There is a theory that the CCP is deliberately trying to provoke major unrest in Hong Kong to justify sending in mainland security forces or ordering the local cops to mow people down with automatic weapons.
Today’s evidence is the local puppet administration’s announcement that it wants to ram through a National Anthem (Compulsory Adoration) Bill, which would punish acts like booing during a performance of the music punishable by three years in prison. Hey – let’s do something like last year’s Extradition Bill again!
(We could add the Police Commissioner’s declaration that his force wants to arrest a woman accusing his officers of gang-rape, but we’ll put that down to the cops’ own unique approach to public-relations charm.)
A reminder from HK Free Press (from a year ago) about the ‘legal malware’ problems with the looming Ordinance.
Assuming the CCP leaders are not total psychos, the other explanation is a massive failure in their analysis and policymaking: they genuinely have no idea of what public feeling might be, or even any concept that it is something they should be including in their calculations. The new knuckle-draggers running the HK & Macau Affairs and Liaison Office have zero understanding of a free and open society. All they have is a robotic Leninist mindset that dissent and resistance amount to a mortal threat and must be overridden.
Stephen Vines on Beijing’s frustration…
Like a caged wild animal the Party has taken to clawing at the bars and is threatening to burst out of the cage in order to seek bloody revenge. There is a dangerous mood up in Beijing leading the leadership to believe that Hong Kong’s democracy movement can be crushed by brute force.
The government yesterday announced September 6 as the date for the Legislative Council election. Pan-dems quaintly imagine that the process will allow voters to exercise political power. Xinhua notes that polling could be postponed in the event of disturbances such as riots. More likely, Beijing will disqualify candidates, order rubber-stamp legislative procedures, and/or simply start to impose new laws by edict.
As their hyper-freak-out tactics on Mothers’ Day suggest, the Beijing-directed HK Police will take harsher action against protests this year – and after the first few fatalities, it will be as good as a PLA-lite clampdown. Does anyone want to take bets on: when Internet censorship starts; when local top officials and judges start fleeing; when an actual HK Independence movement comes into being?
Where are the Sex Pistols when we need them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrAPOZxgzU
Most of HK’s democracy lovers would be furious if Beijing gave the impression that it wasn’t going to take a hard-line. It’s the only reason many of them get out of bed (in the late morning/early afternoon): The Cause and all of the attendant on-line and real-world activity. It strikes me that we’ve got a near perfect win-win going on. Moreover, the cops are once again picking-up their overtime bonuses.
The CCP repeatedly conflates the outward display of compliance with loyalty. If you take crosses off churches, there isn’t any religion. If you ban people booing a song, they will become patriotic. If you rig an election, the public supports you. The distinction does not actually matter to them. That’s why they don’t do “hearts and minds”. There aren’t any hearts and minds outside the CCP, only bodies.
@Asiaseen
And what was it that the Pistols achieved? The best part of half a century on, and the Royals are still alive and kicking despite issues/claims of sex-trafficking, pedophilia, execution, excessive excess and general uselessness. They’ve even set up an American branch, the aim being to secure sometime in the next 2-3 decades the US Presidency.
Bank run! Bank run!
@ Reactor
“…the Royals are still alive and kicking despite issues/claims etc” rather like the CCP hierarchy then? But at least no has been jailed/disappeared for being disrespectful.
@ Cassowary: spot on! Image vs. Substance, the great cultural weakness.
Have you seen the images projected onto the exterior of the CCP’s outpost (a.k.a. “consulate”) in Los Angeles? here: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3931886
Who let Reactor #4 out of lockdown?
@Hibernian: From a dictator’s point of view, there’s little functional difference between a citizen who enthusiastically believes and one who’s just going through the motions. They’re in command either way. Their mistake is in thinking that everywhere works like this, so they strong-arm foreign sports organizations and demand grovelling from European officials.
Of course in a place like Hong Kong they end up with neither support nor submission. So they’ll keep trying to beat people into grudging obedience. If by the time they succeed, they’ve also smashed up everything worthwhile about the place, they’ll still declare victory.
No restoration of harmony just yet, because the Hung Hom MTR “rebars” thing has actually meant that the Govt has had to face up to responsibility.
It was nice when that pathetic toad Reactor #4 was quiet. Dude you are totally discredited, just shut the fuck up.
Hey Reactionary #4, As an historical illiterate, I guess you don’t realize that you’re parroting the argument of Southern racists and other varieties of American fascists in the context of the civil rights, gay rights, and anti-war movements. Or the apartheid government in South Africa. Or the Brazilian and Chilean fascists of the 1960s and 1970s. And so on. To wit: Why do you persist in compelling us to beat, arrest, and murder you? We have a perfectly reasonable thumb–why can’t you just live happily under it?
And as for the Pistols, their flame burned brightly for a short time, and they enacted fundamental contradictions within capitalism that others have built on for decades. When you croak, what echo will you leave behind?
@HK hibernian: thank you, thank you for that link!