[chvid]

I see the scale of the protest; but I don't really understand the end goal here. Eventually Hong Kong will become fully integrated in China, right down to driving on the right-hand side of the street. This is one of many steps in that integration.

[ShorsHammer]

The end goal is to at least hold out until the clock ticks down, accepting it isn't going to be better.

This extradition law has far reaching consequences against freedoms and the rule of law that locals have had until now. That's why there's so many people who normally don't mind Chinese geopolitical moves coming out into the streets compared to other protests like the umbrella movement.

[NotPaidToPost]

> This extradition law has far reaching consequences against freedoms and the rule of law that locals have had until now

Could someone explain how?

[simonh]

Judges in Hong Kong are already complaining that they are being exposed to political pressure by Beijing and that the judicial system in China does not comply with even the most basic standards of judicial fairness.

The pretext for this is that a Hong Kong resident is recently accused of murdering his girl friend in Taiwan. However this law would expose Taiwan citizens to extradition claims when visiting Hong Kong, so even they are against the law even though it would allow them to extradite the alleged murderer.

[kzzzznot]

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3014205...

[ksec]

Seeing you mentioned downvoted comments I arrived at this post.

>Could someone explain how?

Because there is no such thing as Rule of Law in China. Not in any sense where people understands it. The First Rule of Law in China is Rule of the Party. And there is no system in place that overrules the party. Unlike in the west where there is also something to keep everything in check. The law can also be interrupted in anyway as the Party member wishes, even changing / scrapping it now and trace back all previous wrong doings.

This is fundamentally different to how Rule of Law works in the rest of the world and in Hong Kong.

I am not suggesting Rule of Laws works the same everywhere. But for most developed country, they are at least on the same order of magnitude, China is completely off the chart.

[NotPaidToPost]

Not sure how that answers my question.

There is the rule of law in HK and, according to this bill, any extradition request will be examined by HK courts with the accused able to defend, in the same way as extradition requests from other countries.

Are you implying that Chinese courts will completely fabricate evidence and that HK courts will blindly rubber-stamp it?

More generally, it's not uncommon for Western countries to have extradition treaties with countries where the justice system is more than dubious, but somehow it does not seem that people are shipped over on these countries' whim.

[kzzzznot]

One clear example: HK has not remained a true democracy as promised, only Beijing-approved candidates are allowed to stand in elections.

[me_me_me]

'Integration' that majority of the people do not want and actively resist. Hong Kong is Chinese but is not China. Its classical case of its not illegal but its not right.

People of Hong Kong know it's a futile resistance, but they still have unbroken spirit and they show it. And that is commendable.

[simonh]

On the expiry of the transition period the extant laws of Hong Kong won't simply cease to exist, or at least that is not the expectation of most Hong Kong people. They feel they have a legitimate right to have a say in how the laws of the territory they live in change.

[NotPaidToPost]

It is not really a question of integration, as far as I can see.

Currently HK has extradition treaties with 18 countries, but none with Macao, Taiwan, and mainland China.

On the face of it, it is rather odd that currently someone may be extradited from HK (a territory of the PR China) to, say the US, but not to mainland China.

It is understandable that people have reservations because of the judicial system in mainland China but this should ideally be dealt with by safeguards in the proposed bill.

To me it is a bit like arguing that someone in Puerto Rico should not face extradition to the US mainland.

[yorwba]

> On the face of it, it is rather odd that currently someone may be extradited from HK (a territory of the PR China) to, say the US, but not to mainland China.

That's why it's a question of integration. If HK were fully integrated with the PRC, requiring an extradition treaty at all would be strange. But it isn't integrated and the protesters evidently want to keep it that way.

I don't know how many Puerto Rican separatists there are, but they would probably oppose extradition to the United States.