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from the ain't-gonna-have-none-of-that-anti-talk dept.
China has barred two pro-independence politicians from taking seats in Hong Kong's legislature:
China's parliament passed a ruling on Monday that effectively bars two Hong Kong pro-independence politicians from taking office, Beijing's most direct intervention in the territory's legal and political system since 1997 handover. The National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing ruled that lawmakers must swear allegiance to Hong Kong as part of China and that candidates would be disqualified if they changed the wording of their oath of office or if they failed to take it in a sincere and solemn manner.
The prospect of the ruling had sparked protests in the former British colony on Sunday. Foreign diplomats were watching closely, stressing the importance of the rule of the law to the city's international reputation. While the controversial decision effectively bars the two pro-independence Hong Kong politicians from being sworn in, a court in the Chinese-ruled city must still rule on the case, taking Beijing's decision into consideration.
Also at NYT and Washington Post.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday November 08 2016, @03:01AM
And the established order, the PRC, has never been very good at dealing with spit. So now the over-reaction hits, and the process of polarisation begins in earnest.
I have to admit it's a difficult situation for me to *feel* in response to. Which is ok, thinking is superior and people need to learn to do that again.
I'm a huge sinophile, and when I see young Chinese people using Japanese occupation era-slurs it causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. I imagine that's got to be similar to what the PRC honchos felt, only not as strong, and believe me what I got was strong enough. Make no mistake, what these people did was deliberately offensive.
I'm having a very hard time, in fact, thinking of a decent analogy for how offensive this was. There are no clean analogies, as Americans generally have no conscious memory of living under occupation by an army that considers us racially inferior. I can't even forward an analogy without invoking Godwin or inviting a response that does same, so I'll just leave it at this: deliberately offensive.
But I can certainly sympathize with those protesters too. They got no choice in any of this, they were born to it, born to freedom with an expiration date. No one should accept such a thing.
The PRC over-reacted. They would have been MUCH wiser to have pointedly with-held comment. The existing Hong Kong legal structure would have hemmed and hawwed and spent some time on it and eventually made a ruling Beijing could live with, and most of Hong Kong would have then recognized it as legitimate.
But they allowed themselves to be baited, they moved precipitously; to put it simply they fucked up big time. Now they've gone and opened their mouth up and told the Hong Kong judiciary how to decide the case, IN PUBLIC. The Hong Kong judiciary can no longer hemm and hawww for a bit and then spit out the answer they knew all along they had to spit out. They can no longer pretend that they are in charge.
THEY have now been shamed by Beijing and instead of just this small movement of mostly young people they have a much larger and much more diverse set of opponents to contend with. It includes the original demonstrators and the people that voted for these two, but also a lot of people that sympathized with their concerns but told them to pipe down and worry about more immediate concerns, it includes the Hong Kong judiciary that certainly knew well enough how to rule without the pre-emptive public slapping (and who are doubtless rubbing their cheeks gingerly and feeling very betrayed at the moment) and probably a good number of officials outside the judiciary as well.
The saddest thing is in the end I'm having a very hard time seeing how this will help anyone concerned.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?