00:00How has China reacted to the Hong Kong fires so far?
00:04The Chinese government has already, you know, issued several propaganda articles
00:09saying anybody who's raising questions about transparency and corruption should be,
00:17you know, potentially investigated for national security reasons.
00:22So the government is already kind of know that people are angry about it,
00:26and people will call for accountability.
00:29We're seeing reports that there were multiple safety failures leading up to this fire.
00:33What's the government's role in those safety failures falling through the cracks?
00:38Residents were complaining about the lack of safety enforcement surrounding the building.
00:46So clearly that people knew something was wrong, and they urged the government to,
00:52you know, look into the company's behavior, the contractors.
00:55The fire happened, people died.
00:58That was because the government didn't take seriously people's complaints, right?
01:02When you have a government that is not accountable to the people, right?
01:06And then, of course, it fosters corruption.
01:08You know, when the government leaders are not elected by the people,
01:13they don't have to answer to the people's demands.
01:16During a U.S. congressional hearing, you said that a fire in northwestern China in late 2022
01:23caused some political challenges for Beijing.
01:26Are we seeing similar challenges unfold here?
01:29I think it's similar in the sense that, obviously, that, you know, when there's a fire,
01:34some safety regulations were not enforced or, you know, measures were not enforced.
01:41So in that regard, you know, the Wuru Muqi fire or the Hong Kong fire are similar.
01:46That speaks to the government's failure.
01:48And when there's no free expression, people can't freely criticize the government,
01:53can't freely express, you know, whatever they think the problem with the government.
01:58All those things, you know, are the fundamentals of a democracy, of a free society,
02:05which is closely related to, you know, how well managed, how well run, you know, a city is,
02:13how accountable, how transparent the government is.
02:16It is a threat because the government knows that people are unhappy about this situation
02:21and people wanted to, you know, speak up about this situation.
02:23So they are preemptively, Beijing is preemptively sending the message
02:28to threaten the people that don't do that.
02:30You can be put in jail.
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