{"id":141020,"date":"2019-08-26T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=141020"},"modified":"2019-12-22T11:08:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T11:08:02","slug":"hong-kong-kashmir-a-tale-of-two-occupations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/08\/hong-kong-kashmir-a-tale-of-two-occupations\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong, Kashmir: A Tale of Two Occupations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Hong Kong – detikNews<\/p><\/div>\n

7 Aug 2019 – <\/em>Readers from myriad latitudes have been asking me about Hong Kong. They know it\u2019s one of my previous homes. I developed a complex, multi-faceted relationship with Hong Kong ever since the 1997 handover, which I covered extensively. Right now, if you allow me, I\u2019d rather cut to the chase.<\/p>\n

Much to the distress of neocons and humanitarian imperialists, there won\u2019t be a bloody mainland China crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong \u2013 a Tiananmen 2.0. Why? Because it\u2019s not worth it.<\/p>\n

Beijing has clearly identified the color revolution provocation inbuilt in the protests \u2013 with the NED excelling as CIA soft, facilitating the sprawl of fifth columnists even in the civil service.<\/p>\n

There are other components, of course. The fact that Hong Kongers are right to be angry about what is a de facto Tycoon Club oligarchy controlling every nook and cranny of the economy. The local backlash against \u201cthe invasion of the mainlanders\u201d. And the relentless cultural war of Cantonese vs. Beijing, north vs. south, province vs. political center.<\/p>\n

What these protests have accelerated is Beijing\u2019s conviction that Hong Kong is not worth its trust as a key node in China\u2019s massive integration\/development project. Beijing invested no less than $18.8 billion to build the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge, as part of the Greater Bay Area, to integrate Hong Kong with the mainland, not to snub it.<\/p>\n

Now a bunch of useful idiots at least has graphically proven they don\u2019t deserve any sort of preferential treatment anymore.<\/p>\n

The big story in Hong Kong is not even the savage, counter-productive protests (imagine if this was in France, where Macron\u2019s army is actually maiming and even killing Gilets Jaunes\/Yellow Vests). The big story is the rot consuming HSBC \u2013 which has all the makings of the new Deutsche Bank scandal.<\/p>\n

HSBC holds $2.6 trillion in assets and an intergalactic horde of cockroaches in their basement \u2013 asking serious questions about money laundering and dodgy deals operated by global turbo-capitalist elites.<\/p>\n

In the end, Hong Kong will be left to its own internally corroding devices \u2013 slowly degrading to its final tawdry status as a Chinese Disneyland with a Western veneer.\u00a0Shanghai is already in the process of being boosted as China\u2019s top financial center. And Shenzhen already is the top high-tech hub. Hong Kong will be just an afterthought.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Indian paramilitary troopers stand guard at a roadblock at Maisuma locality in Srinagar on August 4, 2019. – Fears of an impending curfew in the disputed region of Kashmir ratcheted up tensions on August 4, as nuclear rivals India and Pakistan traded accusations of military clashes at the de facto border.\u00a0
TAUSEEF MUSTAFA\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

Brace for Blowback<\/strong><\/p>\n

While China identified \u201cOccupy Hong Kong\u201d as a mere Western-instilled and instrumentalized plot, India, for its part, decided to go for Full Occupy in Kashmir.<\/p>\n

Curfew was imposed all across the Kashmir valley. Internet was cut off. All Kashmiri politicians were rounded up and arrested. In fact all Kashmiris \u2013 loyalists (to India), nationalists, secessionists, independentists, apolitical \u2013 were branded as The Enemy. Welcome to Indian \u201cdemocracy\u201d under the crypto-fascist Hindutva.<\/p>\n

\u201cJammu and Kashmir\u201d, as we know it, is no more. They are now two distinct entities. Geologically spectacular Ladakh will be administered directly by New Delhi. Blowback is guaranteed. Resistance committees are already springing up.<\/p>\n

In Kashmir, blowback will be even bigger because there will be no elections anytime soon. New Delhi does not want that kind of nuisance \u2013 as in dealing with legitimate representatives. It wants full control, period.<\/p>\n

Starting in the early 1990s, I\u2019ve been to both sides of Kashmir a few times. The Pakistani side does feel like Azad (\u201cFree\u201d) Kashmir. The Indian side is unmistakably Occupied Kashmir. This analysis<\/a> is as good as it gets portraying what it means to live in IOK (Indian-occupied Kashmir).<\/p>\n

BJP minions in India scream that Pakistan \u201cillegally\u201d designated Gilgit-Baltistan \u2013 or the Northern Areas \u2013 as a federally administered area. There\u2019s nothing illegal about it. I was reporting in Gilgit-Baltistan late last year, following the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Nobody was complaining about any \u201cillegality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pakistan officially said it \u201cwill exercise all possible options to counter [India\u2019s] illegal steps\u201d in Kashmir. That\u2019s extremely diplomatic. Imran Khan does not want confrontation \u2013 even as he knows full well Modi is pandering to Hindutva fanatics, aiming to turn a Muslim-majority province into a Hindu-majority province. In the long run though, something inevitable is bound to emerge \u2013 fragmented, as a guerrilla war or as a united front.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the Kashmiri Intifada.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian independent geopolitical analyst. He is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. He has been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9\/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of \u201cGlobalistan<\/a>\u201d (2007), \u201cRed Zone Blues<\/a>\u201d (2007), \u201cObama does Globalistan<\/a>\u201d (2009) and \u201cEmpire of Chaos<\/a>\u201d (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is \u201c2030<\/a>\u201c, also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 strategic-culture.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much to the distress of neocons and humanitarian imperialists, there won\u2019t be a bloody mainland China crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong \u2013 a Tiananmen 2.0. Why? Because it\u2019s not worth it. While China identified \u201cOccupy Hong Kong\u201d as a mere Western-instilled and instrumentalized plot, India, for its part, decided to go for Full Occupy in Kashmir. Welcome to the Kashmiri Intifada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":136328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,50,56,180],"tags":[1368,1149,239,244,133,120,1370,267,892,260,1317,759,504,634,1371,1372,1336,1373,1376,1377,86,1302,109,287,1378,107,880,265,249,126,118],"class_list":["post-141020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","category-analysis","category-asia-pacific","category-brics","tag-alt-right","tag-asia-and-the-pacific","tag-brics","tag-china","tag-cia","tag-conflict","tag-freedom-house","tag-geopolitics","tag-hinduism","tag-history","tag-hong-kong","tag-india","tag-international-relations","tag-islam","tag-jimmy-lai","tag-john-bolton","tag-kashmir","tag-marco-rubio","tag-national-endowment-for-democracy","tag-neoconservatives","tag-occupation","tag-pakistan","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-protests","tag-religion","tag-state-terrorism","tag-terrorism","tag-trump","tag-violence","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}