Hong Kong

[Black Orchid]

Police in Hong Kong fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters defying official warnings not to march in a neighbourhood where, six days earlier, a mob had brutally attacked people in a train station.

Protesters wearing black streamed through Yuen Long, even though police had refused to grant permission for the march citing risks of confrontations between demonstrators and local residents.

For the protesters, it was a show of defiance against the white-clad assailants who beat dozens of people last Sunday night, including some demonstrators heading home after the latest mass protest in the summer-long pro-democracy movement.

Police said some of the attackers at the train station were connected to triad gangs and others were villagers who live in the area.

The streets of Yuen Long became a sea of umbrellas as the march began on Saturday afternoon.

A symbol going back to the Occupy Central protests that shook Hong Kong in 2014, umbrellas have become tools to help protesters conceal their identities from police cameras as well as shields against tear gas and pepper spray.

Some also wore masks to obscure their faces.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-27/ ... n/11353716

[Black Orchid]

China has warned it’s “only a matter of time” before it punishes those behind two months of pro-democracy protests that have increasingly devolved into violent clashes with law enforcement.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/travel/aust ... fdad46c2cb

It might be harder to cover up the 'casualties' this time.

[sprintcyclist]

China has warned it’s “only a matter of time” before it punishes those behind two months of pro-democracy protests that have increasingly devolved into violent clashes with law enforcement.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/travel/aust ... fdad46c2cb

It might be harder to cover up the 'casualties' this time.

' ..... It might be harder to cover up the 'casualties' this time. .......... '

they might not be too concerned with covering it up

[Black Orchid]

Australian universities are not doing enough to combat the influence of China's ruling Communist Party, a group of Federal Government backbenchers has warned.

Fellow Liberal MP Tim Wilson, who also sits on Parliament's powerful Intelligence Committee, said there was strong potential for foreign interference on Australian campuses to shut down various views.

Chinese Government-controlled media congratulates pro-Beijing activists who gathered in Melbourne to rail against demonstrations calling for democracy in Hong Kong.

"Many MPs have a concern about Australian university campuses and whether they're both a bastion for free speech, which they need to be, but more critically the role that foreign influences like the Confucius Institutes are having — any influence over curriculum and of course the influence of foreign governments on protests," Mr Wilson told ABC Radio.

Queensland LNP senator Amanda Stoker said she believed universities were battling through a "crisis of leadership" on foreign influence.

"[There is a] reluctance in their administrations to defend the rights of non-CCP [Chinese Communist Party]-aligned students who dare to speak out against Beijing," she said.

"It is legitimate to ask questions about how China came to have so much influence in these institutions."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-18/ ... y/11425276

[Black Orchid]

Where has the ALP gone when Hong Kong needs it most?

Before I returned to my birthplace, Hong Kong, to pursue my legal career 18 years ago, I spent 15 years growing up in Melbourne, during which I was an Australian Labor Party supporter.

Even after I left Australia and no longer voted in Australian elections, I continued to cheer on the ALP from afar.

I have always been a mainstream progressive who subscribed to their message of social justice and human rights, but open to economic liberalisation.

When it comes to standing up to authoritarians, the ALP has form.

John Curtin led the fight against fascists during World War II. Ben Chifley dealt firmly with Communist-infiltrated unions. Arthur Calwell spoke firmly against Communist movements. Bob Hawke sided with the US against the Soviets, and he also granted asylum to all Chinese students in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Kevin Rudd spoke of Australia as authoritarian China's "zhengyou", being a Chinese term for a true friend who is not afraid to express disagreements.

With such history, if there were ever to be an archetype of people with whom Labor should firmly stand, the people of Hong Kong ought to be it.

Millions of protesters in Hong Kong who have protested in recent months are fighting for the very essence of progressive values: freedom from being extradited to face trial at a non-independent judicial system, freedom from fear when exercising one's fundamental rights, the right to democratic governance. They have the courage to stand up to their authoritarian sovereign.

On July 24, peaceful pro-Hong Kong protesters at the University of Queensland were attacked by a nationalistic Chinese Communist mob.

The attack was later praised by China's consulate-general in Brisbane.

It prompted Australia's foreign minister Marise Payne to issue a stern statement against such Chinese interference and in defence of free speech.

But the ALP was nowhere to be found.

Then came a similar but larger scale and more expletive-laden incident in Melbourne on August 16, during which an ABC cameraman was pushed over by a pro-Communist Chinese nationalist.

Similar but smaller-scale incidents took place in other Australian cities in those few days.

What did Hongkongers get from the ALP in the aftermath of that weekend?

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews, who signed up to China's Belt and Road initiative, has been conspicuously silent.

As for federal Labor, Penny Wong (who I have long highly respected) made comments about the need for a calm and mature discussion about China.

Sure, Australia's policy towards China needs to balance competing interests.

But how hard can it be to speak up against Chinese nationalistic bullying against pro-Hong Kong voices on Australia's own shores?

All this has left mainstream progressives like me in an unsatisfactory position of not being able to look to mainstream progressive support for Hong Kong in Australian politics.

The Liberal government has spoken out more than the ALP has in support of Hongkongers' rights within Hong Kong's "One Country, Two Systems" framework under China, but its tone is still circumspect compared with that of other Western nations.

And the most vociferous Australian political voices of support for Hong Kong and against expanding Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authoritarianism comes from the hard right of the Liberal Party.

While they have been right to identify the issues at hand, their rhetoric unhelpfully harks back to that of the Cold War.

But perhaps I should not be so surprised.

Recent hearings at the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption are investigating the extent of relationships between the ALP and persons suspected of being close with the CCP.

More generally, the CCP has long sought to quell criticisms from progressives in the western world by accusing those who question its stance and actions as racists.

It would not surprise me if the ALP would be subject to accusations of discrimination against mainland Chinese students and migrants if it stood more firmly in relation to Hong Kong.

That said, as someone who is proud to be ethnically Chinese, I actually find it more racist for progressives to think that Chinese people are all in the mould of the CCP and that we are culturally disinterested in democracy and human rights.

Further, with many US Democratic Party politicians, some British Labour politicians and some Canadian Liberal Party politicians now standing clearly with Hong Kong, the ALP risks becoming an outlier among English-speaking western progressive parties.

Let me be clear. I am not reflexively against everything that the CCP does.

Its record on economic reform in the past 40 years has been largely positive. Its success in leading the most number of people out of poverty in the shortest period of time in human history should be lauded.

All I ask for is that politicians in democracies such as Australia not shirk from calling out the CCP when it acts contrary to universal values of democracy and human rights, including in relation to Hong Kong.

And given their purported core values, mainstream progressive groups including Labor ought to be on the front lines in speaking up for the courageous people of Hong Kong, as well as for those who stand with Hongkongers on Australian shores.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-03/ ... t/11470384

[Wally Raffles]

My personal opinion. China will ultimately crush this 'rebellion' as it always has with them. The protestors have been riotous and criminally destructive of property. This will end in a very ugly manner, in my view.

[brian ross]

Hongkongers vow to continue protests as Carrie Lam backdown shocks mainland Chinese

[Redneck]

Hongkongers vow to continue protests as Carrie Lam backdown shocks mainland Chinese

If they poke the Panda in the eye with a blunt stick too much they will be squashed.

Maybe try and agree to meet with her and see if they can achieve some changes!

[Black Orchid]

Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners have erupted with euphoria as counting for district council elections points to a landslide victory amid almost six months of anti-government protests.

Crowds of supporters celebrating the unprecedented results — which are expected to be finalised later today — have been held across the Chinese-ruled city.

So far, initial results from the vote, which ended with no major disruptions, signalled a clear majority for the pro-democracy camp, who have so far won more than 300 seats, compared to about 41 seats for the pro-establishment camp, according to local media estimates.

Four years ago at the previous vote, democrats only secured about 100 seats.

When the results began trickling in after midnight (local time), including upset wins for democrats against heavyweight pro-Beijing opponents, some voting centres erupted in loud cheers and chants of "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution now", which has been a slogan for many protesters.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-25/ ... n/11733816