WITNESSES TO HISTORY

ERIC ZUESSE—The basic U.S. lie is that the U.S. Government has a right to participate in affecting Hong Kong’s future. Hong Kong has been part of China ever since 214 BCE when the Qin Dynasty conquered the loca tribe, the Yue. The British Empire took it over in 1841, when the infamous British East India Company “began to grow opium in Bengal, present day Bangladesh, and smuggled it into China illegally. The influx of narcotics reversed the Chinese trade surplus, drained the economy of silver, and increased the numbers of opium addicts inside the country, outcomes that seriously worried Chinese officials,” who tried to resist the British Empire but were conquered by it so that in January 1841, the Qing dynasty’s Hong Kong official, Qishan, ‘ceded Hong Kong’ to Britain’s Admiral Sir Charles Elliot, who then promptly became the British King’s first Administrator of Hong Kong.

On this season finale special episode of Going Underground, we speak to legendary journalist and film-maker John Pilger on a round-up of all the latest issues. John describes the current state of global affairs as in a state of world war, warning that the ‘coming war on China’ he warned about…has now arrived, he also discusses the Hong Kong protests and why they have grown, along with US involvement in the unrest.

GEORGE BURCHETT—I first visited the DPRK in September 2002 with my son Graham. We arrived from Sydney, Australia, where we were living at the time. I must confess that I was a little bit apprehensive. I had lived in Australia since 1985 and had had to endure an endless and sustained demonization campaign against my father, Wilfred Burchett. He was never forgiven by the Australian establishment and its media etc. enforcers for reporting the ceasefire talks to end the Korean War from the North Korean-Chinese side.

OLIVER STONE —DAN KOVALIK—The mammoth elephant in the room is the insatiable military-industrial complex, which is diverting precious resources away from these causes and toward the cause of destroying other nations. Meanwhile, the US war machine is arguably the greatest contributor in the world to the global warming crisis. And, as a symbol of its environmental threat, the US military just opened an airstrip in the Galapagos Islands.