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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Chinese state media has urged authorities to take a "tougher line" against protesters in Hong Kong who vandalised state-run Xinhua news agency and other buildings at the weekend, saying the violence damaged the city's rule of law.
[...] In an editorial, state-backed China Daily newspaper criticised the "wanton" attacks by "naive" demonstrators, adding, "They are doomed to fail simply because their violence will encounter the full weight of the law."
Police fired tear gas at black-clad protesters on Saturday and Sunday in some of the worst violence in the Asian financial hub in weeks, with metro stations set ablaze and buildings vandalised.
Violence also erupted on Sunday after a man with a knife attacked several people and bit off part of the ear of a pro-democracy politician. Two of the victims are reportedly in critical condition, according to reports.
The past five months of anti-government protests in the former British colony represent the biggest popular challenge to President Xi Jinping's government since he took over China's leadership in late 2012.
Protesters are angry at China's perceived meddling with Hong Kong's freedoms, including its legal system, since the Asian financial hub returned to Chinese rule in 1997. China denies the accusation.
The widely-read Global Times tabloid on Sunday condemned the protesters' actions targeting Xinhua and called for action by Hong Kong's enforcement agencies.
"Due to the symbolic image of Xinhua, the vandalizing of its branch is not only a provocation to the rule of law in Hong Kong, but also to the central government and the Chinese mainland, which is the rioters' main purpose," it said.
On Friday, after a meeting of China's top leadership, a senior Chinese official said it would not tolerate separatism or threats to national security in Hong Kong and would "perfect" the way it appointed the city's leader.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @07:01PM (1 child)
I've obviously had this debate before and the regularity with which one is declared a 'secret China spy' or whatever simply for being a mixture of reasonably informed and not rabidly opposed to any and everything from the 'bad guys' is remarkable. Hey China, if you're listening and willing to pay me for my regular rants - please do get in contact. I type fast + come with experience! ;-) But more seriously, I think it indicates some degree of deterioration of our culture that's aiming to prove Orwell right: "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength." How many people who declare e.g. Jinping a dictator, have even the vaguest understanding of the Chinese political system? And I would not understate China's successes. Yes, people are no longer starving. And they now also have the fastest growing middle class in the world, more billionaires than any other nation in the world, and are achieving a slew of technological and scientific successes. The nation once starving while we put a man on the moon is now learning how to grow plants with a lander on the moon while we try to figure out how to get back to the moon...
I agree there's no guarantee it will continue, but that is always true. I see no reason to believe it won't. A big part of the reason for Jinping's popularity is specifically because he's been quite brutal [wikipedia.org] on corruption and has taken down corrupt officials at the height of Chinese politics. And the consequences there are real. You have politburo members serving life sentences in prison. In past corruption cases, the death penalty has been utilized. Ultimately I think the Chinese system offers a lot to consider -- I do not believe that the extremely positive results they're having are just some coincidence. It's similar to our past. The United States went from a poorly developed backwoods outpost to absolutely dominant world leader in less than 200 years. To not deeply consider how we achieved such would be foolhardy for any student of politics or history. At the same time, I think it would be equally foolhardy to not consider why we seem to be stalling out in more recent decades.
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Two questions for you though:
1) What do you think are some of the "much more impressive" government driven achievements of the US in the past 20 years?
2) What do you mean on only select people being able to vote in China? My Chinese handler hasn't given me a sufficient instruction in their political system yet, so I'm still left to to use the interwebs like a pleb. From the page [wikipedia.org] I referenced earlier:
And that law was adopted in China, as mentioned, in 1998.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 10 2019, @04:21PM
I would point out the massive expansion of global trade (among other things, making the possibility of turning the entire world into the developed world) and development of the internet as examples. They aren't government-driven, but the same is true of the massive development of the Chinese economy which grew more by the absence of government influence than its "driving".