To compare HK situation to TIANANMEN is an insult to true democracy fighters 30 years ago. The HK mobs are terrorists who went around sabotaging others in the name of freedom and democracy but in actuality killing innocent man, setting people who disagree with them on fire and making nail and petrol bombs and begging foreign nation to sanction their own state. Disappointed that RV is just like the mainstream media spreading the heavily one sided propaganda.

HK people have only once chance to preserve their democracy. This is the only moment for them.

"The people should not be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of the people"

Lawyer Lawrence Ma claims the US has been supporting the HK protests via groups such as the NED https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/10/article/tracking-foreign-interference-in-hong-kong/

great piece and interesting comments Thank you all

IMHO, this video reflects the common narrative of Hong Kong fighting for democracy against China authoritanism, which is also prevalent in HK media like SCMP and the chinese Apple Daily (owned by Jimmy Lai, a well known anti-China person). As an overseas chinese living here since the mid-90's, let me share some local insights that might be useful to RV readers, and hopefully a more nuanced perspective re: HK and China. I'll unpack the HK situation as follows: Why are HK people (esp the younger 20's-30's generation) so angry? The trigger to the protests - Extradition Bill Why the anti-China hatred? Is the protests subverted by foreign agents? The Silent Majority What would China do? Does Hong Kong have a way out? I'll post in multiple parts due to it's length.

I'm from Hong Kong myself (Tai Po) and it's a real shame RV hasn't talked about the underlying issues facing ordinary younger HKers. Heavy-handed police force, encroachment of liberties (e.g. kidnapping of book sellers) and hostility towards the pro-democracy camp? Yeah, that's the mainstream consensus view. Except.... these were also issues before 1997 i.e. Britain was very repressive (and racist) against my grandfather's generation during the anti-colonial riots in the late 1960s and refused any form of democracy until literally a year or two before the handover. I'm not even sure if former Governor Patten did it out of altruism given his hostility toward the Brexit vote. What's difference though? At least between the 1970s and 1990s, the trajectory in terms of living standards was up. Basically the local HK population put up with the British, and white privilege, in the same way the people of mainland China put up with the Chinese govt because there was a tacit agreement: your living standards are only going to get better. You could even say Britain got lucky and left in time, because Taiwan and Korea underwent a political revolution in the mid 1990s. Well, since the Asian Financial Crisis and the China opening up, life in HK never got better. It was crisis after crisis. It's now nearly impossible, if you're a millennial, to own your own property, wages have been stagnant in real terms for nearly two decades, the cost of living is out of control, the economy is hideously geared towards real estate and finance, many of the most prestigious jobs are white people from Europe, Australia, North Amercia and Japan. There's literally no prospect of a better life if you're not from a wealthy family. To make matters worse, living standards, in qualitative terms, now absolutely suck: pollution is out of control, there's severe over-crowding, and the local's people's manners and morals have just plummeted (Trump-like lack of restraint) - just look at the rioters behaviour, did the civil rights movement in India, America or Ireland behave like this? There's now random beatings against ordinary civilians, arson attacks, etc. Simply put, you combine all of these variables, combined with a gruelling education system that robs you of your youth, and you have a tinderbox. Hong Kong was going to explode sooner or later, the extradition law was just the trigger. This is why protests have continued despite govt's decision to drop the bill. I'm not sure even if universal suffrage will solve the situation because the DAB and pro-Beijing camp trounced the pro-democracy parties in the most recent election (for seats which people can vote for) because the latter have completely failed with bread and butter issues. In fact a prominent democratic party member had the gall to fake a Beijing kidnapping to try and win votes (Howard Lam) No real difference between the Yellow vest movement in France and Macron's decision to hike petrol tax. Macron has cancelled the tax hike and offered all sorts of bribes to the electorate and yet the French are protesting nearly a year later. Seismic charges like in the post war years are required to change the situation.

Well done, although the truth will difficult to accept for some.

Thanks for this....always trying to do more work around these issues as I’m an outsider (from China) and I’d like to be as informed as possible. That being said...I think it’s very interesting both here, other message boards on internet, twitter, and through co-workers that any time anything negative is said about China, local Chinese people and/or ex-pats get VERY offended. So much so, that I can’t even ask questions to try to understand. Not good or bad either way IMO, but an interesting observation nonetheless and some of that speaks for itself I guess...

I personally think the only reason they haven't rolled in with tanks is because Hong Kong is the only way China can access a flow of USD into the country. No one will take RMB-denominated payments, so they are reliant on USD flows into the country. This is the reason why they've recently made entreaties to investors and opened up financial markets to outside USD investment. With the current threat of delisting Chinese companies in the USA, there's a real possibility that China won't have the dollars needed to maintain the Hong Kong Dollar/USD peg, which would have enormous complications for the Chinese in general. With the Yuan loose and pushing past 7.14 in dollar terms, they're coming to the end of their trillion-RMB experiment to reflate their economy. Add in the recent surge in pork prices due to African Swine Flu decimation, you have a boiling cauldron where protests like these are just the surface of what could happen. This is going to blow, and its hard to see where it will take China next. My guess is the CCP is going to see the same demise as the former USSR given the amount of massive credit they have in their banking system. I feel for the protestors, but they're at the flashpoint of much larger economic forces that might bury them.

how do you wake people up from western propaganda?

I cannot believe such a narrow tunnel vision, so full of westernized bias presented here. Big disappointment and I lost respect to the team of Real Vision. May be the editor team should first watch Nathan Rich first so they can learn how to be neutral and a little more fair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHEdBpM-jgA

Another biased video... First, it is the Western stereotype impression that the people in the mainland China does not know what happened in 1989. 8 out 10 mainland Chinese know and know a great deal. If you don't believe it, go to China, pick up a non-toddler person and ask them. It is interesting to see the West are so fixated on the Tiananmen bloodshed when WikiLeaks already put out American diplomatic cable at the time indicating no bloodshed 8 years ago (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html). I am not denying the 1989 event and I think it is a historical disgrace, but the truth is far more complicated and heroes are perhaps less noble than you think they are. Second, police brutality? Give me a break. Think about it. 17th weeks of straight violent riots and not a single civilian casualty. If this is not police restraint, I don't know what it is, especially given the context that the US police can often get acquitted even after shooting unarmed civilian to death. These are not protests. These are riots and riots should be righteously dealt with proper force. I think every rule-of-law society agrees with this. I wonder why this video only shows, exclusively, footage of police tackling the riots. I urge you to go to the South China Morning Post's youtube channel to see the relatively objective coverage. (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4SUWizzKc1tptprBkWjX2Q). Third, the bill is just an excuse, but the root cause of the current HK is the horrible, perhaps criminal, wealth polarity. The wage does not rise for almost a decade while the housing price is aiming the moon. The government has done nothing to address the social welfare and wealth gap problem. The tycoon rips the benefit, and the government rips the...you know... this. Bear in mind, this is one of the most free capitalist market. Finally, I am not defending the China or Chinese authority, but I just do NOT think this video is that objective. If you always view the China as sort of pagan of the Western belief system and not study it from its own history, of course you will never understand. Folks like Gordon Chang has been touting the doomsday for god knows how many years, how does that work out? I understand the my two cents may be outrageous to some, but I think this is what RV is about, to bring different views together.

Chinese's manifest destiny to regain all former "Chinese Territory" is similar to America's manifest destiny. All efforts to achieve this goal will be used. Hong Kong population 7.5 million. China population 1.5 billion. Freedom loving Chinese have been fleeing Hong Kong for years. This will continue. DLS

Very interesting! Thank you!

Authorianism needs disruption. We have not figured out yet how to free humanity from the grip of evil regimes like Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Iran, Rusia, North Korea and China. On the other hand these regimes have found a model that works flawlessly to oppress, maintain control for decades and can be exported. How about Silicon Valley puts brains and capital to work on problems like these instead of pumping out pieces of shit like WeWork? There is no way I am buying the notion that the people who put together these evil regimes are smarter than the brightest minds in the free world. THIS is the stuff that we should be solving.

The movement in Hong Kong is a joke. So is this video...

You are missing a MAJOR extrapolation - Taiwan

Excellent. A suggestion. A similar series on Europe, given the changes taking place within the ECB and the new EC. I can't wait to see a similar deep dive by RV on the long running yellow vest protests in Europe and the way they are dealt with by the authorities.

Well...as a Soko(South Korean), I worry about this going to be a nasty consequence. Unfortunately, as the history of Northeast Asia has shown Chinese obsession to sustain one unified political structure would never disappear. It carved since they achieved the first political unity (Xin Dynasty). To them, maintaining the unified political structure will be the primary aim, not a human right, economy successful and sort of. In my personal opinion, if China decides to crack down Hong Kong, that means policymakers in mainland choose to sustain political unity, not the economic success for their people. Chinese severely fears the consequence of the disintegration of the nation. To them, the fear of disintegrating and chaos would be more significant than the fear of the authoritarian system. Its history shows full of the age of warlords (From Ancient to before the foundation of PRC). So to China, Hong Kong issue might be not only the short-term political instability but also the fatal problem to impact its core political sustainability. Finally, I think Xi's decision that becoming a dictator seems like a lockdown strategy to treat multilayers of crisis. If China is confident the economy and political stability, it never attempts to threat Hong Kong's autonomy. Instead, it successfully launched its propaganda machine and advertised its success of authoritarian model by merging Hong Kong peacefully. I consider the unrest of Hong Kong shows the symptom of the instability of current China.

This is the second time in recent history a major fight for democracy occurs under the CCP rule. And this is why I very much doubt the Chinese can achieve their desire to have RMB as a global currency reserve. Unless they become a regional or a world hegemony. I am still surprised some of the US financial giants still wanting to invest in China today.

Cool down people, let’s watch all the video this week and make the call at the end...

Unbias mind is a hard thing to do, yes, but since this is in your RV motto, at least you should try harder. I hope this is just a starter of this topic.

Bravo, RV team - this was fantastic and you had my full attention throughout. The only point of constructive criticism I have here is that next time it might be worth getting a couple of points of view, at least, from the HK and/or Chinese gov't. side. Other than that, great work - videos like this (and many others) make me a proud subscriber ("RV partner"). Thanks.

I like to hear what do the Hong Kong citizens feel about this event. Maybe Trinh Nguyen is a good candidate? Raoul? One puzzle I have is why the Hong Kong property market doesn't crash. Why no exodus of the thousands and thousands of HK citizens who have foreign passports ?

The narrator and parts of the background music sounded very much like The Zeitgeist documentaries. Could this be? They're on Youtube if anyone who hasn't done so yet wants to check them out.

This was great. It offered clarity on what caused the crisis in the first place and where the situation is right now. The mainstream just glorified pictures of protesters being violent and until I watched this excellent video, there wasn't a good overview anywhere online. Great work RV team

This makes me sad. I believe a crackdown is inevitable once the Oct 1st celebrations are done. And the World will be outraged for a while, and then it will just be business as usual. After Hong Kong, Taiwan is next.

In Business School, Austrian School Economic discipline therein, Hong Kong was held up as the closest thing to a pure and functional capitalist system. So when Hong Kong eventually dies, that is a huge black mark on Western Democracy. It's now the slippery slope moving to a 90 meter ski jump of disaster. Lesson that will be learned, I hope, is that the past generation that were dumb enough to agree to the deal with China, don't do deals with despots.

We take so much for granted in the west.

There are a few small ways to help the people of Hong Kong. Basically anything that will weaken the CCP. Vote with your money. Stop buying Made In China, don't buy Chinese ADRs or ETFs containing Chinese securities, write Amazon demanding removal of all fake products, write your Senators and Representatives in Congress expressing your concern. To name a few.

Wow! Real Vision makes me so proud ...

This video needs to be out there for the world to see. Things are shaping up for an implosion. I'll like to see more videos on China.

Tomorrow is National Day in China and everyone is anticipating more unrest. Let's hope that China see that a Tiananmen reboot will not be good for anyone > especially the Hong Kong people. There is an air of quiet anticipation for what tomorrow will bring. Being on the ground here brings an eerie sense of foreboding. Above all I hope everyone can stay safe. 反送中

The rise of these authoritarian regimes is alarming... and our indifference to them even more so. Human rights has gone out of vogue.