What is big news in the major media is old news to Trends Journal subscribers. As Gerald Celente forecast when the virus first broke out in China last January, Beijing would use COVID to achieve what they were unable to accomplish before the virus struck Wuhan: lock down Hong Kong to stop the protests.
A big story in last week’s Wall Street Journal is that Beijing has wasted little time to flex its muscle in Hong Kong, quickly snuffing out any opposition in the former British colony.
“Everything that’s happening in Hong Kong today was unimaginable a year ago,” Sam Ng, a political satirist from the city, told his YouTube followers, according to the paper.
Beijing has been clear it intends to influence every branch of the city’s government and keep any politician not viewed as a “patriot” from office. Being a patriot means having a willingness to follow Beijing’s dictates. Xia Baolong, the head of China’s office on Hong Kong affairs, said, “Those who violate Hong Kong’s national security law aren’t patriots.”
Last summer, the National People’s Congress finalized the legislation giving China’s government the authority to impose strict security measures on Hong Kong residents. Showing unanimity, the Chinese legislature passed the new control measures with only one dissent among the 2,878 votes.
Beijing said the new law was enacted to stem the influence of foreign interference in Hong Kong and to protect against a repeat of the anti-government riots that began last year. In the Trends Journal, we closely covered the massive street protests in Hong Kong beginning in March 2019 in reaction to the Fugitive Offenders legislation, which would have allowed China to extradite Hong Kong criminal suspects to the mainland.
The crackdown has been severe and sent dissidents fleeing the city.
The WSJ reported that Beijing set up a tip line in the city to report those who are considered “unpatriotic,” and the phone line received 40,000 calls, the paper said. The penalties under the national security law can include life in prison. Some say these dissidents are looking for new ways to continue the fight for independence from mainland China.
TREND FORECAST: Gerald Celente appeared on numerous occasions in Hong Kong media and has long forecast the protests would be stifled, freedoms would be lost, and Beijing would rule.
As we have reported in our economic section of the Trends Journal, regardless of what the communist nation does, how they do it, and whomever they do it to – as with the takeover of Hong Kong by Beijing – the business of business is business, and the Wall Street Gangs and Bankster Mobs are doing big business in Hong Kong.
Human rights, social problems, environmental issues, government policies, etc., while Western nations will talk a good game on the importance of such matters, as evidenced by private equity groups, banks, hedge funds, etc., that are deeply invested in Hong Kong, it’s all about the bottom line.
TRENDPOST: Beyond Hong Kong – from India to South Africa, from Chile to Algeria – as noted in the Trends Journal, nations across the globe that were in the grips of social unrest before COVID have been locked down, and the protests that were threatening ruling governments have been prohibited.
