The unmistakable parallels between Hong Kong SAR 2019 protests and the CIA sponsored 1953 Iranian Coup d’état is yet another ‘(c)overt’ U.S. government interference to influence and disrupt other states that challenge American hegemony.
There are unmistakable parallels between the Hong Kong SAR 2019 protests and the CIA sponsored 1953 Iranian Coup d’état that toppled Iran’s democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. In Hong Kong, the progression of the protests seemed to have followed a textbook execution of the four phases of the Plan of Action of the CIA-led operation codenamed TPAJAX. Let me outline each phase below.
Phase I – ‘bribe’ the media czars
Jimmy Lai, who owns Apple Daily and NEXT Media, has been bankrolling and promoting anti-China political movements due to his obsession with the ‘clash of civilization‘ paradigm between the mainland and Hong Kong. The White House support for him is well publicised, so is it any coincidence that Lai’s American ‘consigliere’, Mark Simon, comes from a US intelligence background?
Phase II – anti-regime propaganda
Jimmy Lai’s Apple Daily and NEXT Media do not hold back with their hostile reporting of the protests and are often pitched in virulent Sinophobia to provoke grievances and exacerbate the violence. The Hong Kong Free Press founded by British nationals is yet another anti-regime propaganda mouthpiece, exaggerating numbers of protestors brandishing US flags, and spreading rumours about young protestors being beaten to death by riot police when there was no evidence to substantiate it. Some foreign charities also play a role in fuelling anti-regime sentiment because they were infiltrated by foreign intelligence services, or they collude with foreign governments to distribute secret funds to anti-regime groups. Oxfam’s 2018 Hong Kong Inequality Report paints a stark picture of a city in socio-economic turmoil with its people growing resentful and hostile, due to a callous government with little regard to their welfare. The Oxfam report serves as a form of psychological warfare to disinform (exaggerating the socio-economic threat of government inaction), destablise (government would ‘worry’ that people are truly resentful and hostile) and nudge the people to act (Oxfam’s proposals are impossible to materialize and enact by the government, which makes government the problem so people seek change through social unrest and rebellion).
Phase III – recruit allies
The HK Government’s plans to allow extradition to mainland China (a bill that has since been withdrawn) were portrayed as a serious threat to HK’s independence and economic fortunes. The Anglo-American media ‘marked’ certain elites as ‘pro-democracy’ protest leaders (‘regime-change’ assets?) who were split into ones who received funding and ones who received no funding from the US Government.
US funding received
(a) Martin Lee, leader of the Democratic Party and “retake Hong Kong movement” enjoyed Washington’s support for many years; (b) Joshua Wong, Agnés Chow and Nathan Law, leaders of the political party Demosistō have long been cultivated and funded by US State Department regime-change groups, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Freedom House; and (c) the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, which received more than $2 million in NED funds since 1995.
US funding NOT received
(a) Edward Leung, leader of the HK Indigenous party, is a Sinophobe who advocates militant resistance; (b) Andy Chan Ho-tin, leader of the banned HK National Party, is a Sinophobe parroting supremacist conspiracy theories of ‘genocide by substitution‘ with outlandish proclamations and theatrics while his followers wave American flags during the protests; and (c) Reverend Chu Yiu-ming is co-founder of the HK Civic Education Foundation and HK Democratic Development Network, who often rallied his followers to attend mass protests and prayer sessions. Reverend Chu Yiu-ming may have been cultivated in the same way as the influential Iranian Mullahs, given the CIA’s history in using religious groups to destabilise countries and carry out intelligence activities. The propping up of ‘regime-change’ assets not only legitimises them, but also positions them to be the ‘loyal’ and ‘vetted’ leaders of the new government serving their ‘paymasters’ and ‘supporters’ in the future.
Phase VI – Apprehend the leadership
The main objective of protracted provocations is to render the Executive powerless, and thus ‘apprehended’ by their own dysfunction. The mass protests followed a ‘Marginal Violence Theory’ strategy, whereby ‘mild force’ was used to provoke security services into attacking the protesters, in order to shift the international sympathy away from the state. However, the impatient young protestors moved quickly to belligerent mob violence, but were thwarted by the authorities measured response and the impeccable restraint of HKSAR Police. The Central Government intervened decisively with a National Security law to counter subversion, secession, terrorism and foreign interference, just like Australia did when it introduced specific foreign interference offences in its National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Act 2018.
American supremacy is now limited by the reality that it has to dismantle China’s BRI alliances with 138 countries (61.7% of the world population and 51.7% of world GDP). This is why the US and its allies are going on the offensive with sanctions, tariffs’ trade wars, technology bans, media restrictions and foreign interference under the pretext of ‘human rights’ concerns. The (c)overt’ US government interference in HKSAR affairs with aggressive support and funding for pro-independence ‘regime-change‘ recruits is just one of those disruptive policies to intensify the global anti-China sentiment that is already aggravated due to Covid-19, so as to destabilise China’s largest economic and geopolitical BRI alliances.
George Mickhail is an LSE trained academic and a geopolitical risk analyst with 30 years’ experience in major global accounting firms and business schools. His research focuses on MetaCapitalism and mapping the geopolitical threats of global financial networks. He comments regularly on political economic affairs and his research is cited in the media.
Comments
14 responses to “Is Hong Kong a repeat of the CIA-sponsored Iranian coup?”
Nothing but a load of twaddle. Anyone with half a brain would know that there would be no possibility of “regime” change in HK, even the dumbest Fox news presenter. This is just more counter claim with no evidence, just the same as the media you all complain about. Pathetic.
The echo must be deafening.
The parallels with Iran’s regime change are uncanny as they are unmistakable to the extent they are actually predictable. The only problem is many of the tactics rolled out on the streets of Hong Kong are replayed in America’s backyard in the #Black Lives Matter protests which led to Mr Trump demanding that police dominates the street Western MSM seems to have lost the moral high ground in spinning fake news to fit agendas and narratives of their political masters,
I’m not sure the tactics used in the Black Lives Matter protest are the same as those used in Hong Kong.
For one thing, the BLM protest is (as best I can tell) largely non-violent. I realise there are instances of violence in the BLM protest, but they don’t seem to be systematic. Whereas the protests in Hong Kong seemed to be systematically violent.
I also feel sure the BLM protest is entirely indigenous (i.e., “home grown”). It’s true the protests in Hong Kong have an indigenous basis; but it is also true (as the article outlines) that the Hong Kong protests have received non-indigenous funding.
Finally, whereas the BLM protest has a social justice goal, the Hong Kong protests have goals more to do with “regime change”. Singapore’s PM (in a YouTube video somewhere) observed to the effect that the goals espoused by the HK protests are so extreme that no HK government could possibly address them.
If your basic point is that the US government’s response to the BLM protest is inconsistent with its attitude towards the HK protests, that seems a fair comment.
An interesting comparison is the coverage of riots etc in Hong Kong versus the coverage of the yellow jacket riots in France.
We had extensive coverage of the riots Hong Kong for what seemed like weeks and weeks. For a much longer time, well over a year, the yellow jacket protesters were rioting each weekend, with quite a brutal response from the French authorities (it seems far more brutal than the Chinese response). This included against protesting firefighters and nurses, with many people losing eyes to rubber bullets etc. Surely this was newsworthy, but we heard next to nothing of it in Australia.
This selective coverage of important events highlights in my mind when there are ulterior motives at play. Clearly in Hong Kong case the media was aiming to stir up as much trouble as possible for China by its near continuous coverage, whereas the opposite was the case in France (nothing to see here, move along). Whenever an issue, particularly a humanitarian one becomes the focus of media coverage, this appears to be an ‘indicator’ to some form of nefarious activity/operation by our Western allies.
It might be a similar occurrence with the Uighur’s. There appears to virtually no mention of the insurgency/terrorist campaign by Uighur separatists in Xianjing province. This would explain (but not necessarily justify) the Chinese Governments response. Given all the disinformation on both sides it is difficult to know what is the ground truth, but it is entirely possible that what is reported as happening in Xianjing is an exaggeration (https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/). It is also rarely reported that large numbers of Uighur’s had fought in the Syrian civil war on the side of the jihadi’s. If they have returned to China I am pretty sure the authorities would not be letting them roam free (nor would our Government if they were Australians returning home)
That these factors which provide some balance/context to events are not reported in the media is another indicator of nefarious intent, which supports your thesis George.
Thank you very much Cameron for your kind sentiments and insights about the selective coverage by the media.
The US supports a ‘rules based international order’ and its impartiality and support of self determination is plain to see. It has corrupted, subverted and destroyed sovereign governments whether they are democracies or dictatorships whenever the ‘rules’ were not to its favour. Hong Kong is yet another example of their ‘America first’ policies as demonstrated in Iran, Guatemala, Chile and 50 other countries who self determined incorrectly. Australia was another coup d’état that went unnoticed and the security services in Australia still report to the US instead of the Australian government. The US are under the orders of the International Court of Justice and the UN to return Diego Garcia to Mauritius instead of using it as a heavy bomber base to propagate their wars. Do they take any notice? Of course not. They just demonise China regarding the Spratly Islands and the press will not make it an issue due to their control of the media.
Thank you very much Steve for your insights and especially the case of the Diego Garcia and the silence of our media!
As the events in Hong Kong unfolded, I was struck by the forbearance shown by the central government in Beijing. Beijing was clearly being provoked, and the US and the UK were quite clearly, to my mind, hoping for an extreme reaction.
When the inevitable reaction finally came in the form of a new security law, it was considered, legal and proportionate. Or so it seems to me, although I admit some of the more active protesters will disagree as their futures will probably contain some uncomfortable years.
Hong Kong was, and will remain, part of China, something those pulling the strings of protest and insurrection surely knew. So why do it?
In a word, Taiwan. That is where the real contest is brewing. That is where the situation could explode. Not in Hong Kong, not in the South China Sea, but in Taiwan.
I think George Mickhail has it wrong. While the sequence of events in Hong Kong appears somewhat similar Hong Kong is an entirely different case to Santiago. There has never been a dispute that Hong Kong is not part of China. The dispute is about Hong Kong’s loss of freedoms in political and economic sense under the CCP’s rule. While there is plenty to be said of China’s premature taking over of Hong Kong, it doesn’t change Hong Kong’s situation.
Moreover, I cannot possibly believe that the CIA is naive enough to think that it can soak Hong Kong away from China.
What I cannot understand why China has acted the way it did in Hong Kong. Why on earth would you slaughter your economic golden goose unnecessary?
It seems more like a security apparatus become paranoid, rather than some meddling by the CIA.
This is of course not to say that the CIA isn’t capable of some wholesome illegal activity. It is well known for that.
Thank you very much Mr Hans Rijsdiijk for your comments. I agree with you that the U.S. was not necessarily trying its hand at a regime change. I believe that the 2019 (c)overt interference by the United States in HKSAR served three purposes. First, to undermine the achievements of the Communist Party of China and spoil its 70th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Second, to distract China with internal irritations during its trade negotiations with the United States. And the third most important purpose is to destabilise China geopolitically in the South China Sea and Asia-Pacific (while hoping for a major violent setback in HKSAR) to embarrass China internationally and discourage countries that cooperate with China from continuing or joining the Belt and Road Initiative.
As for HK being the golden goose, I think that’s old history as it has been displaced by other financial centers close to it like Shenzhen and upcoming financial centers like Sanya (Hainan). Today, China is not the the same economically or politically as it was 20 or 30 years ago. I dare say that the Communist Party of China is not the same as it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Many of its cadres are very well educated professionals. Some are Fulbright Scholars and others were sent abroad over the past 30-40 years have come back with new ideas that were blended into what may be described Socialism with Chinese Characteristics that is contributing to its openness today. I personally think that one need to experience China first hand instead of trusting how it is being ‘framed’ in our mainstream media.
Hi George, when you put your story this way I would be much more inclined to agree. The instability and mayhem that you think the CIA is/was trying to create would be very much in its line of work.
Thanks for your clarification.
Thank you very much Hans for your kind sentiments. I must say that it was difficult to compress 5,500 words into 800-900 words, so some of this contextual clarification should have been included.
Many thanks to George Mickhail for presenting the ABC of regime change manifesto used successfully by the US on Persia (Iran). As I followed the HK events on South China Morning Post, I concur that the events described in this artilce is a accurate reflection of the tactics/strategies used by the US in their proxy ideological war in HK with China. However, I wondered why the old tactics are being employed when the world has changed so much since the 1950s particularly the politic background of HK and Iran is so differemt, viz. (1) HK SAR government is not an independent country but part of Chinese territory governed by a subserviant “proviincial government’ answerable to Beijing; (2) The fall of the HKSAR govenrment does not translate into a regime change (for tomorrow, a new Beijing team will take its place); (3) there is no popular support for a regime change; (4) the people used by the US do not have standing credibility with the people in China and HK in particular and they can be easily demonised as being “traitors to the motherland’.and will be treated as the peoples’ enemies. The end result will not be like Iran and for a sucessful “regime change” exercise in HK, the people of HK will lose control of their future and by forcing the hand China to fastforward the end of one country two systems.
Thank you very much Mr Anthony Pun for your kind comments and thought provoking questions. I agree wholeheartedly with your views that a ‘regime change’ can never happen in HKSAR. I do not think that the U.S. was necessarily trying its hand at a regime change. I believe that the 2019 (c)overt interference by the United States in HKSAR served three purposes. First, to undermine the achievements of the Communist Party of China and spoil its 70th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Second, to distract China with internal irritations during its trade negotiations with the United States. And the third most important purpose is to destabilise China geopolitically in the South China Sea and Asia-Pacific (while hoping for a major violent setback in HKSAR) to embarrass China internationally and discourage countries that cooperate with China from continuing or joining the Belt and Road Inititative.