Literally including them all in the Chinese judicial system overnight would have most sane people on the streets. Hong Kong is a hub because of its independent laws they are a fundametal basis for that function.
Politics Chaotic scenes as HK protests turns violent
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Police and demonstrators clash during a protest in Hong Kong, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
Riot police move small fires during a protest in Hong Kong, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A police officer fires pepper balls during a demonstration in Hong Kong, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
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There are peaceful protest in Hong Kong..How much influence does the CCP have on the peaceful protest?;
Taxis hanging Chinese national flags run through Tsim Sha Tsui during a peace rally in Hong Kong, south China, Aug. 23, 2019. Nearly 600 taxis on Friday participated here in a peace rally against violence and showed Hong Kong residents' love for their home and the motherland.
The rally, organized by civil group Safeguard Hong Kong and Hong Kong Taxi Drivers and Operators Association, was aimed at urging the Hong Kong community to jointly oppose violence and restore social order as soon as possible, said the organizers. (Xinhua/Mao Siqian)
Taxis hanging Chinese national flags run through Tsim Sha Tsui during a peace rally in Hong Kong, south China, Aug. 23, 2019. Nearly 600 taxis on Friday participated here in a peace rally against violence and showed Hong Kong residents' love for their home and the motherland.
The rally, organized by civil group Safeguard Hong Kong and Hong Kong Taxi Drivers and Operators Association, was aimed at urging the Hong Kong community to jointly oppose violence and restore social order as soon as possible, said the organizers. (Xinhua/Mao Siqian)
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Beijing is manufacturing the circumstances to justify brutal intervention in Hong Kong
Scenes of protesters with sticks chasing police through Hong Kong streets and police officers pulling out their guns and pointing them at protesters show that the Hong Kong authorities are losing control of the city. And that’s probably just what leaders in China want the world to see at this point.
Beijing manages internal dissent ruthlessly and adeptly. Step one is to identify and isolate critical voices and individuals before they have a chance to gather support or join together. That’s where the massive internal security apparatus of the Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of State Security, enabled by high-tech surveillance systems fed by government and corporate data, come in.
Step two is to clamp down rapidly and violently on protesters who have managed to organise despite state surveillance and arbitrary arrest. Such protests routinely arise over corrupt deals between provincial government official and land developers that displace local residents from their properties, although labour unrest because of dangerous or simply oppressive working practices in Chinese enterprises is also a cause. That’s where the standing police force and the heavily armed paramilitary of the People’s Armed Police come in, along with operatives of Chinese security agencies.
Step three is done simultaneously with the other manoeuvres—and it’s about ruthlessly suppressing reporting of protests and of the underlying grievances that are causing them. The Chinese Communist Party’s control of information allows this to be quite successful in mainland China, and also helps limit the news about protests that leaches into the outside world.
Step four, which is also done concurrently with the other measures, involves government officials threatening retaliation against individuals’ families if they persist in ‘making trouble’. People who are brave enough to risk their own safety are often not so willing to put their loved ones at risk, so this is an effective tactic. We’ve seen it used in Australia by Chinese government operatives threatening Uyghurs to not speak up if they don’t want family back in Xinjiang punished.
But the normal Beijing playbook for managing dissent has just not worked in Hong Kong, for four main reasons. First, the protest movement in Hong Kong is what Beijing truly fears—a mass movement whose scale is undeniable. And there’s no clear leadership group Beijing can arrest or intimidate to decapitate the protests, although the authorities have continued to arrest those they think might be important.
On top of this, the protesters have been incredibly innovative in shifting the nature, location and tactics of the protests, making containment impracticable. They’ve drawn on international sources of inspiration, as we saw with the kilometres-long ‘human chain’ on the weekend, which echoed the ‘Baltic Way’ protests in 1989 that helped topple Soviet rule in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
And lastly, the protests have been broadcast virally by multiple eyewitnesses through social media and have been covered extensively in the international media. Pretending they’re just by a small group of extremists or about low-level issues, which has worked in the curated information environment of mainland China, just hasn’t washed with international audiences and governments.
So, we’ve got to a point where the playbook needs to turn a page. As I see it, Chairman Xi Jinping and his politburo colleagues have three options. The best—and most unlikely—path for Beijing to take is to do what a representative government would: engage with the people of Hong Kong to listen to their views and act on them. That sounds incredibly naive and idealistic I know, but the option is open to Beijing. It would demonstrate a maturity that might shift the increasingly bleak assessments people across the world are making of China and maybe give Xi a chance to salvage some credibility for his offer to take his China Dream to the world.
It’s now well beyond the time when Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, could engage with the people of Hong Kong on some of the core grievances they’re expressing and have any hope of being listened to, so it’s up to Beijing. Xi could do this by being the adult in the room. He could politely disown Lam’s disastrous handling of the protests while also expressing concern about the protesters’ methods, then use that space to do some of what the protesters want, in a way he controls.
That would mean appointing a respected Hong Kong figure to hold a public inquiry into police violence during the protests, as well as inquiring into violence by protesters. Providing some kind of amnesty for individuals involved would be wiser than laying charges against officials and protesters. Xi could also unilaterally withdraw the extradition bill and commit to no further action on it under the ‘one country, two systems’ commitment. While he could be reassuring about keeping Hong Kong’s political and legal structures in place over coming years, the bottom line would remain the 2047 timeline for Hong Kong to assimilate into mainland China.
The second path open to Xi is to continue to give no ground to the people of Hong Kong on any of their grievances and to simply wait the protesters out. That option would require him to keep control of the security forces so that they don’t escalate further in violence even in the face of attacks by protesters. And it would require an assessment that the protests will lose momentum over time—which hasn’t happened to date. It might be attractive as an approach between now and the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October.
The most likely course from the politburo, though, is a simple, repressive and violent one. Hong Kong matters most to the old guard in Beijing as a symbol of control—theirs or the people’s. Sure, Beijing has tried the normal playbook to manage things, and it has failed. But the reason Xi hasn’t taken steps to de-escalate the confrontation between the Hong Kong people and the police through politics (listening and negotiating) is that doing so would cede a level of control from the party to the people, and send a message that this might be possible in other parts of China.
As we saw with references to ‘colour revolutions’ by senior party members in the past few weeks, their fear of a mass people’s movement that ousts the CCP is real. The Hong Kong protesters’ use of Eastern European precedents like the human chain stokes those fears.
So, what Xi and his party colleagues see as at stake in Hong Kong is their personal futures, along with the future of CCP rule in China itself. That is the logic that brought Deng Xiaoping to order the People’s Liberation Army to massacre its own people in the streets of the capital 30 years ago, when Eastern Europe was convulsed with its own people’s movements.
And it’s this same voice of self-preservation and continued control that is likely to be loudest within the CCP as the protests continue. Beijing is driving the course of events in Hong Kong to this conclusion by refusing to engage with the Hong Kong people’s grievances—and Xi surely knows that. This refusal is creating a more pressurised, intense and desperate environment between the protesters and the authorities, which is leading inexorably to a violent conclusion.
That may be just what Beijing wants. And the party leaders’ excuse would be that events on the ground got so chaotic that they were left with no option but a lethal intervention. They should be held to account for creating the environment in which such bloody logic can be paraded as a justification.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/b...s to justify brutal intervention in Hong Kong
Scenes of protesters with sticks chasing police through Hong Kong streets and police officers pulling out their guns and pointing them at protesters show that the Hong Kong authorities are losing control of the city. And that’s probably just what leaders in China want the world to see at this point.
Beijing manages internal dissent ruthlessly and adeptly. Step one is to identify and isolate critical voices and individuals before they have a chance to gather support or join together. That’s where the massive internal security apparatus of the Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of State Security, enabled by high-tech surveillance systems fed by government and corporate data, come in.
Step two is to clamp down rapidly and violently on protesters who have managed to organise despite state surveillance and arbitrary arrest. Such protests routinely arise over corrupt deals between provincial government official and land developers that displace local residents from their properties, although labour unrest because of dangerous or simply oppressive working practices in Chinese enterprises is also a cause. That’s where the standing police force and the heavily armed paramilitary of the People’s Armed Police come in, along with operatives of Chinese security agencies.
Step three is done simultaneously with the other manoeuvres—and it’s about ruthlessly suppressing reporting of protests and of the underlying grievances that are causing them. The Chinese Communist Party’s control of information allows this to be quite successful in mainland China, and also helps limit the news about protests that leaches into the outside world.
Step four, which is also done concurrently with the other measures, involves government officials threatening retaliation against individuals’ families if they persist in ‘making trouble’. People who are brave enough to risk their own safety are often not so willing to put their loved ones at risk, so this is an effective tactic. We’ve seen it used in Australia by Chinese government operatives threatening Uyghurs to not speak up if they don’t want family back in Xinjiang punished.
But the normal Beijing playbook for managing dissent has just not worked in Hong Kong, for four main reasons. First, the protest movement in Hong Kong is what Beijing truly fears—a mass movement whose scale is undeniable. And there’s no clear leadership group Beijing can arrest or intimidate to decapitate the protests, although the authorities have continued to arrest those they think might be important.
On top of this, the protesters have been incredibly innovative in shifting the nature, location and tactics of the protests, making containment impracticable. They’ve drawn on international sources of inspiration, as we saw with the kilometres-long ‘human chain’ on the weekend, which echoed the ‘Baltic Way’ protests in 1989 that helped topple Soviet rule in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
And lastly, the protests have been broadcast virally by multiple eyewitnesses through social media and have been covered extensively in the international media. Pretending they’re just by a small group of extremists or about low-level issues, which has worked in the curated information environment of mainland China, just hasn’t washed with international audiences and governments.
So, we’ve got to a point where the playbook needs to turn a page. As I see it, Chairman Xi Jinping and his politburo colleagues have three options. The best—and most unlikely—path for Beijing to take is to do what a representative government would: engage with the people of Hong Kong to listen to their views and act on them. That sounds incredibly naive and idealistic I know, but the option is open to Beijing. It would demonstrate a maturity that might shift the increasingly bleak assessments people across the world are making of China and maybe give Xi a chance to salvage some credibility for his offer to take his China Dream to the world.
It’s now well beyond the time when Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, could engage with the people of Hong Kong on some of the core grievances they’re expressing and have any hope of being listened to, so it’s up to Beijing. Xi could do this by being the adult in the room. He could politely disown Lam’s disastrous handling of the protests while also expressing concern about the protesters’ methods, then use that space to do some of what the protesters want, in a way he controls.
That would mean appointing a respected Hong Kong figure to hold a public inquiry into police violence during the protests, as well as inquiring into violence by protesters. Providing some kind of amnesty for individuals involved would be wiser than laying charges against officials and protesters. Xi could also unilaterally withdraw the extradition bill and commit to no further action on it under the ‘one country, two systems’ commitment. While he could be reassuring about keeping Hong Kong’s political and legal structures in place over coming years, the bottom line would remain the 2047 timeline for Hong Kong to assimilate into mainland China.
The second path open to Xi is to continue to give no ground to the people of Hong Kong on any of their grievances and to simply wait the protesters out. That option would require him to keep control of the security forces so that they don’t escalate further in violence even in the face of attacks by protesters. And it would require an assessment that the protests will lose momentum over time—which hasn’t happened to date. It might be attractive as an approach between now and the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October.
The most likely course from the politburo, though, is a simple, repressive and violent one. Hong Kong matters most to the old guard in Beijing as a symbol of control—theirs or the people’s. Sure, Beijing has tried the normal playbook to manage things, and it has failed. But the reason Xi hasn’t taken steps to de-escalate the confrontation between the Hong Kong people and the police through politics (listening and negotiating) is that doing so would cede a level of control from the party to the people, and send a message that this might be possible in other parts of China.
As we saw with references to ‘colour revolutions’ by senior party members in the past few weeks, their fear of a mass people’s movement that ousts the CCP is real. The Hong Kong protesters’ use of Eastern European precedents like the human chain stokes those fears.
So, what Xi and his party colleagues see as at stake in Hong Kong is their personal futures, along with the future of CCP rule in China itself. That is the logic that brought Deng Xiaoping to order the People’s Liberation Army to massacre its own people in the streets of the capital 30 years ago, when Eastern Europe was convulsed with its own people’s movements.
And it’s this same voice of self-preservation and continued control that is likely to be loudest within the CCP as the protests continue. Beijing is driving the course of events in Hong Kong to this conclusion by refusing to engage with the Hong Kong people’s grievances—and Xi surely knows that. This refusal is creating a more pressurised, intense and desperate environment between the protesters and the authorities, which is leading inexorably to a violent conclusion.
That may be just what Beijing wants. And the party leaders’ excuse would be that events on the ground got so chaotic that they were left with no option but a lethal intervention. They should be held to account for creating the environment in which such bloody logic can be paraded as a justification.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/b...s to justify brutal intervention in Hong Kong
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China rotates new batch of troops into Hong Kong
China’s military has rotated a new batch of troops into Hong Kong describing the move as routine, state media said on Thursday, as protests against Beijing continue to rock the Asian financial hub.
Asian and Western diplomats in Hong Kong watching the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) movements had been expecting a routine rotation about this time and will be looking closely for any sign of increased numbers or unusual activity.
“The Hong Kong Garrison of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army conducted the 22nd rotation of its members in the wee hours of Thursday since it began garrisoning Hong Kong in 1997,” the official Xinhua news agency said.
“Approved by the Central Military Commission, the move is normal routine annual rotation in line with the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Garrisoning the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which stipulates that ‘the Hong Kong Garrison shall practice a system of rotation of its members’”.
Xinhua showed pictures of armored personnel carriers and trucks carrying troops at the border, though it was unclear from the caption if they were passing into or out of Hong Kong.
It also showed a picture of a small naval vessel arriving in Hong Kong.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-batch-of-troops-into-hong-kong-idUSKCN1VJ02K
China’s military has rotated a new batch of troops into Hong Kong describing the move as routine, state media said on Thursday, as protests against Beijing continue to rock the Asian financial hub.
Asian and Western diplomats in Hong Kong watching the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) movements had been expecting a routine rotation about this time and will be looking closely for any sign of increased numbers or unusual activity.
“The Hong Kong Garrison of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army conducted the 22nd rotation of its members in the wee hours of Thursday since it began garrisoning Hong Kong in 1997,” the official Xinhua news agency said.
“Approved by the Central Military Commission, the move is normal routine annual rotation in line with the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Garrisoning the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which stipulates that ‘the Hong Kong Garrison shall practice a system of rotation of its members’”.
Xinhua showed pictures of armored personnel carriers and trucks carrying troops at the border, though it was unclear from the caption if they were passing into or out of Hong Kong.
It also showed a picture of a small naval vessel arriving in Hong Kong.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-batch-of-troops-into-hong-kong-idUSKCN1VJ02K
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For those who have not seen this video yet, I highly recommend to watch the whole video...this exiled chinese billionaire exposed what is really going on politically (CCP agenda) and economically (where the money goes) in china (and in hong kong)
1967 Hong Kong riots - Wikipedia
To try and put this in some sort of historical perspective it seems back in the day they rioted for Chinese rule over British , led by Ivan's favourites those pesky leftists . So they got their wish in 97 but now they don't want Chinese rule ? I do wonder just like the French is all this rioting malarkey is just some sort of national past time , a tradition to be upheld whoever is in charge .
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so they say..."you don't know what you've got till its gone"1967 Hong Kong riots - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
To try and put this in some sort of historical perspective it seems back in the day they rioted for Chinese rule over British , led by Ivan's favourites those pesky leftists . So they got their wish in 97 but now they don't want Chinese rule ? I do wonder just like the French is all this rioting malarkey is just some sort of national past time , a tradition to be upheld whoever is in charge .
- Joined
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1967 Hong Kong riots - Wikipedia
To try and put this in some sort of historical perspective it seems back in the day they rioted for Chinese rule over British , led by Ivan's favourites those pesky leftists . So they got their wish in 97 but now they don't want Chinese rule ? I do wonder just like the French is all this rioting malarkey is just some sort of national past time , a tradition to be upheld whoever is in charge .
Wait what?
What have I done? Who are my favorites?
Sorry pal , I was being sarcastic ?
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I have to state that after watching the Chinese military for 14 years this troop movement is a normal rotation of troops in Hong Kong.
On to something else...there is no excuse for the brutality shown in this video by the Hong Kong police attacking passengers on a subway. Now the passengers with the umbrellas are protestors but they appear to be peaceful....FF to 2:10...
It's almost as if the guy was allowed to film the event . You see someone late on in the clip with a big tv camera , the riot police don't even touch him . Bizzaire video .
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It’s a pretty interesting situation in Hong Kong.
I’m reminded of the Polish Solidarity Movement as well as the Baltic Way/Singing Revolution(30th Anniversary just passed and leveraged by HKers).
There’s a truly brilliant book called Covert Action published last year that deconstructs the Solidarity Movement from non-kinetic inception and “insurgency” to the other end of the spectrum with incumbency in 1989.
It details arms length CIA non kinetic support for Solidarity to avoid KGB/Polish counter intelligence disparagement.
But I’m mindful not to draw too many conclusions between then and now.
However, I suspect for Chinese senior leadership their #1 fear is a return to the 1989 revolutions that culminated for China in Tiananmen massacres.
And it’s a different economic world since 1989.
In 1989 western and Soviet/Warsaw Pact economies were independent.
The West could hole the Soviet/Warsaw Pact economic hull, and watch it sink.
Today, we are globally interdependent.
If we hole China’s economic hull, we get sucked down in the vortex.
Which will likely be top of mind for most western elected politicians.
How does China respond?
I suspect PRC/PLA can’t respond with overwhelming kinetics.
My guess is PRC/PLA disconnect Hong Kong as an Asian financial centre and shift it via policy to Shanghai and Shenzhen to punish Hong Kong if they are nit brought to heel.
How the West attempts to leverage and amplify Hong Kong protests is worthy watching closely.
The fact that senior PRC/PLA leadership use Hong Kong as a platform for funnelling their corrupt cash flows is something worth exploiting,
I just hope the West doesn’t use HKers in a short-term Machiavellian sense.
But election cycles and recession risk could see Western leaders abandon HKers instantly and without remorse if it risks their re-election.
This could get decisively extinguished,
Or it could iterate into a critical moment of the 21st century,
70th Anniversary of PRC/PLA on October 1st is coming up.
Less hot/humid weather for outdoor protests in HK.
Interesting times.
I’m reminded of the Polish Solidarity Movement as well as the Baltic Way/Singing Revolution(30th Anniversary just passed and leveraged by HKers).
There’s a truly brilliant book called Covert Action published last year that deconstructs the Solidarity Movement from non-kinetic inception and “insurgency” to the other end of the spectrum with incumbency in 1989.
It details arms length CIA non kinetic support for Solidarity to avoid KGB/Polish counter intelligence disparagement.
But I’m mindful not to draw too many conclusions between then and now.
However, I suspect for Chinese senior leadership their #1 fear is a return to the 1989 revolutions that culminated for China in Tiananmen massacres.
And it’s a different economic world since 1989.
In 1989 western and Soviet/Warsaw Pact economies were independent.
The West could hole the Soviet/Warsaw Pact economic hull, and watch it sink.
Today, we are globally interdependent.
If we hole China’s economic hull, we get sucked down in the vortex.
Which will likely be top of mind for most western elected politicians.
How does China respond?
I suspect PRC/PLA can’t respond with overwhelming kinetics.
My guess is PRC/PLA disconnect Hong Kong as an Asian financial centre and shift it via policy to Shanghai and Shenzhen to punish Hong Kong if they are nit brought to heel.
How the West attempts to leverage and amplify Hong Kong protests is worthy watching closely.
The fact that senior PRC/PLA leadership use Hong Kong as a platform for funnelling their corrupt cash flows is something worth exploiting,
I just hope the West doesn’t use HKers in a short-term Machiavellian sense.
But election cycles and recession risk could see Western leaders abandon HKers instantly and without remorse if it risks their re-election.
This could get decisively extinguished,
Or it could iterate into a critical moment of the 21st century,
70th Anniversary of PRC/PLA on October 1st is coming up.
Less hot/humid weather for outdoor protests in HK.
Interesting times.
M
Mordoror
Guest
To be honest and in comparison with other western CC situations, i feel the HK riot police to be pretty smooth and restrained.
Compare their overall behaviour with US police during BLM or French police during Yellow Jacket crisis
A recent article of the NYPJ criticizing them for the use of "undiscriminate response" (-OMG 1800 tear gas canisters for several weeks of riots-) is, from that pov, particularly hypocrite.
1000 tear gas cannisters is what we use every week here
It was the average use by Seattle police during G20 demonstrations
That + other things (water cannons, pepper sprays, pepper paint balls and in some US case, infrasound systems ....)
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The problem is that Chinese police can look extremely restrained in comparision with western pólice forces, but they have Gov sponsored gangs that do the dirty job that chinese police cant be filmed doing.
This gangs are beating people right and left and police is nowhere to be seen when this gangs appear. Taking into account how things really work in China, you know that its just a gov sanctioned action. This is probably Chinese "copy" of the Iranian Bassij (sure they didnt pay them license to copy ? )
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When it comes to the police, paramilitaries, and military in dealing with HK it can get a big complex.
HK is a Special Administration Region(SAR) with its own professional police force.
China has the People's Armed Police(PAP).
PAP have deployed overseas on counterterrorism and liaison ops at the invitation of friendly governments.
But what's interesting with PAP(as well as with the PLA), is that they are organs of the Communist Party of China(CPC), rather than organs of the Chinese State or Chinese people. PAP/PLA officers swear oaths to the CPC, not China or its people
The equivalent of the US military and federal law enforcement reporting directly to the Republican Party rather than the executive branch of government.
PAP was quite poorly trained and equipped to handle Tiananmen(and the rest of the nationwide protests), hence PLA coming in and taking scalps.
In the 90's and 00's PAP was better funded to handle internal dissent operations.
But reporting lines were to local/regional CPC leaders....allowing the creation of bases of power around individuals such as the disgraced and imprisoned Bo Xilai that could pose a regional powerbase/warlord threat to CPC central.
So PAP command and control lines now all go to central and very senior CPC leadership.
Misapplication of PAP(taking scalps) can't be blamed on local/regional command as they report back to central/senior national command authority.
-----
I agree that some of China's tactics could appear similar to Iran's Basij, but I would also say that China has come a long way in the last 30 years and say that we are probably also seeing tactics akin to Duvdevan/Mista'arvim.
A multi-faceted approach.
(Hammer: Basij)Beat the protesting masses into fearful submission
(Scalpel: Duvedevan/Mista'arvim)Identify, locate, and detain key protest personalities
It's hard to gauge propaganda effectiveness without being a native speaker, but I'm waiting for imagery of deniable CPC agent provocateurs lighting PRC flags on fire and other acts of sh!t stirring violence to damage local/regional/global support for protesting HKers.
Someday I hope we get to learn what, if anything, the west is doing to deniably support HK protest efforts.
We've come a long way since smuggling fancy new Xerox machines, mimeographs, communication equipment, and cash nearly 40 years ago into Poland.
HK protesters countering infiltration, securing coms, and finding time/space for strategic planning has got to be a cast iron b!tch.
Maintaining tempo and priority in the global news cycle has got to be insanely hard.
In one respect, supporting Solidarity was EASY from a western perspective.
There was zero political cost for politicians to support it hard.....what could the Soviets/Warsaw Pact do? Nothing of substance.
Economies were independent and Warsaw Pact relied on West/IMF for loans as time went on so leverage was entirely with the West.
Today is WAY different.
Economies are interwoven and interdependent.
We all go down together in a global recession.
Not one single major politician in the West will support HKers if it's a binary choice between HKers and their own country's economy.
And THAT is a major downfall of globalisation, everyone's on the same economic lifeboat, so HK protestors might get thrown to the sharks out of perceived economic survival.
HK is a Special Administration Region(SAR) with its own professional police force.
China has the People's Armed Police(PAP).
PAP have deployed overseas on counterterrorism and liaison ops at the invitation of friendly governments.
But what's interesting with PAP(as well as with the PLA), is that they are organs of the Communist Party of China(CPC), rather than organs of the Chinese State or Chinese people. PAP/PLA officers swear oaths to the CPC, not China or its people
The equivalent of the US military and federal law enforcement reporting directly to the Republican Party rather than the executive branch of government.
PAP was quite poorly trained and equipped to handle Tiananmen(and the rest of the nationwide protests), hence PLA coming in and taking scalps.
In the 90's and 00's PAP was better funded to handle internal dissent operations.
But reporting lines were to local/regional CPC leaders....allowing the creation of bases of power around individuals such as the disgraced and imprisoned Bo Xilai that could pose a regional powerbase/warlord threat to CPC central.
So PAP command and control lines now all go to central and very senior CPC leadership.
Misapplication of PAP(taking scalps) can't be blamed on local/regional command as they report back to central/senior national command authority.
-----
I agree that some of China's tactics could appear similar to Iran's Basij, but I would also say that China has come a long way in the last 30 years and say that we are probably also seeing tactics akin to Duvdevan/Mista'arvim.
A multi-faceted approach.
(Hammer: Basij)Beat the protesting masses into fearful submission
(Scalpel: Duvedevan/Mista'arvim)Identify, locate, and detain key protest personalities
It's hard to gauge propaganda effectiveness without being a native speaker, but I'm waiting for imagery of deniable CPC agent provocateurs lighting PRC flags on fire and other acts of sh!t stirring violence to damage local/regional/global support for protesting HKers.
Someday I hope we get to learn what, if anything, the west is doing to deniably support HK protest efforts.
We've come a long way since smuggling fancy new Xerox machines, mimeographs, communication equipment, and cash nearly 40 years ago into Poland.
HK protesters countering infiltration, securing coms, and finding time/space for strategic planning has got to be a cast iron b!tch.
Maintaining tempo and priority in the global news cycle has got to be insanely hard.
In one respect, supporting Solidarity was EASY from a western perspective.
There was zero political cost for politicians to support it hard.....what could the Soviets/Warsaw Pact do? Nothing of substance.
Economies were independent and Warsaw Pact relied on West/IMF for loans as time went on so leverage was entirely with the West.
Today is WAY different.
Economies are interwoven and interdependent.
We all go down together in a global recession.
Not one single major politician in the West will support HKers if it's a binary choice between HKers and their own country's economy.
And THAT is a major downfall of globalisation, everyone's on the same economic lifeboat, so HK protestors might get thrown to the sharks out of perceived economic survival.
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