[song]

Sorry, but I call bullshit on this. I live in HK, I know a lot of people who were protestors, the vast majority of my local friends who are in their 30s would identify as being yellow and their anger at China is not due to any money from US/UK/EU. No, what stopped the protests was not a question of money, it was the wave of arrests after the CCP destroyed democracy with the national security law, it was covid coming at that time, it was when it became too risky to have an opinion contrary to the CCP in Hong Kong because "sedition" is illegal. This is why a lot of my highly educated friends moved out of Hong Kong (and more would have if not for Covid). Do you even live in Hong Kong to say such utter idiocy? Have you even talked to locals? or are you just parroting the bullshit that's repeated on Weixin?

[qiskit]

> I live in HK, I know a lot of people who were protestors, the vast majority of my local friends who are in their 30s would identify as being yellow and their anger at China is not due to any money from US/UK/EU.

I didn't say everyone was paid. Protests require organization and that was obviously funded by foreign sources.

> No, what stopped the protests was not a question of money

Sure it is. Without anyone leading the protests, there is no protest. And those leading the protests require funding.

> it was the wave of arrests after the CCP destroyed democracy with the national security law

"democracy". Sure. The only reason hong kong has a democracy in the first place is because of the "CCP". Lets not forget britain never gave hong kong democracy in their 150 years of colonial rule. It only came after the british left or was liberated by the chinese - however you want to view it.

> it was covid coming at that time, it was when it became too risky to have an opinion contrary to the CCP in Hong Kong because "sedition" is illegal.

Is sedition legal anywhere? Covid? The "protest" was done in the fall of 2019 when the foreign funding was blocked. I remember the media going crazy over it ( wonder why? ). Now you hardly hear a peep about it. I'm sure in a few years when we want to agitate the chinese, we'll being funding protests again somehow. That is after we are finished funding protests to destabilize myanmar, venezuela, another middle eastern country, african countries, etc. Or maybe we'll be too busy destabilizing ukraine to bother with china for a while. Lucky them.

> Have you even talked to locals?

No. But I don't need to. I'm sure many of them had their own reasons to protest. I'm talking about the protest organization. Two separate things. It's like the difference between people who attend a rave and those that organize it and publicize it.

> or are you just parroting the bullshit that's repeated on Weixin?

Don't know what that is. Sorry. These are my own thoughts. If I wanted to be a parrot, I'd be parroting the propaganda I see on the news everyday. Oh those terrible CCP and Xi who cares nothing about the chinese people, but it's us in the west who truly care about china and democracy. Nevermind we owned china for 100 and hong kong for 150 and never introduced democracy to china or hong kong or even india. Who are we kidding here?

[kurthr]

George Galloway wants his talking points back.

[song]

First off, > Don't know what that is. Sorry. These are my own thoughts. If I wanted to be a parrot, I'd be parroting the propaganda I see on the news everyday. Oh those terrible CCP and Xi who cares nothing about the chinese people, but it's us in the west who truly care about china and democracy. Nevermind we owned china for 100 and hong kong for 150 and never introduced democracy to china or hong kong or even india. Who are we kidding here?

Ok, so if you don't even know what Wechat is (weixin in mainland) and have never talked to Hong kongers (and I'm talking about Hong Kongers) then you're just spouting off nonsense without knowing the situation.

> I didn't say everyone was paid. Protests require organization and that was obviously funded by foreign sources.

How so? Why would you think that only foreign sources have money? Hong Kong had plenty of financial tycoons who were involved in the protest and pro-democracy movement. Just as example, the owner of Apple Daily (one of the biggest newspaper critic of the CCP) was sentenced to prison over it. Why would you believe that money only came from foreign sources??

So yes, you're right the pro-democracy party needed money but there's no need to start imagining conspiracy theories that that funding necessarily comes from US/UK/EU. Plenty of rich people in Hong Kong are unhappy with the CCP and people here are perfectly capable of using their money.

> "democracy". Sure. The only reason hong kong has a democracy in the first place is because of the "CCP". Lets not forget britain never gave hong kong democracy in their 150 years of colonial rule. It only came after the british left or was liberated by the chinese - however you want to view it.

Democratic reforms were first introduced before the handover under the last Governor Chris Patten. Also, that's neither here or there, the fact that UK was an imperialistic power that didn't exactly promote democracy is completely orthogonal to the fact that locals want democracy (they also never had it completely and what they did have was taken away from them)

> Is sedition legal anywhere? Covid? The "protest" was done in the fall of 2019 when the foreign funding was blocked. I remember the media going crazy over it ( wonder why? ). Now you hardly hear a peep about it. I'm sure in a few years when we want to agitate the chinese, we'll being funding protests again somehow. That is after we are finished funding protests to destabilize myanmar, venezuela, another middle eastern country, african countries, etc. Or maybe we'll be too busy destabilizing ukraine to bother with china for a while. Lucky them.

Once again, you show that you weren't there and have no knowledge of the situation in the city. There were still a lot of protests up til early 2020 and protests were bigger and more intense from December 2020 to January 2020 than in fall 2019. Once covid hit, people were more reluctant to meet due to covid (people in Hong Kong were definitely more scared of Covid that in Europe due to the prior experience of SARS). The government also used this as an excuse to disperse protesters.

The national security law was passed on June 30th 2020 and that pretty much made any pro-democratic movement illegal. It became a lot more dangerous to protest but still people went out to protest on and some got arrested.

Still, the pro-democracy primaries in July 2020 that saw a massive turnout for the primaries of a political party. it was the most-participated primary held in the history of Hong Kong since the 1997 handover, despite the government's threats of the organisers' potential breaching of the newly imposed national security law. This resulted in a massive wave of arrests by the government.

So you have the timeline wrong and no fall 2019 it was not over or done at all. Was it less covered in other countries? Certainly at that point there was covid and a lot of other things to cover.

It's funny, you criticize colonial powers for not bringing democracy back when there were colonies, yet you seem to think that people wouldn't be able to do anything without funding from the west?

"Is sedition legal anywhere? "

Well, in a lot of countries, criticising the government is not considered sedition. There's plenty of people in opposition parties who criticise the government safely. The law is incredibly broad.

[kurthr]

I apologize, I mean Lennon Walls of course.

Best wishes to you.

[song]

Thanks!