by Ajit Singh, published on The Grayzone, June 9, 2020

A leading Hong Kong "pro-democracy" figure, Jimmy Lai, has denounced nationwide protests in the U.s.a. against police brutality and systemic racism, which were sparked by the police killing of an African-American man, George Floyd. Lai'due south views reflect a significant segment of the city's protest motion, who affirm the exceptionalist myth of the US as a beacon of "freedom and republic."

Hong Kong'south "pro-democracy" activists have gone and then far as to derail the efforts of an African-American woman who attempted to organize a Black Lives Thing demonstration in the urban center, accusing her of being an agent of the police and Communist Party of Prc.

Meanwhile, some leaders of Hong Kong's anti-Beijing opposition, such as Joshua Wong, have claimed to support the US protests and Blackness Lives Thing. However, these expressions of "solidarity" ring hollow, given that, similar Lai, these "pro-republic" leaders take too forged an alliance with the very U.s. state and far-correct politicians who take demonized and sought to brutally repress American protesters. In fact, Wong and his comrades accept advisedly avoided making any specific criticism of President Trump or whatever of their other sponsors in Washington.

Lai's comments and the duplicity of Hong Kong's "pro-democracy" opposition, once again highlight the inconvenient truths of this movement that many in the West take insisted is progressive. Although some have tried to equate Hong Kong'south "pro-democracy" motion with Black Lives Affair, they are, in fact, on reverse ends of the political spectrum.

Hong Kong "pro-republic" leader denounces George Floyd protests

As Dan Cohen reported for The Grayzone, Jimmy Lai is a billionaire media tycoon widely referred to as "the Rupert Murdoch of Asia" who is a major financial and media backer of Hong Kong's protest movement.

In addition to pouring millions of dollars into Hong Kong'south opposition in recent years, the self-described "caput of opposition media" and founder of the anti-authorities Apple Daily tabloid has provided protesters with "unswervingly favorable coverage," co-ordinate to The New York Times.

Lai has received glowing coverage in the US and Western media, with the oligarch often being praised every bit a "'troublemaker' with a clean conscience" who is "continuing up to Cathay."

On June ii, Lai shared a video past Avi Yemini, a far-correct YouTube personality and old Israeli army soldier, declaring that it was "bloody disgraceful" to liken the "riots in America" with Hong Kong's protestation movement.

In the video, Yemini rattled off right-wing talking points, referring to the anti-racist protesters equally "antifa extremists" who are "destroying everything that is American, in fact, everything that Hong Kongers are fighting to obtain."

Lai expressed his gratitude to Yemini, writing "thank you for speaking upward for us #HKers."

According to the Australian Jewish Democratic Gild, Yemini has formed extensive ties to neo-Nazis such equally the Soldiers of Odin and fascist agitators like Milo Yiannopoulis.

A few days earlier, Lai, who has met repeatedly with Trump assistants brass, told CNN that "simply Trump tin salvage Hong Kong."

Lai and so reiterated his call for President Trump'south support mere hours after the president threatened to take the The states military shoot George Floyd protesters.

The sentiment was unsurprising, considering that much of the protest movement in Hong Kong has lionized Washington, upholding the US regime and President Trump as their "liberators."

For years, leaders of Hong Kong'due south opposition have met and strategized with US government officials and politicians, near frequently those on the far-right.

Indeed, Lai's views on the George Floyd protests appear to reflect those of a significant segment of Hong Kong'south "pro-commonwealth" move, to the dismay of those who argue that the movement is "progressive."

The Lausan Collective, a cocky-described "decolonial left" English language-language publication founded by staunch supporters of the Hong Kong protests, lamented that "some Hongkongers have refused to stand up with Blackness Lives Matter" urging their comrades to support protests taking place in the US.

Wilfred Chan, a New York-based contributing writer for The Nation and founding member of Lausan, expressed frustration at the prevalence of such views.

In a June ii tweet, Chan wrote that "every other hongkonger [sic]" on LIHKG (a pop online platform among Hong Kong'due south protest motion that has been called "Hong Kong's Reddit"), "is suddenly an expert on the american [sic] criminal justice system and likewise believe the only reason anyone could be critical of trump [sic] is because they're an amanuensis of the [Communist Party of China]".

Examples of this have surfaced on Twitter, with vocal supporters of the Hong Kong protests claiming that the Communist Party of China is behind Black Lives Matter, comparing Black protesters to gorillas, and claiming that the "real America" consists of Black people who are looters and white people who clean upward afterwards them.

Racist and nativist undercurrents accept been present throughout the Hong Kong protests. Although this has primarily been directed towards mainland Chinese, anti-Black racism has likewise previously erupted during the protests.

Following NBA superstar LeBron James' refusal to declare support for the movement, intense backfire swept across the city with protesters trampling on and called-for the basketball icon's jerseys.

In ane gathering, hundreds of aroused protesters appear to have chanted racial slurs directed at James, with the Associated Press reporting that the chant "wasn't printable."

Hong Kong "pro-democracy" activists shut down Black Lives Matter rally

Hong Kong "pro-commonwealth" activists have gone and so far every bit to derail the efforts to organize a Black Lives Matter rally in the city following the killing of George Floyd.

In a alphabetic character shared with the Hong Kong Gratis Press, event organizer Jayne Jeje, an African-American woman who has lived in Hong Kong for eight years, outlined the harassment she received that led to her cancelling the outcome.

According to Jeje, "pro-democracy" activists defendant her of "working with the law to entrap people" and "being backed past the CCP [Communist Party of China]." On the social media event page for the rally, Jeje wrote that she was bombarded with "attacks" and hostile comments consisting of "mistruths, bullying, accusations, and profanity."

Jeje wrote that she was accused of having "expat privilege," grilled about "why the result was only virtually BLM, since HK lives matter too." More concerned with co-opting the event to advance their own calendar than demonstrating solidarity, Hong Kong "pro-democracy" activists told Jeje that she "[did not] have the right to annotate on BLM" unless she made the Hong Kong protests a focus of the consequence.

In this vein, Hong Kong protesters have recently appropriated the slogans "I can't breathe" and "Black Lives Thing" for their own demonstrations.

Demonstrators in Hong Kong concur signs on June 9, 2020, mark the i-twelvemonth anniversary since "pro-democracy" protests began in opposition to a now-withdraw extradition bill.

Ultimately, due to this harassment and fear that "pro-democracy" activists would sabotage the event, Jeje and the other event organizers chose to cancel the Blackness Lives Matter rally.

"[We] made the painful decision to cancel the issue, based on angry messages that we were cooperating with the police force, or not including their issues or responding to their demands" wrote Jeje. "We feared they would come up and purposefully ruin the event."

Hong Kong's opposition aligned with same far-right US politicians repressing Blackness Lives Matter

At that place are some within Hong Kong's "pro-commonwealth" motility who have issued statements expressing support for the protests taking place in the US and the Black Lives Matter movement, arguing that both movements are engaged in a shared struggle against oppression and police brutality.

Joshua Wong, a poster-boy for the Hong Kong protests, along with Nathan Law and other leading members of his political party, Demosistō, have stated that they stand with Black Lives Thing. "Many of you have asked me about the ongoing U.S. protests" wrote Wong in a June 2 tweet.

"As a human-rights activist, I stand firmly on the side of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and oppose police brutality, wherever it may be."

Although he had never mentioned Black Lives Matter prior to this tweet, Wong has now claimed that both he and Hong Kong's protesters have long stood in solidarity with the move. "Fourth dimension and again, we see how people fighting oppression in Hong Kong proceed to stand with people fighting oppression in the United States. #BlackLivesMatter," Wong wrote in a June 4 tweet, sharing an image of a Hong Kong protester holding a sign which read "I CAN'T BREATHE."

In calling for solidarity between the 2 movements, Lausan argued that they "both stem from the same arrangement of state violence and oppression" and are continued by "similarly being victims of police brutality."

However, what Joshua Wong and other Hong Kong "pro-democracy" leaders, along with "left-wing" supporters like Lausan, omit from their pronouncements of "solidarity" with Black Lives Matter is that their motion's principal marry is the very US state which is brutally repressing American protesters fighting for racial justice.

Leaders of Hong Kong'south opposition like Wong have spent years cultivating close relationships some of the nigh hawkish figures in Washington. Their most vociferous allies include far-right Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, and Rick Scott, and Tom Cotton, who recently called for a U.s.a. armed forces crackdown on Black Lives Matter protests.

Their expressly stated goal, as spelled out by a US-based lobbying firm, is to advance their move against the Chinese government and "preserve the US's own political and economic interests in Hong Kong."

Given their open brotherhood with the very politicians who accept demonized United states protesters as "looters" and "antifa terrorists", doxxed protesters, claimed that the Venezuelan regime is behind the demonstrations, and made fascistic calls for the military to impose martial law, the expressions of support for Black Lives Matter past leaders of Hong Kong's "pro-democracy" motion ring hollow.

It is no coincidence that the statements past Wong and his comrades do not mention, permit alone criticize, their far-right sponsors in Washington. In fact, just days prior to his pronouncement of solidarity with Blackness Lives Matter, Wong sent birthday wishes to Senator Rubio.

These alliances highlight the superficiality of the "solidarity" of Hong Kong'due south opposition with Black Lives Matter and reflect the fundamental political differences between the two movements.

In stark contrast to the Black Lives Matter motility, which has called into question the racial oppression that undergirds the American political organisation, the Hong Kong protesters have proudly affirmed an exceptionalist, whitewashed notion of the US as a beacon of "freedom and democracy," adorning themselves in the stars and stripes and belting out the Star-Spangled Banner while beseeching the US to constabulary the Asian Pacific region.

Whereas Black Lives Matter has inspired a global reckoning with Us and European legacies of slavery and colonialism, Hong Kong's "pro-democracy" move is inspired past the city's former British colonial masters.

In recent days, the Blackness Lives Matter movement has been terrorized by white vigilante groups. Meanwhile, Hong Kong's "pro-republic" protests have served every bit a magnet for the US and European far-right supporters.

Joey Gibson of the alt-correct Patriot Prayer group at a Hong Kong rally in July 2019

The ultra-correct pilgrimages to Hong Kong have included numerous American white nationalists and Ukrainian neo-Nazis who previously fought in the fascist paramilitary group, Azov Battalion.

The interest has been mutual, with Hong Kong's "democrats" drawing inspiration from Ukraine'south pro-Western Euromaidan "revolution" that has empowered far-correct, fascistic forces.

Hong Kong protesters have even embraced the slogan "Glory to Hong Kong", adapted from "Slava Ukrayini" or "Glory to Ukraine", a slogan invented by Ukrainian fascists and used by Nazi collaborators during WWII that was re-popularized by the Euromaidan movement.

"No matter the differences between Ukraine and Hong Kong, our fights for freedom and republic are the same," Joshua Wong told The Kyiv Post in 2019. "[W]due east have to learn from Ukrainians… and bear witness solidarity. Ukraine confronted the force of Russian federation — nosotros are facing the force of Beijing."

Despite attempts to equate their experiences, both movements accept faced radically different police responses. US police force accept killed at least iii protesters in the past several days and imposed harsh curfews, while the Trump administration has threatened to send in the armed services to quash the uprising.

Still later a year of protests in Hong Kong — during which fourth dimension protesters have harassed and taken journalists hostage, ganged upwardly on and beaten countless caught individuals, burned people alive, and murdered an elderly street cleaner past throwing a brick at his head — police have yet to kill a single protester or impose whatsoever curfew in the city.

This is in spite of the fact that Hong Kong's protesters take explicitly aimed to use ambitious provocations to "get the police force to hit [them]" to win international sympathy, including hurling bricks, gasoline bombs, and flaming arrows at officers.

In fact, the Chinese army has never been deployed to protests, except when soldiers left their barracks on one occasion, unarmed and dressed in shorts and t-shirts, to clean debris left on the streets.

It is clear that Hong Kong's "pro-republic" movement and Blackness Lives Thing are dissever movements with radically different political ideologies and aims.

With the US institution united in its new Common cold State of war strategy against People's republic of china, Joshua Wong and Hong Kong's anti-Beijing opposition are well aware that bipartisan support for their movement is secure. If their statements of "solidarity" with protests taking place in the US represent annihilation, it is a drastic desire to avoid being tarnished whatever further by the shut alliances they have forged with pro-police force hardliners in Washington.

Ajit Singh is a lawyer and journalist. He is a contributing author toKeywords in Radical Philosophy and Education: Mutual Concepts for Contemporary Movements (Brill: 2019). He tweets at @ajitxsingh.