U.S. double standards reveal deep-seated hegemony
By Hu Zexi, People’s Daily
In recent years, racial discrimination,
gun violence, and political polarization in the U.S. have led to massive
demonstrations and even street violence in some cases. If demonstrations break
the legal bottom line, the U.S. law enforcement departments will surely take
tough measures to quell the violence.
On June 29, far-right extremists and
left-wing activists took to the streets for a standoff in Portland, Oregon.
Shortly after the demonstration started, projections began to appear.
After that, the law enforcement
department revoked the permit for the demonstration and declared the situation a
riot. Flash bombs and rubber bullets were used to bring the standoff to a close
and perpetrators were arrested.
The law enforcement effort was widely
supported by local politicians and the high efficiency of the police officers
to control violence was applauded by the local community. Portland Mayor Ted
Wheeler pointed out that whoever resorts to violence under the guise of freedom
of expression is unwelcome in the city.
The U.S. law enforcement officers won’t
tolerate violent protesters, not to mention that the protesters may challenge
or endanger the security of the police officers.
James Dudley at San Francisco State
University is a 32-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department where he
retired as deputy chief of the Patrol Bureau.
Dudley had dealt with multiple cases of
social unrest. He told People’s Daily that when protests become violent
activities and protesters damage public property, the police officers may
consider use force. As he sees it, “arson and attacks by protesters should not
be tolerated in any country, and offenders should be arrested and removed”.
Henry Chang-Yu Lee was the former
director of the Connecticut State Police. He had dealt with some most important
cases in the country, including the assassination of U.S. President John F.
Kennedy and the 9/11 attacks. According to Lee, the U.S. local police agencies
usually deal with small-scale violent demonstrations, first by taking evidence
pictures and then arresting the offenders.
For large-scale violent protests, the
state police will deploy fire fighting trucks to disperse the protesters and
explosion-proof vehicles to separate protesters and pedestrians, and arrest the
heads of the protesters or those who attack the police.
If the demonstrations prove to be
bigger and the situations are more severe, the national guards will take such
actions as firing smoke bombs and tear gas, declaring a state of emergency and
imposing a curfew.
The strong and tough measures taken by
the U.S. government to quell massive riots are still remembered by many
Americans even until today.
In 1992, the largest riot in the U. S.
in the 20th century broke out in Los Angeles. To quell the riot, the then U.S. President
George Herbert Walker Bush even dispatched the 1st Marine Division and the 7th
Infantry Division. Statistics show that about 12,000 people were arrested.
In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street
campaign swept across the U.S., and law enforcement agencies were highly vigilant.
During the clearance of the campaign at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, the center of
the movement, New York police dispatched thousands of police officers and
arrested 200 protesters who refused to cooperate.
In 2014, a major racial riot took place
in Ferguson, Missouri. The governor of the state declared a state of emergency
and dispatched a large number of law enforcement officers and heavy equipment
such as armored vehicles to suppress the riot.
In 2015, racial riots broke out again
in Baltimore, Maryland. The governor of the state also declared a state of
emergency, imposed a curfew, and mobilized thousands of National Guard members
to quell the riots.
The U.S. public does not need to worry
about the lack of law enforcement. On the contrary, excessive law enforcement
and violent law enforcement have been a major problem facing American society
for a long time.
According to data released by the FBI
in 2017, U.S. law enforcement agencies approved more than 10 million arrests
(excluding arresting of traffic violators) in 2016, and an average of 3,298.5
people per 100, 000 residents were arrested. According to The Washington Post,
U.S. police shot and killed 998 people in 2018 alone.
Why do American politicians, who will
never question law enforcement in their own country, now groundlessly accuse
law enforcement in other parts of the world, notably Hong Kong? Some experts
said that this fully exposed the double standards of American politicians.
After violent clashes between far-right
and radical left groups in Portland this summer, Ted Cruz, a senior
conservative politician and Senator from Texas, filed a resolution with another
Senator, expressing severe condemnation against violence and calling for
classification of far-left Antifa groups who covered their faces with black
masks or bandanas as a domestic terrorist organization.
Faced with repeated acts of violence by
Antifa groups, many U.S. law enforcement officials have demanded legislation to
ban the public from wearing masks to participate in demonstrations. In fact,
various versions of the "anti-mask laws" have long been implemented
in many states and counties in the U.S.
However, when dangerous people in
regions of other countries took to the streets to commit crimes, some American
politicians took the opposite position. Not long ago, when the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government started to formulate an
anti-mask law, many people in the U.S. criticized the move, saying willfully
that it would damage Hong Kong's "democracy ".
Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the
Kuhn Foundation of the U.S., told People’s Daily that no nation can allow
violence to disrupt its society and undermine its economy, rule of law is the
basis of national life, economic development, and civil society, and police
have the responsibility to contain violence and restrain lawbreakers.
In Kuhn's view, Hong Kong police have
generally exercised restraint over the past few months, while some extreme
demonstrators have repeatedly attempted to provoke the police, but certain
American politicians still chose to criticize the Hong Kong police. What lies
behind this is their deep-seated frustration at China’s remarkable rise and
downright political opportunism, which is a deeper motive they might not state.
U.S. double standards reveal deep-seated hegemony
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