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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 06 2019, @10:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the getting-roughed-up dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @12:42AM (12 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 11 2019, @12:42AM (#918761) Journal

    And this is exactly what I'm asserting: that general elections are an external aspect, not working aspect. It's nothing more than a PR ploy to feel people represented while in fact hereditary aristocracy(Bush I, Bush II) is still in power.

    Except that they aren't still in power and hereditary aristocracy is a nonsense term even for the political families - they still have to get elected.

    And once again, since this is a comparison rather than just considering the US in a vacuum, China doesn't do it better. You might detect a theme here.

  • (Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday November 11 2019, @06:37AM (11 children)

    by loonycyborg (6905) on Monday November 11 2019, @06:37AM (#918840)

    It's simply irrelevant what's going on in China. It's another country with language from another language macro-family, it has own cultural context that's most likely cannot be understood properly for anyone not immersed in their culture. As far as actual evidence goes, "they have it worse" is nothing more than ideological statement which is taken as axiom. Cherry-picked facts aren't needed to prove it, since you don't need to prove axioms.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @01:51PM (10 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 11 2019, @01:51PM (#918924) Journal

      It's simply irrelevant what's going on in China

      To you. Allegedly. Yet we get all sorts of interesting narratives from you every time they pull something like this.

      It's another country with language from another language macro-family, it has own cultural context that's most likely cannot be understood properly for anyone not immersed in their culture.

      Ah yes, talk about how we can't ken their ways and wiggle the fingers mysteriously.

      As far as actual evidence goes, "they have it worse" is nothing more than ideological statement which is taken as axiom.

      Or truth.

      • (Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday November 11 2019, @04:02PM (9 children)

        by loonycyborg (6905) on Monday November 11 2019, @04:02PM (#918971)

        It cannot be truth in general since it's not a truth-apt statement. It merely reflects compliance to memes mandated by your local government. It doesn't reflect anything happening in objective reality. It's modern variant of the christian Trinity doctrine, it blatantly makes no sense yet it's still exchanged like meme in order to establish a feeling of commonality and justification for hostile raiding of other communities that don't share same nonsensical ideas.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @09:26PM (8 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 11 2019, @09:26PM (#919094) Journal

          It cannot be truth in general since it's not a truth-apt statement. It merely reflects compliance to memes mandated by your local government.

          I like how you contradict yourself in the second sentence. "It" can't be truth-apt except then you provide a context "memes mandated by your local government" that indeed makes it truth-apt. Good job.

          It doesn't reflect anything happening in objective reality.

          Not what truth-apt [wikipedia.org] means:

          In philosophy, to say that a statement is truth-apt is to say that it could be uttered in some context (without its meaning being altered) and would then express a true or false proposition.

          • (Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday November 11 2019, @09:43PM (7 children)

            by loonycyborg (6905) on Monday November 11 2019, @09:43PM (#919108)

            There is no contradiction. Government more than can mandate you to spew nonsense. Those memes don't carry truth-apt statements, they're merely information tags, they function kinda like smells for territorial animals like cats. They have no other purpose other than friend/foe determination. And multiple meme macrocosms cannot be superior one to other, just like one colony of cats is not inherently superior to other.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:26AM (6 children)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:26AM (#919168) Journal

              There is no contradiction. Government more than can mandate you to spew nonsense.

              Still stand by what I said before. Plus, mandate means coercion. Chinese government has that power.

              And multiple meme macrocosms cannot be superior one to other, just like one colony of cats is not inherently superior to other.

              I can think of plenty of ways a cat colony can be superior to another: lower population density, less disease, no psychopathic kids in the neighborhood, more food, etc. So far you've named one way Chinese culture is superior to Western culture - namely, it's a bit easier for someone immersed in Chinese culture to understand Chinese culture.

              • (Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Tuesday November 12 2019, @09:32AM (5 children)

                by loonycyborg (6905) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @09:32AM (#919298)

                I've never tried to even look for advantages of Chinese culture. The point that the whole idea for looking for them is fallacious. It's pure idiocy. In case of cat colonies each one can cover limited territory so many of them can exists at the same time, whatever fine points they have over each other change over time and what can be considered advantage or not is in the eye of beholder. Probably even cats themselves have enough brains to understand that. I see human macrosocieties like this too: they have things in which they're different, they have things that they share. You utterly failed to prove that there is any need to establish an order relation on their set.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @02:18PM (4 children)

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 12 2019, @02:18PM (#919382) Journal

                  I've never tried to even look for advantages of Chinese culture.

                  I think it would be a healthy exercise to try contrary to assertion.

                  The point that the whole idea for looking for them is fallacious. It's pure idiocy.

                  Unless, of course, it's not.

                  In case of cat colonies each one can cover limited territory so many of them can exists at the same time, whatever fine points they have over each other change over time and what can be considered advantage or not is in the eye of beholder.

                  And yet, none of the conditions I mentioned was subjective like that.

                  I see human macrosocieties like this too: they have things in which they're different, they have things that they share.

                  False. None of the societies present now share the facet of nonexistence with the ones that have gone away.

                  • (Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Tuesday November 12 2019, @02:52PM (3 children)

                    by loonycyborg (6905) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @02:52PM (#919397)

                    All of the above is nonsense. Justify why would anyone look why one society is superior than other or concede that you have no point. Any advantages or disadvantages are so subjective that any way about proving advantages/disadvantages would involve insane amount of cherry-picking and will not be falsifiable [wikipedia.org].

                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @03:08PM (2 children)

                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 12 2019, @03:08PM (#919401) Journal

                      Justify why would anyone look why one society is superior than other or concede that you have no point.

                      I already answered [soylentnews.org] the question.

                      But when it comes to survival or the prosperity of a society, culture matters a great deal.

                      You're just not paying attention.

                      Any advantages or disadvantages are so subjective that any way about proving advantages/disadvantages would involve insane amount of cherry-picking and will not be falsifiable.

                      Except of course, by its presence or absence in the future. The future will happen.

                      • (Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:59PM (1 child)

                        by loonycyborg (6905) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:59PM (#919505)

                        Your reasons are just cherry-picking. If you look at it objectively currently Chinese are better at surviving than rest of humanity if population numbers are taken in account. Even your theories about relative importance of "strong leader" are unconvincing and unsubstantiated. Like there are people emphasizing different aspects of strong leadership both in China and outside of it. Sweeping statements can be once again only made by cherry-picking. But you still evade my question. Not why is China superior/inferior but why you want to answer this question in the first place? Why even try to grade it on some scale? Why do it? After all your points are driven by a wish to find some advantage so if you find them then it's not admissible proof due to fine-tuning and cherry-picking(They are better in some thing? Then it's irrelevant. They're worse at some thing? Then it's all-important). Only justification is your wish for it to be so. Thus it is circular reasoning. Many of unfortunate things in China are directly caused by Western policies aimed at achieving purely mercantilist aims. Thus it's also self-fulfilling prophecy.

                        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @07:16PM

                          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 12 2019, @07:16PM (#919516) Journal

                          Your reasons are just cherry-picking.

                          Just cherry picking a couple of really important ones. You don't need a thousand reasons to own a cat, you just need a good one.