Joshua Wong Faces Life in Prison as Hong Kong's Freedom Is Erased
Remember Hong Kong
Jay Nordlinger argues that the world must not forget Hong Kong and its political prisoners, especially Joshua Wong and Jimmy Lai. Wong, once Time's 'Face of Protest,' has been imprisoned since 2020 and now faces a possible life sentence after pleading guilty to encouraging Western sanctions. Nordlinger criticizes the United States for denying Wong asylum and for Trump's refusal to confront Xi Jinping, while quoting activists who insist that repression cannot extinguish the desire for democracy.
You can lock up our bodies, but not our minds! We want democracy in Hong Kong. And we will not give up.
- aurareturn
I was living in Hong Kong when the protests first started and stayed through the entire 2019 year.
First, the vast majority of the locals hated the protests and didn't support them. This isn't reported by the western media. The media reported it as all HK people were being wronged.
Second, most of the protests were done by young people who lost hope in Hong Kong's ultra expensive housing and ultra stressful life. They live in tiny studio sized apartments with the entire family. Buying a home was out of reach for most young HK people unless they have financial help from parents. This was a key trigger in why the youth were protesting.[0][1][2] Again, this was never reported or mentioned by western media. Zoom out 10,000ft and the HK protests and Occupy Wallstreet protests aren't really all that different. Young people felt hopeless economically.
Third, Joshua Wong went to foreign governments and invited them to help him against China. Hong Kong belongs to China if you forgot. This is considered treason in just about any country. Imagine if BLM protestors physically went to China's CIA equivalent to ask them for help against the US government.
[0]https://johnmenadue.com/post/2021/04/hong-kongs-housing-cris...
[1]https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/8/11/a-lack-of-afford...
[2]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.70001
- roenxi
> Millions of Hong Kongers were determined to keep the freedom they had enjoyed. The CCP has won, at least for now.
Fundamentally, I just don't see this frame as being a path to long term success for HK. If it is them v. the CCP: the CCP is alert to the political risk of HK, outnumbers them, controls the local military, has better propaganda and has more of a claim to success given that the British Empire has failed, the US Not-An-Empire seems to be struggling and morally bankrupt. At least the CCP has been delivering visible improvements in prosperity over the last few decades.
It is a tragedy to lose the jewel of Asia that was old school Hong Kong. But they really need a frame that acknowledges a bit of the present political realities - there'll need to be cooperation with major factions in mainland China. Probably within the CCP. I assume there is a liberalising faction of some sort.
- swiftcoder
The return of Hong Kong to China is the first global news item I really remember from my childhood (the death of Princess Dianna shortly thereafter being the second). One really felt a shift in england that day: this then is the final nail in the coffin of the british empire.
I wish the whole thing had gone better for the folks on the receiving end. I was at university with a crowd who had grown up there seeing themselves as british, suddenly thrust into a strange nationality they didn't match their internal identity, and with no say in the matter.
- m4r1k
Through my hong kongese friends, I got pretty active in the 2019 umbrella protest. To me, one of the most impressive image of that era is the Kai Lan Egg japanese-styke manga use to show the world and the CCP what was going on.
https://china-underground.com/2019/10/28/hong-kong-protests-...
- maeln
I found that (like many things) it's impossible to talk about the HK protest (and somewhat HK future) on the internet. Aside from the obvious trolls, the misinformed and those with a vested interest in pushing a narrative, the protest in themselves regrouped a lot of people, had a lot of things going on, and make you able to push whatever narrative you want.
They were some prodemocratic demonstrators. Laudable but sadly they had no chance of winning that fight. There were some genuinely weird people with weird demands too (like some far-right ultranationalist HKer). The attacks on some politician, journalist and medias, and extradition law passed at all cost, was a clear authoritarian push. But from a chinese perspective, it is just putting HK in line with the rest of the country. There was some weird disappearance of some protestor, the clear usage of the triad to inflict violence on some protestor, and some protestors turn violent too.
One could say, every country would react the same to a part of a country trying to secede. But if we look at, for example, Spain and Catalonia, will independence is firmly denied, there was way less violence and authoritarianism (Catalonia still have some special status).
All in all, the sad part is that some well-meaning idealistic kids might never be able to go back to HK. And with the integration with china, HK will slowly lose its identify and distinct culture. Now that it's no different than most other chinese territory, there is no real […]