Draft talk:Joshua Wong
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Biased/Unsourced Information[edit]
Sorry if I break a rule while submitting this, I've never used a Wikipedia but created an account specifically to address the errors within this article. I won't take it upon myself to edit its content, there are people better suited for that. Before starting, while I've looked into Hong Kong's politics out of a personal interest, I'm not an expert in the subject, nor am I an expert on Wong's life story, I hope that's ok.
1. " is a student activist and grifter in Hong Kong"
Where in this article was Wong outed as a grifter..? Maybe I'm just an idiot but the entire focus is on him being an alleged self-contradicting right wing MAGA supporter (which for the record, is a take from pro-Beijing politics).
2. "he was shamefully silent about his own movement turning to the far-right and fell for far-right propaganda about Donald Trump."
So, I don't have info on whether Wong personally became a Trump supporter (a source for this would be appreciated, though I have a hunch this is a misinterpretation of Wong's role in politics during 2019), but two things stand out. First, it is not *his* movement, Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement has been heavily decentralized since 2019. In 2014 the right wing shift the author of this article speaks of had not yet occurred, and at that time Wong was still acting as more of a top down leader than mere representative (1). Come 2019 and Wong lost that position as de facto leader because his legitimacy was collectively implicitly revoked after the pro-democracy movement witnessed his failures as a leader, which helped spur the decentralization of the movement away from central leadership. Wong's role in 2019 amounted to advocating for Hong Kong's interests abroad in the west with other HK activists, but pro-Beijing politics has interpreted this as evidence of a color revolution in the works. If you want a basic overview of his activities during 2014/2019 then zh.wikipedia has a decent article on him (2). If you want a more personal look into his activities, then a book was recently published with some personal anecdotes from an individual who worked with him (3).
Second, with the same fundamental contention, because the movement is decentralized there wasn't an identifiable right wing shift to begin with (if there's a study which says otherwise feel free to share). Yes, there were Trump supporters and right wingers (4), who believe(d) in America saving the day, but they don't represent the movement, no one truly does. Just as many if not more were out there waving British and American flags not out of some ideological endorsement of western hegemony's crimes (laughable that "waving of US and UK flags" is a hyperlink to jingoism), but to petition, because those are the two countries with the most say in the matter beyond China. In particular, Britain has the reins on the BNO passport scheme which is available to some HKers due to it being a former colony, and America is able to sanction HK politicians because the HKD is pegged to the USD, along with having had the ability to revoke HK's special economic status which was granted to Hong Kong on the condition it retained its autonomy (half-assedly repealed by Trump in a meeting about HK, before he hurriedly went on to change the subject about how great he was and that he was going to win the 2020 election).
Also worth noting, support for America died down quite considerably as people realized America wasn't going coming to their rescue, and that what it could do wasn't going to result in lam chau. Quasi-American nationalists have been mocked for years now as naïve idealists.
3. "throwing actual pro-democracy champions like Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Elizabeth Warren under the bus." and "turned a blind eye to Trump's trade negotiations with China"
Again, sources needed, what are you even talking about with the first sentence? The second sentence might have a point to it if expounded on, but it's extremely uninformative to anyone reading this article.
4. "The anti-communist conservative wingnuts in some Western countries, including the United States,[Who?] also strongly advocate Joshua Wong as a champion of democracy and anti-communism, but catering to them in fact made him a naïve fool."
It's true that conservative Americans rallied behind the Hong Kong protests out of some shared liberal values and a disdain for China (this can be found in a number of Fox News comment sections), and I actually agree Wong was a naïve kid during his activist career (though for different reasons), but per usual, what evidence is there to suggest Wong was catering to the American right wing in 2019, beyond what anyone else was doing at that time by petitioning the US government for sanctions?
5. "he expresses support for Greta Thunberg[3] and Black Lives Matter[4] on Twitter, the damage was done due to his grift, as well as his silence about his own movement's hatred towards these things" and "support for far right movements like QAnon and Falun Gong, which played into Beijing's hands."
(Is this you? https://www.reddit.com/r/aznidentity/comments/gvo9v3/joshua_wong_thinks_black_lives_matter_apparently/)
Given both are aligned against China, I can imagine that there's perhaps a quasi-alliance between Hong Kong and the Falun Gong, although on not any organized/official/formal level. For the rest though, just what on Earth are you talking about? BLM and environmental activism are right up HK's liberal political alley. There's been informal cooperation between the pro-democracy movement and all manners of like minded resistance groups (5), even Ukraine's government has recognized them for their support (6). Finally, QAnon? Really? I mean what do I know, if you have evidence go ahead, but that just speaks to me that you have no idea what you're talking about. Is this just some hit piece you wrote up at 2 AM in a tankie Discord server that you decided to make public by posting on a less moderated wiki? Extra points for at least trying to keep in line with RationalWiki's comedic bend though.
Note: While Hong Kong's movement has worked with other activists/movements in their struggles, this is likewise not a defining aspect of the pro-democracy movement, it's just a trend that occurs due to shared political values. If you go onto places like HK reddit or lihkg and find discussions from 2020 talking about BLM you will find people offering advice to BLM members or voicing support, but you will also find people deriding BLM as a terrorist movement or saying that "BLM has never done anything for HK so why should they care." HK politics is a mixed bag and the only common theme within the pro-democracy movement is a desire for democracy and to a lesser extent autonomy, these divisions are what ended the Umbrella Revolution but they didn't go away in 2019, people just realized they had to set aside their differences (their motto for it was "don't split").
6. "who can forget the pro-democracy movement's now-defunct official newspaper - Apply Daily, paying big bucks to smear Hunter Biden two days before the US presidential election? As a result, the pro-democracy movement lost credibility once they moved to the far-right."
Well, I don't really care to defend Apple Daily, but it was respected for being one of the few opposition voices around in spite of it's dubious reputation, not because of some public endorsement of its more questionable content (7). It's privately owned by Jimmy Lai as well so kind of odd to suggest criticism directed towards Apple Daily equates to a rejection of the pro-democracy movement, especially over something like a US election smear campaign.
If any evidence is needed that the HK public still isn't on board with China, the voter turnout of latest district council elections should do the job (8).
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Some small citations
1. Joshua Wong's original and shifting role in the movement: https://archive.is/EOj0q, https://archive.is/BRQln, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactics_and_methods_surrounding_the_2019%E2%80%932020_Hong_Kong_protests
2. Joshua Wong's zh.wikipedia page: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%83%E4%B9%8B%E9%8B%92
3. The book with a more personal look into Wong's activist career: https://www.amazon.com/Among-Braves-Struggle-Battle-Democracy/dp/0306830361
4. The American flag wavers in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6km308QfiU, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOwID54DBl0, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFfQvZc-Jeo
5. Examples of HK's democracy movement cooperating with other movement's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_Tea_Alliance and https://www.gq.com/story/hong-kong-protest-advice
6. Ukraine posting a tribute with HK protesters included: https://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news/section/11/248429/Ukraine-under-fire-for-black-HK-flag-blunder
7. Some discussion from HKers on Apple Daily: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/faz40q/how_credible_is_apple_daily/, https://www.com.cuhk.edu.hk/ccpos/en/research/Credibility_Survey%20Results_2019_ENG.pdf, and https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/what-people-hong-kong-say-about-apple-daily-2021-06-21/
8. The district council elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hong_Kong_local_elections
Burdy (talk) 23:09, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- For fuck's sake, please, this is not difficult! Sign your posts with (~~~~) or (if that's too fucking hard) by clicking on the fucking sign BUTTON:
on the toolbar above the edit panel. (You can indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line.) This keeps the place tidy and stops you looking like a complete arsing tool so please, just fucking do it already. --Goatspeed. Stalk me🎄CircularR
asoning🎄See what I've been messing around with 22:49, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Apparently, most of the problematic content was added by random BoNs, one of which I even reverted but didn't notice the other problematic edits. I'd be fine with reverting this to the original by BluePink and cleaning up from there. Plutocow (talk) 22:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I concur with Plutocow. Was this article, by any chance, written in 2021 when we were still slack on far-left BS compared to today? --Goatspeed. Stalk me🎄CircularRasoning🎄See what I've been messing around with 22:53, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- It was originally written in 2019 and the original text is pretty unobjectionable. It was mostly a bunch of drive-by BoNs who were shitting up the article, and while some of them were reverted a lot of them were not. Plutocow (talk) 22:59, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have launched my Special Voting Operation to de-CCPify it. To the AfDem it goes. --Goatspeed. Stalk me🎄CircularRasoning🎄See what I've been messing around with 23:04, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have launched my Special Voting Operation to de-CCPify it. To the AfDem it goes. --Goatspeed. Stalk me🎄CircularR
- It was originally written in 2019 and the original text is pretty unobjectionable. It was mostly a bunch of drive-by BoNs who were shitting up the article, and while some of them were reverted a lot of them were not. Plutocow (talk) 22:59, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- I concur with Plutocow. Was this article, by any chance, written in 2021 when we were still slack on far-left BS compared to today? --Goatspeed. Stalk me🎄CircularR
- Apparently, most of the problematic content was added by random BoNs, one of which I even reverted but didn't notice the other problematic edits. I'd be fine with reverting this to the original by BluePink and cleaning up from there. Plutocow (talk) 22:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
