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This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: The program begins with an excerpt of AFA #37 (from the fall of 1992), dealing with the destabilization of the U.S.S.R. Relying on articles from Covert Action Information Bulletin #35, by Doug Henwood and Sean Gervasi, the program reviews both NSC 68 and what Gervasi terms “the full court press” strategy that was its ultimate fulfillment.
Using political action focused on promoting fractious nationalism among targeted ethnicities within the targeted nation and economic and diplomatic pressure to weaken that country, the strategy worked very well with the Soviet Union.
It is Mr. Emory’s considered opinion that the same strategy is being applied to China. Whether that strategy will be successful remains to be seen.
Next, we note the role of the National Endowment for Democracy (an example of Orwellian Newspeak if ever there was one) in continuing our examination of the turmoil in Hong Kong. NED was deeply involved in the destabilization of the U.S.S.R. We examined NED’s role in projecting Nazi and fascist elements back into Lithuania in AFA #37, as well as FTR #858.
In this article we note: the involvement of the NED with the leading individuals and institutions involved with the turmoil in Hong Kong; the networking between other U.S. “soft-power” intelligence fronts with the Hong Kong activists; the networking between top Trump administration officials and the Hong Kong activists; the use of anti-Chinese slurs dating to the fighting between Japan and China prior to, and during, World War II; U.S. “Alt-right” involvement with the Hong Kong unrest; the meeting of a U.S. diplomat with Hong Kong activists; the use of what–if it were used by people acting in the U.S.–rioting and terrorism by the crowds in Hong Kong; the violence used in Hong Kong includes throwing gasoline bombs at the police, setting fire to subway stations, attacking passers-by and assaulting counter-protesters.
1.The program begins with an excerpt of AFA #37 (from the fall of 1992), dealing with the destabilization of the U.S.S.R. Relying on articles from Covert Action Information Bulletin #35, by Doug Henwood and Sean Gervasi, the program reviews both NSC 68 and what Gervasi terms “the full court press” strategy that was its ultimate fulfillment.
Using political action focused on promoting fractious nationalism among targeted ethnicities within the targeted nation and economic and diplomatic pressure to weaken that country, the strategy worked very well with the Soviet Union.
It is Mr. Emory’s considered opinion that the same strategy is being applied to China. Whether that strategy will be successful remains to be seen.
2. We note the role of the National Endowment for Democracy (an example of Orwellian Newspeak if ever there was one) in continuing our examination of the turmoil in Hong Kong. NED was deeply involved in the destabilization of the U.S.S.R. We examined NED’s role in projecting Nazi and fascist elements back into Lithuania in AFA #37, as well as FTR #858.
In this article we note: the involvement of the NED with the leading individuals and institutions involved with the turmoil in Hong Kong; the networking between other U.S. “soft-power” intelligence fronts with the Hong Kong activists; the networking between top Trump administration officials and the Hong Kong activists; the use of anti-Chinese slurs dating to the fighting between Japan and China prior to, and during, World War II; the use of what–if it were used by people acting in the U.S.–rioting and terrorism by the crowds in Hong Kong; the violence used in Hong Kong includes throwing gasoline bombs at the police, setting fire to subway stations, attacking passers-by and assaulting counter-protesters.
“US Backs Xenophobia, Mob Violence in Hong Kong” by Dan Cohen [The Gray Zone]; Consortium News, 8/19/2019.
President Donald Trump tweeted on August 13 that he “can’t imagine why” the United States has been blamed for the chaotic protests that have gripped Hong Kong.
Trump’s befuddlement might be understandable considering the carefully managed narrative of the U.S. government and its unofficial media apparatus, which have portrayed the protests as an organic “pro-democracy” expression of grassroots youth. However, a look beneath the surface of this oversimplified, made-for-television script reveals that the ferociously anti-Chinese network behind the demonstrations has been cultivated with the help of millions of dollars from the U.S. government, as well as a Washington-linked local media tycoon.
Since March, raucous protests have gripped Hong Kong. In July and August, these demonstrations transformed into ugly displays of xenophobia and mob violence.
The protests ostensibly began in opposition to a proposed amendment to the extradition law between Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, and Macau, which would have allowed Taiwanese authorities to prosecute a Hong Kong man for murdering his pregnant girlfriend and dumping her body in the bushes during a vacation to Taiwan.
Highly organized networks of anti-China protesters quickly mobilized against the law, compelling Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam to withdraw the bill.
But the protests continued even after the extradition law was taken off the table — and these demonstrations degenerated into disturbing scenes. In recent days, hundreds of masked rioters have occupied the Hong Kong airport, forcing the cancellation of inbound flights while harassing travelers and viciously assaulting journalists and police.
The protesters’ stated goals remain vague. Joshua Wong, one of the most well known figures in the movement, has put forward a call for the Chinese government to “retract the proclamation that the protests were riots,” and restated the consensus demand for universal suffrage.
Wong is a bespectacled 22-year-old who has been trumpeted in Western media as a “freedom campaigner,” promoted to the English-speaking world through his own Netflix documentary, and rewarded with the backing of the U.S. government.
But behind telegenic spokespeople like Wong are more extreme elements such as the Hong Kong National Party, whose members have appeared at protests waving the Stars and Stripes and belting out cacophonous renditions of the Star-Spangled Banner. The leadership of this officially banned party helped popularize the call for the full independence of Hong Kong, a radical goal that is music to the ears of hardliners in Washington.
Xenophobic resentment has defined the sensibility of the protesters, who vow to “retake Hong Kong” from Chinese mainlanders they depict as a horde of locusts. The demonstrators have even adopted one of the most widely recognized symbols of the alt-right, emblazoning images of Pepe the Frog on their protest literature. While it’s unclear that Hong Kong residents see Pepe the same way American white nationalists do, members of the U.S. far-right have embraced the protest movement as their own, and even personally joined their ranks.
Among the most central influencers of the demonstrations is a local tycoon named Jimmy Lai. The self-described “head of opposition media,” Lai is widely described as the Rupert Murdoch of Asia. For the masses of protesters, Lai is a transcendent figure. They clamor for photos with him and applaud the oligarch wildly when he walks by their encampments.
Lai established his credentials by pouring millions of dollars into the 2014 Occupy Central protest, which is known popularly as the Umbrella Movement. He has since used his massive fortune to fund local anti-China political movers and shakers while injecting the protests with a virulent brand of Sinophobia through his media empire.
Though Western media has depicted the Hong Kong protesters as the voice of an entire people yearning for freedom, the island is deeply divided. This August, a group of protesters mobilized outside Jimmy Lai’s house, denouncing him as a “running dog” of Washington and accusing him of national betrayal by unleashing chaos on the island.
Days earlier, Lai was in Washington, coordinating with hardline members of Trump’s national security team, including John Bolton. His ties to Washington run deep — and so do those of the front-line protest leaders.
Millions of dollars have flowed from U.S. regime-change outfits like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) into civil society and political organizations that form the backbone of the anti-China mobilization. And Lai has supplemented it with his own fortune while instructing protesters on tactics through his various media organs.
With Donald Trump in the White House, Lai is convinced that his moment may be on the horizon. Trump “understands the Chinese like no president understood,” the tycoon told The Wall Street Journal. “I think he’s very good at dealing with gangsters.”
Born to Wealthy Mainland Parents
Born in the mainland in 1948 to wealthy parents, whose fortune was expropriated by the Communist Party during the revolution the following year, Jimmy Lai began working at 9 years old, carrying bags for train travelers during the hard years of the Great Chinese Famine.
Inspired by the taste of a piece of chocolate gifted to him by a wealthy man, he decided to smuggle himself to Hong Kong to discover a future of wealth and luxury. There, Lai worked his way up the ranks of the garment industry, growing enamored with the libertarian theories of economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, the latter of whom became his close friend.
Friedman is famous for developing the neoliberal shock therapy doctrine that the U.S. has imposed on numerous countries, resulting in the excess deaths of millions. For his part, Hayek is the godfather of the Austrian economic school that forms the foundation of libertarian political movements across the West.
Lai built his business empire on Giordano, a garment label that became one of Asia’s most recognizable brands. In 1989, he threw his weight behind the Tiananmen Square protests, hawking t‑shirts on the streets of Beijing calling for Deng Xiaoping to “step down.”
Lai’s actions provoked the Chinese government to ban his company from operating on the mainland. A year later, he founded Next Weekly magazine, initiating a process that would revolutionize the mediascape in Hong Kong with a blend of smutty tabloid-style journalism, celebrity gossip and a heavy dose of anti-China spin.
The vociferously anti-communist baron soon became Hong Kong’s media kingpin, worth a whopping $660 million in 2009.
Today, Lai is the founder and majority stakeholder of Next Digital, the largest listed media company in Hong Kong, which he uses to agitate for the end of what he calls the Chinese “dictatorship.”
His flagship outlet is the popular tabloid Apple Daily, employing the trademark mix of raunchy material with a heavy dose of xenophobic, nativist propaganda.
In 2012, Apple Daily carried a full page advertisement depicting mainland Chinese citizens as invading locusts draining Hong Kong’s resources. The advertisement called for a stop to the “unlimited invasion of mainland pregnant women in Hong Kong.” (This was a crude reference to the Chinese citizens who had flocked to the island while pregnant to ensure that their children could earn Hong Kong residency, and resembled the resentment among the U.S. right-wing of immigrant “anchor babies.”)
The transformation of Hong Kong’s economy has provided fertile soil for Lai’s brand of demagoguery. As the country’s manufacturing base moved to mainland China after the golden years of the 1980s and ‘90s, the economy was rapidly financialized, enriching oligarchs like Lai. Left with rising debt and dimming career prospects, Hong Kong’s youth became easy prey to the demagogic politics of nativism.
Many protesters have been seen waving British Union Jacks in recent weeks, expressing a yearning for an imaginary past under colonial control which they never personally experienced.
In July, protesters vandalized the Hong Kong Liaison Office, spray-painting the word, “Shina” on its facade. This term is a xenophobic slur some in Hong Kong and Taiwan use to refer to mainland China. The anti-Chinese phenomenon was visible during the 2014 Umbrella movement protests as well, with signs plastered around the city reading, “Hong Kong for Hong Kongers.”
This month, protesters turned their fury on the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, spray-painting “rioters” on its office. The attack represented resentment of the left-wing group’s role in a violent 1967 uprising against the British colonial authorities, who are now seen as heroes among many of the anti-Chinese demonstrators.
Besides Lai, a large part of the credit for mobilizing latent xenophobia goes to the right-wing Hong Kong Indigenous party leader Edward Leung. Under the direction of the 28-year-old Leung, his pro-independence party has brandished British colonial flags and publicly harassed Chinese mainland tourists. In 2016, Leung was exposed for meeting with U.S. diplomatic officials at a local restaurant.
Though he is currently in jail for leading a 2016 riot where police were bombarded with bricks and pavement – and where he admitted to attacking an officer – Leung’s rightist politics and his slogan, “Retake Hong Kong,” have helped define the ongoing protests.
A local legislator and protest leader described Leung to The New York Times as “the Che Guevara of Hong Kong’s revolution,” referring without a hint of irony to the Latin American communist revolutionary killed in a CIA-backed operation. According to the Times, Leung is “the closest thing Hong Kong’s tumultuous and leaderless protest movement has to a guiding light.”
The xenophobic sensibility of the protesters has provided fertile soil for Hong Kong National Party to recruit. Founded by the pro-independence activist Andy Chan, the officially banned party combines anti-Chinese resentment with calls for the U.S. to intervene. Images and videos have surfaced of HKNP members waving the flags of the U.S. and U.K., singing the Star Spangled Banner, and carrying flags emblazoned with images of Pepe the Frog, the most recognizable symbol of the U.S. alt-right.
While the party lacks a wide base of popular support, it is perhaps the most outspoken within the protest ranks, and has attracted disproportionate international attention as a result. Chan has called for Trump to escalate the trade war and accused China of carrying out a “national cleansing” against Hong Kong. “We were once colonized by the Brits, and now we are by the Chinese,” he declared.
Displays of pro-American jingoism in the streets of Hong Kong have been like catnip for the international far-right.
Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson recently appeared at an anti-extradition protest in Hong Kong, livestreaming the event to his tens of thousands of followers. A month earlier, Gibson was seen roughing up antifa activists alongside ranks of club wielding fascists. In Hong Kong, the alt-right organizer marveled at the crowds.
“They love our flag here more than they do in America!” Gibson exclaimed as marchers passed by, flashing him a thumbs up sign while he waved the Stars and Stripes.
Xenophobic Propaganda
Such xenophobic propaganda is consistent with the clash of civilizations theory that Jimmy Lai has promulgated through his media empire.
“You have to understand the Hong Kong people – a very tiny 7 million or 0.5 percent of the Chinese population – are very different from the rest of Chinese in China, because we grow up in the Western values, which was the legacy of the British colonial past, which gave us the instinct to revolt once this extradition law was threatening our freedom,” Lai told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. “Even America has to look at the world 20 years from now, whether you want the Chinese dictatorial values to dominate this world, or you want the values that you treasure [to] continue.”
During a panel discussion at the neoconservative Washington-based think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Lai told the pro-Israel lobbyist Jonathan Schanzer,
“We need to know that America is behind us. By backing us, America is also sowing to the will of their moral authority because we are the only place in China, a tiny island in China, which is sharing your values, which is fighting the same war you have with China.”
While Lai makes no attempt to conceal his political agenda, his bankrolling of central figures in the 2014 Occupy Central, or Umbrella movement protests, was not always public.
Leaked emails revealed that Lai poured more than $1.2 million to anti-China political parties including $637,000 to the Democratic Party and $382,000 to the Civic Party. Lai also gave $115,000 to the Hong Kong Civic Education Foundation and Hong Kong Democratic Development Network, both of which were co-founded by Reverend Chu Yiu-ming. Lai also spent $446,000 on Occupy Central’s 2014 unofficial referendum.
Lai’s U.S. consigliere is a former Navy intelligence analyst who interned with the CIA and leveraged his intelligence connections to build his boss’s business empire. Named Mark Simon, the veteran spook arranged for former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin to meet with a group in the anti-China camp during a 2009 visit to Hong Kong. Five years later, Lai paid $75,000 to neoconservative Iraq war author and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to organize a meeting with top military figures in Myanmar.
This July, as the Hong Kong protests gathered steam, Lai was junketed to Washington, D.C., for meetings with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Cory Gardner, and Rick Scott. Bloomberg News correspondent Nicholas Wadhams remarked on Lai’s visit, “Very unusual for a [non-government] visitor to get that kind of access.”
One of Lai’s closest allies, Martin Lee, was also granted an audience with Pompeo, and has held court with U.S. leaders including Rep. Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Joseph Biden.
Among the most prominent figures in Hong Kong’s pro‑U.S. political parties, Lee began collaborating with Lai during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. A recipient of the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy’s “Democracy Award” in 1997, Lee is the founding chairman of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, now considered part of the pro‑U.S. camp’s old guard.
While Martin Lee has long been highly visible on the pro-western Hong Kong scene, a younger generation of activists emerged during the 2014 Occupy Central protests with a new brand of localized politics.
Joshua Wong was just 17 years old when the Umbrella Movement took form in 2014. After emerging in the protest ranks as one of the more charismatic voices, he was steadily groomed as the pro-West camp’s teenage poster child. Wong received lavish praised in Time magazine, Fortune, and Foreign Policy as a “freedom campaigner,” and became the subject of an award-winning Netflix documentary called “Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower.”
Unsurprisingly, these puff pieces have overlooked Wong’s ties to the U.S. regime-change apparatus. For instance, National Endowment for Democracy’s National Democratic Institute (NDI) maintains a close relationship with Demosisto, the political party Wong founded in 2016 with fellow Umbrella movement alumnus Nathan Law.
In August, a candid photo surfaced of Wong and Law meeting with Julie Eadeh, the political counselor at the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, raising questions about the content of the meeting and setting off a diplomatic showdown between Washington and Beijing.
The Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong submitted a formal complaint with the U.S. consulate general, calling on the U.S. “to immediately make a clean break from anti-China forces who stir up trouble in Hong Kong, stop sending out wrong signals to violent offenders, refrain from meddling with Hong Kong affairs and avoid going further down the wrong path.”
The pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao published personal details about Eadeh, including the names of her children and her address. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus lashed out, accusing the Chinese government of being behind the leak but offering no evidence. “I don’t think that leaking an American diplomat’s private information, pictures, names of their children, I don’t think that is a formal protest, that is what a thuggish regime would do,” she said at a State Department briefing.
But the photo underscored the close relationship between Hong Kong’s pro-West movement and the U.S. government. Since the 2014 Occupy Central protests that vaulted Wong into prominence, he and his peers have been assiduously cultivated by the elite Washington institutions to act as the faces and voices of Hong Kong’s burgeoning anti-China movement.
In September 2015, Wong, Martin Lee, and University of Hong Kong law professor Benny Tai Lee were honored by Freedom House, a right-wing soft-power organization that is heavily funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and other arms of the U.S. government.
Just days after Trump’s election as president in November 2016, Wong was back in Washington to appeal for more U.S. support. “Being a businessman, I hope Donald Trump could know the dynamics in Hong Kong and know that to maintain the business sector benefits in Hong Kong, it’s necessary to fully support human rights in Hong Kong to maintain the judicial independence and the rule of law,” he said.
Wong’s visit provided occasion for the Senate’s two most aggressively neoconservative members, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton, to introduce the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act,” which would “identify those responsible for abduction, surveillance, detention and forced confessions, and the perpetrators will have their U.S. assets, if any… frozen and their entry to the country denied.”
Wong was then taken on a junket of elite U.S. institutions including the right-wing Heritage Foundation think tank and the newsrooms of The New York Times and Financial Times. He then held court with Rubio, Cotton, Pelosi, and Sen. Ben Sasse.
In September 2017, Rubio, Ben Cardin, Tom Cotton, Sherrod Brown, and Cory Gardner signed off on a letter to Wong, Law and fellow anti-China activist Alex Chow, praising them for their “efforts to build a genuinely autonomous Hong Kong.” The bipartisan cast of senators proclaimed that “the United States cannot stand idly by.”
A year later, Rubio and his colleagues nominated the trio of Wong, Law, and Chow for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.
Washington’s support for the designated spokesmen of the “retake Hong Kong movement” was supplemented with untold sums of money from U.S. regime-change outfits like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and subsidiaries like the National Democratic Institute (NDI) to civil society, media and political groups.
As journalist Alex Rubinstein reported, the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, a key member of the coalition that organized against the now-defunct extradition law, has received more than $2 million in NED funds since 1995. And other groups in the coalition reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars from the NED and NDI last year alone.
While U.S. lawmakers nominate Hong Kong protest leaders for peace prizes and pump their organizations with money to “promote democracy,” the demonstrations have begun to spiral out of control.
Protests Become More Aggressive
After the extradition law was scrapped, the protests moved into a more aggressive phase, launching “hit and run attacks” against government targets, erecting roadblocks, besieging police stations, and generally embracing the extreme modalities put on display during U.S.-backed regime-change operations from Ukraine to Venezuela to Nicaragua.
The techniques clearly reflected the training many activists have received from Western soft-power outfits. But they also bore the mark of Jimmy Lai’s media operation.
In addition to the vast sums Lai spent on political parties directly involved in the protests, his media group created an animated video “showing how to resist police in case force was used to disperse people in a mass protest.”
While dumping money into the Hong Kong’s pro‑U.S. political camp in 2013, Lai traveled to Taiwan for a secret roundtable consultation with Shih Ming-teh, a key figure in Taiwan’s social movement that forced then-president Chen Shui-bian to resign in 2008. Shih reportedly instructed Lai on non-violent tactics to bring the government to heel, emphasizing the importance of a commitment to go to jail.
According to journalist Peter Lee, “Shih supposedly gave Lai advice on putting students, young girls, and mothers with children in the vanguard of the street protests, in order to attract the support of the international community and press, and to sustain the movement with continual activities to keep it dynamic and fresh.” Lai reportedly turned off his recording device during multiple sections of Shih’s tutorial.
One protester explained to The New York Times how the movement attempted to embrace a strategy called, “Marginal Violence Theory:” By using “mild force” to provoke security services into attacking the protesters, the protesters aimed to shift international sympathy away from the state.
But as the protest movement intensifies, its rank-and-file are doing away with tactical restraint and lashing out at their targets with full fury. They have thrown molotov cocktails into intersections to block traffic; attacked vehicles and their drivers for attempting to break through roadblocks; beaten opponents with truncheons; attacked a wounded man with a U.S. flag; menaced a reporter into deleting her photos; kidnapped and beat a journalist senseless; beat a mainland traveler unconscious and prevented paramedics from reaching the victim; and hurled petrol bombs at police officers.
The charged atmosphere has provided a shot in the arm to Lai’s media empire, which had been suffering heavy losses since the last round of national protests in 2014. After the mass marches against the extradition bill on June 9, which Lai’s Apple Daily aggressively promoted, his Next Digital doubled in value, according to Eji Insight.
Meanwhile, the protest leaders show no sign of backing down. Nathan Law, the youth activist celebrated in Washington and photographed meeting with U.S. officials in Hong Kong, took to Twitter to urge his peers to soldier on: “We have to persist and keep the faith no matter how devastated the reality seems to be,” he wrote.
Law was tweeting from New Haven, Connecticut, where he was enrolled with a full scholarship at Yale University. While the young activist basked in the adulation of his U.S. patrons thousands of miles from the chaos he helped spark, a movement that defined itself as a “leaderless resistance” forged ahead back home.
Here’s some ominous news for the Hong Kong protests that ties in to the unfortunate embrace of Pepe the Frog as a protest mascot: Ukrainian neo-Nazis appear to have taken a keen interest in protests and some of them have arrived in Hong Kong to blog about it and network with the protestors. As the following Gray Zone piece describes, the Ukrainian neo-Nazis are just one of a number of different gar right groups from around the world that have traveled to Hong Kong and gotten involved with the protests. Protests that have become increasingly violent over time, which is part of what makes these reports of far right involvement so ominous. The article covers a group of Ukrainian neo-Nazis calling themselves “Gonor” who maintain a prolific social media presence. And as their social media profiles make clear, these guys are neo-Nazis who fought with the Azov Battalion.
On December 1, Serhii Filimonov posted photos on Facebook showing himself and three Ukrainian friends arriving in Hong Kong, with the slogan, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong!!” They somehow received press passes. One of the other Ukrainians with Filimonov is a notorious far right activist who goes by the name Maliar. Both Filimonov and Maliar have large Instagram followings. Two of the members of this group also have prominent “Victory or Valhalla” tattoos, which happens to be the title of a compilation of writings by David Lane. Recall how Ukraine’s neo-Nazis have a history of honoring Lane. Another fascist Ukrainian identified in Hong Kong is Serhii Sternenko, a former leader of Right Sector.
But here’s perhaps the most disturbing part of this story: these Ukrainian neo-Nazis don’t appear to be entirely operating independently. The Kiev-based Free Hong Kong Center published a statement on Facebook whitewashing the fascist nature of Gonor and Azov. The center described them as “activists of the Revolution of Dignity and as well as veterans of the defending war with Russia,” and even stated that Gonor “assured us they are really against nazism and another kind of alt-right ideology.” And what about all the neo-Nazi tattoos the Gonor members proudly display on social media? Well, the Center dismisses the symbols, by conceding that “a lot of people were disappointed by the tattoos of these guys,” but that the Gonor insisted “that all symbols are from Slavic paganism.” Yep, all the swastikas and David Lane slogans were actually just Slavic paganism.
The Free Hong Kong Center is a project of a an NGO called the Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine, which is a pro-EU advocacy organization and a member of the European Liberal Youth and the International Federation of Liberal Youth, both a which are funded by the EU. So we have Ukrainian neo-Nazis networking in Hong Kong and an EU-funded NGO running cover for them:
“Numerous delegations of far-right groups from across the world have traveled to Hong Kong to join the violent insurgency against Beijing, in which secessionists have attacked police with bows and arrows, shot gasoline bombs out of catapults, and burned numerous people alive.”
The Gonor group of Ukrainian fascists is just one of the far right delegations to have descended upon Hong Kong. That’s perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind with this story: it’s just one example of the global far right’s interest in the Hong Kong protests. Groups like InfoWars and Patriot Prayer have also been sending people to Hong Kong in ostensible support of the protests:
And in the case of these Ukrainian fascists, they don’t hide their Nazi ideology at all. Their social media pages are filled with shirtless pictures showing off their Nazi tattoos:
And then there’s the tattoos of the “Victory or Valhalla” slogan, which just happens to be the title of a compilation of writings by David Lane:
But there are also photos of them in uniform, which establish their membership in the Azov Battalion. A former leader of Right Sector was also spotted in Hong Kong:
And yet the undeniable Nazi ideology of these figures is absurdly denied by the Kiev-based NGO, the Free Hong Kong Center, which happens to be a project of the EU-funded Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine:
““A lot of people were disappointed by the tattoos of these guys,” the Free Hong Kong Center conceded. But they insisted “that all symbols are from Slavic paganism.””
They aren’t Nazis. They’re Slavic paganism enthusiasts. That’s the kind of rhetorical cover these groups are getting from an EU-funded NGO.
But as the following Kyiv Post article from back in August describes, there’s another way Ukrainians are influencing the Hong Kong protests: a 2016 documentary about the Maidan protests, Winter on Fire, is reportedly quite popular with the Hong Kong protestors and a source of inspiration and lessons on how to carry out these protests:
““We are strongly aware of, and inspired by, a documentary named Winter on Fire… and by how the people in Ukraine started a strike to fight for their freedom,” says Joshua Wong, the 22-year-old pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong who effectively began leading the Umbrella Movement while still a high school student.”
According to Joshua Wong, a prominent Hong Kong protest organizer, the Winter on Fire documentary is something the protestors are strongly aware of and inspired by, which is leading to a general interest among the Hong Kong protestors in the tactics used by the Maidan protestors. In other words, the Maidan protests are being pushed as a template for the Hong Kong protests:
And note how Arthur Kharytonov of the Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine — the NGO that was whitewashing the Gonor group in the first article excerpt — is portraying both the Maidan and Hong Kong protests as a joint fight against Russia and China. There’s an attempt to merge the conflicts in Hong Kong and Ukraine around a shared anti-authoritarian movement:
So that specific documentary, Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, appears to have been a significant source of influence for the Hong Kong protestors. Which raises the question: why that particular documentary about Ukraine? There have quite a few documentaries about the Maidan protests so what makes that particular one stand out? Well, as the following 2016 review of the documentary describes, what makes it stand out was how it systematically whitewashed the involvement of the far right and Western governments in the Maidan protests:
“The far right’s absence from Winter on Fire becomes becomes even more glaring when compared with other documentaries about Ukraine. Maidan: Tonight Tomorrow, which received a positive review in The New Yorker, managed to include the far right, despite being less than nine minutes long, while Masks of the Revolution, a French film, focused solely on the role of ultranationalists during and after Maidan. (Ironically, the Ukrainian government attempted to prevent France from airing the latter film because they claimed it “creates misconception.”)”
Yep, it’s an exceptional documentary. It’s just unfortunately exceptional for its extensive whitewashing that completely removed the involvement of the far right. Or Western governments. Which makes it less a documentary and more a piece of fiction loosely based on the Maidan events. That’s the documentary that Hong Kong’s protestors are being encourage to draw inspirations and lessons from:
And as the article notes, it was the violent clashes with the Ukrainian police that created the opportunity for the far right militias to seize a central role in the Maidan protests. It seems like a rather massive lesson the Hong Kong protestors need to be learning right now, but that lesson has been systematically stripped from the documentary along with any other references to the far right’s involvement:
And that’s all part of what’s making the story of Nazi Ukrainians showing up in Hong Kong so ominous for the fate of the protests. The protestors are learning from a documentary that systematically ignores both the involvement of Nazis and the crucial role violent clashes played in elevating those Nazis to leadership positions in protest movement and now members of those very same Ukrainian Nazi groups are showing up in Hong Kong to network with the protestors. All in all, it’s very good news for any far right Hong Kong groups that want to piggyback on these protests to shape the nature of any post-protest political environment. But it’s hard to think of worse news for all the Hong Kong protestors clamoring for more human rights. Nazi-infused movements don’t tend to result in greater human rights.