China’s Rebel City: The Hong Kong Protests

[Applause] [Music] a society divided how can you beat the communists by using violence nobody is above the law a police force stretched to the limit well i think we're very much caught in the middle of this one a government overwhelmed the government's ability to control the narrative was next to zero this is hong kong 2019 the sea of descent and an outpouring of grievances peaceful and powerful organizers estimated that a million people took to the streets for this massive protest [Music] foreign a seasoned protest organizer was at the forefront of this first mass rally hong kong the catalyst for hong kong's worst political crisis and social unrest since its return to chinese sovereignty in 1997 was chief executive carrie lam's move to allow the transfer of fugitives to taiwan she had wanted to help the family of a pregnant hong kong girl murdered in taiwan in 2018 by her boyfriend chan tong kai who fled back home to hong kong to avoid prosecution but expanding the law to include extradition to mainland china sparked a huge public backlash opponents feared the new law could be used as a tool for the political persecution of beijing's critics if that expedition bill had gone through then i would i may be already sitting today in the jail in china because he could just officially and get us back on some trumped up charges veteran opposition figure martin lee one of the founding fathers of the city's pro-democracy movement was among the many who refused to buy the government's assurances that the extradition law would have built in protections against such abuse and local courts would have the final say on any transfer of fugitives they saw the danger once i suppose the people knew that this is so dangerous anybody could be just brought back to china for trial and that would apply to any visitor to hong kong that that's how the extensive damage it will cause to people's freedoms we all knew it was politically sensitive and potentially controversial but the chief executive was determined to go ahead with it to resolve the chen tongkai case and we had no good reason not to support her regina ipp is a long time lawmaker former security chief and now a key government advisor she says she was satisfied there would be enough checks and balances to prevent abuse but ip and other pro-establishment figures ended up stunned by the intensity of the backlash maybe in the course of handling it the government underestimated the complexity and the degree of opposition but it's hard to you know get this sort of legal messages get people to grasp these legal messages so the opposition has greatly improved their skills in stirring up fear and and anger you know and hatred and distrust of mainland china anger and our own government [Music] [Applause] frustrations exploded that night [Applause] hey [Applause] days later it was time for a showdown lawmakers were scheduled to hear the second reading of the extradition bill at the legislative council but protesters arrived early they built barricades to prevent pro-establishment lawmakers from entering the building [Applause] foreign the police shouldn't have allowed the demonstrators to block us from entering very early in the morning that day there was some police vehicles and a government vehicle one of the ministers surrounded under that underpass and they were trapped and they weren't released for the whole day rupert dover was on the scene as a top police field commander monitoring the standoff first hand for hours the government ended up delaying the second reading of the extradition bill but protesters refused to leave demanding its complete withdrawal we knew they'd been digging up bricks they'd been in the nearby construction site they had iron rods they had all sorts of weapons it wasn't that violent i mean you can see some things being thrown at the police and so on but by and large it's uh just i i don't like to see violence all right but you see people were just rushing uh trying to rush at the police uh call them all set up and then doing that sort of thing and they and they were not really attacking the police much i mean they were using umbrellas defending themselves from the pepper spray and other things some of them are throwing some bricks but very few so i would call that certainly false was used and whatever violence it was more efficient and they were receiving that booster this was the first time tear gas had been fired in hong kong since the pro-democracy occupy protests of 2014. the other alternative would have been for me to march those police officers down that road into a massive crowd with a lot of persons overhead who we knew were armed with bricks and all sorts of objects and there could have been huge casualties foreign despite the police action the protesters blocking legco did have a victory that day the extradition law had been stopped in its tracks they did the trick it stopped the probation members of the legislature from going into the building to pass the bill into law now but for that sort of force that bill would have been passed there's no doubt about it three days later on the eve of another mass protest carrie lamb announced the suspension of the bill to try and calm the situation i now announce that the government has decided to suspend the legislative amendment exercise it was too late [Music] the next day saw an even larger turnout a record two million people according to organizers although the figure has been disputed by others the full withdrawal of the extradition bill was not the only demand now they were calling for police to retract the term riot in describing the june 12 clashes and dropped charges against those arrested that day [Music] the death of a man who fell from scaffolding along the protest route the day before swelled the ranks of the demonstrators and prompted them to wear all black a uniform they would keep for the months ahead the government followed up with a written apology to the people of hong kong that night but no mention of the protesters demands [Applause] the government's ability to control the narrative was next to zero [Music] solo was one of the hardcore protesters at the front lines of clashes with police branded as rioters and criminals by the authorities he spoke to us on the condition of complete anonymity fearing arrest and prosecution [Music] the anniversary of hong kong's return from british to chinese rule has been marked every year since the 1997 handover with a protest march but in 2019 the anniversary would be marked by something unthinkable the siege and sacking of the legislative council initiated by splinter groups of protesters who broke away from a larger peaceful march the crowds outside the building built up into thousands locked in a standoff with police for hours shortly after 9pm the glass walls and doors were breached it was psychological that's really equivalent to subverting government that's very serious it's not just simple criminal damage i said that is too ugly too ugly riot police inside the building retreated before the first protesters rushed in why they left is a matter that still bothers all sides the police the performance at that time during the first phase was disappointing if the police had not abandoned that building at such a crucial stage none of them could have happened none of them there's a reality of the situation i had by that stage about 600 700 officers ready to go ready to disperse the crowd we were never told to do it why the decision was made not to do that i don't know there were other officers deployed inside ledgeco and obviously they have a far better idea about what's happening than i do but it was frustrating there was we had a big team there ready to go and sort this problem out but we were not deployed i don't think in any other jurisdiction any other country you would allow the seat of government to be invaded vandalised literally destroyed and we did [Music] the trashing of the legislature was a hugely symbolic escalation for the government an unacceptable assault on elected authority for the protesters a rejection of failed political promises [Music] no rioters only tyranny the slogan they left behind deputy police commissioner raymond sue directed operations from headquarters during the first months of turmoil you cannot just glorify this all violence say by saying that achieving justice by violating the law is okay no it shouldn't be this is ridiculous people making this sort of statement is [Music] [Applause] irresponsible a foreign diplomat actually said to me he was very surprised that even after such a traumatic event the government didn't head back harder that sort of action would have amounted to trying to overthrow government after the sacking of the legislative council a critical turning point came during a mass rally on hong kong island some protesters splintered off and made their way to beijing's liaison office in the city [Music] they vandalized the building facade and defaced the national symbol the unprecedented insult and challenge to beijing's authority was a message to china's leaders that this was no longer just a problem confined to hong kong and its internal affairs it laid the groundwork for direct intervention later from the central government that would change everything what was initially resentment against the police force turned into intense hatred of the men and women in blue and it all came to a head that same night after the liaison office was vandalized [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] footage broadcast on television and shared on social media showed a mob of men in white attacking people with metal rods at the mtr station in yeon long in the new territories they were there to target returning protesters but their rampage was as indiscriminate as it was brutal it took police 39 minutes to respond to distress calls [Music] [Applause] there were lots and lots of incidents going on on that on that evening there was another major uh public event down in hong kong island so our resources are tight so when this incident did suddenly pop up in yuan long there's an automatic time lag time delay to get the requisite sort of a manpower up there was the main bulk of the riot police arrival uh slow yeah it was because of the distance is concerned protesters and their supporters accused police of being deliberately slow to respond they saw it as proof of collusion between officers and criminal elements among the white clad mob then then i knew the communists and the police and these triad people are working together can there be any doubt foreign [Applause] on august 5th hong kongers woke up to a city almost completely paralyzed protesters called for a city-wide strike to escalate their campaign and spread out across hong kong to enforce it public transport ground to a halt as protesters blocked road traffic they disrupted train services by stopping carriage doors from closing hundreds of flights were cancelled at hong kong's international airport as air traffic controllers called in sick at the last minute [Applause] at least 10 districts across the city were robbed by violence and there was much more to come [Applause] police increased their use of rubber bullets and pepper spray and fired thousands of rounds of tear gas at the increasingly angry crowds [Music] the protest movement ramped up efforts to make more global headlines by taking over the arrival hall of hong kong's international airport it was all peaceful at first but [Music] eventually for the first time clashes at the airport with horrified international travelers looking on their journeys disrupted hundreds of flights cancelled and ugly scenes like this the airport drama reached its climax on a night when protesters held a mainland chinese man hostage beating him and accusing him of being an undercover policeman he turned out to be a reporter for a beijing-based newspaper who was rescued by paramedics further chaos erupted as police forced their way into the departure hall to make way for the medics when it was all over the protesters realized they'd gone too far and tried to make up for it in the morning after a court injunction banning them from the main terminal building the protesters left the airport and did not return [Applause] the street violence expanded into train stations disrupting the city's most popular and convenient mode of public transport a police crackdown at prince edward mtr station became a defining moment with officers storming onto a train to go after protesters [Applause] beautiful in terms of the prince edward side of things we'd had this situation where the mtr became virtually a no-go zone for uh for police police didn't go into the mtr system protesters could move around wherever they wanted logistically that created all sorts of problems because crowds could move very quickly from one area to another simply by using the mtr when the police eventually went into the mtr system i think it had quite a a positive impact on how we controlled the the riots and our ability to respond to the riots because suddenly with the protesters they realize this wasn't just their sort of automatic escape route anger turned against the mtr which was accused of colluding with police against protesters using the railway network it became routine for radicals to set mtr entrances on fire destroy ticket machines and turnstiles and cause as much damage as possible train stations became tear gas-filled battlegrounds and violence intensified all round no law enforcement agents in the world would tolerate this sort of level of violence against the police officers violence used by the rioters invites forceful response and that applies to all police officers all police agents in the world there are lots of people criticizing us using excessive force but have you heard these people criticizing condemning violence used by the writers of course i feel this is unfair to us our use of force guidelines they basically is benchmark the international standard since [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] because they would sit tightly very funny for all sides it was now a fight for hong kong's soul october 1st china's national day [Music] and across hong kong in 2019 it is a day of chaos [Music] in stark contrast president xi jinping leads celebrations in beijing for the rest of the country [Music] public opinion across mainland china is strongly against the violence in hong kong and on this day the amplified unrest becomes a national embarrassment [Music] 13 of hong kong's 18 districts are rocked by clashes between radical anti-government protesters and police [Applause] the mtr system is shut down shops and businesses shuttered smoke from burning barricades and tear gas fumes fill the air [Music] given the intensity of the clashes it is something that is bound to happen sooner or later and it does [Music] an 18 year old protester is shot in the chest at close range by a police officer under attack [Music] it marks the first time during months of protests that anyone is shot by a live round the action of the police were actually kept on tv camera so everybody can see that i was deployed in chinwan where where the the shooting took place of the of the young young boy extremely violent crowd that day out to have conflict to cause trouble i would say from the the various deployments i had for that seven month period that october first one was by far away the most violent police fire six live rounds that day and while no one is killed the escalation causes widespread alarm [Music] if it is a life-threatening situation we have well-established skylines when we need to use firearms i wouldn't say that our frontline offices are doing everything perfect on the ground but i hope that everybody need to bear in mind that our frontline officers on the ground they are facing a lot of stress and challenges the teenager who was shot undergoes emergency surgery and survives he is also arrested and charged with rioting and assaulting a police officer the first use of deadly force by police and resentment against them over the year-long controversy lead to a sharp escalation of violence but it's not all police versus protesters [Applause] supporters and opponents of the protest movement are pitted against each other a deeply divided society is reflected in two opposing colors yellow for the anti-government movement [Music] blue for those who support police and the establishment vigilante violence becomes commonplace as radical protesters take to assaulting people who speak out against them on the streets extreme opponents of the protest movement also engage in tit-for-tat violence society is in full upheaval [Music] foreign [Music] um foreign foreign this particular attack on a mandarin-speaking jp morgan chase employee by protesters outside the company's headquarters has a deep impact on public opinion many are repulsed by the lawlessness protest violence spins out of control targeting businesses with links to mainland china and those seen as sympathetic towards the blue camp the demonstrations continue long after chief executive carrie lam has formally withdrawn the extradition bill a gesture which does little to ease anger on the streets for many it is too little too late [Music] the protesters have a list of five demands now including an independent investigation into police conduct and amnesty for the many arrested lamb's government rejects the demands as unreasonable but has no other political solution to offer so you go away hong kong is torn apart [Music] um i took my oath of office in 1988 to the hong kong government and the people of hong kong and that's what i do that's what we the police force do we serve the people of hong kong they might not necessarily agree with everything we've been doing of late but i honestly you know hand on heart believe what we have done has saved hong kong from a far worse fate the hong kong police has been put in the middle of what is a political conundrum a political problem dilemma we're in the middle of it we're not trying to solve the political problem we're just trying to keep hong kong safe so that people can go about their normal daily lives tear gas is used for dispersing the crowd and tear gas has been used by a lot of countries for 100 years but nobody criticized that we just want to disperse the crowd when we use the special trial management vehicle smv when we use the color die we also receive criticism what do you expect us to do verbal advice verbal warning then people will criticize us being impolite is that fair [Music] while criticizing us using different level of force then are they criticizing the other party the writers using that sort of violence those are the lethal weapons petrol bombs firearms explosives is constant clashes and tear gas filled streets take their toll on residents of built up neighborhoods such as mong kok bonnie ho is one of them okay [Applause] the social unrest takes a turn for the worse in november plumbing new depths of violence the death of chelsea lock a university student who fell from a multi-story car park while police were conducting a clearance operation nearby sparks a renewed backlash [Applause] young protesters call for more aggressive action university campuses become the new war zones regular and radical student protesters joined by extremists take over five university campuses on november 11th calling for a city-wide general strike [Applause] [Music] the violence spills over into a second day hong kong's rule of law has been pushed to the brink of total collapse as mask rioters recklessly escalate their violence under the force hope that they can get away with it police enter the chinese university of hong kong campus accusing radicals of criminal damage and stopped piling an arsenal of weapons to fight them an attempt to mediate by the university's vice chancellor failed [Music] protesters and police fight for control of a key bridge leading to the campus the battle of the bridge lasts for hours there was a really hardcore front line young mopai you know the militants you know with the best training who tried to take possession of the university campuses and what they were doing was really dangerous so they had to be stopped foreign students at other universities respond with extreme measures [Music] fortifying their campuses [Music] barricading entrances and blocking public access to road and rail traffic but police keep their distance by the end of the week all but one of the campuses are abandoned outside the baptist university campus where protesters blocked the road with debris a striking scene unfolds [Music] people's liberation army soldiers emerged from their nearby barracks to clean up the mess they turn out in gym shorts and vests armed with buckets and brooms rather than guns this is the first and only intervention in the protests by the pla and it's all over in an hour all the constant speculation about the possibility of a tiananmen style crackdown proves unfounded the last campus to remain occupied [Music] the hong kong polytechnic university becomes the most violent battleground yet an estimated 1 000 protesters dig in for the long haul [Music] hardcore activists take it to a new level mass producing more makeshift weapons and blocking access to the nearby cross harbour tunnel a key thoroughfare connecting hong kong island to the kowloon peninsula we were shocked okay to see so many people inside the university using this sort of this sort of violence one of our media liaison officer got attacked by an arrow with his calf you know being struck through it is sad to see see that although i must say not all writers inside were university students but again you can see a lot of university students are being exploited to use such level of violence foreign police form a ring around polyu no one gets in no one gets out the campus is under siege [Music] they wanted to create a situation where a lot of protesters could be caught inside the university campus [Music] [Music] um they made a big mistake because they have been successful by following the be water tactics and when they were all over the place it's hard for the police to catch them but on that location they were corralled by the police and they became very scared from what i heard so i think the police court scored a decisive victory we shut the place down and that's it we're not putting up with any more of this we locked it down we cordoned it we were in control of it and i think it's a little bit of a pivotal moment as it were the siege of polyu is still underway as the city goes to the polls public trust in the authorities is at an all-time low both among protesters on the streets with their unaddressed grievances and those demanding a return to law and order and peace the anger against the government and beijing is channeled by the protest movement into the polls and their opposition candidates riding on this wave of discontent achieve a landslide victory at the municipal level district council elections [Music] the election is widely seen as a de facto referendum on just how much public support is behind the protest movement and the numbers make it crystal clear opposition candidates seized 392 out of 452 district council seats trouncing pro-establishment candidates in a stunning rebuke to lam's governance but at the same time the number of votes for pro-establishment parties add up to 1.2 million compared with 1.6 million for the opposition another reflection of a divided [Music] after nearly two weeks with police surrounding the campus and protesters holed up inside the siege of polyu ends protesters abandoned the campus over the course of several days hundreds are arrested by waiting police [Music] when police take over the campus they make a stunning discovery a stockpiled arsenal of nearly 4 000 petrol bombs almost 1 400 explosive items more than 600 bottles of corrosive liquids and nearly 600 other weapons but it is no decisive victory for the authorities to celebrate hong kong society has never been so traumatized exhausted or divided [Music] christmas 2019 and the protests continue on the streets and in shopping malls glory to hong kong a song born of the protest movement becomes the anthem of defiance patriotic groups opposing the protests hold rival singing sessions belting out china's national anthem in a musical counter-offensive [Applause] protesters target shops they see as being run by people who oppose them shopping malls become another battleground as police go in after them like the protesters police also change tactics taking more aggressive often preemptive action to restore law and order they are led by a new commissioner chris tang who brings in a bolder no-nonsense style of policing the police force is no longer the demoralized and embattled agency struggling to control the protests encouraged also by beijing's vocal support for officers it hails as heroes [Applause] and then on top of everything comes the coronavirus pandemic [Music] covid19 in a city already scarred by sars keeps people off the streets the protests are not over but they're dying down [Applause] police enforce social distancing rules while getting tougher and more resolute in their crackdowns on protest violence and illegal gatherings the combined impact on the scale and frequency of protests is substantial just a few months ago lamb's government had invoked emergency powers to ban the use of masks its targets being the radicals covering their faces to break the law now it has to ask everyone to wear masks to save lives [Music] for the first time in three decades police ban hong kong's annual candlelight vigil to mark the anniversary of the tiananmen square crackdown but thousands remain defiant gathering at victoria park in the heart of the causeway bay business district authorities cite the risk of covid19 but for protesters and opposition activists the pandemic is being used as an excuse to suppress them they have another reason to rally and it's something far more devastating to the movement a far more consequence to the city the new national security law just days ahead of the june 4 commemoration china's top legislative body unanimously passes the national security law for hong kong the new law outlaws acts of secession subversion terrorism and collusion with foreign forces beijing had left it to the hong kong government to end the protest chaos of the previous year it now decides to step in directly citing a threat to national security and accusing foreign governments of interference that it can no longer [Applause] tolerate [Music] news that sweeping new legislation is coming sparks more calls at these protests for [Music] independence [Applause] the open caused by protesters for u.s and british intervention the pleas for punitive action against china the anti-national slogans the attacks on the symbols of chinese sovereignty all have far-reaching consequences with hong kong now a battleground for the wider political confrontation between china and the united states already locked in a raging trade war beijing decides to act the new legislation is sweeping and immediately targets acts such as the waving of pro-independence flags and chanting a pro-independent slogans [Applause] vandalism like this can now be considered a terrorist act and the penalties can be as severe as life in prison [Music] the new law takes effect late into the night of june 30th thousands tried to protest against it the next day july the 1st the 23rd anniversary of hong kong's return to chinese war nearly 400 people are arrested and for the first time 10 are accused of breaching the new national security law [Applause] life under the new law many fear the national security legislation will be used to undermine freedoms and stifle descent the opposition sees it as the beginning of the end of the one country two systems policy under which hong kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy western government led by the u.s threaten serious consequences and follow up with punitive action and sanctions against the city and its leaders i am directing my administration to begin the process of eliminating policy exemptions that give hong kong different and special treatments but both the local and central governments dig in insisting that the law will be used only to ensure security they say fundamental rights will be protected by the city's judicially independent courts and it will be back to business as usual amid the conflicting narratives the city now houses a dedicated national security office with a special police unit to enforce the law they hit the ground running and have already started taking action [Applause] armed with new legal powers national security police are now part of the new law enforcement landscape people are now arrested for acts that they could get away with previously but are now considered serious crimes the chaos may be over for now and the streets quieter but hong kong society remains more divided than ever ohio um [Music] [Applause] foreign i am not a human rights abuser there are no burnt villages there are no mass graves it's just police officers doing their job acting in accordance with the law and i appreciate a lot of the public don't like that but that's the way it is how should hong kong move forward how can it carry on [Music] i am not in despair because i know we are doing the right thing i know we have the moral high ground because they are breaking agreements not me they are doing all these things they promise not to do and we are just holding them to their contract if you like hong kong cannot enjoy two systems without acceptance of the country so i think beijing through all the statesmen they are putting out they are reminding hong kong people they are telling hong kong people emphatically you know you are part of the country if you want your future to continue as under one country system you have to respect china's sovereignty security and developmental interest that's how you can continue to carry on the communist party never wants our community to heal they want to divide and conquer but i don't believe our civil servants and our officials want that still hong kong people they know our values i know in their hearts too they must treasure the same values as we treasure they may agree to take all this from the communists but i don't think they enjoy doing all these things to our young people they too have kids you know i don't hate these people i pity them the narratives are different but most agree on one reality it's not over yet the issues that gave rise to this perhaps with the exception of the extradition bill itself the issues haven't really been addressed when they are it's going to take a long time to solve [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] political consideration is not something that we need we have to consider okay as a police officer we need to maintain law and order we do expect that this will go on again maybe after the coronal virus is being under control but of course we stand ready for that i think this is mid or brick time for hong kong things are coming to a head the debates about one country two systems you know the debates about um whether beijing's officers are interfering in our internal affairs what is the level of our autonomy these things are coming to a head these are the core issues [Music] although scenes like these are from the past now hong kong remains a troubled city a politically torn landscape facing an uncertain future as it also struggles with the economic fallout from the pandemic and the world is watching how china handles its rebel city [Music] you

Channel: South China Morning Post

Views: 2,446,297

Keywords: Carrie Lam, China’s Rebel City, Chris Tang, District council election, Five demands, Hong Kong anti government protests, Hong Kong election, Hong Kong extradition, Hong Kong lawmakers, Hong Kong legislation, Hong Kong national security law, Hong Kong police, Hong Kong protesters, Hong Kong protests, Jimmy Sham, Martin Lee, Rebel City, Regina Ip, SCMP, South China Morning Post, chinas rebel city

Id: YgYuRGre6AA

Length: 67min 30sec (4050 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/blackclash29]

Here is a recent Hong Kong news story https://hongkongfp.com/2021/05/24/hong-kong-police-arrest-busker-who-was-singing-protest-song-for-public-disorder/ all of that work, and now currently getting arrested for singing a song in public.