In China-controlled Hong Kong, freedom is the biggest casualty

An interesting hoarding can be seen on Hong Kong's bustling Nathan Street exhibiting Standard Chartered Bank's initiative: One Belt. One Road. One Bank. It clearly highlights the power of China, the "one country, two systems" approach for the former British colony has come in for strong criticism in the past week with the world closely following events related to the Tiananmen Square massacre.

My tour guide in Macau who happened to be a local Portuguese told me quite candidly that theChinese will shoveyou if you don't shovethem back while he acknowledged that ever since China entered the scene the "real wages" hadgone up in the country ensuring people werehappy and satisfied, after all "quality of life matters", he said.

The "invisible hand" of China is very much on display in Hong Kong and Macau. Although Hong Kong has been accorded "special administrative region" status but clearly all is not well in the island.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

In Macau streets, the citizens feel they have 36 casinos to sustain themselves rolling out trillions of dollars(mostly Chinese who drop in from the mainland to drown theiryuan, those who win convert itinto gold). Indians might be great gold hoarders, Chinese are the world biggest gold investors.

The apparent anti-China feeling was reflected on June 4th on the streets inHong Kong whereover 180,000 people turned out at Victoria Park to remember those who fell lighting the flame of democracy at Tiananmen in 1989. The authorities, however, said 37,000 people had turned up, but since this was the 30th anniversary of the massacre, locals turned up in record numbers.

Interestingly, China does not recognise the "Tiananmen Square massacre", the Chinese Communist Party has rephrased it as "political turmoil" since the 1990s and it finds no mention in China's history books.

In fact, the new generation Chinese, young, tech-savvy and ultrarich do not have any idea of the events surrounding the June 4th massacre in which 1,000 unarmed and hapless students were slaughtered by the Chinese Army.

China has clearly used its "homegrown internet orbit" to its advantage blocking out any reference to Tiananmen. The Chinese leadership is quite happy to project a rich, defiant and strong country, a facade which has been accepted by the masses.

However, Hong Kong hasn't forgotten although people on the street clearly feel "one country, two system" is under threat with China intent on passing the extradition law which would allow authorities to send a Hong Kong resident to another part of China for crimes committed at home, naturally it would be mainly "freedom" which would be under attack the locals fear.

Despite the public outrage and large scale criticism by US and the UN, India has kept mum over the incident surrounding the massacre which started on the night of June 3rd, 1989, perhaps a stand against China on human rights will be good to keep Rising China on the backfoot because the Xi regime is clearly itchy about the historical blunder and has batted on the backfoot on the issue.

Even as the world reflects on the "Tank Man" and "Tiananmen Mothers" who lost their children, Indians should feel proud of theirdemocracy because a Tiananmen-style massacre is inconceivable in India.

However, China has stood firm and failed to even acknowledge that it was pro-democracy movement when the leadership fell back into "cultural revolution" tactics failing their own citizens many of whom were teenagers.

The dragon should not be allowed to go scot-free because the consequences could be even more disastrous for the repressed, minorities and downtrodden everywhere.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)