Not a good look and depressing for those of us who hoped for increasing democracy in Hong Kong. Then again, the nail was hammered into that coffin way back in 2014 when the pan-Dems rejected reforms that would have brought us closer to universal suffrage, rejecting on the basis that they were only 60 or 70% of what they wanted and not 100% of what they demanded. Instead they get roll-back to zero. Way to go, lads!
Beijing, of course, because one can always blame Beijing. Who, these days, loves a Communist Party?
One could argue — and it has force — that the apparatchiks in Beijing were forced into what they’re doing now. That last year’s National Security Law was needed to stop rioters rampaging daily through our streets.
You can blame the protesters-cum-rioters themselves. And that’s where I, myself, me, place most of the blame. It was truly shocking g to see what they did to our city. The wanton destruction and vicious anti-police anti-CCP graffiti, burning Chinese owned businesses, storming our very own Legco.
And tied to that one could also blame those providing the money to the rioters. The evidence is circumstantial, but strong, that the CIA-funded National Endowment for Democracy funded the rioters, at least to some degree. I doubt that had NED or someone else not provided funds that the rioting woikd have stopped. I reckon it was mostly, maybe 99% above, locally-inspired. So this “foreign interference” was more of a force multiplier than a force initiater.
And finally, of course, one can blame our very own government, particularly the inept Chief Executive Carrie Lam pushing the ill advised extradition law. It was that that sparked the demos and then the rioting in the first place.
Still, most of our seven freedoms remain intact. If Xi”s apparatchiks stop with requiring our leaders be “patriots” that’s fine. But will they stop? Once they have the bit between their teeth and sanctions are just an inconvenience?
