LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Joint Statement on Tensions at the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong

To the Editor:

We urge politicians around the world, especially those in the United States, to exert pressure on Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, and the Hong Kong Police Force, to call off violent crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters, and answer the remaining four demands put forth by the protesters. Throughout the past few weeks, we have seen a substantial amount of arrests, followed by a shocking number of unexplained disappearances, alleged suicides and police rape. Additionally, the HKPF has widely used the word “cockroaches” to dehumanize the protesters. Merely over the past two days, the violence inflicted by the HKPF against the Hong Kong protesters (mainly students) has escalated to unprecedented levels. The HKPF threatened the students with the use of live ammunition on the campus of the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, and subsequently invaded PolyU with brute force at 5:32 a.m., Nov.

BROWN | Spotlight on Hong Kong, Blackout on Haiti

Students walking between Collegetown and the Engineering Quad in recent weeks have seen the pro-Hong Kong slogans on the footbridge over Cascadilla Gorge. The Sun has featured several articles this semester about the protests rocking the semi-autonomous region, including a recent story on vandalism of the bridge stickers and other pro-Hong Kong posters on campus. Not a single article, however, mentions the deadly anti-government protests less than 700 miles from Miami that have thrown impoverished Haiti to a political standstill for most of 2019. But The Sun is not alone: The corporate media in the Global North have tacitly concluded that Haiti, unlike Hong Kong, is undeserving of our attention and sympathies. It is natural then to ask why Hong Kong gets so much attention from American politicians across the spectrum and every major news outlet despite much less violence against protestors.

WANG | On China, on Hong Kong, on Us

Hong Kong businessman Jimmy Lai plays with fire in the same bored manner I play with my hair. Lai, who has been everywhere recently, has been at the heart of anti-Chinese protests that have consumed Hong Kong in the past few months and has emerged as a vocal figure in its surge to democracy. He has supported anti-government initiatives, called out Xi-Jinping as a dictator and refused to submit when other business leaders have gravitated to the pull of Beijing. He’s his own man and his own empire: He’s a majority owner of NextDigital, a company that publishes reporting critical of China, and if that wasn’t enough, he publishes a weekly column to support protestors as the crisis has gone from mild to middling to full blown seismic. For their part, the Chinese government, so incensed by him, struck out his name in his family records, leaving him a man with no name but plenty of positive press.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Media Narratives Ignore Violence of Hong Kong Protesters

To the Editor:

I’m a Chinese Ph.D. student who came to Cornell to pursue the world’s best education and technologies, hoping to one day make a contribution toward the evolution of all human societies. I usually follow political news but always stay apolitical myself, since I like to keep my life simple and focused on science. However, upon reading two recent articles from The Sun — entitled “Claims of Vandalized Pro-Hong Kong Posters Bring Overseas Tensions to Cornell” and “When Victims Become Perpetrators: The Human Condition of Chinese Students” — and the pro-Hong Kong protest slogans actively appearing around campus, I’m deeply concerned by the serious misinformation and lack of communication between the Chinese and American communities. I’ve never felt so unrepresented before, and the past few weeks have been the most difficult time during the six years I’ve spent at Cornell. I’m not writing to directly contradict the opinions from those aforementioned articles.

YANG | When Victims Become Perpetrators: The Human Condition of Chinese Students

A report from The Sun yesterday adds ballast to what many had long suspected: that pro-Hong Kong materials are being vandalized on campus, with Snapchat screenshots suggesting that students were responsible for vandalizing stickers stuck to a footbridge railing. It harkens back to dark memories two years ago when pro-Tibet human rights posters on Arts Quad were similarly stolen. The repetition of such an act of grave immaturity and irresponsibility puts into question the conscience of those perpetrators, widening the chasm within the larger Chinese community between the mainland Chinese and Hong Kong people. But one question lingers: why? Why would someone destroy materials meant to support those protesting an overbearing state?