NED, CIA, Neo-Cons, & Greedy Corporate Powers, WHAT? Hong Kong Democracy?
Many “Occupy Central” supporters now admit the US National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) role in ongoing chaos in Hong Kong and simply say, “so what?” Here’s what…
James T. Griffiths of the South China Morning Post was preparing a hit piece on analysts exposing the US role behind Hong Kong’s ongoing street protests organized by “Occupy Central.” Through a series of various logical fallacies, Griffiths was attempting to undermine and discredit these alternative news sources that have filled in the missing pieces intentionally left out by larger, subjectively pro-Western media monopolies and reporters like Griffiths himself.
In a conversation with Griffiths, after discussing the unscrupulous nature of his tactics, he finally conceded that indeed, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was providing cash for certain political groups to carry out their activities in Hong Kong. Griffiths would claim in response to the suggestion that “Occupy Central” taking US cash constituted sedition that:
If you think a pro-democracy NGO handing out money to pro-democracy organisations is creepy, then sure.
Only NED is not a “pro-democracy NGO.” It is a functionary of the United States government and more specifically the US State Department whose very existence is to serve US interests, not those of the many nations its various funding arms, including USAID and NED, meddle in.
Neo-Cons and Corporate Fascists for Democracy?
Griffiths’ backpedaling is typical. First denying “Occupy Central” was funded from abroad, but since forced to concede otherwise, he is now claiming that such foreign funding constitutes no conflict of interest and is merely the promotion of “democracy.” It appears, however, that Griffiths either is being dishonest, or is uninformed about the true nature of the National Endowment for Democracy. He refused to comment when presented with a full list of NED’s board of directors.
NED and its subsidiaries, Freedom House, the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), despite the lofty mission statement articulated on their websites, are little more than fronts for executing American foreign policy.
Just as the US military is used under the cover of lies regarding WMD’s and “terrorism,” NED is employed under the cover of bringing “democracy” to “oppressed” people.
However, a thorough look at NED’s board of directors, as well as the board of trustees of its subsidiaries definitively lays to rest any doubts that may be lingering over the true nature of these organizations and the causes they support.
More importantly, for the many well-meaning left-leaning liberals intrigued by, and tempted to support “Occupy Central,” revelations that “Occupy Central” is in fact a far-right Neo-Con corporate-fascist scheme to expand a confrontation with China and extort from Beijing geopolitical and economic concessions should at the very least give pause for thought.
The Neo-Cons
Upon NED’s board of directors are Neo-Conservatives including Elliot Abrams, Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, Will Marshall, and Vin Weber, all signatories of the pro-war, pro-corporate Neo-Con Project for a New American Century.
Within the pages of documents produced by this “think tank” are pleas to various US presidents to pursue war against sovereign nations, the increase of troops in nations already occupied by US forces, and what equates to a call for American global hegemony in a Hitlerian 90 page document titled “Rebuilding Americas Defenses.”
The “Statement of Principles,” signed off by NED chairmen Elliot Abrams, Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Vin Weber, states, “we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.” Of course this “international order,” is merely a poorly disguised euphemism for global neo-imperialism. Other Neo-Con that signed their name to this statement include Freedom House’s Paula Dobriansky, Dan Quayle (formerly), and Donald Rumsfeld(formerly). Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and Eliot Cohen also signed their names to this document.
A PNAC “Statment on Post-War Iraq” regarding a wholehearted endorsement of nation-building and continued occupation features the signatures of NED chairman Will Marshall, Freedom House’s Frank Carlucci (2002), and James Woolsey (formerly), along with Martin Indyk (Lowy Institute board member, co-author of the conspiring “Which Path to Persia?” report), and William Kristol and Robert Kagan both of the warmongering Foreign Policy Initiative.
It should be noted that the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) is, for all intents and purposes, PNAC’s latest reincarnation and in 2011 featured an open letter to House Republicans calling on them to disregard the will of the American people and continue pursuing the war in Libya.
The FPI letter even suggested that the UN resolution authorizing the war in the first place, was holding America “hostage” and that it should be exceeded in order to do more to “help the Libyan opposition.”
This “opposition” was vocally supported by NED subsidiary IRI’s chairman and US Senator John McCain who stood in Libya’s terrorist capital of Benghazi pledging arms and cash in front of a courthouse that would later serve as a parade ground for legions of Al Qaeda terrorists.
An untitled PNAC letter addressed to then US President George Bush regarding a general call for global warmongering received the seal of approval from Freedom Houses’ Ellen Bork (2007), Ken Adelman (also former lobbyist for Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra via Edelman), and James Woolsey (formerly), along with notorious Neo-Cons Richard Perle, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and Daniel Pipes.
The Corporate-Fascists
Upon NED’s board of directors we first find John Bohn who traded petrochemicals, was an international banker for 13 years with Wells Fargo, and is currently serving as a principal for a global advisory and consulting firm, GlobalNet Partners, which assists foreign businesses by making their “entry into the complex China market easy.”
Surely Bohn’s ability to manipulate China’s political landscape through NED’s various activities both inside of China and along its peripheries constitutes an alarming conflict of interest.
A visual representation of the National Endowment for Democracy’s corporate-financier ties found across their Board of Directors. Far from “human rights advocates,” they are instead simply leveraging such issues to disguise what is in reality corporate-financier hegemonic expansion.
NED’s current and former board of directors also include the following representatives of Wall Street’s big business:
William Galston: Brookings Institution (corporate sponsors here).
Moises Naim: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (corporate funding here).
Robert Miller: (formerly) corporate lawyer.
Larry Liebenow: (formerly) US Chamber of Commerce (a chief proponent of SOPA), Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).
Anne-Marie Slaughter: (formerly) US State Department, Council on Foreign Relations (corporate members here), director of Citigroup, McDonald’s Corporation, and Political Strategies Advisory Group.
Richard Gephardt: (formerly) US Representative, Boeing lobbyist, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Ameren Corp, and Waste Management Inc lobbyist, corporate consultant, consultant & now director of Ford Motor Company, supporter of the military invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.
Marilyn Carlson Nelson: CEO of Carlson, director of Exxon Mobil.
Stephen Sestanovich: US State Department, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, CFR.
Judy Shelton: (formerly) director of Hilton Hotels Corporation & Atlantic Coast Airlines.
Andrew J. Nathan: government and business consultant regarding China.
Margaret Spellings: president of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, former senior adviser to President George Bush, CEO of her own corporate consultant firm. Melanne Verveer: CFR and World Bank member.
Robert Zoellick: Senior Fellow at big-oil’s Belfer Center, served as Vice Chairman, International of Goldman Sachs Group, president of the World Bank Group from 2007-12, served in President George W. Bush’s cabinet as U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005 and as Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006.
NED’s subsidiary, NDI, is likewise chaired by a collection of corporate-financier interests. NDI in particular has taken center stage amid the ongoing “Occupy Central” protests, having directly funded various programs and organizations “Occupy Central’s” leadership belong to.
Image: Here, “Occupy Central” co-organizers Martin Lee and Anson Chan attend a 2014 NED-hosted talk in Washington D.C. in a bid to marshal support for planned unrest that would become the “Umbrella Movement.”
Robin Carnahan: Formally of the Export-Import Bank of the United States where she “explored innovative ways to help American companies increase their sale of goods and services abroad.” The NDI’s meddling in foreign nations, particularly in elections on behalf of pro-West candidates favoring free-trade, and Carnahan’s previous ties to a bank that sought to expand corporate interests overseas constitutes an alarming conflict of interests.
Richard Blum: An investment banker with Blum Capital, CB Richard Ellis. Engaged in war profiteering along side the Neo-Con infested Carlyle Group, when both acquired shares in EG&G which was then awarded a $600 million military contract during the opening phases of the Iraq invasion.
Bernard W. Aronson: Founder of ACON Investments. Prior to that, he was an adviser to Goldman Sachs, and serves on the boards of directors of Fifth & Pacific Companies, Royal Caribbean International, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, and Chroma Oil & Gas, Northern Tier Energy. Aronson is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which in turn represents the collective interests of some of the largest corporations on Earth.
Sam Gejdenson: NDI’s profile claims Gejdenson is “in charge of” Sam Gejdenson International, which proclaims on its website “Commerce Without Borders,” or in other words, big-business monopolies via free-trade. In his autobiographical profile, he claims to have promoted US exports as a Democrat on the House International Relations Committee. Here is yet another case of conflicting interests between NDI’s meddling in foreign politics and board members previously involved in “promoting US exports.”
Nancy H. Rubin: CFR member.
Vali Nasr: CFR member and a senior fellow at the big-oil, big-banker Belfer Center at Harvard.
Rich Verma: A partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP – an international corporate and governmental legal firm representing for Verma, a multitude of conflicting interests and potential improprieties. Setptoe & Johnson is active in many of the nations the NDI is operating in, opening the door for manipulation on both sides to favor the other.
Lynda Thomas: A private investor, formally a senior manager/CPA at Deloitte Haskins & Sells in New York, and Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte in London. Among her clients were international banks.
Maurice Tempelsman: Chairman of the board of directors of Lazare Kaplan International Inc., the largest cutter and polisher of “ideal cut” diamonds in the United States. Also senior partner at Leon Tempelsman & Son, involved in mining, investments and business development and minerals trading in Europe, Russia, Africa, Latin America, Canada and Asia. Yet another immense potential for conflicting interests, where Tempelsman stands to directly gain financially and politically by manipulating foreign governments via the NDI.
Elaine K. Shocas: President of Madeleine Albright, Inc., a private investment firm. She was chief of staff to the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations during Madeleine Albright’s tenure as Secretary of State and Ambassador to the United Nation, illustrating a particularly dizzying “revolving door” between big-government and big-business.
Madeleine K. Albright: Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group and Chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm – directly affiliated with fellow NDI board member Elaine Shocas, representing an incestuous business/government relationship with overt conflicts of interest. Albright infamously stated that sanctions against Iraq which directly led to the starvation and death of half a million children “was worth it.”
The International Republican Institute (IRI) also consists of similarly troubling leadership including US Senator John McCain who recently took to the stage in Kiev next to literal Neo-Nazis in support of their violent overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine, and retired general turned corporate lobbyist Brent Scowcroft who owned stock in companies including General Electric, General Motors, ITT, and Lockheed Martin while acting as US President George Bush’s National Security Adviser.
Freedom House also includes a long list of right-wing Neo-Conservatives, corporate lobbyists, and corporate directors including Neo-Con and corporate lobbyist Kenneth Adelman, Neo-Con and senior fellow at big-oil’s Belfer Center Paula Dobriansky, vice president of International Governmental Affairs for Ford Motor Company Stephen E. Biegun, Ellen Blackler representing the revolving door between government and big-media having held senior positions both within the US government regarding telecommunications as well as within AT&T and Disney, and Kathryn Dickey Karol representing corporations ranging from Caterpillar to big-pharma giants Eli Lilly & Company and Amgen.
Pro-Democracy? Really?
It is safe to say that neither NED, Freedom House, nor any of their subsidiaries (IRI/NDI) garner within their ranks characters appropriate for their alleged cause of “supporting freedom around the world.”
It is also safe to say that the principles of “democracy,” “freedom,” and “human rights” they allegedly champion for, are merely props behind which they couch their self-serving agendas.
Big-oil, big-defense, telecommunication, and pharmaceutical giants, as well as individuals shamelessly spending their entire careers passing through the revolving doors between big-business and big-government do not care about “democracy” in Hong Kong. They care about what they can accomplish under the guise of caring.
James T. Griffiths of the South China Morning Post and supporters of “Occupy Central” have it upon themselves to reconcile the insidious nature of NED, its subsidiaries and the “Occupy Central” leaders willfully accepting support from them.
Many of those providing aid to “Occupy Central” and funding their political activity have documented invested interests in manipulating the sociopolitical and economic landscape of both Hong Kong and China, and appear to be doing exactly that – not for the sake of the people of Hong Kong or mainland China, but for the sake of Wall Street and their respective corporate-financier interests
NED represents the very corruption, conflict of interest, and abuse of power many in “Occupy Central” claim to be opposed to. However, those involved in NED’s deception have skillfully dressed up these abuses as progressive – hence why left-leaning liberals find themselves zealously supporting the various global gambits of Neo-Conservatives, corporate-fascists, and faux-liberals.
And just as NED’s other interventions in the Middle East via the “Arab Spring” and the so-called “Euromaidan” in Ukraine have led to bloodshed and chaos, so too will the unrest in Hong Kong if it is not exposed and dismantled. NED has left a trail of destruction, war, subversion, division, and chaos everywhere it has gone – it is now on China’s doorstep.
By Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer.blogspot.com (CC) 2009-2014
Now It’s an Umbrella Revolution ‘Pro-Democracy Protests’ in Hong Kong
“I am not for or against them”, he replies. “But it is known that they have some 1 million supporters here. While all of Hong Kong has over 7 million inhabitants. We think that it is time to clear the roads and allow this city to resume its normal life.”
“On the 28. September”, I continue, “Police fired 87 canisters of tear gas at the protest site, and now this fact is being used in the West and here as some proof of police brutality and of Beijing’s undemocratic rule. Protesters even commemorated this event few days ago, as if that would turn them to martyrs…”
“They are spoiled”, a man smiled. “They mostly come from very rich families in one of the richest cities on earth. They don’t know much about the world. I can tell you that the students in Beijing know actually much more about the world… 87 canisters of tear gas are nothing, compared to what happened in Cairo or in Bangkok. And in New York, police was dragging and beating protesters, even female protesters, during the endgame of the Occupy Wall Street drama.”
Westerners mingle with local protesters. Many questions and much incomprehension, side by side.
For decades Hong Kong has been a turbo-capitalist, extremely consumerist, and aggressive society. Its people are facing some of the most unrealistic prices on earth, particularly for housing…
What is it? It is not orange or green, and definitely not red! It has an umbrella as its symbol. ‘That humble umbrella’, as many people in Hong Kong are often saying.
But is it really benign?
We are talking, of course, about the ‘democracy protests’ in Hong Kong, also known as ‘the Umbrella Movement’; the latest addition of the ‘popular uprisings’ promoted by the West!
At the North Point in Hong Kong, near Kowloon Ferry, a middle-aged man is waving a banner that reads “Support Our Police”. On the photo, the tents and umbrellas of the ‘pro-democracy’ ‘Occupy Central’ protest movement (also known as the ‘Umbrella Movement’) are depicted in sepia, a depressing color.
“Are you against the protesters?” I ask the man.
“I am not for or against them”, he replies. “But it is known that they have some 1 million supporters here. While all of Hong Kong has over 7 million inhabitants. We think that it is time to clear the roads and allow this city to resume its normal life.”
“On the 28. September”, I continue, “Police fired 87 canisters of tear gas at the protest site, and now this fact is being used in the West and here as some proof of police brutality and of Beijing’s undemocratic rule. Protesters even commemorated this event few days ago, as if that would turn them to martyrs…”
“They are spoiled”, a man smiled. “They mostly come from very rich families in one of the richest cities on earth. They don’t know much about the world. I can tell you that the students in Beijing know actually much more about the world… 87 canisters of tear gas are nothing, compared to what happened in Cairo or in Bangkok. And in New York, police was dragging and beating protesters, even female protesters, during the endgame of the Occupy Wall Street drama.”
Earlier I spoke to my friend, a top Western academic who is now teaching in Hong Kong. As always, he readily supplied me with his analyses, but this time, he asked me not to use his name. Not because of fear of what Beijing could do, but simply because it could complicate his position in Hong Kong. I asked him whether the ‘opposition movement’ is actually homegrown, or supported from abroad, and he replied:
“To answer the question as to foreign interference in Occupy Central, we would have to answer yes. As a global city par excellence Hong Kong is more than exposed to international currents and ideas and, historically, that has also been the case. Doubtless as well certain of the pan-Democrat camp have shaken hands with international ‘do-gooders’, a reference to various US or western-based ‘democracy endowments’ or foundations active across the globe. Taiwan may have a leg in. A British Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee seeks to wade in. But “foreign interference” is seen here as Beijing’s call echoed by C.Y. Leung and with the letter holding back from naming the culprits.”
—
The protesters have an alarmingly skewed view of “democracy”. Western propaganda has penetrated deeply. Spitefully, they regard Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador as “dictatorships.”
—
Protesters may have some legitimate grievances. They want direct elections of the chief executive, and there is, in theory, nothing wrong with such a demand. They want to tackle corruption, and to curb the role of local tycoons. That is fine, too.
The problem is, that the movement is degenerating into a Beijing bashing mission, happily supported by both Western and local (pro-business and pro-Western) mass media.
Several students that I spoke to, at Admiralty and Mong Kok sites, did not even bother to hide their hatred towards the Communist system, and towards the government in Beijing. All of them were denying crimes that are being committed by Western nations, all over the world, or they were simply not aware of them. ‘Democracy’ to them means clearly one and only thing – the system or call it regime, that is being defined, promoted and exported by the West.
“China is surely on the right side of the history”, I tried, at Admiralty, when I met protesters on the 31th October. “Together with Russia and Latin America it is standing against the brutal Western interventions worldwide and against Western propaganda.”
I was given looks of bewilderment, outrage and wrath.
I asked students what do they think about Venezuela, Bolivia, or Ecuador?
“Dictatorships”, they replied, readily and with spite.
I asked them about Bangkok and those ‘pro-democracy movements and demonstrations’ conducted against the democratically elected government; demonstrations that led to the coup performed by the elites and the army on behalf of the West.
I asked about ‘pro-democracy’ demonstrations against democratically elected President Morsi in Egypt, and about yet another military and pro-Western coup that brought army back to power. In Egypt, several thousand people died in the process. The West and Israel rejoiced, discreetly.
But the Hong Kong students ‘fighting’ for democracy knew absolutely nothing about Thailand or derailment of the Arab Spring.
They also could not make any coherent statements about Syria or Iraq.
I asked about Russia and Ukraine. With those topics they were familiar, perfectly. I immediately received quotes as if they were picked directly from the Western mass media: “Russia is antagonizing the world… It occupied Crimea and is sending troops to Ukraine, after shooting down Malaysian airliner…”
Back to Hong Kong and China, two girls, protesters, at Admiralty, clarified their point:
“We want true democracy; we want rights to nominate and to elect our leaders. Local leader now is a puppet. We hate communism. We don’t want dictatorship like in China.”
I asked what do they really want? They kept repeating “democracy”.
“What about those hundreds of millions that China raised from misery? What about China’s determined stand against Western imperialism? What about its anti-corruption drive? What about BRICS? What about its attempt to rejuvenate socialism through free medical care, education, subsidized culture, transportation and mixed/planned economy?”
Is there anything good, anything at all, that China, the biggest and the most successful socialist country on earth, is doing?
Brian, a student at Mong Kok, explained:
“We want to express our views and elect our own leader. It is now dictatorship in China. They chose the committee to elect our leader. We want to have our own true democracy. Our model is Western democracy.”
I asked at both protest sites about brutality of British colonialism. I received no reply. Then I noticed quotes by Winston Churchill, a self-proclaimed racist and a man who never bothered to hide his spite for non-white, non-Western people. But here, Churchill was considered to be one of the champions of democracy; his quotes glued to countless walls.
Then I noticed ‘John Lennon Wall, with the cliché-quotes like’: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one”.
—
The Hong Kong protest movement reeks of upper middle class bourgeois consciousness, including its cloying cheap sentimentality and unexamined worshipping of Western “heroes”, like Churchill.
—
What exactly were they dreaming about, I was not told. All I saw were only those omnipresent banalities about ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’.
There were Union Jacks all over the place, too, and I even spotted two English bulldogs; extremely cute creatures, I have to admit, but explaining nothing about the aspirations of the protesters.
While hardly anyone speaks English here, anymore, all cultural, ideological and propaganda symbols at the demonstrations and the ‘occupy’ sites, were somehow related to the West.
And then, on the 29 September, in the evening, near Admiralty, I spotted a group of Westerners, shouting and getting ready for ‘something big’.
I approached one of them; his name was John and he came from Australia:
“I have lived in Hong Kong for quite some time. Tonight we organized a run from here to Aberdeen, Pok Fu Lam, and back here, to support the Umbrella Movement. Several foreigners that are participating in this have lived in HK for some time, too.”
I wondered whether this could illustrate the lack of freedom and Beijing heavy-handedness?
I tried to imagine what would happen under the same circumstances, in the client states of Washington, London and Paris, in the countries that are promoted by the West as ‘vibrant democracies’.
What would happen to me, if I would decide to organize or join a marathon in Nairobi, Kenya, protesting against Kenyan occupation of Somalia or against bullying of the Swahili/Muslim coast? What would they do to me, if, as a foreigner, I would trigger a run in the center of Jakarta, demanding more freedom for Papua!
Thinking that I am losing my marbles and with it, objectivity, I texted a diplomat based in Nairobi. “Wouldn’t they deport me?” I was asking. “Wouldn’t they see it as interference in the internal affairs of the country?”
“They would deport you” the answer arrived almost instantly. “But before that, you would rot for quite some time in a very unsavory detention [spot]”.
I thought so…
***
In the meantime, protests are causing chaos; dramatically increasing commuting time and damaging businesses.
Even the great number of Hong Kong professionals now wants protestors off the streets.
The South China Morning Post, reported on October 29, 2014:
“Protesters criticized by Bar for flouting court orders, as doctors sign petition to end sit-ins.”
But some people actually see demands as genuine and legitimate.My friend, Mr. Basil Fernando, head of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), wrote to me:
“As for Hong Kong protests, they are very genuine local protests over serious local concerns. People of Hong Kong in their recent history acquired many rights, which people in other Asian countries have only in name, but not in real life. Reason is independent and functioning public institutions. The beginning of them can be traced to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), which started in 1974. It was a success and as a result, Hong Kong is quite a bribery and corruption free society. Having lived 25 years [in there] I can confirm that.
People have genuine fear of losing these and that is why they want a greater say, to elect the Chief executive. This is a genuine local movement with limited political objectives.”
But one week later, when Basil and I met, face-to-face, in Hong Kong, he admitted:
“Many students in Hong Kong are uninformed, and some are spoiled. They never had to undergo any hardship in life. This is one of the richest places on earth. Some kids are scared of China. Ok, we can say that some of them are reactionaries… But it is understandable; there are those whose families fled Mainland China, in the past… The parents and grandparents were feeding their kids with all negative things about the PRC.”
Few minutes later I am having lunch at Cafe de Coral, a local chain. A young man walks in, wearing a T-shirt, which proclaims: “Real Time NAVY. US Military Base.”
In Hong Kong, it means nothing. It is not even a political statement, just a T-shirt.
As long as the city remains rich, anything goes. And it has been rich for many years and decades; under British rule, and as part of China.
The question is, if they don’t care about politics, why do protesters block important arteries of the city, and for more than a month demand direct elections and ‘democracy’, whatever democracy means to them?
Or could there be something hiding underneath all this, and also, ‘in between the lines’.
“We have also our own poor people” I am told by Brian, one of the protesters at Mong Kok.
The truth is that Hong Kong is not a social bastion like the neighboring Macau, former Portuguese colony. And, tellingly, while visiting Macau just a few days earlier, I was explained by several people that what is happening in Hong Kong, could never happen there, because in Macau, people feel ‘very close to Beijing’, have closer ties with PRC, and feel more satisfied with their lives’.
Hong Kong, for decades, is a turbo-capitalist, extremely consumerist, and aggressive society. Its people are facing some of the most unrealistic prices on earth, particularly for housing. It is not at all the land of milk and honey; it never was – under British colonial rule, or now.
There is also great frustration over losing that ‘uniqueness’ and the cutting edge. Several Mainland Chinese urban centers are now becoming more attractive, with greater cultural life, bigger parks, more daring architecture, and more extensive public transportation. Quick trip to Shenzhen or Guangzhou, Beijing or Shanghai, and it becomes clear where the future and vibrancy and optimism really are.
It is likely the recent protests are ventilating the general frustration of many Hong Kong residents, not only with Beijing, but also, or mainly, with Hong Kong itself.
Lacking ideology and political awareness, and for decades being bombarded with Western anti-Communist and anti-socialist propaganda, protesters simply blame Beijing for everything, even for what they should be blaming its own extreme capitalist system.
There are some exceptions. At the protest sites, there are several small groups demanding social justice. Not many of them, but there are some Marxists and Trotskyists, even urban anarchists.
My academic colleague remarked:
“Their agenda is professed democracy and direct elections of the chief executive, but the social demands highlighted by Occupy Central cannot be ignored, namely extreme income gaps, property prices out of reach for the young, and generally an uncertain future…”
But overall, frustration here is walking hand in hand with apathy. There is nothing revolutionary about this city or the movements it produces.
I used to drink, heartily, with Mr. Leung Kwok-hung (known as ‘Long Hair’), who has a reputation for being the only prominent left-wing politician here. Long Hair is a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. But being ‘left-wing’ did not prevent him from being admired and constantly interviewed by the right-wing press in the East European countries, as ‘Long Hair’ did not only criticize the West, he was also persistently trashing the People’s Republic of China. I never really figured out where exactly does he stand and at some point he and I lost contact.
A ‘progressive’ professor of a prominent university in Hong Kong once confessed to me, in the wilderness of a noisy drinking establishment, and well after midnight, that her greatest achievement in life was to have had some lesbian sexual experiences, and admitting to herself that she was bisexual. That came just a few hours after I showed at her school my documentary film about Indonesian massacres of 1965, in which 1-3 million people lost their lives.
“Let’s have dinner tomorrow night”, I was told, a few days ago, by another lady academic. “But under one condition – this time no politics.” I cancelled.
***
Perhaps unwillingly, or maybe some of them willfully, protesters are playing to the hands of the West, which is presently busy antagonizing, demonizing and bulldozing its way over all countries, governments and movements that are resisting its quest for global dominance.
For years, Western propaganda has tried to convince the world that China is actually ‘not communist’, not even socialist. A highly successful communist nation would be the worst nightmare to the Empire; it would torpedo Western dogma about the ideological victory over non-capitalist and non-imperialist forms of government.
So far, the propaganda has been extremely successful. If people were asked in Berlin, London or Paris, many would make ludicrous statements that ‘China is more capitalist than many openly capitalist countries.’
By provoking China, directly and through its client states like Japan, Philippines and South Korea, the West hopes that the big dragon will eventually lose its patience, will snap, and consequently gain a reputation as a highly aggressive creature. That could, in turn, ‘justify’ another arms race, perhaps even a direct conflict with China.
The more socialist China becomes, the more the West panics. And China is becoming increasingly socialist: by maintaining the central planning system, by holding in state hands its key industries, by commanding the private sector what to produce, or by declaring that if the people would not be given free medical care and free education, the country would lose its right to call itself communist. The more public parks are built, the more high-speed trains and urban subway lines, as well as theaters and cultural centers, the more terrified the West becomes.
Now the revanchist students in Hong Kong admit that China (PRC) actually is a communist nation, but from their lips comes something extremely negative. And they declare openly how much they hate communism.
It all goes really well in the West, because China, together with Russia, Venezuela and Iran, are on the top ‘hit list’.
Protests in Hong Kong surely came in at an extremely opportune time, for the Empire.
Although China is acting with tremendous restraint (much greater than the US, France or UK have shown towards their own protesters), it has become a target of yet another smear campaign in the Western mass media outlets.
Even if the Hong Kong protesters had only one goal, which is direct elections of their top executive, this is not the way to accomplish it.
Bringing out dirty laundry, when China, together with other BRICS countries is facing intimidations and direct provocations, is not going to evoke much sympathy in Beijing, or arouse desire to compromise. These are tough and dangerous times, and everyone is edgy.
The mistake of the protesters is that some of them are attacking directly the entire Chinese system, instead of concentrating on local and practical demands. Or maybe, if the goal is to actually destabilize China, then it is a well-planned move, not an error. But it will and should backfire.
In a way, Hong Kong’s ‘Umbrella Movement’ is doing to China what the ‘Euro Maidan’ did to Russia, or what the right-wing protesters in Caracas did to ‘El Processo’.
Willingly or unwillingly, the Hong Kong protest movement joined the network of the color and other ‘revolutions’ designated to destabilize opponents of Western imperialism: those in Syria and Ukraine, in Cuba and Venezuela, in Thailand, Egypt and all over Africa.
When asked, many Hong Kong protesters say that ‘they are not aware of that’. One could state that it would do no harm if they could get at least some political education, before erecting the barricades and ‘unwillingly’ joining the global battles—on the wrong side of history.
***
On the last nigh before leaving Hong Kong, I visited the Mong Kok protest site.
It was tense, but not because police would be bothering to intervene and clean the streets, but because many protesters had been drinking. Stench of alcohol was felt at the ‘frontline’, near the barricade that was separating protesters from police.
“Any developments?” I asked one of the cops.
“Nothing”, he replied. “We are not supposed to do anything.”
“How do you feel about all this?” I asked him, frankly.
“I am not supposed to say anything”, he replied. “Or to do anything.”
But there was one squabble after another among the protesters; not a lovely site, a bit like on Maidan in Kiev.
An old man was yelling at the protest leaders, who felt embarrassed, trying to first push the old man away, then to ridicule him, publicly.
“What is he saying? I asked.
“Nothing!” screams one of the leaders, who did not look much as a democrat. He said his name was Benny. “Don’t worry! You can just leave. We will take care of this ourselves.”
“Take care of what?” I wondered.
“The old man said that he is going to call the People’s Liberation Army on us”, someone whispered into my ear. “Then he suggested that he is going to fight the organizers, kung fu style.”
It said ‘occupied’ on several tents. That was supposed to be quite funny, or witty, or something… Few meters away was a store advertising Rolex watches, next to it a massage parlor.
‘A Rolex revolution’, I thought.
The mood on those protest sites was truly sordid; nothing grand, nothing optimistic, nothing really ‘revolutionary’.
For many long decades, Hong Kong has been busy becoming obnoxiously wealthy by serving faithfully British and other Western colonial and neocolonial interests. It readily betrayed, again and again, its Chinese and Asian identity, siding with the political, military and economic imperialism of Europe and the United States.
It showed no mercy towards the nations destroyed all over Asia Pacific. As long as money flowed, Hong Kong was in business. Money, money, money! Its wealth was often built on the suffering of others. The city was servicing anyone who ruled here, and paid, no matter how appalling were his pains for the rest of Asia.
Of course many of its citizens hate socialism, and especially socialist China, as it is fighting against Western imperialism, alongside Russia, Latin America, South Africa and other nations undergoing true social transformations.
Seeing great Chinese cities grow, all over the mainland, citizens of Hong Kong, or at least some of them, realize that one does not have to rob or to side with the brigands, to become wealthy.
Even those who are fully indoctrinated are subconsciously realizing that something went very wrong with their ‘territory’.
As the waterway between Hong Kong and Kowloon is shrinking due to unbridled development, as new and new malls where almost nobody can afford to shop are growing; as the real-estate is now out of reach for the great majority of the population, Hong Kong now has only two choices: to rethink its own political and economic system, or to sell itself even further, serve the mammon and then bark at the moon or at Beijing!
Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. The result is his latest book: “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. ‘Pluto’ published his discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. His critically acclaimed political novel Point of No Return is re-edited and available. Oceania is his book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and the market-fundamentalist model is called “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. His feature documentary, “Rwanda Gambit” is about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.