The Daily Signal - #531: 'We Are Facing One of the Biggest Authoritarian States’: Hong Kong Politician Speaks Out

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

Pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong continue as China flexes its muscles and warns of an intervention. Today, we feature an exclusive interview with Alvin Yeung, a politician from Hong Kong who supports the protests and hopes to achieve reforms. We also cover these stories:•A new report shows the deficit is skyrocketing thanks to the new spending bill.•The Trump administration is taking action to eradicate an immigration loophole.•President Trump discusses the trade negotiations with 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 Thursday, August 22nd. I'm Kate Trinko. And I'm Daniel Davis. Pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong continue as China flexes its muscles and warns of an intervention. Today, we feature an exclusive interview with Alvin Young, a young politician from Hong Kong who supports the protests and hopes to achieve democratic reform. Plus, Marvel may be dropping Spider-Man. What's that mean for the future of the Marvel universe? Well, our two pop culture gurus, John Cooper, and the Lee, Rampersad, we'll discuss. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review

or a five-star rating on iTunes, and please encourage others to give it a listen. Now on to our top news. And the spending from Washington just keeps coming. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit will be $800 billion larger over the next decade than was previously predicted. The CBO is saying that 2019's deficit will be $960 billion. Between 2020 and 2020, B.O says we should expect deficits to be about $1.2 trillion on average. Heritage Foundation's budget analyst Justin Bogie in an op-ed for the Daily Signal writes, quote, much of the blame for the worsening projections belongs to the passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019,

end quote. That bill was signed into law by President Trump early this month. Bogie adds, quote, The Bipartisan Budget Act increased base discretionary spending by $322,000,000, in over two years and effectively killed one of the last semblances of fiscal restraint intended to slow Washington's appetite for spending. The Trump administration is moving to close a loophole that has stymied the enforcement of immigration laws.

The change would allow illegal immigrant minors to be detained for longer than 20 days. The current 20-day limit was set by what's known as the Flores settlement, a 1997 court agreement that's resulted in families being released into the country after just 20 days in detention. The administration is looking to change that policy through executive action. President Trump made ways by suggesting that support for Democrats by Jewish Americans was disloyal. When asked by a reporter whether that was an anti-Semitic statement, as some of charge, Trump responded this way on Wednesday via ABC News. Isn't that anti-Semitic?

No, no, no, no. It's only in your head. It's only anti-Semitic in your head. If you look at what Talib, Omar, Cortez, if you look at what these people, I say, if you just AOC plus four or plus three, if you look at what they say, they are so bad for Israel, they are so bad for Jewish people, you take a look at the horrible anti-Semitic statements that they've made, you take a look at what they want to do to Israel, take a look at the fact that they want aid, All of the aid, almost $4 billion, all of the aid cut from Israel. You take a look. You know what?

The Democrats have to own it. Well, the president joked earlier in the week about buying Greenland, but it appears he was serious. On Tuesday, he canceled his upcoming trip to Denmark, which owns the mostly frozen island in the North Atlantic. He tweeted, quote, Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mente Fredericksen's comments that she would have. no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time, end quote. He also added, the prime minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future.

President Trump also talked to reporters on Wednesday about the trade negotiations between the U.S. and China. Here's what he had to say via CNN. They want to make a deal. It's got to be a deal that's good for the United States. They want to make a deal. Probably we will make a deal. But if I didn't do that, and I'm not doing that. Somebody said it's Trump's trade war. This isn't my trade war. This is a trade war that should have taken place a long time ago by a lot of other presidents. Over the last five or six years, China's made $500 billion. $500 billion. Ripped it out. out of the United States. And not only that, if you take a look, intellectual property theft,

add that to it, and add a lot of other things to it. So somebody, excuse me, somebody had to do it. I am the chosen one. Somebody had to do it. So I'm taking on China. I'm taking on China on trade. Well, just Tuesday, the president entertained the idea of passing more tax cuts, particularly on capital gains and payroll taxes, but on Wednesday he reversed course, saying, quote, I'm not looking at a tax cut now. We don't need it. We have a strong economy, end quote. Those comments came amid concerns of a potential economic slowdown. The president has pressured the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, which he blamed for recent hiccups in the stock market. Yet another sign of the increasingly strained relations between the U.S. and Iran, a U.S. military drone was shot down while in the area over Yemen. National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquise told CNN, quote, we are aware of reports of an attack by Iranian-backed Houthi forces on a U.S. drone. The president has been briefed and we continue to investigate the matter. And this attack is only possible because of Iran's lethal aid to the Houthis and serves as yet another example of the regime. relentless efforts to escalate conflict and threaten regional stability.

Up next, we'll talk to Alvin Young, a Hong Kong politician about the pro-democracy protests. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org. Well, we're joined now over the phone by Alvin Young. He is an elected representative from Hong Kong, where he leads the pro-democracy civic party and is a member of the Legislative Council. Mr. Young, thanks so much for your time today. Hello.

Thank you for having me. So we've been following the recent protests in Hong Kong as they've developed, but I wanted to take a step back first and get some context. You're an elected member of Hong Kong's legislative body where the economic. extradition bill was originally proposed and then tabled. Can you explain for us why that bill was able to be proposed if it turned out to be so unpopular? Our audience from America have to understand the fact that the Hong Kong legislature is not entirely democratic as it sounds. Half of the legislature was returned by geographical one-person-one-votes system, and that's where I come from, but the other half of it comes from something called functional constituencies,

and they are representatives from different industries like the banking, legal, medical, etc. And some of them have corporate votes. Say not everybody working in a bank gets a vote to vote for their banking representative, but only those bankers or the people who actually owns a bank gets to vote. So there's this inequality in the system. And when the government enjoys a majority because of that system, they would count the vote and they think they could just go ahead on anything controversial. So of course, we've all been following these massive protests. And is the main thing at state the extradition bill or are there other issues, other demands from the protesters of things they want to see changed? At the beginning, people in Hong Kong,

took to the street to protest against this highly controversial extradition bill. But shortly after we understand that it goes way beyond the bill, it's the system itself. The system cannot reflect what people really want. When the chief executive is not being elected by the people, when half of the legislature is not being elected by the people, then we demand democracy. We demand the fact that we have a right to directly elect and... choose the chief executive and the full legislature. And are there any other demands that the protesters are looking to get? We are demanding the government to stop prosecuting people who participated in all this protests

over the past two and a half months. We are also demanding the government to withdraw the labeling of this protest as rioting. This is just plainly wrong. So is there a path toward that kind of reform you're looking for? What's the strategy going forward? Right now the ball is in the court of the Hong Kong government and Beijing. If they really treasure Hong Kong, especially this very special city, then they have to understand that what Hong Kong people are demanding for

are not something so unreasonable. We are not asking for the moon. We are simply asking for something that was promised by Beijing, as stated clearly in the basic law. Basic law is our mini-constitution. So how does your party and other politicians in your party feel about the protests right now? We understand that Hong Kong people are so united. We stand in solidarity.

Over the past weekend or two, we saw Hong Kong immigrants protesting around the world in support of Hong Kong people. We understand that the world is watching. And we are also asking the world, the international community, to continue paying everything. attention in support of Hong Kong people's peaceful demonstrations. Well, we've seen reports that the Chinese military is doing drills in Shenzhen right across from Hong Kong. How would you and your political allies respond if China decided to intervene? We do have a fear that the army or the armed police would be deployed to Hong Kong. But again, this is why we are asking international community to continue paying attention.

attention to Hong Kong. Never forget, Hong Kong is not an ordinary city of China. We are not in isolation. Hong Kong is an international financial city, which the United States have huge amounts, billions of dollars of investments, and with 85,000 of United States nationals working or living in Hong Kong. So that would not only affect and harm Hong Kong, that will also harm the rest of the world who has a stake in Hong Kong. I just hope that, basically, region would have the wisdom not to deploy troops in Hong Kong because that will end one country to systems. So there's been concerns, particularly with this action from China, that this could end up being another Tiananmen Square. Do you think that that analogy makes sense or do you reject it?

Again, I do share that fear that Hong Kong will become another Tiananmen Square. But then, again, I have to repeat this. We are now in 2019. is not one, 1989, Hong Kong is not another tandem. For the simple fact that we are an open society, the world is watching, we're well connected to the rest of the world, anything that happens in Hong Kong would be seen in everyone's TV screen or phone screen within seconds. So if Beijing dares to really risk the special status of Hong Kong, then it would be extremely wrong to them. Well, and of course, so much of this for audience comes in the context of this 50-year,

window between the handover in 1997 and 2047 when Hong Kong is scheduled to return fully to the Chinese system. How do you and your political allies look toward the future, looking at that 2047 deadline? Would you like to see it delayed or some alternative future? We are working very hard to lay foundations for the future negotiation with Beijing, if that ever happens, that we wish to see Hong Kong states unique. We wish to see Hong Kong state as a member of liberal democracy that we share, the values that we share with the rest of the world, at least the Western world, that freedom of speech

can be upheld, that we can still have free elections, although these are the things that are encroaching. These are the things that we are facing challenges with. Right now, Hong Kong is under challenge on different fronts, all different fronts. But then we are urging the rest of the world to pay attention to Hong Kong so that we can continue to enjoy the freedoms that we were supposed to have. And have you been able to participate in any of these protests yourself? Yes, I have been joining different protests or standing at the forefront. Not all of them, but most of them.

And what is the experience like? What are people saying? How long are they out there? I think, you know, it's just extraordinary. I believe one of them had what, one out of every seven people in Hong Kong was saying? I mean, those numbers are just unheard of. What is it like on the ground when you're there? Yeah, I have to tell our audience here that Hong Kong has around 7 million people of population, but in early June, we had 1 million people talk to the street in opposition to the bill.

And one week later, we had 2 million people talk to the streets. And over the past two and a half months, we have all different kinds of protests or demonstrations against police brutality, against the fact that this government is not listening. And most recently, in the last weekend, we had 1.7 million people talk to the streets in a peaceful manner under the rain to tell the rest of the world, and of course, Hong Kong and Beijing government that all we are asking for are, number one, democracy, and number two, a formal withdrawal of the bill and investigation of police misconduct. Well, we've seen so many of those powerful images and even videos of protesters recently waving American flags and singing the Star-Spangled banner. What role should the United States be playing in this, if at all?

I'm here in the United States right now while we are talking to have a dialogue, a Hong Kong-U.S. dialogue with U.S. congressmen and senators. And we are telling our friends here to continue paying attention to Hong Kong. As Hong Kong is not stand in isolation, we are at the forefront of two different ideas, that is the liberal democracy's ideas, and we are facing this one of the biggest authoritarian states on earth. And so Hong Kong cannot stay alone. We need support, at least as moral support or any kind of support from the rest of the world, so that we understand we are not fighting this fight just on our own. Is there anything else that we didn't ask you about that you think Americans should know?

I appreciate the attention and care and supports paid by Americans over the past two and a half months. I just wish that that could continue because we need support from the rest of the world, especially those from the United States of America. All right, Alvin Young, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you very much. What the heck is trickle-down economics? Does the military really need a space force? What is the meaning of American exceptionalism? I'm Michelle Cordero.

I'm Tim Desher. And every week on the Heritage Explains podcast, we break down a hot button policy issue in the news at a 101 level. Through an entertaining mix of personal stories, media clips, music, and interviews, we help you actually understand the issues. So do this. Subscribe to Heritage Explains on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcast today.

So if you're a fan of comic book movies, you might have heard that due to complicated negotiations between two studios, Spider-Man may no longer be part of the Marvel Comics universe. I'm going to turn it over to Thalia Rampersat. She is a producer at the Daily Signal and at the Heritage Foundation, and she has a lot of thoughts. Kate, we need to unpack why Twitter erupted and why the fans for the Marvel Comics universe are up in arms.

And that includes Celia. So a deadline article was released on Tuesday. And it was basically stating that the Marvel Studios, under the ownership of Disney and Sony, had failed to renew their partnership in regards to Spider-Man continuing to exist in the Marvel Comics universe and have creative input from Marvel Studios as well as the producer Kevin Feigy. So, rewinding back to the release of Spider-Man Far From Home, which was released on June 28th. There was a report that the movie needed to make $1 billion for the partnership to continue. And of course, as the fans know, they surpassed.

that milestone and the worldwide total grossed $1.1.1 billion. So once the fans heard that, they were like, oh, great, that's awesome. Sony and Disney are going to be in partnership for forever, and it's going to be a great extension of the Marvel Comics universe. The deal that they had originally started was that Marvel would get 5% of the first dollar grossed when Spider-Man released in theaters, and Sony would get final creative say. So it was kind of a balance there. And then when they came back to the table, which is the deal that everyone's talking about now, Disney and Marvel together wanted to be in a 50-50 split, both in terms of financing and getting the gross domestic product,

which basically Disney owns the rights to all of the merchandising. And so from a business perspective, you can see why Sony is pulling out of the deal because they aren't getting the profits from merchandising, which pulls in an incredible amount of sales every single year. Okay, but from a fan perspective. So, yeah, so let me, so I've tackled... Why are you upset?

Why does Spider-Man need to be in this universe? Sure. So I've tackled kind of the back. and what the inner workings are between the two companies and where the debacle's happening there. But the explosion amongst Twitter and all of the fans are really focusing on the storyline and what's going to happen to Spider-Man, specifically the Spider-Man Tom Holland is playing right now, the one that's been thrown into the MCU. In the deadline article, they alluded to the fact that there are two planned Spider-Man movies in production,

both including Tom Holland and John Watts as the actor and the director, respectively. And as things stand right now amongst the debate and the decision made, they're not going to be in the MCU. And the films are set now to be in quote, Sony's universe of Marvel characters, which I have no idea what that means. And that's kind of what everyone is confused about. And so Spider-Man is still considered to be an Avenger, but to be able to navigate that world and Spider-Man in the Avengers world and the MCU without referencing the MCU, that proves to be

a whole other mountain to climb, which we don't know. how they're going to do creatively. And in terms of the storyline, we have no idea what's going to happen. And just to kind of tackle what you mentioned about Toby McGuire and how you, the last- I don't feel that story about Tony McGuire's. Well, no, no, no, no. We're just saying like those movies specifically, what they focused on when they were writing those films because they weren't involved in the MCU was they were focusing on the relationship

between Aunt May and Peter Parker and Aunt May and Uncle Ben. And you saw those storylines really play out with those actors and those characters. And so when Spider-Man got taken into the MCU, the relationship kind of pivoted and focused more on Tony Stark and Peter Parker. And that was more of the bedrock of the last two Spider-Man films when they were in... Who's Tony Stark? That guy, good guy. Tony Stark is Iron Man.

I should know that. Yes. Okay. So, yeah, so Tony Stark is Iron Man. And that relationship was also super solid in the last two Avengers films. Well, I'm very happy for them. We also have in studio doing the opposite of mansplaining and just sitting quietly listening, John Cooper, who's a media relations guru at the Heritage Foundation.

That's probably not how he self-identifies, but whatever. Anyway, John, you are also super worked up over this, so let it go. I'm actually not super worked up over this. Okay, fake news. Sorry, guys. Yeah, a little bit. And I'll tell you why. I think it's because, at least for the MCU and the characters that we've come to know

over so long, Spider-Man is a relatively new addition to the MCU. I mean, his first appearance was in 2016 in Captain America Civil War when he first meets Tony and everything in that film. And so even though he is quite possibly the iconic Marvel character, just historically, Spider-Man makes the most money in terms of comic book sales and merchandise sales and has, you know, over previous decades. In terms of this iteration of the movies, like he's not really foundational. And I would argue that he's still not really foundational to the MCU. And I don't think that he's going to be made, you know, like the next, to take the mantle of Tony. I don't think he's, I don't think he's got the clout. I don't think that's who Tom Holland is acting as as Spider-Man.

But I do think he fills a very particular niche in the MCU. And he plays that relatable neighborhood Spider-Man. And they even kind of wink at that in some of the films, or in both of the films, honestly, that he's, you know, been featured in terms of him starring as Spider-Man. which makes them just a more relatable character. It kind of brings it back down to kind of the person-to-person thing. You know, for all these recent Marvel movies have been so big and so epic and rightfully so and really enjoyable. But the Spider-Man films, both Homecoming and far from home, are much more like Peter Parker is a high school student and kind of dealing with what that means, you know, as a superhero that almost no one knows a superhero, but he's also trying to like do homework and, you know, go on school trips while still being Spider-Man. Sounds stressful.

Yeah, a little of that. And it's kind of funny how that all works out for him in various circumstances. But I do think that it would be really unfortunate if Sony decided to kind of take all of that back from Marvel because Sony's already demonstrated that they can't functionally, they can't carry on a functional Spider-Man universe. They tried this already with Andrew Garfield back earlier this decade, the Amazing Spider-Man series. And they just, weren't great for a number of reasons, which we're not going to get into on this podcast, but they just weren't very good films. And why on earth would you want to, you know, if you're a fan of Spider-Man, why would you want Sony taking back creative control of a character with whom they have really failed

to be successful in the first place recently? The second Amazing Spider-Man movie came out. I think it was in 2013 or 2014. I think it was 2014. I mean, so it's been pretty recently that they've kind of, have stepped in it with this character. So I think Marvel is on pretty solid ground to say we have a better shot at making Tom

Holland and Spider-Man a better lasting character in the MCU than Sony going out on their own and trying to come up with who knows what. I mean, maybe they try to tie it to the new Venom movie that came out recently because Sony owns, you know, Sony produced that. But who knows, whereas Marvel's got a much better track record. And we all should just like trust them to do a much better job. So you said you're not as concerned as Leah. But are you going to be unhappy if they end up reaching a deal that lets Spider-Man stay in the Marvel comic universe?

No, I think that would be great. And I would love Tom Holland. I would love Spider-Man to stay in the MCU. I would prefer that Sony not have any control over, you know, the creative process. Because, like I said, they've really screwed it up in the past and just tried to do way too much. And it really fell apart because they tried to do so much. I think that this creative team with Marvel, you know, under Kevin Feige's direction, but some good direction from Watts has really, it's connected, I think, fans with that neighborhood Spider-Man, that high school-age Spider-Man,

who's kind of figuring out who in the world he is, and especially now post-Avangers, post-end game. Like, he's not going to be the core Avenger or anything, but he is going to take on more of a role in this universe, and he's going to take on more responsibility. And I think that's going to be, it's going to be really unfortunate if Sony kind of yanks all that back. It would be really, really dissonant, I think. I would go even a step further than what John was saying and say that they have left all of the fans on a massive cliffhanger in Spider-Man Far From Home. And Spider-Man Far From Home really teed it up for Peter Parker to become the next Iron Man to become the lead Avenger. It's not going to take one movie to do that.

I think it's going to take a longer amount of time. But they have really, you know, teed us up to cheer on Peter Parker. Parker and Spider-Man. And major spoiler alert in the very end credit scene of Spider-Man far from home, Peter Parker's identity is revealed and the entire city now knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. And that's it. That's where it's cut off. So we have no idea what's going to happen next.

And it's going to be massive shoes for Sony to fill on their own, apart from MCU, without having... I'm just going to throw it out here. You could imagine what would happen next. you could read fanfic. Like, you don't have to, like, it's not dead if they don't make the movies. Well, the thing is they are, so they are making the movies? But the thing is, are they going to continue such a strong storyline as they have in the past?

But you could make up a different storyline. Me, myself. Yeah. I don't know. Like. Yeah, but that's not half as fulfilling and watching it on a massive screen, Kate. I'm just saying. Come on.

I don't know. Whatever. Yeah, they've clearly set up, like, it seems like there's a clear direction where Marvel had wanted to go with this, and that's why they ended on that cliffhanger. And the way that Marvel plans these things, they plan almost a decade into the future with these movies. So they clearly know what they want to do. And honestly, that leads me to believe that a lot of this is probably just a negotiating tactic to begin with, because Marvel's not about to let a franchise like this get away from them. Because even if they're only pulling 5% of that gross dollar,

that's still a ton of money that they're more than happy to take in along with the merchandising rights and everything like that. So I think it's, It's probably more likely a negotiating ploy by both sides to try to get what they want out of this. But yeah, it would be really disappointing if everything that they've built up with Tom Holland's Spider-Man. I mean, he would still be Tom Holland, but everything they've built up with his storyline so far. It would go away if Sony got creative control of that. And that would be unfortunate. And I just want to say I would be remiss if I didn't say Spider-Man is indeed far from home.

Well, Leah and John, our two pop culture gurus, thanks for being on once again. Thanks for having us. Oh, yeah. That's going to do it for us today. Thanks for listening to 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 except not on Spider-Man because I don't care. We'll see you again tomorrow.

The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Lauren Evans and Thalia Ramprasad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com. Thank you.