Reflections on Hong Kong
Western propaganda has a foothold on audiences around the world. Without basic fact-checking or even the pretence of unbiased rhetoric, mainstream media pounces on enemies of capital with ludicrous accusations. After Iraq and Venezuela, Western media now has its sights on China to continue its imperialist agenda with all its ‘credibility’ still intact. It also just so happens that Hong Kong is rallying, with the United States' fingerprints all over the unrest.
The mainstream media approach to the protests in Hong Kong is nonsensical and war-hawkish, and they are waiting and goading on another ‘Tiananmen’-like massacre while the Chinese government has done everything they can to preserve peace and respect the Special Administrative Regional Status. Those with white-saviour complexes nevertheless promote the same false narratives, and Hong Kong protesters are using this to their advantage – waving signs in English, American flags, and even singing the US national anthem as they make their way to US consulate.
If you want to witness the epitome of mainstream media failure, just see the shallowness of their coverage of the Hong Kong protests. But it’s the same with Venezuela only, this time, they have a stronger agenda and target: China. Even among the left, China is a controversial government but – because of this weakness – they are able to pounce on it all the more easily. And while it may not be another ‘brown’ country the US can invade, it still bears the same hallmarks of racism, bigotry, and shallowness the imperialist media utilises in its quest for regime change.
China's current and historical ‘authoritarian’ rule has been misrepresented for the benefit of Western propaganda, from the Chinese revolution, to the Cultural revolution, all the way down to Tiananmen Square, and Westerners in the left continue to gobble up Western propaganda that goes against the country. But let's say there are leftist, Marxist, or even communist groups in Hong Kong that are advocating for independence; let's say they have strong theories, praxis, and reasons as to why independence will be great for the masses. In this hypothetical situation, let’s go far as to say that they were 100% independent and not using any western funding or backing, they are still a minority. But 37,000 NGOs in Hong Kong receive money from the corrupt NED organization, US State Department, and CIA, and numerous Hong Kong leaders and organizers have met with US officials including Ted Cruz – all drowning out any chance of promoting a working class agenda. Does any leftist sincerely think that an independent Hong Kong would allow any sort of socialism or Marxism in their country?
We can no longer ignore the semantics around China. They are an economic threat to the hegemony of the West, and these tensions are manufactured. We can argue about the correct measures to help our comrades, while understanding the measures to protect the Chinese Communist Party, revolution, and their people. But to fall for the West's propaganda and allow its Orientalist narrative to take root in our perspectives against China is unacceptable. They are our comrades. They are closer to our ideals than any capitalist country in the West. Without the proper diligence, we may be aligning ourselves with the true oppressors (whether it’s the US or the CIA), rather than those fighting against them with established socialist countries that have overthrown capitalism and feudalism.
Demands for Hong Kong’s independence from China become increasingly absurd. Hong Kong heavily relies on China for its own financial stability, despite its gigantic economic inequality; 55% of Hong Kong’s trade and 80% of its tourists are from mainland China. Hong Kong’s GDP growth slowed down but by 2017 it was back on track, only to be hit by the trade war with the Anglo countries – which is a bigger obstacle than the local unrest.
If Hong Kong protesters were not waving imperialist flags, or even refusing and rebuking the aid of the West for its independence, this conversation will be vastly different. If this was not the case, communists could really analyse how China might deal with this problem internally. But the fingerprints of the CIA and US state department (along with British and other Western counterparts) are all over this, at the most convenient time at the height of a trade war. Proof of this includes:
• Protesters have previously been paid with European Research Council university funds
• The purpose of which was revealed by Michael Pillsbury, Consultant at US Department of Defense
• American Government NGOs fueling Hong Kong Protests
The Hong Kong protesters are being used as a pawn for America's political gain against China, and to be used like this is to do the imperialist bidding as the US seeks to drastically influence and reshape the region through any means necessary. If China did allow Hong Kong to become independent, the US would heavily bolster its development for influence to the point where the bourgeoisie of Taiwan, Macau, Tibet, and Xiongnu would want to separate, leading to the Balkanisation of China.
When protesters storm the Legislative Council of Hong Kong with British colonial flags and wear ‘Make Hong Kong Great Again’ caps, it is essential to question Hong Kong’s position under British rule. British imperialism was invariably worse than their current system, and even a quick glance at laws in Hong Kong under British rule rebuts this statement.
Laws were passed to ensure that no Chinese people would live in the most desirable areas in Hong Kong, which the British wished to preserve as their exclusive enclaves.
In a land in which ninety-eight percent of the population was Chinese, English was the official language. The Chinese language was not permitted to be used in government offices. Laws regulating conduct were written exclusively in English, a language which the vast majority of the population could not understand.
The British unleashed a horrid opioid epidemic on the Chinese through Hong Kong. Michael Parenti stated that, ‘when the communist liberated Shanghai from the sponsored Kuomintang reactionary government, in 1949, about 20% of the population of Shanghai, 1.2 million people, were drug addicts.’
‘The slave trade was merciful compared with the opium trade. We did not destroy the body of the Africans, for it was our immediate interest to keep them alive; we did not debase their natures, corrupt their minds, nor destroy their souls. But the opium sellers lays the body after he has corrupted, degraded and annihilated the moral being of unhappy sinners.’
The more distressing part about this was that the Chinese government seized some of the opium and destroyed it but, after the opium wars, they were forced to compensate the very people that were poisoning their country.
‘The highest-level British official in China in the late 1840s described Hong Kong as the ‘great receptacle of thieves and pirates protected by the technicalities of British law.’
‘Hong Kong has been Chinese Territory since ancient times. This is a fact known to all, old and young in the world... British imperialism came to china by pirate ships, provoked the criminal “opium war”, massacred numerous Chinese people, and occupied the Chinese territory of Hong Kong… It is the British imperialist who have come from thousands of miles away to seize our land by force and kill our compatriots.’
Sex slavery was a booming market, as girls were bought and sold by wealthy Chinese and British men. British rule legalized the sale of human beings and slavery, despite it being illegal in England.
Chinese residents were given curfews, and criminal punishments would range from legal physical beatings to bodily mutilation (compared to British rule breakers who would just pay a fine).
These are only half of the atrocities listed in Richard Daniel Klein’s ‘Law and Racism in an Asian Setting: An Analysis of the British Rule in Hong Kong.’
Hong Kong has one of the highest income inequalities in the world, along with a horrid housing crisis, with people sleeping in cages. On August 6, 2019, The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions; the largest union in Hong Kong with over 410,000 workers and a pro-Beijing orientation, makes a statement vehemently opposing the one-day strike launched by the anti-Beijing Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions.
According to a survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in July 2016, only 17.4% of overall respondents supported independence. This suggests over 80% of the population support either the current ‘one country two systems’ policy, or direct governance by China. Additionally, there is extreme doubt as to whether these crowds are as large as they seem, with media drastically giving wrong calculations and numbers, while Pro-Beijing Rallies in Hong Kong have gone completely unreported.
The ‘blind equality’ that some leftists nevertheless give to all police without comprehending the systems, cultures, economics, and back stories of such institutions demonstrates a failure to understand the necessary function of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Police in China are not the same as police in the US, which are deeply rooted in racism, slavery, and mass murder for the sake of private property. While we do not support brutal repression, we do point to the hypocrisy as leftists fail to acknowledge the far more extreme measures taken by police in their own countries – all while protesters attack anyone speaking Mandarin, the stabbing of a police officer in the neck and setting them alight with Molotov cocktails – and the bloodbath that would quickly ensue if these tactics were exported to the US. And so China does not even come close to the repressive measures taken in ostensibly democratic countries, even as Michael Parenti explained why every leftist must comprehend ‘authoritarian measures’ taken by socialist governments. But as Mao Tse Tung said: ‘Communists firmly stand for peace and are against war, but if the imperialists insist on war, we shall not be afraid of it.’
So, Chinese comrades, we support you.