關於 vanishingly ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

經濟學人的封面，圖片是龍的嘴咬向香港，爪子伸向台灣

中國在香港用恐懼來統治
全世界應該感到擔憂

https://www.economist.com/…/china-has-launched-rule-by-fear…

Dragon strike
China has launched rule by fear in Hong Kong
The rest of the world should worry, too

The people of Hong Kong want two things: to choose how they are governed, and to be subject to the rule of law. The Chinese Communist Party finds both ideas so frightening that many expected it to send troops to crush last year’s vast protests in Hong Kong. Instead, it bided its time. Now, with the world distracted by covid-19 and mass protests difficult because of social distancing, it has chosen a quieter way to show who’s boss. That threatens a broader reckoning with the world—and not just over Hong Kong, but also over the South China Sea and Taiwan.

On May 21st China declared, in effect, that Hong Kongers deemed to pose a threat to the party will become subject to the party’s wrath. A new security law, written in Beijing, will create still-to-be defined crimes of subversion and secession, terms used elsewhere in China to lock up dissidents, including Uighurs and Tibetans. Hong Kong will have no say in drafting the law, which will let China station its secret police there. The message is clear. Rule by fear is about to begin.

This is the most flagrant violation yet of the principle of “one country, two systems”. When the British colony was handed back to China in 1997, China agreed that Hong Kong would enjoy a “high degree of autonomy”, including impartial courts and free speech. Many Hong Kongers are outraged (see article). Some investors are scared, too. The territory’s stockmarket fell by 5.6% on May 22nd, its biggest drop in five years. Hong Kong is a global commercial hub not only because it is situated next to the Chinese mainland, but also because it enjoys the rule of law. Business disputes are settled impartially, by rules that are known in advance. If China’s unaccountable enforcers are free to impose the party’s whims in Hong Kong, it will be a less attractive place for global firms to operate.

China’s move also has implications far beyond Hong Kong. “One country, two systems” was supposed to be a model for Taiwan, a democratic island of 24m that China also sees as its own. The aim was to show that reunification with the motherland need not mean losing one’s liberty. Under President Xi Jinping, China seems to have tired of this charade. Increasingly, it is making bare-knuckle threats instead. The re-election in January of a China-sceptic Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, will have convinced China’s rulers that the chances of a peaceful reunification are vanishingly small. On May 22nd, at the opening of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the prime minister, Li Keqiang, ominously cut the word “peaceful” from his ritual reference to reunification. China has stepped up war games around Taiwan and its nationalists have been braying online for an invasion.

China is at odds with other countries, too. In its building of island fortresses in the South China Sea, it ignores both international law and the claims of smaller neighbours. This week hundreds, perhaps thousands of Chinese troops crossed China’s disputed border with India in the Himalayas. Minor scuffles along this frontier are common, but the latest incursion came as a state-owned Chinese paper asserted new claims to land that its nuclear-armed neighbour deems Indian (see article). And, as a sombre backdrop to all this, relations with the United States are worse than they have been in decades, poisoning everything from trade and investment to scientific collaboration.

However much all the regional muscle-flexing appals the world, it makes sense to the Chinese Communist Party. In Hong Kong the party wants to stop a “colour revolution”, which it thinks could bring democrats to power there despite China’s best efforts to rig the system. If eroding Hong Kong’s freedoms causes economic damage, so be it, party bigwigs reason. The territory is still an important place for Chinese firms to raise international capital, especially since the Sino-American feud makes it harder and riskier for them to do so in New York. But Hong Kong’s gdp is equivalent to only 3% of mainland China’s now, down from more than 18% in 1997, because the mainland’s economy has grown 15-fold since then. China’s rulers assume that multinational firms and banks will keep a base in Hong Kong, simply to be near the vast Chinese market. They are probably right.

The simple picture that President Donald Trump paints of America and China locked in confrontation suits China’s rulers well. The party thinks that the balance of power is shifting in China’s favour. Mr Trump’s insults feed Chinese nationalist anger, which the party is delighted to exploit—just as it does any tensions between America and its allies. It portrays the democracy movement in Hong Kong as an American plot. That is absurd, but it helps explain many mainlanders’ scorn for Hong Kong’s protesters.

The rest of the world should stand up to China’s bullying. On the Sino-Indian border, the two sides should talk more to avoid miscalculations, as their leaders promised to in 2018. China should realise that, if it tries the tactics it has used in the South China Sea, building structures on disputed ground and daring others to push back, it will be viewed with greater distrust by all its neighbours.

In the case of Taiwan China faces a powerful deterrent: a suggestion in American law that America might come to Taiwan’s aid were the island to be attacked. There is a growing risk that a cocksure China may decide to put that to the test. America should make clear that doing so would be extremely dangerous. America’s allies should echo that, loudly.

Hong Kong’s options are bleaker. The Hong Kong Policy Act requires America to certify annually that the territory should in trade and other matters be treated as separate from China. This week the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, declared that “facts on the ground” show Hong Kong is no longer autonomous. This allows America to slap tariffs on the territory’s exports, as it already does to those from the mainland. That is a powerful weapon, but the scope for miscalculation is vast, potentially harming Hong Kongers and driving out global firms and banks. It would be better, as the law also proposes, to impose sanctions on officials who abuse human rights in Hong Kong. Also, Britain should grant full residency rights to the hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers who hold a kind of second-class British passport—much as Ms Tsai this week opened Taiwan’s door to Hong Kong citizens. None of this will stop China from imposing its will on Hong Kong. The party’s interests always trump the people’s. ■

//A Cantopop star publicly supported Hong Kong protesters. So Beijing disappeared his music.

By AUGUST BROWN

The 2 million pro-democracy protesters who have flooded the streets of Hong Kong over the last few months have been tear-gassed, beaten by police and arrested arbitrarily. But many of the territory’s most famous cultural figures have yet to speak up for them. Several prominent musicians, actors and celebrities have even sided with the cops and the government in Beijing.

The protesters are demanding rights to fair elections and judicial reform in the semiautonomous territory. Yet action film star Jackie Chan, Hong Kong-born K-pop star Jackson Wang of the group GOT7 and Cantopop singers Alan Tam and Kenny Bee have supported the police crackdown, calling themselves “flag protectors.” Other Hong Kong cultural figures have stayed silent, fearing for their careers.

The few artists who have spoken out have seen their economic and performing prospects in mainland China annihilated overnight. Their songs have vanished from streaming services, their concert tours canceled. But a few musicians have recently traveled to America to support the protesters against long odds and reprisals from China.

“Pop musicians want to be quiet about controversy, and on this one they’re particularly quiet,” said Anthony Wong Yiu-ming, 57, the singer and cofounder of the pioneering Hong Kong pop group Tat Ming Pair.

Wong is a popular, progressive Cantopop artist — a Hong Kong Bryan Ferry or David Bowie, with lyrics sung in the territory’s distinct dialect. But he, along with such singer-actors as Denise Ho and Deanie Ip, have made democratic reforms the new cause of their careers, even at the expense of their musical futures in China. Wong’s on tour in the U.S. and will perform a solo show in L.A. on Tuesday.

“It’s rebelling against the establishment, and [most artists] just don’t want to,” Wong said. “Of course, I’m very disappointed, but I never expected different from some people. Freedom of speech and civil liberties in Hong Kong are not controversial. It’s basic human rights. But most artists and actors and singers, they don’t stand with Hong Kongers.”

Hong Kong protesters
Hundreds of people form a human chain at Victoria Peak in Hong Kong on Sept. 13.(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
The protests are an echo — and escalation — of the Occupy Central movement five years ago that turned into a broad pro-democracy effort known as the Umbrella Movement. Those protests, led by teenage activist Joshua Wong (no relation), rebelled against a new policy of Beijing pre-screening candidates for political office in Hong Kong to ensure party loyalty.

Protesters were unsuccessful in stopping those policies, but the movement galvanized a generation of activists.

These latest demonstrations were in response to a proposed policy of extraditing suspected criminals from Hong Kong to mainland China, which activists feared would undermine their territory’s legal independence and put its residents at risk. The protests now encompass a range of reforms — the withdrawal of the extradition bill, secured voting rights, police reform, amnesty for protesters and a public apology for how Beijing and police have portrayed the demonstrations.

Wong, already respected as an activist for LGBT causes in Hong Kong, is one of vanishingly few musicians to have put their futures on the line to push for those goals.

Wong’s group Tat Ming Pair was one of the most progressive Cantonese acts of the ’80s and ’90s (imagine a politically radical Chinese Depeche Mode). When Wong spoke out in favor of the Umbrella Movement at the time, he gained credibility as an activist but paid the price as an artist: His touring and recording career evaporated on the mainland.

The Chinese government often pressures popular services like Tencent (the country’s leading music-streaming service, with 800 million monthly users) to remove artists who criticize the government. Artists can find longstanding relationships with live promoters on ice and lucrative endorsement deals drying up.

“This government will do things to take revenge on you,” Wong said. “If you’re not obedient, you’ll be punished. Since the Umbrella Movement, I’ve been put on a blacklist in China. I anticipated that would happen, but what I did not expect was even local opportunities decreased as well. Most companies have some ties with mainland China, and they didn’t want to make their China partners unhappy, so they might as well stop working with us.”

Censorship is both overt and subtly preemptive, said Victoria Tin-bor Hui, a professor and Hong Kong native who teaches Chinese politics and history at the University of Notre Dame.

“Every time artists or stars say anything even remotely sympathetic to protesters or critical of the government, they get in trouble,” Hui said. “You can literally have your career ruined. Denise Ho, after she joined the Umbrella Movement, everything she had listed online or on shelves was taken off. Companies [including the cosmetics firm Lancôme] told her they would have nothing more to do with her, and she started doing everything on her own.”

So Wong and other artists like Ho have been pushing back where they can.

Wong’s recent single, “Is It a Crime,” questions Beijing crackdowns on all memorials of the Tiananmen Square massacre, especially in Hong Kong, where there was a robust culture of activism and memorials around that tragedy. The single, which feels akin to Pink Floyd’s expansive, ominous electronic rock, has been blacklisted on mainland streaming services and stores.

Wong plans to speak out to commemorate the anniversary of the Umbrella Movement on this tour as well.

“The government is very afraid of art and culture,” Wong said. “If people sing about liberty and freedom of speech, the government is afraid. When I sing about the anniversary of Tiananmen, is it a crime to remember what happened? To express views? I think the Chinese government wants to suppress this side of art and freedom.”

The fallout from his support of the protests has forced him to work with new, more underground promoters and venues. The change may have some silver linings, as bookers are placing his heavy synth-rock in more rebellious club settings than the Chinese casinos he’d often play stateside. (In L.A., he’s playing 1720, a downtown venue that more often hosts underground punk bands.)

“We lost the second biggest market in the world, but because of what we are fighting for, in a way, we gained some new fans. We met new promoters who are interested in promoting us in newer markets. It’s opened new options for people who don’t want to follow” the government’s hard-line approach, Wong said.

Hui agreed that while loyalty from pro-democracy protesters can’t make up for the lost income of the China market, artists should know that Hong Kongers will remember whose side they were on during this moment and turn out or push back accordingly.

“You make less money, but Hong Kong pro-democracy people say, ‘These are our own singers, we have to save them,’” Hui said. “They support their own artists and democracy as part of larger effort to blacklist companies that sell out Hong Kong.”

Ho testified before Congress last week to support Hong Kong’s protesters. “This is not a plea for so-called foreign interference. This is a plea for democracy,” Ho said in her speech. A new bill to ban U.S. exports of crowd-control technology to Hong Kong police has bipartisan support.

No Hong Kong artists are under any illusions that the fight to maintain democracy will be easy. Even the most outspoken protesters know the long odds against a Chinese government with infinite patience for stifling dissent. That’s why support from cultural figures and musicians can be even more meaningful now, Hui said.

“Artists, if they say anything, that cheers people on,” Hui said. “Psychologists say Hong Kong suffers from territory-wide depression. Even minor symbolic gestures from artists really lift people’s morale.”

Pro-democracy artists, like protesters, are more anxious than ever. They’ve never been more invested in these uprisings, but they also fear the worst from the mainland Chinese government. “If you asked me six months ago, I was not very hopeful,” Wong said. “But after what’s happened, even though the oppression is bigger, we are stronger and more determined than before.”

Anthony Wong Yiu-ming

Where: 1720, 1720 E. 16th St.
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Tickets: $55-$150
Info: 1720.la //