Hong Kong
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A less confrontational approach may have been able to save something but it looks as if they have now lost everything.
I recently watched a video from Australia interviewing young mainland Chinese studying at university and the general response of them to the Hong Kong situation was surprisingly unsupportive, accusing their compatriots of seeking special privileges and being disloyal. The spirit of Tiananmen Square was noticeably absent.
I did read an analysis from way back that the protests were not resonating with mainland Chinese and it wasn’t because of social media censorship by the government.
One reason the government has been so open in the case of Hong Kong may be because of the wealth and skills that people are expected to bring with them: one survey found that a typical emigrant has a university degree and an average salary of £33,270 a year. Home Office guidance for the visa scheme states that an emigrant from Hong Kong must be able to support themselves in the UK for six months without access to public funds: wealth barriers are a typical condition of UK visas.
The reason this apparent openness coexists with the authoritarian posturing on boats in the Channel is because the government is treating citizenship as an asset whose value on the global market needs to be maintained.
Revealing that the authorities in Hong Kong have started to use against trade unionists and others laws that were passed at the time Hong Kong was a British colony:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/09/05/commentary/world-commentary/hong-kongs-sedition/
The Hong Kong Protests were a failed regime change op orchestrated in Washington with NED funding. A significant minority of the protesters were nothing short of fascists. I’m glad they failed and you should be too.
We can always expect rival great powers to take advantage of any internal dissent. It would be extremely naive to think such things did not happen.
However, to dismiss the Hong Kong unrest as having been manipulated by anti-China interests is not the same as suggesting they were engineered by them.
We cannot ignore that it was a continuance of the 2014 Umbrella protests
“People will come back again, and they will come back with stronger force.” Alex Chow said back then.
Genuine grievances exist and China’s government response is to suppress opposition.
The fact that such protests were not repeated on the Mainland is not due to no discontent but that it is expressed in many different manners such as factory strikes or local community protests.
I have heard many US right-wingers simplistically accuse “globalists” such as George Soros as creating Black Lives Matter.
It is standard procedure for any authoritarian regime to divert attention away from discontent by blaming foreign interference.
How often is it said that Russia influenced the 2016 and 2020 American elections?
And at the same time, Putin decries foreign incitement in Russia.
“However, to dismiss the Hong Kong unrest as having been manipulated by anti-China interests is not the same as suggesting they were engineered by them.”
The Hong Kong protests were a failed color revolution. The leaders of the protests flew to and from Washington meeting with such figures as Nancy Pelosi and count as their most vocal allies “far-right Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and Tom Cotton”. The NED was providing funding. Ever wonder where all those gas-masks and helmets came from?
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-attacks-pelosi-for-meeting-hong-kong-activists
The NED Strikes Again: How Neocon Money is Funding the Hong Kong Protests
“We cannot ignore that it was a continuance of the 2014 Umbrella protests”
Indeed we cannot. Funnily enough, that movement was also an NED funded failed color revolution.
https://journal-neo.org/2014/10/01/hong-kong-s-occupy-central-is-us-backed-sedition/
“Genuine grievances exist and China’s government response is to suppress opposition.”
Indeed, genuine grievances do exist. Why don’t you name a few? Then explain how Beijing is responsible? After all, Beijing had been upholding the “One Country Two Systems” policy. Hong Kong’s governing parties and oligarchs are therefore responsible for the declining living standards in Hong Kong not the CCP where living standards are ever rising.
“The fact that such protests were not repeated on the Mainland is not due to no discontent but that it is expressed in many different manners such as factory strikes or local community protests.”
The Chinese people are among the most satisfied of any in the world with their governance. Multiple independent polls show this to be true.
“According to the Edelman Global Trust Barometer Report, the rate of public trust in the Chinese government was 84 percent in 2018, 86 percent in 2019 and 90 percent in 2020. Over the same period, Americans’ trust in the U.S. government ranged from 37 to 40 percent.”
https://www.chinausfocus.com/society-culture/why-chinese-people-support-their-government
“I have heard many US right-wingers simplistically accuse “globalists” such as George Soros as creating Black Lives Matter.”
And what do such people have to do with me? I support all my claims with evidence. As a good socialist should.
“It is standard procedure for any authoritarian regime to divert attention away from discontent by blaming foreign interference.”
All government is by definition “authoritarian”. Try not paying your taxes and see what happens. But I’m reminded of the quip, “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.” The US is demonstrably funding the protests and platforming its leaders. To believe that the US is not behind the protests is, I gotta say, naive in the extreme. Here’s a by no means exhaustive list of successful US regime ops against mostly socialist countries since WW2.
https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list
I find it somewhat surprising that someone purporting to be a socialist should be such an apologist for a state-capitalist regime and its economic exploitation of fellow workers.
A geopolitical struggle among states for regional and global military and political supremacy occurs during times when one or more formerly dominant powers are in decline and one or more rising powers are challenging their dominance. United States dominance and global hegemony have come to be challenged by China.
China’s ruling elite concentrated on accumulating its power potential and abstained from active self-assertion in world affairs. Xi considers that the time has now come to exercise that potential. China is accordingly expanding its presence commercially, diplomatically and militarily. America is trying to encircle it with its allies to curtail that growth of power.
Socialists have witnessed all this before and to adapt an earlier slogan,
Neither Washington nor Beijing but World Socialism
A plague on both
“I find it somewhat surprising that someone purporting to be a socialist should be such an apologist for a state-capitalist regime and its economic exploitation of fellow workers.”
The term “state capitalism” is an oxymoron is it not? The state is the government which is representative of all the public. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. How is it possible for the public to privately own the means of production? The Chinese government has lifted 800 million people out of poverty in the last 40 years. How so unless the profits from China’s industry are being invested in its population? China will have the equal lowest Gini coefficient by 2050 and plans to be fully communist by 2121. How can you call yourself a socialist and not approve of that?
“Neither Washington nor Beijing but World Socialism”
Your logic is fundamentally flawed comrade. You are presupposing that the Chinese share the delusions of their western counterparts. They don’t. They’re not at all interested in ruling the world, they’re far to clever for that. They wish to invest in the uplift of the world’s poor . That’s the whole purpose behind the BRI. China has suffered under the imperialist yoke of the west as have most black, brown and yellow peoples. China seeks to liberate these nations from western dependency and debt. They are doing this because they are committed socialists. Are you hostile to such aims? How is it you call yourself a socialist if you are?
“A plague on both”
So are you one of those “socialists” who condemns all people who have actually brought about a socialist state? Odd kind of socialist that.
So we are gradually getting to the root of your own particular ideology.
You are certainly not expressing the ideas of Marx nor depicting the role of the State as defined by him.
This Party has been dealing with your mistaken beliefs since it was founded in 1904.
Have you not read “Socialism, Utopian, and Scientific” where Engels showed that the nationalisation of industries does not lessen their capitalist nature?
Xi Jinping of China intends to start regulating excessive wealth to ensure “common prosperity” within the country. But so has Biden stated the very similar intentions.
The statistics of the wealth inequality in both countries are stark.
In 2020, China claimed it lifted nearly 100 million people out of extreme poverty. But the truth is questionable, given that China’s definition of the poverty line is $1.69, compared to the World Bank’s $1.90.
Yes it is clear that China’s “Communist Party” is ensuring the profits from China’s industry are being invested in its population, a very small percentage of the population, unfortunately:
Yes, China has billionaires. Do I think there should be billionaires? Of course not. But it’s not contrary to Marxist thought for there to be billionaires before communism, no? At any rate, the billionaires are not in charge of the society. China is working towards a Gini coefficient equal to lowest in the world by 2050 (Finland’s) and full communism by 2121. Those billionaires, well, they’d better enjoy it while it lasts because it isn’t going to be a lot longer.
To begin, I haven’t failed to notice your inability to address any of the points I made about Hong Kong, you know, our topic of conversation? I’d much rather talk about that than be dragged into this rabbit hole. So, I shall address your points above then you try and get back to Hong Kong, eh?. So…
“You are certainly not expressing the ideas of Marx nor depicting the role of the State as defined by him.”
Which or Marx’s ideas am I failing to express exactly? And do tell me how I am mistaken regarding the role of the state.
“This Party has been dealing with your mistaken beliefs since it was founded in 1904.”
“The Party”? What, you and a half dozen others? While you retreat into obscurity as the one true Scotsman (see what I did there?), 1.4 billion people in China are getting on with the real task of building socialism.
“Have you not read “Socialism, Utopian, and Scientific” where Engels showed that the nationalisation of industries does not lessen their capitalist nature?”
China’s is a mixed economy like every other nation on earth. They have capitalist enterprises and nationalised enterprises, the profits of which go to social uplift. They Chinese, as the longest contiguous nation state on earth play the long game. They are preparing their population for communism, but that requires technology, infrastructure, wealth and education. China was as poor as Haiti at the turn of this century. You can’t do communism under those circumstance, not according to Marx anyway.
“In 2020, China claimed it lifted nearly 100 million people out of extreme poverty. But the truth is questionable, given that China’s definition of the poverty line is $1.69, compared to the World Bank’s $1.90.”
That’s rural poverty. But in China the peasants own their own land. They get free schooling, healthcare is massively subsidised, they have internet and infrastructure is being built connecting them to the outside world and opening up further opportunities for development. Watch this video of “the poorest village in China” and then tell me how terrible life there is, comrade.
What is the point in countering your assertions with my own?
You simply refer to the sources such as the China Labor Bulletin as biased Washington puppets
https://clb.org.hk/And if I use the China Worker website, I am resorting to sectarian Trotskyists
Whereas your own authority in the Chinese state is unimpeachable.
“The existence of the state and the existence of slavery are inseparable” – Marx
“In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another” – Engels
As you now acknowledge
“China’s is a mixed economy like every other nation on earth. They have capitalist enterprises and nationalised enterprises”China is little different from any other capitalist country in the world. But you choose to defend it when its corporations operating in Africa has been guilty of anti-worker practices but you won’t recognise it as imperialism or neo-colonialism but instead pure humanitarian altruism.
As for “building socialism”, there is very little sign of that. Certainly no more so than any other nation on earth.
Yes, we are a small socialist party and have never hidden that fact, but bigger than half a dozen and clearly possessing of some importance that you have deemed it necessary to enter into a dialogue with ourselves, (which probably reflects your own political isolation.)
I have heard this argument that because we remain committed to the traditional understanding of socialism, one that even pre-dates Marx, and promote it as the accurate interpretation, we are somehow committing the true Scotsman fallacy.
When we use tools of the materialist conception of history to predict the course of events that is not the True Scotsman fallacy. We said the Russian Revolution would fail to accomplish its aims. We said the reformists wouldn’t bring socialism any closer by gradual step by step legislation.
Shall I suggest that 1 billion Hindus are correct? 1 billion Muslims? 1 billion Catholics? The 60 million Americans who voted for Trump or the 80 million that voted for the lesser evil Biden…do you see where I am going.
For decades in their lives, Marx and Engels had only a few close correspondents sharing their socialist ideas. No mass socialist party.
Numbers mean nothing when it comes to ideas. You are appealing to might is right.
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