The
demonstrations in Hong Kong, have a global impact. What are the forces behind
this movement? Who provides the funds and who stands to benefit?
The
increasingly violent demonstrations in Hong Kong are completely embraced and
enthusiastically supported in the U.S. corporate media and all the political
parties in the U.S. and Britain. This should be a danger sign to everyone
fighting for change and for social progress.
The
disruptive actions involve helmeted and masked protesters using gasoline bombs,
flaming bricks, arson and steel bars, random attacks on buses, and airport and
mass transit shutdowns. Among the most provocative acts was an organized
break-in at the Hong Kong legislature where “activists” vandalized the building
and hung the British Union Jack.
The
New York Times described the airport shutdown: “The protests at the airport
have been deeply tactical, as the largely leaderless movement strikes at a
vital economic artery. Hong Kong International Airport, which opened in 1998,
the year after China reclaimed the territory from Britain, serves as a gateway
to the rest of Asia. Sleek and well run, the airport accommodates nearly 75
million passengers a year and handles more than 5.1 million metric tons of
cargo.” (Aug. 14)
U.S.
media have consistently labelled these violent actions “pro-democracy.” But are
they?
Hong
Kong police are denounced in the U.S. media for violence, but actually have
shown great restraint. Despite months of violent confrontations, with flaming
bottles constantly thrown, no one has been killed.
There
is no such favourable media coverage or support from U.S. politicians for
demonstrations of desperate workers and peasants in Honduras, Haiti or the
Philippines, or for the Yellow Vest movement in France. There is never an
official condemnation when demonstrators are killed in Yemen or Kashmir or in
weekly demonstrations in Gaza against Israeli occupation.
While
Hong Kong protests receive widespread attention, there is no similar coverage
of or political support for Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the U.S. or
the masses protesting racist Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and
roundups of migrants.
The
escalating demonstrations are linked to the U.S. trade war, tariffs and
military encirclement of China. Four hundred—half—of the 800 U.S. overseas
military bases surround China. Aircraft carriers, destroyers, nuclear
submarines, jet aircraft, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile
batteries, and satellite surveillance infrastructures are positioned in the
South China Sea, close to Hong Kong. Media demonization is needed to justify
and intensify this military presence.
Encouraging
the demonstrations goes hand-in-hand with international efforts to bar Huawei
5G technology, the cancelation of a joint study of cancer and the arrest of
Chinese corporate officers. All these acts are designed to exert maximum
pressure on China, divide the leadership, destabilize economic development and
weaken China’s resolve to maintain any socialist planning.
British
imperialism, in the 155 years it ruled Hong Kong, denied rights to millions of
workers. There was no elected government, no right to a minimum wage, unions,
decent housing or health care, and certainly no freedom of the press or freedom
of speech. These basic democratic rights were not even on the books in colonial
Hong Kong.
Hong
Kong is stolen land. This spectacular deep-water port in the South China Sea,
was seized by Britain in the 1842 Opium Wars. After negotiations with Britain
had dragged on through the 1980s, the British imposed another unequal treaty on
the People’s Republic of China.
Under
the 1997 “One Country, Two Systems” agreement that officially returned Hong
Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories to the PRC, Britain and China agreed to
leave “the previous capitalist system” in place for 50 years.
In
1997 Hong Kong’s gross domestic product was 27 percent of China’s gross
domestic product. It is now a mere 3 percent and falling. Much to U.S. and
British frustration, the world’s largest banks are now in China and they are
state-owned banks.
For
the last 10 years wages have been stagnant in Hong Kong while rents have
increased 300 percent; it is the most expensive city in the world. In Shenzhen,
wages have increased 8 percent every year, and more than 1 million new, public,
green housing units at low rates are nearing completion.
What
confounds the capitalist class, far more than China’s incredible growth, is
that the top 12 Chinese companies on U.S. Fortune 500 list are all state-owned
and state-subsidized. They include massive oil, solar energy,
telecommunications, engineering and construction companies, banks and the auto
industry. (Fortune.com, July 22, 2015)
U.S.
corporate power is deeply threatened by China’s level of development through
the Belt and Road Initiative and its growing position in international trade
and investment.
Over
the past month, the media has been reporting that groups involved in the
protests have received significant funding from the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED), “a CIA soft-power cut-out that has played a critical role in
innumerable US regime-change operations, ” according to writer Alexander
Rubinstein.
The
report claimed that the NED has four main branches, at least two of which are
active in Hong Kong: the Solidarity Center (SC) and National Democratic
Institute (NDI).
“The
latter has been active in Hong Kong since 1997, and NED funding for Hong
Kong-based groups has been consistent,” Louisa Greve, vice president of
programmes for Asia, Middle East and North Africa, was quoted.
While
NED funding for groups in Hong Kong goes back to 1994, 1997 was when the
British returned the territory to China, it was reported.
The
report said in 2018, NED granted US$155,000 (RM645,885) to SC and US$200,000
(RM833,400) to NDI for work in Hong Kong, and US$90,000 (RM375,000) to Hong
Kong Human Rights Monitor (HKHRM), which isn’t a branch of NED, but a partner
in Hong Kong. Between 1995 and 2013, HKHRM received more than US$1.9mil
(RM7.9mil) in funds from the NED.
The
NED was set up in 1983 to channel grants for “promoting democracy” and it’s
said that it receives US$100mil (RM416mil) annually from relevant agencies.
The
U.S. is demanding that China abandon state support of its industries, the
ownership of its banks and national planning. But contrasting the decay,
growing poverty and intense alienation in Hong Kong with the green vibrant city
of Shenzhen across the river shows that there are two choices for China today, modern
socialist planning or a return to the colonial past.
Reference:
The
cost of the Hong Kong protests, 4 August 2019, The Star
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