Opinion: Chinese people and government must react to the protest movement

After introducing the Hong Kong views of this event, let’s turn our views to how Chinese people look at this protest.

Under the current Chinese society system, public demonstrations are an incomprehensible thing, so they cannot understand the purpose of Hong Kongese protesting. There is a fierce struggle between the police and protesters. Some of the protesters are arbitrarily destroying the society and some march under the slogan of “Hong Kong Independence.”

This also involved gang activity. They destroyed roads, set up roadblocks, damaged the airport, disrupted the railway station, smashed shops, wounded innocent people, and destroyed the Chinese flag and national emblem. 

(Hong Kong protestors gather and disturb the order / by AFP news)

These kinds of behaviors were not clearly explained in the Chinese media propaganda, which led to the distortion of the original purpose of the protests. At the same time, the Hong Kong police used tear gas to attack innocent people, and they did so by brute force.

For example, on the evening of Aug. 11, a female reporter’s eye was injured by police and possibly caused permanent blindness. These violent acts have made the Chinese notice the importance of this event, and many Chinese advocates the peaceful treatment of Hong Kong protesters.

However, more and more Chinese media reports describe the protesters becoming terrorists who advocate for independence, which has caused panic among the Chinese. Regrettably, people in China cannot see the reason for this movement.

Their misunderstanding makes them think that Hong Kongese directly wants independence instead of what they are actually requesting, the freedom of speech and press. So the Chinese do not support Hong Kong’s “independence,” which is not the main goal of Hong Kong’s protest movement.

(Protesters plan to descend on Hong Kong airport again for a demonstration on Monday, stirred by a woman being shot in the eye on Sunday. / Sam Tsang)

Many Chinese citizens believe that this is an event organized by outsiders and that there are bigger countries that control it all behind the scenes. They believe that it is the support from the United States or the United Kingdom that has led to the expansion of this movement.

However, Hong Kong people realize that Lin Zhenyu, the current “president” in charge of Hong Kong, does not manage this event, and this movement will have no end. Through those reasons, I can only say that the original purpose of the protest movement in Hong Kong is undamaged.

As the days pass and with some big organizations purposely involved, the protest movement in Hong Kong has become complicated and dangerous.

In my opinion, we can’t just look at one side of things. People need to understand each others’ needs and make a series of solutions, instead of letting the people guess and have disputes over misunderstandings. The Chinese government needs to respond to this and let the people think rationally.