#Hong Kong politics

[maniacwatchestheworld]

So I decided to skim IRL Jackie Chan's Wikipedia page and just... Oh nooooooooooo! He's anti-democracy, pro-Beijing when it comes to Hong Kong politics! That's very sad for me... Quite a shame... But I guess that's just what happens when you get rich... Still, I suppose that I can respect his work and what he's done for the film industry as a whole and not like his politics at the same time. A shame for me for certain, but I guess that I can't exactly blame the man. He probably has his reasons and is ultimately just a person with his own thoughts, feelings, and opinions, even if I disagree with them. :/

But in my heart of hearts, the Jackie Chan in the cartoon version of him from Jackie Chan Adventures is pro-democracy. I can believe that in my heart. :p

(For the record, in terms of Hong Kong politics, I tend to be on the side of the people who live in an area getting to determine how they want to be led. And given the mass protest movements within the last 10 years, it seems that Hong Kong wants to maintain their democracy and be allowed to conduct their own affairs separate from the mainland and am very disappointed and angry at both China for violating the treaty that gave them Hong Kong, and for England for not enforcing their treaty. I do not think that it's a stretch to say that what China has been doing to Hong Kong is an act of colonization and I am generally against colonization. :/ I may not talk about it a lot but I DO care about politics, especially when it comes to Hong Kong.)

[quotesfrommyreading]

For decades, China and Taiwan have conducted intermittent negotiations. From China’s perspective, the starting point for any dialogue must be the so-called 1992 Consensus. This refers to the outcome of meetings between Chinese and KMT officials 30 years ago, an outcome that represents anything but consensus. To the Chinese Communist Party, the consensus is that there is one China, and the government in Beijing is the sole legitimate authority. To the KMT, the consensus is that there is one China, but the Republic of China in Taiwan is the legitimate government. To the DPP, there is no consensus, only a fraught political reality to be managed. Past Chinese leaders tolerated differing interpretations, but that changed with Xi. Any negotiations, Xi insists, can only address the terms under which Taiwan submits to the sovereignty of the People’s Republic. Tsai has not been willing to enter negotiations on those terms.

China proposes a “one country, two systems” regime, in which Taiwan becomes a formal part of China but maintains an autonomous political system. There is one big problem with this proposal: Hong Kong. In 1997, in accordance with a formal agreement between the United Kingdom and China, Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty under a similar one-country-two-systems formula. The agreement stipulated that Hong Kong would be able to maintain its own distinct political, economic, and legal framework for 50 years. The deal seemed to work at first. But as China became more powerful and prosperous, it encroached upon life in Hong Kong. Media outlets started to be bought up by Chinese tycoons. Economic advancement became contingent on not crossing political lines. Large numbers of Mandarin speakers from the mainland started moving into Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong. The school curriculum shifted in the direction of the Communist Party’s point of view. It was precisely the kind of outcome that the Sunflower Movement had resisted in Taiwan.

In 2019, Hong Kong authorities sought to appease Beijing by introducing a law that allowed residents of Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China—removing a guardrail around the city’s legal status. Protests exploded and continued for months. Then, in 2020, several “national-security laws” were passed giving the authorities broad powers to crush dissent. Activists were rounded up. Independent media were shut down. One country, two systems was dead. The fate of Hong Kong has had a profound impact on Taiwan. “When China moves in, the freedom is gone,” President Tsai told me. “People in Taiwan got a very strong message.”

  —  Taiwan Wants China to Think Twice About an Invasion

[percypaints]

For those who lived on to remember, and those who cannot.

Hong Kong Miku.

I was originally going to make something more... palatable? I guess? But my partner encouraged me to do one themed on the protest back in 2019. The dust has settled, and it looks like everything is painted over, but I still miss my home. So, see this as a sort of tribute to the people who fought for my home, and a tribute to all the freedom fighters in the world-- Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, and all the others. I love you all.

[panicinthestudio]

Further reading:

AFP, via HKFP: Hong Kong Christian newspaper runs blank front page ahead of Tiananmen crackdown anniversary, June 3, 2024

HKFP: Hong Kong’s Catholic Diocese axes third consecutive Tiananmen mass as cardinal urges ‘forgiveness’ over crackdown, June 4, 2024

HKFP: Ex-local councillor asked by police about Tiananmen crackdown anniversary plans; lawmakers say marking date in private is lawful, June 4, 2024

[lgbtpopcult]

Hong Kong Court Approves Same-Sex Civil Unions

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Investigation: Hong Kong’s role in illegal deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil

If major import markets, such as China and Hong Kong, were to restrict trade to slaughterhouses with more transparent supply chains, industry experts believe it could have a major impact on the sustainability of the Brazilian meat sector. 

At first glance, there is little to link a handful of featureless Hong Kong office spaces to the world’s largest tropical rainforest. But supply chain data – obtained by non-profit organisation Repórter Brasil and shared with HKFP – reveals that at least four businesses in the city have imported beef products farmed by a man whom Brazilian police have called “the greatest devastator of the Amazon.”

Cattle farming is “the number one culprit of deforestation in virtually every Amazon country,” according to environmental NGO the World Wide Fund for Nature. Roughly 17 per cent of the Amazon rainforest has already been lost to habitat conversion, with trees felled to make way for cattle pastures and the dusty roads that transport Brazilian beef from the forest to the global marketplace.

Among those profiting from the degradation of the Amazon is rancher Bruno Heller, whose family owns farms that have been fined US$5 million for illegal deforestation, and who has been accused by Brazilian federal police of clearing 6,500 hectares of forest – an area almost five times the size of Lamma Island.

Through a process known as “cattle laundering,” where cows raised at illicit locations are transported to those with a clean record, Repórter Brasil tracked cattle from Heller’s family farms to a slaughterhouse, 163 Beef Industria & Comercio De Carnes Ltda, and traced beef products from that slaughterhouse to Hong Kong.

Continue reading.

[sllystupidfyodor]

"King Charles diagnosed with cancer"

All the countries British invaded in past:

[everything-maxriemelt]

There are a few things I always have to have when I am in Hong Kong:

1. eat a bowl of proper wonton noodles (Chee Kee in Causeway Bay has moved to a more upscale location, I missed it, so went to my 2nd choice Mak’s noodles)

2. have a bottle of vitasoy malted soybean drink (still too warm to have the hot version, had to make do with a carton). I know some UK supermarkets have it but they are not the same 😅

Other observations:

1. speciality coffee is serious business in Hong Kong these days. Thoroughly impressed by the baristas who look no more than 20-year-olds, they make surprisingly good pour-over coffee (had a long discussion with friends about this, as I relayed bad v60/pour-over coffee experience in London, we both agree maybe it has to do with personality traits. one needs to be ‘persistent’ and ‘stubborn’ to be good at it)

2. “too early to have Christmas decorations!”. Shopping malls in HK: hold my beer 😝

3. didn’t have time to visit Macau this time, but friends brought me my favourite Macau-Portuguese cookies. This one they even printed the famous street names in Macau. With the new bridge, it’s now possible to go to Macau via HK airport in 40 minutes. No more ferry ride!

[dearparentheses]

'Stop Hurting Our Children' banner

Anonymous; maker/artist; 2019;

paper, glue, cloth, ink, 1540mm x 1120mm x 80mm

Gift of We are Kiwi Hong Kongers to Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2021

This banner was used by Alexa, a 10-year-old schoolgirl of Hong Kong Chinese heritage, at a rally in support of the Hong Kong protest movement in Auckland on 13 June 2019. The banner's message, 'Stop hurting our children', was intended to remind the public of the young age of many of the protesters in Hong Kong. To create the banner, Alexa made paper cranes by hand and used a hot glue gun to attach them to the cloth banner.

Alexa’s story offers insight into the complex ways in which the Hong Kong protest movement has influenced the lives of some young people growing up in New Zealand. Following her involvement in the June rally, Alexa experienced a fallout with a classmate.

'I told one of my friends I was on the protesters’ sides and she told her mum, and her mum told her not to play with me. Her mum said that we are rejecting her home country since she was on the China side, so I didn’t feel, I felt kind hurt.'

Alexa's mother, Emily, who is also politically active, returned to Hong Kong briefly in 2019 to take part in protests there and narrowly avoided arrest. Emily says that although she has not discussed everything with Alexa, her daughter watches the news and understands why her mother went back to Hong Kong. The pair watched also some videos and material online together in New Zealand.

Emily is encouraging of Alexa's activism as she believes that, compared to what young people in Hong Kong have risked for their protest efforts, the risk to Alexa of engaging in protests in New Zealand is small.

Note: Names used are pseudonyms. All quotes and supporting information are derived from the accounts of ‘Alexa’ and ‘Emily’ as recorded in item GH02678, Te Papa collection.

[trendynewsnow]

The Rise of Authoritarian Nationalism: Reflections from Hong Kong and Beyond

The Pulse of Hong Kong: A Journey Through Unrest In December 2019, I found myself in Hong Kong, enveloped by a palpable sense of tension. For several months, young activists had taken to the streets, passionately protesting against the encroaching influence of the Chinese Communist Party on what had been envisioned as a self-governing, democratic society. Graffiti adorned the walls, with bold…

[head-post]

Largest global IT outage in history did not affect Russia

A global technology outage caused by a software update from US cybersecurity company Crowdstrike caused chaos around the world on Friday, with flights suspended and healthcare, banking and ground transport systems facing major disruptions.

George Kurtz, president and CEO of Crowdstrike, said Friday morning that the company is “actively working with customers affected by a flaw discovered in one content update for Windows hosts” – a glitch that affected Microsoft users around the world. He also added:

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organisations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

The Financial Times explained that Crowdstrike is “one of the world’s largest providers of “endpoint” security software, used by companies to monitor for security problems across a huge range of devices, from desktop PCs to checkout payment terminals.”

Troy Hunt, a security consultant, wrote on social media that “this will be the largest IT outage in history.” He also added:

“This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually happened this time.”

The impacts of the outage cascaded rapidly. Wired noted that “in the early hours of Friday, companies in Australia running Microsoft’s Windows operating system started reporting devices showing Blue Screens of Death (BSODs).” It continued:

“Shortly after, reports of disruptions started flooding in from around the world, including from the UK, India, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US: TV station Sky News went offline, and US airlines United, Delta, and American Airlines issued a “global ground stop” on all flights.”

The UK has been hit by a glitch

As The New York Times observed, the National Health Service in the United Kingdom “was crippled throughout the morning on Friday, as a number of hospitals and doctors offices lost access to their computer systems.”

Whitehall crisis officials were coordinating the response through the Cobra committee that deals with matters of national emergency or major disruption. Ministers were in touch with their sectors to tackle the fallout from the IT failure, and the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, said she was working “at pace with industry” after trains and flights were affected, The Guardian reported.

In the US, flights were grounded owing to communications problems that appear to be linked to the outage. American Airlines, Delta and United Airlines were among the carriers affected. Berlin airport temporarily halted all flights on Friday, while in Australia, Melbourne airport advised customers it was “experiencing a global technology issue which is impacting check-in procedures for some airlines.”

Global flight cancellations

There had been more than 1,000 flight cancellations worldwide so far due to the IT failure, according to the aviation analysis firm Cirium.

Long lines formed at airports in Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services at a time when many travelers are heading away on summer vacations. News outlets in Australia — where telecommunications were severely affected — were pushed off air for hours. Hospitals and doctor’s offices had problems with their appointment systems, while banks in South Africa and New Zealand reported outages to their payment system or websites and apps.

At Hong Kong’s airport, Yvonne Lee, 24, said she only found out her flight to Phuket in Thailand was postponed to Saturday when she arrived at the airport, saying the way it was handled would “affect the image of Hong Kong’s airport very much.” Her already short five-day trip would now have to be further shortened, she said.

In India, Hong Kong and Thailand, many airlines were forced to manually check in passengers. An airline in Kenya was also reporting disruption.

Some athletes and spectators descending on Paris ahead of the Olympics were delayed as was the arrival of their uniforms and accreditations, but Games organisers said disruptions were limited and didn’t affect ticketing or the torch relay.

In Germany, Berlin-Brandenburg Airport halted flights for several hours due to difficulties in checking in passengers, while landings at Zurich airport were suspended and flights in Hungary, Italy and Turkey disrupted.

The Dutch carrier KLM said it had been “forced to suspend most” of its operations.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport warned that the outage was having a “major impact on flights” to and from the busy European hub. The chaotic morning coincided with one of the busiest days of the year for Schiphol.

Israel said its hospitals and post office operations were disrupted.

In South Africa, at least one major bank said it was experiencing nationwide service disruptions as customers reported they were unable to make payments using their bank cards in stores. The New Zealand banks ASB and Kiwibank said their services were down as well.

Shipping was disrupted too: A major container hub in the Baltic port of Gdansk, Poland, the Baltic Hub, said it was battling problems resulting from the global system outage.

Russia was unaffected by the outage

Meanwhile, Russia was less affected by this outage, mainly due to sanctions, import substitution strategy and technological sovereignty.

The global IT failure of devices running the Windows 10 operating system did not affect the operation of Russian airports and airlines, with flights running as scheduled. There are no problems with the information systems of Russian Railways.

“Rosatom” reported that the systems of the concern “Rosenergoatom” work on “import-independent software,” so there are no problems in operation. The disruption in Microsoft’s work will not affect the operation of Russia’s energy system in any way, the agency said.

Read more HERE

[quotesfrommyreading]

In 1949, General Chiang Kai-shek moved his Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), to the island and established the Republic of China there. Ever since, the People’s Republic of China has seen Taiwan as its ideological enemy, an irritating reminder that not all Chinese wish to be united under the leadership of the Communist Party.

Sometimes Chinese pressure on Taiwan has been military, involving the issuing of threats or the launching of missiles. But in recent years, China has combined those threats and missiles with other forms of pressure, escalating what the Taiwanese call “cognitive warfare”: not just propaganda but an attempt to create a mindset of surrender. This combined military, economic, political, and information attack should by now be familiar, because we have just watched it play out in Eastern Europe. Before 2014, Russia had hoped to conquer Ukraine without firing a shot, simply by convincing Ukrainians that their state was too corrupt and incompetent to survive. Now it is Beijing that seeks conquest without a full-scale military operation, in this case by convincing the Taiwanese that their democracy is fatally flawed, that their allies will desert them, that there is no such thing as a “Taiwanese” identity.

Taiwanese government officials and civic leaders are well aware that Ukraine is a precedent in a variety of ways. During a recent trip to Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, I was told again and again that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a harbinger, a warning. Although Taiwan and Ukraine have no geographic, cultural, or historical links, the two countries are now connected by the power of analogy. Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told me that the Russian invasion of Ukraine makes people in Taiwan and around the world think, “Wow, an authoritarian is initiating a war against a peace-loving country; could there be another one? And when they look around, they see Taiwan.”

But there is another similarity. So powerful were the Russian narratives about Ukraine that many in Europe and America believed them. Russia’s depiction of Ukraine as a divided nation of uncertain loyalties convinced many, prior to February, that Ukrainians would not fight back. Chinese propaganda narratives about Taiwan are also powerful, and Chinese influence on the island is both very real and very divisive. Most people on the island speak Mandarin, the dominant language in the People’s Republic, and many still have ties of family, business, and cultural nostalgia to the mainland, however much they reject the Communist Party. But just as Western observers failed to understand how seriously the Ukrainians were preparing—psychologically as well as militarily—to defend themselves, we haven’t been watching as Taiwan has begun to change too.

Although the Taiwanese are regularly said to be too complacent, too closely connected to the People’s Republic, not all Taiwanese even have any personal links to the mainland. Many descend from families that arrived on the island long before 1949, and speak languages other than Mandarin. More to the point, large numbers of Taiwanese, whatever their background, feel no more nostalgia for mainland China than Ukrainians feel for the Soviet Union. The KMT’s main political opponent, the Democratic Progressive Party, is now the usual political home for those who don’t identify as anything except Taiwanese. But whether they are KMT or DPP supporters (the Taiwanese say “blue” or “green”), whether they participate in angry online debates or energetic rallies, the overwhelming majority now oppose the old “one country, two systems” proposal for reunification. Especially since the repression of the Hong Kong democracy demonstrations, millions of the island’s inhabitants understand that the Chinese war on their society is not something that might happen in the future but is something that is already well under way.

Like the Ukrainians, the Taiwanese now find themselves on the front line of the conflict between democracy and autocracy. They, too, are being forced to invent strategies of resistance. What happens there will eventually happen elsewhere: China’s leaders are already seeking to expand their influence around the world, including inside democracies. The tactics that the Taiwanese are developing to fight Chinese cognitive warfare, economic pressure, and political manipulation will eventually be needed in other countries too.

  —  China’s War Against Taiwan Has Already Started

[salvadorbonaparte]

I'm trying to sort my postcard collection by country but I only have a certain number of dividers and a certain number of countries which led to me sorting a lot of them into regions that, if applied anywhere else, would be hugely controversial

[panicinthestudio]

Hong Kong: Chinese control and the future of protest, October 18, 2024

In Hong Kong, protests have fallen silent. The Chinese state is more restrictive than ever. Back in 2019, artists were among those who took to the streets to demonstrate against the curtailing of basic rights. How are they doing, five years on? Unlike many of his contemporaries, multimedia artist Samson Young chose to remain in Hong Kong rather than going into exile. Young plays with codes and hidden references in his complex art installations. Filmmaker Kiwi Chow also stayed. He sold the rights to an internationally acclaimed documentary about the 2019 protest movement to a friend outside the country. Others felt they could no longer stay in Hong Kong, like Kacey Wong, who now lives and works in Taiwan. Despite their different paths, these artists all ask themselves the same question: Will Hong Kong ever be as free as it was before the protests, or will Beijing’s grip get even tighter? Deutsche Welle

[lgbtpopcult]

Hong Kong Appeals Court: Same-Sex Couples Can Inherit Property from Partner

[deprivedmusicaljunkie]

hozier should do an asia tour. i’m not even kidding. he has multiple fans in the philippines. one of his most popular fan accounts on instagram is japanese. plus i would fly to taiwan specifically to see him. HOZIER SHOULD DO AN ASIA TOUR