Hong Kong - Echoes of Tiananmen Square?

[XterraRob]

Apple under fire from China over HKmap.live app that tracks police activity amid Hong Kong protests

Chinese state media on Tuesday accused Apple Inc of protecting “rioters” in Hong Kong and enabling illegal behaviour, after the US-based technology giant listed on its app store an application that tracks police activity in the city.

Apple had previously rejected the app, called HKmap.live, but reversed its decision on Friday and made the programme available for download from the iOS App Store on Saturday, according to the program’s developer.

The developer declined to give a name when contacted via Twitter, citing concerns of arrest by the government.

The app relies on crowdsourced information to track the location of police presence in the city, alerting users to police vehicles, armed officers and incidents in which people have been injured. The app — a website version is also active — displays hotspots on a map of the city that is continuously updated as users report incidents.

“By allowing its platform to clear the way for an app that incites illegal behaviour, [does Apple] not worry about damaging its reputation and hurting the feelings of consumers?” said a bellicose commentary published on the app of People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece.

The opinion piece, which was promptly republished by numerous other mainland Chinese outlets, was signed “Bolan Ping”, an apparent pen name translating to “calming the waves” that has only emerged in recent weeks and that exclusively addresses issues relating to the unrest in Hong Kong.

The piece made no mention of the fact that the app is also available to Android users via the Google Play store.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment. The onslaught of vitriol against the company was the second within days against a prominent US entity with far-reaching economic interests in the Chinese market.

Over the weekend, the National Basketball Association (NBA) found itself the subject of a vicious backlash in China over a post on Twitter by a team’s general manager that seemed to support the Hong Kong protesters.

https://www.scmp.com/news/article/30...vity-hong-kong

[EternaLovE]

china is showing more and more of how much of a piece of chit communist country they are.

[gachase21]

Not sure if it was posted yet

[tyn89]

One USA government official confirms police framing protesters



https://twitter.com/solomonyue/statu...996114432?s=21

Who is Solomon Yue?

Vice Chairman & CEO at Republicans Overseas, RNC Member since 2000, Co-founder of RNC Republican National Conservative Caucus & Conservative Steering Committee

Solomon Yue is the national committeeman of the Republican Party of Oregon.[2] Yue was born in China and has been active within the Republican Party since the 1990s.[3]

In 2013, Solomon assumed the role of Founder, Vice Chairman and CEO of Republicans Overseas, representing a large percentage of the 7.6 million overseas Americans.

https://ballotpedia.org/Solomon_Yue
https://oregon.gop/orp-national-committeeman

[XterraRob]

Not sure if it was posted yet

LMAO WoW

[tyn89]

LMAO WoW

Blitzchung’s(Ng Wai Chung) response: "I spent 4 years on Hearthstone so I only lost 4 years of my life, but if HK loses it will be forever."

Now, that's alpha.

[Boxman]

You do realise that the army and air force is composed of dudes like you and I with families etc back home?

You seem to think, in the unlikely event a future US Government turns on the American people, that they would blindly and unquestionably slaughter millions of Americans.

Bullchit.

I don't seem to think that, I DO think that. Following orders is easy. Turning on your own government is at best big trouble for you and your family; at worst a death sentence. When push comes to shove, soldiers obey. The US military will absolutely fire on their "fellow citizens". Are you kidding? Do you really doubt that?

You're delusional. The US military has used deadly force against American citizens on many occasions throughout our short history, and I'm sure they will do so again in the future. You need to brush up on your American history, pal, heck even recent history like Waco, Texas 1992. Not any knock on the US military per se; it's just that soldiers and cops always follow orders in the end, even when they're not enthusiastic about it, because the alternative is much more scary.

[LukeLissen]

I don't seem to think that, I DO think that. Following orders is easy. Turning on your own government is at best big trouble for you and your family; at worst a death sentence. When push comes to shove, soldiers obey. The US military will absolutely fire on their "fellow citizens". Are you kidding? Do you really doubt that?

You're delusional. The US military has used deadly force against American citizens on many occasions throughout our short history, and I'm sure they will do so again in the future. You need to brush up on your American history, pal, heck even recent history like Waco, Texas 1992. Not any knock on the US military per se; it's just that soldiers and cops always follow orders in the end, even when they're not enthusiastic about it, because the alternative is much more scary.

I would've argued against that years ago, but from what I've heard from members of the military and vets is that in general the military would follow orders even into tyranny and that you're right.

This thread below is a good example. There are many confirmed military involved in the discussion and they are verified by site staff. You can see who's military below their avatar. It's an eye-opening read.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/...217770/?page=1

This is why the founding fathers were against standing armies and wanted the Second Amendment. Now we've got a massively powerful standing army and reduction/infringement of 2A rights. It's all fine and dandy fun to be proud of the military until 8 years of a communist president changes the military top-down to a communist led one and sends them against citizenry who don't want communism(or whatever new totalitarian type of gov/tyranny they want).

I'm not going to argue against our standing army, but I am going to say this is all why we must! mainstain extremely strong 2A rights and take part in them and get as many people involved in them as possible. It is the last check against a takeover by tyranny.

[BigDeeps01]

Damn this is some crazy stuff. I wonder how much longer this goes on?

[tyn89]

American University Hearthstone team holds up "Free Hong Kong, boycott Blizzard" sign during Collegiate Hearthstone Championship. Blizzard quickly cuts their broadcast.

https://streamable.com/vrlcc

The world is uniting with Hong Kong freedom and democracy protesters against evil CCP.

The world is watching as CCP showing their true color which is extreme censorship and 0 freedom of speech.

5 demands, not 1 less.

[XterraRob]

Some background before you read this -

Susan Thornton is part of the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale:

Founded by Professor Paul Gewirtz in 1999 as the China Law Center, the Paul Tsai China Center is the primary home for activities related to China at Yale Law School. The Center is a unique institution dedicated to helping advance China’s legal reforms, improving U.S.–China relations, and increasing understanding of China in the United States.

Paul Tsai is a Taiwanese/Canadian billionaire who was part of the Alibaba Group, calls the Hong Kong movement a "separatists movement".

US passing Hong Kong human rights and democracy act will only ‘punish the wrong people’: ex-Trump envoy Susan Thornton

• Susan Thornton, formerly America’s most senior diplomat in East Asia, says the bill is a ‘huge mistake’ and reflects misconceptions in the US about China’s rise
• She says stripping Hong Kong of its special status will hurt Hongkongers and have ‘Beijingers dancing in the streets’

A US bill that could strip Hong Kong of its special trading status by subjecting the city to an annual review of democratic freedoms would hurt Hongkongers and play into the hands of Beijing, according to a former top envoy for Asia in the Trump administration.

In a wide-ranging interview, Susan Thornton, who served as acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said passing the bipartisan Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act would be a “huge mistake” that would end up “punishing exactly the wrong people”.

“To me, Beijing would like nothing more than the US to remove Hong Kong’s special status. I don’t really get it. I don’t understand what game they think they are playing,” said Thornton, who retired from the Department of State in July after more than 25 years of service, referring to US lawmakers pushing the bill.

The career diplomat, who has held overseas postings in China, Central Asia, Russia and the Caucasus, said the proposed legislation reflected a misinformed political conversation in the United States about China and Hong Kong.

“I don’t think they think about it much, but they just have this one bill that has Hong Kong in it, and they’re wielding it like a club, and they don’t seem to understand that the club is basically going to whack the Hongkongers upside the head, and the Beijingers will be dancing in the streets.”

Thornton, who is now a senior fellow at Yale University’s Paul Tsai China Centre, said that rather than trying to punish Hong Kong, the US should be seeking to act as a “moral compass”. She accused Washington of being “irresponsible and misinformed” with its remarks on the recent unrest in the city, arguing that US officials should express disapproval of violence from all sides.

“Condemning violence on the part of the protesters, rather than cheering them on because they are singing the US national anthem, I think, would be appropriate, but also condemning police violence,” she said. “Basically just saying the right things, which we haven’t been doing.”

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who introduced the bill in June, has said it aims to “hold China to its promise” to respect the autonomy and freedoms afforded to Hong Kong under the Sino-British Joint Declaration that was signed before the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has criticised the bill as an attempt to interfere in the city’s internal affairs, but local democracy activists such as Joshua Wong Chi-fung and Denise Ho Wan-sze have lobbied for its passage, which they say will guarantee and further the city’s democratic freedoms. The Senate bill and a similar proposal in the House of Representatives have attracted the support of more than three dozen Republican and Democratic lawmakers since their introduction earlier this year. After clearing the committee stage, the proposed legislation is expected to go to a vote soon, possibly this month.

Under the US-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, Washington treats Hong Kong differently from mainland China in areas including trade and export controls. The 2019 act, if passed, would require the US government to assess Hong Kong’s level of human rights and democracy each year to determine whether Washington should continue to grant these trade privileges. It could also pave the way for diplomatic action and economic sanctions against the city’s government.

Hong Kong is in its 18th straight week of anti-government protests triggered by a now-scrapped extradition bill. Since October 1, China’s National Day, radical protesters have escalated vandalism and violence to new levels, trashing and burning shops, bank branches and subway stations.

Thornton was the longest-serving senior envoy for Asia under the administration of US President Donald Trump. A formal nomination to become assistant secretary failed due to opposition in the Senate from China hawks such as Rubio. Since leaving the government, she has taken aim at Trump’s overall policy of confrontation with China in areas ranging from technology to trade.

“I think it would be much more productive to try to work with them constructively on that than to try to isolate them, keep them out, block their development and contest what they are doing in the world,” she said.

While acknowledging that the US had legitimate complaints about China regarding market access and intellectual property protection, Thornton said Washington was in denial about the inevitability of Beijing exerting more influence in the world. Her country had resorted to a “dog in the manger” approach to China’s rise, she added.

“We are kind of delusional about our reality and what we are dealing with, I think,” Thornton said. “China is a country of 1.4 billion people, they opened up their country to the world in order to develop it, and the idea that we were going to stop them is not realistic.”

She said there was a widespread misconception that previous US administrations had squandered opportunities to keep China “weak and poor” by engaging it in diplomacy and cooperation.

“The problem with that argument is that it assumes there is something we could have done to change the internal dynamics inside China – if we had foreseen the rise of Xi Jinping and his turn towards greater internal repression in Chinese domestic politics, that there’s something we could have done to alter or prevent that.”

On North Korea, Thornton said she was pessimistic about the prospects of Kim Jong-un relinquishing his nuclear weapons, but expressed disappointment that the Trump administration had not tried to exploit the dictator’s reported interest in economic development for his impoverished country.

“My unceasing desire has been for people to seriously test that proposition by offering something, and seeing what they are willing to do on denuclearisation,” she said. “But so far, we haven’t really managed to offer anything where people would reasonably say: ‘Oh yeah, well that’s something that’s really important for their economic development, so if they are not willing to do anything on denuclearisation to get that, it’s obvious that they are not willing to do anything, period.’”

Thornton also expressed scepticism about Washington’s efforts to stop Pacific Island nations from switching their diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to mainland China. The Solomon Islands and Kiribati last month became the latest countries to ditch Taipei, bringing the self-ruled island’s number of diplomatic allies to 15.

“I think what we also have to realise in this diplomatic game is that as China’s influence and weight in the international system grows, it’s going to be harder and harder for countries to justify recognising Taiwan, no matter what kind of dollar diplomacy or other things are happening,” she said. “So the idea that the US is trying to shore up Taiwan’s diplomatic allies is probably not a very strong hand to play in the long term.”

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/polit...-act-will-only

[tyn89]

Disgusting.

[tyn89]

Victim of police brutaliy speaking out - sexually assaulted and she wasn't the only one.

https://twitter.com/thetimeusedtobe/...92557595721730

There needs to be an independent commission to investigate these evil bastards.

5 demands, not 1 less.

[tyn89]

Sad that colonist worked better than modern Communism from China.

[tyn89]

HK leader ditches meeting Ted Cruz, says the U.S. senator - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN1WR0B7

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam scrapped a meeting with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, the highest profile U.S. politician to visit the city since anti-government protests broke out more than four months ago, the senator said on Saturday.

Lam’s office had requested that the afternoon meeting be completely confidential and that Cruz refrain from speaking with the media about it, Cruz told journalists in Hong Kong.

“She seems to misunderstand how free speech operates, and also how freedom of the press operates,” said Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas and a vocal critic of China who was stopping in Hong Kong for two days as part of a regional tour.

“Ms. Lam’s cancelling the meeting is not a sign of strength. It’s a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of fear of the protesters in the streets of Hong Kong.”

Responding to a request for details about the scheduled meeting, Lam’s office said in an email: “The Chief Executive did not meet with the said U.S. Senator.”

For months Hong Kong has been paralyzed by unprecedented protests calling for democracy and against police brutality. The former British colony was returned to China in 1997 and promised broad autonomy for 50 years under a “one country, two systems” model. But many in Hong Kong accuse Beijing of eroding its freedoms.

On Saturday, demonstrators took to the streets again, and the government said petrol bombs were thrown inside a Hong Kong metro station.

“I stand with the people of Hong Kong calling on the government of China to honor the promises it made to the world when it promised to maintain political freedom in Hong Kong,” said Cruz, who wore black to show support for the black-clad protest movement.

Asked if he condemned violence that has flared during the protests, Cruz said he advocated non-violent protest with the protesters and democracy activists he had met.

Cruz said he believed Chinese President Xi Jinping was “terrified of millions of people in Hong Kong, but even more than that, millions of people in China yearning to live free”.

Those fears were “magnified on the world stage” by China’s response to a tweet by a U.S. basketball executive supporting Hong Kong’s protesters, he said.

China has accused the West of stirring up anti-Beijing sentiment in Hong Kong, and Chinese state media characterized the Houston Rockets general manager’s tweet as the latest example of meddling in China’s affairs.

“Had the Chinese government simply ignored the tweet, in all likelihood virtually nobody other than die-hard Rockets fans like me would have noticed the tweet,” he said.

“But President Xi’s fear and insecurity, combined with arrogance, a belief that economic blackmail could force the NBA (National Basketball Association) to be witting participants in global censorship, ended up ironically highlighting the message far more than it ever would have otherwise.”

There is “overwhelming bipartisan support” in the U.S. Congress for the people of Hong Kong, and Cruz said he was pressing for the Senate to take up and pass the Hong Kong Human Rights Act quickly.

Asked if it was more important now than ever to pass the act, he said: “Absolutely, yes.”

The act includes measures like annual reviews of the Chinese territory’s special economic status and the imposition of sanctions on those who undermine its autonomy.

“We should continue to look for tools to stand up for human rights and for democracy and to speak clearly against repression and torture and murder,” he said.



Well said by Ted Cruz. Let's be real here, people around the world need to know that Carrie Lam is just a puppet of CCP and one country two system is dead. HK is in a police state now.

[tyn89]

Hong Kong Police Brutality called out by USA senator Rick Scott



https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/sta...672214529?s=19

The world knows that the Hong Kong police force is out of control now while protesters are democracy and freedom fighters. Extremely admirable that the protesters are still going out to protest now. Hong Kong is lucky to have freedom fighters despite the control of CCP.

[XterraRob]

China's Xi Jinping warns attempts to divide country will end in 'crushed bodies and shattered bones'

As street battles between protesters and police continue to escalate in Hong Kong, China's authoritarian leader warned Sunday any further attempt to divide the country will literally be crushed.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made the comments during a visit to Nepal, where he became the first Chinese president in more than two decades to visit the country.

“Anyone attempting to split China in any part of the country will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones,” he told Nepalese Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, China's state broadcaster CCTV reported. “And any external forces backing such attempts dividing China will be deemed by the Chinese people as pipe-dreaming!”

Xi made the explicit comments at a meeting where the two signed more than 20 agreements Sunday, including one commissioning a feasibility study of a China-Nepal cross-border railway project. The railway construction is being considered under an ambitious project that's a component of China's signature Belt and Road Initiative.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-...hattered-bones

[tyn89]

The U.S. House just passed the Hong Kong Human Rights & Democracy Act of 2019 unanimously.

Most likely U.S. Senate will pass it as well.

Will be interesting to see if President Trump will sign it and how the USA will enforce the bill.

[XterraRob]

The U.S. House just passed the Hong Kong Human Rights & Democracy Act of 2019 unanimously.

Most likely U.S. Senate will pass it as well.

Will be interesting to see if President Trump will sign it and how the USA will enforce the bill.

I think he will, this is another example of the bipartisan legislation, hope people remember that.

[tyn89]

This is truly a bipartisan matter now.

The USA is united on this matter and stand behind these freedom fighters.

[XterraRob]

[greenleaf]

Jihad coming?



Police blast mosque with water cannon as hundreds of thousands protest in Hong Kong

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...199_story.html

[Peter Ruby]

Anyone know if LeBron or Kaepernick have joined the protesters in Hong Kong?

Not srs. Those two pussies only notch when it’s about inequality in America. Such irony.

[tyn89]

Over 350,000 Hongkongers turned up for an 'unlawful' demonstration to fight for freedom

[XterraRob]

It's getting lit in HK!

[greenleaf]

[tyn89]

Hong Kong police has completely lost it. They are literally mentally unstable to do their job.

[tyn89]

This is the HK gov game plan to incite violence in the city so they can call off the 24th Nov district election because it will be a landslide loss to the pro establishment camp.

They are giving weapons to one side and enraging the other side so they have an excuse.

Very typical communist tactics once again.

[tyn89]

Ted Cruz: Hong Kong is the new Berlin https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/c...he-new-berlin/

Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s collapse. Its ruin would pave the way for the end of the Cold War and mark the abject failure of communism.

Throughout history, people of every color and creed have sought to flee the reach of communism. Tyrants know this, which is why the Berlin Wall was built — not to keep people out, but rather to keep people in.

Throughout the Berlin Wall’s existence, the Soviet Union’s communist regime in East Germany imprisoned and killed thousands of people yearning for freedom.

America did not bomb the Berlin Wall to the ground, or send in tanks to demolish it. Instead, the Wall’s collapse came as a result of peace through strength: rebuilding America’s military, pioneering missile defense technology, bankrupting the Soviet Union, and speaking truth to the oppression of the “evil empire.”

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan had stood before the Brandenburg Gate and made the simple yet transformational demand: “[I]f you seek peace, if you seek prosperity ... Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Three years later, the Berlin Wall fell to the ground. Speaking the truth caused the tyranny of East Berlin to crumble.

American values have immense power in advancing the cause of freedom.

Though the physical, graffiti-covered, concrete barrier was toppled in East Germany, modern Berlin Walls still exist today. Tyranny oppresses billions across the world — especially in China.

As the Chinese Communist Party continues to encroach on the autonomy of Hong Kong and eliminate the democratic norms there, the cause for freedom has never been greater.

Today, Hong Kong is the new Berlin.

China poses the most significant long-term geopolitical threat facing America and our allies. It is modernizing its military with stolen American technology and intellectual property, and China is using economic blackmail to coerce its neighbors and countries around the world.

And much like the people in the Soviet bloc experienced, the Chinese Communist Party engages in routine censorship and surveillance of its citizens and commits atrocious human rights offenses. They have created a 1984-style dystopia, with pervasive surveillance powered by innovative technology. Millions of detained Uighurs and other religious minorities are languishing in concentration camps while Falun Gong practitioners are allegedly murdered so their organs can be harvested.

As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I’ve sought to highlight and counter how the party runs that dystopia. I’ve sponsored legislation and urged the Trump administration to block China’s access to American technology companies that provide DNA, voice and facial recognition tracking of minorities such as the Uighurs. Recently, the administration implemented my recommendations, and I applaud President Donald Trump for doing so.

All tyrants, including those of the Chinese Communist Party, fear the truth. And they fear dissidents.

As the son of a Cuban political prisoner, I know firsthand the power dissidents and their stories hold, and I have sought to shine a light on oppressive regimes around the world and to fight for those yearning for freedom.

While many Americans are familiar with Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s tweet signaling support for the Hong Kong protesters that sent the party into a tailspin, many may not be familiar with the story of the late Dr. Liu Xiaobo.

Dr. Liu was a pro-democracy advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner who was unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese government for publishing “Charter 08,” an anti-Communist manifesto calling for political freedom and human justice in China.

I worked to shine a light on his plight, hoping to shame the party into releasing him, including through legislation that would have renamed the street in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., Liu Xiaobo Plaza. To the deep dismay of the party, my legislation overwhelmingly passed in the Senate, without a single vote against it.

Though the Chinese government acted too slowly to release Liu Xiaobo before he died in captivity, I continued to press them to release his wife, Liu Xia, whom they were also holding. And, in July 2018, they did.

What led to Liu Xia’s release was not an aircraft carrier pulling up along the Chinese coast, or American tanks rolling across the border. It was simply light and truth.

In October, as one of the first U.S. senators to visit Hong Kong since the marches began, I had the opportunity to meet with pro-democracy activists, dissidents and protest leaders there. I dressed in black in solidarity with them, and we discussed the critical importance of protecting Hong Kong’s autonomy, free speech and basic human rights.

Freedom from the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party is the battle cry of dissidents in Hong Kong. What have they been waving? American flags. And what have they been singing? The American national anthem.

In the United States, it is easy to take for granted the rights that have made our country a shining beacon of freedom. But all Americans, including those employed by our sports leagues and our corporate giants, should remember that our unique defining principles have the power to tear down oppressive walls, topple tyrannies and promote freedom.

Because, as Reagan demonstrated, truth is powerful and can transform the world.

Ted Cruz is a Republican U.S. senator from Texas and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.



China IS the Nazi in 2019 and that's a hard fact, no one can deny.

[tyn89]

15+ police in full riot gear arrest an unarmed female teen.