America's Tiananmen square

(Thanks to Jitt Teng for helping restore this post!)

I notice some people are comparing the riots to Tiananmen square. I suppose the idea is Trump's administration, the military, and the police are akin to the communist Chinese government, while the "protesters" are akin to the democracy-loving Chinese people. I guess George Floyd is Tank Man.

1. The Chinese people couldn't and didn't fight back against their government. Rather, the communists government massacred the people. Men, women, and yes even children were murdered. They were gunned down. Tanks rolled over them. Tiananmen square literally ran with blood. The entire area was aggressively "cleansed" by an army group that was notoriously vicious. It was called upon by the CCP leaders precisely because the army group was known to be so vicious.

2. By contrast, protesters are allowed to protest. The Trump administration hasn't silenced their voice. If anyone wants to see silence, then consider how China has ended Hong Kong's democracy just days ago. And consider what's still happening in Hong Kong:

It starts; so soon. For the first time in 30 years, Hong Kong authorities denied permission to hold the #TiananmenVigil. If there is any doubt about Beijing’s intent, it is to deny Hong Kongers a voice and a choice, making them the same as mainlanders. So much for two systems.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) June 2, 2020

Trump hasn't unilaterally sent in the US military. And the US military certainly hasn't massacred anyone.

3. No doubt police brutality is a legitimate concern. It should be dealt with. But how is "protesting" by rioting helping deal with police brutality? The rioters are behaving anything but peacefully. They're looting stores, burning down buildings, and violently attacking innocents. They're shooting police officers (e.g. here, here).

4. I don't know if rioters in general have any sort of ideology. (However, I think organized groups like Antifa do have an ideology.) At the very least, rioters aren't respecting democracy. In fact, I suspect many if not most rioters are ignorant about our system of government. That's quite unlike the student-led protests at Tiananmen square. Many of these students were well-versed in the intellectual history of democracy. Many of them could argue for democracy, but how many rioters have ever read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, even some of the Federalist papers?

5. If anything, the rioters seem to want anarchy. Evidently they want to live out Alan Moore's twisted vision in V for Vendetta and Watchmen.

6. Some intellectuals are defending the riots. However, as George Orwell said: "Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them".

The Navy SEAL that killed Osama bin Laden may have a truer perspective when he calls the protesters "terrorists".

7. It looks like the left is actively supporting and perhaps inciting rioters like Antifa (e.g. here, here). If so, I presume the short-term goal is to bring down Trump. To make his administration seem impotent to do anything.

Yet leftist politicians like Biden may be playing with fire. If they start a revolution, the revolution may not necessarily end with them in charge (e.g. here, here). Consider whether Bernie bros ever wanted Biden. Even Robespierre the guillotiner was guillotined.

"U.S. Says Hong Kong’s Autonomy Is Gone"

The Trump administration said it could no longer certify Hong Kong’s political autonomy from China, a move that could trigger sanctions and have far-reaching consequences on the former British colony’s special trading status with the U.S.

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced the decision Wednesday, a week after the government in Beijing declared its intention to pass a national security law curtailing the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong citizens.

“Hong Kong does not continue to warrant treatment under United States laws in the same manner as U.S. laws were applied to Hong Kong before July 1997,” Pompeo said in a statement. “No reasonable person can assert today that Hong Kong maintains a high degree of autonomy from China, given facts on the ground.”

(Source)

One country, two systems

Despite coronavirus restrictions, thousands in Hong Kong protesting because Hong Kong could effectively lose its democracy and be fully absorbed into communist China when the national security law passes.

The anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre is coming up too. Hong Kong has always gathered each year to commemorate the fallen in the Tiananmen Square massacre, but if Hong Kong loses its democracy, then China likely won't allow Hong Kong to do so anymore. It's forbidden to commemorate the fallen in the Tiananmen Square massacre in China.

Rally Live:
Sea of people reappeared in Hong Kong to protest the upcoming National Security Law which endanger the freedom and safety of Hong Kong people.#HongKong#Protest pic.twitter.com/QjhXHX18MQ

— Nathan Law 羅冠聰 😷 (@nathanlawkc) May 24, 2020

Hong Kongers in Causeway Bay holding up five fingers for the five demands. Thousands of ppl gathering around (photo: colleague Donny Kwok) pic.twitter.com/MkTSLABFZ0

— Pak Yiu (@pakwayne) May 24, 2020

Hong Kong independence flags waving, protesters chanting "Hong Kong Independence, the only way out" pic.twitter.com/pSJT5LntwD

— Pak Yiu (@pakwayne) May 24, 2020

China:
Threaten Taiwan invasion
Shred Hong Kong agreement
Invade India
Punitive tariffs on Australia
Arm Burmese rebels
Hack US corona research
Militarizing South China Sea

DC China's think tanks:
If only we had any clue as to Chinese intention and reciprocity. Any at all.

— Anonymous Balding 大老板 (@BaldingsWorld) May 23, 2020

The fate of democracy in Asia

At midnight tonight, Hong Kong will practically be fully absorbed into the PRC 27 years early.

The laws of the PRC will (from midnight tonight) also apply to Hong Kong.

"One country, Two systems" is over, and with it you can be prosecuted for talking out against the CCP.

— Pog 🇭🇰 (@Achuuvements) May 21, 2020

Just messaged my parents in Taiwan, asking whether people care about the national security law in HK. They said that every single channel is talking about it non stop.

This is about more than just HK, it's about the fate of democracy in Asia as a whole.

— Gene Lin 林靖 (@lin_gene) May 22, 2020

If China succeeds here with no Western pushback, Taiwan is next. China will take that as a sign the West isn't willing to defend its interests https://t.co/3hFNdsob5H

— Lucas Carson (@eklu65) May 23, 2020

The death of democracy in Hong Kong?

The Communist Party of China has been busy with Hong Kong during the pandemic:

For one thing, China arrested leaders of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement last month.

Also, not many hours ago, Hong Kong's democratically-elected council has been forcibly removed and a new pro-communist chairman "voted" in.

Chinese Health Organization

BREAKING: Japanese Vice PM says the @WHO should be renamed "Chinese Health Organization, Taro slammed the WHO for reciting the Chinese talking points with regards to #COVID19, and insisted that the Corona virus should be called the Wuhan virus. pic.twitter.com/GuuDmqo0c0

— Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) April 2, 2020

By the way, in addition to how China has been treating Taiwan, let's not forget how China has been treating Hong Kong, which I've posted about in the past.

Also, I think we should stop funding the WHO.

Jimmy Lai and the fight for freedom in Hong Kong

Synopsis:

In this special edition of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson recorded in front of a live audience at the Hoover Institution, Peter interviews Jimmy Lai, the entrepreneur and leader in the fight to preserve democracy in Hong Kong. Lai describes the struggles he has endured including having his home fire-bombed, his family harassed, and his business threatened by the Chinese Communist Party. They also discuss the Trump administration's response to the Hong Kong protest movement, how the NBA and other American businesses found themselves in an awkward position between their business interests and their politics, and what Lai believes to be China’s ultimate goal: to make Hong Kong just another city in Communist China. Finally, Lai asks Americans to keep Hong Kong at the forefront of their thoughts and not to give up on them.

A transcript is available here.

Face masks

Background:

1. As many know, Hong Kong police have banned Hong Kong protestors from wearing riot gear face masks. However, Hong Kong police are allowed to wear face masks. They're allowed to be anonymous. They don't don their police badges or other identification. In other words, despite the fact that Hong Kong is still ostensibly a democracy, Hong Kong police face no accountability to the law, whereas Hong Kong police want protestors to be accountable to the law. At least "the law" as envisioned by a corrupt Hong Kong police force and a toady Hong Kong government which kowtows to Beijing.

2. Hence protestors decided to wear masks of China's President (for life) Xi as Winnie the Pooh. That's because Xi evidently hates being compared to Winnie the Pooh. In fact, Xi banned his resemblance as Winnie the Pooh in China not long ago. Oh, bother! Silly old bear! Xi sounds more like Eeyore than Pooh to me.

3. All this is during Halloween season. As such, Hong Kong police may have a difficult time telling the protestors from the trick-or-treaters! Of course, considering how corrupt the Hong Kong police have become, maybe they'll simply go ahead and arrest anyone wearing a mask. Maybe they'll wage a campaign of fear against the populace. That'll be a lot of people though since it seems the vast majority of the city supports the protests. Hong Kong itself wouldn't have the prison capacity if the police arrested everyone wearing a face mask, but maybe the police will (illegally) take Hong Kong citizens across the border to China where they'll be made to disappear, never to be heard from again. Can the police (whom I shall dub the HKGB) whisk away thousands let alone millions though?

4. Hong Kong protestors are wearing other face masks too. This includes another Winnie the Pooh character, Piglet, who has become the mascot of LIHKG which is Hong Kong's version of reddit. Also, Pepe the Frog who is a popular internet meme including at places like 4chan, reddit, and Tumblr. And of course the Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta is a symbol against tyranny. For better or worse, modern opposition and resistance to tyranny are very much in sync with the world online. Especially in a tech savvy hub like Hong Kong.

No place to hide

The following is from the China Law Blog:

This [Chinese cybersecurity] system will apply to foreign owned companies in China on the same basis as to all Chinese persons, entities or individuals. No information contained on any server located within China will be exempted from this full coverage program. No communication from or to China will be exempted. There will be no secrets. No VPNs. No private or encrypted messages. No anonymous online accounts. No trade secrets. No confidential data. Any and all data will be available and open to the Chinese government...All this information will be available to the Chinese military and military research institutes. The Chinese are being very clear that this is their plan.

I hope American businesses and businesses in general won't put money ahead of morals when dealing with China. Unlike (apparently) LeBron James and the NBA.

By the way, here's a recent photo from Hong Kong:

"Jew chink"

Apparently there's a brouhaha over Saturday Night Live (SNL) firing a comedian they just hired. Someone named Shane Gillis. The reason is because Gillis made jokes against Asians and Jews. Like calling the Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang a "Jew chink".

1. I don't care which comedians SNL hires and fires. That's their business.
2. I wouldn't vote for Andrew Yang. I like him better than most the other Democratic presidential candidates, but he's still a Democrat at heart. He's still liberal. And I think liberal and progressive politics are destructive to our nation, even from a secular perspective.
3. Just because Gillis made racist and anti-Semitic jokes doesn't necessarily imply he's racist against Asians or that he's anti-Semitic. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. I don't know Gillis well enough to say.
4. To put it another way, do Gillis' jokes reflect his personal animus and racism against Asians? Do his jokes reflect an anti-China stance? Both? Neither? Of course I think racism is wrong, but I don't have a problem with being anti-China. In fact, I'm anti-China. The Chinese communist party is evil. What they're doing all around the world is evil. People are right to oppose China. That includes other Chinese who are opposed to China such as democratic Chinese in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
5. For his part, Gillis replied to his firing: "I'm a comedian who pushes boundaries...My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks." As far as his comedy goes, Gillis' jokes about Asians and Jews simply weren't funny. However, from the standpoint of comedy, if a comedian is going to make jokes about race or even racist jokes, then at least the jokes ought to be funny. I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who said the following (paraphrased) in response to an anti-Semitic joke: I'm not offended as a Jew, I'm offended as a comedian!
6. Gillis suggests these were old jokes from "10 years ago". Generally speaking, I'd agree we shouldn't hold people accountable for immature things they said in the past, though of course it depends on the specific statement at hand. It's possible for some statements to always remain wrong. However, a problem with Gillis' suggestion is he made recent jokes against Asians only a few months ago. And Prov 26:19 comes to mind.
7. I'm of the opinion that in general comedians should be able to joke about controversial and sensitive issues including jokes about and even against various races and cultures. Russell Peters is a good example. Today there's too much quashing of anything that seems remotely inappropriate, and what's deemed inappropriate is often decided by liberal elites. Like SNL. The cancel culture.
8. There's often a double standard when jokes against women, minorities, and/or Muslims are considered wrong, but it's acceptable to make jokes against men, whites, and/or Christians.

The 50 cent army

"Twitter shuts down 200,000 Chinese accounts for spreading disinformation about Hong Kong protests"

1. I wonder how many people are aware of China's 50 cent army: "The 50 Cent Party, or 50 Cent Army (Chinese: 五毛党), is the colloquial term for internet commentators (Chinese: 网络评论员) which are hired by Chinese authorities in an attempt to manipulate public opinion to the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]."

2. The fact that the CCP is able to create 200,000 fake accounts on Twitter (that we know about) to try to influence Western public opinion should be disconcerting to say the least.

3. It's also interesting because Twitter is supposed to be banned in China! Welp, I guess Twitter is banned for the Chinese people, not for the CCP.

4. Not to suggest I trust Twitter (e.g. Twitter has censured political conservatives), but in this case I think Twitter made the right call against communist China and for pro-democracy Hong Kong.

5. On a related note, there's the added problem of celebrities who shill for communist China. For example, Jackie Chan is beloved in the West, but he has long been disliked by his own fellow Hong Kongers precisely because Jackie Chan has supported communist China over and against his own people and his own native city of Hong Kong for years.

   Likewise Liu Yifei stars as Mulan in the upcoming live action Mulan film from Disney. However she recently made a comment supporting police brutality against pro-democracy Hong Kong protesters when she said "I support the Hong Kong Police. You can beat me up now....what a shame for Hong Kong" on Chinese social media (Weibo). The Hong Kong police work for the Hong Kong government, but the Hong Kong government is full of toadies for communist China. Hence many people around the world are calling to ban Mulan. That includes other Asians living in democratic nations like South Korea and Taiwan.

6. If the 21st century is supposed to be the Asian century, then I'd prefer it to be a century of pro-democracy Asian nations like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, not pro-communist or other tyrannical Asian nations like mainland China.

Ich bin ein Hongkonger

A Hong Kong businessman named Jimmy Lai hopes our political leaders will support Hong Kong. He even suggests politicians consider flying to Hong Kong. Like JFK flew to Berlin during the Cold War, calling himself a Berliner.

1. I suppose Trump could fly to Hong Kong and do the same. That would be a bold move if Trump did that. Politically speaking, it'd be a big gamble. He could win big or lose big.

   If Trump did that, he might sway a lot of Asian-Americans to vote for him. In fact, he might sway a lot of moderates in general.

   Not to mention Trump might sway other nations if he took the lead in supporting a democratic movement in Hong Kong. He might be able to move a lot of the international community to take action as well.

   On the negative side, it could end up igniting an international crisis or something along those lines. This in turn could impact his political fortunes.

2. Of course, it would sorely anger China. However, why would Trump care about angering China? For one thing, he's already angered China with the trade war. Yet the trade war has brought China to the table to discuss fairer trade practices and so on. That's because the trade war hits China where it hurts most, i.e., their economy. Otherwise the next decades could see the Chinese economy overtake ours and all that that would entail. At least to my knowledge, even a majority of Democrats support Trump attempting to stem China's global ascendancy.

3. I suppose the major problem would be this would signal to Hong Kong that we support them, but if push comes to shove I'm not sure what we could do to support Hong Kong against China. After all, if China did invade Hong Kong, then I don't know what we could actually do about it short of going to war which of course no one wants.

   At least as far as I can see, the best option is if we can convince other nations China is currently doing business with to stop doing business with China, then that would hurt China's economy. If the threat of this is viable, then it might dissuade China from touching Hong Kong. However, this doesn't necessitate Trump flying to Hong Kong. It could be accomplished behind the scenes, as it were.

4. The issue for China is that they regard Hong Kong as theirs, along with other places like Taiwan, which China argues European colonial powers took away from them. Of course, China likes to push this narrative because they know it often works on guilt-ridden Westerners.

   However, above and beyond politics, and in terms of "moral authority", it comes down to democracy vs. communism. If we believe in democratic ideals, then why not support democratic movements (though that's not to imply we should always do so)? Indeed, China supports spreading communism abroad.

Protesters in Hong Kong waving the American flag and singing the American National anthem as they advocate for democracy. Wow! pic.twitter.com/CKyFstud22

— Kaya Jones (@KayaJones) August 12, 2019

We need the 2nd amendment

1. The photo is from a recent protest in Hong Kong.

1. Sadly, it's too late for Hongkongers to have a 2nd amendment.

   Too late for Hongkongers to use firearms to resist their own toady government, which was effectively handpicked by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

   Too late for Hongkongers to use firearms to resist their own lackey police force.

   Too late for Hongkongers to use firearms to resist the triads and other hired guns (not to mention communist spies across Hong Kong) who are in collusion with the CCP.

2. I'm not even necessarily suggesting Hongkongers should use firearms, though that's an option. Just possessing firearms may be a deterrence in and of itself. At least it'd make bullies think twice.

Sing hallelujah to the Lord

More information here: "How a worship song is fueling pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong".

Some stray thoughts:

What's happening in Hong Kong?

(Over 1 million protestors in Hong Kong marched against mainland China's proposal to allow extraditions from Hong Kong to mainland China. Date: June 9, 2019. Source: Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times.)

Christians in Hong Kong

1. What's happening in Hong Kong right now is tremendously disconcerting for anyone who cares about religious freedom. Indeed, it's disconcerting for anyone who cares about democracy in general. This includes Christians in Hong Kong, which is why I'm bothering to post about this.

2. It'd be good for people to consider praying for Christians in Hong Kong. Not only for Christians in Hong Kong, but for democracy in Hong Kong, because democracy allows Christians to freely share the gospel without fear of recrimination, without fear of being silenced, without fear of being whisked off in the middle of the night to re-education camps, without fear of being executed (such as in mobile death vans).

3. At present, there are still many evangelical Christian churches in Hong Kong. However, that could easily change for the worse. In fact, it's already starting to change for the worse. For example, I've heard credible reports of so-called Christians attending churches in Hong Kong who are in fact spies for the communist government and reporting on church activities.

The extradition bill

1. More to the point, the Chinese government has proposed a law which would allow extradition from Hong Kong to mainland China. This would mean dissidents in Hong Kong could be extradited to mainland China. It's no surprise the term dissident is vague enough to include anyone the Chinese government deems troublesome. Political and religious dissidents (such as Christian pastors) in Hong Kong could be officially made to disappear into China. Never to be seen again. Most likely either executed or forced into re-education through labor camps, alongside countless thousands if not millions already in these present-day camps.

2. Of course, political and religious dissidents in Hong Kong have already been made to disappear in the recent past. For example, that's what happened in 2016 in the Causeway Bay Books disappearances. Not to mention a couple of these bookstore staff likewise have citizenship in Western nations including the United Kingdom, but that didn't stop the Chinese government from making them disappear. In any case, I bring this up because China has been making dissidents disappear for a while, but this extradition law would make it official.

Isn't Hong Kong already under China?

Understandably, some people might be confused by this. Isn't Hong Kong already under China? Isn't Hong Kong already governed by Chinese law?