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It was the biggest sign of Chinese people actually demonstrating in the streets fighting the opression. Not sure we will see something like that in the next 20 years in China again. It was impressive to see how they were organized and fought for their freedom
It was scary how easily it was squelched though.
deleted by creator
What I find disheartening is that it ultimately didn’t work. Or am I wrong?
That’s not entirely true. Protests like these, at the very least, demonstrate class awareness to towards those in power. “Look what we can do”
Never forget that true power lies with the people. Always.
That really only works when the majority don’t have power. The Hong Kong protests failed because it was a minority trying to take power they never had, against the wishes of the majority.
Also international news agencies spilling the beans on the fact the leaders of the group were in constant communication with us agencies.
Ah yes the minority.
~300k vs 1.4 billion. That’s the definition of a minority.
That’s not an honest comparison.
You have chosen the police-reported number of protesters (338 K) instead of 2 M reported by other sources.
You have also made a false comparison between Hong Kong (~10 M people) and the entire population of China. I recommend to use percentages. Up to 20% of the local population showed up to protest. More were dissatisfied.
What number of Chinese would show up to protest if a hot topic would appear and the regime would seem weak for a moment, is unknown.
So you said all that to say they’re the minority and didn’t have enough members to vote, so we should listen to said minority because they protested not getting their way because they didn’t represent the majority viewpoint.
That’s called tyranny, little one. China is a democracy. You have a problem, get educated, run for office and get voted in. If your problem is widespread then you’ll have no problem winning an election on it.
China is a democracy.
Yes, the Republic of China appears to be a democracy.
About the People’s Republic of China, we can read in Wikipedia:
A movement for increased democracy and liberalization stalled after the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989.
So, we read that democracy never came.
China is a unitary one-party socialist republic led by the CCP.
So, we read that only one party is allowed to exist and rule. We also read about CCP propaganda, which I think you have consumed too much:
The PRC officially terms itself as a democracy, using terms such as “socialist consultative democracy”,[186] and “whole-process people’s democracy”.[187] However, the country is commonly described as an authoritarian one-party state and a dictatorship,[188][189] with among the heaviest restrictions worldwide in many areas, most notably against freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, free formation of social organizations, freedom of religion and free access to the Internet.[190]
I should note that according to its own words, the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) is also a “democracy”, even if its passing of power among the Kim family resembles a hereditary monarchy. If you take words and slogans at their face value, you’ll be easily mislead.
P.S.
little one
Don’t troll. Also, don’t spread disinformation.
It’s the working class, the majority, who don’t have power…
It’s the everyone with less than a gigabuck.
The working class control China, hence why billionaires are regularly executed if they hurt Chinese citizens.
I know it’s hard to understand.
A fun question for you: can a worker in China start an independent trade union?
The answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China
Independent unions are illegal in China with only the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) permitted to operate.
China is a mostly capitalist country with the state owning a lot of capital, and a “communist” party deciding without a mandate from people. But it retains some features of socialist policy.
In year 2021, Beijing was the city with the biggest number of billionaires living there (later, Mumbai took over).
If you take the list of countries by income inequality, you will see that China has greater inequality than most of neighbouring countries, and most of Europe.
Some Gini indexes of Asian countries, more equal first (source: United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research):
- Kazakhstan 27.79
- Pakistan 29.59
- Taiwan 32.58
- Mongolia 32.74
- South Korea 33.10
- Japan 33.40
- China 36.67
- India 37.06
Some highlights from other continents:
- Ukraine 25.63
- Poland 28.56
- Canada 28.80
- Sweden 30.08
- France 31.63
- Egypt 31.89
- Switzerland 33.82
- UK 34.24
- Russia 36.03
- USA 39.79
- Turkey 42.60
- Mexico 44.01
- Zimbabwe 50.26
Going by the Gini index, China has a lot in common with the USA and its closest matches among big countries are Russia and India.
You are correct, it didn’t work.
HK was economically dependent on China already, so their last struggle occurred too late, under the implied threat of the Chinese army moving in. The city government found ways to bring in Chinese police (or interior ministry troops) to overcome and outlast the protests.
I’ve read an article where one of the protestors said that these yellow hardhats aren’t actually so good, they break after one good hit. Better go with something more sturdy.
Alsoy the umbrella serves another function. The more moderate protestors can use it to block vision while the radicals change to be ready when the police comes.
Those HK protests were really sophisticated.
Also don’t forget proper encrypted messaging.
deleted by creator
The laser pen part makes me uneasy, on one hand its maximum damage for minnimum percieved violence, on the other hand you could cause permament blindness which is a hell of a thing to inflict on anyone regardless of circumstances. Its genius but also pretty brutal.
If one uses a disco laser or laser pointer in the visible wavelength range, it’s hard to inflict permanent blindness with it. During the time it would take to inflict thermal damage to the retina, reflexes kick in and the person looking into a laser will close their eye and turn their head.
Occurrences of permanent blindness are rare. This study, even if a bit old (2015) introduces the topic with helpful case reports, for example:
Two young soldiers (Cases 1 and 2) aged 27 and 28 years respectively, serving in the Oman army, projected penlight like devices emanating bright blue-green light into each others eyes (left eye for Case number 1 and right eye for Case number 2) for about 5–10 s. They competed with each other to determine who could bear the light longer while celebrating the success of a local football game.
Basically, they did the utmost stupidity: forcing oneself to stare into a laser at close range. They paid a price and damaged their vision, but didn’t go blind from it.
Of course, it’s a different story with cutting and engraving lasers, and lasers outside the visible wavelengths - you can stare into those without any reflexes helping avoid damage. The same article mentions another source, reporting about a guy (also military) who looked into a high-power range finder and perforated his fovea (the area where high-resolution vision occurs). It was most likely an infrared laser.
So, be careful but disco lasers won’t strike a person blind.
