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Hong Kong Government Tells Schools To Remove Books Breaching Security Law (nst.com.my) 108

Posted by msmash from the dangerous-precedent dept.
Hong Kong's government on Monday ordered schools to review and remove any books that might breach a sweeping new security law that Beijing imposed last week on the restless city. From a report: "In accordance with the four types of offences clearly stipulated in the law, the school management and teachers should review teaching and learning materials in a timely manner, including books," the Education Bureau said. "If they find outdated content or content that may concern the four aforementioned offences, they should remove them," the bureau added. Last week China enacted a security law outlawing four national security crimes: subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces. Authorities promptly declared political views espousing independence or self-autonomy would be viewed as illegal under the new law.

Rights groups and legal analysts have warned the broad wording of the law, which was kept secret until it was passed, would have a chilling effect of political freedoms in the semi-autonomous hub. The order for schools to review and remove any contraband books comes two days after Hong Kong's libraries said they were also pulling titles deemed to breach the law for a review. Among those withdrawn from shelves was one by prominent activist Joshua Wong, another by pro-democracy lawmaker Tanya Chan and multiple other titles written by Chin Wan, a scholar who is seen as the godfather of a "localist" movement advocating greater self-determination for the city. Hong Kong has some of Asia's best universities and a campus culture where topics that would be taboo on the mainland are still discussed and written about.
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Hong Kong Government Tells Schools To Remove Books Breaching Security Law More

Hong Kong Government Tells Schools To Remove Books Breaching Security Law

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  • Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:09PM (#60268088)

    Mainland China going full Hitler. You never go full Hitler.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      I'd say Stalin or Mao would be more appropriate, even if only marginally.

      • Not sure about your comment, but both Stalin and Mao were actually far worse than Hitler.

        Soviet citizens lived in a constant state of fear. Mao's ruthless autocratic rule had some 20 million starve to death, and all of China was fearfully hungry. The average non-Jew German was not terrified of Hitler, unless an allied bomb fell nearby.

        There are several shades of black.

    • Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:22PM (#60268166) Journal

      I'd say they're going full China. Hong Kong's special status within the PRC has been rendered almost meaningless. The residents of Hong Kong can be treated precisely as people on the Mainland, with but a rubber stamp to sweep away any of the special rights they enjoyed. It's done, it's over, and we might as well give up on Hong Kong. Those that can get out will get out, but the Security Law will be used to harass their friends and relatives even if they do move to Western countries.

      The notion that liberalizing trade with China would liberalize the PRC has been proven hopelessly naive. Beijing is now all there is, and we know how the political masters of China feel about dissent. Going forward, let's not be under any illusions about who it is that runs every square inch of the Peoples Republic of China.

      So far as I'm concerned, the West should abrogate the geopolitical fiction that Taiwan is an integral part of China, in some sort of holding pattern just waiting for the whole One Nation Two Systems policy to cement itself. That policy is a farce. Time to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state, and park major fleets in the South China Sea.

      • Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)

        by SkonkersBeDonkers ( 6780818 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:38PM (#60268246)

        I've always felt that the problem with the idea of well if we engage with China enough and, especially, if we have loads of their university students come to the west, then slowly the people will see how superior our systems are and "overthrow" the communist party is that it presupposes that they would see our systems and think that. AFAIK the vast majority of Chinese are perfectly happy with their government (or at worst see it as no more than a necessary evil and there is no necessarily better alternative anyway) and western exceptionalists lose sight of the fact that even if there are 100 million Chinese that are unhappy, that still makes them less than 10% of the population.

        or TL; DR - most Chinese don't look at the USA and think "we want that", they look at it and think "man, what a chaotic mess, glad we aren't there."

        • Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

          by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:59PM (#60268326) Journal

          I think most people in China probably look at the standard of living, and want *that*. The masters in Beijing are dedicated towards delivering a standard of living comparable to that that many Westerners enjoy. The fiction, as it turns out, is that economic liberalization must necessitate political liberalization. That is where Western bias crept in, because that's how things worked out in the West, in particular in the 17th to 20th centuries. We just assumed that another culture would follow the same trajectory; economic rights integrally linked to political rights. In the very long run, maybe the students of Western political theory may be right, but the reality as I see it, from the time of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms beginning in the late 1970s, there was never any real intention of loosening Beijing's political strangle-hold.

          You can make money in China. You can become stinking filthy rich in China. But if you want to keep your money and your status, you will have to swear absolute fealty to the Party. Deng Xiaoping transformed China from a Communist dictatorship into a technocratic dictatorship. But a dictatorship it is, with a diluted rule of law, where it exists at all.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            That's true, but in all honesty this is why I don't actually see China as a major global military threat like, say, Russia is.

            The problem China has is that if it were to go on a major overseas military adventure that leaves it's many flanks exposed - Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong.

            It's just got too much internal resistance to take it's eye off the ball internally to focus externally militarily. This is for what it's worth why Iran is now struggling, because it's adventures into Syria, Iraq, and Yemen we

            • It's just got too much internal resistance to take it's eye off the ball internally to focus externally militarily.

              I don't know it sure doesn't seem like that to me. It feels like Chinese citizens are completely brainwashed as to their destiny to rule the world and the ultimate power of their ruler to get them there.

              Compare that to the US where we are completely divided to the point where our political parties literally agree on nothing... if the law / measure was proposed by the other side it'll be blocked regardless.

              How long until China's spokespeople in the US like Lebron James start affecting culture? How do young b

              • Compare that to the US where we are completely divided to the point where our political parties literally agree on nothing

                Oh, I think the issue is quite the opposite. They agree on a little too much [netflix.com], and contribute their own special window dressings.

                Fellowship Foundation is best known for the National Prayer Breakfast [wikipedia.org], held each year on the first Thursday of February in Washington, D.C.[22][33] First held in 1953, the event is now attended by over 3,400 guests including dignitaries from many nations. The President of the United States typically makes an address at the breakfast, following the main speaker's keynote address. The event is hosted by a 24-member committee of members of Congress. Democrats and Republicans serve on the organizing committee, and chairmanship alternates each year between the House and the Senate.

                [Fellowship members] share a vow of silence about Fellowship activities. Oddly, it is categorized under US law as a church rather than a political lobbying organization, so financial sources and budget expenditures remain unknown. Coe and others cite biblical admonitions against public displays of good works, insisting they would not be able to tackle their diplomatically sensitive missions if they drew public attention. Members, including congressmen, invoke this secrecy rule when refusing to discuss just about every aspect of the Fellowship and their involvement in it.[8]

                Jeff Sharlet stated in an NBC Nightly News report that when he was an intern with the Fellowship "we were being taught the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin and Mao" and that Hitler's genocide "wasn't really an issue for them, it was the strength that he emulated."[37] He opined that the Fellowship fetishizes power by comparing Jesus to "Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden" as examples of leaders who change the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their 'brothers'".[16][18] In his book The Family, Sharlet said Fellowship leader Doug Coe preached a leadership model and a personal commitment to Jesus Christ comparable to the blind devotion that Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot demanded from their followers.[38]

                In one videotaped lecture series in 1989, Coe said,

                Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense power these three men had... But they bound themselves together in an agreement... Jesus said, 'You have to put me before other people. And you have to put me before yourself.' Hitler, that was the demand to be in the Nazi party. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives ahead of your own life and ahead of other people.[37][38]

          • Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

            by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @03:42PM (#60268788)

            The fiction, as it turns out, is that economic liberalization must necessitate political liberalization.

            It worked in many other places. It was also working in China before Xi Jinping. Human rights were (slowly) improving. But Xi has now had himself declared dictator for life and is backsliding into strong authoritarianism and more economic centralization.

            that's how things worked out in the West

            It also worked that way in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Political liberalism followed in the footsteps of prosperity.

            Deng Xiaoping transformed China from a Communist dictatorship into a technocratic dictatorship.

            That is a bit unfair. Deng tried to put checks and balances in place to prevent another Mao Ze Dong. He failed, but he tried.

            • Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06, 2020 @05:06PM (#60269094)

              That is a bit unfair. Deng tried to put checks and balances in place to prevent another Mao Ze Dong. He failed, but he tried.

              This.

              Deng Xiaoping was the one who implemented the two-term limit, and abided by it himself. The leaders who followed after him all did not even attempt to change it... until Xi Jinping.

              People in China were saying (quietly) that even Deng Xiaoping himself did not try to stay on for more than two terms while Xi Jinping dared....
              One man on their rubber-stamp committee actually dared to vote against it. No idea where he is now.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
          Most people are followers, absent any disruptive influences if you give them enough food and basic necessities they'll let you be as rotten as you want. Heck even with inadequate necessities just threaten them a bit and they'll get in line. The trope of the common dumb peasant overthrowing the overlord that becomes too oppressive is largely a myth. More often the overlord gets overthrown because they get too lax and only are somewhat oppressive instead of extremely oppressive. Thats why the bumbling French

          • Thats why the bumbling French King gets overthrown while North Korea endures.

            France was ruled by Kings and Queens for far, far longer than NK has had a dictator.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            It only takes one bumbling king. Bound to happen over a millenia.

            • When France was in this mode where were the examples of the democratic nations to give them a picture of what they would change to?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

          > I've always felt that the problem with the idea of well if we engage with China enough and, especially, if we have loads of their university students come to the west, then slowly the people will see how superior our systems are and "overthrow" the communist party is that it presupposes that they would see our systems and think that.

          It backfired. China showed the west how leaving morons unchecked could destabilize a functioning government.

          Now we have "Karens" being killed on interstate highways.

        • it is not the people but the government.

      • China was doing reasonably well until Xi in terms of liberalization.

        Sad for Hong Kong though. Still have a number of friends there, and it looks like it is going to be a mess. Most will move, but that is a bit tricky right now with COVID, and they will mostly take a bath in selling their places.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Time to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state

        No Its time to go back to considering Taiwan and its ROC government as the lawful government of All of China. The PRC is not a legitimate by the people for the people government. It is the product of a violent anti-democratic take over the exiled China's real government to Taiwan. The responsible thing to do is let Beijing know in no-uncertain-terms that if they move against Taiwan the ICBMs and high-yield warheads will rain down upon them. We should server all diplomatic and trade ties with the mainland

        • Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @02:01PM (#60268342) Journal

          I don't think the people of Taiwan are the least bit interested in the defunct Nationalist notions of Taipei being home to the Chinese government in exile. I think they just want to become a nation state in the full sense of the word.

          Of course, the PRC will block Taiwan from joining the UN and other international agencies as a full member, and will otherwise try to make Taiwan's life miserable. But that's why the defense of Taiwan as a major obstacle to Chinese ambitions in the region is so important.

          • I don't think the people of Taiwan are the least bit interested in the defunct Nationalist notions of Taipei being home to the Chinese government in exile.

            Indeed. Those notions were long used as a tool of repression by the KMT.

            The people of Taiwan are 2% of China, so that is all their vote counted, while the KMT would represent the other 98% by default in a legislature that supposedly represented "all of China".

            This allowed the KMT to have the facade of democracy while giving the people no actual voice.

            Ending that charade is what gave real democracy to the people of Taiwan.

      • The notion that liberalizing trade with China would liberalize the PRC has been proven hopelessly naive.

        It is hopelessly naive to believe that was the intent.

        Business is business. These people don't squabble over any "idealism". It's pure animal.

        Time to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state, and park major fleets in the South China Sea.

        If the speculators see profit, you will get your war.

      • If there was a +6 mod, this post should get it.

      • Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @03:18PM (#60268686)

        China in the last couple of decade has gotten very aggressive in many ways, subtle or blatant. From expanding their supposed borders in small ways, claiming disputed territory as their own, created islands, constructing buildings at the disputed border with india, and so forth. Other countries don't push back on this, as each small incident by itself is not worth the of starting a major war, nothing is quite the invasion of Czechoslovakia or the assassination of an Arch Duke. It is conducting serious crimes with the Uighurs, essentially enforced birth control on most of the women, and no one pushed back too hard. So it feels it can get away with essentially violating its agreement over Hong Kong, because it knows no one is going to fight back.

        I also find it so amazingly Orwellian the language China uses when telling other countries to back off. Either they've got a bizarre English dictionary, their Google Translate has got some bugs, or there's a massive level of arrogance. The officials feel more like they are lecturing to other governments like they were school children rather than being diplomatic. Ie, the UK was told just yesterday to not be "irresponsible". Very often we're told that that a statment or action "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people." Several countries have complained that the ambassadors from China were very rude or had behavior not becoming to a diplomat.

        • It's totally expected that China's ambassadors are rude. The "cultural revolution" purposefully fostered vulgarity as a way of separating themselves from bourgeois elites. If you grew up in China during this time, you better be vulgar or risk being ostracized or worst. https://scholar.harvard.edu/el... [harvard.edu]
        • on top of this no one wants to start a war that they cannot or may not win so it needs to be fairly extreme. Invading Czechoslovakia is the perfect example people want peace (especially politicians who only are in power for 4 to 8 years.) What China is doing in HK is pushing things but they will keep pushing. However they do have some concern with Trump and would love to see a Dem in his place. The rest of the world outside the US would not. Especially Taiwan and India right now.
        • who's fighting china on the world stage the most? the US.

          who in the US championed this response of all people? trump.

          if trump is a broken clock, it's rather sad a broken clock was our wake-up call.
          (of course trump isnt the primary reason there is now a more critical eye on china; just saying that trump rang the "wtf china" bell in the US, and the US' subsequent actions rang the bell for others.)

      • "rights they enjoyed. It's done, it's over, and we might as well give up on Hong Kong. Those that can get out will get out"

        I doubt it. I wouldn't sit at the harbor waiting for
        the boats filled with HK refugees to arrive.

        They have a fairly decent standard of living, and as
        long as that's in place, politics come second with
        your average HK citizen.

        Even during the decades of Soviet rule in Russia, we did not see
        Russians come here in droves, except maybe at
        the very beginning of communism there.

        • Before the turn over, a lot of affluent Hong Kong residents began buying property elsewhere, particularly where there were already thriving ethnic Chinese community, out of fear that after the take over, whatever deal Britain and China worked out, it wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on. Well, it took 23 years longer than expected for Beijing to finally overawe Hong Kong, so I'd say, with the likelihood of Hong Kong's special status with a number of Western nations probably about to be terminated,

      • The residents of Hong Kong can be treated precisely as people on the Mainland

        Why wouldn't they be. That was always the plan and everyone knows it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sd4f ( 1891894 )

        The issue with recognising Taiwan is that the PRC has announced their terms for war in their anti-secession law of 2005. Basically the current political stalemate is a result of this law, and the international community not wanting to provoke the PRC. In short, China's policy is that they will reunify Taiwan with China. Any secession will result in war, and international recognition may result in war.

        From wikipedia these are the three terms for war; - if events occur leading to the "separation" of Taiwan fr

    • Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:38PM (#60268248) Journal

      Got news for you. China has pretty much been "full Hitler" / "Full Stalin" for quite some time.

      Totalitarian radical anti-family policy / the state is your family: Check
      Ethnic Cleansing/Genocide: Check
      Mass propaganda via state controlled media: Check
      Extra Legal Killings / Disappearings of Political dissents: check

      People only think the PRC is "less evil" than the Nazis or the Stalinists because they are willfully blind.

      • People only think the PRC is "less evil" than the Nazis or the Stalinists because they are willfully blind.

        It's the Eddie Izzard sketch:

        "But there were other mass murderers that got away with it! Stalin killed many millions, died in his bed, well done there; Pol Pot killed 1.7 million Cambodians, died under house arrest at age 72, well done indeed! And the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own people, and we're sort of fine with that. “Ah, help yourself,” you know? “We've been trying to kill you for ages!” So kill your own people, right on there. Seems to b

    • So where's the banned books list? Gentlepersons, start your torrent servers.

    • unless you are Hitler (or part of the current left.)

  • Book burnings next ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Voice of satan ( 1553177 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:17PM (#60268140)

    So, what's next ? Public book burning ?

  • And thus it starts... Sigh

  • Watching China squeeze Hong Kong ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @01:55PM (#60268308)
    ... is watching a blueprint for what China wants to do to the rest of the world. CCP is evil.

  • But don't call them fascist (Score:5, Insightful)

    by clawsoon ( 748629 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @02:26PM (#60268458)

    The other day I was reading No, China Isn’t ‘Fascist’ [thediplomat.com]. It argues that:

    China is a unique civilization-state, rather than a Western style nation-state.

    This, of course, is what German fascists argued about themselves and the German colonists who had settled various parts of Eastern Europe and Russia over the previous centuries. It's part of what justifies using military force to create an empire. You're not just a state with boundaries that need to be respected, you're a civilization and that means you have to rule over all the places where people who are part of your civilization live.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by havana9 ( 101033 )
      Because China is communist, excuse me. Not that communism is the opposite of fascism, both are generating authoritarian regimes.

    • China is a unique civilization-state, rather than a Western style nation-state.

      This is always the biggest cop-out that Mainland China likes to play, that somehow China is so different, so alien, that democracy and human rights are somehow different for them. Unfortunately for the communists, Taiwan and Hong Kong (before the National Security Law kerfuffle) demonstrated that Chinese people and Chinese civilization are more than capable, and in fact thrive, under democratic governance. You can even expand it further to the broader Confucian universe that includes South Korea, Japan, and

  • Solution for Hong Kong: (Score:3)

    by CaptainDork ( 3678879 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @02:36PM (#60268492)

    Throw some goddam tea in a harbour.

    Until then, toe the line.

    • Throw some goddam tea in a harbour.

      Until then, toe the line.

      I think HK has resisted as much as they can. They don't have the advantages the American colonists did. And keep in mind that even with all of their advantages, the US colonists nearly lost, and had the UK really decided to care they absolutely would have lost.

  • They'll get to the statues next. After all, History must be purged of anything considered "bad". It's for the children!

  • https://twitter.com/danielhkwa... [twitter.com]

    Is there something about being Asian that makes you want to ban books you don't like? (Only kidding - becoming totalitarian can happen to anyone with a weak mind).

  • Handed back (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sectokia ( 3999401 ) on Monday July 06, 2020 @03:08PM (#60268656)
    HK was lost when it was handed back to China on a silver platter... The way the west bent over to China is laughable.

    • From day one I saw that as a major boneheaded move. Done probably to save money on British defense spending. I think it's safe to say the sun finally has set on the British Empire.

  • What the state did to Uighurs was a preview on what is to come. The governments can and do become very insensitive to human needs when they want to "implement" something. And when challenged they will cite "progress", and/or "security".

    When times are rough, like early days of the state, they actually want cooperation from all parties. Heck, when the current China was founded the Red army fought alongside the capitalist one for the independence. Then their once partners were the first one to be eliminated. W

    • The Tibetans were a preview of the current Uighur situation.

      Also note that you don't see Hollywood running around doing stuff like "Free the Uighurs" speech night at the Oscars, as they did with "Free Tibet". What's the difference? All that Chinese money now sloshing around Hollywood, of course.

  • A gpod ol' fashioned book burning. Seems history repeats itself.

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