Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen


Hong Kong Explained

December 12, 2019

Chinese leadership in Beijing is very insecure. They control many distinct regions of the vast country and what’s going on right now in Hong Kong makes them worry about leakage. Former Hong Kong and China correspondent for BusinessWeek Dave Lindorff on this show explains what is happening on the streets of formerly British controlled Hong Kong. He says they set up this mess with their handover of Hong Kong in 1997. And with greater capitalist prosperity in China the hoped-for democratization promised by people like Al Gore in 2000, with the “constructive engagement,” is thought of as just a joke. The Chinese Army is ready at the border, but when Hong Kong police increased their violence, the normally staid conservative business people and bankers of the city joined the mass of students on the streets in protest. What is it all about, what started the massive protests, and how might it end? Listen in!