Hong Kong: Two million in the streets against extraditions to China
A human tsunami flooded the streets of this legendary city.
Facing a bill of extraditions to China Mainland, led by the executive in charge of Hong Kong Carrie Lam. The force of the uprising forced the discontinuation of the project, agreed between the official and the envoys of Xi Jinpin. But this was not enough to stop the protest. The people of Hong Kong requires complete withdrawal and now adds the request for waiver of Carrie Lam. It has awakened on the island a true democratic revolution which takes up the steps of "Umbrella revolution".
The last Sunday 9 June international media reported that one million people demonstrated in Hong Kong demanding the fall of extraditions project. They commented that long ago that a mobilization of this magnitude did not occur in the region.
Then came one week starring strong action and huge demonstrations against reforms extradition laws proposed, including Wednesday 12, where in the framework of a general strike, tens of thousands of young people and students surrounded the Parliament and were brutally repressed. This Sunday 16 two million! they marched, as reported by the organizers of the protest and repeated major international portals, setting a new record. Monday 17, a new general strike and demonstrations called developed by the "Civic Front for Human Rights", another milestone in a movement that is in full ascent stage in the quest to achieve their demands.
The concessions granted by Lam as the discontinuation of the project, The apology on Sunday or release of detainees, including the young leader of the revolution umbrellas Joshua Wong, They have failed to slow the fighting force. International analysts say the government of Xi is defensive, speculating that with the passage of time wearing the movement go and point out that in the immediate lifting the Hong Kong already has strong consequences on the political chessboard of the region. Up Trump has taken the cantilevered and now uses the Hong Kong protest to pressure Xi's major trade concessions in the upcoming G20 summit, as he is recently advanced Pompeo.
A change that threatens the freedoms of the island
Hong Kong people face a bill, which allows citizens of this autonomous region dependent sovereignty from China 1997, be extradited for trial in mainland China. Hong Kong Island was for decades a British protectorate and became famous, among other things, for hosting one of the most prosperous financial centers in South Asia, based port city of large branches of multinational companies.
In 1997 fulfilling an agreement with the British government he was returned sovereignty to the Chinese nation to which he belonged, under a status of relative autonomy that allowed their 7,4 million people retain many of the democratic freedoms they had and the dictatorship that governs the continent does not respect in their territories, in which exercises complete despotism over his people and demanding autonomy regions such as Tibet and Xingjiang.
Imposed this bill extradition defendants will be deported to China without having been convicted. With the change of the judicial system the "Basic Law", as they call the constitution of the island would lose much of the value that still retains despite the constraints of Beiging and opponents, independent journalists, etc. they could be deported.
In fact, when there was the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong, Deng Xiaoping Hu sought to reassure the inhabitants of the island, mainly multinational companies installed in it, launching the slogan: "A country, systems ". Hong Kong became Chinese sovereignty as a Special Administrative Region under a regime that lasted until 2047. In the years the capitalist system of the island was widely respected.
Nevertheless, democratic freedoms of its inhabitants began to be challenged by the growing political influence of government Beiging in the local political power. This caused the outbreak in the 2014 the "revolution of umbrellas", requiring completely free elections (1), anti democratic citizens without obstacles that limit the rights. Revolution 2014 He was defeated and several of its leaders were tried and sent to jail.
While the rebellion 2014 could not achieve its goals, the coup led to the demands of Hong Kong people was not enough to crush their desire for freedom and their democratic demands. In this opportunity, the murder of a young Hong Kong-Taiwan served as an excuse for the executive in charge of administrating Hong Kong in combination with the bureaucracy of Beiging try this new development on the autonomy and rights of the inhabitants of the island. They insisted that not change the laws of extradition the island would become a sanctuary for criminals. They tried to change counting a large part of local government parliamentarians as Carrie Lam respond to the mandates of officials Xi Jinping.
The people of Hong Kong is defending the conquered liberties, their right and freedom of opinion, press, democratic organization and the rights of its citizens and workers, that would not survive long if the Chinese government can, approved the extradition law, pursue progress on the political and social opposition to the local government and the central regime. The proposed rules may be derived detainees anywhere in continental China, where a totally controlled by the ruling bureaucracy Justice uses torture as usual and practical barely, including the death penalty, against opponents of the regime.
A first win: the suspension of the project
Strength and massiveness of mobilization forced the government Carrie Lam, in accordance with Chinese officials, to suspend the adoption of the draft extradition in parliament of Hong Kong on Saturday 8/06. Nevertheless, This concession has failed to stop the process. As suspected most mobilized, officials are stalling speculating that the people demobilize and thus try to reactivate the suspended project today.
Why Hong Kong people went massively to the streets on Sunday 16 and they conducted further protests on Monday 17. They demand the complete withdrawal of the project as a first step, no retaliation on demonstrators, the release of detainees and punishment of police brutality in repressing the mobilization of 12, He is leaving a balance of 81 wounded, by gases and rubber bullets, Y 11 arrested. But as they have lost confidence in the government of Carrie Lam they have placed the demand for his resignation from the central slogans of the ongoing mobilization.
The danger of contagion and management problems
This new democratic outburst is very dangerous for both the officials and the capitalist establishment of the island to the bureaucracy of Xi Jinping. Hong Kong is a piece of China snatched by the British Empire. Democratic freedoms enjoyed by its inhabitants often take refuge allow Chinese dissidents. They are a "bad example" for the people of this giant country, oppressed by a capitalist bureaucracy.
That panic of Chinese power for a process to fight for the restoration of democratic freedoms in mainland China brings the memory of the slaughter carried out by the bureaucracy in Tiananmen Square opens in 1989. The fight for democratic rights questions the power of both the leadership and entrepreneurial capitalism of the island and the bureaucratic caste Beiging, which it is experiencing difficulties due to the crisis of the world economy and the "trade war" with the US.
This new chapter of Hong Kong revolutionary process has just begun. Hence the care of officials in their treatment, using the lines of action with which China is moving to impose its control on the island over the years. When police repression did little to stop the movement, but he rebuked him and radicalized, the council of Chinese government officials Carrie Lam was a partial suspension of the project. But the mobilization demands their total withdrawal program and incorporates the resignation of Carrie Lam.
The strength of the movement is given by its massiveness and growing combativeness. Current actions, the largest in the history of the island, collect the experiences of revolution Umbrellas 2014. His weakness is the lack of a political alternative anti-capitalist willing to fight the direction of movement and take the fight to the end.
The student movement was the vanguard of the process clear 2014, did not have the ability to rise to be a leadership capable of taking the fight to win and was defeated, not only by regime forces but also by bands of ultra right. In fact, as he wrote activist and member of Hong Kong's Au socialist organization LoongYu, in an interview published in without permission 01/07/2017 (2), before the defection of the "democratic" political groups and the lack of a strong anti capitalist alternative, flags autonomy and hongkonés nationalism have been taken by formations extreme right. thus repeating the box "polarization" that we observe globally to rising class struggle and the collapse of the old political center.
Protest 2014 It demanded the possibility that Hong Kong people could freely elect their executive power. The old regime allowed the designation of the executive branch by a council of notables mainly reflecting local business sectors in agreement with the government of China Central. They were planned reforms to this regime 2017, but candidates must be approved by Beiging, which caused the protest, although it did not reach its goals, Hong Kong subsequently made to discard these reforms parliamentarians.
The resurgence of the democratic movement, the greening of the "Hong Kong's Spring" is putting, as the reappearance of "spring" in Arab North Africa, very nervous capitalists and bureaucratic powers in the region. Again the specter of Tiananmen flies and nests in the souls of many young people who are the vanguard of the fight and have drawn conclusions from previous battles.
But it is never raised the construction of a revolutionary socialist alternative in Hong Kong and China, based on participate and encourage all democratic tasks posed by the mobilization, building an address prepared to bring the fight to the end, to defeat the government of the island and the mainland and impose an anti-capitalist program that really reunify the region on the basis of greater respect for the right to self-determination and free choice of peoples over their destiny another.
