Last week, authorities in Hong Kong continued the effort to stem protests in the city. They deployed some 6,000 police to screen “whole streets of shoppers” to find any evidence they were headed to an anti-protest demonstration during China National Day celebrations.
“It’s China’s National Day but this is Hong Kong’s death day,” said one woman whom Reuters described as “dressed in black, the city’s protest attire.”
Tensions remain high in the city after the implementation this past June of Beijing’s national security law, which essentially eliminates freedom of speech in the city and gives Beijing the power to determine how laws are interpreted.
The Financial Times reported there were 86 arrests made last week, including a few local politicians. Reuters reported that Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam earlier praised the area’s “return to stability.”
Prior to the COVID lockdown imposed on Hong Kong in late January by Beijing, protests against Chinese government rule had been raging since June 2019.
Reuters reported that the protest last week was aimed at the law and demanded the release of 12 Hong Kong citizens who were caught at sea trying to reach Taiwan.
TREND FORECAST: We continually reported in the Trends Journal Beijing could not quell the extensive Hong Kong protests which began in March 2019, that had well over a million citizens taking to the streets. The demonstrations were in reaction to the Fugitive Offenders legislation bill, which would have allowed China to extradite Hong Kong criminal suspects to the mainland.
As Gerald Celente had forecast when the virus first broke out in China this past January, Beijing would use COVID-19 to achieve what they were unable to accomplish before the virus stuck Wuhan: Lockdown Hong Kong to stop the protests.
That has now been accomplished… along with Beijing’s new national security law, the city is under the full dictate of the Chinese government.
