RE: LeoThread 2025-08-16 03:50

Today's episode of Hidden Forces is made possible by listeners like you. For more information about this week's episode or for easy access to related programming, visit our website at hiddenforces.io and subscribe to our free email list. If you listen to the show on your Apple Podcast app, remember you can give us a review. Each review helps more people find the show and join our amazing community. And with that, please enjoy this week's episode. Ho-Fang Hung, welcome to Hidden Forces. My pleasure to be here. It's great having you on. You are the Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Weisenfeld Professor in Political Economy at Johns Hopkins. It's great having you here. Normally, we do intros after the episode is done, but in light of the fact that I want to get this episode out immediately, given the G20 Summit, I'm introing you right now. You're also the author of Protests with Chinese Characteristics, which was an award-winning book that came out in 2011. And you're also the author of The (1/39)

China Boom, Why China Will Not Rule the World. It's wonderful having you here. I don't know if you know this, but it was actually Anne Stevenson Yang who recommended you to me. Yes, she's the China whisperer. She's my China whisperer. And she's in China right now? Sometimes she'd go back and forth between these two. I think she's had to come back now because of the relationship between the US and China, some stuff like that. Also, I think some of her writings on some of these Chinese companies. The finance of vulnerability and things like that. So it's great having you on. You come, of course, like I said, highly recommended from Anne. The reason I asked you to come on the program was because I wanted to talk about Hong Kong, the recent protests, and then to dig deeper really, what is this really about? What are the protests really about? Heading into the G20. And that also gives us an opportunity to talk about US-China relations, China, China's economy, things that we've talked about (2/39)

often on this program because this is really the area of your research. So starting off, I mean, you mentioned this to me. I think I had actually read this in the newspaper recently. That Hong Kong, the citizens of our group are going to be putting an ad out in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow. Is that right? It is a New York Times, as far as I remember, and also financial times and a dozen plus major news paper around the world because they get a very rapid and amazingly effective fundraising online together, more than $6 million Hong Kong dollar, which is about close to $1 million US dollar in a day to buy ads in major news paper around the world. Basically is to try to voice the concern of the Hong Kong people to urge the lighting countries besides China that is going to be in the G20 to urge them to raise the issues of Hong Kong to see Jingping when they see him. And also drive fundraising back to the organization's site. Is that what you said? They basically use the money as far (3/39)

as I know, and it is reported that they use the money to buy ads. Oh right, they raised money and they used it to buy the ads. That's what you're saying, right? So let's take a step back. We're getting talk about the G20, but can you give us an introduction to these protests? Because a lot of listeners are going to know, some people are only going to know that there were protests in Hong Kong. Other people will know that there were protests in Hong Kong about some extradition amendment. That's it. What's going on? Yeah, the short answer is that the Hong Kong government tried to amend an extradition bill because Hong Kong used to have this extradition arrangement with a lot of countries, including the US, but it doesn't have an extradition arrangement with mainland China. It is by design because when Hong Kong's sovereignty is reverted to China in 1997, many people in Hong Kong worry about the China legal system. They trust that the legal system in Hong Kong is fair. It is a common law (4/39)

system and it's transparent. Now the legal system in China is more in a kind of a black box and it is unfair. There's a lot of corruption going on. So they resist the extradition arrangement with mainland China. So now they want to do it so that if China say that there's a fugitive I want, then they can tell the Hong Kong government to arrest that person and transfer to China, mainland China. So Hong Kong was a territory of the British Empire? Yes. For how long? The transfer happened in 1997, but when the British took Hong Kong bit by bit first, that is the 1840s after the OPM war and they took the nowadays along as Hong Kong Island and Kaolun and later with another treaty with the Chinese government at that time they took what is now the rural area, the new territories in the 1890s. So 1997 was the time when US and the British and China has an agreement that the British hand over Hong Kong back to China. So and that agreement, the conditions of that agreement were for 50 years and (5/39)

they're scheduled to end in 2047 and I think that's part of the backdrop of this larger discussion. As far as the amendment is concerned, I think the issue, it came out of a case of a supposed murder of a woman in Hong Kong, a Taiwanese woman. In Taiwan is a murder of Hong Kong women by her boyfriend, allegedly. Who was from Taiwan? That happened in Taiwan. That happened in Taiwan. That happened in Taiwan. Right. Okay. So it was supposed to face trial in Taiwan but because the current extradition arrangement didn't include mainland China, Taiwan and also Macau. So now they... So he fled to Hong Kong and they wanted to extradite him back to Taiwan. And the idea here was that it was presented to the Hong Kong people by Ms. Lam, what's her full name? Kerry Lam. By Kerry Lam as something that was strictly between Hong Kong and Taiwan or thought for that reason but the suspicion always was that it was actually Beijing behind it, right? Yes. And actually the Taiwan government already issued (6/39)

a statement saying that even without the extradition amendment, there will be way for Hong Kong to hand over the person to Taiwan so you don't need that amendment to do that. And of course that many Hong Kong people are suspecting that the Hong Kong government is using this case to put in mainland China, the extradition arrangement of mainland China and Beijing is behind it. And actually in late May that because in the beginning many business, even the establishment business elite has questioned about this because a lot of Hong Kong business elite had experienced with the legal system in mainland China so they also fear that being arrested by Hong Kong police and transferred to mainland China for some fabricated charge or something like that. And then in late May, there is a kind of a Hong Kong business group visit Beijing and then some very high rank Beijing official including the standing committee, the Politburo standing committee member Han Zheng met with this group of business (7/39)

people and saying that Beijing is behind this extradition bill amendment so business people don't need to worry about it, you should be behind it. So basically Beijing has put a lot of political capital in making sure that the business elite despite the doubt will support the bill and then get it passed in a legislative country in Hong Kong. So Hong Kong enjoys a very unique special trading relationship with western countries, right? It's also I think the biggest financial hub in the east, is that right? So how would this amendment impact from a practical standpoint economically, how would it impact Hong Kong? Yes, it is very interesting because this extradition bill that the amendment is really putting Hong Kong special status as a financial center in China in jeopardy because Hong Kong special financial center status is given by its independent jurisdiction system, by its independent legal system and freedom of speech and also freedom of assembly and also western countries and (8/39)

western media, western companies based in Hong Kong even though they have business in China so they rely on the Hong Kong legal system and if this extradition bill amendment is passed then people doing business in China might worry that they can be arrested by Hong Kong police and transfer to mainland China easily even if they are journalists or they are activists or they are businessmen who do something or say something that the Chinese government don't like and with this extradition bill and this possibility of being transferred to the mainland Chinese legal system then many business people or many companies that are headquartered in Hong Kong and even journalists organization headquartered in Hong Kong they might have doubt about the safety of being in Hong Kong and they might move to other places and it is already happening as some journalistic reports show that some wealthy people because of the extradition bill and worry about this possibility of their safety being jeopardized (9/39)

they start to move their money to Singapore, a safer place and they will worry that Hong Kong might no longer be a safe place for their money and for their own safety if that extradition bill is passed. So Hong Kong operates under common law which is different than what they have in the mainland also its democratic culture clearly on display with approximately 2 million people in these protests right with 90% humidity something in the 90s in terms of temperature incredible its significantly different as I said culturally and legally from China for those who don't aren't familiar with Hong Kong have never been there or lack a deeper appreciation for those differences can you help us get a sense of just how different the culture and the system is in Hong Kong versus the mainland and they speak two different languages also right. They are Cantonese and many of them also speak Mandarin and English and in terms of the system Hong Kong is very different because you don't need to feel worried (10/39)

when you criticize the Hong Kong government and Chinese government and journalists who report about corruption of Chinese officials and financial vulnerability of Chinese state-owned company they feel safe to say that which is a lot of cases in mainland China if you report some corrupt officials report about vulnerability of some well-connected state companies that the journalist concern might be arrested that actually it happened and if you have financial dispute with some powerful people behind in mainland China you can be arrested because the court system is very murky I would say and it's run by the Communist Party so it is not the case in Hong Kong so right now until now then Hong Kong people still feel they are protected by relatively fair ecosystem and relatively free media. And this goes back to the point now it's been 20 years since the handoff they've got another 30. These anxieties were expressed I think as early in terms of protests as early as 2003 right over basic law (11/39)

article 23 so this is an ongoing anxiety among the people in Hong Kong what is the general expectation by the people there do they feel has the hobo always been that as they get closer they'll be able to renegotiate it whereas the leadership in China has always felt that they're simply going to be reintegrated and there is a misalignment of objectives and perception and is that right? Yes that is true that over the last few years we see a lot of cases that Beijing tried to tighten its control of Hong Kong for example the very famous or infamous case of disappearing books seller that they published books that talk about scandals of Chinese leaders then they published in Hong Kong and they disappear. Was that in 2009? When was that? It happened in there's a number of cases that it happened in the last few years and is raised by the US State Department and the international community and also there's a wealthy Chinese Taikun by the name of Xiao Jianhua he's regarded as a fugitive from (12/39)

mainland China but he's in Hong Kong and then there's a cross-border kidnapping by China public security personnel to kidnap him in the hotel and then he showed up in the Chinese official TV and then and also the same happened to this book seller. So they succeeded in kidnapping? They succeeded but it is illegal because in current law in Hong Kong there's no way that the Chinese law enforcement personnel can do that duty in Hong Kong because of the one country two systems so they have been doing it and illegally and it raised ice brow and it raised the international community's concern so it is what Beijing has been doing now they do this extradition bill amendment that people are thinking that now they finally try to legalize the whole process of these arresting people in Hong Kong and transferring to mainland China so it is why it hit the button of many Hong Kong people because in the past that they have to do it under the dark and do it carefully lot to be discovered because it is (13/39)

not legal and if that extradition bill can happen is passed then they can do it under a formal legal channel just requesting Hong Kong police to arrest the people and then transfer it to mainland China. So help me understand the circumstances in which this amendment was attempted to be passed was there any willingness by the government in Hong Kong to engage in a fact-based debate with the public over its proposed amendment prior to the protests? The general feeling that make the people angry is that the consultation period is very hasty, very rushy and they keep talking about the Taiwan case to justify it but everybody point out that it is just an excuse and because the main concern is about mainland China the extradition to mainland China so the discussion is very hasty and the government is very much want to rush it through even after the one million strong protests in June 9th and the government still want to go ahead to pass it in the legislative council and then the conflict in (14/39)

the June 12th erupted that protestor basically paralyzed MOT district where the legislative council and the government is located so they have to postpone cancel the meeting and then in the end the government back down and indefinitely postpone the bill. So let's talk about the protest because one of the interesting things that I read of yours as you described these protests as quote more gorilla this time around what did you mean by that? That is interesting that in the last time that Hong Kong protests got attention internationally is the 2014 occupied movement at that time the umbrella movement. The umbrella movement. Why was it called the umbrella movement? It was originally called occupied central, occupied movement but in the end when the Hong Kong police force used tear gas and the young people don't have much to defend themselves against the tear gas so they just raised the umbrella to block the it's not very useful but many people just use umbrella so it is not quite a scene (15/39)

so it's called the umbrella movement in 2014. So the main action of that time is that they occupied several areas in Hong Kong one on the Hong Kong island side near the government headquarters one is Kaolong side so they occupy the area for more than 70 days and the Chinese government is angry about it and the Hong Kong government eventually managed to clear them up after they were out by themselves in November 2014 so this time around that apparently the protestor learned the lesson that they think that is unwise to whole territory and occupied it for a long time it is difficult to sustain so it this time they were taking the less so just to clarify here yeah was the notion of occupying was that in any way related to what was going on in the west with Occupy Wall Street? In the beginning that one of the professor who devised the idea of occupied he benetized who is a law professor in the University of Hong Kong now he's behind bars. He's behind bars he's in prison. In prison because (16/39)

of his action of inciting Kuang Ku, inciting other people to perfect this order and he explicitly talked about the inspiration from Occupy Wall Street and all this occupy square. That's interesting because that was one of the things I wanted to ask you about but it was more dealing with the leaderless nature of this protest and just thinking about it in terms of the different cultural systems between the east and the west and how protests may differ and how important it might be in the east to have leaders versus in the west but it's interesting so what you're saying is that at first they tried to apply some of these principles like occupying a territory but it turned out they couldn't do that effectively in Hong Kong so they went underground. After 2014 after the occupation ended then there is the arrest and many people continue to be activists and there's a kind of a 2016 there's a Mong Kok they call it uprising or they some call it the riot that is some of the young activists who (17/39)

were in the 2014 occupation that they throw bricks at the police when they tried to clear up some street foods renewal so after that as well that there's a mass arrest of activists and leaders and so that this is what year you said? 2016 is the Mong Kok one and then the mass arrest happened after 2016 and after 2014 and then the trial and the imprisonment of the leaders of the occupy happened just a few months ago right before this 2019 movement. Did this catch Beijing by surprise given the way that they dealt with 2014 did they feel that they had effectively crushed these protests and that this was not going to be an issue going forward? I think it definitely caught Beijing and it basically caught everybody by surprise and I think original calculation of Beijing and Hong Kong government about why they tried to pass this extradition bill in such a kind of a hasty manner because I think the judgment is that the leaders the co-activists of the opposition has been arrested behind bar and (18/39)

two are actually in exile in Germany right now so the resistance has been broken it I think it is their original calculation so the resistance from the society will be minimal when they pass the bill so no matter what they can pass it with the major incidents and in the end even without all this leader and without all these famous activists like Josiah Wong who was behind bar when the thing erupted. He's now out right? He's just out. He's that young gentleman how old is he 21? He looks very young. I haven't kept track of it but he's he's the person who's been all over the international press and all these kind of iconic figures behind bar and so even without them then the people just organized themselves spontaneous in this guerrilla battle with the government on June 12th so I think the reaction is so strong and so self-organized that I think definitely it caught Beijing by surprise. It caught them by surprise. Another really fascinating thing about not just these protests but (19/39)

generally we saw this of course in the Arab Spring in Egypt how many years back is the role of technology but I think what's interesting in the east is that the tools of suppression by the state are much stronger than they are anywhere else particularly specifically speaking in China. I don't know how powerful the technology is in Hong Kong it may be very similar but the institutional practices are not as Orwellian or suppressive in Hong Kong. How important was technology one on the suppression side and then how important was it on the side of the protesters and like encrypted messaging and things like this to help them organize. Yes and it's very important and it's one another key difference between Hong Kong and mainland China. In mainland China you don't have access to Facebook, Telegram, Google and all these social media that homegrown social media in China available to Chinese people in the mainland are tightly controlled by the government while in Hong Kong that people still have (20/39)

relatively free access to all these kind of social media that we are familiar with and reportedly and and actually there are some activists who wrote the article in Financial Times to talk about it and actually that it is this social media and social media group discussion group that help organize the whole thing then the young people really tag-saving and very aware of the power of this social media and then to organize themselves even without a hierarchical organization to do the organizing. So Kerry Lam is the fourth chief executive that may end up not serving out a second term in Hong Kong that's four for four right? Oh for four. Yeah and it is just a speculation but I think it is the right best speculation that she might have lost the trust of Beijing that when her term is up and she might not have a second term depending on the remaining two three years whether she make a special... But none of the prior chief executives served full terms right? Or second terms. Donald Zhang has (21/39)

a second term but his first term is a kind of... But he ended up in jail didn't he? He ended up in jail. He ended up in jail right after that so that is there. So basically what kind of commentary is this on the adequacy of these institutions in Hong Kong? Yeah it is the irony that the Hong Kong chief executive as people find out that the salary is much higher than a US president. The salary of a US president of many world leaders. What is the salary of the US president? I don't have the exact figure but it is widely reported that they have the second highest salary behind Singapore prime minister that the Singapore leader and so they're high salary but the problem is that they always cannot serve the second term and don't end up well because they always use as escape goal for failed policy of Beijing. Said that whenever there is a policy like the article 23 in 2003 obviously this Beijing... What was that about? What was that about? Because the article 23 is an article in the basic law (22/39)

of Hong Kong saying that the Hong Kong government need to legislate against action that is a threat to Chinese national security. So anything deemed subversive to Chinese national interests can be indictable and things like that. So in 2003 they tried to legislate... They got ambitious. They had like six years. Six years after the transfer they got pretty ambitious. Yeah and it led to a huge protests and also international outcry and then the government shelved it and there is a failure of Beijing in pushing it and then Dong Qi Hua became the escape goal of course and then he could not finish his term. So the same happened for this time around that's Kery Lam. It is basically this Beijing miscalculation and Beijing failure for this back down on this extradition bill but it is going to be Kery Lam who will take all the hit and then if she cannot finish the current term or she cannot have a second term then it means that it's happened again that Beijing make her escape goal of the (23/39)

failure of Beijing to introducing this legislation. So what are the other big issues besides this amendment that have people worried? Because this has been the thing that the press has focused on, the international press. But of course we know the international English speaking press captures only a fraction of reality in foreign countries. The Hong Kong people are worrying about a lot of stuff that besides this extradition bill, Hong Kong people have been worrying about this slow tightening of the screw on Hong Kong liberty and freedom that Hong Kong used to enjoy. Is that what it feels like to the Hong Kong citizen that there is a tightening of the screw? And is that also just built out of the cynicism and the expectation that Beijing has designs on Hong Kong in the long term that don't align with what the citizens of Hong Kong want? They've always been suspicious of Beijing. And there's suspicion on one part, the other part and Beijing has been quite courageous to openly talk about (24/39)

it. For example, the liberty and freedom of Hong Kong is guaranteed by the sign of British joint declaration that lay out the terms of the one country, two system and 50 years unchanging system. And also the basic freedom, basic right of Hong Kong people. And now the Beijing government and high-ranked officials keep saying that this kind of treaty with the UK is no longer valid because it serves its purpose. And now it is totally the internal affair of China and the foreign press and foreign government shouldn't say anything about it. So Beijing has been saying out loud that and they have been saying that one country is bigger than two systems. And to Hong Kong people see that it is not what we expect when we have to deal and we accept the sovereignty handover in 1997. So it has been happening for a while before this broke up. So are you optimistic or pessimistic about how this is going to work out? Because you know, I think what I've seen oftentimes with these types of situations is (25/39)

that there's a lot of energy and passion and excitement and optimism early on among the protesters, regardless of whether it's in China, Hong Kong, Greece, Spain, the United States. But the government has unlimited resources or seeming unlimited to press down and can wait it out. And eventually they'll slip it back in. In fact, I want to ask you, one of the demands of the protesters is that they withdraw that Kerry Lam withdraw the amendment entirely, right? Because they're afraid she's going to reintroduce it next year or two years or three years from now. Yes, then I have been pessimistic. Now I'm generally still pessimistic, but become a bit more optimistic now because before this protest, everybody, including myself, many people, not everybody expected that the resistance of Hong Kong to this tightening of the screw on Hong Kong has been broken and the civil society is paralyzed in this resistance. But now that this resistance came up out from nowhere, that so it seems that the (26/39)

civil society in Hong Kong is much more resilient than we thought. And also in this time of debate, it comes to the forefront is that there's some huge constraint on what Beijing can do in cracking down on Hong Kong. That is the Hong Kong special trading status as recognized by the US and international community that serve China very well. Patukin, this current trade war situation that if China crackdown harder on Hong Kong to trigger a kind of withdrawal of international recognition of Hong Kong as a special trading territory and a special custom territory separate from mainland China, then Chinese financial interest is going to be hurt. Well, that's the thing because China has capital controls. Hong Kong is very important as a financial center for the Chinese elite in particular who look to get their money out. And also Hong Kong's special status as a custom territory separate from mainland China. For example, Chinese company, if they want to invest in infrastructure in Australia, in (27/39)

US, in other Western countries, it's very difficult. And this Western country is going to cite the national security concern to ban this investment. But if that Chinese company somehow can set up a subsidiary in Hong Kong and invest in this Western company as a Hong Kong company, it face much less scrutiny. They can invest in port facilities along the Panama Canal pipeline in Australia and port facility in the US. So it has been the status quo that Chinese companies using Hong Kong identity to do is and also Chinese wealthy people, they will move their money to Hong Kong first and then move the money out as a part of the capital flight going on. And at the same time, there's a lot of high tech products and equipment that is deemed sensitive and can be used for military purpose. They have export control. For example, US have law, explicit law to exporting this kind of equipment to mainland China. But Hong Kong as a special custom territory, they can import this equipment. So Chinese (28/39)

company like Huawei is just setting up shops in Hong Kong to import this equipment. This idea, this notion of, again, you said it earlier, it comes from 1997 or when it was first started, I can't remember of one country, two systems. This system in Hong Kong benefits China. It benefits it tremendously because of how closed and controlled China's system is. Hong Kong is more open and that allows them to do business internationally in ways that they would otherwise not be able to while still maintaining their capital controls while still maintaining XYZ relations. So it's why it put a constraint on China that if China like for example, crackdown on Hong Kong, harder standing in the People's Liberation Army to shoot the people, for example, or they no longer allow Facebook, Instagram and all these social media to operate freely in Hong Kong, it will trigger a backlash in West England and the US. You're saying that so I'm not familiar with the legal relationship. Under the current (29/39)

agreement is Beijing able to send the People's Liberation Army into Hong Kong? They cannot. They cannot. So if they would break the agreement, I mean that would be. They would break the agreement. And how would the international community understand what that would mean? Because again, it's one country, two systems. It's not exactly a break of sovereignty. Hong Kong is part of China. Yeah. It's a separate system. So how would we think about that? How would the international community react? In the case of US, there's explicit law called the US Hong Kong Policy Act. It was introduced in 1992 that regulate US policy toward Hong Kong after 1997. Now, according to this law, the US State Department periodically has published reports about the state of autonomy of Hong Kong. And according to this report, if it is verified that Hong Kong is sufficiently autonomous from mainland China, then US can apply its law to Hong Kong separate to its application to mainland China, like export control, (30/39)

immigration control, and regulation of mail, and investment from Hong Kong, visa-vis investment from mainland China. So it is established in the law in the US. So many other countries have similar law and regulation separating Hong Kong from mainland China. So if countries, Western countries, and US find that actually Hong Kong is no longer sufficiently autonomous, they can withdraw this recognition and start to regard, for example, a company from Hong Kong as the same as a company from mainland China and so on and so forth. So what do the Taiwanese think about what's happening? We mentioned Taiwan early on because they were the excuse for the law. But of course, Taiwan, the moment they realized what was going on, they didn't want the amendment because for them, Hong Kong, it's even closer to China. That's a bulwark to their relationship. That is a very interesting thing to observe because there's a presidential election coming up in Taiwan in January 2020. And before this extradition (31/39)

bill thing, that the current incumbent government, which is a pro independence and government led by Chai Ing-wen has a low rating because of many administrative mistakes. And so that there's a popularity is not high. Many people would expect that she might lose the election and relatively pro Beijing and friend with Beijing. There's one, there's a more pro Beijing government in Taiwan traditionally and also a more, not necessarily anti-Beijing, but more independent oriented. Both of them came out against the amendment. Both of them came out against the amendment and the latest tooling because she's showing that incumbent government, chance of reelection substantially increased. And then definitely the debate and the conflict in Hong Kong helped. To let people see it is what one kind of system is. Now what do you think that's so currently the party that is out of power is the more pro-Beijing government? Yes, they have a chance to win the election in 2020. They had a chance. Now those (32/39)

chances are diminished because of what's going on in Hong Kong. According to pool and people speculate that Hong Kong is one factor. So that's obviously got to raise alarm bells in Beijing. Yes, they don't like that. Right? Yeah. So it's actually, that's very interesting. So what you're saying is that the reaction to the protests in Hong Kong, to this amendment in particular, which represents tightening of the screws, as you said, of Beijing on Hong Kong or potentially version in Taiwan, the reaction was so strong against that, that it has actually destabilized the politics in the region such that Beijing actually wants to pull back. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's pretty remarkable. Also the police brutality that is shown that of course the police is using tear gas and rubber bullets. And it is quite dramatic measure by Hong Kong standard because in Hong Kong protesters used to be very peaceful that they built barricades. They didn't throw bottle top cocktail and anything like that. They (33/39)

never did that. So I got to ask you something. I got to ask you something. What if this ever happened on the mainland? Right? If this is what we're seeing in Hong Kong, right? Two million protesters. What's the population in Hong Kong? A bit more than seven million. Seven million. Seven million. So it is two million out of seven million people. Okay. So that's a huge number, right? It's a huge proportion. Right. But seven million is only a fraction of a billion. Yes. Right. So this of course is the fear of the Chinese Communist Party, right? Yes. Ultimately it's that they would lose control. The fear that is built over to mainland China to protest. Yeah. Their fear is that they will lose control of the country somehow. Not necessarily that it's going to happen now, but this is the underlying feel of everything. Right? This was the part of the piece that Deng Xiaoping made in 1989 with the Hanaman protests. Right? Yeah. So I mean, how realistic is it that this could ever happen in (34/39)

China? I think it already happened in many places in like in Tibet and Xinjiang. We have a lot of this kind of larger scale and more violent protests happening. That's the Islamic part of the north. The Islamic part of the western part. Yeah. So it is why they have this concentration camp as a solution to kind of a put down the unrest in Xinjiang. The problem is that in mainland China, including in Tibet and Xinjiang, they can resort to these extreme measures. Right. Because it's the mainland. Because the main camp is in Hong Kong. They cannot stand in the PLA to stand. They cannot stand in the army. They cannot actually, they are not should people and kill some people. Your point is that they would be able to get away with much, much, much greater measures on the mainland and the international reaction would be minimal. Yes. Intellectual reaction is still big at what happened in Tibet and Xinjiang, but it is mostly moral acquisition. Right. There's been a largely blackout of this. And (35/39)

people don't know about it. And in Hong Kong, there's a presence of international press and also there's this international recognition of Hong Kong's best trading status. If they really crack down hard on Hong Kong and shoot people and establish education camp, things like that, then immediately the international community will withdraw its recognition of Hong Kong as a separate entity in trading or other matter and it will hurt China financially. So it is why they have this constraint that they cannot crack down hard on Hong Kong. They don't see this protest to grow. So the only thing that they can do is to back down. How much of this is generational? In other words, the many of the protesters were too young to meaningfully remember Tiananmen, right? Yes. The memories are still alive. And in the Tiananmen is part of the collective memory that is transmitted from generation to generation because we can see that in Hong Kong, June 4th, they have these videos and ready to commemorate (36/39)

the killing in 1989. So the memory is still alive. And it's not like in mainland China that people don't talk about it, don't say about it, don't write about it. So, Ho, I want you to stick around. I want to take us to overtime for our subscribers. I want to talk to you about Chinese leadership. That's something that you've written a lot about. I also want to talk about the One Belt, One Road initiative and the significance of that for safeguarding foreign direct investment in China, particularly after 2008 with the financial crisis and the drop in exports and that obviously had a knock on effect on foreign exchange reserves, which is something we've talked about on the show and it's something that you've talked about, the importance of that and the importance of that for the remnant B dollar peg. And also this really fascinating thing that we haven't spent much time talking about, which you've done a lot of research on, which is the transformation of the population from being a labor (37/39)

input to being a source of consumption. And this is also very fascinating. It's something that Michael Pettis has written a bit about when it comes to savings. So for regular listeners, you know the drill, you know where to go. If you're new to the program or if you haven't subscribed yet to the Hidden Forces Overtime or Autodidact Super Nerd subscriptions, you can do so at patreon.com slash hiddenforces where you can get access to the overtime audio to this episode, as well as the transcript, which will probably take a few days extra to come through because it's going to take some time to get it transcribed since we're going to be releasing this right away and the rundown is going to be available immediately. So again, patreon.com slash Hidden Forces and you can also learn how to integrate the Patreon subscription straight into the Hidden Forces website at hiddenforces.io slash subscribe where you can get access to over 70 rundowns and close to 90 transcripts from the beginning of the (38/39)

show. Ho, thank you so much for coming on and stick around. Thanks. Today's episode of Hidden Forces was recorded at Creative Media Design Studio in New York City. For more information about this week's episode or if you want easy access to related programming, visit our website at hiddenforces.io and subscribe to our free email list. If you want access to overtime segments, episode transcripts and show rundowns full of links and detailed information related to each and every episode, check out our premium subscription available through the Hidden Forces website or through our Patreon page at patreon.com slash Hidden Forces. Today's episode was produced by me and edited by Stylianos Nicolaou. For more episodes, you can check out our website at hiddenforces.io. Join the conversation at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Hidden Forces Pod or send me an email at dk at hiddenforces.io. As always, thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. (39/39)