Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national security trial

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp844kjj37vo

by onemoresoop • 7 months ago

438 423 7 months ago

One of the dark consequences of America losing its city-upon-a-hill aspirations is we're less able to effectively call out evil abroad. Jimmy Lai should not have been allowed to this quietly.

embedding-shape14• 7 months ago

Go back a couple more years, and the UK is probably more relevant to bring up (especially considering the context), they used to have similar aspirations before they learned better.

simianparrot• 7 months ago

They didn’t learn better. They lost their aspirations and decided to give up as a nation.

lossolo3• 7 months ago

I would like to remind you that HK was a British colony for more than 100 years, and there was no democracy or freedom then. They only allowed the first partly free elections two years before they gave it back to China, in 1995. And not because they suddenly wanted freedom and democracy for HK, but because it would be harder for China and better for their own interests. Hypocrisy all the way.

jimbob45• 7 months ago

Why is this evil? Most countries draw the line at aiding and abetting foreign harm to your own country, no matter how justified. I would expect no different if it happened in America or Europe.

mikkupikku9• 7 months ago

Most countries draw the line at aiding and abetting foreign harm to your own country, no matter how justified

On the books maybe. But for instance, America defines treason so narrowly that nobody has been convicted of it since WW2. Americans are free to sing praise of China, Russia, North Korea, whoever they like no matter how unjustified. Unless Congress has declared a war, which hasn't happened since WW2, you can talk as much smack about America or praise opposing regimes as much as you like.

n4r92• 7 months ago

As far as I can tell, the prosecution's entire case relies on an unfounded grand conspiracy argument. That by running a newspaper which supported democracy, Lai was implicitly calling on the US to impose sanctions on China.

beepbooptheory2• 7 months ago

Oh yes, I'm sure we all can easily enumerate the times America has effectively called out the "evil abroad." And such instances have all indeed survived the scrutiny of history/retrospection no less!

colejhudson2• 7 months ago

You’re literally just restating OPs point but with heavy sarcasm.

GuinansEyebrows• 7 months ago

every president who ever invoked the "city on a hill" metaphor was simultaneously responsible for acts of unprecedented evil in foreign countries; from JFK in southeast asia, to reagan in the middle east and central america, to obama's drone strikes in the middle east.

paganel• 7 months ago

By “calling out” you mean invading, or what, exactly? And haven’t you guys had enough of fighting “evil” while causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians? See Iraq.

mikkupikku9• 7 months ago

Assuming that somebody is implying something as insane as an invasion of China when they say something as mellow as "call out" is certainly.. a take.

colejhudson2• 7 months ago

Obviously not.

As in the 20th century, it means to cultivate moral, and thereby political, opposition to imprisoning activists.

It’s a soft power the US has gradually lost.

HSO• 7 months ago

never was

it was always BS

now everybody can see

thats the only difference

JumpCrisscross5• 7 months ago

The aspiration was always BS? I think we have fairly concrete historical records showing the opposite.

mytailorisrich• 7 months ago

In the "good old days" it was like that:

"The colonial government used the Control of Publications Consolidation Ordinance (1951) to regulate publications and suppress freedom of the press. One notable case resulted in the suppression of the newspaper Ta Kung Pao for six months (later reduced to 12 days) for its criticism of the colonial government's deportation of the Federation of Trade Unions-backed fire relief organisation officials and use of live fire against protestors. Deportation was also used as a method to control politics in education. Lo Tong, a principal at a pro-Beijing, patriotic middle school, had been deported in 1950 for raising the People's Republic of China (PRC) flag and singing the national anthem at his school." [1]

Now of course we'd all prefer Western-style freedoms but the narrative on HK is highly skewed and hypocritical, with HK used as a pawn in the broader anti-China narrative.

Even Singapore isn't exactly rosy but it is a friend of the West so it's fine.

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

epolanski3• 7 months ago

People often forget that democratization and free press came to HK very late, close to the end of the land lease.

xbmcuser• 7 months ago

"Most of it is a lie that they tell their own citizens, though, as America and the West only want democracy and promote it for their own ends. They destroy any democracy that might not align with their worldview or serve their interests.

The current administration is overtly doing what was previously done covertly. Dictators are acceptable as long as it is politically convenient. One of the most recent cases is Pakistan, where the army has taken over, and EU and Commonwealth election monitors did not issue even election monitor report even after two years. Instead, they have facilitated the murder and killing of Pakistani civilians. But maybe Pakistanis are brown-skinned, so for them, democracy is not allowed.

Pakistan should be under sanctions, but it is not, as it is providing ammunition for Ukraine. That is the biggest problem of the West: their hypocrisy. They are calling for democracy in Hong Kong, as that serves their own agendas, but will say nothing about an apartheid state like Israel."

"Imran Khan, the former prime minister, has been jailed without trial for the last two-plus years and has been kept in solitary confinement for months out of those. How many newspapers mention it in the West or make it a news topic? But this Hong Kong (HK) Jimmy Lai conviction will be the headlines in most of the Western media a clear example of propaganda to rile up the population against China and socialism.

This is why I laugh when people here on Hacker News mention China's control of media and its propaganda, when the Western media is no better than them. At least many Chinese citizens know they are being propagandized against and can filter it out."

xyzal• 7 months ago

Can you imagine a Chinese person writing like you just did on Weibo?

Democracy/liberalism/civil liberties etc. isn't 100% or not at all.

buellerbueller3• 7 months ago

The human condition is hypocrisy. The weak want fairness. The powerful want their power unbridled. Only anomalous humans can be powerful without abusing that power.

echelon_musk2• 7 months ago

Why are your comments in double quotes?

bryanlarsen2• 7 months ago

when the Western media is no better than them

better is a continuum across many dimensions. Therefore when you say "no better than" you're saying "worse than".

I'm not saying Western media is good, but it's really hard to argue that it's worse than the Chinese media, given the headline story above and our freedom to discuss it here and elsewhere.

Both can be bad, but one is more bad than the other.

lacy_tinpot• 7 months ago

It's not our aspirations that we've lost.

It's the entrenchment of a particular kind of parasitic elite.

The logic that made them into "elites" has turned in on itself and is now self-cannibalizing.

The saving grace is only the capacity for the American people to see through this, but with the derangement of information pathways we're increasingly at the behest of these people and their narratives that only serve their aggrandizement.

All the talk about "saving the west" or "individualism" or the some other talk of spirit that these preachers sermon about, is only to serve themselves and no one else.

"Calling out evil" is another one of those victims to their self-serving motivations. Along with "climate change", "environmentalism", "democracy", "freedom", or a whole host of otherwise genuinely noble causes.

glenstein2• 7 months ago

Exactly right. And what's more, I think this is cynically exploited by apologists who want to defend evil by resorting to whataboutisms. State sponsored troll farms are real and the market for buying and selling, and mobilizing accounts is increasingly mature. And even, dare I say, strategically and intellectually sophisticated in some ways while simultaneously being intellectually and ethically bankrupt.

But I actually don't think it's that hard to understand that (1) the US has significantly compromised moral authority, but also (2) China bad and (3) there's important differences of scale of moral offense depending on what you are talking about. You can land a perfectly coherent point about, say, China's hostile takeover of Hong Kong being bad, it's military ramp up to seize Taiwan by 2027 being bad. But too often, I think bad faith actors will intentionally exploit the complexity to try and muddy the waters, and the only reason it seems like it's hard to articulate the distinction online is because of motivated performances.

Of course there Poe's law element too, which is that you should never underestimate the ability of people online becoming confused about politically charged topics, but in this case I think it's a bit of column a, a bit of column b synergistically amplifying one another.

erxam4• 7 months ago

Evil? Rooting out traitors and compradors is evil now?

I guess it is, since it goes against American interests. I don't really know why everyone is crying for him, he knew exactly who he was playing for.

jandrese• 7 months ago

Someone can be and asshole and still be right. It will be harder to convince other people to go along with you if you are an asshole, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't call out wrongdoing when you see it.

maxglute12• 7 months ago

Something less effective about ass holes doing wrong things complaining about other assholes doing wrong things, a while insisting they're not assholes. Ultimately the "damage" isn't being called out as a hypocritic asshole, it's the world realize there's nothing wrong with said wrong things. Although to some that's not damage but nature healing.

ngruhn• 7 months ago

But you're word doesn't really have weight, if you did the same thing 10min ago.

BurningFrog4• 7 months ago

Not everything is about Trump!

IAmBroom• 7 months ago

True.

But he will somehow find a way to make it about him.

SilverElfin2• 7 months ago

America was on the decline for a while already. Look at how forgotten Tibet is. Why would HK be any different when a treaty was signed to hand it over? It’s more official than Tibet which was just annexed through force. Although it’s worth remembering that China has violated the terms of the HK treaty as well.

Also as a reminder, back in 1993 Richard Gere was banned from the Oscars for 20 years for advocating for Tibet (https://www.foxnews.com/media/richard-gere-speaks-out-nearly...). American institutions have been declining/corrupted for a lot longer than the current administration.

angry_octet• 7 months ago

Tibet is clear-cut annexation of a sovereign country. HK / New Territories was only leased, and it wasn't going to be practical to keep it longer. The problem is that Beijing no longer needed HK as a gateway, the US/EU had already embraced going directly to the mainland to do deals by the early 2000s. The HK I knew was already gone by 2014.

brazukadev• 7 months ago

America was on the decline for a while already. Look at how forgotten Tibet is.

First, look how forgotten Puerto Rico is.

ta202405284• 7 months ago

A healthy reminder that Hawaii became a US state AFTER Tibet became a Chinese province.

An lest one suggest that it was the result of a peaceful referendum, know that the US congres apologised for the entire project, including the migration of mainland Americans who helped swing the referendum.

jameslk2• 7 months ago

One of the dark consequences of America losing its city-upon-a-hill aspirations is we're less able to effectively call out evil abroad.

"City-upon-a-hill" is marketing and has never been grounded in fact. It’s hubris and arrogance. The US is viewed as that place if you get on the wrong side of, it will bomb you or replace your government through coercion. It outspends every country on "defense" to ensure this.

History is littered with plenty of examples where the US favored a more authoritarian or "evil" government over less, sometimes even installing them. Arab Spring is a recent example where you saw governments replaced with the US' help, while leaving some notable monarchies alone.

In reality, the US employs its foreign policy for its own interests. It’s always been like that.

epistasis3• 7 months ago

The Arab Spring is a bad example if you're trying to say that the US is installing governments... South America's history provides far better examples.

That said, the US doesn't need to be perfect to still be an example of providing freedom for its own citizens.

elektrontamer• 7 months ago

In reality, the US employs its foreign policy for its own interests.

Sometimes I'm not even sure it's for it's own interests.

nkmnz5• 7 months ago

"City-upon-a-hill" is marketing and has never been grounded in fact.

Except for Germany 1945, Eastern Europe 1989, South Korea, etc. pp.

integralid• 7 months ago

US probably never was "the good guy" and just acted on its own interests, but that's not the point. People believed that it's true. Or probably just internalized that as a part of a "country stereotype", like how Germans are hard-working and brits are polite. So it was OK and sometimes even expected for the US to scold the evildoers.

Now that changed, at least in my social circle, and US being moralistic is seen as hypocrisy.

reenorap• 7 months ago

Why is America all of a sudden part of this? HK was a British colony, what is the UK doing to preserve freedom in HK?

A_D_E_P_T2• 7 months ago

The UK's having a hard enough time trying to preserve freedom in the UK.

Hold up... So you're saying that they're actually not trying to preserve freedom in the UK and have arrested hundreds of people over twitter memes?!

In all seriousness, you're approximately as free in HK as you are in the UK. In HK, don't promote democracy or insult the government in Beijing. In the UK, don't suggest that diversity isn't Our Greatest Strength.

Every society these days has an untouchable third rail. None are without beams in their own eyes.

keybored• 7 months ago

That this is the top comment says all you need to know about this board.

Being a city on the hill is a cudgel, not a halo. It’s always been used in a self-serving way, and always against enemies.

Who is someone who points out the flaws of their enemies but never the flaws of themselves or their friends, even though they are all equally likely to commit the same crimes?[1] That is a scoundrel. Not someone that anyone needs to wait to Call Out anyone on anything.

That it is (in this context) a self-admitted “aspiration” is the laughable part. No one else gets credit for “aspiring” (just words) to be a city on a hill. Except if it’s us.

[1] Being generous here.

AnimalMuppet6• 7 months ago

Hong Kong is dead.

Yeah, sure, there's still a city there with that name. But the Hong Kong we knew is dead. What made Hong Kong what it was is dead.

RegnisGnaw• 7 months ago

The purpose of Hong Kong globally, a port for trade with the closed off China, has been dead for a long time.

Stevvo• 7 months ago

Hong Kong the liberal democracy, that you think you knew, never existed. Most in HK will tell you that that have more freedom under China than they ever had under the British

regularization2• 7 months ago

In 1967 the Chinese people in Hong Kong were fighting against the English, English officers killed dozens of Chinese to retain their control on their "democracy". A city they had violently seized decades earlier to push opium and heroin on Chibese people, against the Chinese authorities wishes.

Now white, professional westerners who lost control of China weep and gnash about their supposed moral superiority over China.

spacebanana7• 7 months ago

Hong Kong is the only business friendly place in the world that’s genuinely independent of the US/EU transatlantic regulatory blob.

The mainland government want to keep it prosperous so will likely work to protect it from sanctions or international regulations.

If you’re a Russian oligarch it’s probably safer to keep your money in HK than Cayman or Switzerland these days. Even if you’re a petrostate sovereign wealth fund or non NATO central bank there’s some value in holding assets that can’t be frozen at will by the US treasury secretary.

You could argue that Signapaore and the UAE compete here but they have much more dependency on the west for security and diplomacy.

realusername• 7 months ago

Well now it's dependent on the Chinese regulatory blob which I would argue is worse.

The EU is still debating after 3 years of war in Ukraine and weekly nuclear threats what to do with the Russian funds, let's be real, with the same situation in HK, the funds would have been seized within a week.

jskrn2• 7 months ago

This is sad to read as someone who only recently started appreciating Wong Kar Wai films and wants to visit. Although I have been reading about the speech/thought suppression and creative exodus for a long time.

GenerocUsername• 7 months ago

Imagine a major city in America that were politically dominated y China for 50+ years and it is hard to imagine this type of blowback not occuring eventually.

azinman22• 7 months ago

What happened to one country, two systems?

embedding-shape14• 7 months ago

Recommended reading on that: One Country, Two Systems in Crisis: Hong Kong's Transformation - Wong, Yiu-chung (2004)

In summary, since 1997 it has for all intents and purposes been abandoned.

roncesvalles• 7 months ago

That was always meant to be transitional. Also, as China marches forward, Hong Kong loses its leverage over Beijing. Now it's just one of a dozen HK-like cities for China. It went from "little prince" to "problem child".

Terr_• 7 months ago

Certainly a factor: IIRC Hong Kong's GDP versus the mainland has gone from 20-30% to 2-3% in the ~28 years since the handover, as the mainland has modernized.

While that still puts in the ballpark of "top 5 cities", it's not quite the same (relative) prize as before.

dist-epoch2• 7 months ago

A sovereign can change it's mind. It's the whole point of being sovereign.

Not saying I like what they did (I don't).

azinman22• 7 months ago

Except they had an agreement for 50 years to keep it that way. So basically what you mean is anyone can change their mind, which means agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

Then why would anyone agree to anything?

derektank2• 7 months ago

This was a joint agreement between two sovereigns. You’re correct to say that it’s within the power of a sovereign to reneg on their word, but it’s a violation of international law and the UK would have every right as a sovereign itself to seek redress through whatever means it deems appropriate.

0x3f13• 7 months ago

Might makes right, as always was.

silenced_trope• 7 months ago

they came up with that phrase to put the british at ease

dionian2• 7 months ago

We all knew it was a lie from day one.

maxglute12• 7 months ago

PRC finally enforced it. HK had high degree of autonomy (not full autonomy), and high degreed their way to not implement national security law for 20 years leading to compadrors like Lai to exist (incidentally also the largest CIA base in Asia was in HK). Imagine a region in your country with zero national security ordinance for 20 years during geopolitical competition while nativist/traitors (I'm sorry democracy activists) shake hands with Mike Pompeo lol. TLDR traitors fucked around and found out and now we finally have sustainable 1C2S.

maxloh4• 7 months ago

What you are stating is exactly the viewpoint of the CCP (or any other authoritarian governments).

Everyone who advocates for basic human rights, as written in the UN's basic human rights charter, is considered a traitor, a threat to national "security", or a terrorist. They want absolutely obedient people who don't know about their own rights.

aprentic4• 7 months ago

I'm pretty sure China considers that as "signing under duress" and therefor invalid.

The relevant points on the timeline, from China's perspective, are:

China: Stop selling opium in our country. UK: How about no? China: We're kicking out your drug dealers. UK: How about an Opium War? China: Oh crap, you have way more guns. We surrender. UK: OK We're taking HK for 100 years. China: I guess we don't have any say in the matter....

A few years later... China: We get HK back now, right? UK: Yeah but we've altered the terms. Take it or leave it. China: OK. I guess.

A few years later... China: Now we have more guns so here are the new terms. Take it or leave. UK: But our deal!!

mothballed5• 7 months ago

Mr. Lai is the real deal. He started out as a child laborer and worked his way up from nothing to owning a clothing brand and then Apple Daily pro-democracy publisher. He had the option to leave Hong Kong, but stayed and kept up the fight.

He's facing life in prison right now, so this conviction puts everything on the line.

Glad to see this hitting the front page. I posted an article earlier with not much movement which was really worrying for the HK free thought movement; happy that this turned out to not be the case.

regularization2• 7 months ago

The US is currently expelling students, firing professors and college presidents and so on, not because they aren't US aligned, but because they allow people on campus to criticize Israel.

CBS just got taken over by the same cabal.

Amidst ICE grabbing people out of Home Depot parking lots in the US, China is just doing the same thing over there.

E-Reverance• 7 months ago

One can care about both

tmpm2• 7 months ago

ICE doesn't grab citizens out of Home Depot parking lots.

cedws2• 7 months ago

Alexei Navalny’s death, leaving behind his wife and two children, showed the harsh reality that martyrdom isn't always worth it. Sacrifice is not always rewarded. Sometimes the tyrants win. Unless you believe in karma or divine retribution.

tyre2• 7 months ago

Well it’s not martyrdom if you aren’t sacrificing and we don’t know the true outcome of Russia soon after his death.

Do you think, were you to talk to Alexei now, you could convince him that his life fighting dictatorship wasn’t worth it?

AnimalMuppet6• 7 months ago

Depends on what price you have to pay in order to avoid martyrdom. Who are you willing to become in order to live?

danjl• 7 months ago

I did some consulting for Jimmy at Apple Daily, and he took me out to the best street-food lunches I ever had. His car took us to a busy street corner, where four of us had a huge lunch for two hours while the car disappeared. When the car magically showed up at the end, Jimmy told me that he paid ~$20 for that amazing food for all of us. No pretense. A lovely man. Very sad.

woopwoop• 7 months ago

In 2019, NPR's planet money did a segment on the Hong Kong protests that heavily featured Jimmy Lai. This segment from the end has always stuck with me.

GOLDSTEIN: China has not allowed more freedom of speech. Publications can still be shut down for criticizing the government. And yet, China has gotten richer. It started to develop its own financial center in Shanghai. Foreign money can now flow into China without going through Hong Kong, so the Chinese Communist Party doesn't need Hong Kong as much as it used to.

This has led to more and more tension between people in Hong Kong and the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government. In 2014, there was a fight over how to choose the government official who runs Hong Kong, and a million people in Hong Kong took to the streets to protest. Just last month, the government official who runs Hong Kong wanted to pass a new law that would allow people in Hong Kong to be extradited to China to stand trial. The people in Hong Kong said, we don't trust your mainland courts. Two million people protested in the streets, including, by the way, Jimmy Lai, who is now in his 70s.

What was it like? What was it like walking that day?

LAI: I was very excited - when you see so many people, you know, is fighting for a moral issue. We don't have guns. We don't have tanks. We don't have anything. The only thing we have the Chinese government don't is the moral authority we have, the moral courage we have.

GOLDSTEIN: The moral authority and courage, yeah.

LAI: Yes.

GOLDSTEIN: A few weeks later, on July 1, on the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule, protesters broke into the Hong Kong legislature buildings, smashed glass walls and spray-painted graffiti. Chinese leaders see these protesters and Jimmy Lai, for that matter, as agents for foreign influence - as, you know, basically latter-day colonialists. His house has been firebombed, and there was an assassination plot against him.

LAI: I stopped thinking about this because if I let the fear frighten me, I cannot go on, you know, because with what I have taken up, I have to sustain it. I will be the last to leave. That is like a captain who cannot jump the ship.

GOLDSTEIN: I mean, you're rich. You could leave if you wanted.

LAI: Yeah. If I'm rich but an a*hole...

GOLDSTEIN: (Laughter).

LAI: ...What my kids will think about me?

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.

LAI: You know, being rich, you can be very poor...

GOLDSTEIN: Go on. Say more.

LAI: ...Because if you only have money, you lost the meaning, you lost the dignity, you lost everything as a human being. What else do you have?

crims0n• 7 months ago

Seems like a pretty genuine guy, thanks for sharing.

elAhmo• 7 months ago

Haven't followed this 'geo area' that much, so don't know the guy, but this last part reminds me of Musk.

Simulacra• 7 months ago

Is it possible to get a fair and just trial in China? I have trouble accepting this or any verdict from a Chinese court and would appreciate examples that counter this.

0x3f13• 7 months ago

Of course it's possible to get a fair and just trial in China, since that can happen even coincidentally to the process. E.g. I'm sure an actual murderer has been given a just punishment in China, at some point in the history of the Chinese legal system.

Is it possible to get a fair trial if you're an enemy of the state? Well... what defines fair and just? In accordance with the will of the Chinese people? Or are we talking about Western standards?

the_af7• 7 months ago

Is it possible to get a fair trial if you're an enemy of the state?

In which country is it possible to get a fair trial if you're an enemy of the state, especially in today's climate?

pbhjpbhj4• 7 months ago

Or are we talking about Western standards?

Like USA-standards, or past-Western standards. Currently USA's law is 'did you pay the president a bribe to be pardoned'. CCP looks positively enlightened compared to that.

Lio• 7 months ago

In accordance with the will of the Chinese people?

Since when did the Chinese people get a say? There is no way for them to express their "will" without overthrowing the communists. It's the will of Xi and that's it.

throwaw122• 7 months ago

"Is it possible to get a fair and just trial in China?"

What makes you ask a such question? Here are some bad ideas which comes to my mind:

* you think China is inferior?

* or maybe Chinese are inferior?

* maybe you think they always lie?

* or maybe they don't have laws?

* maybe plain old racism?

Forgive me, but your question sounds so bad. Counter question, did any of war criminals get a fair trial in the USA? (I am not listing countries they did war crimes, because there are too many)

derac• 7 months ago

Is the US currently running massive concentration camps? Is the US currently involved in large scale organ harvesting?

Vegenoid• 7 months ago

What makes you ask a such question?

Obviously, it is that a political opponent of the administration is facing life in prison seemingly for being an outspoken critic of the administration.

aprentic4• 7 months ago

Do you have some test for fairness or justice?

The best measure I can think of is per capita prison population. It's not great because it doesn't directly address fairness but it's likely related.

Two countries, with roughly the same "fairness" of courts, should, ceteris paribus, have roughly the same per-capita prison population. By that measure, China would be slightly on the fairer end 92nd lowest out of 224.

I don't remember if HK does the same thing but China divides their police into two groups. The more common type are basically public safety officers. They are unarmed but I saw a few places where the had plastic riot shields and catch poles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_catcher#/media/File:Mancat... The armed police are only called out as needed.

The airport had a two of military guys standing at attention with rifles. They looked like a couple of wax figures until I saw them do a formal changing of the guard.

I don't know if anyone has assembled data on actual court records. How often are police charges prosecuted? How often do they go to trial? What percentage end up getting convictions? What are the average sentences?

It would also be good to decide what we're comparing it to. A rich white person in the US can expect a very different level of fairness than a poor black person. Is a random Chinese person's experience more like the rich white persons' or the poor black person's?

demarq2• 7 months ago

The law was enacted without consulting the Hong Kong legislature and gave authorities broad powers to charge and jail people they deemed a threat to the city's law and order, or the government's stability.

The UK throwing a very big rock at a thin glass house.

I don’t agree with any such laws in any country, but I think it’s important to point out the hypocrisy here

embedding-shape14• 7 months ago

let him who is without sin cast the first stone

And all that. We're all evil at one point or another, from someone's perspective.

spankalee2• 7 months ago

This is crazy logic. It leaves no one with the ability to critique another country when it abuses its citizens.

kyralis2• 7 months ago

I'm sorry, but "calling out apparent injustice" is not comparable to "literally throwing the first rock to stone someone to death".

That quote gets bent very far out of context. You could use it to justify any inaction under that interpretation, on the theory that you are not qualified to take it simply due to being imperfect.

nutjob23• 7 months ago

Why is every political discussion boiled down to a whataboutism? Who cares what the UK does when the subject is HK's obvious slide in to naked authoritarianism.

Can we not simply condemn that?

0x3f13• 7 months ago

Whenever one 'side' makes a statement about the other it's often dripped in some kind of righteous indignation or other moralistic tone, so it's hard not to descend into whataboutism in those cases. The Chinese, of course, do this too, just with their own ideology baked in.

the_af7• 7 months ago

Great Britain is very directly involved in a whole bunch of relatively recent messes in the Middle East, China, etc.

It's not whataboutism to point up the current messed up situation is not unrelated to the behavior of the UK, and their fingerprints are all over it. Of course things aren't static and new actors have changed the conversation, but this doesn't absolve them and they shouldn't be pointing fingers.

LudwigNagasena• 7 months ago

Why shouldn’t it boil down to “whataboutism”, aka comparison and putting things into context? Especially during UK’s obvious slide in to disguised authoritarianism.

One can also ask how HK ended up with English language and common law in the first place… though that wasn’t so recent.

demarq2• 7 months ago

Because once upon a time it was with pride you could point out all the ways your democracy was different than “theirs”.

Now you’re just condemning what you’ve already done. Why should anyone respect it? At some point you loose respect and eventually you just look confused.

the_af7• 7 months ago

Why is every political discussion boiled down to a whataboutism?

Unfortunately, just like whataboutism can be a disingenuous rhetorical device, so is anti-whataboutism. Sometimes the comparison is relevant, sometimes it's not. In this case, I think it is.

thenanyu• 7 months ago

When I was in my early 20s I used to think I was very clever for pointing out apparent hypocrisies. Now I realize how easily that devolves into “you are imperfect therefore you may never criticize anything”

Americans can never call out human rights abuses because of slavery. The British can never because of colonialism. Period. Forever.

If you find this line of argumentation compelling there’s no discussing anything with you.

0x3f13• 7 months ago

Your examples are a bit weasely because they happened long ago, and so seem sillier. What I assumed was meant here is that, currently, the UK government is out to punish wrongthink.

lotsofpulp• 7 months ago

When I was in my early 20s I used to think I was very clever for pointing out apparent hypocrisies. Now I realize how easily that devolves into “you are imperfect therefore you may never criticize anything”

There is nothing logically wrong with hypocrisy. I tell my toddlers not to do stuff I do all the time.

The problem with hypocrisy comes when one party is assumed to have more rights than the other. In this case, why would Britain (or the US's) government be allowed to be more corrupt than China's?

I assume Britain is brought up due to the British government's historic role in Hong Kong and China.

mc32• 7 months ago

I don't see slavery as an albatross. If anything, America accelerated its demise by its abolition at home --where America wasn't even the biggest enslaver of people; Brazil, The British empire (Caribbean), France (colonies), Russia (serfs), had way, way more slaves than the US. Today, India, China, Horn of Africa, NK have large slave populations.

epolanski3• 7 months ago

You can easily call out way more recent stuff such as what's happening in central America right now with Colombia and Venezuela.

Sinking half a dozen ships in international waters is a crime.

Sanity would ask for intercepting those boats in your waters, and that's it, controlling what's in them, who are these people and send them in front of a court if they breached your law, on your soil (or waters).

Yet we are at the point nobody raises the voice where sinking civilian ships on the basis it's drug smugglers (without providing a proof, let alone the fact that even if it was true it's still insane) has any leftover of decency or justice.

Or calling for the annexation of Greenland and Panama by any means.

Or bombing Iran on the basis that it's developing nuclear weapons on behalf of the Israeli government (which is an act of war if Iran could wage it, the US does not get to decide who can have a nuclear weapon and who does not).

The list of breaches in decency or law is basically infinite.

RobotToaster• 7 months ago

The current UK government has arrested over 2000 people for holding signs on charges of terrorism, and is currently in the process of abolishing jury trials. This isn't about history.

avidiax• 7 months ago

It goes beyond just pointing out hypocrisy. This is a well known propaganda strategy called "Whataboutism." [1] It's unfortunately a tremendously effective smokescreen that divides the audience and shuts down meaningful debate.

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

ufmace• 7 months ago

This isn't about things that happened decades or centuries ago though. It's about how right now, today, the UK is arresting 12,000 people a year, 30 a day, for supposedly "offensive" posts on social media.

https://freespeechunion.org/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for...

Dracophoenix• 7 months ago

When I was in my early 20s I used to think I was very clever for pointing out apparent hypocrisies. Now I realize how easily that devolves into “you are imperfect therefore you may never criticize anything”.

What's the solution? The alternative, where we can't criticize our governments on account of their hypocrisies and imperfections, robs citizens of their check against an institution with a monopoly on violence.

Americans can never call out human rights abuses because of slavery. The British can never because of colonialism. Period. Forever.

There's certainly a difference between holding countries responsible for events that have long since ceased and holding a government responsible for double standards practiced presently. The UK lacks credibility on Hong Kong when its own citizens are being jailed on the basis of overbroad hate speech regulations and when its government agencies attempt to claim extraterritorial jurisdiction over the operation of foreign social media companies. Westminister can't be so empty-headed as to believe that its actions will go unnoticed by other governments.

mig39• 7 months ago

Is it whatboutism?

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

martythemaniak• 7 months ago

the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"

-@dril, 2014

andy_ppp8• 7 months ago

Sigh, you know the UKs laws are much more complicated than right wing media in the US will explain to you.

0x3f13• 7 months ago

I don't think that's really true and I live here. People are convicted for saying 'rude' things online all the time, even if some of those stories are also hyped up in the news. Attempting to backdoor/otherwise break e2e encryption... also literally the case. I'm not sure where you think the nuance is.

buellerbueller3• 7 months ago

And yet, none of that has anything to do with the conviction of Jimmy Lai.

buellerbueller3• 7 months ago

Even bad people can be correct. Evaluate every claim on its merits, as opposed to its speaker. Only when you get down to resolving ambiguities is the evaluation of the speaker necessary.

knallfrosch• 7 months ago

The British have a clear connection to Hong Kong. And they're right. And their rule would be freer.

ta202405284• 7 months ago

Nonsense, the currently alive young Britons are not the Britons that ran HK as a colony; they think the idea was terrible and have no desire to reintroduce it.

Its a common fallacy to accuse alive people of hypocrisy done by other people who came before them.

lvl1552• 7 months ago

Democracy that we knew from 60s to 00s is effectively dead everywhere. I would like to think that social media and surveillance technology both played roles in accomplishing that so quickly and without public outcry/protests. All that blood spilled in 1900s to spread democracy wiped out in a matter of couple of years.

guerrilla2• 7 months ago

both played roles in accomplishing that so quickly and without public outcry/protests.

Bread and circuses. Everyone is comfortable and entertained to the point of drooling. They won't be leaving their cozy warm houses with TV and video games to do anything. Brain isn't built that way. If it were, there wouldn't be an obesity epidemic. It'll always be short-term rewards over long-term most of the time for most people.

On the other hand, none of this is sustainable in the long-run, so it'll all come crashing down and things will work out. We'll probably be dead long before then though. Gotta go through some rough shit first.

throwaw122• 7 months ago

"Democracy that we knew from 60s to 00s is effectively dead everywhere."

What if it was a fake all along and was just a facade and social media exposed it?

guerrilla2• 7 months ago

It was, but what we have no is also much worse. Both can be true.

tokai2• 7 months ago

The anglosphere is not the entire democratic world.

lvl1552• 7 months ago

Agreed but even in places like South Korea where they staged national weekend strikes to remove a sitting president, it’s withering away. People are tired of politics and politicians. It’s death by apathy.

css_apologist• 7 months ago

no, social media did not kill it :facepalm:

mass de-regulation, tax avoidance, effective end of anti-trust killed it

social media was just the tool-of-the-day to break democracy

fwsgonzo• 7 months ago

I agree. I also challenge readers to watch TV broadcasts from politicians speaking in 70s, 80s and even 90s. You won't even believe your ears. But, the slow takeover of the world by international conglomerates buying up everything else, merging and bankrupting competition just doesn't seem to be on anyones mind with any power to deal with it. An acquaintance works at one of these Frankensteins monsters and there is a hodge podge of internal systems. It's hard to believe how many companies they have bought up over the decades.

leftouterjoins• 7 months ago

It never existed in the first place. You just were unable to see the machinations behind the scenes when all of media was a newspaper and 3 TV stations.

mothballed5• 7 months ago

I've found the most freedom on the fringes of the earth. Rural South America and Kurdish Syria to name a couple.

Anywhere with any real government though, it's dead. My theory is the period of classical liberalism in the world was largely a result of the brief period where firearms were the main form of warfare, which represented a short period in history where violence was most decentralized and the government had the least leverage. Before that it was years to train archers or swordsman, after that fighter jets/ missiles / technology tilted back in power of government. In the golden era of the age of the firearm one person was basically one vote of violence (giving the populace the greater leverage); whereas before/after that time each vote was heavily weighted by a government actor.

erxam4• 7 months ago

Democracy died in 1989-1991. We've been riding on the fumes since then.

hashstring• 7 months ago

Why do you say it is at that time?

HumblyTossed• 7 months ago

The Heritage Foundation has been operating since 70s. They've played the long game, and it's only now that we are, en masse, looking at the culmination of decades of work by them and thinking, "wow, that was quick!".

mrtksn• 7 months ago

Interestingly, places that used to be shit holes are becoming better or at least show a desire for becoming better. For example in eastern Europe, there are movements that demands democracy and destruction of the establishment.

So if all the world is against the establishment, it only makes sense that shit holes become better places and better place become shit holes.

That's it I suspect that these moments can be quite fragile. Turkey was crashed, Georgia was crashed, Belarus was crashed, Russia was crashed, Ukraine is fighting generational war, Serbia is teetering, Bulgaria is on to something but its only a spark ATM. However, the crashed ones also did not stabilize, they just become brutal and visibly oppressed and IMHO anything still can happen.

bArray2• 7 months ago

Remember, Hong Kong was supposed to be in a 50 year transition period from 1997 where there were supposed to be one country, two systems [1]. The national security legislation is just one in a long line of failures [2]. If nothing else was learned, it was this: China, specifically the CCP, cannot be trusted.

It makes me sick that the UK sends billions to Ukraine to interfere in a war we have no fundamental right to involve ourselves in, meanwhile, Hong Kong was allowed to fall with only light media coverage. It is outrageous. The politicians that oversaw it should be ashamed.

Not to mention that Carrie Lam, former leader of Hong Kong, sold her people up the river by allowing the national security law in [3]. She was even hiding out in the UK with her husband from her own countrymen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#Imple...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#2020_...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Lam

ronsor• 7 months ago

Don't worry, China is learning a lot from Russia. Taiwan is next.

vachina2• 7 months ago

As a non-us observer, I'm unsure where this "China gonna invade Taiwan" hysteric come from. It never made sense.

dh202210• 7 months ago

The only lesson that China can learn from Russia is to not invade their neighbor. It did not work out at all for Russia; if China invades Taiwan it will not work out for them either.

waffleiron2• 7 months ago

Hong Kong Basic Law also required a national security law since 1997. Lets not be selective.

Article 23 is an article of the Hong Kong Basic Law. It states that Hong Kong "shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies."

AnimalMuppet6• 7 months ago

Um, at the time of the National Security Legislation (your reference [2]), we were not sending billions to Ukraine, because Russia hadn't started their open attack yet.

bArray2• 7 months ago

I wasn't suggesting the time periods are the same. The point is that we were willing to defend Ukraine against Russia, when it's the EU's problem, and refused to defend Hong Kong against China when it's a problem of our making.

dionian2• 7 months ago

They'll say the same thing about Taiwan. And do the same thing.

yieldcrv3• 7 months ago

The law was enacted without consulting the Hong Kong legislature

And a plain reading of the Basic Law (Hong Kong's constitution) permits everything that's happened, and expecting the contrary seems like a coping mechanism. There are massive exemptions for Hong Kong's autonomy and deferrence to Beijing at Beijing's discretion, or by the Head of Hong Kong who is appointed by Beijing

I wasn't around for the handover so I'm largely exempt from the emotional marriage to an ideal Hong Kong residents and people affirming Hong Kong resident's feelings seem to have

The legislature wouldn't have to be consulted for the National Security Law to have been enacted, the article and seemingly all of the west seems to think that is a controversy when it isn't necessary

And then there is another layer where the structure of the legislature doesn't even match western ideals and wouldn't have made a difference. The legislature is 50% popular vote and 50% corporations. So even if 100% of the population voted for the same thing, they would only have 50% of the vote, and the corporations are all pro-Beijing by nature of being able to economically exist in that environment.

(Notably, the ancient City of London within London functions nearly the same way. Actually in an even more egregious way with the non-natural persons having a more extreme weighting of votes)

People act like a different founding document governs Hong Kong (Sino British joint declaration? Some comments by representatives), when it doesn't. People act like the governing document of Hong Kong was supposed to be ignored for 50 years, when something way different and way more integrated is supposed to happen at the end of the handover period.

I think there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to. They’re imagining a different governing system than the one they live in, thats incompatible.

thedudeabides5• 7 months ago

The NSL (and the way it was implemented) is as stark a violation of he Sino British Joint Declaration as possible without PLA tanks on the ground.

Game over. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

yieldcrv3• 7 months ago

but the Sino British Joint Declaration is not the constitution of Hong Kong. It is not even an enforceable treaty.

Its analogous to an American finding a piece of the Declaration of Independence to confirm their views after finding the US constitution too inconvenient. A pointless exercise, levels worse than even the Federalist papers.

aprentic4• 7 months ago

there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to

From talking to friends and relatives from HK I've seen huge diversity in how people think about HK, China, their relationship with each other, Mandarin, Cantonese, food, and "the West".

There are certainly large groups of HKers who would prefer for HK to seced from China. There are also many HKers who love the UK and mourn the loss of HK to China.

There are also huge swathes of the population that chaffed at being colonized. Long time residents can show you the old police barracks where British troops would beat the locals in black bag operations. They'll tell you about how the feng shui of the Bank of China Tower lead to the collapse of the British empire. They'll tell you that they spent their lives paying taxes into a "democracy" they never got to vote in.

The opinions within HK are far more diverse than we make them out to be.

yieldcrv3• 7 months ago

Exactly, which goes to my point about the absurdity of the legislative body, even if 100% of residents voted for the same thing it would only be 50% of the vote, and 100% of residents won't vote for the same thing.

tehjoker2• 7 months ago

Just remember when the press reports on foreign affairs, “pro democracy” means “pro capitalism, pro west” we don’t gaf about democracy or self determination. That’s why we ally with saudi arabia, israel, and invaded iraq.

jimbokun2• 7 months ago

Whatever else they are, Israel is a democracy.

umanwizard6• 7 months ago

The State of Israel controls certain territory which it administers democratically. It controls other territory in which only people of a particular ethnic/cultural group are citizens and everyone else is stateless and governed by military law. Conveniently, the latter territory is considered “not part of Israel” despite having been fully controlled by the state for many decades.

So, is Israel a democracy? I guess that depends on your definition of “democracy”, and also your definition of “Israel”.

GordonS• 7 months ago

Can an apartheid state really be considered a democracy?

slowturtle6• 7 months ago

Israel is not a democracy. You cannot call yourself a democracy when 5 million people live under your military occupation and are subject to military law without any political representation. An apartheid state cannot be a democracy.

sp4cec0wb0y• 7 months ago

I understand what you are trying to say and as much as I disagree with Israel, it is a democracy. We invaded Iraq for terrible reasons but it wasn't a "democracy" we were invading.

tehjoker2• 7 months ago

With regards to Israel, how can you have a democracy when more than half the population in palestine is under military rule and there is an addition to the basic law as of 2018 that israel is a jewish state and settlement is explicitly encouraged? It is an explicit apartheid regime committing a fascist genocide in the service of expansion.

Democracy for whom? Democracy to what end?

With respect to Iraq, it is true there was not a democracy there, but we did violate their self determination and installing an american viceroy is the opposite of democracy. Iraq had a welfare state that helped many citizens even if there were many features of the government I despise, but we destroyed it all and turned it into an experimental playground for American privatization efforts.

hearsathought• 7 months ago

"pro-democracy" is code for agent/operative of a colonial power. It's why so many hong kong pro-"democracy" operatives fled to britain, germany, us, etc. And it's also why so may pro-"democracy" operatives end up in countries we have problems with. No pro-"democracy" operatives in allied countries like saudi arabia, qatar, etc. Strange.

dzonga• 7 months ago

this guy was sold a false idea of "democracy" - however his sponsors no longer have powers to they used to think they have. hence his sponsors have thrown "democracy" in the trash.

previously, these well funded democracy - regime agents would win in many places, but now the tables have turned - america now has a demagogue as president.

dfee• 7 months ago

Would love to see X's "account based in" for this thread to assess bias.

barfoure• 7 months ago

/pol/ has entered the chat.

dh202210• 7 months ago

If anything, these actions will make Taiwan even more opposed to unification with China and will strengthen their resolve to oppose China.

For China it would have made more sense long term to first "incorporate" Taiwan into their country and only after that start turning the screws on both Taiwan and Hong Kong.

maxglute12• 7 months ago

Naw, now Taiwan will have a few years to realize being 1C2S is no big deal, kids in HK are going to mainland to party, next gen is going to be even more integrated thanks to patriotic education. In 5-10 years you'll have patriotic HKers lol at TWers being brained for for prefering Gaza solution over HK solution. Which realisitically is really what the offer is now.

dh202210• 7 months ago

I am still waiting for the widely advertised and announced China attack on Taiwan.

And I do not think Taiwan will become Gaza if China eventually attacks - unlike Israel, China has quite a lot of enemies in the West.

maxloh4• 7 months ago

The Taiwanese support for pro-independence actually skyrocketed in 2019. I don't think anything bad happening to Hong Kong activists would be a good look for China.

https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/upload/44/doc/6963/Tondu202506.png

random97498323• 7 months ago

I personally would like to see East Asia more unified and less reliant on an increasingly unstable country like the US. They will collectively have to rely on foreigners more in the future anyway due to low birth rates as Japan already does. A lot of people serving food were Chinese when I went there. About 50% of the tourists were also Chinese.

NoGravitas• 7 months ago

Dictatorship of the proletariat jails a member of the bourgeoisie notable for calling for the restoration of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and conspiring with agents of bourgeois states to that end. This doesn't seem surprising? A revolutionary state working to prevent counterrevolution?

Aqua0• 7 months ago

What are U.S. citizens thinking when they are confronted with violent movements on Capitol Hill?

The same applies to Hong Kong.

Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national security trial

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