The police fan the flames of protest far more than they quell it

It apparently requires six police officers to deal with

one minor lawbreaker in Hong Kong these days

Police convoy (including one water cannon truck!) parked

on the road near Victoria Park earlier this week

I went for a walk earlier this evening that was distinguished by it being the first time I had been out in Hong Kong for weeks and not caught sight of a single police officer or vehicle along the way.  Maybe they're resting ahead of tomorrow, the one year anniversary of the day when the local constabulary's shocking over-reactions to an anti-extradition bill protest taking place at Admiralty got me wondering if it was the end of Hong Kong as we knew it.  In any case, the fact that I found the streets being bereft of cops remarkable points to how much Hong Kong has changed over the past year.  

Two related things that are very different from the previous norm is that the police are more likely to move around in motorized vehicles these days than on foot, and that it no longer is the case that you'd see a police officer walking around on his or her own (a la the lovelorn cop protagonists found in Chungking Express).  Instead, the minimum number of uniformed officers one is likely to see at any one time these days is three -- with six and eight even now being a common number for regular patrols or to do such as deal with a motorist who parked her car on a section of road with a double yellow line!  

Still uncommon but sadly no longer unheard of is to catch sight of one of the Hong Kong police's three riot control water cannon trucks on one of Hong Kong's main shopping streets -- or even close by to one's neighborhood.  And increasingly, it really can feel like the streets are crawling with far more police than one feels comfortable catching sight of -- even if one actually hasn't done anything illegal or otherwise wrong.  

Talk about overkill: on the way to buy a book and then meet with a friend two evenings ago, I passed by, and near, over thirty police vehicles (including one of those water cannon trucks and an armored truck that looks like it should be restricted to war zones) and hordes of riot police.  At the bookstore, I told the staffer what the scene was like outside.  Rather than be shocked or scared, we ended up concluding that "It seems they are so afraid of us" and actually had a little laugh about it -- not the kind of reaction I'm sure the authorities would want or expect!

As it so happens, all that police presence failed to stop a bunch of those who wanted to protest that evening from doing so.  And yes, there were more arrests and pepper balls fired -- for sad but true, this has now become par for the course these days along with the police pepper spraying journalists -- but I really don't think that the police are going to put out the fire in the bellies and hearts of Hong Kong pro-democracy protestors.  (Indeed, to judge from the events of last year and also September 28th, 2014, their attempts to suppress only end up majorly fanning the flames!)

More than incidentally, the book I bought this past Tuesday was Kong Tsung-gan's Liberate Hong Kong: Stories from the Freedom Struggle.  I've already finished reading it and would highly recommend it along with two other books about the protests that now have been going on for more than a year now: Antony Dapiran's City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong; and After Shock: Essays from Hong Kong, the latter of which is edited by Holmes Chan and features writing by a number of young local journalists (including Rachel Cheung, Sum Lok-kei and Jessie Pang) who I have come to respect and admire over the course of this past year. 

Still wanting to hold the Communist Chinese regime at arm's length more than one year on

 

 Among a 1 million strong crowd on June 9th, 2019

View of the same massive protest crowd later 

that same the day (Photo credit: Sam Tsang)

"One year ago, on June 9, over 1 million Hong Kong people marched against a government attempt to legalize extradition from Hong Kong to mainland China. Three days later, 100,000 surrounded government headquarters, preventing the Legislative Council from meeting to pass the legislation. On June 16, 2 million marched, the largest protest in Hong Kong history." So began a piece written by Kong Tsung-gan up on the Nikkei Asian Review website today.
 
Before then, 12,000 Hong Kongers had taken part in the first protest march against the planned China extradition law on March 31st and even more people -- I've seen estimates over over 120,000 -- answered the call to protest this dangerous piece of planned legislation on April 28th. (That many observers deem the anti-extradition bill protests to only have begun on June 9th (cf Verna Yu's otherwise excellent piece in The Guardian) -- makes it seem that at least 1 million people need to go out protesting in Hong Kong (population: 7.4 million) before people will take note!) 

Kong Tsung-gan went on to detail in his article that: "In September 2019, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced the withdrawal of the extradition bill. That was a major protest victory. But protesters have four other demands: an independent commission of inquiry to investigate rights abuses; an end to the prosecution of protesters; an end to the false labeling of the protests as "riots"; and genuine universal suffrage in the elections of the chief executive and Legislative Council of the Hong Kong." 

As the article also notes: "None of those four reasonable and moderate demands -- all of which have the support of the majority of Hong Kong people, as repeatedly shown in opinion polls and November's landslide pro-democracy victory in District Council elections -- has been met."  And if that's not bad enough, Hong Kongers now also have to contend with the "national security" law that the Chinese Communist regime is imposing from afar and above. 

There's an old Chinese saying, dating back to imperial times, about the emperor being far away which has been taking to mean that the central authorities have little influence over local affairs.  Unfortunately, it is not proving to be the case with regards to the current Chinese regime and Hong Kong.

One more quote here from Kong Tsung-gan: "That it resorts to enforcing loyalty is an indictment of its 23 years of rule in the territory. Hong Kong slipped out of its grasp long ago; the [Chinese Communist Party] can no longer regain it using consensual means. A whole generation of young people rejects the CCP imposing itself on Hong Kong; that is resistance the regime must contend with for years to come."

As Verna Yu quoted a Hong Konger -- Mainland Chinese-born but a Hong Konger all the same -- stating: "We weren’t fighting for much, we just wanted Hong Kong to remain Hong Kong and not turn into just any Chinese city... We want to have dignity and basic rights. As the Chinese [and Hong Kong's] national anthem says, not to become slaves." 

As another Mainland China-born Hong Konger interviewed by Yu shared, "“We know we can’t fight against China but now we have forced China to show its true face to the world."  So, one year on, did the Hong Kong protests achieve anything?  (The title of Kong Tsung-gan's piece in the Asian Nikkei Review.)

His take on this shows that going up against the Chinese Communist regime may not be as fruitless and doomed to fail as too many people are wont to believe:

The Hong Kong people have repeatedly stood up to the [Chinese Communist Party] and won. In 2003, we beat back its first attempt to impose a national security law. In 2012, we defeated the introduction of a "national education" subject in schools, which the CCP said was intended to inculcate "patriotism" in schoolchildren but which many regarded as Communist brainwashing.

In 2014 and 2015, we blocked the fake universal suffrage from being foisted upon the city. And, of course, in 2019, we stopped the extradition bill. All of these victories were achieved primarily through protests.

No one expects that we can prevent the CCP from simply inserting whatever legislation it wants into the Basic Law, as it is about to do, but based on our track record, don't count us out too soon.

We Have Boots, updated and with added heft in 2020 (film review)

Hong Kong, 2014

Hong Kong, 2019

We Have Boots (updated and extended version) (Hong Kong-USA, 2020)

- Evans Chan, director and editor

The first time I saw Evans Chan's We Have Boots, it was back in November 2018 and that which was billed as the sequel to his Raise the Umbrellas felt very much like an addendum to his 2016 work. The next time I viewed the film, in April 2019, it had been added to, and bulked up from, its original 70 minute length but still felt like a companion piece for that which I still consider to be the best Umbrella Movement documentary I've seen.        

Recently, I had the privilege of additionally viewing the version of this documentary offering that had screened at Rotterdam in February, and also the fourth -- and, Evans Chan says, final -- version prepared for, among other things, the 2020 editon of Filmfest DC and the Sheffield Doc Fest.  Now with a 130 minute running time and featuring footage from the anti-extradition bill protests (which some have dubbed the "Be Water" protests/movement/revolution) along with updated information (all the way to the Communist Chinese regime's shock announcement a couple of weeks ago that it would impose national security legislation for Hong Kong), We Have Boots has become a substantial offering that can very much stand on its own.  

Undoubtedly because I've witnessed and experienced Hong Kong being in turmoil and up in arms for a year now, I am inclined to look at We Have Boots in a different way from previously.  Among other things, the "Occupy" phase of the Umbrella Movement seems like it took place so very long ago now -- in a time when the firing of fewer than 100 cannisters of tear gas was capable of shocking the city and before the occurence of so much else, including the 2016 Fishball Revolution and 2017 death of Liu Xiaobo.  As such, the sections of the film that focused on it and the figures people associate most with the 2014 protests (such as Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and Alex Chow) are helpful this time around as reminders of what was as well as setting the scene, intellectually as well as psychologically.

Something else that seems more noticeable upon further viewing is how different many of the personalities featured in We Have Boots are from one another.  As an example, you have Chan Kin-man talking about how he is a "world citizen" but you also have famously "localist" representatives like Hong Kong Indigeneous party founder Ray Wong, and Edward Leung.  There also is quite the generational difference between the likes of the septuagenarian Reverend Chu Yiu-ming and 23-year-old Agnes Chow (who, interestingly, is the most prominently featured female in this documentary; one thing about the film I would have liked to have been different), and it shows in their political outlooks.  

In addition, I very much appreciate the particular contributions of artist-activist Kacey Wong and social worker turned lawmaker Shiu Ka-chun to the picture; with the former giving an irreverent spin to things that's inspirational as well as often humorous, and the latter providing especial emotional engagement and grounding with the discussion of how his political sacrifices affect his aged -- and obviously beloved -- mother, not just himself.   

   

This time around too, certain quotes and comments from the individuals featured in the film (which does contain a good amount of interview segments along with protest footage) stand out for me more than before.  Some of them can smack of bravado (especially in retrospect) -- such as the invocation of an old Chinese proverb by one interviewee that he would rather be a broken jade than a whole tile or that of another who stated that the authorities can't arrest everyone, so they bid to terrorize everyone but "When we have no fear, authoritarianism withers".  Other assertions come across as more prescient and still relevant though, including the suggestions that we are now living in an "era of democratic regression" and Hong Kongers need to "fight pragmatically for the impossible".

Despite having been dealt several body blows of late, Hong Kongers remain defiant.  And while Evans Chan may have declared that his work on We Have Boots is done, I am trusting that he will keep playing his part in documenting and telling the complex as well as long-running story of his home territory's ongoing fight for freedom and self-determination (and, frankly, respect from the authorities) for some time to come. 

My rating for this (revised) film: 7.5

Lighting candles for Tiananmen and also Hong Kong on a dark June day

Lighting candles to remember the Tiananmen Square massacre

and also for Hong Kong this June 4th

"The truth will set you free" -- we hope; "Being born in uncertain 

times carries certain responsibilities" -- it sure does seem so :S

 

Thousands of Hong Kongers defied the police ban on the vigil to mark the Communist Chinese regime's massacre of Chinese students and other civilians on June 4th, 1989, and headed over to Victoria Park this evening.  Pushing down metal barriers erected on the edges of the football pitches where the vigil took place every year for 30 years previously, they went and temporarily occupied spaces within.  

Some people also went to Victoria Park to individually mourn earlier in the day.  And still others opted to stay in their neighborhoods or even within their homes -- but lit candles to remember this dark day anyway.

Making the day feel darker for Hong Kongers this year: the national anthem bill was indeed passed into law today. Consequently, as of this day in Hong Kong, disrespecting or misusing the March of the Volunteers consitutes a a criminal offence, with offenders liable to fines of up to HK$50,000 or three years in prison.

My question now is: what constitutes disrespectful?  Take, as an example, the following commentary and critique of (the English translation of) its lyrics:-

Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!

-- Actually, I'm down with that!

With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall!

-- Hold on a minute.  For one thing, what if I don't want to build a new Great Wall?  For another, what if I don't wish to volunteer my flesh and blood to do so?  (Incidentally, the linkage of the flesh and blood to the Great Wall makes me recall the grisly story of the bodies of many of the 400,000 people who died while building it being encased in the wall!)

As China faces its greatest peril 

-- Is it facing its greatest peril now?  Really?

From each one the urgent call to action comes forth.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
Millions of but one heart

-- Okay, I get here that you are asking Chinese people to go to the country's rescue... since it supposedly is imperiled.

Braving the enemies' fire! March on!
Braving the enemies' fire! March on!
-- Sorry but when I read about the enemies' fire on June 4th, what comes to mind is the People Liberation Army firing on and otherwise attacking people in Beijing in the summer of 1989!

March on! March, march on! 

-- You know, Hong Kongers do want to march on.  Now if only the authorities would not object to letting us do so.  After all, back on June 16th last year, some 2 million of us showed that we can do so peacefully!

Visiting the June 4th Museum and thinking about solidarity with other protestors on the eve of June 4th

(All) For Freedom, back in 1989

Giant animal masks worn by Hong Kong protestors 

at pro-democracy protests in 2019

 

A pin I'll be wearing tomorrow

 

I'm not sure why it took me so long to do so but I finally visited the world's only June 4th Museum, located in Mongkok, Hong Kong, yesterday afternoon.  Its space is on the small side; made more crowded by there being a number of journalists there to interview activist Lee Cheuk-yan (who is on the governing committee of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the organizer of the June 4th vigils in Hong Kong and operator of the museum) as well as people like me who were motivated to visit ahead of the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.  But those who make the effort to visit will, I feel, consider it worth doing so.

 

Ahead of this June 4th, the museum has set up a special exhibition explicitly connecting the pro-democracy protests in (Mainland) China back in 1989 to the still on-going pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong sparked by Carrie Lam seeking to pass an extradition bill that would allow people in Hong Kong to be extradited to Mainland China. At the Forefront of Anti-Totalitarianism: From June 4, 1989 to the Anti-Extradition Movement features display panels and physical items from 1989 and also 2019-2020 that inform as well as are evocative. 

 

With regards to the 1989 section: I found that which told the tales of particiular individuals involved in the protests heart-breaking in terms of how their bid to stand up for their compatriots as well as improve their country ended up in tragedy and death.  And it felt extremely ironic to learn who were involved in the Concert for Democracy in China staged in Hong Kong in support of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protestors -- since the likes of Jackie Chan, Alan Tam and Eric Tsang have come out against pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong in recent months and years, and even have been filmed happily carousing with the current head of the brutish Hong Kong police force and even an officially disgraced ex-police officer.  

I think I would have come out from a visit to this museum in tears if its exhibits had focused entirely on the events of 1989.  But even while it of course has not been all sunshine and smiles this past year or so (with yet another injustice due to take place tomorrow with the expected passing into law of the national anthem bill which will make it illegal to boo or make fun of the risible March of the Volunteers with its lyrics enjoining (presumably) the Chinese Communist to "Take [Chinese people's] flesh, and build it to become a new Great Wall", among other things), at least Hong Kongers are still resisting -- at times with an unexpectedly large amount of humor.  

While we're on the subject of protests: it is all but impossible to ignore the protests that have broken out in various parts of the US in the wake of George Floyd being killed while in police custody.  But while protests in solidarity with the US's Black Lives Matter movement have also broken out in other parts of the world, none have taken place that I know of in Hong Kong.  Still, as more than one Hong Konger has taken pains to point out, it's not that we don't care and stand in solidarity.  Rather, many of us are running on fumes right now after so much protesting on the ground here in Hong Kong for more than a year now and consequently are restricting our expressions of solidarity to cyberspace for now.       

And while we're on the subject of expressing solidarity: I know it's a big ask but just as every June 4th, Hong Kong has remembered the Tiananmen Square massacre and stand in solidarity with the Tiananmen Mothers and others still bidding for justice to be served in Mainland China for the past 30 years, this year, we would like to ask people in the rest of the world to stand with Hong Kong in general as well as those determined to honor those who rallied for democracy for China in 1989 by lighting a candle at 8pm your time and uploading the photo or writings or songs to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #6431truth. 

Remember and demand accountability for the Tiananmen Square Massacre!  Stand with Hong Kong!  Black Lives Matter! 

Flimsy public health threat excuses and real tears that give the bluff away

No games -- or candlelight vigils -- on Victoria Park's

football pitches after June 4th (and maybe beyond?)

 

A familiar scene from previous years that 

won't be seen on June 4th this year :(

 

It's official: the annual candlelight vigil to remember the Tiananmen Square massacre will not be allowed to take place this year.  The Hong Kong police (who are given the authority to issue "letters of no objection" or ban planned public gatherings in Hong Kong) say that they are not allowing a crowd to assemble at Victoria Park this Thursday for health reasons.   

 

To be sure, Hong Kong still has not completely eradicated the Wuhan coronavirus within the territory; with yesterday and today seeing not only new cases but local transmissions at that.  But, to put things into context, we're talking there having been one and three new cases respectively on Sunday and this Monday -- and for more than two weeks before that, there were zero local transmissions among the new daily cases reported.  

 

Also, as the Israelis showed back on April 20th, it is entirely possible to socially distance while protesting -- and this particularly for something like Hong Kong's June 4th vigil, where the vast majority of attendees remain in just one spot for pretty much the duration of the event.  So, truly, there should be no question that the decision to ban this particular memorial vigil which, to date, has taken place every year since 1989 is a political one on the part of the authorities; and this even more so when the eternally unpopular 689 stated two Sundays ago that the June 4th vigil could be permanently banned in future after China's national security law for Hong Kong is passed.

 

Rather than gnash and wail about this anticipated decision, the vigil organizers have already got and publicized a plan B for this year -- and invited the world to take part, not just Hong Kongers.  I hope people will do so as this year, particularly, since this June 4th commemoration will be as much about Hong Kong as the Tiananmen Square Massacre; so they'll be signalling their willingness to Stand with Hong Kong as well as Never Forget 6.4.  

 

Returning to the issue of the national security legislation: various organizations and individuals are still coming out (post coercion?) to give their public support to its passing.  But there's little doubt in my mind that the vast majority of Hong Kongers oppose and even fear its passing; with this particular piece of Communist Chinese regime legislation provoking the worst anxiety since the handover in many people.  

 

And if that's not enough, Hong Kongers also have the US sanctions to worry about in the wake of the American government officially recognizing that Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from China.  As proof: just look at how world stocks, especially those listed on Hong Kong's stock exchange, took a hit last Friday and how there's been a rush by people to change their Hong Kong dollars to US dollars, with the demand being so overwhelmingly high that money changers ran out of the American currency.  

Hong Kong financial secretary Paul Chan has tried to put on a brave face in recent days, stating today that there are no plans for Hong Kong to remove the Hong Kong dollar's peg to the US dollar and suggesting yesterday that the United States of America has more to lose from revoking Hong Kong's special trade status than Hong Kong.  But it says so much that he suddenly started weeping when asked to further comment today on these threatened actions.   

More than one person has interpreted these tears to have come from self-pity; seeing as Chan is included in the Gang of 30 to be sanctioned in a report compiled by an overseas team with regards to the USA's Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 (HKHRDA).  However Cambridge University history professor Jeppe Mulich has a more generous take on the matter, tweeting that: "Here's the thing about people like Paul Chan, Matthew Cheung, and the five university presidents. They know what the [National People's Congress's security legislation] decision means for Hong Kong's future. With the exception of diehards like C.Y. Leung, nobody at the top wants this. They just don't think they have a choice."  

 

A reminder: Hong Kong currently is one of the world's major financial centers; with only New York and London being rated more highly than it.  And for all the talk of its GDP being dwarfed by Mainland China's, it still has an outsize importance to China.  There's a detailed Twitter thread by geo-political analyst Navroop Singh on this.  Alternatively for those who want it put more succinctly, a recent Wall Street Journal article declared that Hong Kong bankrolls Mainland China!

Visual reminders of Hong Kong's existing beauty and allure (Photo-essay)

Compared to the previous few days, yesterday and today have been on the quiet side in Hong Kong as far as political manouverings and protests go.  Ditto when compared with what's been happening over on the other side of the world in Minnesota and elsewhere in the USA.  (My solidarity, more than by the way, with the protestors against police brutality over there.)

Of course, this is not to say that everything's peachy keen here by any means.  And even on the Wuhan coronavirus front, anxiety levels have been raised by there having been a total of 16 new cases over the past two days (all of which were imported and actually involved returnees who had flown back on the same plane from Pakistan).

Still, I think this is a good time to serve up some reminders of Hong Kong's physical beauty -- as seen not on hikes (which I've not been on for a few weeks now because the weather's been on the rainy and gloomy side recently) but on urban walks.  For here's the thing: I know that Hong Kong is its people but it also is a particular place that really has its own unique allure that I hope the Communist Chinese regime and its quislings won't be able to completely destroy, however hard they try...

It pays to look up from time to time when walking around in Taikoo Shing :)

 

View across Victoria Harbour from Quarry Bay Park

 

How idyllic it can all seem, given favorable circumstances

 

Buildings, mountain, people, sea (or, okay, harbour!) and sky

View across Victoria Harbour from Kowloonside,

specifically the Hung Hom waterfront promenade

 

Yes, fishing boats still can be sighted in Victoria Harbour!

 

Yes, I think there's beauty to be found in a concrete jungle

(as well as in the more natural parts of Hong Kong!)

 

And, actually, it's not that hard to catch glimpses of the greener side 

of the Big Lychee even when you're right in the concrete jungle... :)