Even as things heat up in Hong Kong, not that that was really saying very much, they still do not begin to resemble what was meted out to the miners.
More recently, Boris Johnson wanted to deploy water on the streets of London, where the facial recognition devices that are being destroyed by outraged Hong Kong residents are already so numerous as to constitute a major part of making London the second most surveilled city in the world after Beijing. For now, anyway. The impending expansion in the City of London ought to pip Beijing at the post.
I am intrigued as to people who assume that there has not been a demonstration in China in 30 years. In fact, they have been increasing steadily for most or all of that period, so that there are now hundreds of thousands of expressions of dissent per year across the range of the industrial disputes that are very common indeed in China, and general local grievances, especially the requisitioning of land that is then sold on to private developers at vast profit.
The age-old practice of petitioning what was once the Imperial Court has risen precipitously in recent decades, even though it is no small matter to take oneself all the way to Beijing to present one's petition. But people do it. And they are doing it more and more.
A paradise of liberal democracy? Hardly, although we have the closest possible relations with far worse, at least one of which effectively dictates key aspects of our foreign policy.
But people who think, either that there has been no protest in China since Tiananmen Square, than which nothing could be further from the truth, or that that event itself was terribly important when seen with the clarity of hindsight, which again is a highly contentious proposition, have simply assumed those things to be the case. They cannot possibly have bothered to check.
As for Xinjiang, you would want to lock up those same people if they turned up in Britain, and rightly so. They have not skimped on going to fight for the so-called Islamic State. Around 18,000 of them have left China for Idlib. From 2015, they have had their own enclave at Zanbaqi, on the Turkish border. Including women and children, there are now estimated to be 40,000 Uyghurs in Idlib.
In Xinjiang, Tibet or anywhere else, the dismemberment of China would cause bloodshed on a scale that the world had never previously seen. Yet our Political Class and its securocrat handlers glibly flirt with this lunatic notion. The only consolation is that we could not possibly go to war with China, in the old-fashioned sense. But we could do all sorts of other damage. Mostly to ordinary Chinese people.
Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
But people who think, either that there has been no protest in China since Tiananmen Square, than which nothing could be further from the truth, or that that event itself was terribly important when seen with the clarity of hindsight, which again is a highly contentious proposition, have simply assumed those things to be the case. They cannot possibly have bothered to check.
As for Xinjiang, you would want to lock up those same people if they turned up in Britain, and rightly so. They have not skimped on going to fight for the so-called Islamic State. Around 18,000 of them have left China for Idlib. From 2015, they have had their own enclave at Zanbaqi, on the Turkish border. Including women and children, there are now estimated to be 40,000 Uyghurs in Idlib.
In Xinjiang, Tibet or anywhere else, the dismemberment of China would cause bloodshed on a scale that the world had never previously seen. Yet our Political Class and its securocrat handlers glibly flirt with this lunatic notion. The only consolation is that we could not possibly go to war with China, in the old-fashioned sense. But we could do all sorts of other damage. Mostly to ordinary Chinese people.
Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
There hasn’t been a peep of protest for democracy (which is what they protested for in Tiananman Square) ever since. The massacre of 10,000 civilians on the streets with troops and tanks was not “terribly important” with the benefit of “hindsight”?
ReplyDeleteAnyone with any moral compass at all will have stopped reading, or paying any attention to anything you say, after that disgusting sentence.
Silly little neocon.
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