Hong Kong pro-democracy Stand News shuts down after police raid, arrests

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/hong-kong-police-arrest-6-current-or-former-staff-online-media-outlet-2021-12-28/

by hardmaru • 5 years ago

137 40 5 years ago

reuters.com

barney54• 5 years ago

15-20 years ago I naively thought that many of the Big Tech companies would stand against this type of censorship. Sadly I was wrong and didn’t understand how important it was to have access to the Chinese market and the importance of China’s low-cost manufacturing for these companies as well.

Today, the Big Tech companies might not actively support this kind of censorship, but they aren’t aggressively working against it as I thought they would 15 years ago.

causi• 5 years ago

Fifteen years ago big tech's bottom line depended on a lack of censorship. Now it depends on censoring in some areas. Treating companies as anything other than barely-restrained sociopaths is always a mistake.

sneak• 5 years ago

It's not just access to the Chinese consumer market; almost every Apple device is manufactured in China, too.

China has jurisdiction over the factories that make virtually everything that powers the US economy.

wk_end• 5 years ago

As time goes by it’s going to become clearer and clearer that selling out western manufacturing to exploit cheap Chinese labour - a project endorsed and embraced by both major parties in Washington - was the single worst decision in the history of liberal democracy. It’s hollowed out both middle America and the American middle class, and instead of bringing democracy to China as Neo-liberals predicted, it’s instead enabled and is leading to the hegemony of the largest and most powerful totalitarian regime mankind’s ever known.

octopoc• 5 years ago

This is yet another violation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the treaty between China and the U.K. defining how Hong Kong will be handed over to China[1]:

Hong Kong would maintain its existing governing and economic systems separate from that of mainland China under the principle of "one country, two systems".

The West needs to realize: China does not uphold its own treaties.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration

throwaway4good2• 5 years ago

Exactly how is this a breach of the agreement? Formally this is done by the HK government/police. Is a breach of the general principle of two systems, or is there a more specific clause that is breached?

bigbillheck• 5 years ago

The West needs to realize: China does not uphold its own treaties

Does any major power?

EGreg• 5 years ago

Ask the Native Americans

Or these guys: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/world/asia/white-house-fa...

Or this: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/06/793895401/iraqi-parliament-vo...

Yet just because someone acts badly, doesn’t mean we the People should lower standards for the whole world.

throwawayHK• 5 years ago

The big loophole is the provision for China's intervention in matters of "National Security".

This is exactly what has been used to craft very vague language that basically allows authorities to treat anything that goes counter to China's official line as a "threat to National Security".

It's so vague that self-censorship is now omnipresent in what was, just a few years ago, a bastion of freedom of speech in Asia. Newspaper and political figures are afraid of being targetted for their perceived dissent, and there is no real recourse, with pressure on judges to fall in line.

It is a farce of course, but there will be no international action. The British have no recourse to enforce the treaty. China will invade HK with tanks before they release their tightening grip on it, and the world will watch and do nothing of course.

It's not just democracy that is under threat in HK. There never was any to start with. It's plain freedom of speech that is under threat.

baybal2• 5 years ago

UK has all means to successfully use force, and secure its gains - that's the military reality on the ground.

It has an amphibious force to land a division, more with requisitioned civilian vessels, and it has thermonuclear weapons to threaten chokepoints — more than enough to get the peninsula.

UK is not a small military. With mobilised territorials, and first line conscripts, it will be as much as 10-12 divisions ready on short order.

cameronh90• 5 years ago

Direct military action isn't the only recourse. It would be a pretty dangerous course of action.

There are a lot of Chinese investments in the UK that could be seized, as well as information warfare, travel restrictions, trade restrictions and Cold War style proxy wars.

Also things like giving HK BBO holders a route to British citizenship, which has high levels of support across the political spectrum and could probably be expanded further.

mytailorisrich2• 5 years ago

The Sino-British declaration was a way for the UK to save face and to sell the handing over of HK. It's naive or disingenuous to claim that China would do anything but whatever they wished to within a Chinese territory.

Ultimately HK will be fully reabsorbed back into the rest of China. That was always the plan and that was always going to happen. That said, HK is still separate so China is still broadly abiding by the declaration.

What the West needs to realize is that China is no longer a pushover that can be bullied at will. There is still a whiff of colonialism when Western media discuss HK.

FpUser3• 5 years ago

"The West needs to realize: China does not uphold its own treaties"

"The West" had long realized that the might makes right. Once country has achieve certain level of power the only thing that makes those to adhere to some treaty is their mutual willingness. If country does not see any it can and will ignore it. There is no abstract enforcer up above that can make parties of that level stick to the agreement.

guilhas2• 5 years ago

Russia withdraws from Open Skies Treaty after US withdrawal

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/15/russia-withdraws-fr...

wiz21c• 5 years ago

I don't like the "pro democrcay" thing... Isn't it more like "pro occidental/western" countries versus "pro chinese/urss/oriental" countries ?

When used that way, democracy sounds like an absolutely good thing which it is not; it's just a way to organize power...

jacquesm3• 5 years ago

Do you have a better alternative?

alimw• 5 years ago

That as may be, the issue here is freedom of speech.

koonsolo2• 5 years ago

Exactly. And freedom of speech is very important in a democracy, and unwanted in a dictatorship.

koonsolo2• 5 years ago

A country can either have a democracy or a dictatorship. Unless you know a 3rd option, I would love to hear it.

And as history has proven many times, dictatorships never end well.

albertopv• 5 years ago

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".

Democracy is one of the few things to be an absolute good thing. It have many flaws, but still I would't live in a dictatorship like the one established by URSS or Chinese Communist Party, where you could easily disappear if you say something troublesome for people in power. This is not just power organization, it's plain survival.

DemocracyFTW2• 5 years ago

"Xism is not good or bad; it's just a way to organize power". Excuse me I gotta puke.

mensetmanusman• 5 years ago

In Judo one uses the momentum of the aggressor against them, and I wonder if the west could do something analogous in this situation.

E.g. quietly accept the new oppression, but actively seek out and assist anyone in HK who wants to leave to gain access to high quality human capital and good will.

The resulting collapse of HK as it empties could be shown to everyone interacting with China that this could be their future.

enaaem• 5 years ago

In the book “A blue print for revolution” they described how you can use a regimes paranoia against them.

The best way is through humor. A great example is the Winnie the Pooh meme. The meme wasn’t even that funny but the CCP’s reaction to it is absolutely hilarious. It made Winnie the Pooh an anti CCP symbol and it raised global awareness of the CCP’s authoritarianism.

Winnie the Pooh won’t overthrow the CCP by itself, but the process of revolution is slow and you have to play the long game.

mikkelam• 5 years ago

Hong Kong is over. It is quickly becoming a real-estate grab for mainland Chinese. It won't be long before this incredibly rich and deeply unique culture will die off. It really is quite sad. I don't think there is anything that can be done. These people can fight for their rights, but they won't get any help and it will only ruin their lives. Western media will praise these fighters of justice, but will not do anything to help.

guilhas2• 5 years ago

The West needs to realize Hong Kong is a part of China, that was leased to the UK for 100 years

The West has no more say in it than China has a say in Catalonia or Scotland independence, Texas or California secession. Or their governing models

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

To the bigger question, since world border defining wars have become an historic unacceptable concept, how much power should be given to smaller subgroups into shaping their own, and the larger group, policy and borders

DemocracyFTW2• 5 years ago

What you say applies to the Kowloon New Territories north of Boundary Street and the outlying islands (and it wasn't 100 but 99 years but I digress).[1] It does not apply to Kowloon south of Boundary Street and Victoria / Hong Kong Island.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Territories

Hong Kong pro-democracy Stand News shuts down after police raid, arrests

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