FYI, the SCMP was acquired by Alibaba back in 2015- and Jack Ma 'stepped down' just this year- no surprise consider Xi's policies of injecting the CCP into corporate boards. Like all news sources, I'd always take it with a grain of salt considering the message its owners may want it to convey.
The long read: Much of modern China’s epic growth was driven by private enterprise – but under Xi Jinping, the Communist party has returned to being the ultimate authority in business as well as politics
www.theguardian.com
In other news, Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act bill has passed its first hearing unanimously- now the trickier part is getting through the Senate (and probably most challenging of all, the President's desk). That being said, this will ultimately largely target those living in Hong Kong- extra-territorial participants (i.e. gang members targeting pro-democracy forces) will likely be unaffected.
Hong Kong protests: US lawmakers pass Human Rights and Democracy Act
16 October 2019
The House of Representatives has thrown its weight behind Hong Kong's protesters.
www.bbc.co.uk
An interesting set of polls from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, conducted for the Ming Pao newspaper:
Absolute collapse in trust in the police- interesting seeing that the police has a core group of supporters (any guesses?):
Despite increasingly violent protester actions, public opinion has not shifted much:
Again- symbolic of a missing sense of justice- the public believes that vigilantism is possibly acceptable in these situations- a likely result of proven-and-uninvestigated police brutality, and undercover police forces being perceived as undertaking in false flag activity and attempting to infiltrate protester ranks:
The only way out:
Finally, the anti-mask law is seen as counter-productive (no surprise there):
onezero.medium.com
