We are very unlikely to find out who arranged for thugs to rampage through a Hong Kong train station, armed with wooden sticks and metal rods, hospitalising 45 peaceful passengers. Yet if their approach was indiscriminate, their target was clear – protesters returning from an anti-government march – and their purpose equally plain: intimidation.
A pro-Beijing legislator was seen shaking the hands of the white-clad thugs at Yuen Long and has portrayed the men as local residents “defending their homes”. Carrie Lam, the region’s chief executive, condemned Sunday night’s violence – but spent more time criticising protesters who had surrounded Beijing’s liaison office and defaced its sign. Many in the protest movement disagree with such tactics. But political attacks on property can hardly be compared to a vicious assault that broke bones and left one man in critical condition.
There is a long history of thugs handling political business on the Chinese mainland – where local officials often outsource forced demolitions, for example – and in Hong Kong too. Back in 1993, the then chief of China’s Public Security Bureau said explicitly of triads that “as long as these people are patriotic, as long as they are concerned with Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability, we should unite with them”. In 2014, triads attacked pro-democracy demonstrators in the later stages of the umbrella movement.
So far six men have been arrested for unlawful assembly in connection with the Yuen Long violence, and police sources have said there are gang links. But the real question is not who they are, but why they were able to perpetrate their vicious attack.
Harsh policing in 2014 and at the start of these protests, including the use of teargas and rubber bullets, had already battered the hard-won authority of the police with residents. Now people want to know why, in a region with more than twice as many police per capita as England, it took so long for officers to reach the scene of the violence. While police claim they were tied up by the demonstration, witnesses say officers failed to arrest thugs even when they did reach the station. The assailants seemed so confident of impunity that some of those filmed beating people were not even masked.
Ms Lam and Hong Kong’s police chief have angrily denied allegations of collusion, with the chief executive calling them insulting. If Hong Kong police are to retain any credibility whatsoever, they must pursue Sunday’s attackers every bit as assiduously as they have pro-democracy activists, while the government must launch fully independent investigations of both the policing of demonstrations and the tardy response to the Yuen Long attacks, as protesters have demanded. Don’t hold your breath.
But a refusal by authorities to take this chilling attack seriously will guarantee that mistrust and antagonism continues to spiral. (Some worry that the assaults were intended to goad protesters into violence themselves.) While some will no doubt heed the thugs and stay away from future demonstrations, others appear more determined than ever to take to the streets. There are already calls for a rally at Yuen Long. And the protests, now in their seventh week, will burn on instead of burning out.
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The European concepts of human rights and democracy are not universal, the concept that they are is a remnant of imperialist thinking. Hong Kong is part of China and the fantasy that the UK somehow has a role to play thanks to their colonial past is absurd. Even if they west decided to enact sanctions against China there would be no change in behaviour. The memories of foreign interference are too strong to be cowed by editorial or governmental o…
I don't think it can really be doubted that this is being organised at least tacitly by the authorities in Hong Kong but it does give them just enough deniability for people in the West, who want this deniability to absolve themselves from feeling obliged to feel the must do something.
It's a tragedy but I just can't get away from thinking that this movement is doomed and China/Hong Kong authorities will find ways to do this without it costing th…
"Carrie Lam, the region’s chief executive, condemned Sunday night’s violence – but spent more time criticising protesters who had surrounded Beijing’s liaison office and defaced its sign."
Its funny and hypocritical that in a similar fashion, the editor spent more time criticising the government and the police force but not the perpetrators.
The government and the police force are likely to be the perpetrators.
The perpetrators are those who wish to bring an early end to 1 country 2 systems and clearly have no wish to extend what democracy is in Hong Kong to China.
We can all grumble about British colonialism and much of it’s unfairness, arguably democracy should have been installed long before the 1999 handover, but in the last decades at least Britain was benign and encouraging of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong flourished by hard work to what it is today.
That is not to say Hong Kong is perfect, but there is a sense of Hong Kong entitlement to what freedoms they have over and above normal Chinese.
While the outcome of a single system was inevitable, I believe it was always hoped that China would stick to the handover deal, and perhaps embrace democracy itself before that deal expired.
Neither is likely and China seems happy to be the imperial or colonialist bogeyman in this matter to install their desires over and above those of democracy.
Given the economic might granted and China’s desires being thrust forward it is symbolic of the power shifts from west to east too.
I don't think it can really be doubted that this is being organised at least tacitly by the authorities in Hong Kong but it does give them just enough deniability for people in the West, who want this deniability to absolve themselves from feeling obliged to feel the must do something.
It's a tragedy but I just can't get away from thinking that this movement is doomed and China/Hong Kong authorities will find ways to do this without it costing them huge amounts of Western money and trade.
The European concepts of human rights and democracy are not universal, the concept that they are is a remnant of imperialist thinking. Hong Kong is part of China and the fantasy that the UK somehow has a role to play thanks to their colonial past is absurd. Even if they west decided to enact sanctions against China there would be no change in behaviour. The memories of foreign interference are too strong to be cowed by editorial or governmental outrage.
Hallo voice of reason. I do not know where you are from but if it was not for democracy, we would not be reading your Post to day. One you would not be free to do it without the blessing of the regime and two you would not have the technology.
Maybe it's about time China respected human rights...they do not require any type of establishment to exist..it's called humanity, or enlightenment maybe
Ridiculous. Human rights and democracy aren’t alien or incompatible with the Chinese people. Look at Taiwan. It’s CPP propaganda to say human rights are different in China just to justify their one party system.
China has never signed up to respecting human rights or democracy and never will. Why did anyone think that they would?
They did sign a document saying that they'd allow HK to remain as is for 50 years.
No government, and we mean NO government, anywhere, has any integrity. Cancer is preferable to government.
Oh, I like a lot of the Nordic governments. Not perfection but fairly close.
It's interesting to compare Guardian editorials side by side, one that condemns the right of self-government in the UK as the 'forces of populism and nationalism', and one that defends the 'pro-democracy and autonomy' movement in Hong Kong.
Back in 2005 French voters voted against the Constitutional Treaty, but when it was brought back as the Lisbon Treaty with near-identical wording, voters weren't allowed another Referendum. There were repeated protests in France with heavy-handed policing using cs gas and batons against demonstrators. One image has stayed with me of a young woman just holding a placard who was struck from behind with a baton, and that looked like thuggery in the name of dictating to the French people.
We saw the same indifference to ordinary people when Catalans tried to hold a Referendum in Spain, and they were beaten by riot police. Our European politicians failed to condemn this behaviour because Madrid needs Catalan taxes to help save their Euro banks.
So what is The Guardian's criteria for determining who is worthy of respect for the right to self-determination, and why didn't you take the line that Hong Kong protesters are throwbacks to a nostalgic period when they were governed by Britain, and should seek to change China from within, rather than trying to govern themselves?
It’s funny, isn’t it, that Western countries routinely use police to crack open demonstrators’ heads but we don’t get upset about democracy. Maybe it’s the nice uniforms, the regularity, the efficiently tooled-up, militaristic nature of the state-sanctioned violence that affords it legitimacy (at least in some people’s eyes)?
Maybe there’s something about people in t-shirts with baseball bats that exposes in the raw the thuggish brutality, or maybe it’s just that ‘we’ see something that’s not in the ‘natural’ order of things? They are not civilised – we are.
However, I have to point out that France did ratify the Lisbon Treaty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_Lisbon
France's National Assembly voted 336 to 52 in favor of the treaty and the Senate approved it by 265 votes to 42.
(Just for comparison, in the UK, the European Union (Amendment) Bill was debated in the House of Commons on 21 January 2008, and passed its second reading that day by a vote of 362 to 224.)
I was not aware of the brutality of the French police you have described (around 2008?) but I have seen, in the news, their brutality towards the gilets jaunes. Somebody is giving them their blessing to do this (and it’s not the EU).
Regarding Spain, the EU tried to condemn the violence and appeal for unity:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-politics-catalonia-eu/eu-urges-spain-to-talk-to-catalans-condemns-violence-idUSKCN1C712P
Now that may not be strong enough for you but I don’t think membership of the EU dictates how a country polices itself. Apparently
So I’m not sure what you expect the EU to do – challenge this? Do you think it should have more power over nation states?
"seek to change China from within"
Given that China is a one-party dictatorship and not a democratic country, and does not allow non-governmental organisations to campaign for political change, how exactly do you propose they do that?
Excellent comment. The hypocrisy is staggering.
"they must pursue Sunday’s attackers every bit as assiduously as they have pro-democracy activists"
Should that be the case I guess pro democracy activists are in for a weekly beating here on out...
The authorities risk escalation into a Sixties-style meltdown where Hong Kong is put to the torch.
Let us see how badly XingJingPing needs ong Kong as it is.
I think he'll find a face saving compromise.
There's something almost poetic in the correspondence between the tactics these "white-shirts" have used and the cause they represent.
Unlike the vast majority of the anti-extradition demonstrators, the white-shirts were all unhesitatingly violent, and, unlike the small number of pro-dems who have resorted to vandalism, the white-shirts were clearly directing their violence not at property, but at people.
What's more, the cowardliness and mercilessness of the way some of the attacks I have viewed were carried out (the knocking over of the pregnant woman, for example, or the boy kneeling inside the door of the train who pleads with the attackers to stop, has the decency meanwhile to hand back a pair of glasses to one of the attackers that had dropped inside the carriage, and then gets punched in the face for his efforts) make that violence all the more repugnant.
What we have witnessed here in these attacks amounts to a neat demonstration in miniature of the way power is exercised on the mainland - of its summary justice, its perversely one-way concept of rule of law, and its often undisguised brutality.
It is exactly why the people of Hong Kong have been out on the streets in such huge numbers: what they don't want above all is to be subsumed into a system that is rooted in the kind of behaviour and values that were on display at Yuen Long.
It would be entirely believable for the CCP to have sent thugs/gangs/violent agitators to stir up the demonstrations. They have form.
Yeah, though if you cut your population off from the rest of the world, your population does not know what is going on in the rest of the world, therefore can be manipulated by whoever is in control.
It's funny that they are wearing white helmets. I was wondering what happened to them after they were chased out of Syria.
Obviously not so funny if you're on the receiving end of a baseball bat.
You expected them to wear XingPingJing T-shirts?
China appears to have same problem with terrorism that Pakistan and the US have. Right-wing terrorist groups or terrorist groups allied with the oligarchy are given free reign by the authorities while left-wing and anti-oligarchy groups are suppressed.
This is why anti-terrorism measures by governments are such a joke. Half the time, governments sponsor terrorism. No wonder no one takes the terrorism nonsense seriously.
China executes more people every year than all other countries combined.
The US under Bush mass-murdered more than 100,000 Iraqis. China has a long way to go.
So soon they forget...
Clearly, i was referring to judicial executions.
Very rich coming from a (thankfully floundering) paper that wants to over-turn one of the largest democratic decisions taken in the history of humanity.
Brexit? It's irrefutable that Russians interfered in the referendum. 2016 POTUS election? Ditto.
37% is not a mandate. It was invalid by any democratic standard, go learn maths,
"37% is not a mandate. It was invalid by any democratic standard, go learn maths,"
Are you puzzled every single day why there is all this fuss over Brexit?
The brazen oppression by the Chinese dictatorship is appalling and very upsetting.
Finally a Guardian reader names a man worse than Trump!
:)
Biden is worse than Trump
It won't be long before Roger Waters et al start telling us how dreadful China is, and refuse to perform there. Or maybe it will.
It is, but it's been their MO for a long time. When they feel challenged the claws are unsheathed very quickly.
Sorry, this was intended as a reply to Ginen's comment immediately above.
Stirring up trouble can produce results and opportunities that further your own agenda.
That's why it's such an important first step in initiating any regime change operation. You have to get this first stage well under way before moving on to the next stages.
You look for social, economic, political or religious differences and then you try to set one side against the other. It's a well honed technique and usually works like a charm.
Divide and conquer.
Looks like a set-up, providing an excuse for China to take control earlier than legally agreed.
If some of these thugs were not masked the HK authorities should easily be able to find out who they are, where they are from, and why they did this to innocent people.
The position of Hong Kong and Taiwan could be part of the negotations in the Trade war between China and the USA, but regrettably Trump is not smart enough to combine these two issues.
He doesn't seem to understand that Hong Kong is an achilles heel of the Chinese government; being repressive and brutal against Uyghurs and Tibetans is very different from surpressing Han Chinese in Hong Kong: the inhabitants of Bejing and Shanghai might just conclude that their own government is not as friendly and reasonable as they thought.
China is a lot more vulnerable than we think: the problem is Trump and Johnson/May are obsessed with domestic problems and trade and that many other world leaders use the same naive peace/neutrality strategy as we saw in the Interbellum.
China is run by a nasty totalitarian regime. Hong Kong is doomed to be fully taken over by it. But don't expect the usual suspects to find this appalling, and to demand boycotts of China. They never seem to be troubled by any bad behaviour by any countries except the USA, the UK and Israel.
What a shame London didn't introduce "democracy" in the hundred years it was occupying that part of China.
as has been well documented, it first suggested the idea in the 1950s. china made it very clear it would find that unacceptable.
This is a rather poor editorial, full of conjecture and speculation and appearing to criticise a Hong Kong official for criticising political violence!
Yes, the violent attack at the station was disgusting. However, those who did it appeared to understand what they were doing. Plus we do not know the motives for doing it.
The attack on the opposition politician's office was also bad as it was political in nature, as we don't know what would have happened had the mob got hold of the politician and lastly because they did not appear to have the awareness of what they were doing was wrong.
For some reason the Guardian continues to have a lot of tolerance for violence so long as it is directed against people it disagrees with.
This is a rather poor editorial, full of conjecture and speculation
Not unlike your comment, where you're comparing a sustained physical attack (where pregnant women got beaten) with smashing up an office?
I think the last sentence is also suitable for you. ;)
I did not say that the extent of the violence was the same. As stated in my post, if the mob who attacked the opposition's office had gotten hold of the politician it is possible that they might of lynched him.
I took issue with the Guardian criticising the Hong Kong authorities for criticising the apparent vigilante violence against the politician. I noted the authorities had already made arrests in respect of the attack at the station.
So Mr Junius Ho congratulates the Triad thugs for beating up protesters then denies he supports violence to have the Chinese CCP blame US interference for these same Triad thugs.
Please Guardian, get real! The Chinese authorities, the Yuen Long mayor and the TRIADS are one of the same thing. This is why the protesters have been marching north to the borders to high light the Triad/Communist Party/Mayoral connection.
Socialism with Chinese Characteristics will do anything to keep its fascist regime intact.
Triads and the CCP in Guangzhou are one of the same thing, they have been like this on the borders for the last 20 yrs.
Triads then desecrate his parents' grave - some reports state they objected to being linked to Sunday's violence. The perpetrators of the attacks happened to be triad members, but the media reports have implied that triad bosses gave their approval, which is not the case.
Other reports have claimed the attackers trashed Ho's parents' grave because they were not paid for Sunday. One wonders why would they do that ...?
I suspect it's more about money. I suspect the Triad business interests, prostitution, cross border "trade" from local outlets are suffering. Moreover, I wouldn't be surprised if some of this isn't payback to government for not making use of brownfield sites - lucrative income sources for local villagers renting as commercial vehicle parks, and other SME business "rentals" - for housing development. Instead Gov want to build a new island costing half a trillion dollars. That's got to be worth a lot of quid pro quo from the Heung Yee Kuk (aka traditional villagers' gang). Surprisingly, banners urging support for the police have appeared around many local villages since Sunday. I think we should be told.
It was so well filmed it was clearly well organised , but there is very little point pretending we in the west can do anything more than impotently register our disapproval.
China’s and to some extent Iran’s behaviour, can only be understood in the context of the national humiliation metered out by Britain, which have become part of their foundational myths. Of course the instincts for freedom and democracy are strong, but national pride (AKA tribalism), as we’ve seen with Brexit, has the capacity to trump all else - including reason itself. I don’t know what the solution is, but they have very good reason not to trust a single word this country says.
so what's the cut-off point for nursing these types of grudges? how many years can china trample over the rights of the taiwanese and hk chinese because of the unequal treaties signed 150+ years ago?
But our behaviour has not changed has it? It is not so long since St Tony, later Middle East Peace Envoy was loading tanks onto ships heading for Iraq whilst maintaining he had no plans for war, and remember Gaddafi? Even today we are capturing Iranian ships not to mention Serbian and Afghanistan wars of recent years.
So to recap, military action in Serbia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and now Iranian tankers and we wonder why other nations consider us war mongers?
I'm still furious with the Vikings, Romans and the bloody Saxons!!!
"(Some worry that the assaults were intended to goad protesters into violence themselves.)"
That would be the Sunzi assessment. It could just be triad freelancing a grossly violent "revenge" for defacing the mainland offices, or it could be a nudge towards provoking the extremists to their own counter productive revenge away from the peaceful majority. The optics of the separatists (more extreme) opposing China through aggressive break and enter and graffiti seriously helps unite mainland nationalist sentiment against the Hong Kong protest, and is very counter productive. To now go a step further in a seemingly understandable reaction will be so much more so. A vicious circle ensues peeling control of the protest away from the legislative demands. Feel good symbolism is rarely smart. Perhaps less Kirk after the alien plant dust, more Spock.
You'd hope if the main lead of the majority Hong Kong protesters seriously want to achieve more autonomy within China, not to agitate to break away, they really should reel in the extremists. Take on the chin the gangland thugsterism (more easily said than done), and consider alternative forms of protest. Flowers and peace fliers to the thousands of daily visiting mainlanders. I doubt the Beijing authorities will like that. Gandhi managed to down colonialism through peace. Laozi would have agreed it a smarter approach. Make it clear it isn't separatism the majority want, just a respect for autonomy and early 21st C status quo.
No more colonial British flags. That would be the first desire of the Beijing ministers hoping to more easily denounce the unrest.
The triad violence could be calculated to make sure that does happen in even more strident terms or isn't anymore possible to reign in. That will undermine and possibly end any peaceful majority wish for an accommodation to their wishes with Beijing. What is left is a feel good anger with little glint of hope.
Sorry, I've only been to Hong Kong about ten times for a few days each time, so feel free to say keep your ignorant nose out. For what little it's worth I honestly hope an accommodation can be achieved that while respecting Chinese sovereignty, allows Hong Kong a special and uniquely autonomous experiment in democratic and legal reform and opening. It could prove useful as a valve. Perhaps one day Shanghai to follow. An increase in delegated authority to keep more systemic choice as a means to reflect various mainland opinion and avoid any pressure building towards social unrest should there be harder economic times ahead.
The people are liken to a wife in a covenantal relationship( or legally binding, constrained by law) to her Husband, the Head of the House. But the marriage, from the beginning, was never rosy. Fact is, her needs, and wants, are getting further from being met. She felt abused, trapped under the binding constrain of her conservative Husband who demands she be committed, trusting, obedient and dutiful to her vows like a good “traditional Wife” would. She is thus required to keep(quiet) her discontent and frustrations within his Household.
Meanwhile, the supremely ambitious and enterprising Husband was having many kinds of "affairs" in his overseas ventures(followed in the footsteps of Sin) which brought home many entrapment. The un-faithful wife, refused to be "constrained", flirted with "outside attention"(or other prospectors or heads) and insisted on her rights to severe and disavow, while STILL in the "old covenant".
Joshua Wong should seriously look at his script.
Base on "the wife" current situation, she has broken the law which says, " thou shalt not commit adultery" ( it is the woman who will be stoned by law). Her "democratic rights", while she still in the "old covenant ", will be met with violence.
Now let's say she is a "liberal married/ covenanted woman". Driven by her wanton lusts with “another prospector” , she still commits Sin.
Sin is a tripartide relationship she walked into from the beginning, or barked up the wrong tree.
If you live by the law, you shall die by it laws.
1 Corinthians 15:56
The sting of death is Sin, and the strength of Sin is the law.
Where then does Joshua Wong and his fellowmen salvation lies then?
Rom 7:2 For a married woman is bound by the Law to her husband while he is living, but if her husband DIES, she is released from the Law concerning her husband.
Rom 7:3 So while her husband is living, she will be called an adulterer if she lives with another man. But if her husband DIES, she is free from this Law, so that she is not an adulterer if she marries another man.
Does he even know who the "new man" in her life will be or still living in the holy chambers of darkness offering empty prayers to rights(democratic) of affairs(with other heads)?
If he knows his script, and only if he does, then the truth shall set him free.
And Beijing should revisit the history of the "forbidden city" in her backyard while taking a second look at her "TianZi" other "duties" in the temple for clues to a peaceful resolution.
That said, you can option to continue in the dessert democratically, and live by law, and go in circles or concede/resign to life of “bricks and mortars” in the name of your majesty, the Pharaoh.
God bless.
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