The protesters have never asked nicely. The history of HK protests post handover has been couched in nativism bigotry against mainland China, the very audience they should be trying to win over. If their problem was the Chinese government, they wouldn't be targeting mainland people and their businesses. Whatever little effort they made to reach out was framed in "support us because you're brainwashed" language. They would be burning CPC government flag instead of the Chinese national one. They wouldn't be waving western flags, which may as well be tiki torches, or appealing to western authorities.
Ever considered why no one ever had the idea of waving the Chinese flag and petitioning the Chinese for change? They should try it. It's easy for the CPC to look the other way and watch the city burn, it's much harder for the CPC to ignore 2 million HKers who wave the Chinese flag for a better future. Of course that doesn't play well with the west, but maybe they shouldn't be focusing on them in the first place. The cost of their strategy is that on mainland China, whose sentiment their future depends upon, HK protestors are viewed as the equivalent of alt-right agitators instead of patriots: disenfranchised, social media savvy, economically anxious youth who see their culture being displaced and their privileged being eroded by immigrant mainlanders. Rich ones come in to buy all the property, poor ones use up all the social services. These are common complaints to the mainland locust narrative - when the mainland sends their people, they're not sending their best.
The protesters have never asked nicely. The history of HK protests post handover has been couched in nativism bigotry against mainland China, the very audience they should be trying to win over. If their problem was the Chinese government, they wouldn't be targeting mainland people and their businesses. Whatever little effort they made to reach out was framed in "support us because you're brainwashed" language. They would be burning CPC government flag instead of the Chinese national one. They wouldn't be waving western flags, which may as well be tiki torches, or appealing to western authorities.
Ever considered why no one ever had the idea of waving the Chinese flag and petitioning the Chinese for change? They should try it. It's easy for the CPC to look the other way and watch the city burn, it's much harder for the CPC to ignore 2 million HKers who wave the Chinese flag for a better future. Of course that doesn't play well with the west, but maybe they shouldn't be focusing on them in the first place. The cost of their strategy is that on mainland China, whose sentiment their future depends upon, HK protestors are viewed as the equivalent of alt-right agitators instead of patriots: disenfranchised, social media savvy, economically anxious youth who see their culture being displaced and their privileged being eroded by immigrant mainlanders. Rich ones come in to buy all the property, poor ones use up all the social services. These are common complaints to the mainland locust narrative - when the mainland sends their people, they're not sending their best.