It is a great leap backwards for the future as
Hong Kong's elite embraces colonialism and falls for the American dream. Who
has the audacity to call it “Chinese Mainlander colonialism” in Hong Kong that brings
no benefit to any of the forcibly absorbed”? Last I looked, Hong Kong has been
part of China forever until stolen by the British in the Opium Wars until 1997,
but not before the British had poisoned the populace with elitist sensibilities
over their own Chinese cultural cohort.
If bourgeois
Hong Kongers are offended by tourists from China, if they don't want their real
estate prices to go down, they are showing their real desire: wealth. They have
always gloated they were more sophisticated than their cohorts in China; even
better than those in Taiwan. They wanted Hong Kong to be Singapore. In New York
City, you feel it. Hong Kong expats wouldn’t speak with my Taiwanese wife in
Mandarin using Cantonese instead of the national dialect. The arrogance, mercantilism
and lack of desire for assimilation with their American neighbors, especially
black or Latino, is well known. It spills into the streets of Chinatowns. They
are the elite escapees; native New Yorkers are the ‘wai-guo-ren’-foreigners.
There is a
healthy hankering for the good old days. I guess British colonialism is better
than “Chinese colonialism” to self-effacing white supremacists. The people of
Hong Kong have always had a chance to fight for independence or remain a British
colony but willingly, and proudly, returned to China. They are cutting off
their noses to spite themselves. I too saw the beautiful colonial building
China tore down. It is subterfuge that is agitating the Hong Kong scions to cut
loose. They have had a chance to fight for independence or remain a colony
since the ‘90’s but willingly, and proudly, returned to China. They are cutting
off their noses to spite themselves. I too saw the beautiful colonial building
China tore down to stamp their own mark on the territory. It was plain and
simple sour grapes and subterfuge that was agitating the elite scions to cut
loose.
He dug his
prejudices deeper saying, “The handover itself was absurd... Britain should
have voided the whole process after the Tienanmen Square massacre, if they had
any respect for human rights over corporate profits, or making a killing in
Canadian real estate.” I had enough of this adhesion to the old company line.
“The U.S., U.K.,
France and every imperialist liar should have the progress China has made for
its billion people. I say let Hong Kong rot. Put a wall between it and
Shenzhen. Take away their Chinese passports and leave them nation-less like
Taiwan,” I wrote despondently. I had written my most succinct responses to a Facebook share sympathetic to the anti-government demonstrators in Hong Kong. I won't share it on Facebook though because trolls would attack it.
One fellow wrote
that I didn’t sound like a very nice chap for saying that. Then another got
personal figuring out I lived in Taiwan and asked, “Why do you live in Taiwan?
From your above posts; it seems you should be living in the PRC?”
It was disturbing to see an old comrade, Liana Foxvog, from Sweatfree
Communities in Boston, had joined the China-bashing bandwagon over the Hong
Kong riots sharing on Facebook a bumbling Democracy
Now report on the riots they called “pro-democracy”. Instead of going to
the root of the disturbance, they choose to focus on the long-overdue reaction
to the rioting by Hong Kong police. It is amazing that the PLA may not be
called in to end the sporadic riots as the U.S. hoped, and that it wasn't done
before the PLA birthday on Oct.1 as the Taiwan spin doctors rumored. They both
want to make a mockery out of China to the world. China does not want to injure
its own people any more than a father wants to hurt an errant child, a child
with bad friends urging them on. Liana should be aware, as a defender of
workers’ rights, how China has raised its peoples' standard of living. There is
no protection for the immigrant workers in Hong Kong or the western businessmen
that use Hong Kong and Taiwan as conduits for outsourcing, drugs, and slave
trade. Sweatshops have left China for Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and even
the United States where there are more opportunities to exploit workers. I will
not donate to her organization or Democracy Now as I have before. I am insulted
that Liana, knowing I am living in Taiwan and aware of politics here, didn't
bother to ask my opinion. Now I see she questioned if I had listened to the
video she shared like I know nothing about it.
I almost feel
depressed but I know it is only fatigue and disgust for the state of the world,
in this instance, the way progressive stateside acquaintances are falling over
themselves supporting the anti-China riots in Hong Kong. My only reliable Facebook
comrades are at Workers World, Telesur,
Mao Zedong Thought Discussion Group, Friends Who like New Afrikan Communist
Party, China Daily, and a few China cultural groups. I feel more isolated
than usual with a few anarchist and Wobbly groups blaming China for Hong Kong’s
chaos. All day long, I had to keep the latest casualty of fog, Liana and
her proxy off my mind. She doubted my word after I voiced my disapproval of her
sharing propaganda without checking other points-of-view and answered her defender
who misconstrued what I meant. I let
her save face blaming the person she shared the post from for misleading my anti-sweatshop
comrade. I am fed up
As Taiwan media
obliges with news angles designed to “kill the chicken to scare the monkey”,
coddled Taiwanese youth sit terrified of the violence in Hong Kong and the DPP
co-opts them will calls to ‘support democracy’ and get votes for Tsai Ying-Wen
in the upcoming presidential election; democracy in Taiwan is a sham. They take
out the play book and throw a “Hail Mary” to anyone that would doubt it. Know that the initial demonstration against an extradition law proposed, and since retracted; that any other demands are for clemency from property destruction and causing bodily harm to police. It has never been about unemployment, minimum wage, austerity, or other elimination of social concerns.
If Hong Kong leader Lin Zheng-Yue’s move is to
"lead the snake out of the hole" and make Hong Kong more chaotic to
use more emergency law and let Hong Kong enter a state of martial law, so be
it. The Chinese idioms are flying. Western
imperialists bent on destabilizing China have their stooges in impressionable
youth led astray as NGO's and Western media feed them justifications for their self-destruction. The "Forbidden Mask" law won’t mind
if the people go to the streets because of anger on weekends and Sundays. The
more chaotic, the better, so that Lin Zheng can just use emergency laws and
more forcible actions like curfews and martial law.
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved
