Hong Kong demonstrations and Ramming fishing boats

I don't know if these are being covered in the US MSM (I've been too busy to watch tv), but the ongoing demonstrations against China trying to bully Hong Kong (and in the long term take over her institutions) are huge:


////

GetReligion blog has this post about the movement, and refers to the blog Shanghai list who notes that this hymn is the anthem for many of the protesters, that that the local churches are involved, including Cardinal Zen who said a mass for them,

...............


the Inquirer editorial discusses the protest and compares it to the "People power" demonstrations here that threw out Marcos.

he notes that although the bill was being pushed as a way to extradite criminals and pointed to a murderer as an example, the ordinary folks know it is about more than that.

Today the people of Hong Kong have come out in the millions to make their government heedful of their sentiments. They are resisting the measure that will allow the arrest and extradition of dissenters and others who refuse to toe Beijing’s line; by their great numbers they are voicing objection and, at the same time, fighting for the civil rights to which they are entitled as residents of the semiautonomous territory. They are struggling against Beijing’s encroachments and are determined to hold it to its promise of “one country, two systems.”

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/122070/power-of-the-people#ixzz5rFS5yYe5 Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

------------------------

in other news, Duterte is trying to quiet the anger of locals after a Chinese boat deliberately rammed and sank a Filipino fishing boat. 

Inquirer story here tells of how the fishermen were rescued, not by the Chinese boat who rammed them and left them clinging to wreckage and didn't try to help them, but  fishermen from VietNam who were nearby rescued them:

 The Chinese vessel that rammed and sank the Filipino fishing boat abandoned 22 fishermen who had to hold on for dear life in the open sea while waiting for help.

Based on reported accounts of Filipino fishermen, two of their boats approached the Vietnamese vessel spotted about 5 nautical miles away from the incident. This was confirmed by the Vietnamese captain. “At around 1 a.m. on June 10, the Vietnamese fishing boat was anchored and all of its crew fast asleep when they were awakened by the voices of foreigners. Using a flashlight, the captain made out two small boats without lights approaching his. Two men speaking a foreign language waved their hands, requesting help,” the report said.

The Vietnamese captain was cautious at first because he “feared” that those asking for help could be pirates. But it turned out that the two fishermen were soaking wet and shivering, which led them to think that there might have been an accident at sea.

The two Filipino fishermen used hand signals to ask for help and pointed towards Recto Bank. It took about an hour to get to the site of the incident because of poor visibility. When they got there, they found 20 Filipino fishermen trying to survive. Read more: https://globalnation.inquirer.net/176548/vietnamese-boat-captain-details-rescue-of-ph-fishermen#ixzz5rFTo9zRq 

Duterte is pushing for a joint Philippine/Chinese probe of the incident to calm down local anger. He has been trying to make friends with China, but China keeps playing tricks to destroy trust in their promises, something they are doing to a lot of countries in SE Asia and elsewhere. (e.g. investing in companies or projects to help the local economy, but instead giving jobs to illegal Chinese when locals could do the job, militarizing artificial islands in our economic zone, and "giving" money for development projects, which if not paid back will let them take over our resources).

so why didn't the Chinese rescue the fishermen? They claim they were afraid of being "beseiged". Huh?

Here Duterte is going against popular opinion (whereas the drug war, hated by the SJW types, is popular), and his opposition is pushing him to do something.

the Chinese have been threatening Philippine fishermen from their traditional fishing areas in the West Philippine sea, both by coming near to them and by roping off the area (underwater shoals, which sometimes later they convert to artificial islands by digging up the sea bed).

This is the first confirmed sinking incident, but the Chinese military has proposed doing the same thing to American ships who pass nearby in international waters that they are claiming in recent years.

StrategyPage had a long article discussing this last month: LINK

China created the current crisis over who controls Pagasa Island and nearby sandbars. The Chinese have put a record number of ships around the island, most of them Chinese fishing boats pretending to be fishing but in reality members of the Chinese naval militia which is being used in unprecedented numbers here. China insists it has not ordered its naval militia fishing boats to physically block Filipino commercial or military ship from getting to Pagasa. But it has become more difficult for Filipino fishing boats to operate in areas they had long worked.

and notice the huge protests by ecology loving green organizations against Chinese destruction of the coral reefs and ecosystem: (/s)

Uh, anyone? Anyone?