[liberationtech] What could we at Liberationtech do to help pro-democracy HK activists protest China's new security law?
Lee Alley
lee at morganalley.com
Fri May 29 12:15:18 CEST 2020
Much as I would love to take credit for this...
"Britain Opens Door To Citizenship for 300,000 Hong Kong Residents.
Extended visa pledge to BNO passport holders. Bold riposte to crackdown
by Beijing -
https://www.ft.com/content/0cf70de8-fd10-4a5c-8303-fbd2b0b3811e?platform=hootsuite"
H/T: https://twitter.com/ukpapers/status/1266270638555066369
A week used to be a long time in politics. Now 36 hours is!
-Lee
On 27/05/2020 22:46, Yosem Companys wrote:
> Excellent point, Lee.
>
> To wit, Annalee Saxenian said something similar of Chinese and Indian
> immigrant engineers to Silicon Valley:
>
> When local technologists claim that 'Silicon Valley is built on
> ICs' they refer not to the integrated circuit but to Indian and
> Chinese engineers.
>
> [...]
>
>
> The entrepreneurial contributions of these skilled immigrants are
> impressive. In 1998, Chinese and Indian engineers, most of whom
> arrived in the United States after 1970 to pursue graduate
> studies, were senior executives at one-quarter of Silicon Valley’s
> new technology businesses. These immigrant-run companies
> collectively accounted for more than $16.8 billion in sales and
> 58,282 jobs in 1998. Moreover, Chinese and Indian immigrants
> started companies at an accelerating rate in the 1990s.
>
> [...]
>
>
> ...they have created a rich fabric of professional and
> associational activities that facilitate immigrant job search,
> information exchange, access to capital and managerial knowhow,
> and the creation of shared ethnic identities. The region’s most
> successful Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs rely heavily on such
> ethnic resources while simultaneously integrating into the
> mainstream technology economy.
>
>
> These networks are not simply local. Silicon Valley’s new
> immigrant entrepreneurs are building far-reaching professional and
> business ties to
> regions in Asia. They are uniquely positioned because their
> language skills and technical and cultural know-how allow them to
> function
> effectively in the business culture of their home countries as
> well as in Silicon Valley. ... In this process, Silicon
> Valley–based entrepreneurs benefit from the significant flows of
> capital that these immigrants coordinate, as well as from the
> privileged access that they provide to Asian markets and to
> Taiwan’s flexible, state-of-the-art semiconductor and personal
> computer manufacturing capabilities.
>
>
> Saxenian warned:
>
> Restricting the immigration of skilled workers, for example, could
> have substantially more far-reaching consequences for economic
> development than most policymakers recognize, affecting not only
> the supply of skilled workers but also the rate of
> entrepreneurship, the level of international investment and trade,
> and California’s economic growth.
>
>
> R_699ASR.pdf
> <https://links95.mixmaxusercontent.com/5e196044087550002eab97f3/l/I3L3xMgwW2fhSTS2U?messageId=cdxN2CCqPsbYfZpfk&rn=ISelxGbBBSZlxkI&re=i02bj5SelxGbh5WYnJ3btBUZlxmI&sc=false>
>
> R_699ASR.pdf · 216KB
> <https://links910.mixmaxusercontent.com/5e196044087550002eab97f3/l/I2CX4YYFjDChxsUxx?messageId=cdxN2CCqPsbYfZpfk&rn=ISelxGbBBSZlxkI&re=i02bj5SelxGbh5WYnJ3btBUZlxmI&sc=false>
> Download
> <https://links95.mixmaxusercontent.com/5e196044087550002eab97f3/l/9bG4yFYahMztnLT21?messageId=cdxN2CCqPsbYfZpfk&rn=ISelxGbBBSZlxkI&re=i02bj5SelxGbh5WYnJ3btBUZlxmI&sc=false>
> Download this attachment
> <https://links97.mixmaxusercontent.com/5e196044087550002eab97f3/l/00eDjFcH5zoXYjJFm?messageId=cdxN2CCqPsbYfZpfk&rn=ISelxGbBBSZlxkI&re=i02bj5SelxGbh5WYnJ3btBUZlxmI&sc=false>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 27, 2020 9:29 PM, Lee Alley lee at morganalley.com
> <mailto:lee at morganalley.com> wrote:
>
> I have to admit I really, REALLY sympathise with the urge to *do
> something* and undermine, hack, bypass, route around the damage
> and capabilities of the PLA and friends. But can I add one bit of
> perspective?
>
> Firstly, despite huge ongoing protests before the Covid, China
> decided to go ahead with this anyway. They've upped the ante and
> they have (most of) the power, including the will to act contrary
> to world opinion.
>
> Secondly, and more importantly, Something the PRC leadership seem
> to have forgotten is the entirety of the value-add of HK walks
> home from the cars, buses and subways in leather shoes every night
> and is literally contained between the ears of every HK resident
> in the province. What HK'ers know and are capable of doing doesn't
> necessarily have to be done there as the diasporas of Vancouver
> and London have proven. They are the precious commodity; not the
> rock they live on.
>
> In my opinion, urging our leaders to adopt an open-door policy to
> any resident of Hong Kong that wants to emigrate would be the most
> effective way to concentrate the minds of the PRC leadership. A
> Pyrrhic victory of winning a few buildings on a rock with some
> sycophants that stayed behind is not the look Chairman Xi can
> successfully take back to the National People's Congress.
>
> I may be wrong, but if we welcomed the Anabaptists and Jews and
> Huguenots and many others backintheday and gave them space to
> become some of the most creative and productive people in their
> adopted lands, we can be prepared to do the same for the people of
> Hong Kong today. Maggie Thatcher didn't give them passports
> because she believed China was serious about wanting to make the 1
> country/2 systems thing work and that HK would end up influencing
> China to the extent HK would be happy to be united with the
> mainland. Clearly China (ironically) didn't have the patience.
>
> I know this isn't The Way to some on the list; it isn't clever
> code; it's not a great hack on the Great Firewall; it's not a
> heroic Neo-like denouement to save the Gates of Zion, but it's a
> solution that gives them positive optionality and it shows a huge,
> whopping-great bully he's at his weakest when he flexes his
> muscles towards the vulnerable.
>
> Maybe I'm a dreamer or a hopeless idealist, but the politics of
> appeasement haven't worked and outright attack would be met with
> the same with HK being collateral political damage. But this way
> seems to tick all the boxes without violence and with little
> downside. I've read everyone's ideas with interest and happy to
> listen to any others (preferably lacking the word "should" eg.
> "China should respect HK..." Yes. We know.)
>
> Thanks for listening,
> Lee
>
> (....and back to lurk mode!)
>
>
>
> On 27/05/2020 19:56, Yosem Companys wrote:
>
>> This is an excellent follow up. Thank you. I will bring up to the
>> topic with the folks in Hong Kong and pose these questions to
>> them as well.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 27, 2020 6:32 PM, Robert Mathews (OSIA)
>> mathews at hawaii.edu <mailto:mathews at hawaii.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 5/26/20 6:00 AM, lt-request at lists.liberationtech.org
>> <mailto:lt-request at lists.liberationtech.org> wrote:
>>> From:
>>> Yosem Companys <ycompanys at gmail.com>
>>> <mailto:ycompanys at gmail.com>
>>> Date:
>>> 5/25/20, 6:55 PM
>>>
>>> To:
>>> Eric FU <fujunscnu at gmail.com> <mailto:fujunscnu at gmail.com>
>>> CC:
>>> LT <lt at lists.liberationtech.org>
>>> <mailto:lt at lists.liberationtech.org>
>>>
>>>
>>> Of course. But this is not a push model. Local actors have
>>> already asked for our help. They have asked we brainstorm
>>> ways in which Liberationtech could help them do things that
>>> have not been done in the past.
>>>
>>
>> I present my apologies in advance for *this quick penning,*
>> and for presenting the following multi-dimensional content to
>> the group -- in the way that I estimate the content must be,
>> and has been presented below.
>>
>> The question in the 'subject-line' of the original message
>> Yosem had dispatched to the list read: "What could we at
>> Liberationtech do to help pro-democracy HK activists protest
>> China's new security law?" Subsequently, Yosem shared more
>> information in a message to Eric Fu, stating, "They have
>> asked we brainstorm ways in which Liberationtech could help
>> them do things that have not been done in the past."
>>
>> To this, some clarification might benefit all. WHAT is the
>> problem "in reality," that Liberationtech could assist
>> brainstorm-on, and possibly as a "crowd-resource"? Is it,
>> to reveal more effective ways of "demonstrating" the
>> opposition's position, or are there "other"
>> implied/undeclared objectives upon which a "brainstorming"
>> must be had?
>>
>> I present the following open-source media reporting as a
>> basis for asking the aforementioned questions. Permit me to
>> further highlight the issues "on the ground", as reported.
>>
>> Since 9/11, police forces around the world have increasingly
>> become para-militarized. Consequentially, in this and other
>> instances, when established instruments of "power-systems"
>> meet/confront citizens-on-the-street (as it has in Hong
>> Kong), on such matters as the seemingly 'inexorable'
>> political condition there (as the *AFP* story indicates
>> below), the confrontations with Police forces will
>> increasingly become brutal and destructive. But, this is NOT
>> just a post 9/11 condition, it is historical. *(**Comments
>> Continue below the link)*
>>
>> *Hong Kong police stamp out national anthem law protests*
>> AFP
>> 27 MAY 2020
>> https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/hong-kong-police-stamp-out-national-anthem-law-protests-doc-1sa9dv7
>>
>> --->
>>
>> Also, considering that the U.S. State Department has
>> "hurriedly communicated" to US Congress that conditions in
>> Hong Kong are no longer tenable/in compliance with findings
>> and declarations under "22 USC Ch. 66 - Subchapter 1 - Policy
>> (United States-Hong Kong Policy)" [
>> https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title22/chapter66&edition=prelim
>> AND
>> https://www.state.gov/prc-national-peoples-congress-proposal-on-hong-kong-national-security-legislation/
>> ] and therefore, recommending that the standing US policy be
>> revoked, only complicates matters *(enormously)* for ALL
>> residents of Hong Kong.
>>
>> Adjacently, in media reporting from the Sub-Continent, NDTV
>> has noted the sentiments of a Hotel Manager and a female
>> protester as follows:
>>
>> /"I'm scared ... if you don't come out today, you'll
>> never be able to come out. This is legislation that
>> directly affects us," said Ryan Tsang, a hotel manager.//
>> //
>> /AND/
>> //
>> //"Although you're afraid inside your heart, you need to
>> speak out," said Chang, 29, a clerk and protester dressed
>> in black with a helmet respirator and goggles in her
>> backpack.//
>>
>> /
>>
>> Street demonstrations aside, how are the residents of Hong
>> Kong to productively determine their future, and can they? Is
>> "showing-up" on the street, the adequate measure to be taken?
>>
>> *(**Comments Continue below the link)*
>>
>> *Riot Police Deployed In Hong Kong Over Protests Against
>> Chinese Anthem Bill*
>> The anthem bill is set for a second reading on Wednesday and
>> is expected to become law next month.
>> NDTV
>> May 27, 2020 11:37 am IST
>> https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/riot-police-deployed-in-hong-kong-over-protests-against-chinese-anthem-bill-2235785
>>
>> --->
>>
>> Given the escalations we are witnessing, what is the strategy
>> (if any) of/for residents and their political future in Hong
>> Kong? What, if anything, can Liberatontech do to support in
>> that regard, is a question that could - more concretely - be
>> posed.... (personal view)... External to that, WHAT
>> precisely must/can Liberationtech 'brainstorm', and with what
>> goal for Hong Kong in mind?
>>
>> A few more recent open-source media reports that might bre
>> more informational for the membership....
>>
>> *Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing defends China's plans
>> for security law*
>> CNN Digital Rebranding 2013
>> By Michelle Toh,
>> CNN Business
>> Updated 8:08 AM ET, Wed May 27, 2020
>> https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/27/business/li-ka-shing-hong-kong-intl-hnk/index.html
>>
>> -->
>>
>> *China's Hong Kong law set to bar foreign judges from
>> national security cases: sources*
>> Yew Lun Tian
>> REUTERS
>> MAY 26, 2020
>> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-parliament-hongkong-security/chinas-hong-kong-law-set-to-bar-foreign-judges-from-national-security-cases-sources-idUSKBN2321CW
>>
>> BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing’s planned national security
>> legislation for Hong Kong is set to block its foreign judges
>> from handling national security trials, people familiar with
>> the matter said, which would exacerbate concerns about the
>> city’s judicial independence.
>> --
>> /Dr. Robert Mathews, D.Phil.
>> Principal Technologist &
>> //Distinguished Senior Research Scholar//
>> //Office of Scientific Inquiry & Applications (OSIA)//
>> //University of Hawai'i/
>>
>>
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