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Alright, why don't we get started. So it's great to see such a nice turnout today.

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So, we're here to talk about Hong Kong today, as you've seen in the headlines, Hong Kong has been in a sort of a crisis this past year with seemingly continuous protests for many, many months, the largest, which may have had as many as 2 million people, all the numbers and some dispute of the number. I read that the police have fired some 6000 rounds of tear gas and their allegations of police brutality. And so there's a lot going on in Hong Kong, and we're here to talk about try to unpack what's been going on for those of you who've been following this obviously, you know, the basic background, but some of you may not have been following it closely. And our panelists are here to sort of explain what's been going on and, and there are a lot of questions that will be raised today. What is

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driving these protests?

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What is driving this intense level of public? people taking to the streets? What do we think mainland response will be the leadership in Beijing and how will they respond to this? What are the implications for this outside of Hong Kong?

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There's a lot of discussion of how this affects affected the recent elections in Taiwan. In the US, at the end of last year, the Congress as the Hong Kong human rights and democracy act, so there's been a direct American political response. And how are these events in Hong Kong play into the entire big narrative that about,

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about the implications of China's rise in the world? So these are big questions, and then more recently, with the

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advent of the corona virus, there's been a lot that sort of dovetailed with the corona virus narrative and what's going on Hong Kong.

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From what I saw in the news this morning.

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Some of the border has been closed and there's, in the middle of some of the medical professionals are striking to try to get the border fully closed. So, so how does the coronavirus affect what's going on in Hong Kong? So we have a terrific panel today to discuss these events. And we also have other folks in the audience who are very knowledgeable about Hong Kong. So in our discussion period, I hope we have a good back and forth. But let me first introduce our panelists here. So first,

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we have Jeff washroom, who's a Chancellor's professor of history at UCI specializes in Chinese history has written his first book was about student protests and in China, and he's been a very prolific not only a prolific scholar, but also someone who has really done a lot to try to communicate things about China to the general public, in all sorts of medium and books and online and that sort of thing. So, so it's great to have him here. He's just written a book about Hong Kong.

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Visual Hong Kong on the brink. I've already had a chance to read. It's a terrific read. You can buy it out front, I believe the bookstore. Folks are here already. And Jeff will stay around to sign copies if you're interested afterwards. That's what on the screen staring down as an Orwellian fashion we have Mike foresight from the New York Times. He was based in the Hong Kong office until 2017. He's known in particular for his groundbreaking sort of forensic investigations on the connections between politics and well, he wrote a award winning article or series of articles on wealth and the in seizing sort of family and their connections to business and, and wealth and his own story of how he may mention it, of how he went from Bloomberg to the New York Times in his in itself not irrelevant to what we're talking about today. So I mentioned that as well.

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And then last but not least, we have Bella Lee from our UCLA political science department. She's an expert in not only an expert in Chinese politics, but also originally from Hong Kong. So we'll talk about this from both of those perspectives. I'd like to thank our sponsors for this event, the Burkle Center for International Relations. UCLA is Asia Pacific center, and the UCLA international and comparative law program, and particularly thank Alex leaving Odessa, guar just peak and Tom Price for putting in all the work to make this this sort of event happen. Okay, so before we dive into it, we're going to talk for about 35 minutes and then leave the rest of our hour to q&a. I want to set the stage a little bit particularly for people who haven't been following the Hong Kong situation closely then I'll pose a series of questions to our panelists for them to respond to so for those of

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who've been following the protests in 2019. You know that it was driven the impetus for this was proposed amendments to, to the extradition law in Hong Kong. So extensively was about it was started by a murder that happened in Taiwan Bye,

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bye Hong Kong resident. And it was proposed as a way to sort of deal with the ability to extradite him to Taiwan. But of course, what has driven the protests is that it was a much it was a law that was not just limited to Taiwan, but also, among other things, would create a mechanism that on a case by case basis, there could be the approval of extradition to mainland China. And among the critiques are that critiques about the the level of judicial oversight and the lead amount of legislative oversight over these sorts of approvals. So that's what sort of the meeting

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that spurred the protest and our panels will talk more about that. But in the broader background of this, of course, is a longer term situation, which is about the the long term autonomy of Hong Kong. Again, for those of you who followed Hong Kong events, you know that Hong Kong was handed over from the British to China in 1997. And at that time, pursuant to sign a British Joint Declaration in the early 1980s, the agreement was that Hong Kong would essentially there would be a sort of one country, two systems dynamic Hong Kong would agree, enjoy a quote unquote, high degree of autonomy is set forth in this joint declaration and in the basic law that's now sort of the Constitution of Hong Kong. It says that for 50 years, essentially until 2047 50 years after the handover that Hong Kong would enjoy certain political rights, civil civil rights, political freedoms, and

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preserve a certain way of life. And these things are spelled out in fairly general provisions, which has, in many ways led to the disputes today. Another another aspect of the basic law and their initial Joint Declaration was the idea that eventually Hong Kong would move towards universal suffrage for both the chief executive and the legislators. So right now the system is much more limited. Only 1200 members of the election committee choose the the chief executive of Hong Kong, and the legislature is only only half of it is decided in a sort of geographic sort of everyone, one person, one vote style, the other half are nominated by functional functional constituencies that are largely aligned with sort of elite and business interests within Hong Kong. So the background is this you know what is happening with Hong Kong's autonomy disagreements over whether this is it.

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You have a high degree of autonomy is being maintained. And so so I wanted to set the stage in that way, and then hand it over to our panelists. And so maybe start with Jeff and the bullet and then the mic, but I'll pose a few questions and let you guys respond. We'll see where the conversation goes from there.

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So maybe the start just I want to ask you all what's the most important thing to keep in mind about the Hong Kong situation, speaking from your different perspectives on this issue, but the great pleasure to be here and to be part of this stimulating and event and it's wonderful to have the turnout there is?

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I think, since Alex brought up one country, two systems, I think that's sort of the biggest thing to keep in mind. What does a city that's got its strong own identity gain from being part of one country, that country being the People's Republic of China, and how has that country

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been changing, and how strength how strong or weak is the separate system side of the agreement. And we just started a year of the rat. So I think we could sort of look back at some previous years of the rat 12 year cycle system in 1984. It was a year of the rat and that's when the deal was made between done shopping and Margaret Thatcher and others to have the handover of Hong Kong Cabot come back under Chinese control. That was a very different time and at least American imaginings of China China's seem to be quite dramatically. liberalizing it was changing. It was becoming more open to the world. It was

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becoming having more open economy. So the idea was that the country that that Hong Kong would become part of was one that was moving very, very far from what is it been in mouse time, and that was one reason why there could be a certain amount of excitement in some quarters and at least willingness and other

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quarters to see Hong Kong become part of a Communist Party run state because the Communist Party seemed to be moving in a at least slowly liberalizing direction, at least economically. And perhaps eventually, politically. A later year, the rat, the most recent year of the rat was 2008, the Beijing Olympics took place. That was, I think, the last moment when one country two systems work really well, in a certain way for a lot of people in Hong Kong, including I know young protesters on the streets right now, who say that when they look back at 2008, they remember being quite excited by the Olympics. The Olympics was coming to the country. They were part of the first time China had hosted the Olympics. And in the center of one country, two systems is ideal form. The main Olympics were held it held in Beijing, but equestrian events were held in Hong Kong. So Hong Kong was part of this. It was sort of if you are a Hong Kong person you gain from your association

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with China in this idea that China was on a roll, the problem is since then, and now, China has moved, the mainland has moved in a tightening direction, especially under Xi Jinping that began before Xi Jinping. Now, it's not so clear that China that the Chinese Communist Party is leaving behind parts of the mouth era and factors seems to be reviving some things that seemed to have gotten behind. So the one country, it's not as clear that that's the country that if you had the kinds of values that Hong Kong Hong Kong people treasure, that being part of that country does not appeal as much at the same time, that separate system, the two systems was something that included the separate difference in the system in Hong Kong was you could hold protests. There was a clear separation of powers that there isn't on the mainland, between the police and the courts, and the other branches of government. And that was something that people treasured. And in

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protest movements. There were often cases even five years ago, the Umbrella Movement when the police would arrest protesters, and the courts would throw that case out immediately. So you've got to you've got to let them go. There was a very free press. There still are some of those elements in Hong Kong. But each of those elements, the sort of separation of powers, the independence of the courts, the ability to trust the police, all those have been challenged in recent years. So I think that the two systems part of the agreement

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is seen as more fragile now than it was seen in earlier years of the rat. And

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being part of that one country doesn't seem as beneficial as it did before. So that would be the big picture thing I'd say is worth keeping in mind.

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What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, yeah, I would echo what Jeff said. And he's, my concern is also opposed to one countries, two systems and

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I

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would look at the more, you know, micro level of what's been going on in Hong Kong in the last half a year and more recently, the rule of law, you know, we will say that the one country two systems that structure has is being gradually and increasingly being eroded in especially in the last 656 months. And we saw that,

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as you have already well been exposed to the police brutality in the mass media, outside of Hong Kong, and despite the number of tear gas that has been fired, which is about 16,000 now and and the number of arrests and more for 7000 people have been arrested and prosecuted, some of them being prosecuted. And then despite certain reports about the police, what they did including say like we see on the video how a police motorcycle ran over some protesters

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And

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could be intentionally. But then we saw that despite all these actions of the police, none of the police officers has been has been prosecuted so far. And so the thing is still, the rule of law here in Hong Kong has been gradually eroded. And but as we see in the recent month, especially in this past several weeks, the protests have subsided. And we don't see a lot of large scale ones. And indeed, that's what the government wants. But of course, one thing is, is related to the virus.

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I talked to my friends and relatives in Hong Kong and they say, Oh, no, we don't want to get into a crash to protest anymore Now keeping the virus so Ironically, the virus is helping to

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reduce the scale of the protest and other things.

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that I see is the suppression, if you will, or the crackdown done by the police is now no longer done on the street. There is no more public display of violence and exercised by the police, instead, I think is being done more in a more covert way

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that I heard the police is still doing arrests as the homes of the of the protesters, they would go there in the middle of the night. And then they would surprising me, you know, knock at the door of the protesters arrest them, and they would get their phones and they would get into the phones and get access to their chat groups. And from those chat groups, they get more names, then they will do more arrests. And of course not all those names are actually protesters but of course there are there have been complaints that some of these are restaurant really the same

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Some of these people were simply in the chat groups. And it doesn't mean that they participated in the protests. But that's a different issue. And so the method of

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the method of

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crackdown or suppression, is now being conducted in the more, you know, away from the public eye and in a more covert way. This is one thing. Another thing that I see and there are two or more things that I see.

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Time and again, you might have heard the Chinese officials making comments in the last several months about the protests. And there are mainly two points that they pinpointed. And they said that

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the reasons why we have such protests are mainly because of to one thing is about the educational system, the school curriculum, they will say that the school curriculum needs

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Not being in Hong Kong is not being conducted in a proper way that with educates the young people to be more, you know, in line with the mainland Chinese way of thinking, official line of thinking so that they will have more understanding of the no official narrative, and they would be more patriotic to students education point.

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And then so I have friends who are school teachers in Hong Kong, and I communicate with them and ask them about the school curriculum thing. And there is this subject in Hong Kong called Social Studies. Social Studies Eastern is a compulsory subjects that students in high school have to take into public exam to enter the university. Besides you and the three majors Chinese English and mathematics, they have to do social studies. And then ever since the Umbrella Movement and

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The government has been restricting, you know, you know, on this curriculum, but then more recently in the last several months, the Hong Kong government is moving towards putting more restrictions such as

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in this subject there is there, there are teachings about

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personal development and also human relations. And then one of the aspects of this personal development and social media relations is about the young people's participation in Social Affairs. And then the government is now is now moving into the area where they try to you know, downgrade, downplay the, the, you know, the promotion of youngsters participation in Social Affairs. That's one thing Another thing is also

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Yeah, putting more pressure in this school on this teachers and then giving out guidelines what they should they may say

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to students if they were asked about the protests, and the guidelines are saying that you may answer, I don't know, or you may answer, I don't understand it either something like that to the school teachers. So, you will see there is some kind of penetration gradually into the, into schools among, among teachers and school principals. And we would anticipate that that will increase. Then the third thing I also want to bring attention to is about the law. In the basic law is stated that one someday sometime Hong Kong should pass a law on national security. And it's called article 23. Article 23 is about it's already been passed in Macau, I think. And then Hong Kong hasn't done it. In 2003. The Hong Kong government's tried to push it, but then there was a big pushback, a large scale protest and so the Hong Kong government didn't proceed.

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Now, this is the second issue that the mainland officials pinpointed. Now when they died, not just the

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the protests in the last six months, the education and also the national security law. So, you know, I would, I would then be surprised that you know, there would be developments in these two areas in the near future. Great. Thank you. So So Mike, can you hear us love to have your you spend some time in Hong Kong? We'd love to hear your your perspective on this. Yeah, sure. And can you hear me all right, yes. Okay. So um, I was just thinking of two big picture thinking that I would want to have conferred on everyone you know, first of all, is the incredible transformation of Hong Kong in just the past few years, and then the other one would be

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because of that transportation and because of the reaction of the Hong Kong people what that says about

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The nature of Chinese power. So the first one is

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I'll do a little bit of historical perspective. But I'm a journalist. So my historical perspective is very narrow. I'm going to go back to one day in particular August 9 2013. That was the day I came to Hong Kong to work. I was with Bloomberg News at that time. And the reason I remember that day is because it was the last day I ever spent in mainland China. I left Beijing that day with my family and and we moved to Hong Kong. And you know, things were tough for me in Beijing because I had written a story about the guy you really shouldn't be writing a story about, and that is

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a group we know very well now is not you know, doesn't take that too kindly to rain about himself and his family. But anyway, there I was in Hong Kong and I what I said, this is great. Now I'm in a place where nothing happens. You know, this is going to be, you know, pretty uneventful. I'm not going to really have to think about Hong Kong too much. I could just kind of

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Right from my perch in Hong Kong, about China and other things in Asia, and, you know, and that's it, I came to Hong Kong and you know, when you come from to Hong Kong, from Beijing, it's like it, you're a kid in a candy store. It is. It was in 2013, this incredible place where you had three internet friendly police that you could go up to and ask directions to churches everywhere. And it had this reputation as a really politically quite apathetic

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place. You know, every few years, there were large protests, if the mainland, you know, wanted to do something, you know, like was mentioned the article 23 protests, which were in 2003. And then a few years later, there was some moves to, to kind of put some more patriotic education in the education system in Hong Kong war for mainland it was and that sparked protests, but generally, Hong Kong is this was this bourgeois paradise where the greatest

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aspiration of the people It seems to me at least where for their children to grow up to be accountants or lawyers, not that there's anything wrong with being accountants and lawyers or

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capitalist paradise, the heritage foundation every year, you know, range of Hong Kong and still strangely brings Hong Kong as you know, the most capitalists procure a free marketplace on her. So there I was, but that time I came to Hong Kong was just about the time that things really began to change because the following year

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was a big calendar event in Hong Kong's history. Because this was mentioned before, I think, by Jeffrey, that in there was a promise, I think, in the basic logic, democratize the Basic Law of you know, that was promulgated and ironed out in the 80s. And 90s. said that Hong Kong at some point would get free, universal suffrage. So on August 31 2014,

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China's now

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National People's Congress came up with the interpretation of what that would be. And what that would be with the was kind of a joke to many Chinese people or as many Hong Kong people, because it was not universal suffrage. It was basically a system that was very similar to the current system, and rigged in a way that to make sure that only probe aging people would ever have a chance to run for the chief executive of Hong Kong to be the leader of of the this bizarre. And that set off as promised, the Occupy Hong Kong movement, which only a few weeks after that event, led to the Umbrella Movement.

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But so we went from a place you know, a very, I would say quite a delay quite a political

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place. And over the course of a few months that changed a lot at the beginning of the umbrella of protests. The police were still rather restraint. We as report

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We regularly talk to them, chat with them towards the end of the Umbrella Movement in November, December 2014, it had already transformed. I remember being chased away in some of the kind of the dying throes of the movement in I think it was a late November 2014. By some, you know, hired thugs for by the police. And I remember, this was in right here, the government offices in central Hong Kong, they were chasing us, you know, the, not a lot of not a lot of tear gas was used to this time. And I looked back at the expression on one of these, you know, higher thought spaces, and it was the expression of a madman, just a crazy person. And so, over the course of a few months, you went from these kind of civil police, you know, treatment to hiring of thugs and you know, beatings and then of course, in the last in 2019 that only, you know, grew up

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exponentially, you know, the behavior of the police in 2019 would have just been unthinkable in 2014. You know, 2014 was a model of restraint.

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And, you know, I'm sure many of you have seen, you know, the reports on that, that the police behavior in these most recent protests, was quite brutal.

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So this place has really changed and I was focusing on the negative or the positive side, I think, and there really isn't the positive side is the politicization of the Hong Kong people. And the fact that these people in Hong Kong care so deeply about their home and about their freedoms, it to a degree that really puts Americans to shame, I think just puts about almost anybody to the world to shame. And you see the results of that in the only elections in Hong Kong that pretty much are free, which are the district council elections a couple of months ago where the democratic forces just added

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Salute the show lacked the production forces. I mean, absolutely shellacked them. It was a sight to see. And this is just so amazing because just six years ago, Hong Kong really did have, I think a reputation as being fairly apathetic and apolitical. And now it is quite the opposite. And that kind of leads me to my second point. What does it say about the nature of Chinese power?

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China, Beijing, you know, is it always Hong Kong? Hong Kong is part of China. It claims Taiwan right across the Taiwan straits yet those two ethnically Chinese yet semi autonomous or autonomous, you know, territories right on the Chinese, you know, near abroad, you know, are increasingly

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absolutely low. to, to to be part of China. They want they they are increasingly feel separate from China. And if the Chinese You know, there's so much talking about

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world now of Chinese soft power, Chinese sharp power, Chinese influence around the world. And yet I think this is important perspective. And this is a really big picture thing that us journalists are good at is, you know, when you look at it,

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the Chinese Beijing has a very difficult time winning the hearts and minds in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In fact, the data was the hearts and minds in both of those territories. And when you add up the population has over 30 million ethnically Chinese people who absolutely want nothing to do with the mainland. Now, that says a lot. I think about the nature of Chinese power and the constraints on Chinese power. So that's another big thought I just like to throw out there. Great, thank you. Well, so, you know, one question I want to the next question I want to ask is, what do you What's your sense? What's your sense of what the leadership in Beijing is thinking about this from a few few different perspectives you've been addressed? This one is what why

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You've described certain pressures on the Hong Kong system. So why is that going on in the first place? Given the agreement? The language is about me, you know, maintaining a certain way of life for 50 years, high degree of, you know, high degree of autonomy. So why why are these things happening right now? Second thing I would be interested in your response to is, Andrew Nathan, the Columbia political scientist has an article in foreign affairs about what is Beijing thinking about Hong Kong, and he makes the argument, which seems plausible that leader, the leadership thinks of this as primarily an economic issue that people are, despite the fact that things are being couched in a political way that's fundamentally about rents being really high job prospects being low for young young people. And that this is in kind of being in the mix is also sort of Westerners kind of stoking this kind of political stuff, right. And so he's like, well, maybe Beijing

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Feels very confident that they don't they have a very different view on this. So I just curious what you all would say is from the Beijing side, what is the take on this? What's going on here? So the first thing I would say is, we don't know a lot about what the inner leadership in Beijing is thinking and planning and those who claim to know a lot, usually should be treated with a good deal of skepticism. I think a major point about Hong Kong's history and about the history of the Chinese Communist Party to keep in mind is how often we've been surprised by things and we've gotten things wrong and in predicting about it. There. Famously wrong predictions about Hong Kong right after the handover. The idea was it was going to instantly Free Press would be gone.

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Protests would be impossible. It would become just like any other mainland city, and that was clearly incorrect. It stayed very different.

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But Hong Kong predictions have been wrong since 1841, when Hong Kong became first I

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territory of the British when the British won the Opium War. And Lord Palmerston was so furious at the negotiator on the British side, for taking this barren island with barely a house upon it, that would never be a great market trade, that he fired the guy. not imagining that Hong Kong would become one of the great cities of the world. So I think we always should be aware with predictions. There's a real problem here. And there were a lot of erroneous predictions through the Umbrella Movement and through these protest movements to predictions on both sides. There were predictions that there would be massacre like there was in 1989. on the mainland, there's idea of troops coming in. That was wrong, and there was much too much talk about that as being a possible scenario. I think what's clear what Beijing we do know what Beijing did not does not want in Hong Kong. It does not want a kind of massacre in the open that would galvanize world opinion against against them.

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Yet

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does want I think and we've seen this from same as Xi Jinping and others. It has an idea that Macau is the way it would like one country two systems to work where Macau in political terms, though it is still different. There aren't ongoing large scale protests there. There's a bit more freedom of speech and the press but not a lot. The two systems part is really difference in economic function. And the kinds of ways you can spend and make money in Macau are different from what you can do on the mainland like gambling. Hong Kong in one vision of this would be and this is I think Beijing, so would be a place where they were economic differences and differences the way people made and spat and transferred money, but not these kinds of political differences. And so how you get to there but clearly what they don't want is something like the massacre 1989. They also don't want ongoing

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protests and they don't want it to be headed by somebody who isn't in step with their with their own views. And I'll just mention one other thing.

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So here I've shown that I'm a historian, not a journalist by going back to 1841, though I, I do a lot that looks a lot like journalism.

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But I'll go back to 1990 Margaret Thatcher, a year after the the 1989 massacre, she was on a BBC BBC calling show and was being asked questions and one of the questions was about their about all different parts of the world. But she was asked a question about China and her when she was basically being said, like now that it's getting close to the handover happening. Are you worried that Hong Kong is going to be given to the People's Republic of China that is just carried out that massacre? What she said I think was very revealing. She said a year after that, it seemed quite clear that dung Xiaoping was still coming

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met its economic reforms, and that she still believed that economic reforms over time would inevitably lead to political changes. A famously wrong prediction that lots of people made about lots of parts of the world, including China. But the other thing that she said is that she felt confident that Hong Kong would be okay. Because Beijing would feel constrained to live up to its promises, because it would want to be seen as living up to those promises in the forum of the world, to Beijing would want to appeal to global opinion and to be seen as giving Hong Kong a fair shake. One of the clear differences now I think we see is that Beijing to a certain extent, the leaders in Beijing are now in a much stronger position to slot the forum of world opinion. The form of world opinion is in utter chaos right now. She's in pink benefits, I think from things like I tried not to mention his name, but things like what Trump's been doing

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In America, things like Brexit, all kinds of things that seem to be upheaval around there. There isn't this kind of unified world opinion or a world order that Beijing needs to keep doing things to be accepted into. It's now largely in that world order. And so it's not as constrained by the forum of world opinion

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about the

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the genes explanation as, as the essentially as an economic issue, I think they are no wrong actually. But then what I feel they what they fail to see is one step further from that, you know, logical deduction.

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economic issue, okay. The young people, they are highly frustrated with their standards of living, they cannot afford the high housing prices and then they cannot get jobs that can support themselves,

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etc. So,

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Here comes to the issue this shortage of housing in Hong Kong that pushes up the prices to the standard that the young people can no longer afford they can only you know pay dependent high rents of eight 900 US dollars and just to stay in 200 Square 100 square feet room etc. and

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but then so the Hong Kong government came out to say that Okay, now we are doling out these packages of more affordable housing of cash distribution to poor people, etc. But then the Do not ask or I don't know whether they don't seem to wants to ask further. Why, you know, people and why there was such why the housing price became so unaffordable to begin with just talking about housing.

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First of all, for example, the house due to shortage of land is related to the big

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real estates competent developing companies scooping up the land and then they and here comes to co op collaboration between the government and the East real estate companies. And at the same time, also the inflow of 100 mainland immigrants every day being allows to migrate from Mainland China to Hong Kong. And with this increasing population, thereby increasing the demand on housing, and you know, further pushing up and of course, a lot of these migrants from Mainland China are rich immigrants and so they can afford to pay high prices for the condominiums and houses. So, you know, different factors that pushed up the the house prices, therefore, people for just take the housing as an example people are asking to have a more a bigger safer in this housing policy.

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Then

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they to have in order to have a bigger city

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In the decision making, they would want to have their officials and also the government, the legislative councils, being accountable to the voters, then thereby making decisions that are more responsible and more responsive to the demands of the voters. This that's how it goes. And another example could be the infrastructure projects. And now many of the infrastructure projects, large scale ones, building the bridge, building the ports, etc. They are now being the contracts are

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given to the

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big mainland companies who build it. And time and again, these infrastructure projects went over budget. And we are talking about millions billions of dollars is not a small overpressure thing. And the money was drawn from the text, text, text money. So, here again, taking this as an example

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The Hong Kong citizens with us, then can we have a seat here? Can we have a bigger seat here is our money that's that has gone over budget. Are the legislative counselor questioning these companies responsibly? You know, why is there such a huge over budget? Where has the money gone? And why is, you know, why was there the estimates So, so inaccurate to begin with a lot of questions that the citizens would want to ask them would like to seek answers. So here again, these two more representation here. Can we have the decision makers? Can we have the legislative counselors and the policymakers be more accountable to the voters? So I see that economic question, no doubt about that. It is an economic issue, but one step further and trace why they were such economic questions, and therefore why people with demands a political solution to the economic question

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So if this is one thing, yeah, and there are

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still Thank you. Yeah. So Mike, what are your thoughts on that? Um, so to answer the big question, you know why Now, why is this going on now? I think one of the big reasons this is happening now is because of one man shooting the president or trying to the General Secretary of the Communist Party, I need if there's any country, you know, that has done more to disprove the Marxist notion that it's forces of history that control events and not individuals. It's trying to, you know, first with possible, you know, and that was cgmp. I think, just and I think, you know, how you can look at that as maybe an account or basketball. So in 2007, there were two people who are kind of in the running to be the next leader of China, who would take over in 2012. And what was she didn't think any other was lica john, who is now the premiere of trying to the number two guy

41:00

Young, you know, had a pretty urbane education is studied at Peking University studied British law. You know, what would happen if he had been the general secretary of the party and not cgp?

41:14

I think things might have been quite different. And you see the change in the Mainland's policy towards Hong Kong. It's very congruent with changing things rise. You know, things started to turn south, starting in 2013 into 2014. Some of that was driven by the calendar because of what I mentioned, the big event on August 31 2014, which was the the NPC decision on on so called universal suffrage in Hong Kong, but how would you How would leak a job handle that we of course don't know for sure. But we do know that he's a very different person conceding what he had been more accommodating towards, you know, some more, some more diverse, more

42:00

In Hong Kong, with that message have gotten down to the chief executive at the time, you know, see why they do that he's, you know, to be a bit more accommodating, and a bit more of a leader, you know, of course, we'll never know, but we do know, you know, that she can make is quite a hard line leader, he has very little tolerance for these, you know, for any deviation from the party line, and that those hard line, you know, thoughts that we have, as I think are really manifested themselves, in Hong Kong and in in many ways, that has led to a backlash, not only in Hong Kong, but in Taiwan. So I think that's, you know, an important reason why now because of one man. I would also say that, you know, we I would echo what Jeff says, We have no idea what the leadership in Jonah and I the leadership combat in Beijing, what they're thinking about Hong Kong, how they're thinking, but we do have some very good journalism out there on the information flows that are coming

43:00

from Hong Kong, and going up to drone on high and how some of the Frank, you know,

43:07

maybe information, honest information that in the past the glow to the leaders, the channels that they had to get real information of on the ground information about what's going on in Hong Kong and, and quite frankly, anywhere in the world and in the rest of China has kind of broken down, there was an excellent article by an scmp, journalist nectar God who is now at CNN about this very topic a few months ago. And so, you know, maybe the people in the leadership in China do think that this is mostly an economic issue, but where are they getting their information? I think it's pretty obvious that it's not just an economic issue. That, you know, is very much a political issue. You have a highly educated populace in Hong Kong, that are very attuned to, you know, democratic ideas around the world, in part because of their very liberal education, the social studies class

44:00

Is that are mentioned, you know, and and that's really affected their their outlook I think, you know, they're very attuned, as we've seen from the protest, we're very attuned to international opinion and very much in those protests, you know, waving the American flags all around, you know, coming up with their incredible national anthem, the new common national, that we see that these protesters are very, very in tune with, with global trends, using, as Jeff mentioned, in his book, using a theme for movies, like the Hunger Games, like the salute from the Hunger Games, to to,

44:36

you know, as part of the protests, so, so I do think that yes, the reason that one of the main reasons is that he now is because of one man, and one of the main reasons that

44:48

he may be misfiring is also because of the information flows that may not be as good anymore that are going from Hong Kong to Beijing and the information that be

45:00

Leaders are using their decisions. Great. Thank you. So so we have we've covered a lot already, we have about 15 minutes left, I'd like to move to the q&a sessions

45:12

for this part, but why don't we take three questions in bunches and then people can respond to them as I'd like. So a few kind of recommendations, keep it short, given our limited time. And I hope people will raise differing viewpoints. This is the benefit of our academic

45:28

atmosphere environment, but but keep it respectful. And so with that, why don't we take three questions at a time? So who has questions? Yeah, we have one up there one here. Anyone else? Yeah. Yeah.

45:43

Yeah. So let's, let's take these three person and I'll come to you.

45:47

Yeah. Yeah. So so go ahead in the back. So you mentioned

45:55

the name.

45:57

Housing prices. Is there anything

46:07

Okay, please. I can't hear you. Oh, yeah. So uh, so it was a question about immigration from the mainland. And is there a concern about, I guess the pro mainland views that are brought in by by those immigrants? So yeah.

46:35

So how do we know what we what has been reported about the police violence? Is that that's the question.

46:46

Yeah, yeah. So maybe that's more of a question for Mike. But there's a question about what's being reported about police brutality. How do we know and how accurate is that information, okay.

46:58

talks about the rule of law and

47:00

concern about the weakening of the rule of law and talked about police brutality.

47:06

Since there is extensive damage, also recovered infrastructure from the slide of the protesters. One of the arguments is do we just give the protesters a free pass? So how do we look at this in relation to

47:23

Brett, so why don't we start there?

47:26

Alright, so

47:28

I think combining these together and picking up on some of the excellent points that that Mike and the lead have said before, I would say, in between the Umbrella Movement and the the the much more

47:43

militant protests of this year, several important things happened. That called into question things like

47:51

the rule of law and brought to a for what Mike was saying about Xi Jinping himself. One of the things about Hong Kong

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The difference was you could publish books that were quite different from what could be published on the mainland. And you could

48:08

express criticism of leaders in a way that you couldn't on the mainland. And it's one of the refreshing things when you go from the mainland. to Hong Kong, you see newspapers that have political cartoons, mocking the leaders, which is something that doesn't happen in an authoritarian state, or doesn't happen to any other part of of the PRC except and then there was a case and Mike helped to report on this of several booksellers being taken across the border,

48:36

kidnapped essentially, and brought into a political legal system that doesn't have rule of law protections and defenses. So one of the things so the sort of concern was whether those kinds of practice were moving across the border. Another thing that happened very important in between was a period there were some legislators who were elected

48:59

pro democracy

49:00

legislators who in taking the oath of office behave disrespectfully toward Chinese to Chinese national symbols or the way they took the oath. And regardless of whether there was a process going on in Hong Kong that would have decided whether they should be removed from office for that, or whether they would be able to stay in office. We all know that how place decides who stays in office or not, is a big part of it and the system. What happened at that point was Beijing got impatient and waiting for the Hong Kong rule of law to play out and I think they would have been stripped of their office. But Beijing interfered at that point and said, No, this is not your call. We're going to make the call anyway. So there were a set of things that were were were frustrations. I think it's also important to know that it points in the past. There were concessions made by by the government to protesters who use non violent protests throughout

50:00

It's succeeding things. There was a there were signs given early in 2019. That even massive shows of the unpopularity, the extradition bill wasn't seeming to budge the government. So I don't think that protesters should be given a free pass for violence. This relates to the different the different. One of the things that's happened is there are different media reports that play up different kinds of violence. I think there have been some very, very regrettable forms of violence against people by protesters, very few of them. Much more of the violence of protesters has been against buildings and objects. There has been very clear violence, harm of people by police. You can say that you can criticize both forms of violence and to some extent, there are there have been moments of it.

51:00

protesters are these the movement as a whole has tried to apologize for the most egregious acts of violence from the side of the protest. There have been many people within the protests who've tried to distance themselves from that. The government and the police have not made the same kinds of efforts to distance themselves from the excessive police violence. And I think the biggest issue that kept the protests going as long as they have has been one demand, even though there's a lot made of five demands, not one less, but a demand for an independent commission to investigate. The the the complaints about police brutality, is I think the single demand that has the widespread support among the populace and the failure of the government to budge on that has been one of the things that driven it forward. So I don't think it's a matter of fact, giving free pass. And I don't think it's a matter I think that the the press should definitely report on violence by protesters, and or violence by by police. And I think I've seen things in the New York Times describing both kinds

52:00

of violence. How much emphasis is put on one or another, we can argue about that all the kinds of violence should be reported. But I think that lack of an independent investigation of the police is maybe the single thing that's driven, kept things boiling longest.

52:17

So I don't know Mike Worbla.

52:20

Sorry. Yeah. The Yeah. Just briefly the rule of law. I think I totally agree that Yeah, the protesters should not be given a free pass on that. But I want to emphasize one thing is rule of law for the application of law to be effective, it should be applied equally to every single citizen in the community. There have been over 7000 arrests, and, you know, many prosecutions now against protesters, but not one single case against the police officers, while we witness the kind of excessive violence being exercised on video on mass media. Very

53:00

Clearly on this, I feel that it is a tragedy for the ecosystem of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has been having that, you know, the the

53:11

ecosystem without political intervention for a long time, and it is an edge over China and that one of the reasons why Hong Kong could maintain his own position as a global financial center. But now, this even this is being eroded. And as a native to Hong Kong, I feel very sad. I do agree that, yes, protesters regardless of whom, as long as one breaks the law, one should be punished. But nobody should be put outside or beyond the law, including police officers and government officials. Thank you, Mike. Yeah, so I think that's one area that there's a huge contrast between what happened in 2014 with the umbrella protests and what happened last year. So I was there covering the umbrella protests, and this would have been early October.

54:00

Over 2014 and there was an incident of police violence where several people, especially one person was, who was a member of the Civic party, one of the pendant groups was, was severely beaten by a group of police officers. In that instance, at least there was a process where there was an investigation. And there were some, you know, disciplinary actions taken against the police. You know, there was an investigation and this was one instance of police violence. There was certainly more than that during that time, but it was much less frequent.

54:35

Then Then last year, and also the protester violence in 2014 was also much more subdued. Not so much violence in around the government buildings, you know, in central Hong Kong, a little bit more in, in, in Cologne in the mom cop area. But, you know, obviously last year, it was a lot more violent protest. Although, you know, as a

55:00

Professor Watson said most of that was against buildings. But certainly there were some very unfortunate incidents where where some people were being those were publicized by the press by the New York Times, but as as to answer the question about how do we know about the police brutality last year, just, you know, trust your eyes, there is ample video of that least violence. I mean, just an incredible amount, almost on a daily basis during the height of the protests, and also, you know, the the amount of tear gas used, but, you know, so this is well documented, is on video. It's not doctored. They're not deep fakes. This really happened. So it's you know, worth

55:45

you know, worth worth taking a look at again, if you want to learn more about what happened last year. Certainly, I thought it was really interesting what Jeffrey said about what happened in between 2014 and now, the events last year in addition to the books

56:00

which you mentioned, which I covered. And as well as the old with a we call both gate where some of these Democratic lawmakers were kicked out. And I'll say that, you know, the democrats made huge gains and the democrats the, you know,

56:15

parties made huge gains in November 2000 in September 2016, and the elections, and then those were, of course, nullified by conveniently so by the fact that some of them were expelled from leggero because of their faulty votes. We'll see what happens this September, if the district council elections are any indication of the pan democratics. You know, parties may, you know, form a majority, especially because some of these functional constituencies have really changed and this is another amazing thing that's happening in Hong Kong, you know, where you get accountants, accountants of all people and I'm sorry, I don't mean

56:58

my accounts amazing.

57:02

These people are Vanguards on the product. These people are going out on the streets. And the thing about accountants are, they're a functional constituency, they elect to be accountants of Hong Kong, elected representatives at Why don't always been one or two to the Legislative Council, they've got power. And now that the accountants there's one lefty, or democratic, you know, who knows what we're going to get in there. And then you've got the lawyers, you've got the engineers people like that. So, you know, because the protests in Hong Kong now, as opposed to 2014 even more so, in our show broad based. So in you know, encompassing such a wide swath of society, you may very well see that reflected Unless, you know, Beijing revisit completely you may see that reflected not only on that half of the lift code is democratic, but also in many of these areas that are sped up by the British By the way, not by the Chinese these functional

58:00

constituencies that you could see some more of those actually, and there are already some, but you may see more of them being represented by, you know, pro democratic and the N dems or whatever you want to call them. So, anyway, I digress. But but I think it's going to be really interesting this September to see these legislative council elections in Hong Kong. Just because there was one question that we didn't really address about the migrants and the feeling toward people coming over the border. I mean, there's a very strange phenomenon here and I had Hong Kong progressive say the irony of it, that when they're in when they move between the US and and China, they're, they're worried about borders being made to, to impermeable when they're in America, and made too permeable when they're in Hong Kong. But I think that the idea is about the flow of people from the mainland. It's always Hong Kong's always been changed by by by immigration, just like United States in different ways, in all kinds of different ways. There is a concern about police

59:00

Medical views coming in. There's also a concern. Now obviously there's a concern with with the virus and what what the border means for that. There's also a concern with what it does to other things about the local culture that are valued. For example, Cantonese being a being a different language. That's one of the central lingua franca. As you know, there's a film 10 years that was very important in Hong Kong imagining a future 10 years in the future. And the most poignant part of it to me one part of it was a cab driver, who his GPS system stops recognizing can't directions, he gets it in Cantonese, and will only recognize plutonic la, the length of the mainland, this idea of being overwhelmed. On the other hand, though, I think it's crucial to realize there's prejudice among some people in Hong Kong, toward mainlanders. There's also a great deal for diversity in Hong Kong and there are people in Hong Kong criticizing their compatriots who are expressing that kind of stereotyping

1:00:00

There are Cantonese speakers on the mainland who identify in park culturally across that border and feel left out when forums like this sometimes talk about the view in Hong Kong as a view in the mainland, and they feel themselves as very much in between with a foot in each place. And there are people on the mainland who view Hong Kong people as uppity and looking down on them. And there are people on the mainland to find some of what the protesters in Hong Kong are doing quite inspiring. So we're dealing with very, very diverse populations in these cases. And at moments like this. And I think this is one thing, breaking the virus which is on people's minds. It's incredibly important to remember the diversity of the populations and not fall into the trap of stereotyping and thinking of everybody who comes from a specific place or looks a certain way, or speaks a certain way as being on exactly the same mind to remember that we're talking about individuals in all of these cases.

1:01:00

Great. Well, I think that gesture to the complexity of the situation is a nice way to end so why don't we give our speakers are round of applause.

1:01:16

Jeff will be signing books I believe right over by the scales of justice over there. And it's not for sale in bookstores are from Amazon yet. You're getting about a week early. Simply by

Transcribed by https://otter.ai