Name: Hong Kong protests: what's at stake for China? | The Economist
Uploaded: 2019-10-10T03:44:29.000Z
Duration: 8 min 52 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Reflexive pronouns

We've hidden his face and obscured his voice to protect his identity

He's one of the millions of Hong Kongers taking to the streets

They fear that the government will press charges

What started as a protest against an extradition bill...

...has become the most serious challenge...

...since the Tiananmen Square protest three decades ago

As the demonstrations enter a third month...

...neither the government nor the protesters is willing to back down

...and use their police baton to hit the protesters

But it's not enough to deter the demonstrators

This is a real nightmare for the Communist government in Beijing

...in a way that undermines everything...

...about their whole structure of government

Hong Kong is one of the most important financial centres in the world

It's a city in China but it's not entirely Chinese

There's even a boundary between Hong Kong and the rest of China...

In 1842 Hong Kong was ceded by the Chinese to the British...

But in 1997 Britain gave it back to China

...for 50 years Hong Kong was to be governed...

...under what is known as “one country, two systems”

The chief executive who runs Hong Kong...

...would be appointed by a pro-Chinese committee

But the city was guaranteed a high degree of autonomy...

...with its own government, legal system...

Over the past decade those rights have been eroded

Fuller democracy, promised as part of the handover agreement...

Yellow ribbon means come back, come back democracy

Emily Lau was a Hong Kong politician for 25 years

...particularly since President Xi Jinping came to power

We want freedoms, we want personal safety...

In 2012 the government tried to install...

...a patriotic pro-Chinese education system

...who sold material banned in mainland China disappeared

In 2016 pro-democracy opposition leaders...

...were thrown out of Hong Kong's parliament...

...for insulting China when swearing their oaths

...which would have allowed extradition to the mainland

Very few people in Hong Kong imagine there's going to be...

But they are very angry about the way that...

...what they believe they were promised...

...was something much more accountable where...

...you'd have something close to universal suffrage

...between the people of Hong Kong and their government is breaking down

All this is fuelling the protesters' anger

They are putting more controls on Hong Kong's autonomy and democracy

People will say to you, “We know that 2047 is coming one day...

As the protests get larger and more violent...

...the chance of China intervening increases

Beijing has made thinly veiled threats to send in its military forces...

Those who play with fire will perish by it

At the end of the day, they will eventually be punished

A few weeks ago nobody seriously thought...

...we could see another Tiananmen Square in Hong Kong

In 1989 a student demonstration in Beijing ended in massacre

Hundreds, maybe thousands, were shot dead

...the Hong Kong demonstrators are defying the authority...

...of a Communist leadership that cannot tolerate defiance

...his kind of north and south, his east and west, is the absolute authority...

...and total control of the Chinese Communist Party

And anything that threatens that must be crushed

They are afraid that it could be very infectious...

...and they don't want to see such marches...