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I have lived in the UK for over 20 years since I was 8, and I have to say I don't understand the Hong Kong riots. For starters, does any of you even know how i

I have lived in the UK for over 20 years since I was 8, and I have to say I don't understand the Hong Kong riots. For starters, does any of you even know how it all started? The extradition bill? To do what? To extradite a Hong Kong teen that killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan so he can be prosecuted there, at the request of Taiwan! I don't ever see that mentioned anywhere. Let me say, this video absolutely riled me (even more so than the ones I’ve seen of the rioters getting violent): https://videos-a.jwpsrv.com/content/conversions/KWwwg9Oc/videos/JGCtT6gS-29576809.mp4?hdnts=exp=1566469029~acl=*/JGCtT6gS-29576809.mp4~hmac=365c430c6493822175fc7d570b1f7d4b4b81af913bdd9f9fa836fd768945a8b0 https://videos-a.jwpsrv.com/content/conversions/KWwwg9Oc/vid... Sure, these guys are “peaceful” as in they didn’t hurt anyone, but watch and observe their actions: 1. The guys postures are incredibly aggressive for starters, for me, I would not call that peaceful at all. 2. Once someone took action to stop them, they held their hands up to make it look like they didn’t do anything wrong 3. They have friends specifically to capture the moment when they look like they were provoked Now taking all of these points into consideration, this is an intentional provocation to have someone take action against them and make themselves look like the good guys. Here is my question to you all, what would you have done in those situations? Forcefully make them stop? Then that makes you the bad guy, and could potentially have you beaten up (let’s look at the number of thugs they have behind them). Call the police? Then the police will look like the bad guys, which is probably their intention anyways. So personally, I do not buy the “protests” being peaceful at all, maybe it was at the start, but there are a lot more violence from these “protesters” that are not being reported.

president 7y ago
Not saying you're wrong but you're way too confident on your stance when most people don't even have all the facts aside from cherry-picked bits from biased media (regardless of side). I have been following the protests since the beginning and I seem to remember things were peaceful until bad actors (violent police and hired thugs) came into the picture. There has also been evidence of false flag operations so how would you even know how to pick apart the real protestors from the provocateurs?
- jialutu 7y ago
  Hired thugs? I assume you mean in Yuen Long right? Here is my question, do you know where Yuen Long is? It's quite far out of the city of Hong Kong (I mean the name has far in it). So the story goes that the "protesters" went there to do what exactly, and then got beaten up right? So why were they so far out in the first place? Since it's quite far out of the city center, do you really think someone can quickly pay thugs to create a coordinated attack against these rioters when it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment type of thing? Personally, I am more convinced that the "protesters" are the agitators of all of these, you are more than welcome to show me otherwise. As for violent police, the UK deals with protests are even worse, but I've not seen escalation to this sort of level.
  - learn_to_read 7y ago
    It is far but some protesters actually live in Yuen Long. There was a large protest in Victoria Park happened earlier in the same day. After the peaceful protest, they went home and found themselves trapped by the white shirted locals.
    - jialutu 7y ago
      "Trapped by the white shirted locals", so then not by hired thugs? If locals would somehow trap "peaceful protesters" to beat them up, then man, HK must be a violent place!
codeddesign 7y ago
No, it was more like the final straw that set all of the events in motion. It started with the Taiwanese matter that mainland China took advantage of to assert control. Mainland has been actively working to integrate Hong Kong into China for quite some time now both on the cultural side by encouraging Chinese to move to Hong Kong, and on the political side by removing complete authority away from Hong Kong. If you have ever visited both places you can easily see that they are 2 separate cultures. Hong Kong does not want to be China, they want to govern themselves. This is what these issues are about. China is increasingly trying to assert control while Hong Kong wants to be sovereign.
- jialutu 7y ago
  I've been to both places, and I am fully aware that the system in Hong Kong is very different to that of the mainland, to the point where in certain aspects I see Hong Kong as a separate country (although things could have changed in the past few years, so I am not so certain). From what I've seen though, I don't think China really wants to fully integrate Hong Kong (probably not even in 2047) as it doesn't make to much sense to do so, but would rather create an offshore haven like what Jersey is to the UK. But here lies the problem, while Jersey is seen as really well off due to the number of high networth bank accounts kept there, there is a real sense of poverty in Jersey and I think that's the issue HK is facing right now. If that is the case, calling for democracy is not going to solve their problems, so instead of rioting, maybe they should have sat down to work out a better solution.
factsaresacred 7y ago
> The extradition bill? To do what? To extradite a Hong Kong teen that killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan so he can be prosecuted there You're being disingenuous. The extradition bill is ostensibly about that case but here's the reality: the bill would allow Hongkongers to be extradited to mainland China, where the legal system is a joke. The prospect of being arrested in HK and shipped to authoritarian China is completely untenable. Chinese agents have already being kidnapping and 'disappearing' Hong Kong dissidents. This would legalise and streamline the process.
- jialutu 7y ago
  Neither I nor any of my family have been tried in China (I am guessing you haven't either), so I cannot comment on the legal system, but in reality, the legal system in the UK is not perfect either. There was a really good book released 2018 about how the legal system is broken here, if you are interested, it's a really good read: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law-Broken/dp/1509841148/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NZFC7RAAHKV5&keywords=secret+barrister&qid=1566468004&s=gateway&sprefix=secret+ba%2Caps%2C136&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law-Broken... Onto the topic of the extradition bill though, it specifically excludes extraditing politial dissidents, so it would not streamline the process. What I hear some people say that China will just make some excuses in other areas, which then I don't see the point, since kidnapping and disappearing people would surely be easier right, and since they can already do that, then why would they need the bill? But you know what the bill does allow HK to do, is to extradite a baby murderer to face charges of the crime he commited.
  - entrynode 7y ago
    what is the relevance of the UK legal system here? The discussion is about China Secondly, it could easily be argued that a legal extradition route would be a lot easier than secretly kidnapping and disappearing people over the border. Why do you think it would be easier to kidnap?
    - jialutu 7y ago

president 7y ago

Not saying you're wrong but you're way too confident on your stance when most people don't even have all the facts aside from cherry-picked bits from biased media (regardless of side). I have been following the protests since the beginning and I seem to remember things were peaceful until bad actors (violent police and hired thugs) came into the picture. There has also been evidence of false flag operations so how would you even know how to pick apart the real protestors from the provocateurs?

jialutu 7y ago
Hired thugs? I assume you mean in Yuen Long right? Here is my question, do you know where Yuen Long is? It's quite far out of the city of Hong Kong (I mean the name has far in it). So the story goes that the "protesters" went there to do what exactly, and then got beaten up right? So why were they so far out in the first place? Since it's quite far out of the city center, do you really think someone can quickly pay thugs to create a coordinated attack against these rioters when it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment type of thing? Personally, I am more convinced that the "protesters" are the agitators of all of these, you are more than welcome to show me otherwise. As for violent police, the UK deals with protests are even worse, but I've not seen escalation to this sort of level.
- learn_to_read 7y ago
  It is far but some protesters actually live in Yuen Long. There was a large protest in Victoria Park happened earlier in the same day. After the peaceful protest, they went home and found themselves trapped by the white shirted locals.
  - jialutu 7y ago
    "Trapped by the white shirted locals", so then not by hired thugs? If locals would somehow trap "peaceful protesters" to beat them up, then man, HK must be a violent place!

codeddesign 7y ago

No, it was more like the final straw that set all of the events in motion. It started with the Taiwanese matter that mainland China took advantage of to assert control. Mainland has been actively working to integrate Hong Kong into China for quite some time now both on the cultural side by encouraging Chinese to move to Hong Kong, and on the political side by removing complete authority away from Hong Kong. If you have ever visited both places you can easily see that they are 2 separate cultures. Hong Kong does not want to be China, they want to govern themselves. This is what these issues are about. China is increasingly trying to assert control while Hong Kong wants to be sovereign.

jialutu 7y ago
I've been to both places, and I am fully aware that the system in Hong Kong is very different to that of the mainland, to the point where in certain aspects I see Hong Kong as a separate country (although things could have changed in the past few years, so I am not so certain). From what I've seen though, I don't think China really wants to fully integrate Hong Kong (probably not even in 2047) as it doesn't make to much sense to do so, but would rather create an offshore haven like what Jersey is to the UK. But here lies the problem, while Jersey is seen as really well off due to the number of high networth bank accounts kept there, there is a real sense of poverty in Jersey and I think that's the issue HK is facing right now. If that is the case, calling for democracy is not going to solve their problems, so instead of rioting, maybe they should have sat down to work out a better solution.

factsaresacred 7y ago

> The extradition bill? To do what? To extradite a Hong Kong teen that killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan so he can be prosecuted there You're being disingenuous. The extradition bill is ostensibly about that case but here's the reality: the bill would allow Hongkongers to be extradited to mainland China, where the legal system is a joke. The prospect of being arrested in HK and shipped to authoritarian China is completely untenable. Chinese agents have already being kidnapping and 'disappearing' Hong Kong dissidents. This would legalise and streamline the process.

jialutu 7y ago
Neither I nor any of my family have been tried in China (I am guessing you haven't either), so I cannot comment on the legal system, but in reality, the legal system in the UK is not perfect either. There was a really good book released 2018 about how the legal system is broken here, if you are interested, it's a really good read: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law-Broken/dp/1509841148/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NZFC7RAAHKV5&keywords=secret+barrister&qid=1566468004&s=gateway&sprefix=secret+ba%2Caps%2C136&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law-Broken... Onto the topic of the extradition bill though, it specifically excludes extraditing politial dissidents, so it would not streamline the process. What I hear some people say that China will just make some excuses in other areas, which then I don't see the point, since kidnapping and disappearing people would surely be easier right, and since they can already do that, then why would they need the bill? But you know what the bill does allow HK to do, is to extradite a baby murderer to face charges of the crime he commited.
- entrynode 7y ago
  what is the relevance of the UK legal system here? The discussion is about China Secondly, it could easily be argued that a legal extradition route would be a lot easier than secretly kidnapping and disappearing people over the border. Why do you think it would be easier to kidnap?
  - jialutu 7y ago