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"Not sure what the HK protesters endgame is here." People are fed up about how the system works and about their life and the life of people they know. They want

"Not sure what the HK protesters endgame is here." People are fed up about how the system works and about their life and the life of people they know. They want things to be "better" without having to clearly define and write a 167 page law that will probably not benefit them. People are expressing their dissatisfaction and IMHO that's a valid justification for protesters and good enough for me.

pasiaj 7y ago
Everything you say seems correct. The problem is that movements without specific, clearly defined policy goals tend to fail. It is easy to come together to oppose some bad thing, but it is really hard to find consensus on what to do after the bad thing has been defeated. So while movements without specific policy goals can win elections, the usually cannot bring effective change. Is independence the goal here?
- culturestate 7y ago
  This movement (which has been building for years) has one very specific goal: true universal suffrage and free elections. Whether that comes as a protectorate of China or as an independent state seems almost inconsequential to many people. Everything else (extradition, the five demands, et cetera) is just a series of sub-plots leading to self governance.
  - pishpash 7y ago
    They had that chance in 2014, but rejected all compromise or incremental improvement.
    - culturestate 7y ago
      Elections aren't free if you can only vote for candidates that have the government's blessing.
      - pishpash 7y ago
        Ask the question whether CE being elected with more direct votes is a better or worse outcome than now. There is an element in HK that only has one possibility in mind, ending up with nothing. That's called extremism.
        culturestate 7y ago
        It would be exactly the same outcome with different numbers. Do you really believe the CCP would allow someone like John Tsang to run in a situation where he might actually win? Of course not.
- hdkrgr 7y ago
  While there's certainly small parts of protesters whose aim is independence, the movement at large has very clearly communicated 5 well-defined demands since the end of June and by and large stuck with them.
- jddj 7y ago
  It's made more difficult (partly due to the lessons learned from the umbrella movement) because this has been a leaderless movement, which while making it difficult to disappear the people managing it, also must make it more difficult for defined policy goals to form (although some have emerged). It seems to be developing organically as the people come to understand how much momentum they have and how much their peers agree with their frustrations. I'd speculate that if they somehow gained enough momentum that it appeared to be within reach then independence would probably be the end goal, but who knows.
  - pasiaj 7y ago
    I searched and found the five demands: one, the bill must be withdrawn; two, the chief executive must resign; three, the government must retract its characterisation of the violent clashes as “riots”; four, there must be a full independent inquiry into the actions of the police and; five, everyone arrested in respect of the clashes must be unconditionally freed. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extradition_bill_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extraditio...
- Multicomp 7y ago
  That's what's different about this protest, there in fact five basic demands that they have been pretty consistent with. The first demand that originally sparked the protest was to have the extradition to China bill officially withdrawn, not simply referred to as dead yet left in legal suspension but still theoretically possible to push through as soon as the protesters went home. The second demand is to have all of the people who were officially declared as rioters to be officially declared as peaceful protesters on a protest from early June because people who are declared rioters can face up to 10 years in prison. These protesters were once occupying the legislative house and even though they were graffitiing the walls with slogans, people went around and posted papers on refrigerators holding drinks and foods that said 'we are protesters not thieves' and no one took any of the food. Talk about being polite. Yet they were declared rioters (ok clearly I've come to a conclusion) The third demand is for Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam to resign. The fourth demand is for an independent commission to be formed to investigate police brutality as alleged by the protesters during the protests over the last 10 weeks. Heavy use of tear gas and rubber bullets. The fifth demand is for all protesters to be unconditionally freed. I'd recommend reading https://www.hongkongfp.com https://www.hongkongfp.com to keep up with what's going on in HK. I've followed it since May and it has been quite insightful.
oraphalous 7y ago
The protesters may not clearly understand their own endgame, but the CIA certainly understands its own... which is to precipitate an armed crackdown that diminishes Chinese prestige - giving the U.S. further leverage in the current battle for global pre-eminence that is occurring between the two powers. And no - I don't have evidence of CIA involvement, except for the somewhat co-incidental timing of the unrest relative to the trade war and the long well-known history of CIA involvement in such events. I will nonetheless consider disbelief - as conspiracy - to be the height of naivety. Ironically - despite it's flaws and incumbent president, I still would much prefer the U.S. to win this particular bout of dirty Realpolitik - over an authoritarian regime that truly deserves it's comeuppance. It's just a shame that the U.S. does this shit to authoritarian states and democracies alike (while also aligning itself with authoritarian states as well)... if and only if such choices promote U.S. interests. It's also a shame that the HK people are going to be made to suffer deeply for this. They can't win - China can only lose... a little status. I have friends there. I hope they will be ok. :(
- yshnurxghtfh 7y ago
  why has this been downvoted? Of course everyone who plays the game will evaluate what they can make out of a new situation.
  - oraphalous 7y ago
    I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird
    - pjc50 7y ago
      This is very interesting, but what does it have to do with the CIA?
      - Multicomp 7y ago
        Looks like an operation that CIA assisted in spiriting away protesters from the 1989 Tiananmen square massacre. The reader is expected to see that article and see that the CIA took some action in HK in the 90s and come to the conclusion that because they helped protesters to flee the country in the 90s they are behind the current protests by inference. I personally see a coincidence or red herring.
pjc50 7y ago
There are really only two possible endings. One is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956 , and the other is Taiwan. Either China consolidates control over HK and it loses critical political freedoms, ceasing being a democracy even in the slight way that it already is; or, somehow, incredibly, the protestors win and HK gets to retain its quasi-independence while China claims to be sovereign but lacks practical ground control. (I suppose a third ending is somehow they return to the status quo ante of nominal control with little practical interference, but that was never entirely stable from the British withdrawal onwards. Getting back there would require everyone forgetting the whole thing, disabling injuries and all.)
- Simon_says 7y ago
  Without guns it's hard to see how Hong Kong ends up free as Taiwan is. Like, seriously, what sequence of events gets us from here to there? Think about this next time governments talk about taking away your guns and anti-tank mines for the public's own protection.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    > anti-tank mines for the public's own protection Seriously can we not? Mines are such a horrendous lingering danger to the public that most militaries restrict them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
  - culturestate 7y ago
    As an American who has lived in Hong Kong for many years, I can comfortably say that if every Hong Kong citizen were armed with an AR-15 and 1,000 rounds of ammo they still wouldn't be able to hold off the PLA for any meaningful length of time. An armed populace is not now nor will it ever again be the answer to this or any other geopolitical debate involving an advanced, militarily powerful national adversary.
    - marcusverus 7y ago
mushufasa 7y ago
They have very specific "5 demands" 1. no extradition to china 2. retract characterization of protests as riots 3. exonerate arrested protestors 4. investigate police misconduct 5. resignation of the PRC-appointed executive and... democracy they are literally protesting for democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extradition_bill_protests#Objectives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extraditio...
- yorwba 7y ago
  > they are literally protesting for democracy Protests don't achieve democracy, voting does. If all participants in the recent protests were willing to volunteer, printing a few million ballots and distributing them to improvised polling stations wouldn't be insurmountable. The Hong Kong Identity Card means that voter ID can be implemented without access to government records, simply by assigning a range of ID numbers to each polling station. The only drawback is that they'd need to somehow record who already cast their vote, which could be abused by the government to crack down on participants if they decide to ignore the outcome.
  - kthejoker2 7y ago
    > Protests don't achieve democracy, voting does. History strongly begs to differ - assembly to address grievances is just as crucial a step in achieving democracy as a vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta#Great_Charter_of_1215 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta#Great_Charter_of_1... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid
    - yorwba 7y ago
      The Magna Carta didn't result in anything resembling democracy, so it's not terribly relevant. The civil rights movement and the the end of apartheid may be better examples, but they both involve existing democratic institutions agreeing with the protest movements and passing legislation to fulfill their demands [1, 2]. My point is that although protests are a way to force a vote to occur, it's the actual act of voting that makes a democracy, and protests are neither necessary nor sufficient for that. It seems to me that the protests in Hong Kong don't have to wait for the government to "allow" them to hold a vote, so long as they can manage the logistics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_South_African_apartheid_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_South_African_apartheid_r...

pasiaj 7y ago

Everything you say seems correct. The problem is that movements without specific, clearly defined policy goals tend to fail. It is easy to come together to oppose some bad thing, but it is really hard to find consensus on what to do after the bad thing has been defeated. So while movements without specific policy goals can win elections, the usually cannot bring effective change. Is independence the goal here?

culturestate 7y ago
This movement (which has been building for years) has one very specific goal: true universal suffrage and free elections. Whether that comes as a protectorate of China or as an independent state seems almost inconsequential to many people. Everything else (extradition, the five demands, et cetera) is just a series of sub-plots leading to self governance.
- pishpash 7y ago
  They had that chance in 2014, but rejected all compromise or incremental improvement.
  - culturestate 7y ago
    Elections aren't free if you can only vote for candidates that have the government's blessing.
    - pishpash 7y ago
      Ask the question whether CE being elected with more direct votes is a better or worse outcome than now. There is an element in HK that only has one possibility in mind, ending up with nothing. That's called extremism.
      - culturestate 7y ago
        It would be exactly the same outcome with different numbers. Do you really believe the CCP would allow someone like John Tsang to run in a situation where he might actually win? Of course not.
hdkrgr 7y ago
While there's certainly small parts of protesters whose aim is independence, the movement at large has very clearly communicated 5 well-defined demands since the end of June and by and large stuck with them.
jddj 7y ago
It's made more difficult (partly due to the lessons learned from the umbrella movement) because this has been a leaderless movement, which while making it difficult to disappear the people managing it, also must make it more difficult for defined policy goals to form (although some have emerged). It seems to be developing organically as the people come to understand how much momentum they have and how much their peers agree with their frustrations. I'd speculate that if they somehow gained enough momentum that it appeared to be within reach then independence would probably be the end goal, but who knows.
- pasiaj 7y ago
  I searched and found the five demands: one, the bill must be withdrawn; two, the chief executive must resign; three, the government must retract its characterisation of the violent clashes as “riots”; four, there must be a full independent inquiry into the actions of the police and; five, everyone arrested in respect of the clashes must be unconditionally freed. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extradition_bill_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extraditio...
Multicomp 7y ago
That's what's different about this protest, there in fact five basic demands that they have been pretty consistent with. The first demand that originally sparked the protest was to have the extradition to China bill officially withdrawn, not simply referred to as dead yet left in legal suspension but still theoretically possible to push through as soon as the protesters went home. The second demand is to have all of the people who were officially declared as rioters to be officially declared as peaceful protesters on a protest from early June because people who are declared rioters can face up to 10 years in prison. These protesters were once occupying the legislative house and even though they were graffitiing the walls with slogans, people went around and posted papers on refrigerators holding drinks and foods that said 'we are protesters not thieves' and no one took any of the food. Talk about being polite. Yet they were declared rioters (ok clearly I've come to a conclusion) The third demand is for Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam to resign. The fourth demand is for an independent commission to be formed to investigate police brutality as alleged by the protesters during the protests over the last 10 weeks. Heavy use of tear gas and rubber bullets. The fifth demand is for all protesters to be unconditionally freed. I'd recommend reading https://www.hongkongfp.com https://www.hongkongfp.com to keep up with what's going on in HK. I've followed it since May and it has been quite insightful.

oraphalous 7y ago

The protesters may not clearly understand their own endgame, but the CIA certainly understands its own... which is to precipitate an armed crackdown that diminishes Chinese prestige - giving the U.S. further leverage in the current battle for global pre-eminence that is occurring between the two powers. And no - I don't have evidence of CIA involvement, except for the somewhat co-incidental timing of the unrest relative to the trade war and the long well-known history of CIA involvement in such events. I will nonetheless consider disbelief - as conspiracy - to be the height of naivety. Ironically - despite it's flaws and incumbent president, I still would much prefer the U.S. to win this particular bout of dirty Realpolitik - over an authoritarian regime that truly deserves it's comeuppance. It's just a shame that the U.S. does this shit to authoritarian states and democracies alike (while also aligning itself with authoritarian states as well)... if and only if such choices promote U.S. interests. It's also a shame that the HK people are going to be made to suffer deeply for this. They can't win - China can only lose... a little status. I have friends there. I hope they will be ok. :(

yshnurxghtfh 7y ago
why has this been downvoted? Of course everyone who plays the game will evaluate what they can make out of a new situation.
- oraphalous 7y ago
  I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird
  - pjc50 7y ago
    This is very interesting, but what does it have to do with the CIA?
    - Multicomp 7y ago
      Looks like an operation that CIA assisted in spiriting away protesters from the 1989 Tiananmen square massacre. The reader is expected to see that article and see that the CIA took some action in HK in the 90s and come to the conclusion that because they helped protesters to flee the country in the 90s they are behind the current protests by inference. I personally see a coincidence or red herring.

pjc50 7y ago

There are really only two possible endings. One is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956 , and the other is Taiwan. Either China consolidates control over HK and it loses critical political freedoms, ceasing being a democracy even in the slight way that it already is; or, somehow, incredibly, the protestors win and HK gets to retain its quasi-independence while China claims to be sovereign but lacks practical ground control. (I suppose a third ending is somehow they return to the status quo ante of nominal control with little practical interference, but that was never entirely stable from the British withdrawal onwards. Getting back there would require everyone forgetting the whole thing, disabling injuries and all.)

Simon_says 7y ago
Without guns it's hard to see how Hong Kong ends up free as Taiwan is. Like, seriously, what sequence of events gets us from here to there? Think about this next time governments talk about taking away your guns and anti-tank mines for the public's own protection.
- pjc50 7y ago
  > anti-tank mines for the public's own protection Seriously can we not? Mines are such a horrendous lingering danger to the public that most militaries restrict them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
- culturestate 7y ago
  As an American who has lived in Hong Kong for many years, I can comfortably say that if every Hong Kong citizen were armed with an AR-15 and 1,000 rounds of ammo they still wouldn't be able to hold off the PLA for any meaningful length of time. An armed populace is not now nor will it ever again be the answer to this or any other geopolitical debate involving an advanced, militarily powerful national adversary.
  - marcusverus 7y ago

mushufasa 7y ago

They have very specific "5 demands" 1. no extradition to china 2. retract characterization of protests as riots 3. exonerate arrested protestors 4. investigate police misconduct 5. resignation of the PRC-appointed executive and... democracy they are literally protesting for democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extradition_bill_protests#Objectives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extraditio...

yorwba 7y ago
> they are literally protesting for democracy Protests don't achieve democracy, voting does. If all participants in the recent protests were willing to volunteer, printing a few million ballots and distributing them to improvised polling stations wouldn't be insurmountable. The Hong Kong Identity Card means that voter ID can be implemented without access to government records, simply by assigning a range of ID numbers to each polling station. The only drawback is that they'd need to somehow record who already cast their vote, which could be abused by the government to crack down on participants if they decide to ignore the outcome.
- kthejoker2 7y ago
  > Protests don't achieve democracy, voting does. History strongly begs to differ - assembly to address grievances is just as crucial a step in achieving democracy as a vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta#Great_Charter_of_1215 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta#Great_Charter_of_1... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid
  - yorwba 7y ago
    The Magna Carta didn't result in anything resembling democracy, so it's not terribly relevant. The civil rights movement and the the end of apartheid may be better examples, but they both involve existing democratic institutions agreeing with the protest movements and passing legislation to fulfill their demands [1, 2]. My point is that although protests are a way to force a vote to occur, it's the actual act of voting that makes a democracy, and protests are neither necessary nor sufficient for that. It seems to me that the protests in Hong Kong don't have to wait for the government to "allow" them to hold a vote, so long as they can manage the logistics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_South_African_apartheid_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_South_African_apartheid_r...