A few days ago, I received a letter from a person in Hong Kong. Not from a fan of my writing; on the contrary, or should I put it more precisely: “from a person who is standing clearly at the other side of the barricade”.

She tried to explain why some people in Hong Kong are “losing trust in the government”, and why “Hong Kong does not want to be like mainland China, where the internet is censored and some topics are not allowed to be discussed”.

Generally, she addressed things that are commonly tackled by those who are running around the streets, clad in ninja-style outfits, brutalizing Hong Kong for several months already. But at least she wanted to talk, to explain, in a polite way. Although the end of her email was banal and, should I say, bizarre:

“Hong Kong people are losing hope and trust toward the government, people are afraid of the Chinese government of all the things that they have done and been doing. And some try to get foreign countries’ attention, not as a friend, not because Hong Kong people admire them, but because the Chinese government see them as the enemy, and the involvement of foreign countries, as well as the call of Hong Kong independence, can piss them off.”

This email arrived at the same time when the entire world rose in outrage against the cold-blooded murder of an African American person, Mr George Floyd.

Tens of thousands were marching in Tokyo and Buenos Aires, in London and Paris. In the West, protesters clashed with riot police, and many people were badly injured, while thousands were arrested. Water cannons were used; streets got barricaded.

I have been writing on the topic constantly, from the start, also giving interviews to various media outlets all over the world. And I kept repeating that what occurred to Mr Floyd has been happening to people in countless countries, even to the countries themselves, in all corners of our world: Western neo-colonialist powers have been kneeling on their necks, killing them, cutting their flow of oxygen. In many poor nations, people are kept in unimaginable misery or being killed so the West can get raw materials and labor almost for free. I worked in some of the toughest, most desperate parts of the world, making films, writing books and reporting. Therefore I know.

A young woman who wrote to me an email from Hong Kong never mentioned any of these horrors. Most likely, she knew nothing about them. Most definitely, she never went out of her way to find out what the West is doing to her fellow human beings. For her, that “censored internet” or inability to discuss certain topics “openly” has been the highest “crime” she could imagine. Or that is how she was told to think. That is how most of people around her are conditioned to think.

Years ago, I spoke to “Occupy Central” participants, and to the recent partakers in the riots of 2019 and 2020: They knew absolutely nothing about the barbarities committed by the NATO countries, all over the world.

Now imagine China; a country with a distinct, successful socialist model. A country that is not attacking, not occupying anybody. An extremely peaceful country that is trying to improve the life of all of its citizens, even the inhabitants of poor countries on all continents.

China is being attacked, provoked, insulted, on all fronts. Precisely by the West, which does not want to lose its grip on global power. China is being pushed toward a military conflict.

Social media, mass media, all sorts of propaganda are unleashed against Beijing. Lies about China’s revolutionary past are fabricated and disseminated; lies about the Tian’anmen Square “events”; in fact, any types of lies that could hurt, destabilize or at least confuse this great and brave nation.

What is China supposed to do? Just receive punches? Just tolerate fabrications?

No! China is obliged to defend itself and its people. It cannot just let all that destructive propaganda, openly geared at ruining the State, enter the airways and social media. In the past, China let down its guard, and it led to the Period of Humiliation, when the West occupied, divided and ransacked the nation.

And Beijing does precisely that — it is identifying and stopping fake news and the extremist, hostile, vile ideological infiltration and attacks. And it does it in a “mild way” because China’s “censorship” is nowhere as advanced and brutal as that in the West. This, the rioters, also refuse to acknowledge!

Individuals in Hong Kong who are disrupting the city’s life while insulting their motherland are stuck in their little world of selfish preoccupations and self-interests. Again, they were conditioned to feel and think this way.

They are totally lacking knowledge; the global context.

The entire world is waking up, condemning the barbaric killing of Mr George Floyd by a group of deranged racist cops in Minneapolis. People on all continents are symbolically connecting that murder to the countless horrible events committed by Western imperialism during more than 500 years. But many young kids in Hong Kong, including the one who wrote to me an email, are mainly preoccupied with their social media; their little fragmented universes of mobile phone, tablets and “me-me-me spaces”.

As the world is boiling, the rioters look increasingly ridiculous and irrelevant. The global priority now is to save billions of human beings who cannot breathe under the boots of the Western imperialism. But it appears that the Hong Kong rioters, who are conditioned to fight against their own country over a few petty privileges, will never understand what is really happening in Minneapolis, and in fact, all over the world!

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. He is the author of 20 books including“China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, and “China and Ecological Civilization".

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.