[oraphalous]

The protesters may not clearly understand their own endgame, but the CIA certainly understands its own... which is to precipitate an armed crackdown that diminishes Chinese prestige - giving the U.S. further leverage in the current battle for global pre-eminence that is occurring between the two powers.

And no - I don't have evidence of CIA involvement, except for the somewhat co-incidental timing of the unrest relative to the trade war and the long well-known history of CIA involvement in such events. I will nonetheless consider disbelief - as conspiracy - to be the height of naivety.

Ironically - despite it's flaws and incumbent president, I still would much prefer the U.S. to win this particular bout of dirty Realpolitik - over an authoritarian regime that truly deserves it's comeuppance.

It's just a shame that the U.S. does this shit to authoritarian states and democracies alike (while also aligning itself with authoritarian states as well)... if and only if such choices promote U.S. interests.

It's also a shame that the HK people are going to be made to suffer deeply for this. They can't win - China can only lose... a little status. I have friends there. I hope they will be ok. :(

[yyhhsj0521]

Julie Eadeh (a diplomat at the US consulate in Hong Kong) was seen meeting a leader of the protesters. It certainly smells fishy.

[bitanarch]

The extradition law, which was proposed by CE Carrie Lam, was indeed proposed and supposed to be passed by the legislature, at around the time frame as the Trump-Xi meeting.

If you infer the cause of the protests is the CIA, then CE Carrie Lam would be a CIA agent.

The much more likely explanation to all these is incompetence, rather than conspiracy.

[CathayRe]

>The much more likely explanation to all these is incompetence, rather than conspiracy.

Given the sensitive nature of the bill, and its timing, and She has shown her understanding in how US / China / HK operate in both Financial and political levels.

And it was clear the bill wasn't put forward by CCP either, it was someone else ( or Carrie Lam )'s idea.

I find it hard to believe all of these are incompetence and coincidence. Not saying Carrie Lam is a CIA agent, but something is definitely not right.

[317070]

Just a thought, but the cause-and-effect relationship you suggest between the protests and the trade war might be the other way around? I.e. the protests causing the timing of the trade war?

[oraphalous]

Economic realities tend to determine political events - not the other way around... historically speaking.

[yyhhsj0521]

The tension has been building up for a while, way before there was any sign of a protest.

[yshnurxghtfh]

why has this been downvoted? Of course everyone who plays the game will evaluate what they can make out of a new situation.

[oraphalous]

I'll just leave this here:

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

[oraphalous]

pjc50 - it won't let me reply to you directly. I just mean it as a demonstration of the links between local HK authorities and foreign intelligence services. It wouldn't take much for the CIA to leverage those links.

Keep in mind also that Chinese state media has publicly accused the CIA of involvement in the HK protests. Haven't seen that reported much have you? You wouldn't.

[pjc50]

This is very interesting, but what does it have to do with the CIA?

[Multicomp]

Looks like an operation that CIA assisted in spiriting away protesters from the 1989 Tiananmen square massacre.

The reader is expected to see that article and see that the CIA took some action in HK in the 90s and come to the conclusion that because they helped protesters to flee the country in the 90s they are behind the current protests by inference.

I personally see a coincidence or red herring.

[oraphalous]

Do you claim that the establishment of precedent has no value in increasing the plausibility of a claim?

[Multicomp]

In response to the protests, the government line has been to continue to stall and to claim that everything happening in Hong Kong is magically just the result of foreign interference by actors like the CIA, that way they don't have to actually listen to their own people, they can just plug their ears and say lalalalala the CIA did it all.

This comment appears to support that general narrative, so I suspect people are seeing that and not wanting to see the standard government obfuscation line here are downvoting it.

Just ask yourself, if the CIA has such control over Hong Kong that it could cause 10 weeks of protests by large large amounts of the population, whether or not they wouldn't have already declared independence and declared themselves a mini United States state or something to that effect.

The Hong Kong government's accusation and Beijing's continual messaging that this is all just the United States messing with them is untrue, a bald faced lie and ridiculous on its face if you think about it, but they haven't come up with anything better just yet so they're just sort of holding onto that line for anyone who will listen.

[oraphalous]

How are the ringleaders surviving? Not a lot of bank to made protesting I suspect.

I resent the claim tho that my comment supports the "general narrative" - I explicitly disavow the Chinese regime as authoritarian that "deserves comeuppance". I'll add here that I think the protesters have a genuine cause that deserves support.

I do, however, think that the CIA, the U.S. and the west generally - doesn't actually give a fuck about the interests of the HK people. It's just convenient to them currently to make China look bad.

[Multicomp]

My apologies for painting with too broad a brush. I do believe that the same sort of people who downvoted the original comment jumped to the same conclusion I did, which was that your comment was intended to support the government line about foreign interference and function as a distracting debate rather than commenting on the merits and effects of the HK protests.

I personally think the CIAs involvement is limited to none, completely without evidence and fueled by optimisim that the HK protesters are doing all this completely by and for their own people.

[icebraining]

Eh, I don't doubt the US is helping the protestors, but surviving is not really a problem when you're the leader of a mass protest. You'll have plenty of followers willing to give you the necessities of life. If you read the histories of revolutionary leaders, they often lived for years from the support of regular people.

[throwaway2048]

Do you really think that a protest movement with such widespread support has leaders that need to be supported financially somehow by the CIA?

[oraphalous]

I'll grant that in these days of crowdfunding etc... your counter has more plausibility than it would have in days past.