Celebrations in communist China hide realities of violence and oppression – Lamron

This month, China celebrates 70 years of Communist party rule. They marked the occasion in Beijing with painstakingly choreographed military parades and displays of new weapons, such as hypersonic drones and intercontinental ballistic missiles. But in Hong Kong, long-suffering protests turned violent and worked directly against Chinas power show of unity and strength.

Protests in Hong Kong have been marching on since late last March, originally fighting against an extradition bill which would have allowed for criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China, according to the BBC. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets and, eventually, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said the bill would be suspended indefinitely. Protesters werent having it and demanded the bill be permanently withdrawn. It eventually was in September.

But the response of Hong Kongs police force and the hardening response from mainland China have only bolstered protesters. Protesters have demanded many things, from the withdrawal of the riot description given to protesters, universal suffrage for the elections of Hong Kongs parliament or the resignation of Lam. The protests came to a head last week when a protester was shot with a live round for the first time.

Celebrating a false, demoralizing sense of unity in China and its territories is nothing short of barbaric. Its the pan and circus of the modern era, distracting society from their overbearing death and destruction with carefully programmed, ready-for-public demonstrations of might and power.

People have been marching for months on end, suffering shots from rubber bullets, tear gas, losing their jobs and, in the worst cases, being arrested and thrown in jail; all while the political and wealthy elite celebrate the corrupt system that placed them in those positions of power. They demonstrate that power with military and police, showing off their overwhelming might with monstrous force.

President Trump wrote an off-color tweet congratulating China on its 70-year celebration, going to show how backward and divided opinion has become about Chinas Communist party and treatment of its citizens. Americans, and specifically Republicans, have been against the very notion of communists for more than half a century, especially when there is overwhelming evidence of that Communist nation cracking down on personal freedoms and expression.

China is better at nothing than the repression of personal freedom, from outlawing images of ghosts and homosexuality on screen, to the repression of its Muslim citizens and the protests still in full swing in Hong Kong, which only continue to grow more violent.

The birth of Chinas communist nation bore only sorrow and death. None [of all the planned utopian economies of the 20th century] was more deadly or dehumanizing no government has murdered, tortured, imprisoned and terrorized more of its own people than communist China, according to the New York Post. Its economic status may be on the rise and its GDP second only to the United States, but Chinas demonstration of old fashioned, 1950s era military power and crackdown of personal freedoms is nothing short of reprehensible.

The only silver lining here is the fact that the extradition bill which sparked these protests in the first place has been officially withdrawn. Maybe there can be a future in China where peoples voices are heard; where change can be made. For now, that change is regulated to Hong Kong, where the laws of China are shaky, and its citizens wary of their oppressor.

Maria Pawlak is a political science and English double major freshman who was always the penultimate runner when she did high school cross country.

More here:

Celebrations in communist China hide realities of violence and oppression - Lamron