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by whatshisface 2558 days ago
>Among these social groups was an alliance of more than 30 local political, business and legal dignitaries who support the proposed amendments to the SAR's extradition law.

Why does anyone in HK support the amendments (or is this fake news)?

5 comments

That is the point. The people of Hong Kong are marching to protest China's new extradition policy.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/06/16/hong-kong-protes...

China Daily is trying to almost completely misrepresent the reason for the protests. The only way they could make it more "opposite day" is by calling the protest a celebration festival for the love of Chinese authority in Hong Kong.

The funny thing about the misrepresentation is that the U.S. isn't really even meddling. We care our trade deficit with China and tariffs than human rights abuses in China.

Well, there's a bipartisan bill that threatens to abolish HK's treatment as separate from mainland China for trade purposes, if HK's autonomy becomes insufficient.

(And, I despise Ted Cruz, but kudos for supporting that bill.)

https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/14/us-senators-table-bill...

It might well be that 30 people or so support the amendments, but what China Daily forgot to report is that more than a million people marched to protest against them.
2 million, according to some estimates. From the images, it definitely looked more than the 1m that were out in the streets last week.
Yes, maybe a quarter of the population. It's insane, and inspiring, the strength of the opposition.

BTW, for better coverage of HK news I recommend the HK Free Press:

https://www.hongkongfp.com

Tom Grundy, the creator of HKFP, has an agenda (as do most news outlets).

I balance HKFP with RTHK and Apple Daily (easier if you can read Cantonese). I don't trust blantantly pro-China outlets, like Sina.

For readers of English, there's not that much left: SCMP (bought by Alibaba recently), and the free (ad-financed) The Standard.

Can you elaborate on Grundy's agenda? Anything beyond pro-democracy, civil liberties, etc.?

Definitely anti-establishment. I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but it's good to balance that out with multiple perspectives.

SCMP used to be my paper of choice growing up, but it has started to become more pro-establishment of late.

This is flagrantly fake news.
The establishment (somewhat aligned with "pro-Beijing" camp) has more than half seats (43/70) in HK's Legislative Council. Goverment bills require simple majority in the Council to pass. Establishment's support guaranteed that the bill would have passed.
Some in Hong Kong are willing to sell out the region's independence and principles for the recent economic growth brought by being the PRC's sidecar.