4/4: Beijing remain quiet on the Prigozhin episode: 4/4: Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China's Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere by Mark L. Clifford
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
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4/4: Beijing remain quiet on the Prigozhin episode: 4/4: Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China's Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere by Mark L. Clifford
https://www.amazon.com/Today-Hong-Kong-Tomorrow-World/dp/1250279178
Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World tells the complete story of how a city once famed for protests so peaceful that toddlers joined grandparents in millions-strong rallies became a place where police have fired more than 10,000 rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets and even live ammunition at their neighbors, while pro-government hooligans attack demonstrators in the streets. A Hong Kong resident from 1992 to 2021, author Mark L. Clifford has witnessed this transformation firsthand. As a celebrated publisher and journalist, he has unrivaled access to the full range of the city’s society, from student protestors and political prisoners to aristocrats and senior government officials. A powerful and dramatic mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, this book is the definitive account of one of the most important geopolitical standoffs of our time.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Bachel with Mark Clifford, the author of Today Hong Kong Tomorrow the World, a very |
| 0:10.2 | detailed telling of why Hong Kong struggled all these decades to be unique, to be a success. |
| 0:17.3 | A postmodern city, it called itself. |
| 0:20.3 | With culture, with depth, with education, lots of education, Mark makes the point, it's |
| 0:25.0 | really nerdy, and it's really geeky. |
| 0:26.8 | They study everything, including how to fire throughout a mother-to-wife cocktail. |
| 0:31.3 | We come to 2019, five demands. |
| 0:33.7 | What are they, Mark? |
| 0:34.7 | I have extradition, they want the extradition bill stopped. |
| 0:38.2 | You can't kidnap us, they want police brutality punished. |
| 0:41.3 | They want amnesty for those who have been arrested, but chiefly, they want full universal |
| 0:46.2 | suffrage. |
| 0:47.2 | Did they know that was provocative? |
| 0:49.0 | Did they know that the fire would come? |
| 0:51.7 | They knew it was provocative. |
| 0:52.7 | I don't think anyone imagined how quickly and how severely the Chinese would crack down |
| 0:59.4 | on the demands. |
| 1:01.6 | By 2019, things had reached a boiling point, and it had been 22 years since Hong Kong |
| 1:07.2 | had been given back to the mainland. |
| 1:09.0 | That's 22 years out of 50 years that Hong Kong was promised this high degree of autonomy, |
| 1:13.8 | promised more freedom than ever, promised Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong, promised |
| 1:18.4 | that they'd be able to vote for their mayor and their city council, and nothing was happening. |
... |
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