China is happy to play the long game - they apply pressure to HK to bring them inline with China, people protest, they back of a little, but not all the way. They wait ... then apply pressure again. The idea is that by 2047 when the 'one country, two systems' arrangement expires, HK will fully accept the China way of life. Lam backing down is an easy way to defuse the situation for now and they can try again later.
I expect to see this cycle of peace, then protest, then peace again continue for years - each time, HK will lose a few more rights they used to have.
However, it's not even a real backdown though. She just announce to start a motion to backdown, but it was still the decision of parliament to withdraw the bill, and the parliament was controlled by pro-Beijing parties. Practically even pro-Beijing parties care the voter's view so it may withdraw the bill, but it was uncertain whether there were an order from Beijing to vote down withdrawal after the protest was over, so still many uncertainty right here. Not to mention police brutality was not addressed.
Very likely. Sucks for HK people though :(
Same story everywhere - nothing much changed after the Arab spring protests, for example.
As impressive as they are, how long can Hong Kong people keep up this level of protests? Beijing can keep the pressure forever and play the long game
Except in Tunisia, which is the one success story from that time period. It's now a functioning democracy. Of course the real test is how it does over the long term, but at least so far it's an example of real change in the region.
Almost a decade later, possibly the cops on the beat shakedown situation has improved but general man on the street economic conditions are not improved in Tunisia. It is not apparently (yet) a success story.
European history is not a secret. It was mostly gradual reforms over decades, ending in women's vote around 1920.
On another level, you can think of it as a rising middle class demanding and getting political influence proportional to their economical power.
I mean, we still celebrate July 1st as Canada Day. I like to joke that it’s “Dependence Day” since it celebrates the signing of the British North America Act, which, and I’m paraphrasing here, says “this whole Queen thing is working for us let’s keep it going.” As compared to the Declaration of Independence, which, well, you know the rest.
When I say that "Revolutions don't produce democracies", I'm talking about violent revolutions. A "non violent revolution" is a contradiction on terms to me.
there have been quite a few "successful" revolutions.
No, if it was a failure the previous system and people would have remained in power. Though some did, there was an irrefutable change - whatever qualms one might have with the new regime.
> And in any case the reasons behind it had nothing to do with a desire for democracy
Each person has their reasons. The Group of Nine would certainly disagree with your claim.
TIL we coronated King George Washington I and established yet another divine monarchy.
I mean sure, the colonies ended up directly translating to states, and (some of) those colonies happened to have bicameral legislatures with a lower house consisting of elected representatives, but that's about where the similarities between the colonies and resulting states end. Any existing leadership that continued to lead during/after the revolution did so by democratic rather than autocratic means.
> it was a rebellion rather than a revolution.
Those terms are not mutually exclusive. It was a revolution implemented by rebelling against the British Crown.
I mentioned this already in my comment, but to clarify/reiterate:
- Governors (AFAICT) were not democratically elected (they were - if I recall correctly - appointed by the Crown, as was standard for colonial governments)
- The only democratically elected legislators (in the colonies that even had legislatures) were in the Lower House of each colony; the governor typically (if not always) appointed the Upper House's legislators himself (reflecting British Parliament and its House of Commons v. House of Lords, respectively)
Very different from how things operate post-Revolution, what with democratically-elected governors and state senators. If any of the former colonial leadership prevailed as the new state leadership, it was by democratic rather than autocratic means.
Definitely fair to draw comparisons, though; you're right that there are structural similarities on a state and federal level to the old colonial and imperial governments (respectively). My argument is that how the legislators and executives of those governments are appointed (i.e. democratically v. autocratically) is the big change, and one that would make the American Independence movement more of a revolution; the polities themselves were outright replaced, at least nominally, as the existing polities were rooted in the Crown's authority.
Contrast this with Canada or Australia, where (last I checked) the British monarch is still formally the head of state despite them being sovereign nations with independent governments and separate heads of government. I suspect that's closer to what you're envisioning (i.e. colonial governments continuing to exist as-is after gaining political sovereignty).
You're absolutely correct!
In case I was unclear eariler, I was strictly addressing questions of structure. Please accept my sincere apologies for my failure to make my self clear.
This is prior to the Article I branch of government, Congress, abdicating much of its power and creating this myth of coequal branches of government, and when House districts were a lot smaller, and you and your neighbors has to decide between yourselves who was in charge of certain functions of keeping society going. You know, who was going to be the local Sheriff, who was going to run the local court, who was going to deliver the mail and so on. Many of these jobs were boring and without glory, but someone had to do them.
Had Madison’s Virginia Plan been implemented in full and the Connecticut Compromise wasn’t implemented, it would likely have been more democratic still.
Structurally, the United States constitution is overwhelmingly democratic, and especially for the time it was written and ratified. If it has grown less democratic at all, it is due to factors the signers and ratifiers of the Constitution could never have predicted that occurred in the 230 years since. No one could have foreseen Congress would abdicate much of it’s power and responsibilities in the 20th Century, or that the Industrial Revolution would lead to the single greatest explosion of the human population in history, or that we would choose to let in so many foreigners. Nobody thought each House member would be representing a district in the hundreds of thousands at a time when they thought one House member per 50K might be too few.
Is it democratic? Oh yes. It is the most democratic document of its time, and few legal documents written since then could plausibly claim to be more so.
My point was it is closer to the ideals.
Democracy was created in Ancient Greece, so it may or may not surprise you to learn Democracy itself isn't anything you'd call democracy in 2019 either, as they were a "slave state" also and not everyone actually had the right to vote (in fact women couldn't vote, own/inherit land)...so maybe post Revolutionary America was a lot closer to Democracy than you think...but either way its a Republican form of Government (at least according to the Constitution) not a democracy.
If you tell me about a country that:
- Has a beautiful founding document that ensures what we'd recognize as basic rights of all citizens
- Has a well-designed federal system that empowers individuals and lower-level governments at the expense of the federal,
- Has hundreds of thousands of enslaved people who form the foundation of their economy and are indeed bred into captivity,
I would never, ever call that a democracy. The first two don't matter when the third is true, to me. If you would, that's fine; you wouldn't be objectively wrong.
I call the US a Constitutional Republic, where the representatives are elected through various implementations of the democratic process.
Otherwise, I'm just highlighting the fact that the "inventors" of democracy had slaves just the same as the US (among other limitations on who had voting rights) at the time of the Revolutionary War/Independence.
In some respects slavery was an inherited evil of the new US Constitutional Republic, an evil which the Constitutional Republic was unable to abolish through law/voting/representatives (as evidenced by half of the country attempting to secede rather than honor the law) and instead resulted in a war to maintain the Union and enforcement of the law through use of arms. Unfortunately, democracy/liberal democracy/Constitutional Republic whatever we call it, it was not effective an abolishing slavery with the stroke of a pen and instead threatened to breakup the very form of government which was only maintained through the most deadly war the Country has ever fought (in fact deadlier than every other US war combined).
It begins to become a slippery slope when laws at the end of a gun, whether or not those laws are morally correct.
In the South, though, inventions like the cotton gin, westward expansion into the Mississippi river basin, and logistical improvements like steamships brought about significant expansion in the South's slave economy. British slavery (particularly in the Caribbean) was more focused on sugar production. Slavery in the United States was distinct from slavery in the British Empire, the fact that the former used to be part of the British empire notwithstanding.
In more modern times, revolutions have pretty much resulted in more democracies than at any other time period.
If it's a domestic dictatorship, it will usually evolve into a democracy on its own.
If it's a foreign power oppressing an inherently democratic nation, a revolution might have good results. This is one way to think of the American Revolution, as well as the Eastern European liberation.
You should read up on the French Revolution. It led to phenomenal amounts of tyranny and war. The small flickers of democracy were soon extinguished.
Napoleon was, to put it somewhat mildly, not much of a democrat.
I think the intent of SCOTUS was originally to decipher laws into a workable framework - given that some laws could potentially interact weirdly with decade or century old laws... and to help highlight incongruities in laws that law makers may have overlooked during their original writing in an effort to spur congress to correct said law.
This is especially challenging when cleaned-up platforms are immediately seized upon by parasitic short-term political animals to bodge on quick wins that they successfully trumpet as solely due to their leadership, and the claim works on the stakeholders. This is a problem as our civilization grows larger and more complex. Sustaining the ever-increasing complexity requires the biological equivalent of continuously performing the grunt work cleaning up the free radicals that are making the system inefficient, and re-asserting not just repaired core DNA, but an expressed DNA adapted to changed conditions.
For worse.
https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/file/472/download?token=Bd...
> Every single day in China, depending on which statistic from the Chinese government is used, an average of 16 to 76 people are placed into the new liuzhi detention system and, by definition, disappeared.
[..]
> For decades, the Chinese Communist Party’s powerful anti-graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), used the shuanggui detention system to hold suspects for up to six months without charge. Enforcers were not answerable to any state laws. The use of shuanggui has been a strictly internal affair for the members of the CCP, it is completely separate from the state or judicial system. The meant that the normal protections afforded to those detained within the judicial system and rights, such as access to legal counsel, were not available to shuanggui detainees. Once in these facilities, you have no right to have your family informed of your whereabouts. You simply disappeared.
> At the National People’s Congress in March 2018, China introduced a constitutional amendment to establish the National Supervision Commission (NSC), based on the new National Supervision Law (NSL), effectively replacing shuanggui with liuzhi. In practical terms, the biggest change was the NSC has authority over not just the 90 million or so CCP members but state employees and anyone working for an organization that manages public affairs or is involved in public affairs in any manner, right down to the village level. The style of Investigation and detention, despite the change in name, remain the same.
so, while indirect, there does seem some nominal way to disagree as you say
While there are local elections, there's usually no right to stand for elections. These so-called elections, generally has only 1 candidate, or a few that are all communist members, with pretty much the same views. "Elections" where people can't stand to be elected freely are not elections, they are just some elaborate ceremony to rubber-stamp government official appointments.
that is unfortunate, it seems anywhere you go people try to subvert democracy (to different degrees of success)... i guess that’s why they call it “eternal vigilance”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/11/democr...
Even Warren agrees DNC was rigged against Sanders.
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/04/politics/bernie-sanders-2...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2f...
Why would that be?
Just like Obama lost by couple of hundred thousand votes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Democratic_Party_presiden...
"What’s a political party for, anyway?
It’s easy to bash the DNC’s joint fundraising agreement with Clinton, or the leaked emails showing that DNC staffers were supportive of Clinton and frustrated by Sanders. The DNC is meant to be a neutral presence in party primaries, and even minor deviations from that position are affronts.
The harder question in the larger one: What role should party elites play in primaries? It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that they fully decided primaries, meeting in smoky back rooms during the political conventions to hash out the next nominee. Before 2016, the reigning political science theory of primaries was called “the party decides,” and it argued that political elites still largely decided party primaries, albeit through influencing voters rather than controlling convention delegates."
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/14/16640082/...
I think it is quite obvious that the DNC did everything in their power to get rid of Sanders and put HRC into position. The problem was that she was unelectable and many Bernie voters just decided that Trump will be a better president than HRC (and many unfortunate other things, like HRC's popularity went down after every public appearance, all the left leaning social media declared HRC president, etc.).
As for the values of the CCP, consider them like the Constitution in the US or the values of the "founding fathers". People don't get to change those either in any direct democratic way (but through a slow, ideological and legal process).
Besides, 1 party vs 2 parties alternating seems hardly much of a difference...
I’m not talking about changing the constitution or policy in a direct democratic way, changing them in a representative way through Western style democracy would be a vast improvement. Because the constitutions of Western governments still leave a lot of political room to manouver, such as taxation. In the US, stuff like that was left out of the constitution because the founding fathers knew they didn’t have all the answers, no one does. Especially not the CCP. Instead, things like basic human rights such as the right to not get locked up and brainwashed because of your religion is enshrined in the constitutions of Western style democracies because unlike taxation or government ownership of enterprises that is really important to make sure all individuals matter.
And yes, changing the constitution is very slow, but if you have a multitude of differences with the government and the majority population, you can still progress politically and change one thing about the constitution where you do find common ground if you’re a competent politician. That’s far faster, more efficient and meritocratic than having to share the vast majority of policy with just one arbitrary party leadership to even be elligeble to run.
All of these advantages are still present even with a two party system, but I prefer the multiparty, parliamentary system we have here in the Nordic countries.
1) In America, I can just decide to run for office. Especially at the local to state level, independent candidates can be totally viable. Random everyday people cannot run for office in China. The party selects candidates to stand for election, and they generally run unopposed, or opposed by someone who is nearly a perfect mirror on policy.
2) In America, I can run on values that are against the Constitution or the founding fathers. How many people run on platforms of curtailing or amending the second amendment? You see that all the way up to candidates running for the Presidency. You will not see candidates run on policies that are opposite of the CCP in China.
One party that controls which candidates can run means they are effectively just appointing people to positions, while giving the illusion of choice or citizen impact on elections. There's a lot about the US system of representative democracy that could be justly criticized and would be improved by reform, but acting like it is even remotely similar to China is absurd.
You can run for office. If you find no parties that share any of your values, form one.
You can raise the issue in the media which would pressure the government. You would probably not get kidnapped while on vacation in Thailand, and then get locked up without a trial and a forced confession through torture, just for criticizing the UK government.
If it's something that affects an entire class of people, such as a certain profession, you could organize something like a labor strike or a protest.
And if all else fails, you could actually just break an existing law you think is unfair. You would get an actual trial administered by an independent justice system where you get to defend your actions, you can then argue that the law is unfair and restricted your life in a cruel way. Sadly, it had to come to measures like this for LGBT rights to improve in the UK.
You also mentioned "but the people I live around don't". In China it wouldn't matter if everyone around you care about the issue, something will only happen if the CCP deems it necessary.
> PRC has no legal vehicle for citizens to disagree with the state.
Yes that's true. There should be one. People in Beijing and Shanghai and everywhere else deserve leaders that actually represent them too. Do you think otherwise?
Because in the West you can form a party even if you fundamentally disagree with the parties already in power. If you go back a few decades the green parties and the nationalistic parties as we know them today didn't exist in most of Europe and were formed as reactions to feeling of the government not sharing the same fundamental values.
As long as they have food, water and the will to fight. They can play the long game too if they are so inclined. Eventually the CCP will get tired of the expensive, resource sucking bridge to nowhere. Sure, China could carpet bomb HK but the more you destroy it the less it's worth and the harder it is to justify involvement.
Far better for them to lose HK and be condemned globally than lose the all of China.
The further the CCP goes the more they risk deepening the resolve of your opponent (especially with a highly united population as in the case in HK). So far it appears that all escalations have done just that. The crux of the issue is that the people of HK do not want to be ruled over by the iron fisted CCP that drives tanks on people. Any escalation by the CCP confirms to the people of HK that the CCP is in fact the iron fisted CCP that drives tanks on people, not the new friendly CCP that does not drive tanks on people. So what does the CCP do then? They either back down or try to up the violence hoping it'll be too much for them. By upping the violence the CCP is gambling that they draw throw in the towel before HK does. At some point (only recognizable in hindsight) the line between protests/riot and open revolt will be crossed. Beyond that point it's fundamentally a gamble that a strong majority of people in HK would rather accept subjugation than die. Since this is somewhat an existential issue for them they may very well choose the latter. How does the CCP "win" against that? People who accept that they are probably going to die resisting are un-govern-able. Your soldiers can patrol the streets and they will still take pot-shots at you. Every time you get one another will pop up. There is no way to "win" against that unless your definition of "win" includes complete eradication. The only historical occurrence I can think of where a people who had resigned to death wound up surrendering involved strong central leadership telling them to surrender.
Obviously it's a shit situation no matter how you look at it with outcomes ranging from bad to worse in the short and medium term.
This cascades into a lot of different things, but ultimately collapses down into trust. Just as the Cold War did.
Counterparties and potential allies are less likely to ally themselves with you, if they see you're intractable even with your own people. What does that say about how you would treat an ally or trading partner?
Furthermore, China is also attempting to integrate itself into the existing multinational trading and governance frameworks. That depends on votes from non-Chinese-controlled sovereign states. Being an international pariah makes that a lot more difficult.
Additionally (although somewhat tangentially), China would really like Taiwan back without having to invade it. It doesn't matter much in the global scheme of things, but it's been a splinter in the CCP's claim to legitimacy and supremacy ever since it was created as an independent government.
Oppressing Hong Kong makes peaceful Taiwanese reunification increasingly unlikely. On a decades / generations time-frame.
As for political trust, difference in values and great power security competition with US means the west is broadly not going to trust China regardless. China's revisionist vision for existing framework is to pivot away from rules and values (that benefit the west) and focus on mutually beneficial development. It's an extension of old ASEAN tributary philosophy, get rich, try not to meddle in other's internal affairs. And I think the lack of response on XinJiang means that pivot is working. Regardless, Chinese trade-GDP is only 18% (~14% accounting foreign value-add), it has not been an export economy since late 2000s, apart from select strategic products like airplane engines and silicon, China can survive without Western trade.
I think the real issue is Taiwan, and on that front the damage has already been done, which is the real loss to CPC. China wants Taiwan by 2050, I think HK removed cultural reunification off the table. There's only economics or war now which is concerning.
That's one hilarious characterization of a government.
There's no good way out at this point. Somebody is gonna lose.
Especially after the ‘67 protests, that resulted in 51 deaths.
China is hoping the next generation will be more friendly. Like how the people of Macau are.
I wonder what kind of formal logic is this.
Happy people don't protest as frequently. People who feel they have dim future prospects do.
(Simply from a realpolitik perspective)
Go look at how Stalin did the Collectivisation in Russia.
There were multiple slowdowns and removal of some of the harshest demands, but after a couple of months or years they came back, sometimes this happened multiple times. The amount of violence was also regulated up and down.
That said, the opposition defiantly helped, and in the End even Stalin did not get close to as far as he had hopped to get.
that said, i'm not optimistic that communist china will reform any time soon.
Forcing the issue this way may appear pointless, but it's the possibly superior option to sliding gently into that good night.
Why they would not have endorsed this - for the CCP maintaining authority is the paramount objective. At no point can the Party "lose face" by giving in to external demands because that would erode the Party's authority. Any erosion of authority (the thinking goes) could eventually lead to a catastrophic collapse of power leading to civil war like in 1911-1949. This was Deng Xiaoping's overriding concern during his time as paramount leader and he made sure his successors learned it as well. For example, even when the students in Tiananmen Square offered to leave in exchange for some paltry concessions he denied it and cleared the Square with the military. In his opinion and the Party's opinion, negotiating with students would have eroded Party authority irreparably, even if no actual concessions were made. For similar reasons, Lam's request to withdraw this bill earlier this summer was denied by the Party.
If Beijing endorsed this, then it could mean the Party playbook on unrest is being modified as we speak.
If Beijing didn't endorse this, then Lam will now suffer a fate similar to Zhao Ziyang, the Premier during the Tiananmen Square incident. He broke with the other Party leaders and supported the students, leading to his house arrest till his death in 2005.
Lam’s family has British citizenship. That means she may be able to share her side of the story down the road.
Her situation might seem reasonable, forgivable, even, once she shares the facts. Activating the ERO, however, would be unforgivable.
If anybody ever sees her again, sure.
Edit: Its same user id, probably this user just cross-posted.
>The Chinese central government rejected Lam’s proposal to withdraw the extradition bill and ordered her not to yield to any of the protesters’ other demands at that time, three individuals with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
This news has been censored in the mainland press, so no one there is reacting to it either way.
It's possible Lam going rouge would allow Xi and Co to possibly save some face ... while giving them time to subvert the protester's cause in less obvious ways.
It is possible they simply want to back away for a bit, and deal with things more quietly.
Formal withdrawal of this bill will at least meet a huge demand of the general public. As to other demands, the support will be waning. That would be what the central government wants.
Hopefully it will lead to a real election to elect a leader that truly represents the citizens rather than special interests.
I don't really know what this means, but if you think that the inherent nature of the human soul has changed in the last few decades, think again... If tomorrow there was a catastrophic event such as a worldwide nuclear fallout, humans would be at each other's throats in the blink of an eye. The only thing really keeping us together are institutions and collective constructs such as "human rights", which are far from permanent. It is hardly our evovled 21st century post-modernist souls keeping us prosperous and peaceful - we are fundamentally not different from the Romans, who enslaved people and had them mauled by lions in giant arenas. Or hey, the Nazis, which were a thing like 70 years ago - practically yesterday.
Also, tell Beijing about the wonderful droplets of color that are the people of Hong Kong and see what they think. They'll probably laugh heartily while they order their tank commanders to raze the city, if they become persuaded that that's what needs to be done to fulfill their vision of a dominant China.
“I will call you back” is arguably not just a linguistic shortcut for “I will initiate the process that starts a phone call.” Rather it’s an inclusion of technical capacity as part your your idea of self. Building on that idea gets you into some odd places.
Anyway, I suspect people would have quickly used cell phones in a similar fashion if someone had somehow been selling similarly useful and affordable devices 3000 years ago.
We have retained the capacity to regress in the blink of an eye, and we have also acquired fundamentally new powers of thought on an unprecedentedly broad scale.
This is endorsed and approved by Beijing, she already declared the bill dead this is just a matter of wording. Legally it can be brought back as laws are always evolving and Hong Kong needs an extradition treaty with other jurisdiction including another system in its own country.
For Mainland Chinese citizen the narrative will be altered, but will still be seen as symbolic defeat and for Hong Kong Chinese citizens it will be a symbolic win.
As it is said in order to win larger battle one needs to lose smaller one, extradition bill was already dead, now it's withdrawn until it's introduced by someone else later. In larger picture it will be sacrificing pawn.
If the violent protest continue, then it will be seen as challenging one country two system as the Hong Kong CEO proclaimed in her pre-recorded message. She is just saying in an indirect way this is her last ditch effort to salvage the situation.
Hope this brings down the tempers and hopefully this put an end to violent protests, which has destroyed city and society. Violence can never be a solution, only peaceful non-violent struggle can bring about real change.
Utterly false, but persistently preached by those in power to ensure there's never any real threat to their position. "Just lie down while I stomp your neck. Don't resist. We'll discuss your objections later, at a more convenient time."
All political power emanates from the barrel of a gun. All civil power emanates from the people's latent threat to revolt and string up the members of an oppressive regime from lantern poles. The Founding Fathers understood that more than anything else. The First Amendment is worthless without the Second Amendment.
Violence should never be the first (or even second) answer, but it is the ultimate answer, and should never be excluded on principle.
It reminds me of this. https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-violence-that-help...
"...found that major nonviolent campaigns are successful 53% of the time, while violent campaigns are successful only 26% of the time."
The Protest Tipping Point (podcast): https://www.npr.org/2019/06/25/736007317/the-protest-tipping...
The Magic Number Behind Protests: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/06/25/735536434/the-...
MLK may have been the face of it, but the man that really brought the government to the negotiating table was Malcolm X... Because of the implicit threat that if non-violent resistance won't work, here's a guy that is perfectly happy to have his supporters sit outside congress, armed with assault rifles, exercising their second amendment rights.
Non-violent protest often wins because the powers that be want to avoid antagonising the violent arm of the movement.
Not really a non-violent protest wins because majority move away from a violent group to a non-violent group.
So it makes a violent person who already has fear, more scared of being left alone. Non-violent protests need to be planned and require strategy in such a way, it helps those non-violent protestors to self-defend with the use of non-violent means, i.e. using deterrents which create fear in aggressors mind on use of violence.
The post you responded to did not say "don't resist". It said "don't use violence".
Peaceful protest has some track record of bringing down systems, ending regimes, and enacting lasting change. Violent protest has a worse track record; it mainly alienates the man on the street and it cannot build consensus.
War can bring about lasting change, but only if your side wins. The difference between war and violent protest is that war implies two sides, each of which has a strong consensus. Violent protest only implies factions. Eliding this difference is a mistake.
This is not to say that violence is unjustified, just that violent protests almost never enact lasting change (because they do not create consensus).
> All political power emanates from the barrel of a gun
All political power emanates from consensus. Violence and coercion can only replace consensus for short periods of time. Consensus can be established and maintained through propaganda and brainwashing - which is frightening and complicates the picture.
If Mao was right then there would be no difference between a gunman and a police officer with a gun. Of course there is every difference in the world between those two figures, a fact proven by how differently we react to them.
> All civil power emanates from the people's latent threat to revolt and string up the members of an oppressive regime from lantern poles. The Founding Fathers understood that more than anything else. The First Amendment is worthless without the Second Amendment.
I agree: sovereignty is defined by the ability to make exceptions. Citizens are only sovereign insofar as they can choose to remove themselves from their obligation to their nation.
My sense is that peaceful protests are the best way to bring about lasting change in China. What the anti-PRC groups need to do is build consensus. Once they've done that, if change does not follow, then war is on the table. But until consensus exists, I believe that violence will fail spectacularly.
A non-violent protestor is a person who does not fear anything, and the person who doesn't fear is the most powerful one.
Violence is a result of fear, that's the reason need to use weapons and aids to fight back to increase the chances of survival. A true warrior is a fearless person who respond to violence with non-violence and make violent person ashamed of themselves.
It's very easy to fight violently, every animal do it including us. We are at least evolved to tame our violent urges and that's what makes us a human.
> All political power emanates from barrel of gun
This is the famous quote of Mao Zedong (毛泽东). "Power flows from the barrel of gun"
You might believe in it like every violent protestor. I don't. I believe power flows from the depth of heart and mind based on our connection with universe, nature and our endeavor to keep it balanced without resorting to violence.
> Second amendment
It's not a sacred thing, there are many places in this world way more safe and peaceful without the second amendment.
Violence is a means to enforce ones will on another. It is only one of such means. It is the mean by which the entire legal system falls back on. It is the mean by which Americans won their independence. It is the mean by which bad people do evil things.
>This is the famous quote of Mao Zedong (毛泽东). "Power flows from the barrel of gun"
And it is the truth, especially if we see take this to be an analogy for strength (before guns, it was swords, before swords it was sticks, before sticks it was fists, these days it might not be guns at the national level, and one day it may be something else entirely).
>It's not a sacred thing, there are many places in this world way more safe and peaceful without the second amendment.
Generally with the backing (perhaps unwillingly) of the nation that has the second amendment, and even those places still use guns to enforce their will on those who do not play along. The smarter areas use it as a last resort and not the first response, but they still use it.
The US Revolution truly began forming after British soldiers started gunning down colonial civilians. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre
>"John Adams wrote that the "foundation of American independence was laid" on [the date of the massacre], and Samuel Adams and other Patriots used annual commemorations (Massacre Day) to encourage public sentiment toward independence.
The colonists didn't just shoot the evil British tyrants telling them to go away because of their oppressive policies. They probably would have lost the war if that's how it started. That's not how you start a revolution. It started because the British fired the first unfair shots (or at least that was the perception).
Some protestors have been quoted saying they want a protestor, or a police officer, to die and become a martyr for either side so that a true revolution can begin. While the citizens of Hong Kong absolutely deserve democracy and civil rights, wishing death is not the way to do it. If the government does start the violence towards civilians of their own accord, with cruelty and brutality, perhaps reciprocal violence in self-defense may at some point become justifiable, but this is a very fine line and only a hypothetical scenario to be considered in response to grave danger, not something anyone should ever wish for.
“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”
It's a beautiful idea really. But when you are given no option other than to fight, do you think it's wrong for them to do so? Jewish, Armenians, Chinese under Japanese occupation? Might have not mattered, might have. I guess it depends on the person. An exaggeration of course compared to the issue at hand, but it seems wishful idealism. In some cases, yes, it works. But when your adversary doesn't care, it's quite ineffective. Game-theory wise I think equal repercussion works quite well, where violence is met with violence in order to prevent it from happening. Sure not always, but if there is no punishment it's simply much too advantageous to use violence if it solves the problem.
I mean school bullies probably won't stop unless you hit them or they get some sort of punishment. Sure you'll feel probably mighty wise if you don't resort to violence or any kind of resistance, but it's unhelpful if it doesn't stop it. And in the meantime you'll be suffering tremendously.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2014/07/24/the-proven...
The circumstance where non-violent behavior works is very specific and is best when there's:
A) much stronger opponent (British Empire, Chinese government)
B) level of civilization where both parties do not want to engage in violence (the majority of modern civilizations)
C) good chance for massive unrest if violence were to happen (no ruler wants to deal with domestic terrorism and internal squabbles, unless of course your regime is breaking up already and that's the only way to keep control)
The more primal the opponent, the worse are your chances. Aztecs would have welcomed non-violent behavior with open hands, they would have cheerfully enslaved people who didn't put up a fight. The reason why they stopped was basically the destruction of their civilization by the Spaniards. But maybe I'm mixing here war with protesting, which is a more of problem after you have lost and are under the oppressive regime. Then your options are limited: it's either violent insurgency or non-violent protesting. In modern world luckily we have electronic mass-media that helps immensely with the non-violence.
Regardless, violence is relatively at a historically all-time low[1].
[1] https://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-ab...
Connection with the universe does not change political structures.
Just an ordinary citizen, whose opinion can be disregarded.
That's the part you got right: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cxz64b/300_uncut_...
But to just speak of violent protestors, while ignoring the triads and people with odd markings doing odd things, the police brutality, and things like this, is also not even close to a complete picture: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cv9y4c/protesters...
> A true warrior is a fearless person who respond to violence with non-violence and make violent person ashamed of themselves.
You cannot make a person have empathy, you can appeal to it, where it exists. Otherwise, you have to defeat them. Not "crush" them, but disarm them and establish boundaries. Without military defeat of Nazi Germany, anything like reflection or reconciliation wasn't even thinkable. As a matter of fact, without their military defeat, we wouldn't know most of what we know about their atrocities today, they were set to purge all evidence as thoroughly as they had exterminated people.
Factual reality, which is at stake, is something even more important than peace -- in the same way atoms are more important than water or orange juice, without atoms, you can't have either. Peace can always erupt again, but destroyed facts remain destroyed, and that being done well enough, can make genuine peace impossbile. A static state of submission is not peace, peace without truthfulness is not peace, and low-intensity people getting disappeared, not asking what happened to your neighbour, is not peace.
ignorance
doesn't hurt anybody
with the exception of those
who can be hurt
because nobody knows about it
However, I will also agree that usually violence is involved, even if one side doesn't participate. Gandhi referred to the people who participated in non-violent protests as soldiers because he knew that many would die.
I don't think violence is the ultimate answer. The ultimate answer is the answer that works. There are many paths to the same location. It's probably best to review your options before you decide which ones to exclude.
Mostly self-governing colonies with Parliament exercising some limited control over them turn into mostly self-governing states with a Federal government exercising some limited control over them.
Pretty much the only things that changed short-term were foreign policy and what kinds of imported goods were taxed.
It was the first successful war of independence [3], lead to establishing the modern elected head of state, outlawed explicit nobility, and inspired fanatical devotion to an earthly cause.
For the previous hundred years, Jacobite rebellions in Europe had been crushed, seemingly due mainly to tactical failure (e.g. Culloden, the last pitched battle in Britain).
But then, a few years after the American Revolution, the French: guerilla warfare, beheaded head of state, banished nobility, fanatical devotion to an earthly cause.
(Interestingly, the French Revolution occurred right around the time they hit 50% literacy [4], increasing the viability of written propaganda.)
Then Haiti launched the second successful independence war in 1791, kicking off centuries of decolonization.
The American Revolution was a break from history.
We haven't cycled back to pitched battles, if anything guerilla warfare is still under active development and experiencing significant growth. Propaganda, as an instrument of war, is only becoming more important. And colonial aggressors continue to lose when on someone else's home field.
1. https://archive.org/details/indiantreatiespr00vand/page/78
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join,_or_Die
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_of_independence
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#/media/File:Illiterac...
The 2nd Amendment was never (and still isn't) meant to ensure the right of people to violently resist or overthrow the government. The way to influence the US government is to become involved in the process, not (threaten to) shoot people. If that's ever not the case, you don't have a country, you have a failed state.
It's a persistent myth that this is not the case. The US was born in revolution and the founders were very concerned about the possibility of a tyrannical government.
Nah, this is totally wrong. The Constitution explicitly gives Congress power over state militias to suppress insurrections:
"The Congress shall have Power To... provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions" [1]
Further, the Militia Act of 1792 allows the president to take control of State militias, and this was famously used by George Washington himself to quell the Whiskey Rebellion.
> Madison famously wrote that state militias would keep a federal army in check.
He did, yes, but he was talking about States vs. the Federal government. He also later saw how bad militias were at being an army (a point Washington argued over and over again) in the War of 1812 and changed his position in favor of a strong, standing, Federal army. And FWIW, we put the question of States keeping the Federal government in check to bed in the Civil War.
[1]: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...
Whether or not Madison (or Washington or whoever) changed his mind at some point does not change the fact that this is the purpose of the Second Amendment. No other laws (like the ones you cited) change this fact, nor does the Civil War.
You can argue that this interpretation is obsolete, but it's the interpretation that was predominant when the Constitution was ratified. Denying that is ahistorical.
Militias were explicitly under the control of both Congress and the president, by law and the Constitution. And militias were used to quell rebellion, not to serve it. These are facts. I understand they're counter to your and others' interpretations, but that doesn't make them any less factual.
And when you consider:
- 2A only applied to militias
- Any "security from tyranny" was States being free from Federal tyranny
- the Civil War erased any doubt about the States rebelling against the Federal government
- The last Militia Act in 1909 made militias into the _National_ Guard
then you have to concede 2A is just a relic from a time when the US had neither the resources nor the political will to create and maintain a standing army.
But as soon as that contract breaks down, i.e. the government stops listening to you, then that contract is breached and generally trouble starts. It gets (arguably) even worse if the government falls entirely, because then you get the kind of lawless marauding you had before any government.
Obviously it's and absolute last ditch, not taken lightly and very undesirable. But, to have the option, is true sovereignty to me.
Basically, the idea that 2A would let us protect any semblance of our current way if life is fantasy. The most you could hope for is to join a resistance and dig in for a generations long, probably species destroying authoritarian regime to run its course.
That’s facially not true. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Bangladeshi War of Independence, Irish independence, etc. History is full of examples where the right to self determination had to be vindicated with guns.
Categorically delegitimizing violence against an oppressive state is a bad precedent. Obviously it should not be accepted as routine. But it is an important safety valve. The Irish won their independence, after hundreds of years of oppression at the hands of the British, by starting a shooting war that the British could not put down while maintaining appearances among the community of nations. If violence had been categorically delegitimized in the early 20th century, the British could have used more heavy handed measures to put down the Irish Revolution while the community of nations looked the other way.
Now, whether Hong Kong wants to or has the capability to do that against China is an entirely separate matter.
Peaceful protests can work sometimes. Other times they do nothing. Same with armed resistance. Declaring one or the other to be the only possible way to bring about change is in direct contradiction to the facts.
Can you give an example? Every example I can think of right now that had a massacre of innocent protestors and no armed struggle either led to some change later down the road (eg. galvanizing the movement, reforms, or total collapse of the opressor), or became a major problem for the oppressor later down the track. A massacre is not that easily forgotten.
Just some random examples: The Polish protests of 1970, resulted in 42 people killed and protestors were overpowered by tanks and military, but the killings arguably accelerated the popularity of the movement. Look up the story of "Janek Wiśniewski" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janek_Wi%C5%9Bniewski
The aftermath of a massacre comes down to the government’s willingness and ability to control the narrative and suppress further dissent. Some governments can be quite successful at this. There’s absolutely no guarantee that a massacre of protestors results in anything beyond dead protestors.
Prague Spring lead to reforms and set the inspiration for the next generation that ended in victory (source https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr...) .
Rabaa, the situation is still ongoing, and unfortunately it's not a completely peaceful movement right now as it escalated to insurgency... (Source https://timep.org/esw/non-state-actors/revolutionary-punishm... )
The Prague Spring’s reforms were quickly reversed and the country was communist business as usual for decades afterwards. Crediting it for the fall of communism in 1989 seems like quite a stretch; for any successful protest, there will be failed ones that came before and provided influence. Does that mean that all protests are successful by definition when you look at a long enough timeline? Seems like a highly pointless metric if so.
CCP is still grappling with it.
Quote "As foundational as the crackdown at Tiananmen may have been to the CCP’s current strength, it remains largely invisible to the people. Despite claiming the moral high ground against what it calls a “counter-revolutionary” rebellion, the Party is still sensitive to the fact that its slaughter of students and laborers put a stain on its legitimacy."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/5600363/china-tiananme...
Sorry, but you can't just burry a massacre, especially if it's been well documented.
> Does that mean that all protests are successful by definition when you look at a long enough timeline?
They may also look like separate events on the timeline, but still part of the same overall movement. Change doesn't happen overnight.
No, it's certainly not visible to the people. If you are talking about Chinese people, not HK people.
It began the process of deterioration of relations between the PRC and the Western democracies, a process that has continued to the present day. People began to realize that China may not liberalize on its own the way Taiwan did—that the government of the PRC is often hostile to liberal democracy. One of the consequences of this realization is in fact these Hong Kong protests. There are numerous other consequences of this cooling in relations too—for example, protectionist tariffs against a country seen as hostile to Western values are easier to sell politically in the West. Tariffs obviously impact China.
Tiananmen didn't achieve what the protestors wanted, but it's clearly a significant historical event.
The protesters in late 1980 might have been larger and more popular, but if the Soviet unreleased it might, it would not have mattered.
Of course, the other motivating factor was that the economy went to shit. People were hungry and tired of waiting in long queues with shelves at the stores almost empty. Nothing to do with "discussions and political institutions the elites were working in" though.
Hope doesn't work if there are tanks who shoot at you. The people in Poland were not braver then those in China or those in Hungary. The difference is that in those cases the political system had the will to oppose them with the force required.
Unarmed protestors simple can not win against an army. Its pure idealism to believe that.
- On June 9th this year, a million people joined a peaceful march fighting this bill. Carrie Lam's response? Go ahead with the Second Reading anyway.[1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_Movement
[1] https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201906/10/P2019061000710...
So far, it seems like it helped to inspire the current protestors, and they're much better organized this time round.
Revolutions, specially non-violent once succeed if the political establishment does not have the will or tools to resist.
The protestors in Europe and China were probably equally as brave. While in the Soviet system the elites had already divided and paralyzed themselves, that was the fundamental condition that allowed protest to be successful in eastern Europe.
The people in China, were simply shot down and 30 years after the CCP is in control still. The exact same thing could have happened in the Soviet Union, if the elites had not already crippled themselves.
Governments with modern arms don't fall to rebellions unless some significant part of the elite is either at least passive or actively supporting the revolution.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2014/07/24/the-proven...
[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/3040831/peaceful-protest-slow-an...
I think that's the exception rather than the rule. More societies have gained independence through being a perpetual thorn in the side of whoever is subjugating them than any other way. If you make subjugating you an expensive road to nowhere they will eventually screw off. With the unanimity of opposition to mainland rule HK stands a pretty good chance. Imagine the troubles but without local opposition stabbing the IRA in the back at every turn. That's the kind of fight the PRC is in for if the situation spirals into a full blown shooting conflict.
>For Mainland Chinese citizen the narrative will be altered, but will still be seen as symbolic defeat and for Hong Kong Chinese citizens it will be a symbolic win.
Any other time and I would agree, but Xi just scored "people's leader" on August 25th, 70th anniversary is on October 1st, "symbolic defeat" is not in the cards. Together with rejection of Lam's proposal and effort to appease protesters as little as last week, I think we can either view this development as Beijing dealing with Lam cracking without warning. Or this as a calculated ploy to justify ERO on the assumption that the olive branch will not be well received by protesters. Lam's speech politely but explicitly said 4/5 demands would not be met.
My understanding is another bill would need to go through the original process that first introduced it which is a longer process.
The bill in question is now at the Second Reading stage, specifically at the "[Reading] may be resumed on notice by the Member or public officer in charge of the bill" step. The "House Committee" debate was basically skipped.
[0] https://www.legco.gov.hk/general/english/procedur/content/pa...
Violence, sadly, is almost always the solution. A tough pill to swallow.
Beijing specifically instructed Lam not to give in to any demands a week ago. Lam capitulating is Beijing capitulating, and Beijing is not going to capitulate with 70th anniversary coming up and activated mainland nationalism. Beijing is all in. For mainlanders, after how events have been portrayed by state media, Lam is basically acquiescing to terrorists. The situation is developing and I think there's a very narrow set of outcomes where this would not backfire spectacularly.