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• HK Protesters Vow to Keep Pressing Following Pro-democracy Election Victory
• Netizen Voices: “Cultural Fusion Should be Based on Mutual Consent”
• Former U.K. Consulate Staffer Alleges Torture While Detained in China
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HK Protesters Vow to Keep Pressing Following Pro-democracy Election Victory
At The New York Times, Keith Bradsher, Austin Ramzy, and Tiffany May report on the overwhelming victory for pro-democracy candidates in Sunday’s local district council elections in Hong Kong:
It was a pointed rebuke of Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong, and the turnout — seven in 10 eligible voters — suggested that the public continues to back the democracy movement, even as the protests grow increasingly violent. Young Hong Kongers, a major force behind the demonstrations of the past six months, played a leading role in the voting surge.
With three million voters casting ballots, pro-democracy candidates captured 389 of 452 elected seats, up from only 124 and far more than they have ever won. The government’s allies held just 58 seats, a remarkable collapse from 300.
To many democracy advocates, Sunday was a turning point. “There has been a very deep awakening of the Hong Kong people,” said Alan Leong, chairman of the Civic Party, one of the largest pro-democracy parties.
[…] The elections were for district councils, one of the lowest elected offices in Hong Kong, and they are typically a subdued affair focused on community issues. The job mostly entails pushing for neighborhood needs like bus stops and traffic lights. […] [Source]
The elections came amid an ongoing protest movement and increasing violence in recent weeks. While the local victories are being celebrated by pro-democracy protesters and legislators as an expression of the true collective voice of the Hong Kong people, others see the results as a potential sign for increased friction between Beijing and Hong Kong to come. In another report, The New York Times’ Bradsher, Ramzy, and May wrote that Beijing is now “under even greater pressure to respond to the protest movement”:
To the pro-democracy camp, that means addressing the broader Hong Kong public’s calls for more official accountability. Other politicians are concerned that the vote could be seen by Beijing as a sign that the territory is slipping further from its grip and requires a harsher response.
[…] Beijing and its local allies had been convinced that the protest movement had antagonized the public by blocking roads and rail lines and scaring off shoppers and tourists. The democrats’ triumph at the polls showed instead that Hong Kong residents remain broadly sympathetic to the movement.
[…] In China, the pro-Beijing camp’s defeat could only be seen as a repudiation of the party’s rule over the semiautonomous region, just weeks after President Xi Jinping gave Mrs. Lam his enthusiastic backing.
The Chinese government’s reaction on Monday was strikingly muted, as if the authorities were surprised by the results. China’s state television network covered the voting extensively as it happened on Sunday, but then lapsed into silence once the outcome was clear. [Source]
At Quartz, Isabella Steger surveys election-related state propaganda ahead of the vote, and argues that Beijing may now be ill-equipped to accurately assess public opinion in Hong Kong:
A tweet from English-language newspaper China Daily a day before the election, for example, urged people to “vote pro-establishment” (a term referring to candidates loyal to Beijing) in order to help Hong Kong “return to normal life.” Nationalistic tabloid Global Times similarly urged Hong Kongers to cast their vote to “end violence.” Chief executive Carrie Lam and her administration ramped up their rhetoric that violent radicals had hijacked the protest movement and that it was time for the electorate to cut ties with them.
The landslide win by the pro-democracy camp, however—which took control of all but one of the city’s 18 local councils—has thrown China’s propaganda machine into confusion, to say the least. Major news outlets remained silent on the drubbing of Beijing’s preferred candidates as the results rolled in in the morning. Later, some publications, such as the Global Times, turned to a classic scapegoat—foreign interference in elections—to explain the election result. China’s foreign minister Wang Yi had little to say beyond reiterating that Hong Kong was a part of China.
[…] One thing that Beijing hasn’t appeared to invest in, however, is better ways of reading the public mood in Hong Kong. HK01, a digital news outlet, reported that (link in Chinese) Beijing knew it was at a disadvantage but was shocked at the extent of the defeat of the pro-establishment parties—the DAB fielded more than 180 candidates, and won just 21 seats. It’s hard to believe that Beijing would be taken aback by the result, given the relentless protests since June, initially over a now-withdrawn bill that aggravated longstanding fears that the territory is losing the autonomy guaranteed upon its return to China. In recent months, multiple opinion polls have shown distrust of both the police and the Hong Kong government consistently rising. […] [Source]
More from Foreign Policy’s James Palmer, who notes that at many state media outlets copy proclaiming a pro-establishment victory was filed before the vote:
In newsrooms in Beijing, however, the results began a panicked scramble to find a way to spin them in favor of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In stark contrast to most observers in Hong Kong, editors—and the officials behind them—appear to have sincerely believed that the establishment parties would win an overwhelming victory. Propaganda is a heady drug, and Beijing got high on its own supply.
I spoke with editors and journalists, both foreign and Chinese, at China Daily, the flagship English-language newspaper of state media; at the English-language version of the nationalist tabloid Global Times; and at the People’s Daily—the CCP’s official newspaper. (My sources universally asked for anonymity.) At each paper, copy was filed to editors the night before the Nov. 24 elections assuming a strong victory for the establishment. This included predictions of increased majorities (with numbers left to be filled in as needed) for figures such as Junius Ho, whose vicious rhetoric against protesters has left him widely hated but whose comments regularly appear in the Global Times.
The misplaced confidence in Beijing’s victory points to a worrying problem; at high levels within the CCP, officials believe their own propaganda about Hong Kong. That’s a frightening prospect for both governance in China and for the future of the city, especially as the system struggles to come up with political excuses for a cataclysmic failure. […] [Source]
At The Guardian, Emma Graham-Harrison reports further on Beijing’s response following the election, noting how the results further complicate things for embattled chief executive Carrie Lam:
“No matter how the situation in Hong Kong changes, it is very clear that Hong Kong is a part of Chinese territory,” [Foreign Minister Wang Yi] told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Tokyo. “Any attempts to disrupt Hong Kong or undermine its stability and prosperity will not succeed.”
The election results pose a dilemma for Beijing, and Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam. Hand-picked to rule by party leaders, Lam always insists she rules independently, but is widely accepted to have coordinated her hardline response to protesters with China’s top leadership.
Before the vote, Lam often claimed she had the support of a “silent majority”, as she escalated the police response to protests, invoked sweeping colonial-era emergency powers, and ruled out meeting any of the protesters’ main demands. [Source]
In a public statement posted on the Hong Kong government website, Lam said the results reflected “people’s dissatisfaction with the current situation and the deep-seated problems in society,” and that her government would “listen to the opinions of members of the public humbly and seriously reflect.” At The Atlantic, Timothy McLaughlin notes that Lam took no blame for the defeat, and that despite celebrations by pro-democracy protesters, a running violent standoff between protesters and police at Hong Kong Polytechnic University is still ongoing:
The losers included a lengthy list of pro-Beijing heavyweights. The most notable and celebrated was the bombastic Junius Ho, whose contempt for protesters and allegedly cozy relationship with organized-crime figures behind an attack on demonstrators in June made him loathed in pro-democracy circles. Ho was stabbed this month during a campaign rally, but the attack garnered him no sympathy: Revelers popped champagne, cheered, and left mocking offerings for Ho as election officials announced he’d lost his seat, though he remains a member of the city’s legislature.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s leader who has disappeared from public view for days at a time in recent months and who protesters have demanded resign, took no blame for the defeat. In a statement, she instead said that there were “various analyses and interpretations” of the voting results, and “quite a few are of the view that the results reflect people’s dissatisfaction with the current situation and the deep-seated problems in society.”
Celebrations in the pro-democracy camp did not last long, though. The siege at PolyU was still ongoing by Monday afternoon; several newly elected district councillors were planning to descend on the campus in an effort to end the stalemate, and Leung—now an elected representative—was still inside. [Source]
At The Globe and Mail, Nathan VanderKlippe talks to pro-democracy protesters, newly elected candidates, and observers who see the recent results not as a victory for the movement, but as a source of empowerment to continue pressing forward with their demands:
The election is “not the end,” said Ms. Lau, the legislative assistant for pro-democracy lawmaker Jeremy Tam, who won in Wang Tau Hom district. What’s more important, she added, is to “continue our protests and continuously raise the social concerns of the whole movement.”
[…] If the weekend vote held little prospect of an immediate solution to the unrest that has brought violence and bloodshed to the Asian financial capital, it at least suggested a longer-lasting change to the city’s bedrock of political power.
[…] “It’s really a game-changer. I think at this point our movement is so much more empowered,” said Jeffrey Ngo, a historian and chief researcher for Demosisto, a youth activist group in the city.
District councils typically confront the minutiae of urban life: planning bus stops, advocating for speed cameras. But “each district councillor has a budget to rent an office, to hire a staff. They can establish a presence for the next four years in the communities that they serve,” Mr. Ngo said. [Source]
On Twitter, commentators urge caution against mis-understanding the results of the district council election: while the results may serve as counter to Beijing’s propaganda about public opinion in Hong Kong, seats were won on both sides, and Beijing has other means to continue working towards its agenda in Hong Kong:
On the morning of November 26 in Hong Kong, Carrie Lam acknowledged that the record voter turnout highlights public dissatisfaction with her government, and thanked the city for peacefully voting.
© Josh Rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), get_post_time('Y'). |
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Netizen Voices: “Cultural Fusion Should be Based on Mutual Consent”
Amid an ongoing crackdown on Uyghur culture in Xinjiang that has been called an effort to “re-engineer” the Uyghur identity and as a form of “cultural genocide,” state-run new media outlet The Paper (澎湃) this week tweeted a video report titled “Notes From Aiding the Border: Where is Green Tea Produced? Xinjiang Children Had no Answer.” The video showed how teachers from the Shanghai Hanweiyang Traditional Culture Promotion Center were teaching “traditional Chinese culture” to primary school students in Bachu County, Kashgar, Xinjiang:
In the video, teacher Jin Qiu uses Mandarin to conduct a class, and in her comments to The Paper mentions that she “discovered a special lack of local traditional culture.” The report shows a Uyghur primary student in traditional Han Chinese dress saying “I am very happy and proud to wear traditional Chinese costume.” A teacher from the Fourth Elementary School in Bachu says that the “students are slowly coming to love this culture, and to understand that this is their country, one they want to love.” The long-running crackdown in Xinjiang has included policies aimed squarely at mitigating elements of local Uyghur culture and religiosity, and since 2017 has culminated in the operation of a network of extralegal internment camps where an estimated 1.5 million Uyghurs have been or are being detained.
Replying to The Paper’s tweet, Chinese-speaking Twitter users expressed anger at the coverage and the overarching crackdown in Xinjiang. CDT Chinese has archived Chinese-language replies, several of which are translated here:
@MrZ75041830: Cultural fusion is like dating—based on mutual consent, and not ok to force on others. Even after decades in power, the bandit habits have not changed.
@plainqyu: The government used to crush activities promoting traditional Han dress, fearing it would incite ethnic antagonism. Now, it is actually making ethnic minorities wear traditional Han dress.
@baby20087: Putting all the parents into prison to brainwash, while their children receive patriotic education.
@SaddleDave: The CCP has never been kind to traditional Chinese culture, the Cultural Revolution was a movement aimed precisely at abolishing traditional culture. It is now about deceit, speaking not of [the Confucian classic rites of] Righteousness and Ceremonies or wisdom and truth, speaking only of tea drinking. This is intended to take the life out of traditional culture. It wants to both lead the life of a whore and have a monument put up in the name of chastity. Even the thugs have been tricked.
@ISqbqICtyQE8W8m: Nothing wrong with explaining Chinese culture, but to forcibly inculcate Uyghurs, to forcibly wipe their genes, this is evil. Learning Chinese culture must happen under voluntary conditions, not by CCP dominance. The CCP doesn’t deserve to talk about Chinese culture!
Many Twitter-users also expressed their outrage in English:
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Former U.K. Consulate Staffer Alleges Torture While Detained in China
Simon Cheng, the 29-year-old Hong Kong resident formerly employed by the U.K. consulate who was detained in China for 15 days in August and accused in state-affiliated media of “soliciting prostitutes,” has now accused China of torturing him while he was detained in a public Facebook post. At The Guardian, Verna Yu and Patrick Wintour report:
Cheng, 29, was detained while trying to return to Hong Kong from a day trip to Shenzhen, a mainland Chinese city that borders Hong Kong. In an interview with the Guardian, he said he was tortured for days before being forced to falsely confess that he and the British government had played a role in the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, which were largely peaceful at the time.
During lengthy interrogations in windowless rooms, Cheng said he was called “an enemy of the state” and “a British spy and secret agent” working for the UK government by his captors, who threatened him with subversion and espionage charges.
Cheng, who said he was held in solitary confinement from the second day of his detention, was also pressed to confess falsely that he “had been used by others”. He was forced to say that the British government was masterminding protests in Hong Kong and that he had secured financial aid and resources for the protesters, who the Chinese authorities insisted were “rioters”.
He was at first put in what is known as a “tiger chair” – a metal chair with bars that disables a detainee’s movements – and prevented from wearing his glasses until he was released. He was not allowed to contact his family or a lawyer.
Police told him he had been reported for “soliciting prostitutes” and said that if he “cooperated” he would face a lesser punishment of administrative detention, which normally involves 15 days of detention, otherwise he would be given the much more severe punishment of criminal detention. Cheng said he had no choice but to make a false confession. [Source]
More on Cheng’s allegations, and on official comments from the U.K. government, from the BBC’s John Sudworth:
Following our interview, the British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab summoned the Chinese ambassador.
“We are outraged by the disgraceful mistreatment that Mr Cheng faced when he was in detention in mainland China… and we’ve made clear that we expect the Chinese authorities to review and hold to account those responsible,” Mr Raab told the BBC.
[…] He claims he was subjected to sleep deprivation, with his interrogators forcing him to sing the Chinese national anthem to keep himself awake.
And, he believes, he was not the only Hongkonger undergoing such treatment.
“I saw a bunch of Hong Kong people getting arrested and interrogated. I heard someone speak in Cantonese saying: ‘Raise your hands up – you raised the flags in the protest didn’t you?'” [Source]
Torture and the extraction of forced confessions is alleged to be a systemic practice in China, and is believed to have led to the deaths of detained activists. Despite reforms aimed at mitigating the practice, including government rulings to nullify evidence obtained through torture and the banning of police torture, independent investigations by international NGOs and the U.N Committee Against Torture have shown that torture remains a routine interrogation method.
The Hong Kong Free Press’ Holmes Chan quotes Amnesty International on Cheng’s allegations, contextualizing them into the wider use of torture and arbitrary detention in China:
Amnesty International’s China Researcher Patrick Poon said that Cheng’s case was a “callous attempt” by Chinese state officials to intimidate anyone perceived to be linked to protests in Hong Kong.
“The horrific abuse Simon Cheng described in his testimony, such as being shackled and placed in stress positions, is in line with the endemic torture and other ill-treatment in detention we have repeatedly documented in mainland China,” Poon said.
“He is yet another victim of arbitrary detention in China, where activists can be held incommunicado for long periods of time. China must investigate Cheng’s claims and ensure any police found responsible for torture or other ill-treatment are held to account.” [Source]
The AP reports on the Chinese foreign ministry’s rejection of the U.K. government’s concerns:
China’s foreign ministry responded angrily to the allegations and the summoning of the ambassador at a daily briefing on Wednesday.
Ambassador Liu Xiaoming will “by no means accept the so-called concerns or complaints raised by the British side,” ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said.
“The Chinese ambassador to the U.K. will lodge the complaints with the U.K. to express our strong opposition and indignation to the U.K.’s wrong words and deeds on Hong Kong in these days,” Geng said.
Geng did not address Cheng’s allegations directly, but cited a statement by Shenzhen police from August saying his lawful rights had been protected and that he had “admitted his offence completely,” an apparent reference to a confession of soliciting prostitution that Cheng says was coerced. Cheng has strongly denied the charge.[Source]
Hong Kong’s justice secretary claimed “no opinion” when questioned about the accusations by reporters. From Reuters’ Alistair Smout:
Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng, speaking to reporters at the Chinese embassy in London, said he should report the matter to the relevant Chinese authorities.
[…] “There are many things that are often reported and sometimes it is extremely important to gather the whole facts and veracity of it before any view is to be formed,” Cheng, who is not related to Simon Cheng, said in English when asked if she was alarmed by the account of torture.
“So I prefer to hold my opinion until I have the opportunity to collect and analyse any information that I might have,” she added.
The justice secretary, who sustained a wrist injury in London last week when she was pushed to the ground by people protesting against the Hong Kong government, drew a parallel between the incident and the alleged mistreatment of Simon Cheng. […] [Source]
Official Chinese statements have blamed the ongoing protest movement on encouragement by “foreign forces.” Cheng’s allegations came hours after the U.S. senate passed bills aimed at protecting human rights in Hong Kong and banning the export of crowd-control munitions to Hong Kong police. At The Globe and Mail, Nathan VanderKlippe quotes local Hong Kongers who support international pressure amid the increasingly violent five-month standoff between protesters and police:
China has long accused hostile foreign forces of fomenting discord in Hong Kong, where protests have continued for five months, bringing frequent and fierce clashes to the city’s streets.
But the additional international pressure on Beijing was welcomed by protesters and pro-democracy leaders in Hong Kong, who have sought outside support in their attempt to fend off what they call China’s encroaching influence on the city.
“I hope this could help at least make the police, or the people in government or those in Beijing, be less aggressive in cracking down on the movement here,” said Ying Chi Lee, a dentist who is on Hong Kong’s Election Committee, the electoral college of 1,200 people who choose the city’s chief executive. She and others shut down some streets in the downtown Wednesday afternoon in a lunchtime protest that was met by dozens of riot police, who at one point surrounded a young finance worker and threatened him with arrest.
[…] He was furious – and grateful for the advocacy of other countries.
“Somebody has to stop the police from doing what they are doing. It’s just nonsense,” he said. [Source]
The treatment that Cheng, a Hong Kong resident, alleges he was subjected to evokes the initial concerns that ignited the movement movement in June, specifically opposition to a proposed extradition bill that was formally withdrawn in September. The bill’s broad language, had it passed, would have allowed for extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China, where they could be subjected to sham trials, torture, and confession extraction.
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