HONG KONG IN THE CROSSHAIRS OF GLOBAL POWER AND IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLES

[popularresistance.org]

{Protests have included many elements of US color revolutions with tactics such as violence — attacks on bystanders, media, police and emergency personnel. Similar tactics were used in Ukraine, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, e.g. violent street barricades. US officials and media criticized the government’s response to the violent protests, even though they have been silent on the extreme police violence against the Yellow Vests in France. Demonstrators also use swarming techniques and sophisticated social media messaging targeting people in the US.}

{The issue is not the extradition proposal, Carrie Lam or China. What we are witnessing is an unrestricted neo-liberal economy, described as a free market on steroids. Hong Kong’s economy relative to China’s gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen from a peak of 27 percent in 1993 to less than 3 percent in 2017. During this time, China has had tremendous growth, including in nearby market-friendly Shenzen, while Hong Kong has not.

As Sara Flounders writes, “For the last 10 years wages have been stagnant in Hong Kong while rents have increased 300 percent; it is the most expensive city in the world. In Shenzhen, wages have increased 8 percent every year, and more than 1 million new, public, green housing units at low rates are nearing completion.”

Hong Kong has the world’s highest rents, a widening wealth gap and a poverty rate of 20 percent. In China, the poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, according to the World Bank.}

Let me share this video from Richard Wolff again to explain why this is the case if you missed it the other day. Why “Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China”

As you go on in the article it describes that China is one large experiment ground to solve some of the issues Richard Wolff brings up. I would argue they might be trending towards Chavez's and Maduro's sense of socialism in Venezuela. What I'm reading towards local governments highly represents this nature.

What's a common factor in this? The US has again targeted collage students to be the front line of their first assault. Leading to the next common factor. They would be a product of and more likely to be of upper to higher class citizens, many from the profiting neoliberal system in place there. It's not likely they give a rats ass about the poverty and high cost of living of those beneath them.