Government/Politics - 89. page

A video titled “The ‘Magical Prediction’ of the Hong Kong Police” exposed several facts that indicate it was very likely that the Hong Kong police set up the Hong Kong protesters so they would enter the Legislative Council on July 1.

On the official video in which the police officer condemned the protesters for using metal material to damage the building and then rushed into the building, his watch showed the time to be 5:05. However, the protesters did not enter the Legislative Council until 9 p.m.

The video showed several middle-aged radical “protesters” who pushed a metal cart to break the glass doors, while the policemen inside the door were just calmly standing and watching. When a councilman tried to stop the action, a very radical “protester” simply pushed the councilman to ground. This protester’s face was fully covered, and he wore gloves. All these radical “protesters” later completely disappeared.

There were also some other awkward phenomena. The policemen inside the building set off a gas canister when there was no protester entering the building; then 4 minutes later, around 9 p.m., they just left. Five minutes later, the gate was broken and protesters came in.

Newsweek added other information, saying, “Pro-democracy internet users in Hong Kong are circulating a video they claim proves that Monday’s violent protests were allowed—and perhaps even encouraged—by the city’s police force in order to undermine the credibility of demonstrators.”  They also “suggested that police-directed agent provocateurs may have been active among the protesters, perhaps even leading the attack on the Legislative Council building.”

Sources:
1. Newsweek, July 2, 2019
https://www.newsweek.com/hong-kong-protesters-legco-building-break-police-set-video-officer-statement-watch-1447038
2. YouTube, July 2, 2019

According to the latest statistics that the Ministry of Organization released on June 30, as of December 31, 2018, the total number of members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was 90.594 million. But many people believe that most of the members joined the party for personal gain. The CCP is the ruling party of the country with the largest population in the world. Due to its long-term monopoly on social resources, many people join the party out of concern for their personal future. Meanwhile there are a large number of corrupt officials and other criminals among the CCP officials and party members. Many party members have a very poor image in the eyes of the people. When referring to the CCP’s dismissal of some of its party members in order to maintain the “purity” of the party, some non-party members even joked that, “It is better for the bad guys to stay in the party and not to be expelled. Otherwise they will contaminate the general public.” However, the latest article that Xinhua published claimed that the party attracts two million people to join each year and the quality of its members continues to improve.

Source: Voice of America, June 30, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/chinese-communist-party-members-20190630/4979386.html

Although the current number is still not large, more and more of Hong Kong’s people are moving to Taiwan to find a new life and place for themselves. According to Taiwan’s official data, the number of Hong Kong and Macao residents who obtained Taiwan resident status last year was more than double what it was 10 years ago. Since the umbrella movement in Hong Kong in 2014, the number of Hong Kong people who are migrating to Taiwan has been increasing. When the Hong Kong government recently attempted to revise the “Extradition Law,” millions of Hong Kong residents showed resistance. The number of people who have inquired about migration to Taiwan showed an “explosive growth.”

According to statistics from the Taiwan Immigration Department, there were about 700 Hong Kong residents who obtained Taiwan resident status in 2014. In 2016, the number went up to 1,086 people. For the past two years, the number has held steady at more than 1,000 people every year. Lin Yaozong, head of the Hong Kong immigration company in Hong Kong, said in an interview with Voice of America that, during the umbrella movement in 2014, there was a wave of Hong Kong people migrating to Taiwan. After Carrie Lam was elected as the Chief Executive, the number of applicants dropped. The decline was believed to be due to the fact that many Hong Kong people were waiting to see how Carrie Lam managed Hong Kong. After they discovered that Carrie Lam was only there to repeat the previous system, the desire of Hong Kong’s people to immigrate to Taiwan increased again. After 2018, the Hong Kong people’s immigration to Taiwan accelerated. He said that, especially in the past two months, the popularity of consulting about immigration to Taiwan has risen sharply, showing a “phenomenal growth.”

According to a poll that the Chinese University of Hong Kong released earlier this year, more than 30 percent of respondents said that Taiwan would be the third most popular location if they had the opportunity to migrate, second only to Canada and Australia. The reasons for migrating include that there are too many political disputes and social problems in Hong Kong, along with overcrowded living conditions, high housing prices, a lack of democracy, and an unsatisfactory political system.

Source: Voice of America, July 1, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/hong-kong-taiwan-immigration/4979467.html

The mainland banned a song a Hong Kong artist sang after he made a statement in support of the anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong. Well-known singer Lo Ta-yu, who was born in Taiwan and went to Hong Kong in order to advance his career, recently held a concert at the Taipei Arena. During the concert on June 16th, Lo sang the song “Queen’s Road East” which was co-produced with Lin Xi, Hong Kong lyricist, in 1991. Because this song reflects the Hong Kong people’s sense of uneasiness in the face of the transfer of sovereignty, Beijing considers it to be politically sensitive. During the concert, Lo said the following words three times: There are “certain things you can’t rush.” Lo told the media after the concert that he was expressing his view about the anti-extradition bill protests. He said that he felt disheartened when the Hong Kong government used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and Bean bag rounds to target the protesters. On June 19, Chinese netizens noticed that the song “Queen’s Road East” was removed from among the major music sites in the mainland including QQ, NetEase Cloud Music, Kugou Music, and Xiami Music. In addition, the mainland removed “Pearl of the Orient,” another song that Lo produced and also, “Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies” by Beyond, which thousands of protesters sang during the anti-extradition bill protest.

According to hk01.com, Hong Kong’s online media, “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from Les Misérables was a song widely sung during the protest but it was banned in China. After hearing protesters sing his song, Herbert Kretzmer, who wrote the lyrics of the song wrote to the Daily Mail saying how humbling that his Les Misérables hit has helped (the Hong Kong people) to fight for freedom.

Source:
1. Epoch Times, June 23, 2019
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/19/6/23/n11341454.htm
2. Daily Mail, June 19, 2019
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7160409/How-humbling-Les-Miserables-hit-helped-fight-freedom.html

The Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development recently launched a campaign to stop the “worship of foreign things” and to require the locals to change the name of any location or any building that contained a “foreign name.” It has expanded across the mainland in regions including Guangdong, Ningxia, Shanxi, Zhejiang, Shandong, Sichuan, Fujian, Hainan, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia. In Hainan province, it listed 84 areas that required a name change. One of those was the Vienna Hotel, which was named after the capital of Austria. The Vienna Hotels company raised an objection stating that the name was legally authorized in China. The hotel chain has 15 Hotels in Hainan and 2,500 hotels in the mainland. In Zhejiang province, an apartment complex named “Manhattan” and one called “Europe” were ordered to change their names. Moreover, in Fujian province, the government even tried to change the names of the historic mountains because the names sounded “odd.” A number of overseas Chinese media reported the news, calling it a “waste of money and resources” and stated that the campaign received wide criticism and resistance. Netizens in China also posted comments on the Internet. One posting said, “What about Alibaba? Isn’t this worshiping Arabian culture?” Others wrote “the cultural revolution is back!” … “If a foreign name needs to be changed, how about changing Marxism, Communism and the Communist Party because all of them came from overseas.”

Source: Epoch Times, June 23, 2019
http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/19/6/23/n11341557.htm