Hong Kong Protests & Unrest

[Chindie]

1 minute ago, Xann said:

Extradition bill to be withdrawn.

Well done Hong Kong

See what happens when you get off your arse.

Back in lipstick and a wig within 5 years easily you'd imagine.

[Xela]

3 minutes ago, Xann said:

Extradition bill to be withdrawn.

Well done Hong Kong

See what happens when you get off your arse.

China will make them pay in the long term I feel. 

[Chindie]

This could probably go in a multitude of threads (or forums even) but I guess this could be the de facto China thread, and it's obviously inspired by the initial topic.

There's been a story rumbling in from the world of gaming which kinda comes to underline the world we're heading towards when it comes to China. A couple of weeks ago a tournament was held in Taiwan, on the game Hearthstone, developed by US company Activision Blizzard, the company behind Warcraft and Call of Duty. The tournament was live streamed and the eventual winner was interviewed on the stream. In his interview he said 'liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age'. The steam hosts actually tried to hide as he said this. Subsequently the champion was stripped of his winnings and banned from competition for a year. Activision claimed this was because he broke their rules on political speech, but you do have to wonder whether the fact that giant Chinese company Tencent has considerable investment in Activision had more than a little to do with it - I suspect this bloke wouldn't have been censured if he'd made a generalised environmental comment for instance.

This sparked a pretty heavy backlash, with everything from Hearthstone being 'review bombed' (mass negative reviews tanking it's overall rating on app stores), to people deleting accounts for Blizzard game services. A couple of US senators have called the company out, Blizzard employees have done walkouts and defaced company logos with slogans supporting free speech, there's a campaign to use a character from Blizzards biggest game, Overwatch, who happens to be Chinese, as the face of the backlash in the hope China will ban that game, there are suggestions of boycotts... And best of all, Blizzard has its annual convention next week, which will undoubtedly attract protests as the entire gaming world is watching.

But more than just Activision Blizzard, this raises some questions about how Western businesses deal with increasing Chinese investment. More and more Chinese money is coming into Western companies. Even just in the entertainment industry it's now commonplace to find Chinese logos ahead of feature films, a lot of major gaming companies have Chinese investment of varying degrees, and there's increasing desire to get into the Chinese market. It's obvious this is going to be in conflict with China's government when it comes to things critical of the nation, which questions how Western values can be upheld when they're in conflict with China's viewpoint.

This is going to be a growing problem in the years to come.

[Dr_Pangloss]

15 minutes ago, Chindie said:

This could probably go in a multitude of threads (or forums even) but I guess this could be the de facto China thread, and it's obviously inspired by the initial topic.

There's been a story rumbling in from the world of gaming which kinda comes to underline the world we're heading towards when it comes to China. A couple of weeks ago a tournament was held in Taiwan, on the game Hearthstone, developed by US company Activision Blizzard, the company behind Warcraft and Call of Duty. The tournament was live streamed and the eventual winner was interviewed on the stream. In his interview he said 'liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age'. The steam hosts actually tried to hide as he said this. Subsequently the champion was stripped of his winnings and banned from competition for a year. Activision claimed this was because he broke their rules on political speech, but you do have to wonder whether the fact that giant Chinese company Tencent has considerable investment in Activision had more than a little to do with it - I suspect this bloke wouldn't have been censured if he'd made a generalised environmental comment for instance.

This sparked a pretty heavy backlash, with everything from Hearthstone being 'review bombed' (mass negative reviews tanking it's overall rating on app stores), to people deleting accounts for Blizzard game services. A couple of US senators have called the company out, Blizzard employees have done walkouts and defaced company logos with slogans supporting free speech, there's a campaign to use a character from Blizzards biggest game, Overwatch, who happens to be Chinese, as the face of the backlash in the hope China will ban that game, there are suggestions of boycotts... And best of all, Blizzard has its annual convention next week, which will undoubtedly attract protests as the entire gaming world is watching.

But more than just Activision Blizzard, this raises some questions about how Western businesses deal with increasing Chinese investment. More and more Chinese money is coming into Western companies. Even just in the entertainment industry it's now commonplace to find Chinese logos ahead of feature films, a lot of major gaming companies have Chinese investment of varying degrees, and there's increasing desire to get into the Chinese market. It's obvious this is going to be in conflict with China's government when it comes to things critical of the nation, which questions how Western values can be upheld when they're in conflict with China's viewpoint.

This is going to be a growing problem in the years to come.

I was horrified when Villa had Chinese investment and any 'Western' company which has substantial Chinese money invested into should be viewed with absolute suspicion, it's an enormous red flag. China is in many ways a Stanlist state whose core values are radically divergent with Western Enlightenment, democracy and free speech are not concepts that are on their radar. China is on a trajectory to become world number 1 superpower and this is very, very worrying.

[Chindie]

This isn't normal.

Apparently fans were being thrown out of NBA games for holding pro-HK protest banners. In America.

This because the NBA has expanded into China significantly in recent years and even just the smallest comment of support from a single team rep saw Chinese broadcasters completely drop coverage instantly.

This is **** up.

[blandy]

13 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

it's an enormous red flag

Well, obviously.

You're right, though.

[coda]

The Beeb recently showed a three-part documentary on Chairman Xi, China: A New World Order. Still on iplayer if you want 3 hours of his regime's crimes and our complicity. 

[villa4europe]

funnily enough my company's Chinese owners were here yesterday giving us the annual report

they started as a metal shipping container company but now own us a liquid gas storage construction company, and then bought a company that builds ships for their containers, they then diversified in to food and they're currently going around America / Canada buying up microbreweries (linked to metal tanks for distilling) they've got their fingers in the pie at goose island and at Smirnoff which means they have ties to AB and Diageo, they have money everywhere, like just about every wealthy Chinese business they have a real estate arm, turnover of £6bn at a rate of 11% margin, hard to see what they actually own / are invested in, 

as I said in the architecture thread I studied Chinese economics as part of my dissertation, its fascinating, its incredible how they did it but there's definitely a dark element to it even if Chinese "communism" almost certainly isn't the picture we have painted for us by the media

 

[Xela]

The west will just bend over and part their cheeks in order to appease China. 

Quote

Christian Dior has become the latest foreign brand to apologise to China after it used a map that Beijing sees as misrepresenting its territory.

The French luxury brand was criticised on Chinese social media after an employee reportedly used a China map in a presentation that excluded Taiwan.

Taiwan has been self-ruled since the 1950s, but Beijing's official policy is that the island is a Chinese province.

Dior apologised for the "mistake in representation" made by an employee.

....

In recent years, Chinese social media users have aggressively been pursuing companies which they believe are challenging China's territorial claims.

China is a huge market for luxury brands, so they are keen not to risk negative PR or a boycott by offending Chinese consumers.

Versace apologised in August after an image on one of its T-shirts appeared to imply Hong Kong and Macau were independent territories.

Coach and Givenchy have also faced a backlash recently over the representation of Chinese territories on some of their garments.

Airlines and hotel chains have also had to apologise after listing Taiwan as a separate country on their booking menus, not as part of China.

Earlier this week, Vietnam banned the animated movie Abominable over another map row.

The film, the first tie-in between Dreamworks and China's Pearl Studio, briefly displayed a map that showed areas of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam as being Chinese territory.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50078886

[Chindie]

Slightly concerning I just got a YouTube 'ad' that was claiming to show how the Hong Kong rioters are actually just thugs or something. Cool. Getting Chinese propaganda. I must be on a list.

[Xela]

13 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Slightly concerning I just got a YouTube 'ad' that was claiming to show how the Hong Kong rioters are actually just thugs or something. Cool. Getting Chinese propaganda. I must be on a list.

Your social credit score will be shot to pieces now. 

[Chindie]

Can't be long now until China gets what it wants and crushes Hong Kong under the pretence of 'restoring order'.

[HanoiVillan]

On 13/08/2019 at 07:19, HanoiVillan said:

My view for a long time now is that there is no future in Hong Kong autonomy, beyond the 50 years that was promised in 1997, but it seems likely that timeline is rapidly accelerating at this point. We may see martial law imposed in the near future, with economic justifications. 

Well, this was right, except they are 'security justifications', rather than economic ones:

Two Sessions 2020: Beijing will announce resolution for national security legislation for Hong Kong to proscribe secession, foreign interference and terrorism

'Beijing will introduce a draft resolution to allow the National People’s Congress to chart legislation for a new national security law tailor-made for Hong Kong that will proscribe secessionist and subversive activity, foreign interference and terrorism in the city, sources have told the Post.

A Beijing source said the new law would ban all seditious activities aimed at toppling the central government and external interference in Hong Kong’s affairs. It would also target terrorist acts in Hong Kong.

A mainland source familiar with Hong Kong affairs said Beijing had concluded that it was impossible for the city’s Legislative Council to pass a national security law to enact Article 23 given the city’s political climate and hence was turning to the National People’s Congress, the country’s legislature, to take on the responsibility.

“Some opposition politicians have shut the window for Hong Kong to enact its own national security law,” the source said, referring to the confrontational approach they had adopted towards Beijing.

“If the national security legislation is not done during the annual session of the National People’s Congress or shortly afterwards, is there any guarantee that it can be passed by the Legco in the next two years?” the source said.

“We can no longer allow acts like desecrating national flags or defacing of the national emblem in Hong Kong.”'

more on link: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3085412/two-sessions-2020-how-far-will-beijing-go-push-article-23

This is orders-of-magnitude more serious than the HK government extradition law that was the source of all the protests last year, and it is very difficult to see how this can be considered anything other than the end of Hong Kong's de facto autonomy.

[villakram]

It's a hard spot to be in, but believing protesting on the streets would gain independence is a little naive. It's unfortunate that the local political leadership was not a little sharper, as there was a way to manage re-integration with China that would be softly, softly.

I suppose it hasn't helped that Shanghai now wants to be the financial center and Beijing wants that too. The ongoing tete-a-tete with the US is lowering the value of the HK external financial window more and more each day. 

[snowychap]

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by snowychap

[snowychap]

Jimmy Lai: Hong Kong media tycoon arrested under security law

Quote

Hong Kong business tycoon Jimmy Lai has been arrested and his newspaper offices raided by police over allegations of collusion with foreign forces.

His case is the most high-profile arrest so far under the controversial security law imposed by China in June.

Mr Lai has been a prominent pro-democracy voice and a supporter of protests that erupted last year.

In February the 71-year-old, who also holds UK citizenship, was charged with illegal assembly and intimidation.

He was granted police bail.

Chinese state media Global Times on Monday described Mr Lai as "riot supporter" and his publications as having been "instigating hatred, spreading rumors and smearing Hong Kong authorities and the mainland for years".

The Global Times also reported that two of his sons as well as two senior executives of Next Digital had also been arrested.

....more

 

[Xela]

 

[Ingram85]

But what does John Cena think about all this?

**** the Chinese Government. The world is **** horrible. If this is all some weird AI experiment or a laugh at the unseen alien overlords expense then it’s time to pull the plug. It’s done. 

[Xela]

RIP Hong Kong. It was good fun while it lasted.

Quote

Hong Kong universities remove more monuments marking Tiananmen

Two more Hong Kong universities have taken down monuments commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) tore down a Goddess of Democracy statue while Lingnan University removed a relief sculpture.

Hong Kong University earlier removed a famous statue marking the massacre of students in Beijing in 1989.

The Chinese state has increasingly been cracking down on political dissent in Hong Kong.

The Goddess of Democracy statue was modelled after the original statue erected by Chinese students in 1989 and paraded in Tiananmen Square just before the massacre.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-59752089

[Xela]

The killing of democracy continues

Quote

One of the last pro-democracy media organisations in Hong Kong, Stand News, is shutting down after it was raided by police and senior staff were arrested.

Seven people, both current and former employees, were detained by Hong Kong police for "conspiracy to publish seditious publications".

"Because of the situation, Stand News is ceasing operations immediately," the organisation said in a Facebook post.

More than 200 police officers were sent to raid the publication's office.

Hong Kong police said in a statement they were authorised to "search and seize relevant journalistic materials".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-59807734