Hong Kong Mass Arrests Chill Democracy Movement

January 6, 2021 10:39 PM

Police detained over 50 people under the 6 month old National Security Law. They were arrested over their involvement with in unofficial primaries last year, including as candidates, and accused of "trying to overthrow the government".

One of the arrested individuals was John Clancey, a US citizen and lawyer, who was later released without charges. The remaining Pro-Dems held a press conference in which they re-iterated (in Cantonese): 5 demands not one less, release all 52 political prisoners , end one party state, end CCP.

Previously.

posted by toastyk (24 comments total)

Here are more links to local media in English:

- Local English-language news outlet Hong Kong Free Press
Police serve pro-democracy newsrooms with search warrants over 2020 pro-democracy primaries amid mass arrests

- RTHK, the local public broadcaster
Nobody is safe in HK anymore, says commentator

- Apple Daily (wiki), the largest Cantonese-language pro-democracy newspaper, in English
Terror spreads among supporters of informal pro-democracy primary after mass arrests

- Stand News (wiki), another pro-democracy news outlet, in English
Benny Tai and over 50 ex-lawmakers, activists arrested for subversion over 2020 legislative primaries
posted by mdonley at 5:20 AM on January 7, 2021 [5 favorites]

The total lack of comments here is probably indicative of why they chose to do it right now...
posted by destrius at 6:55 AM on January 7, 2021 [11 favorites]

There is no one to stop them or challenge them. It's scary.
posted by exolstice at 7:00 AM on January 7, 2021

This is just so horrifying. It really shows the mechanics by which a strong state can take down and destroy a very strong, very unusual and organized protest movement. It's so sad. It's also a process that's been building all [last] year, basically.
posted by Frowner at 7:18 AM on January 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

I don't know what to say but to agree that this is horrifying.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:33 AM on January 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

There are folks who could challenge them, but, well, money kinda gets in the way. Nobody tried to save the Uighurs either.

China-Europe trade deal just got finalized, for example. By people who claim to care about oppression.
posted by aramaic at 7:34 AM on January 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

From looking at US and Chinese state media, a lot of chucklefucks are comparing the Hong Kong pro-Dems and equating them with the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol yesterday.

Also, the Chinese government would be doing this regardless of what the US is currently doing. It's just convenient timing for them. They just signed a trade deal with the EU despite concerns about their lack of transparency. What do they care?
posted by toastyk at 7:59 AM on January 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

> This is just so horrifying.

Be prepared to live under this kind of political atmosphere anywhere on the earth for the next few decades.

This is what many actually believe in, wanted, or tacitly supported.
posted by runcifex at 8:05 AM on January 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

EU Declaration on the mass arrest, calls for immediate release and adherence to one country, two systems.
posted by toastyk at 8:18 AM on January 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

Possible censorship in HK.
posted by toastyk at 8:21 AM on January 7, 2021

EU says stop or we'll say stop again

And the US isn't going to do anything because we have our own problems to deal with.

The 21st century is China's and we in the US are going to learn what it's like to not get what we want when we want it on the world stage.
posted by kokaku at 8:32 AM on January 7, 2021 [4 favorites]

In June 2020, Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into city’s mini-constitution – bypassing the local legislature – following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, foreign interference and terrorist acts, which were broadly defined to include disruption to public transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers, alarming democrats, civil society groups and trade partners, as such laws have been used broadly to silence and punish dissidents in China.

It was just a question of when this would be deployed on a large scale and yesterday answered that.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:48 AM on January 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

^ kokaku has it right, from what I can tell

the big story of the century is China's ascendance, the "recovery of the Middle Kingdom" after that brief period of ignominy

and just as the 20th century was largely a story of the one empire and how that manifested in all the 20th century ways, we might imagine the year 2050.. well, it's been imagined repeatedly, there are tons of great works of speculative fiction (or prophecy, as you like). buckle up.
posted by elkevelvet at 11:37 AM on January 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

I wish there was a single word or phrase for the pattern of chucklefucks drawing this particular kind of subtle false equivalence, as it is very propagandistic, but I can't think of one and it is hard to put my finger on which kind of fallacy it is.
posted by polymodus at 11:41 AM on January 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just a couple of days ago I heard an Australian Federal politician (health minister Greg Hunt) refer in a public address wherein he was listing various nations who have had similar success with COVID-19 control as Australia to the "Jurisdiction of Taiwan". A few days before that I was shopping for toys in a physical store, and examining a toy globe where the only maritime boundary depicted was the 'nine-dash line'.
Commenters above are correct - the failure of the US is manifest, and even extremely US-centric middle powers are preparing to fall into line with the new Chinese (regional, at least) hegemony. Once (in the early 2000's) I had a friend in the Chinese diaspora confide in me that part of the reason he was applying for Australian citizenship was the protection that would offer him when he was back in China espousing his Christian religion - on one hand at the time I was somewhat horrified that he would be planning to essentially undermine sino-australian relations, but now I just hope he achieved what he wanted in a way that doesn't create ongoing danger for him.
posted by memetoclast at 12:10 PM on January 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

Good luck to him, though given that the CCP's security forces have been known to abduct Swedish-Chinese booksellers in Thailand, I doubt an Australian passport would so much as give them pause.
posted by acb at 1:01 PM on January 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

Certainly not, even back in 2003 I thought he was being pretty optimistic.
posted by memetoclast at 3:31 PM on January 7, 2021

Like I said, chucklefucks.
posted by toastyk at 4:28 PM on January 7, 2021

Commenters above are correct - the failure of the US is manifest, and even extremely US-centric middle powers are preparing to fall into line with the new Chinese (regional, at least) hegemony.

Yep. Trump and Brexit, and their respective slight voting majorities, have fucked up international trade stuff so much that pressures applied are ostensibly no more "China First" than what was established as acceptable during the 2010s, so even successor governments of... Taixi, or something, I guess we should say now, since “the Free World” no longer fits, if it ever did? Won't be effectively fighting back.

And so they'll follow domino theory from the 1950s, because as with responding to the pandemic, China is one of the nations who, unlike the US and UK, can follow simple step-by-step instructions from almost a century ago.
posted by XMLicious at 12:28 AM on January 8, 2021 [4 favorites]

Millennials are having trouble correctly identifying the verb in the headline.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:18 AM on January 8, 2021

In Hong Kong, We Thought We Had More Time. I've been trying to work out my feelings a lot, with regards to both Hong Kong and the US, and this is probably the most apt summation of it:

After the US election in November, a friend told me, “I wish we were the country Hong Kongers think we are.” I understand this feeling. Not because I think the United States should be the world’s model, but because too many people in too many other places have run out of chances—and are waiting for this country to get it right. Unlike Hong Kong, America gets to try again.
posted by toastyk at 10:10 AM on January 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

I kind of assume that Hong Kongers living in HK aren't a monolithic voice. There's a segment of Hong Kongers that are pro-American (or worse), for a spectrum of reasons. Some of them may be naive about the history of the West, but others of them are simply classist capitalists. The Hong Kongers that aren't so uncritically warm to American interests, are likely less voluble about their skepticism.
posted by polymodus at 11:21 AM on January 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

toastyk, thanks for the link to Wilfred Chan's essay in the Nation. If the U.S. doesn't have much in the way of tactics or political will, the very least it could do would be to welcome people fleeing repression in Hong Kong. And yet:

Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, known for posturing as Hong Kong’s staunchest congressional allies—that is, until Cruz blocked a bill last month that would’ve allowed more Hong Kong refugees into the United States, reasoning that they could be “Chinese spies.”

The crappy domestic politics of international relations. American politicians who talk about human rights or accountability but only as rhetorical fodder for their anti-Communist monologues.
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:59 AM on January 9, 2021

Chan's essay is wrenching: "As it turns out, you’re not living in an autocracy until you are; your resistance works until it doesn’t. When an unelected authority seizes total control, it feels like numbness. Just kind of the same thing you’d experienced earlier, except this time you’ve lost permanently."
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:00 AM on January 9, 2021 [1 favorite]