I’ve often recommended the local South China Morning Post. In our view, Asia’s best English language paper. It remains resolutely balanced, with articles both pro and anti government, pro and anti Beijing. That has remained the case even since it was bought by Alibabas’s Jack Ma a few years ago.
No subscription needed. Though you might need to register.
A few recent articles we found interesting, on point.
The “freedom fighters” have descended into violent gangs. [Added: I ought to say “largely descended…” as some activities remain peaceful. A lot of hand-linking, for example. And today some peaceful, even fun, activities are planned. Let’s see.]. This “violent gangs” angle is not Beijing propaganda. It’s the on-the-ground reality, which Jing and I have witnessed for months now. If you ask them what they’re smashing stuff up for, they don’t have an answer.
If you eye-witness the recent rioting, as we have, you’ll see it’s now three main parties, the three “V”s we call them: Vandals, Visitors and Vectors.
The Vandals are young men, mostly under 20, black clad, like Antifa, smashing China-linked shops, government offices and the subway stations, and trashing and blocking roads. To the occasional annoyment of seventy year old grannies.
The Visitors are local folks, like us, gawking. With a lot of foreign visitors too, coming to see of reality-show violence tourism.
The Vectors are the media, mainstream and social. Many, many. More than the Vandals, at times. As many as the Visitors. Also gawking and hoping for some dramatic footage. And if they see something horrible going on — smashing aquariums, for example, or the beating up elderly taxi drivers — do nothing. Just click and record.
And of course the police are there, but not always. In most places they’re not there, as they are too stretched. The protesters call them the “Po Po”, not endearing, generally as in “fuck the popo “.
Meantime, that “fear of Beijing encroachment “? It’s really just good old fashioned bigotry. Hatred of mainlanders. Hatred of the “Other”, as they say. Hatred of immigrants. If it were happening in Australia or the US, it would be roundly be condemned. Instead, in most of the western media, Vandals are “freedom fighters”.
*ADDED: The social media article is about what we’ve been following for some time, the local App LIHKG and Telegraph. The problem with LIHKG is that its algorithm “pushes” posts such that a single idea, good or bad, goes up the ranking, whereas with Facebook the algorithm rewards conflict because that means more clicks, so conflict tends to smooth out the good and the bad. In short: LIHKG tends to encourage extremism by its algorithm.
No subscription needed. Though you might need to register.
A few recent articles we found interesting, on point.
- “Sinking into hatred” by Audrey Jiajia Li
- “Sad irony in Hong Kong protesters’ fight for freedoms”, by Andrew Sheng
- “Hard path to peace” by Brian YS Wong
- “Older Hongkongers taking to social media…” by Peace Chiu*
The “freedom fighters” have descended into violent gangs. [Added: I ought to say “largely descended…” as some activities remain peaceful. A lot of hand-linking, for example. And today some peaceful, even fun, activities are planned. Let’s see.]. This “violent gangs” angle is not Beijing propaganda. It’s the on-the-ground reality, which Jing and I have witnessed for months now. If you ask them what they’re smashing stuff up for, they don’t have an answer.
If you eye-witness the recent rioting, as we have, you’ll see it’s now three main parties, the three “V”s we call them: Vandals, Visitors and Vectors.
The Vandals are young men, mostly under 20, black clad, like Antifa, smashing China-linked shops, government offices and the subway stations, and trashing and blocking roads. To the occasional annoyment of seventy year old grannies.
The Visitors are local folks, like us, gawking. With a lot of foreign visitors too, coming to see of reality-show violence tourism.
The Vectors are the media, mainstream and social. Many, many. More than the Vandals, at times. As many as the Visitors. Also gawking and hoping for some dramatic footage. And if they see something horrible going on — smashing aquariums, for example, or the beating up elderly taxi drivers — do nothing. Just click and record.
And of course the police are there, but not always. In most places they’re not there, as they are too stretched. The protesters call them the “Po Po”, not endearing, generally as in “fuck the popo “.
Meantime, that “fear of Beijing encroachment “? It’s really just good old fashioned bigotry. Hatred of mainlanders. Hatred of the “Other”, as they say. Hatred of immigrants. If it were happening in Australia or the US, it would be roundly be condemned. Instead, in most of the western media, Vandals are “freedom fighters”.
*ADDED: The social media article is about what we’ve been following for some time, the local App LIHKG and Telegraph. The problem with LIHKG is that its algorithm “pushes” posts such that a single idea, good or bad, goes up the ranking, whereas with Facebook the algorithm rewards conflict because that means more clicks, so conflict tends to smooth out the good and the bad. In short: LIHKG tends to encourage extremism by its algorithm.
