The protests in Hong Kong escalated on the 1st of July when a small group of protesters broke away from the larger, main protest, and chose to storm the legislative council building on Hong Kong Island. For me, this change in the nature of opposition to the extradition bill brought to mind the following question: do the people who are denouncing the protests have a point?
In the previous episode on the Hong Kong Extradition protests, I gave the historical background to both the protests and the general anti-mainland sentiment that exists in Hong Kong society, and that has arguably been growing as Beijing’s influence continues to grow. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet I highly suggest you do so, as it provides a lot of the context for this episode. I tried to maintain an objective stance and stick to the facts, but even I noticed that there was probably more of a pro-protest lean throughout the podcast, largely due to the sources that I used to help me put it together.
In this episode, we're turning to the other side of the isle to answer a different set of questions. What does Beijing have to say about the recent Hong Kong Protests? Do mainlanders support the Hong Kong people, or do they think they're ungrateful? What does local support for the amendment bill look like?
In this week's episode we talk about opposition to the protests in Hong Kong. We look at three perspectives: Beijing government, mainland Chinese people, and local Hong Kongers. There is a lot more disagreement than meets the eye, especially if you only read Western or English language news sources. Don't forget to listen to the previous episode if you haven't already in order to understand the full context of the protests!
Al Jazeera video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_SpMS8Mwg
Hong Kong's Extradition Protests (2): Condemning the Protesters