The Hong Kong protests

are causing problems here.
One of the international students from Hong Kong came to see me yesterday. Fortunately the Senior Cat had gone to church so I could make her a cup of tea and calm her down without added distractions.
She was, rightly, upset. I can say no more for fear of identifying her and her family but it is a serious situation.
And this girl is in the middle of preparing for her final exams. When she came here three years ago she told me, "I am here to work, to do my best."
And she has worked. She has not been home in all that time. She has held down a part time job - arranged before she left Hong Kong - and she has worked at university. Once a week she has taken a few hours off to do something with her small group of friends. Like her they are girls who are taking their studies seriously. 
I have watched them progress. I have read their work and occasionally helped them with negotiating local issues and the regional oddities of the English language. 
All of them are finding it hard right now. They don't want to be in Hong Kong themselves but they also wish they were there to support their families. They are worried about the growing control Beijing appears to have over Hong Kong's affairs.
And they should be worried. If Beijing decides to move then it is almost certain that the rest of the world will do nothing. China is no longer a "developing" nation. Parts of it remain undeveloped but it is a powerful nation and set to become more powerful still. 
The trade war between China and the US will almost certainly end in tears. China is already warning  Downunder to stay out of the way and not pick sides - by which they actually mean, "Don't side with the US if you want to do business with us."
 In choosing to concentrate on trying to be "part of the Asian region" Downunder has made itself extremely vulnerable. I have no idea what will happen to the Hong Kong students here if Beijing decides Hong Kong will lose its alternative system status. At the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre the Prime Minister of the day arranged for those who wanted to stay to remain and many of them did.
Would the girl who came to see me yesterday want to stay? She's  homesick as it is and the thought of never going home distresses her. The last three years have been hard, harder than most people realise. The university she attends would have no idea what she has been through or what she is going through now. If anything was said the staff would simply shrug even if privately sympathetic. It isn't the sort of thing they can help with.
All I could do was provide a cup of tea and "listening ear" for a short while. I felt  totally inadequate. The situation in Hong Kong is about real people, not simply about moving images on a screen.