@Landon Caeli ,
Here's what started all of it...
2019 Hong Kong extradition bill - Wikipedia
The bill was proposed by the Hong Kong government in February 2019 to establish a mechanism for transfers of fugitives not only for Taiwan, but also for Mainland China and Macau, which are currently excluded in the existing laws....
The introduction of the bill caused widespread criticism domestically and abroad from the legal profession, journalist organisations, business groups, and foreign governments fearing the erosion of Hong Kong's legal system and its built-in safeguards, as well as damage to Hong Kong's business climate. Largely, this fear is attributed to China's newfound ability through this bill to arrest voices of political dissent in Hong Kong.
So China proposed a bill which would allow snatch and grab of its critics in HK. This is a change. This is what started the protests.
In Aug 2019, the protests turned violent. The following wikipedia article is nice because the footnotes provide a list of news articles discussing the HK protest story in chronological order.
Causes of the 2019 Hong Kong protests - Wikipedia
But, in order to fully understand this current situation, it's good to look at the HK / mainland china dynamic.
Hong Kong–Mainland China conflict - Wikipedia
Relations between people in
Hong Kong and
mainland China have been relatively tense since the early 2000s. Various factors have contributed, including different interpretations of the "
One country, two systems" principle; policies of the Hong Kong and central governments to encourage mainland visitors to Hong Kong; and the changing economic environment.
These tensions are expressed as hostility toward mainlanders by radical political actors and ordinary citizens alike. More broadly, there exists resentment toward mainland-Hong Kong convergence or assimilation, and toward perceived interference from mainland China in Hong Kong's internal affairs.
"One country, two systems" ... the people of Hong Kong tasted freedom. And now, everything else is unacceptable. What we are seeing is people power. People are putting themselves in harms way in order to make a difference for themselves, for their family, and for their neighbors.
The 2019 extradition bill was, in the view of many the last straw. in 2015, the owners and operators of a political bookstore were disappeared. (
source ). What makes this story important is that it shows that at that time, China was not legally authorized to detain people that were not on the Mainland. There were different laws for HK. The Chinese gov't needed to justify the detainment by showing that the individuals were standing on Chinese soil, not Hong Kong. That's what makes the extradition bill so pivotal in this issue.
There are other issues as well. A lot of people talk about this conflict as a call for democracy. But at its core, I think it's less about representation in gov't and more about freedom of speech and the right to protest.