Hong Kong Protests

By C. K Yi – Hong Kong

According to Canadian Encyclopedia, Hong Kong was the first place Canadians fought a land battle in the Second World War. From 8 to 25 December 1941, almost 2,000 troops from Winnipeg and Quebec City — sent to Hong Kong expecting little more than guard duty — fought bravely against the overwhelming power of an invading Japanese force. When the British colony surrendered on Christmas Day, 290 Canadians had been killed in the fighting. Another 264 would die over the next four years, amid the inhumane conditions of Japanese prisoner-of-war camps.

For many years, Hong Kong was run by the UK as a part of the former British Empire. That was until 1997, when control of the city was handed over to China. But a special agreement with China - called “one country, two systems” - was created to make sure that Hong Kong had some independence from China. Today the situation is different. In June 2019 new protests were sparked in Hong Kong against a law that could have seen its citizens tried, or taken to court, for political crimes in China. The law was scrapped but the protesters till fear, the bill could be revived, so demonstrations continued, calling for it to be withdrawn completely. Protests pause but start again with added demands. Police seems to be weak to control the masses. The police weakness became reality since the days of “Umbrella Movement” in which protesters used umbrella to protect themselves from tear gas. The “Umbrella Movement” started in reaction to a decision made by China that it would allow elections in Hong Kong in 2017, but only from a list of candidates pre-approved by the Chinese government. Tens of thousands of people, of whom many were students, camped in the streets and demanded the right to fully free leadership elections.

On December 24, 2019, the protesters launched online calls for lunchtime marches on Christmas Day and Boxing Day in 6 districts of Central, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok and Sha Tin to press fresh demands that include launching an independent investigation on the conduct of police and starting a political reform process for universal suffrage.

Observers are scared that the protests could go violent because some powers

may inject weapons to fight the police to shatter the Chinese dream of “one country, two systems” that ran well for over two decades. If that happens, the only sufferer would be people of Hong Kong.

China believes that the entire world is behind protesters, love them, sympathise them and would help them to show that poor protesters are facing a super power who is not willing to keep Hong Kong as independent, they way they want.