The Daily Signal - #525: Protests Escalate in Hong Kong

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

Pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong are intensifying, with the city’s main airport getting shut down. The big question: Will Beijing get involved? In today's episode, we discuss that and more with Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Plus: Miley Cyrus is getting a divorce, and her rationale doesn’t reflect too well on her—or her generation. We discuss.We also cover these stories:-Warden at Jeffrey Epstein's prison gets reassigned in wake of suicide.-States sue President Trump over the repeal of Obama-era power plant rules.-U.S. delays some tariffs on China.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail] Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, August 14th. I'm Rita Dol Judas. And I'm Daniel Davis. Protests in Hong Kong are intensifying with the city's main airport getting shut down. The big question is, will Beijing get involved? Today, we'll discuss that and more with Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation. Plus, Miley Cyrus is getting a divorce and her rationale doesn't reflect too well on her or her generation. We'll discuss.

One last thing. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to leave a review or a review. five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong clashed with police on Tuesday as they occupied the city's airport for the second straight day. The clash left at least one person injured and led to several arrests and caused hundreds of flight cancellations. The airport protest is part of a larger pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong that's been ongoing for the better part of the summer. Their protests originally stemmed from a proposed extradition bill in Hong Kong's legislature, which would have allowed

arrested people in Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China for trial at the request of Beijing. That bill has been tabled but not withdrawn. Protesters have been demanding that it be withdrawn and that the city's chief executive, Carrie Lamb, resign. Meanwhile, China is telling the United States to refrain from commenting on the ongoing protests. In a statement, Hua Chengying, China's foreign ministry spokeswoman called out American lawmakers who have criticized the government, saying, quote, they have disregarded the facts, turned what's black into white, and characterized violent crimes as a beautiful fight for human rights and freedom, and adding, quote, you should take care of your own business. HK is not a matter that needs your worrying.

According to CNBC, quote, Chinese propaganda outlets warned on Tuesday that protesters in Hong Kong are asking for self-destruction, as they released a video showing military vehicles amassing near the border of the city. Well, the warden in charge of the Manhattan jail where Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide has been reassigned, according to NBC News, and the two guards who were assigned to Epstein have been placed on leave. The Justice Department announced the news three days after Epstein, a financier and accused sex trafficker, was found dead in his jail cell from an apparent suicide in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He had previously been placed on suicide watch. The warden, Shirley Skipper Scott, has been reassigned to the Bureau of Prison's Northeast Regional Office pending the outcome of an official investigation into how Epstein managed to kill himself.

Experts say committing suicide in the high security prison was a serious feat that would have required staff failure on multiple levels. Attorney General William Barr has promised to get to the bottom of what happened. 22 states are suing the Trump administration for repealing rules from President Barack Obama's administration to raise. regulate power plant pollution. State attorneys general and major cities involved in the lawsuit argue that the repeal, quote, violates the Clean Air Act by having virtually no impact on carbon emissions, according to the Hill. New York Attorney General Leticia James said in a press release that she doesn't like the new rule, known as the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, because it doesn't regulate climate change. James said the rule, quote, barely mentions climate change,

much less recognizes the dire threat it poses to people's health. the economy and the environment. The rule disregards requirements of the Federal Clean Air Act. The United States has delayed some tariffs set to go into effect on China in September and removed other items from the tariff list altogether. CNBC reports that the U.S. Trade Representative put a delay on tariffs affecting some electronics, including cell phones, laptops, and video game consoles, as well as some clothing products, shoes, and certain toys. items removed from the list entirely have not been specified. The trade representative cited health and security factors in his decision. The decision comes almost two weeks after President Trump announced 10% tariffs on $300 billion

worth of Chinese goods, resulting in a downturn in the stock market. Well, up next, we'll talk to Mike Gonzalez about the protests in Hong Kong. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Well, that's the sound of police confronting pro-democracy protesters at Hong Kong's airport on Tuesday. Protests there have shut down the airport for two days now, as hundreds of flights have been canceled. Joining us now to unpack the situation is Mike Gonzalez.

He's a senior fellow in the Allison Center for Foreign Policy here at the Heritage Foundation. He also lived in Hong Kong for a number of years spread out. between the late 80s and the mid-2000s. Mike, thanks for being back on. Thanks for having me on. So, Mike, these protests have been going on all summer now, and it's really an unprecedented thing to watch, and things are only intensifying.

Can you explain for us how things reach this point of intensity? Yeah, they're quite tense now. I was in Hong Kong during Tiananmen in 89, and of course the parallels already being drawn, although I think that they're exaggerated. I don't think it's going to, I hope it's not going to end up the same way. Basically, the demonstration started very peacefully. One demonstration reputedly drew 2 million people in a city of 7 million people.

So that was, you know, when you think about the elderly cannot go out and the babies cannot go out. This was almost half the population. And they were very peaceful. And now they have devolved into more violence. They've taken over the airport. Demonstrations are smaller. But the people, although we must decry the violence and the means and urge restraint on the demonstrators as well as on the People's Republic of China, you know, what they say is that they were not getting anywhere with polite demonstrations and that they are more extreme action to get their point home. So, Mike, you're saying they're using more extreme action to make their points.

Would you say these protests are still about this extradition bill or have they involved into something else? Well, at heart, they are about the extradition bill. They say that the chief executive, Carrie Lamb, has not really withdrawn the bill. That all it takes is for her to say it's back on. And that the Legchco, the Legislative Council, which is the semi-elected mini-legislature of Hong Kong, could then take it up again. And they went a completely off the books. But really, I think you're right, that it has gone beyond.

what they want is to have their ability to keep their natural rights, the freedoms that now enjoy, they do enjoy freedoms. Hong Kong is a very, very exceptional place in which they do have the basic natural rights of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, the right to private property. What they don't have is self-determination. They don't have, this government does not need to seek their consent to the governed. The government of Hong Kong is basically put in there by the People's Republic of China, which is a communist country.

So I think you're right that it has gone from the narrow goal of getting rid of the extradition bill to a more broad notion that they want to be free and free from encouragement by China. And some are calling for independence from China, which China, I think, will take very badly. And just for our listeners, that extradition bill essentially would have allowed mainland China to request detained people in Hong Kong be transported to the mainland for a country. trial, right? That's right. I mean, just how severe a change is that.

That would have been completely severe. So Hong Kong has the rule of law. The courts of Hong Kong are very just. They have all the law system of their former British masters. China does not have any legal system that we would consider in this country to be just or legal in our way, you know, they can do anything they want with you. They don't respect freedom of speech. I don't respect freedom of conscience.

They don't respect anything. Most freedoms are severely repressed in mainland China. So what the people of Hong Kong are saying is that if any Hong Kong resident or even anybody just transiting through Hong Kong, that is all of a sudden China can have them arrested and taken over across the border to the tender mercy. of the People's Republic of China, quote-unquote, legal system, that would have really been a very basic step backward. And I agree with the people of Hong Kong.

So there's a piece in Providence magazine from our colleague here at Heritage, Olivia Enos, noted that China's director of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office recently said that China would intervene if police couldn't contain the protests. We've also seen reports that China has amassed troops on the border with Hong Kong. Do you think China is likely to get involved militarily? I am not in the business of prognosticating or predicting the future. I would say that I hope not. I've seen the same footage.

I don't know. I saw it on social media. And a couple of radio reports and TV reports have quoted that. Also, I don't know how true those reports are. I've seen the trucks supposedly amassing in Shenzhen, which of course bring back to the very sad memories of Tiananmen Square in 1989. the police in Hong Kong have been able to contain the demonstrations. In fact, the protesters now say that one of the reasons why they have taken over the airport is to protest what they call police violence.

They said the police have been too tough. So I don't know why the PLA, the People's Liberation Army, China's Army, would be needed. But, you know, this is now a situation in which Chinese president, Xi Jinping, who's really a dictator, he may feel the need to demonstrate to his own people on the mainland that he is tough and he will get tough with the people of Hong Kong. The people of Hong Kong, by the way, are not popular with mainlanders. We don't know that for a fact because we don't have real independent opinion polls, but everything we do, we're able to gather from what is said on social media is that the

people of mainland China see the people of Hong Kong as being spoiled, rich people. So indeed Hong Kong has a very high GDP per capita as a very rich place. Well, you mentioned that Hong Kongers don't have the self-determination. You know, because they can't express themselves democratically, they can't fire the people that are governing them. I mean, what recourse do they have? Are these protests just going to keep going on and on? I mean, what really end in sight is there?

Well, that's what they say. I mean, the other side of the argument is, of course, that they do have freedoms, that the people in China do not have. and they could be putting those freedoms at risk. Imagine if China had direct control over Hong Kong, one could imagine that, for example, Hong Kong would lose its cherished right to freedom of religion. That would be unthinkable,

and that would be very sad that if there's seven million people of Hong Kong would all of a sudden not be able to practice Catholicism or the many Protestant denominations that they practice today, or even Buddhism or Taoism or Islam. As we know, China has put nearly three million Uyghurs, that is, you know, Chinese citizens in Western China who practice Islam.

They're in re-education camps. So, you know, it is a very tense moment. The people of Hong Kong, China, Xi Jinping, is highly unlikely to give the people of Hong Kong the direct, complete whole democracy that many of them would want. That is a reality. So these protests have already caused temporary shutdowns of industry and created unpredictable business environments.

Is Hong Kong at risk of losing its status as the main business hub in Asia? No, no, you know, I mean, Hong Kong always bounces back. I remember once my family and I went back in 2003, late 2003, 2004, in Hong Kong had just gone over a very strong epidemic called SARS. And people had, you know, people were selling their houses. Property prices have fallen to all-time lows. I wish that I had taken a loan and bought a house in Hong Kong at that point. I would not be here with you right now.

I'd be some beach in the Caribbean. So China's foreign ministry spokeswoman has called out American politicians for weighing in on the situation, criticizing the way it's been handled in China's, you know, threats to clamp down. How should the U.S. respond to more of the factors at play for us? Well, you know, you're damn. If you do, you don't. China is always going to say, because China's a dictatorship. They don't know how to deal with this. They're always going to say that it's black foreign hands, that's their term, you know,

that are behind the demonstrations. What's the term? Black hands. Black hands. Where does that come from? I don't know. I don't speak Chinese. but the term black hand means foreign interference,

mainly U.S. CIA, whatever. So kind of like Venezuela blaming America for all of its problems. Exactly. Look, we have to go back to what John Quincy Adams said in his famous speech in the 1820s, in which he said that America is not going to search the world for monsters to destroy, and America was not going to become the world's policeman. But he also said in that speech that wherever tyranny fights and oppressed people,

America had to make clear that it was on the, on the side of the oppressed. America is always going to be in the side of freedom. That means a lot to the people around the world who are fighting for freedom. Natanzh Shoransky, the Soviet refuse Nick, when he was in the gulag, he has written very vividly about how much it meant to him and to the people that were in the gulag with him. When Reagan's called out the Soviet Union as being the evil empire, I am not drawing a direct analogy between Shoransky and the people in the gulag and the people of Hong Kong, as I have said repeatedly here, the people of Hong Kong enjoy freedoms, but they want more freedom. And I think that the United States should always be on the side

of people who want freedom. Well, we've seen some American flags also being held out among the protesters and they're, you know, singing the national anthem. So it really does remind you how America is still a symbol of that, even if at home we forget about it, about that. It's not still. America is from the beginning. American exceptionalism is all about the fact that America is a symbol of freedom. It was from the beginning. When John Winthrop was on the Arabella, it is a city on a hill.

It is a city on a hill. I've lived all over the world, live in several continents. America is a symbol of freedom for many people around the world for the whole world, and that's the reason why tyrants hate America. Well, it's a potent reminder

as we observe what's happening in Hong Kong. Mike, thanks for being on. Thank you. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at Letters atdailySignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. Pop star Miley Cyrus is splitting from her husband of eight months, Liam Hemsworth.

A rep for Miley told People magazine, quote, Liam and Miley have agreed to separate at this time, ever evolving, changing as partners and individuals, they have decided this is what's best while they both focus on themselves and careers. They still remain dedicated parents to all their animals they share while lovingly taking this time apart. Please respect their process and privacy, end quote. So, okay, Daniel, what gets me about this statement and about this development with Miley and Liam is the extreme cavalier attitude towards marriage, essentially that if marriage isn't working out and the evolving commitments, these two maid aren't working out

and I love, they said evolving in their statement. Divorce is the only option. What do you make of this, Daniel? What's your thoughts? Yeah, it's interesting that they got married in the first place, I guess, in light of this statement because it seems kind of like

unnecessary. Why, I mean, why do you get married and then just kind of walk away from it as though it never meant anything? I mean, you could argue that about a lot of divorces, but this one in particular the statement, you know, the justification for it is that people are ever evolving, always changing as partners and individuals. And, you know, my thought is don't even get married if that's what you

think about it. If that's the way you think about relationships, don't do it because the marriage is taking a vow to stick together for better or for worse, you know, for richer, for poorer, et cetera. So I guess I'm kind of shocked by the, I mean, I guess not shocked. We should be shocked, but hard to say it's shocked. You know, when you see my lady. Cyrus, you know, in her sort of trend of the last few years. But it's just, I think it just kind of reflects on a larger cultural trend, which is seeing marriage as something that's just easily dissolvable and something that doesn't need to be permanent.

And also the fact that they thought of their animals as their children. Yes, that was bothering me too. It just seemed like an overly, not to like bash on my generation, but an overly millennial thing. you know, speaking of millennial things, maybe we need to make another episode of millennial myths about this. I mean, if you've heard our recent series, millennial myths, a great series, which I recommend, but this could be a seventh episode. It could be for sure. And I have to agree with you on the whole marriage aspect of things. Marriage is commitment. And when you look at the statement and the fact that they were married for only eight months, I mean, it begs the

question too. I mean, did they even try to work on this? Was that something that was important to them? Because why, as you said, Daniel, why do you? get married if I mean obviously people change there's going to be struggles in marriage we all like that's a given that's part of marriage but the fact that it appears that they didn't really work on it they're just like hey this isn't working out we're ever evolving and changing and because of that we're just going to split I mean it's it's definitely a testament to our generation's view of marriage which is like decaying it you know rapidly you know next month we've got the 50th anniversary of no-fault divorce hitting California which

Governor Ronald Reagan actually signed that back in 1969. Interesting that he was the one that signed that. He later regretted that. But it kind of shows the trajectory of where that heads. Once you say you can get divorced, not just because someone was harmed, but for no reason at all, you just want to end it. I think this kind of shows the logical end of that, and it leads to really a lack of stability, right?

I mean, a lack of stability in a relationship. The whole point of marriage is to bring two people together in a secure relationship where nobody can easily get out of it. And, you know, when you enter into a relationship and, you know, marriage, it just becomes, I think there's people are already seeing that there's not really a point to it. If you start making the barrier to entry so low that it really doesn't matter. Right. And exactly. there and there is honestly no point to it if you're not going to try to work through problems, work through differences and challenges that come your way. And if the first, you know,

challenge or disagreement or whatever happened to them, and we don't know, but if you just, you know, after a couple period of months, say, oh, we're splitting, like that's not even what marriage is. So it doesn't even seem like they understand what marriage is. Well, on that positive note, Rachel, we will leave it there for today. Thank you all for listening the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis.

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