Uh oh:
China on Wednesday warned that it would not tolerate protesters’ efforts to threaten the central government’s authority in Hong Kong and suggested that it could, if asked, mobilize troops in the People’s Liberation Army garrison there to maintain order.
The warning came as the government released a new defense strategy that accused the United States of undermining global stability and identified separatism as China’s most immediate security threat. ...
The warnings about what are, to China, core matters of sovereignty underlined growing concern about threats to the central authority of the Communist Party government under President Xi Jinping, whose pledges never to cede any territory are central to his image as the country’s most powerful leader in decades.
There is a reason that the Hong Kong threat and America are placed together in this article:
The Chinese Communist Party is setting up a committee to address all threats to party control of China. This blending of domestic and foreign threats is dangerous.
As I've noted, defense of the Chinese Communist Party is the Chinese military's primary job. The primacy of party over nation is clearest when you note that Russia's communists gave up large amounts of Russian territory to Germany in 1918 in order to preserve the new Bolshevik government.
Ceding territory to preserve party survival and power isn't the go to move, of course. That's worst case. Well below that level is surveillance and repression, bloody crackdown on civilians, short and glorious foreign war, or even losing a war against America as long as China doesn't lose territory.
And Hong Kong's protests--with a small amount violent--aren't only about a bill on extradition now off the table (for now):
One needn’t condone property damage to understand that there is far more to this picture. These attacks on doors, walls and symbols aren’t random acts of destruction or pillage. They are messages — the predictable result of government diktats, in both Beijing and its Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, that have left Hong Kong’s people with no way to defend their rights and freedoms except to protest in the streets.
For that matter, the vast majority of the protesters have done nothing more aggressive than march peacefully through the streets in the sweltering summer heat, having obtained permits to do so. It speaks awfully well for Hong Kongers that none of the many protests have degenerated into looting — despite the hundreds of thousands, or 1 million, or 2 million people marching past shops crammed with high-end merchandise.
As for some of the protesters damaging government property, it is worth asking who’s been doing more damage to Hong Kong’s rule of law: the protesters who splashed paint, or the government that keeps coming up with laws that serve the interests of Beijing’s Communist tyranny.
This seems likely to get ugly, as Michael Yon wrote:
Hong Kong: This is going to get very serious.
I am one of the most experienced conflict correspondents alive. I am saying with high certainty that Hong Kong is a key battlefield with Communist China, and this will get bloody serious. This is still in the warm up stage.
All my long term readers know that when I say “mark my word,” you can safely bet your money.
This is just the beginning.
Remember too that while China may be reluctant to call in the People's Liberation Army to do the job, the CCP has the other guys, too. Dead people won't appreciate the difference between the PLA and the PAP.
It's been thirty years since Tienanmen Square. Perhaps Peking thinks another lesson on the futility of resistance is needed.
Or maybe a signal victory over a declining power would bolster CCP control.
Have a super sparkly day.
UPDATE: For added fun there are global Naxi brownshirt thugs:
On Wednesday, dozens of students from Hong Kong staged a sit-in protest outside of a coffee shop on the campus of the University of Queensland, holding up signs which, among other things, called for the university to close its Confucius Institute and “stop taking CCP blood money.”
After about an hour, the protest was interrupted when dozens of Chinese students arrived with speakers blasting the Chinese national anthem and chanting out slogans.
[I forgot to note that it didn't take long before the pro-China students got violent.]
Tip to Instapundit.
UPDATE: I'm getting serious worries about large-scale bloodshed:
More than 1,000 protesters calling for democracy and some chanting “free Hong Kong” converged on the Chinese-ruled city’s airport on Friday as Singapore advised its travelers to avoid protest areas in the territory.
At the heart of the problem is that protesters realize that halting a bill that allows Hong Kong residents to be extradited to China to face state oppression will ultimately--even if China holds off for the full 50 years in the 1997 agreement with Britain--be a futile gesture if China is allowed to come to Hong Kong in time to bring the oppression straight to Hong Kong.
Still, China won't be able to slaughter people under cloak of secrecy given advances in smart phones and communications. Will that stay Peking's hand?
Or will the threat of "infecting" the mainland with the liberty disease be enough to justify any fleeting world outrage?
UPDATE: Uh oh:
Since Tiananmen, the Communist regime has been worried that Hong Kong will become the anti-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) epicenter, which will threaten the security of the CCP regime. Beijing has all-but-formally rejected its commitment to the Hong Kong people’s self-governance and the “one-country-two-systems” political framework.
The Hong Kong government is Peking's puppet. The people are not yet so controlled.
The security of the CCP is more important than anything else, including Hong Kong's economic contributions to China. The CCP may well feel that the mainland has advanced enough to survive the loss--even permanently--of Hong Kong's contribution.
We'll see if the protests dissipate on their own. allowing China to continue extending their control quietly. Nobody hears too much about the French "yellow vest" protesters these days, eh?
