Hong Kong Police Shoot a Protester With a Live Bullet for the First Time (New York Times) / Communist China celebrates 70th birthday as Hong Kong simmers (al-Jazeera)
Jai Sen
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Hong Kong in movement…, China in movement…
· Hong Kong Police Shoot a Protester With a Live Bullet for the First Time (New York Times)
· Communist China celebrates 70th birthday as Hong Kong simmers (al-Jazeera)
Hong Kong Police Shoot a Protester With a Live Bullet for the First Time
By Mike Ives
HONG KONG — The Hong Kong police on Tuesday shot a demonstrator with a live round for the first time during the city’s months-long protest movement, three pro-democracy lawmakers said, escalating the territory’s political crisis on the same day that the central government in Beijing staged a huge military parade to celebrate 70 years of Communist control.
The protesters in Hong Kong hoped to upstage Beijing’s celebrations by holding their own unauthorized marches. Violence quickly broke out, as demonstrators in districts across the city engaged in some of the bloodiest and most sustained clashes since protesters began taking to the streets in early June.
The split screen — pageantry in Beijing versus violence, tear gas and street fires in a restive Chinese territory — was hardly the image that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, had hoped to show the world.
The protester was shot in the Tsuen Wan district of northern Hong Kong, the lawmakers Claudia Mo, James To and Au Nok-hin each said. Tsuen Wan is a working-class area near Hong Kong’s border with the Chinese mainland, miles from the city’s gleaming financial district.
The protester’s condition was not immediately known.
In a video circulating online, an officer is seen firing a handgun at close range at a protester wearing a black T-shirt and a pink gas mask. Another video shows the protester being treated by paramedics. Demonstrations were being held in the area at the time, but it was unclear what had specifically prompted the officer to fire.
Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority later said that 15 people had been sent to the hospital by early Tuesday evening, one of them in critical condition. It did not say whether the person in critical condition was the same protester in the videos of the shooting.
The Hong Kong police have fired hundreds of rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets and beanbag rounds to disperse street demonstrations since the protests began in June. On a few occasions, officers have fired live rounds into the air as warning shots, typically when they were surrounded by violent protesters.
It was almost certain to further inflame protesters who have accused the police of employing overly aggressive tactics in the streets. Calls for an independent inquiry into the police’s behavior are among the key demands that protesters have issued to the Hong Kong government.
Communist China celebrates 70th birthday as Hong Kong simmers
President and party leader Xi Jinping says 'no force' can shake China as country displays its military strength.
more on China
China's President Xi Jinping has opened celebrations to mark 70 years of Communist rule, vowing that "no force" would be able to shake the country, as a parade of massed troops and military hardware showcased Chinese muscle in the face of an unprecedented challenge to its authority in Hong Kong.
"There is no force that can shake the foundation of this great nation," Xi told invited delegates on Tuesday as he stood at the Tiananmen Square gate where Mao Zedong declared the People's Republic of China in October 1949.
"No force will be able to stop the steady march forward of the Chinese people and Chinese nation."
Authorities in Beijing tightened security in the city ahead of the invitation-only event, cleaning up neighbourhoods, banning dogs of a certain size from the streets and ordering birds caged. Ordinary people had to stay at home if they wanted to see the event, which was broadcast live on national television.
After his speech, Xi, the country's most powerful leader since Mao, reviewed the troops from the rear of an open-topped Red Flag or Hongqi limousine, nodding occasionally to the personnel before him.
New weapons - including a hypersonic ballistic nuclear missile capable of breaching anti-missile defences to reach the United States - were rolled out across the tarmac, and soldiers marched in unison across the vast square.
The display of military might comes as Xi faces a series of challenges that threaten the economy and risk stability at home.
"The CCP is anxious," Xun Zhou, an expert in Chinese politics at Britain's University of Essex, wrote in a paper in The Conversation.
"Alongside continued unrest in Hong Kong and tensions with Taiwan, China's economy is flagging, the wealth gap growing, and health scandals increasing. Fewer and fewer people in China trust the current leadership."
There is also pressure internationally, amid a trade war with the US, the detention of two Canadians in the wake of the arrest of a senior Huawei executive in Canada, and horror at the mass detention of ethnic Uighurs in the far western province of Xinjiang, to which China has responded by saying the Uighurs are being held in "vocational training centres".
Not in a celebratory mood
In Hong Kong, protesters were in no mood to celebrate.
Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler said protesters were eager to use the occasion to drive their message home.
"It's a very, very important day generally for the People's Republic of China but especially for Xi Jinping,” he said. "He has really pushed forward in his leadership this 'one China' policy and what we've seen here in Hong Kong with these protesters is going against that."
Hong Kong's streets were quiet on Tuesday morning, with many shops opting to close and police issuing ominous warnings of trouble as the city's traditional flag-raising ceremony was moved indoors.
Since June, Hong Kong has been embroiled in the worst unrest since it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, with riot police and protesters engaged in running battles on the streets.
Demonstrations began on Tuesday afternoon, as thousands of black-clad protesters began to march in defiance of a police decision to reject a permit for a rally.
"Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong," they chanted. Some of the protesters torched the Chinese national flag.
Hong Kong's acting leader - Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung - said at the flag-raising ceremony that the city had become "unrecognisable" as a result of the protests.
Embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam was in Beijing, pictured smiling alongside Communist Party grandees and other guests on Monday watching the air display, march and a showcase of China's newest weapons.
After 17 weeks of protests in Hong Kong, Victor Gao, vice president at the Centre for China and Globalisation in Beijing, said it was up to Lam and her government to "step up and do their job" in addressing the situation in the territory.
'Unity'
Xi referenced the "one country, two systems" policy under which Hong Kong enjoys freedoms unseen on the mainland in his speech, stressing it was crucial for the "long-term prosperity and stability" of Hong Kong and Macau, formerly a Portuguese colony.
Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada's Ambassador to China from 2012 to 2016, told Al Jazeera that "unity" remained one of China's paramount goals.
"The problem with Hong Kong is that China doesn't know how to handle the protests," Saint-Jacques said from Montreal. "They don't have a habit of democracy and they don't know how it works. (And) they worry that the contestation in Hong Kong could spread to the mainland."
Xi's call for unity was also directed at Taiwan, the self-ruled island where the defeated nationalists set up a government in 1949.
People on the island, which China has vowed to retake by force if necessary, appeared to have little interest in the celebrations on the mainland, even with the events in Hong Kong and Taiwan's own elections due in January.
"Frankly, there is no 'reunifying', since Taiwan is an independent country," said Joyce Kao, a 31-year-old marketing manager who said she had never watched the celebration and never would.
As expected, Xi referred again in Tuesday's address to his "Chinese dream"; his plan to rejuvenate China and return the country to what he sees as its rightful place in the world.
"Today has to be understood mainly in terms of China's domestic politics," said Geoff Raby, who was Australia's ambassador to China between 2007 and 2011.
"This is all very much about reaffirming the leading role of the Communist Party, Xi's role at the top of the Communist Party and the extent to which the Communist Party is responsible for building a strong, prosperous and internationally-respected country."
The Communist Party has held on to power for 70 years, despite the deaths of tens of millions of people as a result of Mao's Great Leap Forward, and the violent upheaval of the Cultural Revolution that only came to an end when Mao died in 1976.
A more open economic policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping, who followed Mao as paramount leader, helped kick-start growth and development. He also authorised the use of force to maintain power, most notoriously in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
With additional reporting by Violet Law in Hong Kong and Randy Mulyanto in Taipei.
______________________________
Jai Sen
Independent researcher, editor
Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900)
CURRENT / RECENT publications :
Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press
Jai Sen, ed, 2018b – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? (Indian edition). New Delhi : AuthorsUpfront, in collaboration with OpenWord and PM Press. Hard copy available at MOM1AmazonIN, MOM1Flipkart, and MOM1AUpFront
Jai Sen, ed, 2017 – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?. New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press
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