BRUTALIZED AND PLUNDERED HONG KONG: 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
🗓️ 16 December 2024
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
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.
1930S HK
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Once upon a time, Amazon Music met audiobooks and listeners everywhere rejoiced. |
| 0:05.8 | Oh yeah. |
| 0:06.6 | Because now they could listen to one audiobook title a month from an enormous library of popular audiobook titles, including romanticity, |
| 0:15.3 | autobiographies, true crime, and more. |
| 0:19.3 | Suddenly listeners didn't mind sitting in traffic or even missing their |
| 0:22.6 | flight. Amazon Music Unlimited now includes Audible. No way. Download the Amazon Music app now to start |
| 0:28.4 | listening. Terms apply. I'm John Boucher with Mark Clifford, the author of Today, Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World, |
| 0:40.0 | a very detailed telling of why Hong Kong struggled all these decades to be unique, to be a success. |
| 0:47.4 | A postmodern city, it called itself, with culture, with depth, with education, lots of education. |
| 0:54.0 | Mark makes the point, it's really nerdy |
| 0:55.8 | and it's really geeky. They study everything, including how to fire, throw a Molotov cocktail. |
| 1:01.3 | We come to 2019, five demands. What are they, Mark? I have extradition. They want the extradition |
| 1:07.1 | bill stopped. You can't kidnap us. They want police brutality punished. They want |
| 1:11.7 | amnesty for those who have been arrested. But chiefly, they want full universal suffrage. |
| 1:17.2 | Did they know that was provocative? Did they know that the fire would come? |
| 1:21.4 | They knew it was provocative. I don't think anyone imagined how quickly and how severely the Chinese would crack down on the demands. |
| 1:30.7 | But by 2019, things had reached a boiling point. |
| 1:34.2 | And it had been 22 years since Hong Kong had been given back to the mainland. |
| 1:38.9 | That's 22 years out of 50 years that Hong Kong was promised this high degree of autonomy, |
| 1:43.8 | promised more freedom than ever, promised Hong Kong people that Hong Kong was promised this high degree of autonomy, promised more freedom than ever, |
| 1:45.6 | promised Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong, promised that they'd be able to vote for their mayor |
| 1:50.5 | and their city council, and nothing was happening. Beijing just kept moving the goalpost back, |
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