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View Full Version : Hong Kong- the new Tibet?



bram
13th November 2013, 12:16
After 1997, when the former British colony was handed back to the control of China, Hong Kong people have fought hard to protect their rights enshrined in the Basic Law; the right to administer their own affairs under the one-country-two-systems principle, as a Self Administrating Region or SAR of the People’s Republic of China.

For a long time, this seemed to be working well. When the government was pressured by Beijing to introduce ‘Article 23’ security (anti-subversion) legislation in 2002, over 10% of the total population took to the streets to protest, and in the face of such pressure, the government was forced to withdraw the legislation and shortly after to remove and replace the Beijing appointed Chief Executive.

Hong Kong people have lobbied strongly for universal suffrage, and succeeded in obtaining a promise that universal suffrage would be introduced by the 2017 election for the Chief Executive. As this date grows closer, this seems less and less likely to happen.

Again, in 2012, when the government was pressured to introduce the National Curriculum, which basically included a version of Chinese history written and edited by the CCP, the Hong Kong people objected and protested and once again the government was forced to withdraw the proposal in the face of strong public opinion.

Under the basic law, the SAR of Hong Kong will ‘revert fully’ to the mainland (i.e. the one-country-two-systems principle will be dissolved) in 2047, fifty years after the handover.

It is now evident that the Chinese government is fed up with waiting, and is becoming rapidly disenchanted by the noises coming from theses troublesome people in the south, who they regard as ‘dogs’ (as in the pets of their former owners). China has now decided to employ the same tactics they have traditionally used with other autonomous regions, such as Tibet.

What resource does China possess a superabundance of- people of course. In previous generations, refugees have escaped from China to Hong Kong in a steady trickle, seeking to get away from the oppressive communist regime; they have rapidly assimilated into Hong Kong culture, and this steady trickle of immigrants, coupled with immigrants from the west, has fed the thriving economy of this remarkable and very small region. However, because Hong Kong is so small, it’s social balance is also fragile.

Recently however, China has been granting visas to huge numbers of unskilled and semi skilled workers- hundreds or thousands each day, and these people are taking up all the available jobs, leaving the Hong Kong working class in the cold. At the same time, all the small and medium sized businesses are being bought up and taken over by mainland Chinese, and even tycoons such as Li Ka Shing are now selling up their businesses in preparation for getting their assets out of Hong Kong.

In the streets of Hong Kong, Mandarin Chinese is now more commonly heard than the Cantonese language. The Hong Kong culture is rapidly being replaced by a mainland Chinese model, with all that that entails.

One recent example is the harassment of the Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) in Hong Kong. This group has been able to peacefully exist in Hong Kong for many years, whilst in China they are subject to terrible barbarities, being beaten, imprisoned, murdered and used for organ harvesting while still alive. Recently however, a group calling itself the ‘Hong Kong Concerned Youth’, which is comprised entirely of non Hong Kong people from mainland China has arisen to harass and publicly decry the Falun Gong. Hong Kong’s finest stand by and watch this assault take place.

In a recent incident in August this year, a female schoolteacher named Alpais Lam took issue with the police over their failure to intervene and protect the weak from assault, since which she has been subjected to an astonishing display of cultural revolution style harassment by mainland Chinese interest groups, and has been unable to return to work since. Truly this incident marked the beginnings of Hong Kong’s emergence as a mainland Chinese city where the weak are openly victimized by the state and its cronies.

Next we should expect to see aged monks being beaten to death by police thugs as in Tibet, while the public are educated not to react. Lest one is sent to a psychiatric hospital for some classical re-education.

I am sure nothing can be done to prevent this; the Hong Kong government are obviously hamstrung and cannot even report truthfully what is happening. The hope was that by the time Hong Kong ‘reverted’ in 2047, China would have moved forward itself. Now it’s sooner rather than later, and its going to be Tibet all over again.