When you put the NBA, World of Warcraft, Winnie the Pooh and China together, what do you get?
Some of the biggest protests on one of the biggest issues the world has ever seen: the Hong Kong protests.
For lack of a better term, things in Hong Kong have snowballed quite a bit. The protests started in March of this year after a bill in China was proposed.
The bill is called the extradition bill.
Extraditing is when a government hands over a person accused or convicted of a crime to the jurisdiction of a foreign state where the crime was committed. It would be like if someone was charged with assault while on holiday in Mexico, they would be extradited to Mexico because that’s where the crime was committed.
In Hong Kong’s case and why this is causing such an uproar, the extradition laws are being changed to allow countries with no extradition treaties to make extradition requests. The countries that raise the biggest red flags for citizens of Hong Kong are Taiwan and mainland China.
China and Hong Kong’s laws are very different. Hong Kong gives its citizens the right to freedom of expression, the right to free press, and the right to safe assembly.
China very famously, does not.
This law has been criticized heavily by politicians and journalists around the world. These critics of the law also fear that the law will be used by China to pressure Hong Kong to extradite political activists and journalists.
China’s government is said to be quite corrupt and does not believe in a fair trial, usually using methods of torture.
This bill has caused the biggest protests Hong Kong has seen since 1997.
June 12, 2019 is when things really started picking up, as protests were mostly peaceful with a few skirmishes. However, this was the first recorded time in which police fired rubber bullets and used tear gas for the protests.
The protests have caused wave all around the world, including the NBA and creators of the games Overwatch and World of Warcraft, a video game publishing company called Blizzard.
On a competitive Hearthstone livestream, a player by the name of Chung Ng Wai, who’s username is Blitzchung, voiced his support for Hong Kong.
Towards the end of the livestream, Blitzchung shouted “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age.”
Blizzard receives a ton of investments from China. They’re response to Blitzchung voicing his opinion was to take away at least $3,000 in winnings on Hearthstone tournaments and banned him for one year.
This is a huge problem, as this is an American company being controlled and influenced by the Chinese government, which is extremely corrupt and makes very questionable decisions.
The amount of control that China has in the world is terrifying. They censor and silence those who speak out against the state, they denounce and deny things the government has done that could put it in a negative light. Have a look at the history of Tiananmen Square and the history of the Tank Man picture.
The eyes of the world will be on Hong Kong for a long, long time to come, no matter what the decision on this extradition bill will be.
