<story><title>About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-16/protests-swell-as-hong-kong-rejects-leader-s-compromise</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>pimmen</author><text>I live on the other side of the world, but this still strikes a deep chord with me.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m Swedish, born and raised in Gothenburg. After the Umbrella protests in 2014 five people connected to the Causeway Bay Books store in Hong Kong disappeared. One of them is a naturalized Swedish citizen, his daughter was raised in my home town. He is now imprisoned and can&amp;#x27;t communicate with his daughter, or with the Swedish authorities. Angela Gui, his daughter, is continuing on the struggle for his release to the extent she can, being only 21 when her father disappeared.&lt;p&gt;All these arguments about &amp;quot;leave China be&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;this isn&amp;#x27;t the West&amp;#x27;s problem&amp;quot; just don&amp;#x27;t make any sense to me. This is a small world, whether we like it or not, and letting authoritarian stuff like this extradition treaty to a dictatorship slide is condoning it and before you know it your citizenship, constitutional rights and passport which you thought would keep you safe doesn&amp;#x27;t work anymore and you get snatched from a street for something you&amp;#x27;ve said. Your family can only cry themselves to sleep over it from the feeling of powerlessness.&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t have to go into hypotheticals about what will happen if China gets more power to persecute people of Hong Kong. In Sweden, we already know what they&amp;#x27;ve done with the limited power they hold now.</text></comment>
<story><title>About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-16/protests-swell-as-hong-kong-rejects-leader-s-compromise</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>potatofarmer45</author><text>So my HK team had the week off to protest. Luckily I didn&amp;#x27;t get any calls at 2am to bail anyone out of jail.&lt;p&gt;This result- where the government backed down, was not expected by anyone. Ever since the Beijing-picked government stared down the Umbrella Protests in 2014, it&amp;#x27;s been a death by a thousand cuts to Hong Kong&amp;#x27;s autonomy.&lt;p&gt;After talking to a friend who works for one of the pro-Beijing parties, it turns out the biggest fear for the Chinese authorities wasn&amp;#x27;t related to HK at all, but Taiwan. China has spent so much resources to promote friendly candidates for office in Taiwan and this HK debacle has instead emboldened the incumbent president of Taiwan, who is not at all friendly towards Beijing. In fact, she won her party primary and is now well positioned for the elections next year. As it turns out, as important as HK is, Taiwan is more important to Beijing and anything that provides fodder for Taiwan&amp;#x27;s independence leaning party is not allowed.</text></comment>