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the emos are total or the tie dog at
home Eva well you can tell you bet I
don't have a crystal the people of Hong
Kong are out in the streets for you oh
hey
next using hang on hundreds of thousands
are demonstrating against a deeply
unpopular bill
we didn't notice but this is about a
whole lot more than a bill it's about
the status of Hong Kong and the power
China has over it it's a fight to
preserve the freedoms people have here
and it all started with a murder
On February 8 2018 a young couple
chanting Kai and Pune hewing went from
their home in Hong Kong to Taiwan for
vacation they stated the purple garden
hotel in Taipei for nine days but on
February 17th only one of them returned
to Hong Kong there one month later Chan
confessed to murdering his girlfriend
who was pregnant at the time but there
was a problem Hong Kong authorities
couldn't charge him for murder
because he did it in Taiwan and they
couldn't send him back to Taiwan to be
charged because Hong Kong and Taiwan
don't have an extradition agreement so
in 2019 Hong Kong's government proposed
one it would let them transfer suspects
to Taiwan so they could be tried for
their crimes
but the same bill would also allow
extradition to mainland China where
there's no fair trial there's no humane
punishment and has completely no work a
separation of powers and that's what
sparked these protests China and Hong
Kong are two very different places with
a very complex political relationship
and the extradition bill threatens to
give China more power over Hong Kong see
Hong Kong is technically a part of China
but it operates as a semi-autonomous
region
it all began in the late 1800s when
China lost a series of Wars to Britain
and ended up ceding Hong Kong for a
period of 99 years Hong Kong remained a
British colony until 1997 when Britain
gave it back to China under a special
agreement it was called one country two
systems'
it made Hong Kong a part of China but it
also said that Hong Kong would retain a
high degree of autonomy as well as
democratic freedoms like the right to
vote freedom of speech freedom of the
press of assembly and that made Hong
Kong very different from mainland China
which is authoritarian citizens there
don't have the same freedoms it's legal
system is often used to arrest punish
and silence people who speak out against
the state but according to the agreement
one country two systems' wouldn't last
forever in 2047 Hong Kong is expected to
fully become a part of China
the problem is China isn't waiting for
the deal to expire under the rule of
Chinese leader Xi Jinping pro-democracy
leaders have already been arrested in
Hong Kong and mysterious abductions of
booksellers have created a threat to
free speech but Hong Kong has been
pushing back in 2003 half a million Hong
Kongers successfully fought legislation
that would have punished speaking out
against China and in 2014 tens of
thousands of protesters occupied the
city for weeks to protest China's
influence over Hong Kong's elections now
Hong Kongers are fighting the
extradition bill because the bill is
widely seen as the next step in China's
encroachment on
Donna me no way or they do you got some
rockefeller pebbles and something the
more a person Mandira a dialogue thank
you well to me here a high jump over a
young group called Solent indian new
with hammer and how do you can't go in a
new table you can consider the sheer
size of these protests shows you just
how much opposition there is to this
bill but if Hong Kong is legislature
votes on the bill
it'll probably pass and that's because
of the unique nature of Hong Kong's
democracy for starters Hong Kong's
people don't vote for their leader the
chief executive is selected by a small
committee and approved by China and even
though they're the head of the
government they don't make the laws that
happens here like many democracies Hong
Kong has a legislature with
democratically elected representatives
it's called the Legislative Council or
ledge Co and it has 70 seats within this
system Hong Kong has many political
parties but they are mostly either
pro-democracy or pro China in every
election Hong Kong's pro-democracy and
anti-establishment parties have won the
popular vote but they occupy less than
half of the seats in the ledge ko this
is because when Hong Kongers vote
they're only voting for these 40 of the
70 seats the other 30 are chosen by the
various business communities of Hong
Kong for example one seat belongs to the
finance industry one seat belongs to the
medical industry one belongs to the
insurance industry and so on many of
these thirty seats are voted on by
corporations and because big business
has an incentive to be friendly with
China those seats are dominated by
pro-china political parties when hong
kong was handed over to China in 1997
Hong Kong and China made an agreement
that eventually all members of the
council would be elected by the people
but that never happened and ever since
the hand-off pro-china parties have
controlled alleged Co despite having
never won more than 50% of the popular
the way it's structured they want to
make sure that the executive branch can
have easy control over it and that would
surf their Beijing very well indeed
within this unique structure the
extradition bill has created new
tensions and fuelled anger among
pro-democracy politicians and it's
driven hundreds of thousands of Hong
Kongers into the streets into the tea
super-nice just to change that gently
tyramine some so Toto's who i know
behind them two songs to the customer
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while this isn't Hong Kong's first
protest against China's influence it is
the biggest and many say this time is
different because of the people involved
professionals like lawyers and
politicians are participating our legal
sector is staged their biggest ever
protest parade but it's young people who
are at the forefront since they have the
most to lose they are the first
generation born under one country two
systems and in 28 years when that
arrangement ends they'll be Hong Kong's
professional class I won't be around
anymore it's their future as their Hong
Kong they have every right to fight it
the protests have convinced Hong Kong's
government to suspend the bill but
that's not enough many want the bill
withdrawn completely lower you down
that's because these protests are also
part of a larger fight to push back
against China's encroachment now not
just when times up okay John Gotti was
in coaching hey I got the highway take a
game for young y'all get code name Oh
charlie well they do hold okay Bolivia
2047 is on its way but it's not here yet
and until then Hong Kong are still have
a voice history will tell whether we
succeed but even if we failed the
history would say they did put up a
fight and they didn't just take things
lying down and that's what we're trying
to do too
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