Almost 2 million people protest in Hong Kong against extradition law.

Some of the protesters calling for the leadership of Hong Kong's government to step down. Reuters. 

Almost 2 million people in Hong Kong showed up to protest a shelved extradition law. Reuters. Hong Kong's leader, Carrie Lam, has apologized for the law and suspended it, which would allow citizens to be sent to mainland China to be tried. Protesters want Lam to step down and to express anger about the way police handled the demonstrations. The law is controversial because Hong Kong has retained some independence and operates under "one country, two systems".

My Comment:

I haven't been covering the Hong Kong protests as I am far from an expert on internal Chinese politics. However, these protests are getting too big to ignore. The numbers of protesters vary massively with the Hong Kong government saying "only" 300000 people showed up. The protesters say 2 million, but I bet the truth is somewhere in between. 

I guess I understand why Hong Kong's populace is so upset. Though China isn't a federal system, a good comparison is if the American Federal government started extraditing and trying people accused of state crimes. With Hong Kong having extra privileges and rights, any attempt to remove some of those rights is going to be met with protest. 

It seems like China is going to back down a bit. They have already shelved the law but they haven't withdrawn it completely. They may do so soon in the future and get rid of Carrie Lam. China has always been terrified with civil unrest. They know that the biggest threat to rule of law is a civilian uprising, which is a major reason why Chinese citizens have no gun rights to speak of. With the fear of an uprising or protests spreading to mainland China, they may end up caving. 

That being said, these protest movements tend to fade eventually. China has seen major protests in Hong Kong before and it never amounted to anything. And France proves that long running protests won't necessary result in change. The Gilets Jaunes movement hasn't really accomplished much of anything and that has been going on for much longer than this protest movement. I fully expect this movement to end up the same way...