiananmen Square massacre. In
1989, the milltary could perform the massacre, force all the students
to go home, force the international media to go home, and then just
continue as before, pretending that nothing had even happened.

But a similar intervention in Hong Kong today would have a very
different outcome. Hong Kong in China is supposed to be governed by a
"one country, two systems" agreement, and a Tiananmen Square style
military intervention in Hong Kong would mean the final end to the one
country, two systems arrangement. Furthermore, Hong Kong is a central
pathway from Beijing "middle kingdom" to the barbarians in the outer
world, and international news coverage is well established, and so
there's no chance of pretending that nothing happened.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) really couldn't care less what the
international community thinks of them. After all, they're committing
genocide and ethnic cleansing of Uighurs and Kazakhs, they've
violently beating, torturing, and punishing Christians, Buddhists and
Muslims for the crime of worshipping a different God other than Xi
Jinping, and they're freely destroying churches, temples and mosques
at will.

But those atrocities are all, like the Tiananmen Square massacre, all
contained within China, and Chinese officials can make ridiculous
claims that the atrocities aren't happening. But atrocities in Hong
Kong would have video on international media. Even more important,
Hong Kong's use by the CCP's United Front Work Department (UFWD) to
control China's citizens abroad would be contained. In Taiwan, where
the CCP has been promising a "one country, two systems" agreement like
Hong Kong, pro-independence would strongly reassert itself.

This could lead to war between China and Taiwan. Another path to war
would be if Britain sent warships to Hong Kong to evacuate British
citizens left over from the colonial days, and China objected.

---- Sources:

-- Special train service arranged from Long Ping station for Hong Kong
protesters
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/poli...-hong-kong
(South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 27-Jul-2019)

-- Hong Kong / Defying police ban, HK protesters return to gang-attack
scene
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/d...17273.html
(Al-Jazeera, 27-Jul-2019)

-- Hong Kong police fire tear gas after protesters defy ban
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wir...t-64602429
(AP, 27-Jul-2019)