By Pepe Escobar : Hong Kong – Posted with permission
Lawyer Lawrence Ma claims the US has been supporting the protests via groups such as the NED
More than a million Hong Kongers joined marches in June to oppose a China extradition law. But some say the US is quickly backing the protests. Photo: Don Ng/ EyePress
Lawrence YK Ma is the executive council chairman of the Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation and director of the China Law Society, the Chinese Judicial Studies Association and the Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation. He also finds time to teach law at Nankai University in Tianjin.
Ma is the go-to expert in what is arguably the most sensitive subject in Hong Kong: He meticulously tracks perceived foreign interference in the Special Administrative Region (SAR).
In the West, in similar circumstances, he would be a media star. With a smirk, he told me that local journalists, whether working in English or Chinese, rarely visit him – not to mention foreigners.
Ma received me at his office in Wanchai this past Saturday morning after a “dark day” of rampage, as described by the SAR government. He wasted no time before calling my attention to a petition requesting a “United Nations investigation into the United States’ involvement in Hong Kong riots.”
He let me see a copy of the document, which lists the People’s Republic of China as petitioner, the United States of America as respondent nation and the Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation as ex parte petitioner. This was submitted on Aug. 16 to the UN Security Council in Geneva, directed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
In the document, Issue II deals with “funded, sponsored and provided supplies to any organizations, groups, companies, political parties or individuals” and “trained and frontline protesters, students and dissidents.”
Predictably, the US National Endowment for Democracy is listed in the documentation: its largest 2018 grants were directed to China, slightly ahead of Russia.
The NED was founded in 1983 after serial covert CIA ops across the Global South had been exposed.
In 1986, NED President Carl Gershman told the New York Times: “It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA. We saw that in the ‘60s, and that’s why it has been discontinued.” As the Times article explained about the NED:
In some respects, the program resembles the aid given by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s to bolster pro-American political groups. But that aid was clandestine and, subsequent Congressional investigations found, often used planted newspaper articles and other forms of intentionally misleading information. The current financing is largely public – despite some recipients’ wish to keep some activities secret – and appears to be given with the objective of shoring up political pluralism, broader than the CIA’s goals of fostering pro-Americanism.
Soft power at work
So it’s no secret, all across the Global South, that under the cover of a benign umbrella promoting democracy and human rights, the NED works as a soft-power mechanism actively interfering in politics and society. Recent examples include Ukraine, Venezuela and Nicaragua. In many cases, that is conducive to regime change.
The NED’s board of directors includes Elliott Abrams, who was instrumental in financing and weaponizing the Contras in Nicaragua, and Victoria Nuland, who supervised the financing and weaponizing of militias in Ukraine that some but not all experts have described as neo-fascist.
The NED offers grants via various branches. One of them is the National Democratic Institute, which has been active in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover. These are some of the grants offered by the NED in Hong Kong in 2018.
At least one Hong Kong-based publication took the trouble of studying the NED’s local connections, even publishing a chart of the anti-extradition protest organizational structure. But none of the evidence is conclusive. The most the publication could say was, “If we analyze the historical involvement of NED in Occupy Central and the sequence of events that took place from March in 2019, it is highly possible that the Americans may be potentially involved in the current civil unrest via NED – albeit not conclusive.”
Issue III of the petition sent to the UN deals with “coordinated, directed and covertly commanded on-ground operations; connived with favorable and compatible local and American media so as to present biased new coverage.”
On “coordination,” the main political operative is identified as Julie Eadeh, based at the US Consulate after a previous Middle East stint. Eadeh became a viral sensation in China when she was caught on camera, on the same day, meeting with Anson Chan and Martin Lee, close allies of Jimmy Lai, founder of pro-protest Apple Daily, and protest leaders Joshua Wong and Nathan Law in the lobby of the Marriott.
The US State Department responded by calling the Chinese government “thuggish” for releasing photographs and personal information about Eadeh.
The NED and Eadeh are also the subjects of further accusations in the petition’s Issue IV (“Investigation of various institutions”).
All in the Basic Law
Ma is the author of an exhaustive, extensively annotated book, Hong Kong Basic Law: Principles and Controversies, published by the Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation.
Maria Tam, a member both of the Hong Kong SAR Basic Law Committee and of China’s National People’s Congress, praises the book’s analysis of the ultra-sensitive interpretation of the Basic Law, saying “the common law system has remained unaffected, its judicial independence remaining the best in Asia”, with Hong Kong firmly placed – so far at least – as “the third most preferred avenue for international arbitration.”
In the book, Ma extensively analyzes the finer points of the China containment policy. But he also adds culture to the mix, for instance examining the work of Liang Shuming (1893-1988) on the philosophical compatibility of traditional Chinese Confucianism with the technology of the West. Liang argued that China’s choice, in stark terms, was between wholesale Westernization or complete rejection of the West.
But Ma really hits a nerve when he examines Hong Kong’s unique role – and positioning – as a vector of the China containment policy, facilitated by a prevailing anti-communist sentiment and the absence of a national security law.
This is something that cannot be understood without examining the successive waves of emigration to Hong Kong. The first took place during the Communist-Nationalist civil war (1927-1950) and the Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945); the second, during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1977).
Ma significantly quotes a 1982 poll claiming that 95% of respondents were in favor of maintaining British rule. Everyone who followed the 1997 Hong Kong handover remembers the widespread fear of Chinese tanks rolling into Kowloon at midnight.
In sum, Ma argues that, for Washington, what matters is to “make China’s island of Hong Kong as difficult to govern for Beijing as possible.”
Integrate or perish
Anyone who takes time to carefully study the complexities of the Basic Law can see how Hong Kong is an indivisible part of China. Hundreds of millions of Mainland Chinese now have seen what the black bloc brand of “democracy” – vandalizing public and private property – has done to ruin Hong Kong.
Arguably, in the long run, and after an inevitable cleanup operation, the whole drama may only strengthen Hong Kong’s integration with China. Add to it that China, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan have separately asked Hong Kong authorities for a detailed list of black bloc rioters.
In my conversations these past few days with informed Hong Kongers – mature businessmen and businesswomen who understand the Basic Law and relations with China – two themes have been recurrent.
One is the weakness of Carrie Lam’s government, with suggestions that the outside non-well-wishers knew her understaffed and overstretched police force would not be up to the task of maintaining security across town. At the same time, many remarked how the response from Washington and London to the Emergency Regulations approval of the anti-mask law was – surprisingly – restrained.
The other theme is decolonization. My interlocutors argued that China did not “control” Hong Kong; if it did, riots would never have happened. Add to it that Lam may have been instructed to do nothing, lest she would mess up an incandescent situation even more.
Now it’s a completely new ball game. Beijing, even discreetly, will insist on a purge of anyone in the civil service who would be identified as anti-China. If Lam just continues to insist on her beloved “dialogue,” she may be replaced by a hands-on CEO such as CY Leung or Regina Ip.
Amid so much gloom, there may be a silver lining. And that concerns the Greater Bay Area project. My interlocutors tend to believe that after the storm ends and after carefully studying the situation for some months, Beijing will soon come up with a new plan to tighten Hong Kong’s integration to the mainland’s economy even more.
The first step was to tell Hong Kong’s tycoons to get their act together and be more socially responsible. The second will be to convince Hong Kong’s businesses to reinvent themselves for good and profit as part of the Greater Bay Area and the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative.
Hong Kong will thrive only if plugged, not unplugged. That may be the ultimate – profitable – argument against any form of foreign sabotage.
Imo, the HK riots is an opportunity for Beijing albeit not without risks. I’m sure a few in Beijing had considered this angle. HK is in no danger of being wrested away from China by mere civilian unrest – a fact which seems to escape the protesters. A lot of noise, fatalities here and there, local economy in ruins … at the end of the day, none of it matters and the folks in Beijing will probably let it runs its course despite the increasing provocations. HK will always be part of China, period (because Asians have long memories of shame).
HK’s current unrest, serves as an excellent (transparent) showcase of the empire’s meddling in countries around the world. The empire can can fool a few close allies but not everyone. The more the Chinese can uncover and tweet off to the world, the more mud it can splatter onto the empire’s face. The Chinese complaint to the UN, although inconclusive will serve as an undeniable historical record. If more countries join in with the same complaints, it becomes something which cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet.
At the end of the day, the empire will lose completely whatever’s left of its moral foundation in the eyes of the world, accelerating its demise.
The USA will continue to retain its ‘moral foundation’ forever, in the eyes of those who support it around the world-the greedy, arrogant, thieving, blood-sucking parasites. It is their spawn who are destroying Hong Kong while waving that blood-soaked banner, the Stars and Stripes.
I follow 21SilkRd on Facebook and yesterday the administrator posted this warning of censorship from FB. This is the only place I have been seeing true videos from Hong Kong. Our overlords don’t like horizontal sharing of news, information and videos.
”Dear Members:
I will not approve any submissions showing graphic violence of the pro-US terrorists attacking people in Hong Kong. I think we have seen enough videos by now to know what is really happening in Hong Kong. If you want to submit videos of the terrorists in violent acts, it must be from a corporate media source.
FB has warned that our group is in danger of being deleted if we do not comply.
Thank you for your cooperation.”
“I will not approve any submissions showing graphic violence of the pro-US terrorists attacking people in Hong Kong. ”
Wow, this message sounds like a confession!
Also reminds me of how different the videos were/are (I haven’t wantched any for quite awhile) of the Gilets Jaunes protests that were posted on MSM news compared to what I saw and heard on the videos psoted by the French journalist Vincent Lapierre on his Youtube channel. Which I think is still up and running.
But anyhow the former videos showed only street violence and threats from small groups of GJs.No attacks by police on peacefully demostrating GJs’. Whereas Lapierre’s videos definitely showed very reasonable and articulate protesters being harassed and attacked and harried by the police.
I should think this FB crackdown on “nonconforming” videos, in a sane world, would attract the attention of the ACLU.
Katherine
In my view, China has no need to attack the protesters. I agree that this is in some ways an opportunity.
If the protesters drive the HK economy into the ground, then I’m not real sure China would see that as a bad thing. Back when the UK had to give up the lease they extorted during the Opium Wars, China needed access to western finance. But by now that sector has already grown in China, and HK is less important than 25 years ago.
China agreed to the 1 nation, 2 systems for only 50 years. The US and UK act like its horrible if HK ends up changing away for the British colonial model, but surely China expects to head that way. And in terms of who seems to be morally right, having nations on the other side of the world dictate that HK continue to follow the UK colonial model imposed after a UK victory in a war to facilitate drug dealing appears to be a morally weak position.
If the protesters are the ones to destroy HK pirate finance economy, then let them take the blame. China can then proceed to both move HK into its future system while building an economy around the rest of the bay that leaves HK in its dust.
That photo headed “more than a million joined the marchers” shows (my estimate) 10k people. Where are the other 990k? Just around the corner and all the way down the street? Where are the helicopter pictures? Who counted the million?
Of all the other “million” events, I have read only one reliable count: the Lancet’s estimate of Iraqi dead from the Bush regime’s Coalition of the Killing. But I do not know who counted the Million Britishers who marched against our rape of Iraq. Nor do I know who counted the Million Man March in Washington. Nor who counted the 6 million Jews from the Hitler regime’s Coalition of the Killing. Nor the 10 millions killed by the Stalin regime. Nor the 20 million killed by the Mao regime. All those events are receding into the past. But that More-than-a-Million March in Hong Kong is a recent event, so where does one find video Links to verify the count of people marching in Hong Kong on a certain day in 2019? Like those video links which verify the controlled demolition of WTC in New York on a certain day in 2001.
Just asking. I do not think the figure is improbable, given Hong Kong’s Anglo Capitalist history; but I am beginning to be weary (and wary) of all those millions being flung around.
IIRC, the “Million Man March” in DC was the pre-march marketing phrase, and the actual event was at least several hundred thousand short of that goal.
My own method for estimating crowds is to picture a football or hockey arena, thus something I’m familiar with. By those means, the picture at the top of the article seems like about maybe the lower bowl of a hockey arena. Which would be also in the range of 8 or 10k, or maybe a little less. A million people should look like about 11 stadiums the size of Madrid or Barcelona or the old LA Collesium.
China has made a few mistakes in Hong Kong. First, after the 1997 handover, China, worried that a strong visible presence would fuel western rumors and fears that China would violently take control, kept too low a profile. There was no need for a strong military presence, but more promotion of the idea of Hong Kong being an integral part of past and future Chinese civilization was necessary. Instilling the feeling of belonging in the people was important, and it was an opportunity that China missed. The second mistake was the inaction of China to address the “colonial hangover” issue of the oligarchs, particularly those who became multi-billionaires in the property development market.
Pepe mentioned it above: “The first step was to tell Hong Kong’s tycoons to get their act together and be more socially responsible.”
Pretty weak tea if you ask me. These monsters played dirty with the British colonial government for over 100 years in order to enrich themselves beyond reason at the expense of the 100 surnames in Hong Kong, and a word (without teeth) from Beijing to be socially responsible will change the situation? Beijing must find a way to put maximum pressure, to borrow Trump talk, on these oligarchs to deliver affordable housing to the common people in Hong Kong. Perhaps policies that improve the daily lives of the common people in Hong Kong will take away some if the anger that they feel at the natural marginalization that has occurred since China joined the WTO and Hong Kong lost its lucrative, lucky position as the doorway to China.
The violent protests in Hong Kong are unacceptable. The pressure has been ratcheted up by US interference; this is abundantly clear. China, as the dominant power in Asia, must pursue proactive, creative solutions. We in Taiwan are watching.
well if the pla gives up 1/3 of its barracks there will be enough land. thats exactly what the tycoons fear and fear monger the existing property owners. if anything they are ones the anger should be directed towards.
Thanks for the informative post.
I believe foreigners’ interests in Hong Kong started to wane after the withdrawal of the extradition law – which was a grave threat for those CIA and MI6 agents stationed in Hong Kong. If the law was to passed, many would lost their jobs, or at least have to relocate away from Hong Kong.
The foreign agents and funders are also increasingly realize there is really no GOOD end game for the protesters. There is simply no chance of “success” – in whatever way you can define or imagine. So why continue dumping money into a project with no return.
And lastly, the protests and riots are actually consolidating support for Beijing.
Keep in mind the ‘Cantonese’ (look up the meaning of the word ‘Canton’) have a huge inferiority complex. They are proud to speak Cantonese, like to be called Cantonese, which is nothing more than political slave and a serf of their former overlord. So are the tycoons who still do their bidding and the re-morphed Opium houses sucking money out of the system for the mainland crooks.
This powder keg was ready to blow for many years and it got the spark it needed. All this rule of law, is just on paper for the feel-good factor of the rest of the world and common man. Push comes to shove it don’t mean sh*t.
@Anon (the one who said “look up the meaning of the word Canton”.
Thank you for the suggestion. About Cantonese:
https://www.cantonese.ca/intro.php
Cantonese is spoken by about 100 million people in the southern provinces and in neighboring areas such as Hong Kong and Macao. Due to the migration of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong and the Guangdong area, Cantonese is the dominant form of Chinese spoken in the Chinatowns of many major cities in the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere.
The word Cantonese comes from Canton, the former English name of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong. However, Hong Kong has now truly become the cultural centre of Cantonese.
Cantonese, not Mandarin, is the dominant language in overseas Chinese communities. This comes from the fact that, around the world, the largest flow of Chinese immigrants originates from Hong Kong.
The standard written language in Hong Kong is essentially the same Chinese as everywhere else in China. The only difference is that Hong Kong have kept traditional characters, whereas mainland China uses simplified characters in a 1950 spelling reform initiated by chairman Mao Zedong.
Here one comment to the above comment by Dr. NG Maroudas:
“The only difference is that Hong Kong have kept traditional characters, whereas mainland China uses simplified characters in a 1950 spelling reform initiated by chairman Mao Zedong.”.
Not exactly true. True, Máo Zéōng maintained that the Chinese writing system must be simplified, but he was at odds with the prevalent US-educated academic lingusts’ views and preferred the ideas of Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren (Gāo Bĕnhàn / Kau Pên-han). In opposition to foreign minister and Party secretary Zhōu Ènlái (Chow En-lai) he favored a more thorough simplification of Chinese characters (hànzì) so that they would fit better with the intuition of non-Mandarin southerners and he wanted the standard pronounciation to be based not on Pekinese but on the Mandarin spoken in Nánnyáng prefecture of Southern Hénán province, since that was the form of Mandarin (Northern Chinese) that maintained the greatest number of phonemic contrasts. As for phonetic writing, he stated that he preferred something akin or à la the Japanese kana or the Korean Hangul / Chosŏn’gŭl.
Source: Roar Bøkset/Bökset: Long Story of Short Forms (octoral thesis, Stockholm University 2000±5years:
BÖKSET, Roar
Long story of short forms: the evolution of simplified Chinese characters. Stolkholm: Department of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University. ISBN: 91-628-6832-2.
The notion that Chairman Máo was the main promoter of Writing Sustem, Romanisatin and Standardization of Pronounciation Reform in the fashion which i was finally implemented in Mainland China is somewhat erroneous. He had different suggestions than the US structuralism-educated language experts close to Prime Minister Zhōu Ènlái and his US-oriented foreign policy coïterie. Máo was more inclined to follow the ideas of Swedish professor Bernhard Karlgren (Gāo Bĕnhàn) . .
Source of information:
1: BÖKSET, Roar (Lù Ā):
Long story of short forms: the evolution of simplified Chinese characters. Stolkholm: Department of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University. ISBN: 91-628-6832-2.
2: Norwegian missionaries who had known Máo Zédōng from his early student years, during the Long March and during and after WW2.
The NED is interesting. When you think of the hysterical outrage, and lying, concerning the non-existent ‘Russian meddling’ in the 2016 US election farce, then consider the frantic and unceasing efforts of the USA to subvert the politics of every country on Earth that is not a complete stooge, you really must be impressed by the sheer, villainous, hypocrisy of these psychopaths.
NED: “impressed by the sheer, villainous, hypocrisy of these psychopaths.”
Pretty much nails it. NED from day one has been actively involved in regime change as it was formed by Ray Gun’s CIA director, casey. (Casey in terms of fostering “American values” would make the thugs pompeo and bolton appear to be choir boys by comparison).
As noted, it has been headed by an extreme zionist, Karl Gershman since inception, and staffed by the same type of psychopaths. I believe that madelaine notsobright might still be on the board.
Also as noted, it has been very active in Latin America and Ukraine with its taxpayer funded budget.
Remarkable in a very bad way that this sinister organization has continued its magic since 1983 but I believe Putin finally kicked it and most if not all of its NGO appendices out of Russia.
“When you think of the hysterical outrage, and lying, concerning the non-existent ‘Russian meddling’ in the 2016 US election farce”
What is IMO even worse is when it is not even “hysterical.”
Today I was stuck in traffic so turned on the radio, local NPR station, and it was David Remnick with the New Yorker radio hour (he is the editor of the NY). Remnick had two guests just back from Hong Kong. One of them was Evan Osnos. Can’t recall name of other.
What struck me was the casualness with which Remnick dropped in references to Russian meddling in the 2016 election—even stating, in a parenthetical aside, that this had resulted in the election of Trump. In other words, this information was used as an unquestioned basis for other geopolitical analyses (in this case a comparison with China’s stance toward info gathering and meddling).
Of course Osnos didn’t say, “Waitaminute waitaminute waitaminute.”
Remnick has the bully pulpit here and uses it to entrench the axiom (doesn’t require proof, since it is self-evident) that Russia “used” the info it gathered —maybe he even siad “instrumentalized”–he used some proactive type of word, to destabilize our electoral process to the extent of enabling Trump to get elected.
And of course guess who make uo the audience listening to NPR on a SAturday morning and absorbing these lies from David Remnick along with the air they breathe and the caffeine from their morning coffee.
Regarding the actual aims of protesters, one of the reporters reported that they don’t really seem to know what they are protesting about, except that things seem to be going downhill, and they are a bit surprised that the USA is not openly getting behind them in their demand for “democracy.”
My thought: Did I miss something? Is China/Hong Kong supposed to be “democratic”?
Katherine
More on America-backed regime change operations …. sorry noble Pro-Democracy™ crusaders in Hong Kong:
Behind a made-for-TV Hong Kong protest narrative, Washington is backing nativism and mob violence
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/17/hong-kong-protest-washington-nativism-violence/
Another possibility is that Hong Kong will remain in chaos, until it withers and dies. China may have other centers (Shanghai) that can take over all of Hong Kongs functions.
By The Way: The photo heading this very informed article by Pepe Escobar is of a 80 metre wide and 200 metre long plaza in Hòngkóng’s Central. With maximum 4 people able to throng into 1 square metre: Do the calculatins Yourselves on how many were present.
Tollef, thank you for some hard data. So, 80 * 200 = 16,000 square metres.
4 * 16,000 = 64,000 people max.
Bigger than my estimate of 10,000 max, but still a long way from 1,000,000.
Where are the other 936,000?
Every reader here is aware that were police or military forces from the mainland involved in quelling the riots in any meaningful way, there would be no more protest.
Talk about 4d chess. I am sure that folks on the mainland are given a full visual summary of the damage done to HK. Basically, this is what democracy brings.
It seems like the mainland is getting immunized from anything similar. Akin to Russia-Ukraine situation.
It’s one thing to keep people in line through fear of harsh repression. It’s a completely different story to have your people view the alternative as total destruction and wholeheartedly support the gov. Hey, its not the best it can be, but it sure is better than nazis/democrats/progressives/freedom and transhuman rights/etc.
China does not need Hong Kong now, so there is not need to do anything except make ‘suggestions’ behind the scenes. Hong Kong is just a naughty child throwing a tantrum, best locked in its room until it calms down.
The PLA in Shenzhen are there to make sure it does not spread to the mainland.
Most mainland Chinese just shake their heads.
Chinese overseas get fed up with the biased western media, and show their support for China. Hong Kong is a part of China, always was, always will be (Britain nicking the joint for a few year not withstanding)
Let the child have its tanty, then things will get back to normal. This will probably strengthen Beijing’s hand.
Oh, and the best strategy to deal with the western press is the same as with the child, ignore it.
Excellent article! I agree with Pepe: “Hong Kong will thrive only if plugged, not unplugged. That may be the ultimate – profitable – argument against any form of foreign sabotage.” In other words: we do not need to worry about this. :D
I am in Hangzhou (southwest of Shanghai) – I arrived just to see the last days of the festivities in celebration of the 70th years of the Communist Revolution and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. As happens every year, I have met many teachers and students (Masters and PhD students of planning) and they very rarely mention Hong Kong. I believe that the rioters will eventually fade away, and China will be more visible in Hong Kong than it has been so far. The reactions to what is happening there seem to indicate that this is what the Chinese people expect to happen, including several people who have family members or friends there… As one PhD student said with reference to the rioters: “these guys do not know anything about the history of China…”
Quick question slightly related to the above topic –
What the heck is YWAM?
One of my friends has been putting neutral to slightly government-slanted news articles on their Facebook – this woman has been straight harassing him with slick info-graphics and posts consisting of several paragraphs of buzzwords. She worked for YWAM from ’02 – ’08, checked in again in January this year.
I tried to do a little digging, but google-fu is a bit stingy. It’s an Evangelical radical extremist organisation? A CIA front? A horrible cult?
“Youth with a mission”, I believe it’s headquartered in a small E.Texas town of Lindale. This may not be the true headquarters, but they have a semi large compound there.
“youth with a mission”
Actually, there’s a very lazy and somewhat arrogant streak in the Chinese people. Why? Because as happens to most people from big empires, they cannot imagine being threatened as a people. Soviet Russia was exactly the same, you can compare it to the Qing Empire in this regard. Also, they dominate Asia, which is what they really understand or care about the most.
Let the Chinese go through hellfire and prove their mettle because there is no way you rule the world without huge battle scars. This generation of China has been the world’s “Golden Boy generation” where for 40 years they ran over the world roughshod, with great ingenuity I might add, and the world applauding along with fear and wonder, but also making profits from her I will add. Now this older generation is dying, the new generation will have to take China to the top or risk becoming like docile Japanese. Some negatives in my view, the new generation are much lazier than their parents, they are young and confused (a simple motto of the older generation like, “Make China No.1 in everything!” will be looked down by these young people “like, why?”), and the biggest mistake they can make because of their own success is that the world will love them. That’s the Soviet mistake. In this world you are either feared and disliked as No.1 or you are tolerated and maybe loved as nobody threatening. I don’t think the Chinese know that yet or have the crude, “whatever” heart like the Americans.
Dear Pepe,
There have been anti-mask laws in the USA in various states. Significantly, many of the southern US states have such anti-mask laws. They were a key element to shutting down the powerful Ku Klux Klan in those states. The anti-mask laws made the hoods the Klansmen were wearing illegal. In many towns, powerful people who ran the town, and frequently the sheriff, were under those hoods during rallies and cross-burnings. And the targets of a cross-burning knew that. After it was made illegal to wear a mask or a hood, now those powerful figures had to deal with being publicly connected to what was basically a terror group. Most mayors, sheriffs, powerful business people, preachers, etc felt that they couldn’t do that. Thus, the anti-mask laws are an important part of shutting down a racist terror group that ruled the southern US for decades.
And I do remember threats to enforce those laws against anti-war protesters in those states decades after the KKK. Having been threatened for arrest by American police enforcing an anti-mask law added a nice chuckle to watching the outrage from the talking heads.
It is interesting that the Saker in this article mentions Liang Shuming (1893-1988). Liáng Shùmíng was an intellectial of Mongol family from Bĕijing but mostly grew up in Guǎngxi and Guǎngdong provinces (“Liǎng-Guǎng” vice-roydom) and thus intensely preoccupied and concerned with issues of nearby Hòngkóng and Britsh imperialism.
Later on he lived in Shāndong province and was a principal leader of peasants’ coöprative movement there.
He was one of the few conservative philosophers whom Máo Zédōng really respected and entered into mutual ideolgical strife with. He stood besides Máo when the People’s Republic of China was declared from the top of the Tiān’ānmén gate in 1949, but all at once said “be watchful of what the new system may turn into!”. An activist and philosopher well worth diving into.