Hello World,
Today, after careful consideration and evaluation of recent events, we have decided to defederate from Lemmygrad.
Regrettably, we have observed a significant increase in hate speech and calls to violence originating from the Lemmygrad instance. Due to the severity of the posts and comments, we are not waiting for the next Lemmy update that will allow users to block instances.
At Lemmy.world, we have always strived to foster an inclusive and welcoming user environment. However, recent posts and comments from Lemmygrad have clearly violated our server rules and, more importantly, our core values. We firmly believe that hate speech and incitement of violence have no place in our community, regardless of personal beliefs or affiliations.
As always, we encourage all users to report any content they deem inappropriate or harmful. No matter one’s stance in any conflict, Lemmy.world will always take immediate action to remove and ban any posts or comments that incite violence or propagate hatred.
We encourage everyone to continue engaging in discussions within the boundaries of respect and understanding. As we move forward with this decision, we remain committed to providing all community members with a safe and welcoming space. We appreciate your continued support and cooperation in upholding our shared principles.
Thank you,
The Lemmy.World Team
First, Hong Kong’s COVID policies were relaxed at about the same time (within a week or so) of when they were relaxed in mainland China. They were stricter for a while than most of mainland China, yes, but so were most major port cities’ (like Guangzhou’s) because, well, you know, massive influx of outsiders means you go a bit more carefully rather than opening the flood gates willy-nilly. “Let 'er rip” is a grossly irresponsible policy for disease control.
Second, Hong Kong’s COVID controls have been shut off completely. Eyeballing this it looks like around June of this year (so six months after the relaxation and about three months after their elimination in Wuhan). I’d have to dig deeper for more precise dates and policies.
Third, and this is the key point, you are entirely, 100% ignorant of how Chinese governance actually works. You have a “cartoon villain” view of authoritarianism and it shows. How it really works is the central government (who are, make no mistake, a crowd of hypocritical, authoritarian assholes!) sets policy and goals. They will also make strong recommendations on process, but actual on-the-ground procedures are run by provincial-, prefectural-, and city-scale government (as appropriate). Indeed this can fall down fractally to individual neighbourhoods in many cases. So even in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the city of Wuhan’s procedures and regulations were completely and utterly different from, say, Dalian’s, or Zhengzhou’s, or Chongqings, or … you get the drift. (This, incidentally, caused all kinds of trouble for people trying to travel and/or do business across provinces and cities. A lot of people visiting Wuhan, for instance, wound up cooling their heels in quarantine when coming from, say, Nanchang because they didn’t follow the complex web of regulations surrounding travel to Wuhan.)
Now of course if you don’t follow the central government’s advised procedures, and if your results are a fuck-up, you’re in deep shit. (Ask the pre-2020 government of Wuhan or the pre-2020 Hubei health authorities … oh, wait, you can’t. Most of them were removed for incompetence; the rest were executed for malfeasance in handling the outbreak.) Basically at that point a team from Beijing is parachuted in to take the reins directly until competent people can be found to take over.
So …
What this means is that the procedures in Hong Kong? Those are brought in by the Hong Kong government, not by Beijing. Now the truth is they’re likely being harder on things than other cities because they don’t want the bureaucratic paratroopers to be invoked on them, but this doesn’t change the fact that the people effecting those (now shut down, I should stress) procedures were the HONG KONG government, not the Beijing government.
Now as for Urumqi vs. Hong Kong, let’s take a look at the full names of both of those territories and see if we can’t see a reason for why the difference between their handling.
Do you see some key differences in their legal status perhaps? If you can’t, I’ll summarize for you: both are “autonomous” in that they have their own legislatures and can enact their own laws that are different from the rest of China. But the SARs have extreme levels of autonomy and thus extreme levels of responsibility. And your laughable “peaceful protests” in Hong Kong were nothing of the sort. (I don’t view pouring gasoline on an elderly man and lighting him on fire “peaceful”. Nor do I view putting flaming barricades on the metro system “peaceful”. Perhaps your standards are different from mine.)
But, again, law enforcement in Hong Kong is Hong Kong’s. The “PLA” (in reality “PAP” but I don’t expect people outside China to actually give enough of a shit to know the difference, important as it is) isn’t even allowed to operate in Hong Kong; they garrison there but can’t leave that garrison (as a force, I mean: obviously they can go to town as individuals) without explicit invocation by the Hong Kong government. So that “oppression” you’re seeing of “peaceful” fire-using protestors? That is, again, Hong Kong’s own police force under Hong Kong’s own government.
Now are they doing this because they fear Beijing coming in and just rubbing them out and taking direct control? Indubitably. (In that regard they’re like the MPAA being fucking morons with movie ratings because they were afraid of government censorship, so did worse than what the government was likely to have ever done.) The Hong Kong Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary does not want to be removed and replaced, so they are likely being “tough on crime” to appease their Beijing overlords. (Kind of like how American politicians are “tough on crime” to appease the bloodthirsty masses.)
But in the end it is, in fact, the Hong Kong government and the Hong Kong Police Force, neither of which is part of the Beijing apparatus, that is cracking down on the “peaceful” protestors.
remained* My typo, apologies. Hong Kong had much stricter policies on Covid for a long time compared to even mainland China.
Yes, most of the ones who fucked up in China were removed. That’s a good thing. None of them who fucked up in Hong Kong were or are ever removed. And yes, it is the Hong Kong government — but who appoints them? Who extremely recently reformed the system such that even less say is given to Hong Kongers on who govern them? 人大.
Yes, the fire was in Urumqi. However, the protests were nationwide, and China reacted in a month’s time. Hong Kong protested for years peacefully and were treated to arrests and nothing more. 2014. 2019, before June 12. Every July 1st since the handover. A fifth of the population went on the streets on June 9, and the government tried to force the bill through. Then afterwards, a quarter of the population went on the streets to protest again on June 16th. Nothing. I wonder why there’s violence. Or would you like to suggest that Palestinian resistance, South African anti-apartheid resistance, American Civil Rights resistance, etc. are justifiably responded to with extreme levels of force? The majority of Hong Kong “violent” protests pale in comparison both to those, and to the government’s response. Or is shooting an unarmed teenage protestor and then arresting him and sentencing him to jail for years justice? Not to mention the crackdown on pan-dem politicians who have done nothing of the sort? Or arresting and attacking medics, or using ambulances to transport police?
In addition, of course, are very convenient “suicides” like a 15 year old swimmer randomly drowning after being found naked and ASAP cremation, a protestor randomly falling from a building that police operated at not long ago… or the literal triads they released at Yuen Long, or the police themselves attacking bystanders and planting evidence on the MTR on 831… and even several different cases of covered-up rapes widely reported by journalists whose newspapers were forced to close. If the Chinese government is not either complicit or approving, surely any reasonable government would step in immediately to tell Carrie Lam to change course? Instead, they promoted John Lee and Chris Tang, Secretary for Security and Commissioner of Police, to Chief Executive and Secretary for Security, a clear stamp of approval for any future protests.
Oh and regarding the PLA, (which by the way, any reasonable person would know that police and armies are separate entities, and besides the garrison is the PLA, even if there are PAP in there) there is a lot of evidence out there suggesting that they were involved. Anti-riot HK police gear found at the garrison, unmarked vans traced back to them, and even more obviously segments of the police consistently using Mandarin to communicate — unless you intend to suggest that policemen would use their third language to communicate otherwise?
Also, the actions at consulates such as that in Manchester. Attacking and attempted kidnapping of protestors in a foreign country. Only recalling after 2 months, and not allowing prosecution, while never once denouncing the actions, and in fact denouncing the protestors, who were doing so peacefully? Including from the Consul General himself? And setting up police stations in other countries without the permission of said countries, thereby violating sovereignty, and violating international law with the Sino-British Joint Declaration, and putting a bounty on the heads of people who have done nothing except lobby their governments. Even Israel isn’t this much of a bully.
Speaking of that autonomy: Beijing has said that the entire constitution of Hong Kong is only as valid as the laws it makes with the National Security Law being equal to the Basic Law, thereby bypassing and ignoring its illegitimacy. Might I remind you that the NSL did not pass LegCo, as is required by law. Legislation which did not go through the legislative body. What is the point of a supposedly autonomous legislative body if such a body can be bypassed whenever convenient for the state? And for the autonomy in East Turkestan, what use is autonomy when the people there are being ethnically cleansed, and Han Chinese are being migrated there in much the same way as Israeli settlers, or indeed most settler colonial movements? There is a well-documented genocide there, which the Chinese government continues to deny. I’m not even going into Tibet.
In summary I absolutely agree! Hong Kong’s government is much, much worse than the national government. They have literally concluded that boobs can be used as a weapon of assault, which I believe even the CCP wouldn’t stoop to, for example. That does not excuse the national government for what it has done to not only encourage but incite such behaviour from them. If Israeli settlers conduct violence, or the IDF, the responsibility lies on Bibi’s fascist government. Most of the West takes responsibility for its previous crimes, including most notably the Holocaust. How is it different, then, for China? If China doesn’t approve of the actions Hong Kong has done, why have they not only helped them but provided the tools specifically to allow them in the National Security Law? Why does it continue treating non-mainland non-Han peoples as second-class citizens? And if the CCP is good, why does it conduct genocide in Uyghurstan? Why does it bully people protesting peacefully who aren’t even living there — setting bounties, dragging them into consulate grounds to beat them up, arresting their families in Hong Kong, and more? I can go on and on and on.
One last question for you as a person, not as a political point, but as a person. Why do you consistently insist on ad hominem attacks? Why do you think I don’t know as much as you just because I disagree with you? I’ve lived through protests at scales China hasn’t seen since Tiananmen, which your government still covers up. Perhaps you should ponder why such movements can reach such scales so consistently in Hong Kong, despite leaders constantly being arrested, despite changes made specifically to counter them, despite the sheer power imbalance, instead of assuming anyone who disagrees with you is immediately wrong.
Tired of arguing with someone who clearly doesn’t want to respect me, but I will point out how hilarious that someone first says they lived under (or in, as they seem to prefer) China for 23 years and then claims to be Canadian, treating it like a “gotcha”.
If you can’t work out the difference between “lived in China for 23 years” and “is Chinese” then there’s no help for you.
Of course you couldn’t read a statement that baldly said the PRC’s government wasn’t a good one, so there’s that for you as well.
Dude. I literally said the fucking opposite. Read what’s in front of you, not what the voices in your head are telling you is there. I’ll leave finding this as an exercise for the student: see if you can find where I said the exact fucking opposite of this. Then come back and talk like an adult instead of a tantrum-throwing toddler.
The Canadian government covers up Tiananmen? That’s news to me. I’m going to need some citations here.
Given that you couldn’t read very plain statements that are directly the opposite of what you said, and that you made idiotic assumptions on top of that, I’m going to go with “yeah, dumb fuck is wrong” until you show some basic reading ability and stop stupid assumptions.
Don’t waste your energy debating racists. They’re using the dogwhistle abbreviation for the Chinese government, they’re fascist at best.
What kind of Hexbear nonsense is that? How are they remotely “racist” for criticizing a government…? And how is criticizing a government “fascist”? Neither of those claims make any sense.
OK, let me unpack a few things here.
And here’s where it gets messy.
The China Watchers™ crowd always says they “hate the government, not the citizens”. (The fact that this echoes extremist Christian bigotry with “hate the sin, not the sinner” whenever they go on rampages against every social group they disapprove of is a feature, not a bug. They know their audience well.)
Yet…
Ask anybody with a (perceived) Chinese name how often they have been called upon by China Watchers™ to personally account for the Chinese government’s actions. You will likely get a shock by how often these people who “hate the government, not the citizens” take perceived citizens to task for their government’s actions (while at the same time, in a stunning display of utter hypocrisy, refuse to take responsibility for their own governments’ actions despite (technically) having a say in who that government is (which Chinese citizens don’t have).
Chinese citizens. People of other nationalities resident in China. People with (perceived) Chinese names or looks. These all get hounded by the “hate the government, not the citizens” crowd with a zeal that puts the “not the citizens” part of things in the firm category of “blatant lie”.
And that is just flat-out racism.
So while yes, technically, people criticizing the Chinese government aren’t being racist (and holy fucking SHIT are there good reasons to criticize them!), the reality is that most of the people doing so are hiding behind that technicality and are being racist as all fuck, so often, in fact, that it’s my default assumption unless I see evidence to the contrary.
You don’t like that default? Well, here’s a bit of sage advice I got from an activist friend of mine in the late '80s: “Rein in your crazies or you’ll be mistaken for them.”
I don’t expect you to understand. Liberals literally have no concept of the past, everything is just the here and now and whatever’s in front of them at the moment. Try to bring up anything more than that they just get confused then plug their ears to lalalalala to make it stop.
Lmao you’re delusional. Go outside.
My usual response starting with “Go to” gives me heck from the moderators so this is the next best thing.
Very thorough explanation. It truly was quite insightful.
I appreciate your comments and effort. I don’t think it got through though.
Well given that the idiot thinks I’m a) Chinese and b) in favour of the Chinese government, you’re absolutely right: nothing got through.