A brazen overnight attack by a mob of men with sticks and metal bars who were apparently targeting antigovernment protesters raised tensions in Hong Kong to new levels on Monday after weeks of demonstrations, prompting fears of violence spiraling beyond the authorities’ control.There is video of the cops chatting with the goons here.
Dozens of people, including journalists and a pro-democracy lawmaker, were injured in the assault in and around a train station in Yuen Long, a satellite town in northwestern Hong Kong near the border with mainland China.
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Yau Nai-keung, an assistant district police commander in Yuen Long, said early Monday that officers had made no arrests and found no weapons.
But in one encounter captured by photojournalists, the riot police spoke with two masked men in white shirts holding metal bars or sticks, patting one on the shoulder before walking off.
But, after that blew up, the Hong Kong cops managed to find a few fall guys to arrest.
Hong Kong police say they’ve arrested six men, some with links to triad gangs, following a violent attack on pro-democracy protesters at a subway station over the weekend that saw dozens injured.The people of Hong Kong do not want to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. But the local government is more or less in bed with the PRC and there is little doubt by anyone that direct rule of Hong King by Beijing is only a matter of time. For as Chairman Mao once said, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Which should give the people of Taiwan something to think about.
Also, the Butcher of Beijing is now rotting in Hell.
If, after all that is broadcast around, the numbers of pro-democracy protesters doesn't quintuple or more, then I guess it's all been decided.
ReplyDeleteThey had a million or so at one demonstration.
ReplyDeleteYea, the Chinese can’t get out of their own way when it comes to Taiwan. A careful takeover of Hong Kong, done thoughtfully (and in a manner designed to allow HK to maintain its economic engine status) would have been an easy positive for China and possibly paved the way for a union (of sorts) with Taiwan. Instead, the greed of the Chinese leadership is making the only path to union with Taiwan the path of war. It’s still unlikely that Taiwan would agree to anything, but some careful groundwork in HK would have set the possibility of boiling the frog into motion, but now the frogs in the area are perking up their watch again.
ReplyDeleteBasically, totalitarian overlords are cops and cops are control freaks. You-Cannot-Allow-Loss-Of-Control. Or even the appearance of same.
ReplyDeleteChina has reminded everyone that Chinese troops can be asked to maintain order under the Garrison Law...a very barely veiled threat.
ReplyDeleteCP88, and we all know how the PLA "maintains order"-- with tanks and automatic weapons fire.
ReplyDeletePRC's threat to Hong Kong.
ReplyDeleteThere's a tradition in Asia of using criminal gangs to enforce governmental order.
ReplyDeleteOn the direction of Chiang Kai-Shek, the Green Gang, led by Du Yusheng, massacred several thousand members of the Communist Party in Shanghai in 1927 and ran the remainder out of the city. Du became a general in Chiang's National Revolutionary Army later.
In postwar Japan, the Japanese government and American occupation authorities colluded with the Yakuza to keep any Communist or even leftist political organization from forming.