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[Edit in 22 July]Finally, people of Yuen Long had enough with this nonsense and decide to protect their home.Defend the harmony of Yuen Long, protect local peace. ——6th village of Yuen Long.1899, British army invaded Yuen Long, and went into the heavy resistance of local people.1941, Japanese army invaded Yuen Long, and went into the local guerrillas2014, when the rioters of occupying central invaded Yuen Long, they got kicked away by locals.2019, the rioters wanted to take over Yuen Long again, and got defeated one more time.Yuen Long people are native HK people. Because of the unification, defeated invaders one time after the other. As a Yuen Long resident, I sincerely invite people living in other regions to move here. (I am not sure about the last sentence, since its Cantonese).#Yuen Long people are true HK people #I love Yuen Long.Protect Yuen Long, protect homeland.Put the fight aside, strive for HK.The hope of HK is in Yuen Long. Tonight, the Yuen Long people which are mainly hakka wearing white shirts, holding Chinese flags, pushed all the way to Admiralty, and had encountered the HK separatist who are mainly South Asian immigrant and wearing black shirts.Most black shirts ran away. Some of them were concentrated to the middle section, and avoid being beaten up by the local police. (my comment: If you remember those “protecters” surrounding police HQ)Earlier this day, those black shirts, by the support of foreign intelligence, assaulted LOCPG office and paint insulting words such as “chink” on the walls.Tonight those rioters wearing black shirts and masks going to Yuen Long to make chaos. They got beaten by the local people and ran away, some got protect by the police and got away safely. Those fuckers (this is about the same as what the original post) beat up police when it’s peaceful, and asking protection from the police when facing situations. Really some “XXXXXXX”.applauding for the Yuen Long locals, it’s very satisfying to the people.I believe above photo is where the LOCPG office located. Its initial name in Chinese is “中联办”, and the rioters painted “支联办”. “支” is from “支那”, which is an insulting word of China in Japanese, much like “Chink” in English.Now you know the real purpose of this so called “anti extradition law protest” is really about, “to split HK from China”.Some of the paint this. It means that “the enmity in Yuen Long must be revenged”. But as the people who I quoted above mentioned, most of the rioters are descendants of Southeast Asian immigrants, their Chinese are not so good.The word enmity仇 was initially written as 愁, which meaning being sad, being worried, or sorrow. And this is not the only example of their poor Chinese skill:They forgot to take the pills of mental illness.(in the photo) Does your mother know that you fucked at the wrong side?This is a traditional Chinese way of insulting people, by insulting their mothers. Unfortunately, the person who painted this doesn't know who to write the “fuck” in traditional Chinese, which is being used in HK.Yuen Long has officially become the safest community in HKThey simply don’t know how to write death when trying to screw up Yuen Long.Always assaulting police. But can do nothing without police.Finally seeing some normal HK people.They went into Yuen Long during occupying central, but got nothing. Yuen Long people are great!This is some HK people commenting on what happened in Yuen Long.They were the Yuen Long warriors, using sticks (not lethal, but very capable of making some damage) to “educate” those rioters. Most of them are middle aged, some even with white hair. They know what was like during the colonial era, they value the current lives.But no surprisingly, their voluntarily behavior was reported as “local mafia hurting random people supported by SAR government”.So they were expressing righteousness when assaulting police and beating up random people who are determined as covered up police by the rioters, and the western media tried their best to justify the violence by saying that they were oppressed.When local people had enough and decided to fight for their own rights and protect their home, suddenly it’s wrong.Western media only want to see China in chaos, at least HK. They don’t give a damn about the righteousness whatsoever. It’s just a concept which serves their interest.And yet, Beijing still hasn’t expressed any interest to interfere with HK local issue. Which makes some people become inpatient and start to ask whether the HK protect would become Tiananmen Square Incident in 1989.In 1989, the organizers were trying to force CCP to make wrong moves, such as killing students. Eventually the scene they were looking for never happened. This is why you only got some irrelevant pictures when articles saying that “thousands of dead student piled up like a small hill in Beijing”.Some claim 2 million HK people joining the protect, some claim 4 million. They want you to believe that this is the majority and the mainstream of HK. Anyone with any common sense would see through such lies. a quarter or half of the people not working would cause the city being totally paralyzed. Do you see HK stopped operating?[2nd edit in 22nd]During the recent riot, a driver was beaten up quite badly. He was delivering goods, and got blocked by the rioters.He asked the rioters to move the roadblock since he has a work to do, but got no response. Then he decided to move them on himself.Naturally, he got surrounded and beaten up. He yelled “just don’t touch my van” but got ignored. As you can see, his van was ruined, possibly alone with his work.You can see the rioters wearing black shirts and masks.This is why people in Yuen Lang had enough. Those young people could do whatever they like, as long as they don’t mess up with other people’s business.During the recent riots, people find some foreign faces keep appearing:Of course, such huge movement cannot organize itself. There must be a HQ to organize and coordinate.After being defeated in Yuen Lang, the rioters had announced their new ops in 27:Japanese made a Nanking massacre. People know that we HK people always admire Japan. This time it’s going to be a Yuen Lang massacre.Scares your mom. It’s not going to be only burning down your house, how about burn down you whole villageJust like the katanas from Japanese soldiers, kill youuse duct tape to bind fruit knife at the tip of a stick. This can be used as both spear and javelin. Must kill themLet’s see if they are as brave as they claimed to be.[Edit in 1st July, there is a summary done by someone else at the end of the answer]Since this question is about “feel”, I suppose presenting facts are not important here.To be honest, I couldn’t care less about what kind of mess some HK people caused this time. There are PLA troops in HK.But just to be fair, I did a small research 1 minute ago to see what’s “extradition law” really is:HK used to have the extradition agreement with 20 nations and regions. Now the HK government wants to include PRC inner land, Macau and Taiwan.We all know that HK is an important relay of anti-China organizations. HK’s geographical position gives those organizations an unique advantage of doing anti-China business safely but still in China.But the beginning of this was a murder case.They are 陳同佳/Chen Tong Jia(left) and 潘曉穎/Pan Xiao Ying(right). He murdered her in Taipei, in 17th Feb 2018. I don’t care about the story between them, because a murder is a murder.He ran back to HK at the same day. While the mother of the victim didn’t notice until 5 March. But it was too late, since there was no extradition agreement between HK and Taiwan, the murderer literally got away.HK authority could only charge him with money laundering and theft. Eventually he got in jail for 29 months, and will be out of jail this October due to behaving nicely in jail.The amending of the law is to make sure that he would be moved to Taiwan police and get the sentence he deserves.The opposition parties in HK immediately claimed that this amending will damage the freedom of speech in HK, since all the “political criminals” will be extradited to inner land China.[rewrite paragraph] The extradition law clearly states that only the criminals who committed felonies which have more than 7 year jail time would be extradited. The existing extradition law has 46 crimes included, but the definition or range of “felony” must be agreed by both parties, i.e. between HK and others. With Finland, 21 are agreed. 27 with Canada, 30 with Holland, 31 with Australia, and all 46 of them with Germany. Any crime outside of the 46 crimes are not allowed to extradite.Besides above mentioned part, there are also 8 kind of criminals which would never be extradited, including news, speech, academic, and publishing related cases. So all the so called “political criminals” would not be transferred to inner land China, according to the amending.[edit in 13th] Plus, any extradition must be on trail by the HK court, and be supervised by the public.[edit in 13th] According to what I know, above mentioned criteria are already in the existing extradition law. The amending is mainly about the applied areas, which is to include inner land China, Macau, and Taiwan. So if the opposition parties are having problems with the law, they should spoke out years ago. Then it’s about PRC government. But do you know that the police of inner land China has been extraditing criminals to HK for years?[edit in 13th] Above screenshot is about a 41 year old HK resident who murdered someone in a currency exchange shop. HK police required Cantonese police based on the cooperation mechanism to chase down the suspect. He was caught and being investigated by the Cantonese police by the time the news was out. Once his identification was verified, he would be transferred to HK.But the news or media is never about the truth, because “consensus is more important than truth”. Take witch hunt as an example. It didn’t matter if she was a witch, as long as everyone else felt good when seeing her got burned. The key point is manipulation of people’s minds, to make them think that burning the witch is the only way to save everyone.Due to not having a proper extradition agreement with most of the places, HK is in fact a safe haven for criminals, and HK authority is not happy about this image of HK.Funny thing is that US government claimed that amending the extradition law of HK will damage the national security and interests of US.Well I do know that USA and Canada are famous in China for being the paradise of corrupt officers. Whenever a CCP officer steal million of money from Chinese people, they always go to north America for asylum, because they know that US and Canadian government would support them, and there is no extradition agreement between the 2 and China.Pardon my sloppy answer.But this is really just another negative example of democracy, I mean for us PRC citizens.The truth is not important. The only thing matters is to waste public resource for party fights and gain political interests for the party or certain persons.[edit in 13th] The extradition law of HK itself has all the limitation to make sure criminals won’t be transferred without a fair reason. The whole progress is supervised by the public, and the law has functioned for years.[edit in 13th] So when the opposition parties talking about not trusting PRC government, they are really questioning a HK law, i.e. themselves, since HK has its own law system, and Beijing doesn’t interfere with it. A good system should prevent what they claim to prevent from happening from happening. Clearly they have no faith on their own system.[edit in 13th]Someone in the comment posted an screenshot about a KOL of the protest.In the screenshot, the KOL was asking everyone in the transportation system to paralyze the economy and the social operation of HK. This is the real purpose of this protest. To hell with the freedom of speech.[edit in 13th] I would not be surprised if some foreign intelligence agencies were found to be involved.[2nd edit in 13th] I just realized that my answer is off centered again. It’s all about the facts of this protect and the extradition law. I suppose that it’s because I can only be convinced by solid facts.If you ask about my feeling towards this protect, I can hardly say a thing, because I couldn’t care less about what those paid-to-mess-up-HK people think. The PLA troops are still in HK, what could go wrong?[3rd edit in 13th] It’s just the same old trick done by UK and USA. Do you still remember what happened before the Arabic Spring, Ukraine democratic revolution, and the Collapse of USSR? All the same tricks, to cause internal conflicts by challenging the local values and trash the local authorities.The more chaotic HK is, the more anti “western” democracy PRC would be. The lack of development potential and speed of HK in the recent years are all because of internal conflicts. The government could hardly focus on anything useful.The first government of HKSAR wanted to build more public apartments to lower the living cost of average HK people. But the project was opposed by the capitalists and the people who already owned apartments, because it would cause the price of apartment to decline. Between 2007 and 2017, the price of apartment went up for 100%, while the income only increased for 50%. In 2017, only 49.5% families have their own apartments, and it was 52.9% in 2002 when the public apartment was abandoned.In 2017, the median of apartment size per capita in HK was 10 square meters, and the average size of apartment per capita is less than 4.45 square meters. So how small it is? I crafted a bed for myself, and it’s 2.4*2.4=5.76 m^2. This is what the democracy provided to the HK people. Those who had bought apartments and houses joined together with the real estate companies to suppress the poor level, and it was all done by HK people. Beijing was supporting the chief of HKSAR to build public apartments.HK people feel the increasing pressure in their daily lives, but they don't know the root of it. 900 thousand people signed online to support the amending, while the maximum number of participators of the recent protects is only over 10 thousand. Have you seen this trend from your media? Did you media give you the hint that the majority of HK people oppose the amending?[edit in 14th] Although my answer got collapsed due to a weird excuse, I still need to share something which I just recently learned:The HK government wasn’t totally innocent in this chaos. Taiwan authority sent a request of extraditing the suspect (of the murder, he got sentenced in HK due to stealing money from the girl’s bank account and her cellphone), and didn’t got any feedback for about 4 months. HK government simply ignored the request from Taiwan.Now they want to push the amend to be passed in a short period of time to be able to transfer the murderer to Taiwan before he got released in October. When this is pushed in such hurry, the opposition parties could easily find all kinds of reason to stall it.But still, I don’t think that PRC government needs such law to get those “political criminals” back to inner land China:They won’t be sentenced in HK for overthrowing PRC government at the first place.It won’t be easy to find another crime to sentence them. and the opposition parties would love to see it happening.Kidnapping or assassination is not a big deal for any government.The majority of anti-China people are in the US and Germany. Having HK cooperating with Beijing doesn’t help much.So if there is no reason for Beijing to do so, why accusing Beijing for “about to do it”?Edit in 24 June:This “peaceful” protest has been escalated to a whole new level, and became a riot.Above is a summarization of the recent activity. It’s not about the extradition law amendment at all, it’s the same old shit of creating chaos in HK. Basically their tactic is to flooded every public service and government office possible to paralyze the society.During all these, a familiar face popped out:Who is this person?He’s the one who appears in every riot and claim to establish a independent Hong Kong as a country. So you would know what’s these all about.Besides, some posted terrorist speeches online, for example:Establishing school bullying culture towards children of police, defending out city.You and your parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, going on the street to against the police.School mates should be in school and against the children of the police. Sending them a clear information that this disaster will effect their (police) wives and children. The hatred of justice must be claimed.But I have a little doubt about “marginalizing at least one child of the police till death before graduation”, only a little.Huh, peaceful protect about extradition law amending?Several thousands people totally surrounded the HK police HQ, and let no one leave.They blocked all the cameras with umbrellas and taps, so that no official video evidence would be found.Funny thing that UK flag appeared in this riot. What’s funnier is that most of the young HK people don’t know that HK used to have no democracy during British colony era. The chief of HK used to be appointed by the Queen, and HK people were the 3rd degree citizen in the 60’s, and the 1st level was white people, 2nd level was Indians and other English speaking colored people. HK people used to fight against such social level, the solution of HK government was to shoot them.During the riot, people found something/someone interesting:Possible foreign intelligence agency personnel giving instructions/orders and monitoring.So do the majority of HK people support this riot? Probably not. Simple logic: those who don’t support this are most likely peaceful. They don’t want to make a counter move to push this into even more intensive situation.But some of them did spoke out:They hosted an event to support HK police and bless HK one day after the riot.many of them expressed their opinions:little girl in the red skirt: We have had enough!the other little girl: punish the rioter and the organizer. support police, enforce the law strictly.man in the white shirt and the lady: (this is really hard to translate) (begin from second sentence) they brainwash the student and make them into losers. Poor parents have no solution.Each protect have roughly several thousand to over 10 thousand participators. But the online signing movement to support HK government had already about 1 million people.Rumors and false news saying that 2 million HK people went on street to protect. Let’s put aside that 2 million is 1/3 of the total population in HK, 2 million people would fill up a street which is 15 kilometers long, and yet we haven’t seen such thing.This is why more and more young people in mainland China dislike/disagree with western democracy. What the west told us to do is nothing like what the west actually does.Edit in 1 July:There was a event recently to support HK government:“Support the police, enforce the law strictly”This event was huge.Look at those people. The flag in the bottom right says “support the government of special administration region” which means HK government.thumbs up for the government“There is no better, it’s already the best” (means the HK police)Famous local actors and singers stand up to back up the governmentIt was raining, and yet those celebrities were there to support HK government. The one holding the mic is one of the most famous HK singer of all time. The man in the white shirt is one of the most famous HK singer and actor.I don’t know if you realize this:The ones who are opposing HK government are mainly white people and young locals, and the ones who support HK government are mainly locals and older.Those who had experience the colony era understand the prosperity of HK has barely anything to do with British government, thus they value the current live more.Those who were burned after 1997 and influenced by the western media are easier to think the colony era was better and everything is Beijing’s fault. HK is a free port, the western propaganda can have its maximum effect there.I also found a better summarization on Weibo to give you a full picture about this incident:It’s nature that some HK people don’t want to amend the extradition law. Because if there was no amendment, they’d brake laws in inner land China and being fine just running back to HK. They surely want to maintain their privilege of being the higher citizen to the inner land Chinese. But it’s quite odd when some inner land Chinese oppose this too.HK has its extradition law long ago with 20 jurisdiction regions, but not including inner land China.This amendment only change 2 or 3 clauses to include inner land China, Macau and Taiwan in it. It doesn't change the existing structure of the law. What’s extraordinary is that the opposing parties said that Taiwan is OK, but inner land China is not, if you consider that HK is a special administration region of PRC but ROC.The key point is that after this amendment, only 37 kinds of felonies which are internationally agreed would be included. It doesn’t involve the opposers’ favorite areas such as “news, publishing, academics, speech, protecting, etc”, even cyber crime and insider trading are not included.This amendment also include “8 not extradited”:killing 10 people in inner land China could be sentenced with death penalty, therefore no extradition.crimes being considered as high treason or splitting country are not the case in HK and don’t fit the standard of “double crime”, therefore no extradition.political crimes are not included.being charged due to race, religion, nationality or political reasons, no extradition.raping women in inner land China or HK people raping inner land women, since raping in HK would be sentenced with less than 7 year jail time, therefore no extradition.The authority of extradition does not belong to the chief of HK government nor the legislative council but to the court.About the last paragraph, I haven’t confirmed by myself yet, but I found something:This above screenshot listed every judge in the highest court of HK, and they are all either foreigner or having double nationalities. 英国, British; 澳大利亚, Australia; 新西兰, New Zealand; 英属百慕大, British Bermuda.It means that the authority to rule extradition is not possible to be controlled by Beijing, since the court is practically controlled by London. Now you know why British flags and British people are everywhere in each incident in HK, don't you? (I’d like to see some evident if anyone wants to disagree with it.)

Northern Ireland came into being after it became clear that Britain couldn’t stop Irish independence, but there was also a substantial population of Protestant unionists, concentrated in the north-east, who were prepared to resist being kicked out of the UK. So in 1922, Ireland was partitioned. Most of the island became independent, but six counties in the north-east, the largest contiguous area that could be guaranteed to have a unionist majority, became Northern Ireland and remained part of the UK.A devolved local parliament at Stormont in Belfast was created, which the British government left to its own devices. The Unionist Party had a built-in majority. The Nationalist Party, representing Northern Ireland’s Catholic nationalist minority, also put up candidates, but the demographics were against them ever being able to hold any kind of power. The Unionist government wasn’t satisfied with that state of affairs, and very quickly changed the voting system from proportional representation to first past the post, gerrymandering the voting constituencies so throughly some of them went uncontested. Northern Ireland was essentially governed as a one-party bureaucracy from which Catholics were systematically excluded.Local councils were also… electorally irregular. The councils ran social housing, and only householders could vote in council elections, so councils carefully managed who they gave tenancies to in order to ensure control of the councils.The Royal Ulster Constabulary was created to police Northern Ireland, and to begin with the intention was to recruit proportionally from both communities. In reality, they recruited almost no Catholics, both due to hostility to Catholics, who were seen as disloyal, within the RUC, and reluctance among Catholics to join what they saw as an illegitimate force. Belfast was an industrial powerhouse, shipbuilding and textiles being the mainstays, but these industries also excluded Catholics from employment.This situation continued, with occasional outbreaks of sectarian violence, through the Second World War, during which Belfast’s industry was targeted in the Blitz. Winston Churchill is said to have promised Irish unification to Eamon de Valera, president of independent Ireland, if Britain could use some of Ireland’s ports for the war effort, but de Valera refused.In the 1960s, inspired by civil rights struggles elsewhere in the world, Catholics started protesting against the discrimination against them. Terence O’Neill, the moderate Unionist Prime Minister, tried to bring in reforms, but faced too much opposition from hardliners in his own party to get them through. Civil rights marches were met with violence from the RUC and from loyalists (hardline unionists). This escalated to widespread rioting, and the formation or revival of paramilitary groups on both sides, including the loyalist UVF and UDA, and the republican (hardline nationalist) Provisional IRA. The “Official” IRA, moribund as a paramilitary force, were seen as having failed to protect Catholic communities from loyalist rioters, and the new Provisional force took over.In 1969 the British government sent in troops to restore order. They were initially welcomed by Catholics as they protected them from loyalist mobs. But they were put under the command of Stormont and the RUC, and things went to hell. In 1971 Stormont introduced internment without trial for paramilitary activity, which almost exclusively targeted IRA suspects, leaving the loyalists to their own devices and interning quite a number of uninvolved Catholics. This gave the IRA a perfect breeding ground to recruit and organise.In 1972, British Paras opened fire on a march against internment, killing 13 protesters. This was known as Bloody Sunday, and as well as ensuring the conflict continued and making it more bitter, shocked the British Government into action. Internment was abolished, as was the Stormont parliament, and direct rule from Westminster was introduced. A delegation of government officials secretly met a delegation from the IRA which included the young Gerry Adams. They were unable to come to any kind of agreement, but they evidently identified Adams as a man they could potentially do business with in future.Cross-party talks led to the Sunningdale Agreement, creating a power-sharing government in 1974, but it was very quickly brought down by a general strike by the loyalist Ulster Workers’ Council, and direct rule resumed - as did regular paramilitary violence.Internment was replaced by jury-less Diplock Courts, where trials were held in front of a judge only. In 1976, the government withdrew what was known as Special Category status from paramilitary prisoners, treating them simply as convicted criminals, which led to blanket protests, where prisoners refused to wear prison uniform and wrapped themselves in blankets, which escalated to dirty protests, where prisoners smeared their cells with their own shit, and finally the hunger strikes in 1981, in which ten IRA prisoners starved themselves to death. They didn’t achieve their aim (which amounted to the return of internment), but Sinn Féin, the IRA’s political wing, got one of the hunger strikers, Bobby Sands, elected to Parliament, and in the process became a significant electoral force.In 1985 the British and Irish governments signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, giving the Irish government a consultative role in the government of Northern Ireland. This led to a second Ulster Workers’ strike and the “Ulster Says No” campaign by unionist parties, but that did nothing to change the policy. In 1993 the two governments issued the Downing Street Declaration, in which the British government said it had no “selfish strategic or economic interest” in Northern Ireland, and the Irish government said it would only seek Irish unification with the consent of the people of Northern Ireland.Several attempts were made over the years to start cross-party talks aimed at restoring a power-sharing local government. Sinn Féin were always excluded because of their connections to the IRA. In the early 90s, John Hume, leader of the main nationalist party, the SDLP, began holding secret talks with Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Féin, which ultimately brought about an IRA ceasefire. Loyalist paramilitaries responded with ceasefires of their own.Sinn Féin’s vote went up following the ceasefire. Unionists stalled on including them in talks, insisting on decommissioning of IRA weapons first, but ultimately they were included (although the hardline Democratic Unionist Party refused to take part). In 1998, the parties signed the Good Friday Agreement, which created a new assembly at Stormont, and a power-sharing executive with a First and Deputy First Minister from each of the two communities, as well as various north-south bodies. This agreement was confirmed by referendums in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.But the two main parties, the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP, lost votes to the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin respectively. In the 2003 assembly election, the DUP and Sinn Féin were the largest parties. The assembly was suspended for several years after the parties refused to cooperate, but after the St Andrews Agreement in 2007 it was restored, with the DUP’s Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness as First and Deputy First Ministers.After that things trundled along reasonably well for nearly a decade, until 2016, when the now DUP First Minister Arlene Foster got caught up in a scandal over a mismanaged heating grant scheme that had gone way over budget. McGuinness stood down as Deputy First Minister at the beginning of 2017 for health reasons (and died soon afterwards). Sinn Féin chose Michelle O’Neill as their leader in the assembly, but refused to nominate her as Deputy First Minister, partly over the heating scandal, partly over the DUP’s continued blocking of an Irish language act and gay marriage. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement no executive could be formed. The executive and assembly were suspended again.And that’s where we stand. The British government is in no position to push for change because they are preoccupied with Brexit, and since Theresa May’s Conservatives lost their majority in Parliament in the 2017 general election, they have been dependent on the DUP’s ten MPs to stay in power. Northern Ireland is being run by the Civil Service, with occasional emergency budget bills being passed in Westminster.The peace dividend transformed Northern Ireland. There was lots of new building, we have a thriving tourist industry, and the film and TV industry has moved in in a big way. It’s a much safer and more stable place than when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. How long we can keep that up remains to be seen. There’s no obvious appetite for a return to violence, and after a journalist was murdered earlier this year by a Republican splinter group, there was a brief push for reconciliation and a resumption of talks. But it didn’t last.And we still have a long way to go. De facto sectarian segregation persists - there are no laws saying Protestants and Catholics must live in separate areas, but we do anyway - and we are educated separately, Protestants in state schools, and Catholics in state-funded religious schools.We always hoped that when the generation who participated in the Troubles left the stage, they would give way to a new generation not caught up in the conflicts of the past, and we might have some kind of political normality, but that was in vain. Martin McGuinness was the last who wanted to make power-sharing work. Since he died, we’re back to the bad old days of refusing to talk to each other.

In a 1988 interview with Hong Kong’s Liberation Monthly (now known as Open Magazine), Liu was asked what it would take for China to realize a true historical transformation. He replied: “[It would take] 300 years of colonialism. In 100 years of colonialism, Hong Kong has changed to what we see today. With China being so big, of course it would require 300 years as a colony for it to be able to transform into how Hong Kong is today. I have my doubts as to whether 300 years would be enough.” Since colonization had recently killed millions of Chinese and plunged the country into a century of poverty and despair, ordinary Chinese were outraged by Liu’s statement so Chinese police asked him if he were planning to restore colonization and, when he said, “No,” they took no action.Liu once stated in an interview: “Modernization means whole-sale westernization, choosing a human life is choosing Western way of life. Difference between Western and Chinese governing system is humane vs in-humane, there’s no middle ground… Westernization is not a choice of a nation, but a choice for the human race”In 1989, Liu flew back from Columbia University to lead the Tiananmen demonstrations. He was subsequently detained for 18 months before his trial but the judge released him for time served on the grounds that he had encouraged students to leave the Square peacefully.In 1995, the police took Liu into custody for launching a petition campaign on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Tiananmen incident, calling on the government to reassess the event and to initiate political reform. He was sentenced to stay home and watch TV for nine months.In 1996, he was released in February but arrested again in October for the October Tenth Declaration on cross-Straits policy, which he co-authored with prominent dissident, Wang Xizhe. He was ordered to serve three years of re-education through labor "for disturbing public order”.In 2004 Liuhepublished an article in support of Bush’s war on Iraq, titled “Victory to the Anglo-American Freedom Alliance”, in which he praised the U.S.-led post-Cold War conflicts as “best examples of how war should be conducted in a modern civilization.” He wrote “regardless of the savagery of the terrorists, and regardless of the instability of Iraq’s situation, and, what’s more, regardless of how patriotic youth might despise proponents of the United States such as myself, my support for the invasion of Iraq will not waver. Just as, from the beginning, I believed that the military intervention of Britain and the United States would be victorious, I am still full of belief in the final victory of the Freedom Alliance and the democratic future of Iraq, and even if the armed forces of Britain and the United States should encounter some obstacles such as those that they are currently facing, this belief of mine will not change.” He predicted “a free, democratic and peaceful Iraq will emerge.”During the 2004 US presidential election, Liu again praised Bush for his war effort against Iraq and condemned Democratic Party candidate John Kerry for not sufficiently supporting the wars in which the U.S. was then involved. He commented on Islamism that, “a culture and (religious) system that produced this kind of threat (Islamic fundamentalism), must be extremely intolerant and blood-thirsty.”In 2008, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, he wrote and publicly circulated a document, Charter ’08, calling for China to adopt a Western political system, a free market, transfer of state-owned enterprises to private ownership and privatize all land–policies that ruined Russia and is currently ruining the USA. Liu had timed his campaign to coincide with Uyghur and Tibetan rioters who murdered hundreds and the U.S. Government-sponsored NGO, Reporters Without Borders urged a boycott of the Olympics because of ‘brutal repression’ (despite a notable absence of government brutality).In 2009, investigators discovered that Liu had been secretly receiving money from the U.S. Government and prosecutors charged him with being an undeclared, paid agent of a hostile foreign power attempting to subvert and overthrow the government under a statute similar to the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, FARA (22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq.)Liu pled ‘freedom of expression’ but was judged to be a clear and present danger and also adjudged to be unrepentant, so he was sentenced to 11 years. Even under US law (Schenck v. United States) political speech can be reasonably limited if the government deems it ‘clear and present danger’.Liu had also failed to declare his income for tax purposes. Here is a record of his payments from the US Government’s National Endowment for Democracy* to Minzhu Zhongguo, Democratic China, Inc., which Liu founded. In 1991, Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing National Endowment for Democracy (NED), candidly said: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA". In effect, the CIA launders money through NED. (The Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1991). Western media simply reported that Professor Liu was an innocent man fighting for democracy. More on the Western media coordinated narrative here.2005: $136,0002006: $136,0002007: $145,0002008: $150,0002009: $195,000 + $18,000 (supplement): $213,0002010: $220,000Total sum from NED to Democratic China, Inc., $1,000,000Mr. Liu received additional money from NED for being the president of Independent Chinese PEN Centre, Inc.:2005: $99,5002006: $135,0002007: $135,0002008: $152,3502009: $152,9502010: $170,000NED payments for «Independent Chinese PEN Centre, Inc.»: US $844,800. Professor Liu’s total receipts from NED: US$1,844,800, about 14 million yuan.* The United States is not a democracy and has never been. It is a republic, to which American schoolchildren swear allegiance every day. There is no mention of ‘democracy’ in America’s constitutional documents. America’s Founding Fathers hated democracy. Democracy is an export–like opium in the 19th century–and is not consumed domestically.P.S. Charter ’08 is a rather simple-minded mishmash of popular ‘democratic’ ideals. There have been much more radical documents published and circulated in China for decades. Liu’s mistake was sending it for signatures when he was secretly being paid to do so by a hostile foreign power.This translation was done for the New York Review of Books by Perry Link, who knew some of its authors, so we can take it as being authentic.CHARTER ‘08I. FOREWORDA hundred years have passed since the writing of China’s first constitution. 2008 also marks the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of the Democracy Wall in Beijing, and the tenth of China’s signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy student protesters. The Chinese people, who have endured human rights disasters and uncountable struggles across these same years, now include many who see clearly that freedom, equality, and human rights are universal values of humankind and that democracy and constitutional government are the fundamental framework for protecting these values.By departing from these values, the Chinese government’s approach to “modernization” has proven disastrous. It has stripped people of their rights, destroyed their dignity, and corrupted normal human intercourse. So we ask: Where is China headed in the twenty-first century? Will it continue with “modernization” under authoritarian rule, or will it embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a democratic system? There can be no avoiding these questions.The shock of the Western impact upon China in the nineteenth century laid bare a decadent authoritarian system and marked the beginning of what is often called “the greatest changes in thousands of years” for China. A “self-strengthening movement” followed, but this aimed simply at appropriating the technology to build gunboats and other Western material objects. China’s humiliating naval defeat at the hands of Japan in 1895 only confirmed the obsolescence of China’s system of government. The first attempts at modern political change came with the ill-fated summer of reforms in 1898, but these were cruelly crushed by ultraconservatives at China’s imperial court. With the revolution of 1911, which inaugurated Asia’s first republic, the authoritarian imperial system that had lasted for centuries was finally supposed to have been laid to rest. But social conflict inside our country and external pressures were to prevent it; China fell into a patchwork of warlord fiefdoms and the new republic became a fleeting dream.The failure of both “self- strengthening” and political renovation caused many of our forebears to reflect deeply on whether a “cultural illness” was afflicting our country. This mood gave rise, during the May Fourth Movement of the late 1910s, to the championing of “science and democracy.” Yet that effort, too, foundered as warlord chaos persisted and the Japanese invasion [beginning in Manchuria in 1931] brought national crisis.Victory over Japan in 1945 offered one more chance for China to move toward modern government, but the Communist defeat of the Nationalists in the civil war thrust the nation into the abyss of totalitarianism. The “new China” that emerged in 1949 proclaimed that “the people are sovereign” but in fact set up a system in which “the Party is all-powerful.” The Communist Party of China seized control of all organs of the state and all political, economic, and social resources, and, using these, has produced a long trail of human rights disasters, including, among many others, the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957), the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1969), the June Fourth [Tiananmen Square] Massacre (1989), and the current repression of all unauthorized religions and the suppression of the weiquan rights movement [a movement that aims to defend citizens’ rights promulgated in the Chinese Constitution and to fight for human rights recognized by international conventions that the Chinese government has signed]. During all this, the Chinese people have paid a gargantuan price. Tens of millions have lost their lives, and several generations have seen their freedom, their happiness, and their human dignity cruelly trampled.During the last two decades of the twentieth century the government policy of “Reform and Opening” gave the Chinese people relief from the pervasive poverty and totalitarianism of the Mao Zedong era, and brought substantial increases in the wealth and living standards of many Chinese as well as a partial restoration of economic freedom and economic rights. Civil society began to grow, and popular calls for more rights and more political freedom have grown apace. As the ruling elite itself moved toward private ownership and the market economy, it began to shift from an outright rejection of “rights” to a partial acknowledgment of them.In 1998 the Chinese government signed two important international human rights conventions; in 2004 it amended its constitution to include the phrase “respect and protect human rights”; and this year, 2008, it has promised to promote a “national human rights action plan.” Unfortunately most of this political progress has extended no further than the paper on which it is written. The political reality, which is plain for anyone to see, is that China has many laws but no rule of law; it has a constitution but no constitutional government. The ruling elite continues to cling to its authoritarian power and fights off any move toward political change.The stultifying results are endemic official corruption, an undermining of the rule of law, weak human rights, decay in public ethics, crony capitalism, growing inequality between the wealthy and the poor, pillage of the natural environment as well as of the human and historical environments, and the exacerbation of a long list of social conflicts, especially, in recent times, a sharpening animosity between officials and ordinary people.As these conflicts and crises grow ever more intense, and as the ruling elite continues with impunity to crush and to strip away the rights of citizens to freedom, to property, and to the pursuit of happiness, we see the powerless in our society—the vulnerable groups, the people who have been suppressed and monitored, who have suffered cruelty and even torture, and who have had no adequate avenues for their protests, no courts to hear their pleas—becoming more militant and raising the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions. The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional.II. OUR FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLESThis is a historic moment for China, and our future hangs in the balance. In reviewing the political modernization process of the past hundred years or more, we reiterate and endorse basic universal values as follows:Freedom. Freedom is at the core of universal human values. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom in where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others, are the forms that freedom takes. Without freedom, China will always remain far from civilized ideals.Human rights. Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China’s recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime’s disregard for human rights.Equality. The integrity, dignity, and freedom of every person—regardless of social station, occupation, sex, economic condition, ethnicity, skin color, religion, or political belief—are the same as those of any other. Principles of equality before the law and equality of social, economic, cultural, civil, and political rights must be upheld.Republicanism. Republicanism, which holds that power should be balanced among different branches of government and competing interests should be served, resembles the traditional Chinese political ideal of “fairness in all under heaven.” It allows different interest groups and social assemblies, and people with a variety of cultures and beliefs, to exercise democratic self-government and to deliberate in order to reach peaceful resolution of public questions on a basis of equal access to government and free and fair competition.Democracy. The most fundamental principles of democracy are that the people are sovereign and the people select their government. Democracy has these characteristics: (1) Political power begins with the people and the legitimacy of a regime derives from the people. (2) Political power is exercised through choices that the people make. (3) The holders of major official posts in government at all levels are determined through periodic competitive elections. (4) While honoring the will of the majority, the fundamental dignity, freedom, and human rights of minorities are protected. In short, democracy is a modern means for achieving government truly “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”Constitutional rule. Constitutional rule is rule through a legal system and legal regulations to implement principles that are spelled out in a constitution. It means protecting the freedom and the rights of citizens, limiting and defining the scope of legitimate government power, and providing the administrative apparatus necessary to serve these ends.III. WHAT WE ADVOCATEAuthoritarianism is in general decline throughout the world; in China, too, the era of emperors and overlords is on the way out. The time is arriving everywhere for citizens to be masters of states. For China the path that leads out of our current predicament is to divest ourselves of the authoritarian notion of reliance on an “enlightened overlord” or an “honest official” and to turn instead toward a system of liberties, democracy, and the rule of law, and toward fostering the consciousness of modern citizens who see rights as fundamental and participation as a duty. Accordingly, and in a spirit of this duty as responsible and constructive citizens, we offer the following recommendations on national governance, citizens’ rights, and social development:1. A New Constitution. We should recast our present constitution, rescinding its provisions that contradict the principle that sovereignty resides with the people and turning it into a document that genuinely guarantees human rights, authorizes the exercise of public power, and serves as the legal underpinning of China’s democratization. The constitution must be the highest law in the land, beyond violation by any individual, group, or political party.2. Separation of Powers. We should construct a modern government in which the separation of legislative, judicial, and executive power is guaranteed. We need an Administrative Law that defines the scope of government responsibility and prevents abuse of administrative power. Government should be responsible to taxpayers. Division of power between provincial governments and the central government should adhere to the principle that central powers are only those specifically granted by the constitution and all other powers belong to the local governments.3. Legislative Democracy. Members of legislative bodies at all levels should be chosen by direct election, and legislative democracy should observe just and impartial principles.4. An Independent Judiciary. The rule of law must be above the interests of any particular political party and judges must be independent. We need to establish a constitutional supreme court and institute procedures for constitutional review. As soon as possible, we should abolish all of the Committees on Political and Legal Affairs that now allow Communist Party officials at every level to decide politically sensitive cases in advance and out of court. We should strictly forbid the use of public offices for private purposes.5. Public Control of Public Servants. The military should be made answerable to the national government, not to a political party, and should be made more professional. Military personnel should swear allegiance to the constitution and remain nonpartisan. Political party organizations must be prohibited in the military. All public officials including police should serve as nonpartisans, and the current practice of favoring one political party in the hiring of public servants must end.6. Guarantee of Human Rights. There must be strict guarantees of human rights and respect for human dignity. There should be a Human Rights Committee, responsible to the highest legislative body, that will prevent the government from abusing public power in violation of human rights. A democratic and constitutional China especially must guarantee the personal freedom of citizens. No one should suffer illegal arrest, detention, arraignment, interrogation, or punishment. The system of “Reeducation through Labor” must be abolished.7. Election of Public Officials. There should be a comprehensive system of democratic elections based on “one person, one vote.” The direct election of administrative heads at the levels of county, city, province, and nation should be systematically implemented. The rights to hold periodic free elections and to participate in them as a citizen are inalienable.8. Rural–Urban Equality. The two-tier household registry system must be abolished. This system favors urban residents and harms rural residents. We should establish instead a system that gives every citizen the same constitutional rights and the same freedom to choose where to live.9. Freedom to Form Groups. The right of citizens to form groups must be guaranteed. The current system for registering nongovernment groups, which requires a group to be “approved,” should be replaced by a system in which a group simply registers itself. The formation of political parties should be governed by the constitution and the laws, which means that we must abolish the special privilege of one party to monopolize power and must guarantee principles of free and fair competition among political parties.10. Freedom to Assemble. The constitution provides that peaceful assembly, demonstration, protest, and freedom of expression are fundamental rights of a citizen. The ruling party and the government must not be permitted to subject these to illegal interference or unconstitutional obstruction.11. Freedom of Expression. We should make freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and academic freedom universal, thereby guaranteeing that citizens can be informed and can exercise their right of political supervision. These freedoms should be upheld by a Press Law that abolishes political restrictions on the press. The provision in the current Criminal Law that refers to “the crime of incitement to subvert state power” must be abolished. We should end the practice of viewing words as crimes.12. Freedom of Religion. We must guarantee freedom of religion and belief, and institute a separation of religion and state. There must be no governmental interference in peaceful religious activities. We should abolish any laws, regulations, or local rules that limit or suppress the religious freedom of citizens. We should abolish the current system that requires religious groups (and their places of worship) to get official approval in advance and substitute for it a system in which registry is optional and, for those who choose to register, automatic.13. Civic Education. In our schools we should abolish political curriculums and examinations that are designed to indoctrinate students in state ideology and to instill support for the rule of one party. We should replace them with civic education that advances universal values and citizens’ rights, fosters civic consciousness, and promotes civic virtues that serve society.14. Protection of Private Property. We should establish and protect the right to private property and promote an economic system of free and fair markets. We should do away with government monopolies in commerce and industry and guarantee the freedom to start new enterprises. We should establish a Committee on State-Owned Property, reporting to the national legislature, that will monitor the transfer of state-owned enterprises to private ownership in a fair, competitive, and orderly manner. We should institute a land reform that promotes private ownership of land, guarantees the right to buy and sell land, and allows the true value of private property to be adequately reflected in the market.15. Financial and Tax Reform. We should establish a democratically regulated and accountable system of public finance that ensures the protection of taxpayer rights and that operates through legal procedures. We need a system by which public revenues that belong to a certain level of government—central, provincial, county or local—are controlled at that level. We need major tax reform that will abolish any unfair taxes, simplify the tax system, and spread the tax burden fairly. Government officials should not be able to raise taxes, or institute new ones, without public deliberation and the approval of a democratic assembly. We should reform the ownership system in order to encourage competition among a wider variety of market participants.16. Social Security. We should establish a fair and adequate social security system that covers all citizens and ensures basic access to education, health care, retirement security, and employment.17. Protection of the Environment. We need to protect the natural environment and to promote development in a way that is sustainable and responsible to our descendants and to the rest of humanity. This means insisting that the state and its officials at all levels not only do what they must do to achieve these goals, but also accept the supervision and participation of nongovernmental organizations.18. A Federated Republic. A democratic China should seek to act as a responsible major power contributing toward peace and development in the Asian Pacific region by approaching others in a spirit of equality and fairness. In Hong Kong and Macao, we should support the freedoms that already exist. With respect to Taiwan, we should declare our commitment to the principles of freedom and democracy and then, negotiating as equals and ready to compromise, seek a formula for peaceful unification. We should approach disputes in the national-minority areas of China with an open mind, seeking ways to find a workable framework within which all ethnic and religious groups can flourish. We should aim ultimately at a federation of democratic communities of China.19. Truth in Reconciliation. We should restore the reputations of all people, including their family members, who suffered political stigma in the political campaigns of the past or who have been labeled as criminals because of their thought, speech, or faith. The state should pay reparations to these people. All political prisoners and prisoners of conscience must be released. There should be a Truth Investigation Commission charged with finding the facts about past injustices and atrocities, determining responsibility for them, upholding justice, and, on these bases, seeking social reconciliation.China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the UN Council on Human Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress toward human rights. Unfortunately, we stand today as the only country among the major nations that remains mired in authoritarian politics. Our political system continues to produce human rights disasters and social crises, thereby not only constricting China’s own development but also limiting the progress of all of human civilization. This must change, truly it must. The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer.Accordingly, we dare to put civic spirit into practice by announcing Charter 08. We hope that our fellow citizens who feel a similar sense of crisis, responsibility, and mission, whether they are inside the government or not, and regardless of their social status, will set aside small differences to embrace the broad goals of this citizens’ movement. Together we can work for major changes in Chinese society and for the rapid establishment of a free, democratic, and constitutional country. We can bring to reality the goals and ideals that our people have incessantly been seeking for more than a hundred years, and can bring a brilliant new chapter to Chinese civilization.—Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link