While there’s nothing dangerously inaccurate here, these HK protester situation isn’t applicable outside of HK, US cops don’t use kiddy gloves like the HK police did. See 2020.
To my knowledge, a US police department was sieged and damaged with fire (somewhat short of getting burnt down) during the rioting that occured after killing George Floyd. The officers had firearms, but because of a mix of reasons did not start indiscriminately shooting at over a thousand people. Perhaps out of enlightened self-interest.
It is definitely worth noting that HK didn’t have firearms in civilian circulation, but on a few occasions, police did use their guns to shoot a protester. I recall an incident of a kid with a swimming board and stick being shot in the chest while fighting against cops.
To narrow down the frame a bit further - the situation in HK involved incredibly large mass protest. At least a quarter of the population was on streets on certain days. Young and militant protesters were just the outer edge - most participants were not militant at all. In such a context, police generally do not want to provoke outrage, because they’re in a very deep minority.
Much depends on what protesters really want. Every person ultimately has their own ideas, but in broad categories:
do protesters hope to intimidate / persuade the government?
do protesters want to block government action, but lack offensive intent?
do protesters intend to defeat and overthrow the government?
Different behaviours will follow depending on goals.
a) Intimidate: showing maximum numbers becomes an important goal. To show maximum numbers, a protest has to be peaceful, so retired people and kids can join. A peaceful mass protest may be a pre-stage for a less peaceful action later, if demands are ignored. It serves to bring people together and bring them into contact with each other. No special gear is required, at least from most participants.
Peaceful mass protest can succeed if a government is frightened of numbers and backs down. It typically works in a democracy.
b) Block: in such situations, protesters often construct roadblocks and barricades around points they care about, and crowd around those points, supplying them - while laying siege to opposing bases, preventing movement by constructing barricades, sabotaging vehicles or slashing tires, denying access to communications, surveillance data, fuel, electricity, heat, water or even sewage.
Blocking a space without offensive action may prevail if a large majority of people do that, against a government which is exhausted, demoralized and has low legitimacy. In the former Soviet block, “velvet revolutions” often involved people persuading soldiers to disobey, offering food, beverage and psychological support to ignore orders, and dissuading cops from showing up at work. This won’t work if an opponent has lots of ruthless people willing to kill, who cannot be approached for mass discussion and negotiation. Blocking and persuading will work better if the opponent doesn’t feel threatened. If you want someone to defect, you don’t approach them with a gun, even if you have one as a backup option. You approach them with beer, preferably a whole crate. :)
c) Defeat: now this is something that usually ends badly. Regardless, it’s possible for protesters to defeat a government if the military refrains to act. Revolutions where protesters defeated law enforcement and overthrew a government have typically involved scores of people getting shot. It seems almost a rule that protesters will only win if they escalate fast and cut off law enforcement supply lines. It will help them if an another branch of government is ready to step in and replace the offending one (e.g. parliament is ready to dismiss the president, similar scenarios). If they are slow or can’t break supply lines, they’ll be defeated or the situation will devolve into a civil war.
At least a quarter of the population was on streets on certain days.
That seems unlikely.
In any case, the HK situation was complicated in the way the Chinese government took extreme cautions not to appear brutal, even when protesters murdered several cops and counter-protesters, while protestors took measures to appeal to foreign audiences to further exploit that.
This dynamic doesn’t apply outside of Hong Kong, I can’t carry around a sign in chinese in hope that the US fears looking bad to China.
The Chilean protests around that time are much more applicable because the videos coming out weren’t designed to appeal to western audiences so they tend to showcase more effective tactics than “bring a $100+ dollar leafblower or have 10 people choreograph a cute routine involving traffic cones”, such as “bring a large jug of water, people need water, and you can put tear gas in it.” and “use rocks to break up and move police out of an area”
I observed the events keenly. Regarding numbers. As always, in a situation like that, police will under-report the number of protesters, while protesters will over-report the number of protesters. Journalists will try to make sense of it. Two examples:
While police estimated attendance at the march on Hong Kong Island at 270,000, the organisers claimed that 1.03 million people had attended the rally, a number unprecedently high for the city.
A protest on the following day had almost 2 million people participating according to an CHRF estimate, while the police estimated that there were 338,000 demonstrators at its peak.
The spread is rather large, 10 times difference. A survey of mobile phone operators to get their statistics likely would be able to tell how many really participated, but I’m not aware of one, and besides it’s all under Chinese control now.
Now, one of your claims sticks out - I need to ask for your source. You write:
the Chinese government took extreme cautions not to appear brutal, even when protesters murdered several cops and counter-protesters
This claim appears to be entirely false. Can you tell, where did you get the information? In retrospect, and in agreement with daily news as I recall them, according to Wikipedia:
Two died during protests and clashes,[11][12] 13 committed suicide.[13][14][15]
[12:55] Student Union appeals: All Hong Kong citizens put down what they are doing at 1pm and observe a moment of silence for Mr. Chow.
12:30 A government spokesperson said in response to media inquiries that the HKUST student fell in a car park in Tseung Kwan O on the morning of November 4 and died after undergoing surgical treatment at the hospital.
A 70-year-old cleaner outsourced by the Food and Civil Supplies Department was hit in the head by a brick opposite the Northern District Hall in Sheung Shui during lunch the day before yesterday. Police said they had arrested suspected persons involved in the case.
I can’t source the motivations of the HK police, but their taking cautions to avoid the appearance of police brutality should be evident from comparing the HK protests to the police response to BLM in America or the Chilean protests around that time.
But I specifically remember multiple pictures of HK cops engulfed in fire after getting hit directly. Maybe they all lived, but it seems more likely we wouldn’t know due to there being no reason for western media to promote them.
The cops were likely doused with ABC powder by their fellow cops, and got away with light burns (heavy clothing helps). Lee Chi-cheung seems to have been hurt badly. The protester with a stick and swimming board was saved by surgeons (the bullet missed his heart).
A side note: some HK brutality was outsourced to the “white shirts”, whose allegiance could be denied. (In HK, a black shirt meant you were a protester, while a crowd of young men in white shirts with sticks - was usually associated with triads doing a favour to the city government. Their most publicized “feat” was the mass beating at Yuen Long subway station.) Overall, Hong Kongers seem to have done their protest with “comparatively little violence” (relative to their total number).
When mass protest occurred in Chile, I was busy and missed the news. I managed to register what was happening, but no details.
An example of the cost of a very severe protest which stopped short of a war, would be the Maidan events in Ukraine. The cost was 108 civilians and 13 police killed. A big number for a protest - mostly bullet wounds - but a small number compared to what is taken by a war.
While there’s nothing dangerously inaccurate here, these HK protester situation isn’t applicable outside of HK, US cops don’t use kiddy gloves like the HK police did. See 2020.
Pretty much the same as the get up for protest in the UK and France, and I’d assume much of Europe.
Think the US is the outlier amongst the global north.
To my knowledge, a US police department was sieged and damaged with fire (somewhat short of getting burnt down) during the rioting that occured after killing George Floyd. The officers had firearms, but because of a mix of reasons did not start indiscriminately shooting at over a thousand people. Perhaps out of enlightened self-interest.
It is definitely worth noting that HK didn’t have firearms in civilian circulation, but on a few occasions, police did use their guns to shoot a protester. I recall an incident of a kid with a swimming board and stick being shot in the chest while fighting against cops.
To narrow down the frame a bit further - the situation in HK involved incredibly large mass protest. At least a quarter of the population was on streets on certain days. Young and militant protesters were just the outer edge - most participants were not militant at all. In such a context, police generally do not want to provoke outrage, because they’re in a very deep minority.
Much depends on what protesters really want. Every person ultimately has their own ideas, but in broad categories:
Different behaviours will follow depending on goals.
a) Intimidate: showing maximum numbers becomes an important goal. To show maximum numbers, a protest has to be peaceful, so retired people and kids can join. A peaceful mass protest may be a pre-stage for a less peaceful action later, if demands are ignored. It serves to bring people together and bring them into contact with each other. No special gear is required, at least from most participants.
Peaceful mass protest can succeed if a government is frightened of numbers and backs down. It typically works in a democracy.
b) Block: in such situations, protesters often construct roadblocks and barricades around points they care about, and crowd around those points, supplying them - while laying siege to opposing bases, preventing movement by constructing barricades, sabotaging vehicles or slashing tires, denying access to communications, surveillance data, fuel, electricity, heat, water or even sewage.
Blocking a space without offensive action may prevail if a large majority of people do that, against a government which is exhausted, demoralized and has low legitimacy. In the former Soviet block, “velvet revolutions” often involved people persuading soldiers to disobey, offering food, beverage and psychological support to ignore orders, and dissuading cops from showing up at work. This won’t work if an opponent has lots of ruthless people willing to kill, who cannot be approached for mass discussion and negotiation. Blocking and persuading will work better if the opponent doesn’t feel threatened. If you want someone to defect, you don’t approach them with a gun, even if you have one as a backup option. You approach them with beer, preferably a whole crate. :)
c) Defeat: now this is something that usually ends badly. Regardless, it’s possible for protesters to defeat a government if the military refrains to act. Revolutions where protesters defeated law enforcement and overthrew a government have typically involved scores of people getting shot. It seems almost a rule that protesters will only win if they escalate fast and cut off law enforcement supply lines. It will help them if an another branch of government is ready to step in and replace the offending one (e.g. parliament is ready to dismiss the president, similar scenarios). If they are slow or can’t break supply lines, they’ll be defeated or the situation will devolve into a civil war.
That seems unlikely.
In any case, the HK situation was complicated in the way the Chinese government took extreme cautions not to appear brutal, even when protesters murdered several cops and counter-protesters, while protestors took measures to appeal to foreign audiences to further exploit that.
This dynamic doesn’t apply outside of Hong Kong, I can’t carry around a sign in chinese in hope that the US fears looking bad to China.
The Chilean protests around that time are much more applicable because the videos coming out weren’t designed to appeal to western audiences so they tend to showcase more effective tactics than “bring a $100+ dollar leafblower or have 10 people choreograph a cute routine involving traffic cones”, such as “bring a large jug of water, people need water, and you can put tear gas in it.” and “use rocks to break up and move police out of an area”
I observed the events keenly. Regarding numbers. As always, in a situation like that, police will under-report the number of protesters, while protesters will over-report the number of protesters. Journalists will try to make sense of it. Two examples:
The spread is rather large, 10 times difference. A survey of mobile phone operators to get their statistics likely would be able to tell how many really participated, but I’m not aware of one, and besides it’s all under Chinese control now.
Now, one of your claims sticks out - I need to ask for your source. You write:
This claim appears to be entirely false. Can you tell, where did you get the information? In retrospect, and in agreement with daily news as I recall them, according to Wikipedia:
Report about death 1
Report about death 2
I can’t source the motivations of the HK police, but their taking cautions to avoid the appearance of police brutality should be evident from comparing the HK protests to the police response to BLM in America or the Chilean protests around that time.
As far as deaths on the police and counter-protesters goes, I thought the guy the protesters lit on fire died, but he’s alive, and I can’t find any record of deaths from pretty documented use of molotovs, which is very unusual.
But I specifically remember multiple pictures of HK cops engulfed in fire after getting hit directly. Maybe they all lived, but it seems more likely we wouldn’t know due to there being no reason for western media to promote them.
The cops were likely doused with ABC powder by their fellow cops, and got away with light burns (heavy clothing helps). Lee Chi-cheung seems to have been hurt badly. The protester with a stick and swimming board was saved by surgeons (the bullet missed his heart).
A side note: some HK brutality was outsourced to the “white shirts”, whose allegiance could be denied. (In HK, a black shirt meant you were a protester, while a crowd of young men in white shirts with sticks - was usually associated with triads doing a favour to the city government. Their most publicized “feat” was the mass beating at Yuen Long subway station.) Overall, Hong Kongers seem to have done their protest with “comparatively little violence” (relative to their total number).
When mass protest occurred in Chile, I was busy and missed the news. I managed to register what was happening, but no details.
An example of the cost of a very severe protest which stopped short of a war, would be the Maidan events in Ukraine. The cost was 108 civilians and 13 police killed. A big number for a protest - mostly bullet wounds - but a small number compared to what is taken by a war.