Links - 9th December 2019 (3) (Hong Kong Protests)

For diaspora, there is more than one China - "Hong Kong's resistance to mainland China's demands -- and the way in which the overseas Chinese are processing it -- shows how the idea of a Chinese identity that connects them with their "Chineseness" does not necessarily imply affinity, empathy or nationalistic ties to China itself... In many conversations, Hong Kong's existence as part of China and its tarnished "one country, two systems" formula is not in doubt. But the point is no longer China's sovereignty, or what it can do in its territory, but whether China has space for differing Chinese identities... Beijing's "One China" principle will undoubtedly persist as a political idea, but for the overseas Chinese, there has not been one China for a long time."

American democracy group slams Beijing’s claim it is ‘black hand’ behind Hong Kong protests, as National Democratic Institute head calls it ‘patently false’ - "China has long accused “Western hostile forces” – such as the United States and Britain – of playing a behind-the-scenes role in instigating protests in Hong Kong as part of a broader effort to undermine Communist Party rule, with the NDI and its partner the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) frequent targets of Beijing’s ire... The NDI has been operating in Hong Kong since the handover in 1997, working with local civil society actors on the rule of law and political reform.  According to Mitchell, it has produced regular reports on political reform in the city, supported public opinion polling projects, and conducted programmes to strengthen parties across the political spectrum, including the city’s leading pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.  “We had an office here until 2017. We’re not hiding. We’re transparent”"

Hong Kong Doesn’t Have a Pro-China ‘Silent Majority’ - The Atlantic - "For months, members of Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing establishment have spoken of a “silent majority” here. The argument, parroted by government-friendly pundits and talking heads, offered a convenient counter-narrative to months of demonstrations and violent clashes that have ripped through the city: A large portion of the population, the fable went, had grown tired of the protests but remained quiet for fear of being attacked for their unpopular views. On voting day, they would emerge, cast their ballots, and restore an order of normalcy. That story line, flimsy from the start, has now collapsed entirely. Voters in Hong Kong’s district-council elections, the city’s only fully democratic contest, delivered a humiliating rebuke of the government. In a record voter turnout, pro-democracy candidates captured more than 80 percent of the 452 seats in contention and gained control of 17 of Hong Kong’s 18 district councils, all of which were previously pro-establishment following the 2015 election... Kenny Lee, a 12-year incumbent from Hong Kong’s largest pro-Beijing party, faced a challenge from Pakkin Leung, a 39-year-old journalist who gained a measure of fame in August when he filmed shocking footage of police storming a subway station, beating and pepper-spraying commuters and protesters. The moment stunned and angered many and helped turn the ire of protesters toward the police and their tactics... Nearly every race seemed to have a candidate like Leung, directly tied in some way or shaped by the experiences of the past six months... ichard Chan, who attempted in August to mediate between protesters and police outside Hong Kong’s airport, made his first foray into politics. Hailed as the “airport uncle” for his actions, he was later pepper-sprayed and his face pressed to the ground by riot police, who arrested him for taking part in an election rally. Leung, Yau, Sham, and Chan all won their respective races. The losers included a lengthy list of pro-Beijing heavyweights... Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s leader who has disappeared from public view for days at a time in recent months and who protesters have demanded resign, took no blame for the defeat. In a statement, she instead said that there were “various analyses and interpretations” of the voting results"
Now that China shills can't claim that only a small minority support the protesters, they claim that they are so simple minded that they are brainwashed by foreign influences. Maybe they think they're as easily influenced as the targets of the 50 cent army

In one voice, Hong Kong demands an independent inquiry into the unrest. Why won’t Carrie Lam say yes? - "The sudden emergence of People's Liberation Army soldiers in our streets, albeit not in uniform and with brooms rather than rifles, was ostensibly a goodwill gesture, but it was also a blunt reminder that they can be deployed at a moment’s notice to support the police. Under the terms of the Basic Law, they should not have been deployed at all without an explicit request from the Hong Kong government; this marks a step down a very slippery slope... We are constantly reminded that our society is deeply polarised, but on one point there is close to unanimous agreement among civic leaders, academics, commentators and the general public, namely the need for an independent inquiry into how our once peaceful and globally admired city has descended into such chaos"

ajmm on Twitter - "“Rioters” calling it a day in #HongKong, and got on #Police car so they could head back to police station and logged in their overtime hours. #HongKongProtests #FreeHongKong #PoliceState #PoliceBrutality"

Beijing will have its revenge on Hong Kong | Financial Times - "The protesters, steeped in Chinese history, are well aware of this impending retribution. It has given their movement a hard, nihilistic edge. “If we burn, you burn with us,” reads one of the most common slogans spray-painted across the central business district. For its part, the ruling Communist party has learnt a powerful lesson from its response to the earlier, peaceful “umbrella movement” of 2014 and its aftermath... The conclusion Beijing has drawn from the past four months of rage is the only one possible in an authoritarian — increasingly totalitarian — system: they were far too soft last time around. When the moment is right, they must act ruthlessly to punish Hong Kong. Just as in China in the aftermath of 1989, Hong Kong’s education system will be overhauled to promote “patriotic” narratives; “unreliable” civil servants and judges will be purged; news outlets will be muzzled; all business figures, including multinational companies, will be expected to display loyalty to the motherland. The internet will probably be censored. Mass arrests are likely. This is a best-case scenario, predicated on the protests ending now — which is unlikely.In Beijing, the discussion is instructive. Party cadres say there is nothing really wrong with the fish-tank that is Hong Kong, but what is needed is for all the “bad fish” to be replaced with “good fish”. The central government will try to retain the trappings of an international financial centre — open markets, a freely convertible currency, a relatively independent and professional judiciary for non-political cases — but will quickly strip away the rights and freedoms that make Hong Kong unique. The calculus of Communist rule does not allow for concessions to unruly provinces... Because the people of Hong Kong instinctively understand what is coming, they are unlikely to quietly return to their ordinary lives.Neither side can back down... One senior police official says privately that as many as a quarter of his officers are joining peaceful protests in their spare time. Hated as it is right now, the Hong Kong police force is made up of Cantonese-speaking locals. Faced with a Mandarin-speaking occupying army from the north, many officers would choose to join the rebellion."

Our city is dying and there’s little we can do - "To the protesters, any and all violence is seemingly justified because of the combination of the government’s lack of response to the public’s demands, and repeated incidents where the police have transgressed boundaries and protocol in their treatment of protesters.For the police, any violence from their end can be rationalized as both exercising self-defense and discharging their duties. For the administration, violence from the protesters is always impermissible, and all usage of force by the disciplinary forces – given the latter’s importance – must be accepted and endorsed... We could wish for the violent protesters to cease violence, but that would also mean a failure to understand why they remain on the streets. As much as we may personally disagree, they see the protests as a fight, as a mutually annihilative gesture whose catatonic consequences they are willing to bear. We could wish for more concessions from the Central and Hong Kong administration, but doing so would be based on a fundamental misreading of how politics works – particularly in the eyes of Beijing"
On Hong Kong

Former chairman of Hong Kong’s biggest pro-establishment party says election humiliation was ‘not a bad thing’ - "it was a reminder that party members have to fight as hard as their founders did 20 years ago.Jasper Tsang Yok-sing gave his advice to fellow party members

Beijing's Hong Kong Delusions Come Crashing Down - " the more tear gas had been used by the increasingly brutal Hong Kong police, the bigger the movement toward the democrats.In newsrooms in Beijing, however, the results began a panicked scramble to find a way to spin them in favor of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In stark contrast to most observers in Hong Kong, editors—and the officials behind them—appear to have sincerely believed that the establishment parties would win an overwhelming victory. Propaganda is a heady drug, and Beijing got high on its own supply... The misplaced confidence in Beijing’s victory points to a worrying problem; at high levels within the CCP, officials believe their own propaganda about Hong Kong. That’s a frightening prospect for both governance in China and for the future of the city, especially as the system struggles to come up with political excuses for a cataclysmic failure... this was a narrative easily refuted by opinion polling, which repeatedly showed a lack of identification with the mainland, massive distrust in the police, and that the overwhelming majority of Hong Kongers, while unhappy with violence, principally blamed the government for it... What caused such an enormous misjudgment? The biggest single problem is this: The people in charge of manipulating Hong Kong public opinion for the CCP are also the people charged with reporting on their own success... The protests have been a massive failure for the Liaison Office. The silent majority narrative was a way of redeeming itself. It seems more than likely that material supporting it was being fed back to Beijing while any counternarrative was suppressed. A similar problem reportedly emerged with the Taiwan office several years ago. But, of course, the CCP leadership doesn’t rely on just one channel. This isn’t a new problem for autocracies; from the Qing princes who told the emperor of fake successes against British forces to the Soviet underlings who reported imaginary harvests, dictatorships have a problem with data. The CCP leadership is aware of this and usually receives its information through a variety of methods, including neican (“internal reports”) produced by media staff, especially at the official news agency Xinhua, for the leadership and informal channels—sometimes deliberately circumventing official sources to get at the truth.The problem is that under the increasingly paranoid regime of Xi Jinping, even these internal reports have become much more geared toward what the leadership wants to hear. Reporting on a failed program can be painted as a sign of disloyalty. That’s especially the case when it comes to any issue involving separatism—in Xinjiang in 2017, more than 12,000 party members were investigated for supposed failings in the “fight against separatism.” Hong Kong is not as politically dangerous as Xinjiang, but it’s still highly risky waters. Political incentives cause multiple sources to repeat the same comforting narratives to the leadership, which then becomes convinced of its credibility. This paranoia can go to extreme lengths. In 2016, I began to notice that even positive comments from officials in the media about government programs were being reported anonymously. A journalist friend told me the reason: A positive comment about a program backed by a leader who later fell in the rolling political purges under Xi could be very dangerous. The fall of Bo Xilai, a prominent leader whom many journalists and pundits once backed, had killed many careers—and resulted in the disappearance of one of the country’s most famous TV anchors... The election has worsened a crisis of conscience in Beijing newsrooms. Several current and former reporters, although broadly sympathetic toward the government position and especially conscious of the prejudices felt by many Hong Kongers against mainlanders, spoke of feeling uncomfortable with the extremism of the coverage. Two especially singled out the repeated use of the term “traitors,” and one called their own paper’s coverage “toxic” and said it harmed attempts to win over the Hong Kong public. The result may cause a change of thinking. But so far, all indicators are for a doubling down on previous convictions. State media has turned to blaming protesters and the United States for supposed electoral interference, furthering a persistent paranoia inside the CCP about foreign intelligence. Heads are likely to roll for the failure—but quite possibly the wrong ones."

Beijing Was Confident Its Hong Kong Allies Would Win. After the Election, It Went Silent. - The New York Times - "When it became clear early Monday that democracy advocates in the semiautonomous territory had won in a landslide, Beijing turned silent. The news media, for the most part, did not even report the election results. And Chinese officials directed their ire at a familiar foe: the United States... Like those in the pro-democracy camp, the Chinese media also appeared to position the vote as a referendum on the protests, albeit as a chance for the public to decry the violence and the pro-democracy movement.  But the vote on Sunday severely undercut the government’s narrative... The failure of the political establishment in Beijing to predict the outcome also raised questions about the party’s grasp of the political forces in Hong Kong. There are grumblings that Mr. Xi’s government has misread the grievances of the protesters and underestimated the depth of the anger in Hong Kong. Chinese state media has simultaneously argued that the frustrations have stemmed from economic issues like sky-high housing costs and depicted demonstrators as paid thugs. And those provocateurs, in Beijing’s view, didn’t have the broad support of the Hong Kong public."

How Hong Kong's greatest tycoon went from China friend to punching bag - "Instead of feting the 91-year-old businessman, Beijing has harangued him for failing to deliver in the rebellious city. When the Party was looking for a chorus of influential voices to counter the protests that began this summer, Li offered only even-handed pleas for restraint. In an online video of comments he made at a monastery, Li called for “humanity” when dealing with young protesters.The response was brutal. The Party’s central legal affairs commission in Beijing publicly accused Li of “harboring criminality” and “watching Hong Kong slip into the abyss.” A pro-Beijing trade union leader in Hong Kong posted a Facebook item mocking him as the “king of cockroaches” with an image that pasted Li’s head atop a picture of a fat insect... The vilification of the city’s preeminent capitalist was a rare public display of the new power dynamic, businessmen and analysts say. It sent a clear message that Li and his fellow Hong Kong tycoons must toe the line and unequivocally condemn the protests, which present the most serious challenge to Communist Party rule since Tiananmen. The now-scrapped legislation that sparked the recent unrest would have allowed for extraditions from Hong Kong to mainland China. It also provided an avenue for the seizure of assets, according to a statement by the Hong Kong Bar Association. That could have exposed the city’s tycoons to the same fate as wealthy mainlanders who have been stripped of assets in Xi’s anti-corruption drive.Shortly after protests over the bill escalated in early June, some wealthy Hong Kongers began moving money outside of the region or setting up accounts that would allow them to do so, according to six private bankers whose institutions collectively handle hundreds of billions of dollars in assets... After Xi took power, Beijing adopted a harder line toward Hong Kong. In a 2014 white paper, Beijing said the autonomy the city enjoys was not a given but, instead, contingent on the permission of the central leadership. And Li himself began facing criticism from Chinese state media."

Ex-LegCo head: 2014 white paper was turning point of Beijing exercising 'overall jurisdiction' in Hong Kong - "Former Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang has called Beijing’s issuance of the 2014 white paper on “One Country, Two Systems” a “turning point” in China’s policy towards the city. According to Tsang, the central government went from exercising a “high degree of autonomy”in Hong Kong to exercising “overall jurisdiction” over its Special Administrative Region.The controversial white paper, issued on June 10, 2014, stated that “The high degree of autonomy of the HKSAR is not full autonomy, nor a decentralized power. It is the power to run local affairs as authorized by the central leadership. The high degree of autonomy of HKSAR is subject to the level of the central leadership’s authorization.”... Tsang said that “comprehensive jurisdiction” and “supervisory power” did not appear in the Basic Law and – prior to the White Paper – they were not mentioned by Chinese officials. Rather, the articles in the Basic Law specified that “No department of the Central People’s Government and no province, autonomous region, or municipality directly under the Central Government may interfere in the affairs which the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region administers on its own in accordance with this Law.”  At the ceremony of the establishment of the Hong Kong special administrative region in 1997, this point was also stressed by then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin... between 1997 and 2014, every time the Communist Party mentioned Hong Kong and Macau, it said that it supported the government and the chief executive’s policies and did not imply any intention to supervise the region... One event that caught the tycoons’ attention, he said, was the 2017 disappearance of China-born billionaire Xiao Jianhua. Xiao was last seen leaving a luxury Hong Kong hotel in a wheelchair with his head covered, accompanied by unknown men. In its annual human rights report, the U.S. State Department said that “multiple press reports stated he was likely abducted by state security agents from the mainland.”"
Of course China shills will insist this wasn't Beijing ripping up two countries, one system

China's propaganda on Weibo and WeChat misplaced on Twitter and Facebook - "Aiming to direct global perceptions about the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, traces of Chinese propaganda aimed at Western audiences were detected on Facebook and Twitter. Viewed against the slick Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election of 2016, the Chinese equivalents appear ineffective or even bizarre.China resorted to armies of inauthentic accounts and brute-force attempts to frame the protests along the lines of national pride, sovereignty and anti-terrorism... The GFW certainly restricts some Chinese people from visiting foreign sites on its blacklist but, as our research shows, by and large the Chinese, just like people worldwide, gravitate toward websites and apps that appeal to their cultures. Even with an open internet, users in Britain and the U.S., despite having a lot in common, generally visit sites focused on their own countries.Media coverage about "the Chinese internet" often compares it to "the rest of the web." But the rest of the world does not share a common web-browsing experience. Facebook, WhatsApp and Google, though very popular in many countries, do not have as much traction in others, such as Japan, Russia and South Korea... one of us maps the associations between words that people say about the state on Weibo, which is China's Twitter equivalent.In 2011, when the government's "online public opinion guidance" project began, the state was largely discussed critically, with parts directly influenced by liberal democratic ideals. Just five years later, populist nationalism had displaced such critiques, suggesting the success of state propaganda measures. Our key finding is that the state has not achieved everything it intended. For example, its promotion of its economic accomplishments has been less than effective. What has worked is to frame messages in ways that appeal to national pride and territorial sovereignty."
This suggests that China's economic achievements - touted by many of China's champions as justifying its repression - are oversold, and that ordinary Chinese people don't think the Communist party has improved their lives all that much

BBC World Service - The World This Week, Trouble at the top - "I've been a reporter for many years, but I've never covered a story that could cost me my relations with my family and friends. Until now, with the Hong Kong protests. In the past week, some friends have accused me of being too sympathetic toward the protesters, while others felt I was overly critical of them. It's even riskier sharing my stories, or discussing this issue with relatives, especially those in mainland China. I could become persona non grata in my own family. Each day, I get text messages and videos from the two sides, those who support the protesters and those who oppose what they're doing. Such divisions exists even within the same household. Arguments have broken out between people who deeply love each other. Supporters of the protests tend to be young or idealistic, while opponents are older and more practical. But there is another big difference between the two sides. Those who back the protesters rarely visit China and have no affection for it. Those who oppose the protesters are from the mainland or visit regularly. They still care about China. One group has absolutely no faith China's government will eventually voluntarily relax controls and allow democracy. They think given the momentum of the protest, now is the best time to force Beijing to respect Hong Kong people's wishes for democracy. The other group is forgiving of the Chinese authorities’ involvement in Hong Kong affairs, and patiently hopes that China, including Hong Kong, will become more free and democratic one day, but they are under no illusion who is in charge? Do you think Hong Kong is yours?, one elderly Hong Kong person asked young protesters. People laugh at you kids, you read so many books. But what's the use? Hong Kong is not yours. It’s a part of China. We’re descendants of the dragon after all. People of her generation were not exposed to values of democracy and human rights. They were too busy putting a roof over their heads. They feel confident that as long as Hong Kong doesn't cross Beijing's red lines, it will be left more or less the same. Even after Beijing's promised to Britain that it will not change Hong Kong for 50 years expires in 2047. But the younger generation exposed to Western concepts of democracy and freedom, feel no connection to China. They've had enough of peaceful protests over the past two decades, and feel the clock is ticking. They are the ones who have to live with what happens next. That's why many have risked their lives and future to demand Beijing keep its promises of allowing universal suffrage. As I tried to mediate between these two camps, I could not help but remember the Hong Kong of my childhood and early adulthood. It was the Hollywood or Paris of modern Chinese culture, a place that practically everyone of Chinese descent worldwide has some connection to from its films and TV dramas, to its fashion and food. That's why scenes of protesters battling the police in tear gas shrouded streets are so disturbing, not only to locals, but Chinese people around the world. The Hong Kong many knew was a place where you could achieve your dreams if you worked hard. Like my uncle, who went from being a homeless restaurant kitchen helper to a chef. One of his sons just recently became a Michelin star chef. But for the younger generation, their dream is no longer just having a good job in a home. They want democracy."

Hong Kong baker’s protest-themed cake disqualified from international contest in Birmingham after mainlander lodges complaint

If HongKong ‘is’ a part of china because it ‘was’ a part of the so-called china, should England be “returned” to Italy (Roman Empire?) - "To those who keep saying ‘Hong kong has always been a part of china and it will always be’ — — well you know this is hardly the truth.Before 1841, Hong Kong was part of the Manchurian Empire, and PRC China doesn’t even exist. If one accepts that Hong Kong was part of PRC as a precedent, it would mean that most countries in Europe should be ‘returned’ to Italy since they were part of Roman Empire. Many Eastern European countries should be under Russian rule forever, since they were part of USSR... If you say because we speak the “same language” and we are the “same races” — sorry again but we aren’t. Cantonese and Mandarin are very different languages. To say they are both “Chinese” and Cantonese is just a dialect, it is as non-sense as saying German is a dialect of English, and they are the ‘same’ languages since they are both “European”.People understand the logic is wrong when applied to the west, but come to Asia, everything non-sense make senses to them... why same ‘races’ has to stuck together? Isn’t it racists?If the logic of speaking same language should be stuck together, than Australia, America, Canada, UK, New Zealand ,and Singapore etc should all be one country under … the UK? Austria and 70% of Switzerland should be ‘united” with Germany? Most of the south American countries are part of Spain?I can go on. Opium war yeah, CCP China sold more opium to their people more than the UK"

Hong Kong is Xi Jinping’s failure | Financial Times - "Mr Xi could plausibly argue that the immediate crisis is not his fault. The spark for the first demonstrations in June was the introduction of a bill allowing extradition of criminal suspects from Hong Kong to mainland China. By most accounts that was an idea pushed by Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive. When Beijing saw the depth of the opposition, it tried to react sensibly by suspending the bill. But, by then, the protest movement had broadened its aims and gathered an irresistible momentum.Mr Xi bears a broader responsibility. In the seven years since he came to power, the Chinese state has become significantly more authoritarian, preparing the ground in Hong Kong for a backlash against rule from Beijing.An anti-corruption drive has seen prominent figures disappear from public life on the mainland and a rash of suicides among Communist party officials. More than a million people have been interned in re-education camps in the province of Xinjiang. The treatment of Xinjiang is often cited by demonstrators in Hong Kong as a sign of how far Beijing will go to crush cultural and regional diversity. The increasingly Kafkaesque legal system of mainland China stands in stark contrast with Hong Kong’s own tradition of the rule of law. But during the Xi period, the mainland’s intolerance for free speech and thuggish attitude towards the law has seeped into Hong Kong itself. The case of some Hong Kong booksellers who were kidnapped — then detained on the mainland — sent a chilling message as did the decision to ban elected lawmakers from the Hong Kong assembly, for mangling loyalty oaths to China... during the Xi years, China has gone backwards politically. Maoist-era slogans have been revived and “Xi Jinping Thought” has been written into the Chinese constitution. Free speech has been further restricted; civil rights lawyers have been locked up and non-governmental organisations have been closed down.It is hardly surprising if Hong Kong now regards the prospect of full integration with the mainland with horror. And that date no longer seems impossibly far-off. The most radical demonstrators are often in their teens or early twenties. They will be in the prime of their lives when the second handover takes place in 2047. So their assertions that they are fighting for their freedom cannot be dismissed as hyperbole — even if their tactics can be challenged... the rebellion in Hong Kong undermines a central tenet of the patriotic education pushed by the Communist party: namely that there is “one China” and that all Chinese people long for nothing more than to be united. It is now clear that millions of Hong Kongers do not feel that ethnic solidarity overrides their political concerns about mainland China. On the contrary, they are increasingly asserting a separate Hong Kong identity, that is often tinged with prejudice against mainlanders."

The truth behind Nathan Road Stampede: Police used minibuses to ram protesters. : HongKong
Comment to someone complaining about protester violence: "why are you holding the entire protest movement to the same standard as the Hong Kong Police force.  One side is full of individuals who have been driven to violence by both Government inaction and police brutality against initially peaceful protests.  The other side is meant to uphold the rules of society to the highest degree, utilize minimum force and serve the people.  As a society we are meant to trust the police, but time and time again they have broken that trust with lies. Both on the streets of HK and in their sham press conferences where they twist the truth to suit their needs.  I don't agree with everything the protesters are doing, but they are individuals who are committing heinous acts, not a unified organization. They are simply angry people who have been driven to that point by a corrupt system.  On the other side, it is not individuals beating protesters, arresting people for trivial reasons (even just playing a damn song), lying to the public, and generally terrorizing the population.  It is an institution.  And because of that, the HKPF has lost my trust in them. I'm sure there are still some 'good cops' left in the force. But right now, they are either too scared to do the right thing or have been relegated to desk duty by their superiors. Because every cop I see on the ground is a morally corrupt asshole who can't even see the people they're facing as actual human beings."

China says Hong Kong courts have no power to rule on face mask ban - CNA - "China’s top legislature said Hong Kong courts have no power to rule on the constitutionality of legislation under the city's Basic Law, which includes a ban on face masks, state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday (Nov 19).The statement came a day after Hong Kong’s High Court ruled that a ban on wearing face masks during public demonstrations that have rocked the financial hub for more than five months was unconstitutional... Dozens of protesters dramatically escaped the Hong Kong Polytechnic University late Monday by shimmying down ropes from a bridge to waiting motorbikes"
One country, one system

Hong Kong Protests: Inside the Chaos - The Atlantic - "Almost every protest results in videos of protesters being beaten by the police. Many are live-streamed, to horrified viewers. Thousands have been arrested. Fearful accounts are coming out of the police stations, alleging torture, sexual assault, and rape. On Telegram, many protesters claim that some recent suicides are actually murders by the police that have been disguised as suicides. (It’s not clear whether these claims are anything more than just rumors, misinformation, or a tendency to believe the worst.) When being arrested, it is not unusual for protesters to shout their name, in the hopes of lawyers and family being able to reach them, and some yell that they are in no way suicidal. If they aren’t heard from again, they want to make sure it’s clear who’s to blame... about half of Hong Kongers say that, on a scale of zero to 10, they would rate their trust in the police at zero. Before this current wave of protest, in June, just 6.5 percent picked zero on the same poll. Whatever else might be happening, this unelected government isn’t winning any hearts and minds. Maybe outright intimidation will work instead... Aren’t you afraid? I asked, gingerly. “We are afraid,” they quickly admitted. They even giggled, but it got serious quickly. This is our last chance, they said very matter-of-factly. If we stand down, nothing will stand between us and mainland China, they said. They talked about Xinjiang, and what China had done to the Uighur minority. I’ve heard about the fate of the Uighurs from so many protesters over the months. China may have wanted to make an example out of the region, but the lesson Hong Kongers took was in the other direction—resist with all your might, because if you lose once, there will be a catastrophe for your people, and the world will ignore it.The two women weren’t sure whether they would win. That’s also something I’ve heard often—these protesters aren’t the most optimistic group. No rose-colored glasses here. “But we cannot give up,” one insisted, “because if we do, there will be no future for us anyway. We might as well go down fighting.”"
For those who characterise the protesters as a small, unrepresentative minority - it's curious how half of Hong Kongers have absolutely no trust in the police

In Hong Kong, violence is the new normal for protesters and police - "From the Hong Kongers' perspective, who is to blame for this escalating violence?The latest survey by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute indicates that an overwhelming majority of people lay the blame with the Hong Kong government led by Chief Executive Carrie Lam (84 per cent).Almost as many (74 per cent) blame the police. Less than half of people (41 per cent) blame the protesters for the violence"

Hong Kong protesters defy mask ban by having too much fun with it

Hong Kong’s domestic workers feel caught between both sides in information war - The Washington Post - "Targeting domestic helpers as potential informants carries an eerie resonance with China’s Cultural Revolution, a decade of political upheaval that began in the mid-1960s and included public denunciations of those considered at odds with the state."

Collin Koh on Twitter - "This is what people had suspected. Now there is @Reuters film of PLA soldiers in their barracks in HK leaving their barracks in the uniforms of HK police."
"Reason why the small HKP riot police contingent could last for so many months like an Energizer bunny? 🧐"