Hong Kong protests: President Xi warns of 'bodies smashed'

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50035229

by headalgorithm • 7 years ago

247 131 7 years ago

bbc.com

tus88• 7 years ago

This is widely seen as an unlikely scenario because of the serious consequences.

Which are what exactly?

NeedMoreTea2• 7 years ago

The token 12-18 month international boycott and sanctions that came after Tiananmen. America was most reluctant and one of the first to cave back to business as usual.

Now that we're seeing some of the downsides of globalisation, perhaps the world community could hold its nerve longer. Or perhaps not as that's not a profit making stance.

cbames89• 7 years ago

It could provide the motive to begin a(an even more?) massive automation push within the U.S. That could have long-term negative consequences for China.

mschuster91• 7 years ago

Now that we're seeing some of the downsides of globalisation, perhaps the world community could hold its nerve longer.

The problem is that decades of globalization have all but wrecked domestic manufacture of many goods that China provides - not just cheap plastic toys but basically anything that requires lots of human assembly. A part of electronics manufacture could probably be picked up by Vietnam, Japan and South Korea but that's it, the world has shifted to China too much.

In the long term it might be a sane option for the Western world to see Africa as more than just a dumping ground for excess food/clothing "donations" or a source for stealing fish, but that would require politicians with more long term vision than "how do I get reelected"...

Nasrudith3• 7 years ago

Even if limited to a 1 to 1.5 year(s) sanctions that would be far more damaging now than it was in 1989 due to fixed costs and dependencies.

The most damaging aspect of the sanctions would be giving time for a competition to establish itself again while the outsourcing destination was unavailable - even if it takes the form of going to India instead of China.

lgvln• 7 years ago

I'm quite sure the phrase or idiom used by Xi is ”粉身碎骨“, which can be interpreted figuratively or literally.

Funny how it reminds me exactly of the protesters crushed by the tanks at the Tiananmian Incident.

lebenlechzer• 7 years ago

Do you happen to have a source for what Xi said in Chinese?

dirtyid3• 7 years ago

“任何人企图在中国任何地区搞分裂，结果只能是粉身碎骨；任何支持分裂中国的外部势力只能被中国人民视为痴心妄想”

You can copy and paste in Google to find transcript from Chinese sources.

粉身碎骨 is an idiom used in a variety of contexts, largely not literally, some different usage:

https://www.purpleculture.net/sample-sentences/?word=粉身碎骨

It's generic language for saying "crushed", but western audiences with limited understanding of China will naturally think of tank treads.

throwaway_bad2• 7 years ago

I am really disappointed in BBC's reporting here. They chose to interpret a idiom in a literal way just to make a maximally controversial headline.

Even in wuxia novels where I see this phrase used the most, the phrase is never used literally (And in those fictional universes turning people into powder is actually possible). If you choose to translate chinese literally you can make anyone sound insane.

Focus on the intent. He is very much saying he will destroy those people. But not necessarily by crushing bones.

sachdevap• 7 years ago

Ah, I see. That makes it so much better. I am glad he'll only destroy them without crushing their bones.

Aperocky3• 7 years ago

He’s not (directly) referring to HK though, the sentence he said was ‘Any attempt to separate a part of China will be met with $IDIOM’. Now, protester were explicitly refraining from mentioning separatism in their demands, so take that into consideration.

mytailorisrich2• 7 years ago

My understanding is that the remark was made in general terms, though of course it may be interpreted as aimed at HK.

The BBC chose to make it specifically about Hongkong from the very first words of their article's title.

dmurray2• 7 years ago

It's reminiscent of the "quote" from Ahmedinejad that "Israel must be wiped off the map". It's as if the journalists, or those who feed them, look for the most incendiary and provocative free translation that can be justified by a dictionary or thesaurus.

nyxtom2• 7 years ago

This is actually very helpful way to understand the utility of news organizations to maximize emotional appeals in order to garner attention by directly (or perhaps unintentionally) misinterpreting/misusing the intent of the speaker. As a general practice, the intent of the speaker isn't necessarily well known unless you have seen the evidence of its use in practice. Fascinating take on the misuse (or in this case likely purposeful misuse) of language.

PhasmaFelis6• 7 years ago

I see a lot of comments that amount to "he's not literally threatening violence, he's only using an idiom that, historically and culturally, heavily implies violence."

Which...I guess is a little better, arguably.

beloch• 7 years ago

Here's a sobering fact: HK's GDP was about 14% of China's GDP in 2000. Now it's about 2.4%. This is mainly due to growth in mainland China.

HK is no longer China's golden goose, which is probably why China started this mess to begin with. From their viewpoint, HK's British hybrid law system is no longer worth putting up with. There's a very realistic possibility that China is going to crush resistance in HK by any means necessary. Keeping HK's economy and productivity intact probably aren't viewed to be important, but avoiding sanctions that would impact the entire country likely is.

This really is a conflict in which the threat of economic sanctions might actually save lives, provided they're believable.

flyinglizard2• 7 years ago

It's probably worth more to Xi to bring HK in line with the mainland to serve as a sobering example for other areas under Chinese rule.

throwaway1997• 7 years ago

GDP != Value. HK continues to be the jurisdiction of choice for mainland companies wishing to do business with the west and vice versa because the rule of law increases people's confidence in the validity of any contracts signed.

The HK property and stock market is also where a huge amount of of Chinese money is parked.

Neither of these contribute to GDP but provide a lot of value to the mainland.

starfallg• 7 years ago

Can't stress this enough. The number one priority for the political and business classes is to tunnel their wealth overseas and the first port of call is usually Hong Kong.

In the last decade, much of the HK stock market (and economy) is propped up by Chinese money and these outflows. Shell companies are sold in Hong Kong just because they are listed on the stock exchange - the underlying businesses are often spun-off as a part of the transaction and the resulting operation just a way to funnel money and business outside of Chinese capital controls.

The property market is also full to the brim with money from the mainland. Hong Kong has a much stronger hand than most people realise, because of the fact that the Chinese elite themselves lack confidence in their own system on the mainland.

csomar5• 7 years ago

The HK property and stock market is also where a huge amount of of Chinese money is parked.

I wonder if this is the reason China wants to get rid of Hong Kong. Their capital restrictions are useless if Chinese can move a ton of value through Hong Kong. The world still needs China, though. So it'll make a new way to China.

Maybe China has figured out: Value from Hong Kong < Value going to Hong Kong.

monocasa2• 7 years ago

China is trying to replace those companies anyway. That's the shtick of their Made in China 2025 plan.

NeedMoreTea2• 7 years ago

It's not like this is a recent change in policy as Hong Kong has become more insignificant in the scheme of things. China has been systemically fiddling with HK since 1997, despite lodged international agreement and "one country, two systems". The extradition was merely the last of many straws.

One of the earliest protests I remember was around 2,000 (Edit: it was actually 2003) and tied in with the universal suffrage electing the Chief Executive that was in the handover agreement, written into Basic Law, and remains an issue for today's protests. It's one of the protest's "five points".

Edit: There was an earlier demo in 2,002 over civil rights stemming from the subversion law, which spawned the yearly marches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1_July_marches

refurb3• 7 years ago

There's a very realistic possibility that China is going to crush resistance in HK by any means necessary.

I keep waiting for the shoe to drop.

China, by her own standards, has been very soft on the protests so far. China is much more concerned with its global image than back during the Tiananmen Square protests.

But if anyone should think this won’t end similarly, they’d be fooling themselves.

I’d put lower odds on a sudden violent crack down than on a slow, methodical process of arresting leaders and slowly ratcheting up the pressure on protestors.

As sad as it might seem, the CCP will come out on top in the end.

csomar5• 7 years ago

China, by her own standards, has been very soft on the protests so far. China is much more concerned with its global image than back during the Tiananmen Square protests.

Surprisingly, things in this digital age are different and you can thank social media for that. If we didn't hav the Internet and live-broadcasting, the Hong Konguese are nothing but history now.

luckylion3• 7 years ago

China, by her own standards, has been very soft on the protests so far.

Not just by China's standard, the handling seems very soft by Western standards also. G8 meetings in Western cities regularly look similar, and those are 3-5 days, not weeks or months.

hos234• 7 years ago

I think they also know from their Uyghur experiment there is a never-ending unpredictable cost to using force.

Things don't just return to normal the next day morning.

ohnidoertous4• 7 years ago

I thought it was going to happen during the 2014 Hong Kong protests too, and was surprised when China didn’t do anything.

alkonaut• 7 years ago

It now seems like a symbolic nationalist issue. But isn't your argument that HK is a smaller fraction of China's economy an argument to NOT crush the dissent in HK?

If China decides to "crush" resistance in HK by any means necessary, it would be the Chinese economy that took the blow of international sanctions and boycotts?

hnarn2• 7 years ago

You're not entirely wrong, but I do think it's a gigantic oversimplification to only look at the value of Hong Kong in terms of percentage of GDP. While I do agree that a crackdown is likely, I also think the consequences to China's economy, both from direct factors but also from indirect factors that are hard to predict, may be significant in doing so.

At the end of the day, it's my opinion that this struggle is from the CCP side of things not a rational one. They are willing to sacrifice "rational" values for the sake of things like honor and saving face, and I think (and to some extent, hope) that there is a risk that type of decision making will cause a downward spiral for the regime.

I can't remember who made this point, but there's a historical anecdote about how "totalitarian regimes are suicidal". Sooner or later the fascist cocktail that has fueled economic growth explodes into unbearable oppression, unsustainable expansion, economically questionable decisions, or all of the above. I've heard the point many times that just like the Roman Empire was always just "one missed grain shipment away from a revolution", the only thing really standing between the CCP and a popular revolt is the downturn of the economy. The only reason people are tolerating the suffocating oppression of the state is because of tangible rewards.

Aperocky3• 7 years ago

Suffocating oppression

If you’ve been to China, this is certainly not what the general population are feeling. There are enough entertainment and economic pressure to keep most everyone busy. And social injustice are _voiced_ and _acted upon_. As very few of those involve the legitimacy of whole CCP anyways, the lower level officials are mostly threading on thin ice.

I think there’s a huge gap between the perceived conditions in China vs the actual sentiment in China, and western media have only been widening it.

ohnidoertous4• 7 years ago

Hong Kong does not pay taxes to mainland China, and it’s GDP isn’t included in China’s GDP calculation.

What I find interesting is that Macau is in the same position as Hong Kong, former colony, 1 country 2 systems, but it’s GDP per capita is double that of HK, and there have been no protests in Macau.

hacknat2• 7 years ago

Macau has been a lot more strict with mainland Chinese residents. It’s not easy to funnel money into Macau and mainland residents are treated like foreigners. This has led to Macau not being a thorn in China’s side in anyway, as it is not a political or economic haven for mainlanders.

peter_retief• 7 years ago

The import of those words is horrific, for which there can be no excuse and no tolerance!

thiagoharry• 7 years ago

In Equador pacific protesters are being repressed by the government, protesters are being shoot by snipers and nobody cares. Geopolitical interests are a very crazy thing.

threeseed• 7 years ago

Almost like context matters.

Because it's not just about Hong Kong protestors but about how China deals with thoughts and opinions that aren't of the ruling government.

tekkk2• 7 years ago

I agree. Although this is indeed a sad state of affairs, there is a lot injustice going on the world right now that I feel are not getting the attention they deserve. I feel these news have been partly fueled by the Western propaganda machine, the counterpart of the troll factories employed by Russia etc. And I'm not the one who would often say that, it's just it seems a little bit out of proportion in the context of things. Like US is trying to pressure China for their own benefit. I don't know, I'm speculating of course but this is what it seems to me as a reasonably neutral observer.

And although I'm pro-democracy and think the repression of HK citizens is wrong, I can understand the Chinese government's point of view and their cultural reasoning. I see China as the spiritual successor to Soviet Union which did the right choices for its continuation. And when Soviet Union fell apart it wasn't really a triumph of democracy that followed. Sure other Soviet Union states have been more successful but Russia itself seems to be chronically vulnerable to mafia-type people who will strong-arm themselves into power. Better than Soviet Union? I guess, but Chinese government doesn't seem interested in wanting to try out if democracy would work.

I'm sure the government officials are also more concerned with their own selfish needs than just what would be the best for people. So far the only reason why I would see authoritarian government being good, is that it can act more powerfully than democratically elected government without having to fear their decisions weakening their re-election chances. Yet their privilege in being power only rests on their ability to force people to obey their orders - be it fear, bribery or mass-media brainwash. I don't think that kind of environment is sustainable and is definitely not an equilibrium state for humans to exist in. If something requires you to constantly keep distorting reality in order to keep it going, it can't be a long-term solution. And this is without taking in consideration the humanitarian problems, prevalence of corruption and the absence of critical thought.

seanmcdirmid2• 7 years ago

A lot of stuff happens in the third world, I guess we become numb to it. But if it happens in the first world...then it stands out a bit?

wil421• 7 years ago

China is a third world country by definition. India and China are industrialized now but they are still somewhat neutrally aligned to US/EU and Russia.

Nasrudith3• 7 years ago

I think geopplitical interests in this circumstance may be rational if a bit cold. It is like someone paralyzed by a broken spine vs by a virus essentially - both are bad of course but the later has real fear of "contagation" to spark worry. Ecuador while messed up is "contained" and would fail to take even a neighboring territory without any third party intervention. The most impact everyone else could feel is a refugee surge.

Meanwhile China is growing in power and influence while not softening in authoritarianism but even going backwards with Xi. The threat that something like that may spread elsewhere worries which may be why the NBA and Activision/Blizzard are facing a fiercer backlash than Dr. Strange and the Red Dawn remake for their caving - they effectively extended their reach. While boots on the ground domestically wouldn't be plausible without some "magic" antinuclear technology or incredibly good missle defense and detection bringing an end to Pax Atomica getting fired and blacklisted over acknowledging Tiananmen Square is potentially plausible with global markets and clout. That level of "having a blacklisted employee or contractor bars the company from selling to China" wouldn't technically violate treaties. Jurisdiction may keep one safe but barring financial transactions would be within the powers of a nation and before that level of tracking would be logistically impossible.

j8014• 7 years ago

A couple things, I didn't really see a huge uptick about HK until China started "censoring" western companies with employees having to publicly backpedal. Second, money talks and there is a lot more at stake with western companies in China and HK then in Ecuador.

Angostura• 7 years ago

In Ecuador, you have internal strife between two political groups and the main apparent goal of the protesters is to get the reinstatement of fuel subsidies. It's a tragic situation, but from a media point of view its understandably not nearly so compelling a story.

malandrew2• 7 years ago

Agree. I have sympathy for people that are fighting for their freedom against a foreign power. I have no sympathy for people fighting to continue getting something for free that they got used to.

elliekelly• 7 years ago

Geopolitical interests are a very crazy thing.

Ecuador has been eye-opening for me from a personalized-news perspective. I spent a few months in Ecuador working on a project with an NGO so I have many friends in Quito and a handful in Guayaquil. From the moment the IMF-related austerity measures were announced it was all over my newsfeed and I've been getting "recommend" alerts about the situation from Apple News and Reddit.

I assumed it was a major international story. A few days after the protests started I mentioned them in conversation to a friend at Reuters who only had a vague idea of the situation. I couldn't believe it. He's an international news junkie. Looking at my phone, the protests are (were? hopefully) a major story but looking at his you wouldn't even really know it was happening.

baq• 7 years ago

welcome to the bubble. yours is different that most of everybody else in the west.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble

egdod• 7 years ago

This is the regime that the NBA is bending over backwards (if not forwards) to satisfy.

thatguyagain• 7 years ago

Along with a bunch of other large american corporations.

Pigo2• 7 years ago

What does the endgame look like here? Does anyone have a realistic prediction?

I root for these people because I can just begin to imagine my city being taken over by a country that would just disappear me if I become inconvenient. But does it really have to come to a Braveheart style conclusion?

save_ferris• 7 years ago

Unlikely, as such an ending would probably have catastrophic consequences for Chinese trade and international relations.

Tiananmen Square set Chinese diplomatic relations back well over a decade, and with their economy showing signs of a possible slowdown, they’re particularly conscious of the consequences that any militaristic response would have.

Pigo2• 7 years ago

So he's most likely talking tough with a statement like this? Just seems worrisome to hear him talking about grinding up bones.

monocasa2• 7 years ago

On the other side, while trying to force their way into the South China Sea, and still pretending that they own Taiwan, not being able to hold or control territory that everyone agrees is their's dramatically weakens their position on the global stage, and they can't really let the HKers win this one.

lm284692• 7 years ago

for Chinese trade and international relations.

It's a full blown military state guilty of several crimes against humanity, we have proof of muslim detention camps, sterilisation campaigns, destruction of churches, &c... doesn't look like anyone care as long as they build iphones and cpus. I doubt HK would be the last straw.

flag231475• 7 years ago

I predict that more likely the protests will subside over time without military intervention from the mainland.

In Macau, another Chinese city under One Country Two Systems, people are generally very happy with the present political arrangement. Macau has an advanced economy with one of the highest GDP per capita in the world today. It is also a free and democratic society.

Both economically and politically, China prefers HK to be like Macau at a larger scale (HK has over 10x population). The current situation seems to be necessary pains of growing up.

eej71• 7 years ago

I suspect one key difference is that the educational systems (HK vs. Macau) impart different intellectual values. I would expect that those raised in the HK education system have internalized the values of the English enlightenment. Once received, those values are not voluntarily given back.

Jamwinner• 7 years ago

This is untrue in my experince, why dod you create a throwaway to play shill for china?

keanzu• 7 years ago

The Chinese government effectively has infinite resources and unlimited time. They will proceed with slow divide and conquer, jailing people one by one until either the protestors give up or turn violent. If the protestors can be provoked to violence then the mainland government can respond in kind. China either wins slowly or quickly. There's no scenario where they don't win.

carapace• 7 years ago

I once heard that, when Vietnam and China were at war, the Chinese went to the Vietnamese and said, "When you grind a pebble against a boulder which one disappears first?"

The end result here depends on a lot of factors, but as it stands the CCP has the long-term advantage. The "super camera"[1] along with the ban on face masks is just one obvious vector for the techno-authoritarians to win by attrition. They can analyze the data, find the key nodes (people!) in the graph, and make them disappear.

AFAICT, there is no long-term defense against ubiquitous surveillance. Technology makes it possible and politics and economics drive it to the limit (e.g. Vernor Vinge's "locator dust".[2])

From this POV, the crucial question is whether the administrators of the system are themselves subjected to it. It's a global problem. Authoritarianism anywhere threatens you, today, wherever you are. The inexorable logic of it means there can be no stable equilibrium. Notice how the CCP is already working to control people outside the bounds of China? That's not going to stop. The people of HK are the "tip of the spear" in the war between free humans and dictators.

If Xi really was Papa Smurf [3] the people of Hong Kong wouldn't be so scared to be a part of his village, eh?

[1] "China's super camera can pinpoint specific targets among of thousands of people" (abc.net.au) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100048

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust

[3] The Smurfs are Communist Propaganda!? https://www.buzzfeed.com/richmonahan/13-reasons-why-the-smur...

Merrill• 7 years ago

Maybe Xi had Taiwan in mind, not Hong Kong. Taiwan is very important to China.

dmm• 7 years ago

Because TSMC Taiwan is very important to the whole world.

duaoebg2• 7 years ago

I don't see how these protests will be successful. I expect they will eventually lose and either fall in line or be replaced.

I can't help but wonder how things would be different if the Hong Kong population was armed like Americans.

adrr• 7 years ago

Light arms vs a modern arms(tanks,planes,helicopters) is just suicide.

duaoebg2• 7 years ago

It changes the equation enough to make it not worth attacking.

Also allows you to hold out long enough to import more weaponry from sympathetic regimes.

Plus drone based weapons are cheap and effective.

CharlesColeman2• 7 years ago

Light arms vs a modern arms(tanks,planes,helicopters) is just suicide.

No, that's wrong. Conflicts like the one in Afghanistan show they can be effective against a well-equipped modern army, you just need to deploy them with the right (asymmetric) tactics.

ulzeraj• 7 years ago

Because of facial identification and other kinds of vigilance implemented these protesters probably can’t afford to go back to their daily lives therefore I think they will just keep fighting.

tzm• 7 years ago

I recommend watching Arthur Kent's documentary (2019) of Tiananmen Square. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA4iKSeijZI

danielneri• 7 years ago

Can anybody recommend good reading to catch up on the protests or history of Hong Kong vs. the mainland?

hkmaxpro• 7 years ago

ABC News: Inside the city caught between a British past and a Chinese future (with pretty pictures, videos & maps)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-13/hong-kong-protests-br...

Vox: 9 questions about the Hong Kong protests you were too embarrassed to ask

https://www.vox.com/world/2019/8/22/20804294/hong-kong-prote...

These two articles were written in late Aug/mid Sep and do not contain the most recent developments.

hacknat2• 7 years ago

At the end of the day China “owns” HK according to the rest of the world, so I see little hope of anything positive happening, especially since Nationalism is on the rise in the West. People like Trump are all to happy to engage in meaningless trade wars, but have little political ideology to espouse. What serious ally does HK have?

dwohnitmok• 7 years ago

This feels like "we will bury you" (https://books.google.com/books?id=ETQpY-32DysC&pg=PA238&dq="...) all over again.

The original is, as pointed out elsewhere, 任何人企图在中国任何地区搞分裂，结果只能是粉身碎骨；任何支持分裂中国的外部势力只能被中国人民视为痴心妄想. http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2019-10/13/c_1125099224.ht...

I offer an alternative translation below since I find the BBC's translation overly literal and cherry-picked for a punchy headline, although there are certainly overtones of violence in the original idiom chosen. I've used the wheel to emphasize that the idiom ultimately is a brutal one, but not necessarily a literal one.

For anyone who tries to mess around with separatism in any part of China, the only possible outcome is that they are broken upon the wheel. Any external forces which support the fracturing of China can only be seen by the Chinese people as delusional.

Hong Kong protests: President Xi warns of 'bodies smashed'

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