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You poor fellow, You are still STUCK in 1967.
No wonder so much butt hurt from the loss to China in 1962 war.
Don't Grief too much over the humiliation from 50+ years ago.
Not good for you, little boy.
Poor poor fellow.
.
What you just quote from patman are simply not accurate, everyone who have been educated in HK know that 1967 riot are "skimmed over" since the colonial time, that was the sensitive information of the colonial government. Not to mention, "vanished archives" is funny since destroying sensitive information by the colonial government before 97 is an open secret in HK. Patman had been posting lots of pictures, and people who actually live in HK should recognize their face right away since they are small group of people that are infamous for against the government all the time. Lastly people should avoid feeding the troll, since they are only here to cause trouble.
 
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seems like situation is heating up
their leader is a freeking teen man


Joshua Wong, the student who risked the wrath of Beijing: ‘It’s about turning the impossible into the possible

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Cometh the hour, cometh the boy. Very much a boy: 17 and looking even younger behind his black-rimmed spectacles, with baggy shorts accentuating his skinniness and shaggy hair in need of a trim. Bright, well-mannered and slightly geeky, everyone’s son was about to become an international celebrity.

In September 2014, an unprecedented wave of civil disobedience swept Hong Kong, with tens of thousands of people pouring on to the streets to call for democratic reforms. The shock wasn’t just seeing riot police deployed in the heart of a city regarded as apolitical, money-focused and essentially conservative. It was the numbers and sheer youth of these peaceful demonstrators, umbrellas held aloft to ward off teargas and pepper spray, as they confronted – peacefully, tidily and very, very politely – the wrath of Beijing.

The Face of Protest, in the words of Time’s cover, was teenager Joshua Wong. Fortune named him one of the world’s greatest leaders. It was the detention of Wong and other student protesters – for storming into the blocked-off government complex – that first brought sizeable crowds to the streets of Central district, and the heavy-handed response of police that catalysed that extraordinary, exhilarating moment known as the umbrella movement. But when I tracked him down after his release he dodged personal questions and, indeed, most others. He didn’t like the idea of movements getting hung up on stars.

Two-and-a-half years on, the battle has shifted from the streets to the polling booths. Wong, now 20, has co-founded a new party, Demosisto, and is studying for a politics degree, although, he says: “Sometimes it feels as if I major in activism and minor in university.” Earlier this month he was in Washington, testifying before the cameras to US senator Marco Rubio’s congressional-executive commission on China. When I meet him, in London, he is promoting the modestly titled Netflix documentary Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower. “Being famous is part of my job,” he suggests in the film. He’s even smartened up, with shorn hair and a rather dapper jacket.



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Police fire teargas at pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong in September 2014. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images
“We’re working on it,” says his friend and fellow Demosisto founder Nathan Law, with a grin. He means the makeover, but portrays Wong’s profile as a collective, pragmatic decision too: “It is always a team play ... What we wanted to project through Joshua’s story is that as long as the city is undemocratic, and there’s underprivilege, and people’s interests are neglected, we will keep going.”





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Wong judges the documentary, which won a Sundance Audience award, “a good platform to get people internationally – especially people who watched the umbrella movement and have maybe forgotten it already – more interested in the situation. In 2014, of course, it wasn’t necessary to have much focus on myself ... It’s been really hard to maintain people’s interest.”

The upsurge of protest was, in a way, as surprising to Wong as anyone.

“At school, the teachers told us: Hong Kong people are economic animals, focused on investment and the stock market. There was a sense that business development was the most important thing,” he says.

He comes from a quiet, middle-class family, not especially political, although his parents are supportive and, because of their faith, encouraged him to take an interest in the city’s poor. “I’m a Christian and my motivation for joining activism is that I think we should be salt and light,” he says – the salt of the Earth and the light of the world – “but a lot of politicians in Hong Kong say they are guided by the Bible. I think it’s ridiculous: how can you say your judgment fully represents God?”

His moral seriousness helps to explain why, aged just 14, he co-founded a group called Scholarism to protest against national education, a “patriotic” curriculum that critics attacked as pro-Beijing brainwashing. The small bunch of schoolchildren sparked huge protests: Wong shot to local attention – and the government backed down. Then came the umbrella movement.

There are obvious parallels with youthful, social media-fuelled protests elsewhere, as the original name of Occupy Central suggests, but when I ask about his political inspirations, he dismisses the idea: “No. No,” he says at once.

Wariness probably plays a part; it would do them no favours to be seen as influenced by foreigners. But his explanation is pragmatic. There are things to be learned from other movements, he concedes – “strategy, dealing with pressure, dealing with people. But it’s hard to follow tactics because they’re a different generation and different circumstance. Martin Luther King and Gandhi emphasised civil disobedience; but in their context that was very different from Hong Kong in 2014.”



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Wong (right) with Nathan Law. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
Can young people fuming at Brexit or Donald Trump’s presidency learn anything from him?

“I’m not saying everyone should be Joshua Wong or follow my journey. But at least it proved that activism is not just related to experienced politicians or well-trained activists who have been working for NGOs; it can also be students and high-schoolers,” he says.

The comedown from his moment of glory was swift and harsh. The protests dragged on for 79 days, losing goodwill and producing no immediate result as the National Education protests had. Recriminations flew: the leaders were too radical; or not radical enough. Middle-aged Hong Kongers had voiced their shame that it took young people to spur them into protest. Now some began to see them as naive, almost accidental heroes.

More punishing was Beijing’s reaction. The trigger for the protests was electoral reform proposals; but the deeper impetus was pushing back against the rapid erosion of Hong Kong’s freedoms. When Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997, the countries agreed that its way of life would continue unchanged for 50 years, with Hong Kong retaining a high degree of autonomy under the “one country, two systems” framework. Then, 2047 seemed a long way off. China needed to protect Hong Kong’s stability for the sake of its own economy, and might itself liberalise. Beijing promised universal suffrage. Wong, born the year before handover, will be 51 when the deal ends – but in Washington this month, he suggested it was already “one country, one and a half systems”. “China has betrayed the joint declaration,” he says.

Hong Kong is now trapped in an irresolvable contradiction. Many residents are staunchly pro-Beijing; and for an even larger tranche, the priority is stability. But the young generation, in particular, increasingly see their identity as “Hong Kong” rather than “Chinese”; chafe at Beijing’s dictates; and are pushing back to reassert the region’s autonomy. Every such move intensifies Beijing’s fears and tightens its grip. Hong Kong’s institutions – the media, judiciary, universities – have come under ever greater pressure since the umbrella movement. Most chillingly, in 2015, five booksellers known for provocative works on China’s leaders vanished – only to resurface on the mainland, in custody, over book smuggling. And with each move by Beijing, the antagonism increases.



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Lam Wing-kee, one of the Hong Kong booksellers who was taken into custody in mainland China. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP
In part, Wong’s fame always rested on its sheer implausibility, captured in the title of the documentary. But he is more than a symbol. He isn’t glamorous and is no dazzling orator. Yet he has a knack for saying just the right thing at the right time in a way that people relate to, and for seeing the broader picture: “One person, one vote is just the starting point for democracy. What I hope is that politics shouldn’t be dominated by the pro-Chinese elite; it should be related to everyone’s daily life,” he says.

His group has, on the whole astutely, weighed and responded to each political shift. They have not stopped working. And against the odds, they have notched up significant wins.

Last September, Law became Hong Kong’s youngest legislator at 23 (Wong was too young to stand). It proved they could do more than protest: these days, they talk about bus routes as well as democracy. It also proved that it was not just about Wong. But that victory, too, is in doubt: the government wants to disqualify Law and other young activist-legislators from straying from their oath of office. If the courts rule against him this month, he will not only lose his seat but go bankrupt, saddled with the government’s costs.

“As young activists the unique advantage is that we have less burden; we don’t need to worry so much about salary or managing the situation with families,” Wong says.

But the advantage is relative. The young activists have sharply curtailed their future career options. He and Law were convicted over their initial 2014 protest under unlawful assembly laws and there have been fresh arrests over the 2014 protests. Wong was detained for 12 hours while trying to enter Thailand, and he and Law have been attacked by pro-Beijing protesters.

“We expected that maybe in future we may be put in jail. But how it’s created a threat to daily life is not easy to handle,” he says. “If at 14 I could foresee my future and this kind of pressure – I think it would be hard for me [to commit to it].”

In the documentary, he admits to moments where he has wept and thought he couldn’t go on. But he insists he enjoys it too: “I think its valuable, even if sometimes it’s quite boring and exhausting. I’m working up to the second I go to sleep.”

Law says – with affection – that Wong is a robot, without a second life: “His growing-up time was in politics. All the thoughts in his mind, as a teenager, were about how to change society. He can’t drag himself away to private life.”

That sounds like fun for his girlfriend, I say. Wong looks embarrassed: “I met her in Scholarism. So she strongly supports this.” He still plays video games and goes to the movies, he says. But clearly not very often.



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Wong (centre) in Hong Kong in October 2014, as thousands of pro-democracy supporters occupied the streets surrounding the financial district. Photograph: Anthony Kwan/Getty Images
The truth is that they keep fighting, in part, because they are already down a path with very few exits: “If I continue with activism, maybe in 10 or 20 years it will be one country one system – and then I will have to leave Hong Kong. And I was born and live in Hong Kong and I really love Hong Kong,” he says.

“Since 2015, I’ve travelled to different places, and every time I just miss the food. The milk tea, the breakfast in the cha chaan teng [a kind of cheap local restaurant]. I love those things. I don’t know why people love fish and chips. At all. No idea.”

He is really exercised now: “Visiting New York and DC – having lunch with think-tank leaders and just grabbing a sandwich and a Coke, without any rice or hot food – why they can accept these things every day for their lunch I just don’t know. I love Hong Kong very much.”

It’s the most expansive he has been, which isn’t as incongruous as it sounds. The fuel for the umbrella movement was never detached idealism, but a visceral attachment to a way of life that Hong Kong’s residents see fast disappearing, thanks to the flood of mainland wealth and the surge in migration as well as Beijing’s political grip.

Critics say the movement accelerated the cycle of clampdown and pushback with its rejection of electoral reform proposals. Beijing offered one person, one vote – but only if the slate of candidates for chief executive was under its control. That was pointless, said the activists; it offered no meaningful choice.

“In the long term, the erosion of Hong Kong autonomy is a given,” says Steve Tsang, the head of the Soas China Institute, who was raised in Hong Kong. “The game is how you slow down and minimise that. You don’t do it by going to war with Beijing – because you can’t win. They would rather destroy Hong Kong.”

China is the world’s second-largest economy; the region is no longer economically indispensable. But 30 years are left on the agreement’s clock, and, as Tsang says, a lot could change in China in that time. Saying yes to electoral reform would have given residents some say and encouraged Beijing to ease up.



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Demonstrators protest at Wong’s detention as he tried to enter Thailand last year. Photograph: Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images
The counter view is that without resistance there is little cost to Beijing’s encroachments, and that Hong Kong was sleep walking into a wholly different future. Suzanne Pepper, a long-time Hong Kong resident and researcher, says the original – much older – conveners of the civil disobedience wanted a wake-up call for Beijing. It was the students who turned it into a wake-up call for Hong Kong.

Now, as the cycle continues, ever more radical voices are emerging. Talk of independence in Hong Kong was once the preserve of an extreme fringe; last year, a survey found 17% of residents wanted it – rising to 40% among 15-to-24-year-olds – though more than 80% judged it impossible. Demosisto says it wants self-determination; and that, of course, is just as unacceptable to Beijing.

They are, as Law says, “walking on a high wire, careful of every step”. They have dodged obvious traps: being pushed into more extreme positions, or, equally, being distracted into battles within pro-democracy ranks. Wong admits that decisions become harder as their influence grows, but is strikingly confident in his own judgment: “I still have strong beliefs and know what’s the next step.”

There have been potential missteps; Pepper says Wong’s testimony to Rubio’s committee makes it easier for opponents to push the idea that he is the dupe of hostile foreign forces. A pro-Beijing paper has attacked him as a “race traitor”. But they need to keep international attention and, says Wong, “Hong Kong is a global and open city. It’s normal to reach out ... We hope the international community will keep its eyes on Hong Kong and support this movement.”

That looks particularly optimistic given the UK’s reluctance to challenge China in any but the most muted way over the erosion of promises in the joint declaration. Hong Kong’s former governor Chris Patten warned recently that Britain was “selling its honour”. Wong says he has been shocked by its silence at critical moments and is scathing overall: “It just focuses on trade deals.”

And that, perhaps, is the subtext of the new documentary’s title. It’s not so much investing Wong with superhero status as asking why a bunch of teenagers and twentysomethings have been willing to confront the might of China, at considerable cost, while governments are craven. That question becomes all the more important as the 20th anniversary of the handover approaches this summer. Xi Jinping is expected to make his first visit to the region as Chinese president to mark it: another potential flashpoint.

Beijing’s grip is continuing to tighten and the outlook for activists is, on any rational reading, grim. But Wong sees that as an admission of defeat before the struggle has even begun. “Don’t be afraid or scared for the future of Hong Kong,” he insists. “My starting point was founding Scholarism: at that moment, I couldn’t expect 100,000 people in the streets. I couldn’t imagine the umbrella movement when it began. I couldn’t imagine Demosisto. It’s always about turning things that are impossible into the possible. The enjoyable moment is creating the miracle.”
 
Why we fight for Hong Kong’s freedoms

june 29

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ngs-feedoms/?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.81fdcd6e192e

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Martin Lee has worked for five decades as a barrister and advocate for Hong Kong and was founding chairman of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong.‎ Joshua Wong is the secretary general and co-founder of Demosisto, a political party in Hong Kong.

Xi Jinping is making his first visit to Hong Kong as president of China, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1997 handover from Britain to China. The central government will insist on fireworks, but the world should know the darkening threats to freedom, the rule of law and free markets in Hong Kong.‎

We are two Hong Kong democracy advocates separated by six decades in age — one of us is 79, the other 20 — united in our conviction that democracy is essential to save Hong Kong’s way of life. We also believe that a democratic future for the territory is in China’s own national interest.

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The basis for the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty and people was established by the 1984 Joint Declaration, an international treaty registered at the United Nations. In that treaty, Hong Kong people were promised “one country, two systems,” with “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy.” Our rights, freedoms, rule of law and way of life were supposed to continue for at least 50 years.

A central promise was that we Hong Kong people would in 10 years’ time progress toward elections based on universal suffrage. This arrangement protected free political speech in the city and kept alive hopes for genuine democracy that we were also denied under British rule.

Twenty years later, we are still waiting for the “two systems” to be implemented through genuine universal suffrage, without which we can never be masters of our own house.

The past several years have delivered an acceleration of worrying encroachments, including Beijing’s extrajudicial abductions of five publishers and a businessman from Hong Kong, threats to journalists and media freedom, the removal of elected legislators, a surge in arrests of student activists, and attacks on our independent judiciary. Our clean markets are increasingly tainted by crony corruption from China, and our government is effectively controlled by Beijing’s apparatchiks from the Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong.

The challenges we face were exemplified by the 2014 Umbrella Movement demonstrations, when tens of thousands took to the streets to demand greater democracy — a demand that remains unmet. Our fellow citizens often ask us, “Haven’t you failed?”

To be sure, our long fight hasn’t achieved our stated goals. But looking back at the 20 years since the 1997 handover, there are many reasons for optimism about the future, alongside the need for action to protect basic human rights.

Hong Kong journalists, lawyers, students, religious leaders, teachers, business executives and other citizens have resisted every encroachment by Beijing. We have fought to preserve our core values, including the rule of law, transparency, a free flow of information and free markets — the values that have long been a beacon for China and beyond.

Hong Kong has faced many crises. In the 1980s, our resilient citizens weathered the announcement that Hong Kong would be handed over to China. We mourned Tiananmen Square’s dashing of aspirations for democracy in 1989, and we raced against time to build and entrench Hong Kong’s own political institutions despite opposition from the British and now the Chinese.

For our young people, this long road to democracy in order to preserve the rights we were promised is a reminder that freedom is not free. It takes vigilance and persistence, a battle that sometimes extends across generations.

These young people understand very well what makes Hong Kong special and different from mainland China. They have a life ahead of them based on “two systems.” They don’t want to live in a Hong Kong that becomes ever more like China’s system of cronyism and corruption. They value academic freedom, press freedom and the ability to protest, speak, use social media and write freely.

This young generation has now seen 20 years of the older generation trying and failing to get Beijing to honor its promise of “two systems.” They have more reason than their parents and grandparents not to trust Beijing’s promises. They understand that the assurances of the Basic Law, our mini-constitution, have been broken. They don’t trust the present and won’t wait another 20 years.

Let us be clear: Hong Kong people are not challenging Beijing. We are merely insisting that China uphold its pledge to let us freely choose our leaders by universal suffrage and exercise the “high degree of autonomy” we were promised by China.

Above all, China needs to make sure that Hong Kong’s “two systems” survive in order to give the younger generation an incentive to stay and build on our success. Taiwan also continues to watch to see if Beijing’s word can be trusted.

As Xi spends time in Hong Kong, we hope he personally reverses the dangerous course of the past two decades and affirm that our freedoms and way of life are good for China, too. If Xi wants Hong Kong people to celebrate 20 years of Chinese rule, this is the moment to finally make good on Beijing’s promise of democracy and free and fair elections. ‎He should begin by understanding and trusting Hong Kong — and especially our young people.

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They organized these protest every year on 1st July.
Come tomorrow, everything back to normal again.
They also organized protest every year on 4th June for Tiananmen, but this year it is dead, only a few people.
Someday they will grow up, hopefully.
 
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Look at those wasted youth from HK.
But not to worry, China has hundred and hundred of millions of young man that are not wasting and doing actual real work.
They are the one that would carry China into a bright future.
 
Ignore those dog and pony show.
This is the real one.
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Live: Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour lights up with largest and most expensive fireworks display in 20 years
Crowd of 300,000 expected to watch 23-minute extravaganza costing HK$12 million

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 01 July, 2017, 8:01pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 01 July, 2017, 8:01pm

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Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour is witnessing its largest and most expensive fireworks display since 1997 – when the former British colony was returned to Chinese sovereignty – to mark the 20th anniversary of this handover and the inauguration of the city’s fourth chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.

A total of 39,888 pyrotechnic shells from five barges will light up the sky during the 23-minute extravaganza, costing HK$12 million (US$1.5 million).

The highlight of the show is the “super fireworks wall” at 1,250 metres long and 300 metres tall that can be seen from both sides of the harbour.

A crowd of 300,000 is expected, regardless of the less than ideal weather. The Hong Kong Observatory issued a thunderstorm warning at 7.20pm.

The fireworks display has already sparked controversy over the decision to use of simplified Chinese characters for the words “China” at the beginning of the show, rather than traditional characters used in Hong Kong.

The Million Production and Promotion Company, which oversees part of the display arrangements, cited technical reasons to opt for the simplified character of the word “guo”, and pointed out the same character had been used for the 15th anniversary in 2012.

Nelson Liao Chi-kwan, a 63-year-old retiree, and his wife and granddaughter had lunch and dinner at a cafe in Wan Chai’s Great Eagle Centre.

“We are very early, but this way, we will be able to sit and watch the fireworks tonight. I want my granddaughter to witness this momentous occasion and remember it when she grows up. I don’t have strong feelings about all the politics, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime event for everyone.”

Seline Chan Mei-chiu, 25, a graduate student at the University of Hong Kong, has been sitting at the Wan Chai Ferry Pier since 12.30pm.

“My friends and I want to see the fireworks not just stand in a sweaty pool of bodies and see smoke. You see, there are already hundreds of people around me, if I had come any later I’d have to stand for the show.”


Live: Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour lights up with largest and most expensive fireworks display in 20 years | South China Morning Post

Video is in the link.
Congrat to HK for 20th anniversary of returning to the motherland!! :yahoo::yahoo:
 
It looks like all the students are on the roads, remember these students are the future of the country.
Youngsters remains to be hot blooded always. These very youngsters are the ones who breaks all traffic rules and drive recklessly. Once they grow up and can think for themselves what is right and wrong, they themselves will whack their own heads.
 
I'm kind of surprise that how few people are participating in 7/1 protest like other protests in the last few years, I believe that the Umbrella revolution has really woken many people up to realize the true intention behind the scene.
True story. My friend who work in HK was offered money to protest. He told me was like a 8 hour shift. If you worked night shift they pay more. That's why you see so many protesters taking selfies , sleeping and watching movies on their phone.
 
Annual July 1 pro-democracy march in Hong Kong draws lowest turnout since 2003: police
Force’s estimate of 14,500 participants at most is lowest since organiser took over event in 2003

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 01 July, 2017, 3:21pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 01 July, 2017, 8:31pm

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Organisers said 60,000 had taken part, but police estimated only 14,500 attended at the event’s peak. It was the lowest police estimate since the Civil Human Rights Front began organising the march in 2003.

Front convenor Au Nok-hin conceded that the turnout this year had been “lower that what we announced in the past few years”.

“But I appreciate those who took to the streets today as protesters nowadays are facing more risks than before, “ he said, adding that rain had affected turnout.

Au described the freedom of assembly in Hong Kong as being under threat, pointing to the detention of a dozen pro-democracy activists for staging a rally during the just-concluded three-day visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Bad weather was partly to blame for turnout not hitting the 100,000 predicted by organisers, who had to abort a planned public rally outside government headquarters at Tamar Park, the end of the route.

Rain-soaked marchers dispersed quickly after arriving, swamping the concourse of Admiralty MTR station. The last of the protesters reached Tamar at 7.10pm.

The 3km march started at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay.

Participants set off shortly after 3pm, two hours after Xi concluded his three-day visit to the city.


Con't -> Annual July 1 pro-democracy march in Hong Kong draws lowest turnout since 2003: police | South China Morning Post
 
ROFLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

amount of people who are actually fighting for democracy here in Hong Kong = 5%
the rest you see are bored people who decided to chime in, I know this because i was born and raised here.
nothing exciting ever happens here, it's a boring dull life here and when protests took off, the entire Hong Kong people joined just to feel refreshed as it was new and exciting for most of us, many of the people living here don't care about democracy, the only thing that matters to them is that they have a job and a home, especially a home and Hong Kongers are Han Chinese themselves so your entire argument is invalid.

Today was July 1st, No one was going crazy, Fireworks were spectacular in fact they are by far the most expensive fireworks Hong Kong has ever done.
Democracy doesn't always work, Communism is working so it will stay, Let's look at nepal, who dropped monarchy and decided to take Democracy all of a sudden, they don't look too good.
Communism took China to new heights, it's the reason why they're a powerful country today and don't bend over in front of the europeans or the nearby japanese anymore.
They're called the big brother because communism succeeded in China.
 
Britain is looking away as China tramples on the freedom of Hong Kong – and my father
Angela Gui

I am too young to remember the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 and its promise for the new world I would live in. But I have lived to see that promise trampled.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed to pave the way for the handover, was supposed to protect the people of Hong Kong from Chinese interference in their society and markets until 2047. Yet as the handover’s 20th anniversary approaches, China muscles in where it promised to tread lightly while Britain avoids eye contact.

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Gui Minhai: the strange disappearance of a publisher who riled China's elite
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As Xi Jinping has consolidated his grip on Chinese politics since he took office in 2013, Beijing has increasingly ignored the principle of “one country, two systems” on which the handover was based and actively eroded the freedoms this was supposed to guarantee.

In October 2015, my father Gui Minhai and his four colleagues were targeted and abducted by the agents of the Chinese Communist party for their work as booksellers and publishers. My father – a Swedish citizen – was taken while on holiday in Thailand, in the same place we’d spent Christmas together the year before. He was last seen getting into a car with a Mandarin-speaking man who had waited for him outside his holiday apartment. Next, his friend and colleague Lee Bo was abducted from the Hong Kong warehouse of Causeway Bay Books, which they ran together. Lee Bo is legally British and, like any Hong Konger, his freedom of expression should have been protected by the terms of 1997.

Their only “crime” had been to publish and sell books that were critical of the central Chinese government. So paranoid is Beijing about its public image, that it chooses to carry out cross-border kidnappings over some books. Causeway Bay Books specialised in publications that were banned on the mainland but legal in Hong Kong. The store’s manager, Lam Wing-kee, who was taken when travelling to Shenzhen, has described Causeway Bay Books “a symbol of resistance”. In spite of Hong Kong’s legal freedoms of speech and of the press the store is now closed because all its people have been abducted or bullied away. Other Hong Kong booksellers are picking “politically sensitive” titles off their shelves in the fear that they may be next; the next brief headline, the next gap in a family like my own.

I continue to live with my father’s absence – his image, messages from his friends, the cause he has become. Turning 53 this year, he spent a second birthday in a Chinese prison. Soon he will have spent two years in detention without access to a lawyer, Swedish consular officials, or regular contact with his family.


24:19
Chalk Girl: the protester at the heart of Hong Kong’s democracy movement
My father’s case is only one of many that illustrate the death of the rule of law in Hong Kong. Earlier this year, Canadian businessman Xiao Jianhua – who had connections to the Chinese political elite – disappeared from a Hong Kong hotel and later resurfaced on the mainland. In last year’s legislative council elections, six candidates were barred from running because of their political stance. The two pro-independence candidates who did end up getting elected were prevented from taking office. If “intolerable political stance” is now a valid excuse for barring LegCo candidates, then it won’t be long before the entire Hong Kong government is reduced to a miniature version of China’s.

The Joint Declaration was meant to guarantee that no Hong Kong resident would have to fear a “midnight knock on the door”. The reality at present is that what happened to my father can happen to any Hong Kong resident the mainland authorities wish to silence or bring before their own system of “justice”. Twenty-one years ago, John Major pledged that Britain would continue to defend the freedoms granted to Hong Kong by the Joint Declaration against its autocratic neighbour. Today, instead of holding China to its agreement, Britain glances down at its shoes and mumbles about the importance of trade. It is as if the British government wants to forget all about the promise it made to the people of Hong Kong. But China’s crackdown on dissent has made it difficult for Hong Kongers to forget.

Theresa May often emphasises the importance of British values in her speeches. But Britain’s limpness over Hong Kong seems to demonstrate only how easily these values are compromised away. I worry about the global implications of China being allowed to just walk away from such an important treaty. And I worry that in the years to come, we will have many more Lee Bos and Gui Minhais, kidnapped and detained because their work facilitated free speech. Hong Kong’s last governor, Lord Patten, has repeatedly argued that human rights issues can be pushed without bad effects on trade. Germany, for example, has shown that this is entirely possible, with Angela Merkel often publicly criticising China’s human rights record. With a potentially hard Brexit around the bend, a much reduced Britain will need a world governed by the rule of law. How the government handles its responsibilities to Hong Kong will be decisive in shaping the international character of the country that a stand-alone Britain will become. I for one hope it will be a country that honours its commitments and that stands up to defend human rights.

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