Hong Kong has tasted Western-style freedoms rarely known in China. They have operated under a truly free market for decades and were treated comparably well as a British colony. Now things are changing under the Chinese authoritarian nightmare.
While the protests that have raged on for months in Hong Kong began as a means of stopping Chinese federal encroachment on their regional extradition law, it has turned into a city-wide riot over self-determination and freedom. As news breaks of Uygher concentration camps out of Xinjiang, including forced organ harvesting as an international tribunal has reported recently, and the travesties in Tibet loom overhead, the Hong Kong protests have become a fight-or-die movement for Hongkongers. This is not the first encroachment China has made; the famous Yellow Umbrella Protests in 2014 highlighted a staggering number of infringements by the Chinese government to try and overstep the bounds of previously agreed upon laws regarding Hong Kong’s sovereignty.
Hong Kong is the battleground for democracy in the world now, and other authoritarian regimes are watching closely. The Hong Kong police, backed by the Chinese government, are using unrestrained violence against peaceful protestors. This violence can only escalate. China only has to outlast Hong Kong, and these protests are beginning to become eerily reminiscent of the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Without support from other nations, who, for the time being, are too scared of China’s economic power to intervene, Hong Kong will be doomed to failure, broken and punished severely for its fight for self-preservation and liberty. It is in times like these where we must ask when the president plans on being tough with China as he so promised these past years and where we must ask, in this greedy and selfish world, if there is any humanity left.
These protests do not just highlight the problems in China and Hong Kong, however. Recently, they have also been showing just how interconnected and dependent international businesses are on China. Apple has pulled an app from its store that has previously been used to alert protesters of where police are and allowed them to prepare themselves to be gassed and attacked. Blizzard and the NBA have been censoring people within their businesses for supporting Hong Kong in any public way and the Mainland has come down harshly on businesses who show similar support. If anyone had previously thought that what happens in China stays in China, they should think again; China’s influence on our American companies is growing and can affect the ability for other protest movements to gain traction, as well as the information we get at home.
Be reminded that violations of our most basic freedoms could happen at any time and in any place. These Hong Kong protests should serve as a bastion of hope for democracy, freedom, liberty and unity. #StandWithHongKong.
Photo from Gary Todd via Flickr
