What has happened to Hong Kong is a strong canary-in-the-coal-mine indicator for other Chinese territorial disputes [i].
With Hong Kong it was somewhat inevitable but I can't help but imagine how different it would be if the US and EU/Britain (as leads) would have strongly denounced their approach. I suspect in a decade from now the West will be lamenting how Hong Kong was the right opportunity to stifle China's ambition.
The best predictor for future behavior is past behavior: China is testing the waters, in some cases in a quite literal sense (South China Sea), and you're correct that how the world reacts to Hong Kong and the Xinjiang "re-education camps" will be seen as a vital piece of information in the future when deciding on how to proceed with other "problematic" regions: for example Taiwan, which in the case where strong-arming the island into obedience, most probably would require military intervention. Before you claim that this is unlikely or extreme, remember that thanks to the PRC, almost no countries in the world even recognize Taiwan as a country -- so how are you supposed to question the "invasion"?
These actions can all be traced back to China's increased tendency towards authoritarianism, for example the elimination of the term limit for Xi Jinping in 2018,[1] which stands in contrast to China's economic liberalization in the early 1990s.[2] It's important to understand that this liberalization is more or less the sole reason China is the "young superpower" we see today (just look up the GDP numbers from 1990 onwards), so the question is how a reversal of this attitude will serve future Chinese interests. Although unconfirmed, there are claims that Xi's grip on power may be decreasing somewhat, and that there is "widespread opposition" from within the party, but for obvious reasons few are willing to speak out.[3]
I have sympathy for the statement that lifting 500 million people out of abject, generational poverty ranks among the greatest humanitarian successes in history. At the same time local corruption, and the number of protests against those officials was an enormous problem and seemed to get remarkably little coverage.
A mature legal system is the only reliable way to combat problems like corruption. A legal system is much more reliable than a single powerful executive. China could have gone beyond mere convergence in its economic success. Different egos are running things now than during the start of the economic reforms, but in a better timeline I think some successful institutions from Hong Kong would have been adopted in more areas of China.
However, the west isn't in a position right now to say that in spite of it being harder work to run a system where political influence doesn't affect the legal system that strong institutions are the source of our prosperity. We're simultaneously in a period of dismantling established institutions, and less capable when it comes to managing crises than we used to be.
Local corruption is the defacto mechanism CCP exploited to pull 500m out of poverty. Deng's entire model is harnessing corruption with bureaucratic incentives to forward development goals. This is posited by Yukon Huang, former World Bank director for China. He notes China is the only country where increased corruption is correlated to increased growth, everywhere else corruption leads to inefficient allocation. Also discussed in depth recently in China's Gilded Age by Yuen Yuen Ang, which breaks down corruption into four categories:
Chinese corruption focuses on access money (steroids) to coordinate massive development projects and a cadres ability to graft is directly correlated to their projects success. The flip side is pervasive corruption is socially destabilizing as recognize in the 2000s, which is why Xi inaugurated his office with the anticorruption campaign. Yes, there was some power consolidation involved, but most of the effort was genuine - CCDI has investigated close to 2,000,000 officials, even Xi doesn't have that many enemies. Despite some terrible human rights campaigns that affect <1% of the population, this is very much the "better" timeline. The legal system is being improved, it's _not_ (<-edit) going to be modelled after the west, the most optimistic outcome is Singapore, whose political institutions has trained 50k+ Chinese officials until a few years ago. Incidentally, Singapore style single party dictatorship was about the best HK could have ever hoped for - people keep insisting HK's role as financial centre is predicated on it's western values yet in the same breath suggest HK's loss will be Singapore's gain. Authoritarianism + capitalism are absolutely compatible.
Your last paragraph hits the nail on the head, western institutions are failing. They don't have to be, but as long as they are, China will be more reassured in it's model.
I think Chinese authoritarianism may be best though if as a rent based system much like resource based economies such as the Gulf states, except that the ‘resource‘ they are extracting rent from is a capitalist market economy. It’s a strange beast for sure. One thing the Chinese authorities do not lack is competence. They make horrific, catastrophic mistakes, sure, but they are incredibly organised and disciplined. They will turn in a dime and execute whatever strategy it takes to set things ‘right’, as defined in their terms with ruthless efficiency. They must not be underestimated.
I think western institutions are being underestimated. The whole point if democratic systems is their flexibility. We will simply adapt and grow new institutions. We have the dynamic systems of social discourse and public accountability to do so. Authoritarian systems find this hard to do because their top down architecture limits them to solutions envisionable by a single authority. They have no way to do public input or to generate a range of options, or try things and have them fail. It’s fine. It’s part of the process.
> which is why Xi inaugurated his office with the anticorruption campaign. Yes, there was some power consolidation involved, but most of the effort was genuine - CCDI has investigated close to 2,000,000 officials, even Xi doesn't have that many enemies.
Xi became president as a compromise candidate between the internal factions, so he didn't have much support or allies. CCP officials are corrupt by default, of course the effort would be genuine, even though the true intention was to consolidate his power inside the party.
Re. CCP lifting 500m out of poverty -- I'd argue that the Chinese people prospered and lifted themselves out DESPITE of what CCP has done. Looking at the potential alternative and what KMT has done to develop Taiwan, I'd think that's the case. But there is no way of testing that.
> Authoritarianism + capitalism are absolutely compatible.
I agree with this in the case of Singapore. But when CCP is actively exporting its brand of authoritarianism to other countries and influencing the freedoms of other countries' citizens as part of an ideology war [1] using unrestricted warfare [2], then that organization becomes a threat to the world. The best case HK can hope for is the collapse of CCP.
> I have sympathy for the statement that lifting 500 million people out of abject, generational poverty ranks among the greatest humanitarian successes in history.
Do the ends justify the means? A long form piece entitled "Why Do Chinese People Like Their Government?”:
> But, with only very few exceptions, they really conceived of liberalism not as an end in itself but rather as a means to the decidedly nationalist ends of wealth and power. They believed that liberalism was part of the formula that had allowed the U.S. and Great Britain to become so mighty. It was embraced in a very instrumental fashion. And yet Chinese advocates of liberalism were guilty, too, of not appreciating that same contingency, that whole precarious historical edifice from which the liberalism of the Enlightenment had emerged. Did they think that it could take root in utterly alien soil? In any case, it most surely did not.
> It must be understood that liberalism and nationalism developed in China in lockstep, with one, in a sense, serving as means to the other. That is, liberalism was a means to serve national ends — the wealth and power of the country. And so when means and end came into conflict, as they inevitably did, the end won out. Nationalism trumped liberalism. Unity, sovereignty, and the means to preserve both were ultimately more important even to those who espoused republicanism and the franchise.
> […] By the mid-1920s, the overwhelming majority of Chinese intellectuals believed that an authoritarian solution was China’s only recourse. Some looked to the Soviet Union, and to Bolshevism. Others looked to Italy, and later Germany, and to fascism. Liberalism became almost irrelevant to the violent discourse on China’s future.
That was a good piece. The author is well researched and aware of opposing viewpoints, even while advocating his own. I wish more discussion were this informed and nuanced.
> > […] By the mid-1920s, the overwhelming majority of Chinese intellectuals believed that an authoritarian solution was China’s only recourse. Some looked to the Soviet Union, and to Bolshevism. Others looked to Italy, and later Germany, and to fascism. Liberalism became almost irrelevant to the violent discourse on China’s future.
I did not read the article, but I'd point out that this is in opposition of what Sun Yat-Tsen and Chiang Kai-Shek believed in. KMT take over happened around the 1920's, they believed the road to rebuild China was through [1]
> three steps: military rule, political tutelage, and constitutional rule. The ultimate goal of the KMT revolution was democracy
And indeed, this is what Taiwan had gone through under the rule of KMT, evolving into the democracy today.
For the totalitarian claim to rewrite history all territories are ultimately problematic.
> We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would require the control of the whole planet.
- Hannah Arendt
I would add that several totalitarian singularities, that each are closed off from one another or perceive each other through a completely controlled ideological filter, might also constitute such total control.
Not structurally incompatible but typically suffering from stunted growth. Nazi Germany didn't go on enough to show its limits, but Franco's Spain or Pinochet's Chile struggled to grow until their strongman went away.
I want to say that defence treaties, are a bit special in the context of USA.
Why USA has historically entered into so many treaties?
They reason is is because USA's constitutional arrangement makes it really hard for the US government to declare a war... on the paper.
So, by giving a treaty, USA was giving the strongest assurance that by turning a treaty into its own law, it prevents the chance of anybody in the constitutional order of precedence stopping, or reneging on the obligated retaliation.
From a political standpoint, one of the purposes of the defense treaties has been to discourage allies from building up their own militaries. This was an explicit policy in the wake of WW2 to promote both US hegemony, but also to promote stability - the theory being a world with one dominant military power is less likely to see large wars like WW1 and WW2.
Well it was also because 1900s Europe couldn't seem to stop causing major wars with itself that pulled in the US and other countries. So this policy was also to rein in Germany permanently, in parallel with economically integrating Germany more closely with Europe to reduce incentives for militarism.
Between "Pax X" and "Pax Y", there's often a war. The war leaves X weakened to the point that they can't enforce "Pax X" any more. Pax Americana ending probably won't just be because Pax China peacefully superseded it.
It was for a long time. This is why GOP handwringing about our allies underspending on military defense is so incongruent - other countries underspending on their militaries was a cornerstone goal of post-WW2 policy. Complaining that Germany doesn’t have a strong enough military marks a pretty sharp break from prior US policy goals.
That was true until Trump, and it's really only Trump pushing for that, and the GOP going along with it b/c Trump owns the GOP now. The US policy establishment is against it, but have to follow the President's orders.
I read it as "They're just testing waters, they have no intentions for further expansion". I am sorry if I misread it. If I didn't, then I strongly believe that China wants to expand its terrorial powers to SCS, Taiwan, disputed areas on the Indian, Bhutanese, Nepalese and Vietnamese borders.
> I can't help but imagine how different it would be if the US and EU/Britain (as leads) would have strongly denounced their approach.
What? What could the US have done beyond what we did other than all out war? The US response to this was very harsh.
We undid 50 years of diplomacy with China, and have started building a sortof SEA equivalent to NATO.
Chinese/American relations have probably never been as unfriendly as they are right now, and Hong Kong is a major part of that. Seriously I don’t know what the next step would be that wasn’t a de facto, weapons-hot war.
I think the dissonance over the US not doing enough is that if the US pulled these moves a decade or two ago, China would have blinked. China not blinking doesn't mean the US isn't doing enough. It means we're living in a world where China doesn't blink anymore. America's absolute influence might still be the same, but its relative influence has fallen.
Right or wrong, I suggest you and others go back to interviews of Kissinger about why he pushed to open the world to China the way the US did. It was essentially do it on our terms now or theirs for ever after. Not that it was right, but it is informative.
Personally I watched an old episode of “Firing Line” on amazon prime with him and Ariana Huffington on it. Ariana was arguing against trade with China.
China doesn't compromise on sovereignty issues, period. If US pulled this 20 years ago, China wouldn't have cooperated on bailing the west out of 08 GFC. Also 20 years ago US bombed Chinese embassy in Belgrade a few years after 3rd Taiwan Strait crisis. That would have been a very different timeline.
> China doesn't compromise on sovereignty issues, period.
Except when it does, quietly accepting losing Vladivostok to Russia (Chinese [1] Google translate [2]). Vladivostok was lost during the same era Hong Kong was lost.
Vladivostok was never part of any inherited territory dispute which CCP inherited from ROC who inherited from Qin. Settling border disputes is not analogous to ceding sovereignty, i.e. CCP has no issues settling 12/14 border disputes, most with more Chinese land concessions. But when it comes to core sovereignty issues like Tibet, XJ, HK, Taiwan, part of the century of humiliation narrative hole CCP has dug itself into, they do not compromise on or at least have sunk too much political legitimacy in the last 50 years to ever renege on. Historic exceptions being Mongolia and 11dash down to 9dash in the 50s, when CCP was an infant. Contemporary loose end is pretty much Arunachal Pradesh which CCP is willing to package swap for Aksai China with India which will also resolve Bhutan border.
The problem is the US has done a lot (though it's not solely to blame) to propel China up on the world stage, especially in the last decade+. We have given up a lot of our world leadership duties in many aspects and China wasted no time in filling any voids that we left behind.
This isn't just a Trump thing (though he has accelerated pulling the US out of leadership positions) but it goes back to the lack of response to the Crimea annexation (and Russia's continual pushing of it's Ukrainian boundary).
China has spent the last several decades smartly becoming more diversified in what countries they depend on, while at the same time making sure the whole world was heavily reliant on themselves. Due to that no one country can do anything to keep China in check, and in normal times that would be OK. However, the world has relied on the US to form global coalitions that would work together to push back against things like this, and now that the US has made it clear it will not work with anyone else (even allies), China knows that no other country has the influence to form such a coalition. That means it doesn't even need to be coy about what it's doing (as we are seeing with Hong Kong).
So yeah, I agree that in 2019 and 2020 the US and Eu/Britain couldn't have done anything meaningful, but what's happening right now is heavily caused by the US' pulling out of the world stage leading up to it.
I think the onus here was more on the UK than the US because the UK was the one with an agreement with the Chinese government that was broken. I agree that the US response has already been a lot.
The UK effectively offered asylum to millions of HKers, in a move basically unprecedented after WWII, and drew a line over previous plans to coordinate on things like 5G and nuclear. What else could they have done? In a world of superpowers, the UK alone is small potatoes.
thanks. just to clarify, it is not asylum and not yet available (but this is not criticism it is very good)
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/british-nationals-overseas-in-ho...
I dont know about the uk, but prob biggest diff to asylum is, that people in asylum get money/provisions while in this scheme you need to bring money (modest 6 month worth though)
While I agree with you on principle I think we (the general we) need to be clearer on classification. Hong Kong isn’t really a territorial dispute as there is no real dispute on the territory. Legally HK is a part of China, I don’t think that’s in question. The issue here is with human rights and complying with the terms and timelines of the handover back to China.
True territorial disputes can invoke different measures. Grouping HK and other human rights topics like Xinjiang with territorial disputes I think muddies the waters.
Hong Kong is not a territorial dispute. It’s like Macau, both were already meant to be integrated.
As for actual territorial disputes,
> ...China, which has displayed a willingness to negotiate in many such situations. In just over 60 years, China has gone from 23 land disputes down to just six. In the majority of its settlements, China accepted less than one-half of the territory it originally claimed.
"One way to cement a claim to a disputed territory — and to anger others who think it belongs to them — is to build on it."
Then goes onto describe the disputes almost being exclusive between China and the US Navy, and further reinforces that point by saying,
"The U.S., the longtime guarantor of freedom of navigation in Asia’s waters..."
I'm sorry, but isn't it sort of ironic that Bloomberg accuses of territorial disputes mainly with China as being the aggressor, when most of their maritime incidents are almost exclusively against the US Navy?
It's not ironic, because the United States is not claiming the area as territorial waters belonging to the U.S.
China is clearly the "aggressor" in this situation because they are building military installations in an area that was previously not a militarized zone.
China was the 5th out of 6th claimants to weaponize their holdings on the SCS. The last being Brunei who has nothing. China was merely responding, not initiating SCS weaponization (but mostly in response to US pivot to Asia and increased US basing in the area to contain China - same reason Russia took Crimea in response to NATO encroachment led by US). The difference being China reclaiming land with 2% of Chinese GDP will vastly outscope Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines or Taiwan. The irony is US pushing Philippines for PCA case against China using a dispute system China opted out during her UNCLOS ratification while US not being signatory to UNCLOS. Or US not recognizing features of other claimants that was also invalidated by PCA ruling which applied uniformly to other parties in the SCS.
The American navy has been going around there for a long time; that's hardly non-militarized.
I'm not sure there's a big difference between claiming they're territorial US waters vs claiming that the US gets to decide who's waters they are. In both cases the US has sovereignty over those waters
I'm not aware of the US ever claiming it gets to decide whose waters they are. Can you provide some links for that? I've only seen the US appeal to the convention and various arbitrations on the issue.
> when most of their maritime incidents are almost exclusively against the US Navy?
That isn't true. Some of the dispute involve the Americans, most involve the Vietnamese and Filipinos, and then some from the Indonesians and Malaysians. That only the USA has the resources to keep these disputes from being one sided shouldn't muddy those waters.
It also shows how they negotiate with those who don't share the same governmental ideals that they have. In particular those who might be opposing their attempt to take over the entire south china sea.
We can no longer say "the west" and expect a unified response - brexit, the constant attacks on member nations of NATO by Trump, The Iran deal that Europe still backs but the US doesn't.
There's a reason Russia and China are bold right now.
EDIT: I get it, it's politically charged, but I remind everyone to discuss, rather than downvote, based on your own political opinion.
Sure, but that owes more to the fact that the ruling classes in “the west” now exist in solidarity with those in China, nationalist posturing aside.
Globalization unified Chinese elites with oligarchs in the US and Europe so they both could profit from exploitation of the Chinese labor force. But now that the country has developed past the point of this being easily profitable for all parties, the Chinese regime has to resort to ever more authoritarian tactics to keep the wheels spinning. Average people in western countries might oppose all of this, but the people who rule them put as much stock in these objections as the Chinese leaders do their dissenters.
His public anti-china stance is just a show. Many of his family business dealings are total opposite. Moreover, his presidency is good for China. Fomenting domestic division, weakening law and order, constant attack on the constitution, weakening alliances, being cozy with dictators, on and on, only benefit china, russia and other dictators.
This is confirmed by John Bolton (I guess if you believe what he wrote in his book that the President attempted in court to block).
Trump “turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.”
> That doesn't make sense. Trump is pro Russia and anti China. Chinese facing more heat now than in the past 50 years.
Trump is schizophrenic on China. His "anti-China" attitudes right now seem more of a function of a need for an external enemy to blame/distract from his domestic failures. His trade war with China occurred around the same time he initiated trade disputed with even allied nations. There are even indications that he is not bothered by, and perhaps even approves of, Chinese human rights violations (e.g. IIRC Bolton has said he expressed approval of the Xinjiang camps directly to Xi).
I believe some of his advisors are more opposed to current Chinese government actions, but Trump's shown a willingness to do foreign policy 180s against their advice before.
That's not "schizophrenic". He dislikes China insofar as it harms US economic interests, not based on their internal policies. It's fully aligned with his motto of "America first" - first means before everyone, including the Uighurs.
Frankly, it doesn't even strike me as that different from previous administrations (it's not like the US particularly cared about what happened to the East Timorese, for example), he mostly just seems more short-sighted, by focusing on money rather than power.
Most of the West wants to appease China. What response are you talking about. It's not standing in front, that's for sure. EU silence is deafening, except for some weak, mild comments here or there. China's diplomacy barks back, and EU commissioners become silent.
It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. That's against the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do it because, as the guidelines explain, it spoils the curiosity that this site exists for. So would you please stop doing this?
If you want more explanation there are plenty of past explanations at these links:
There's another issue, which is that we don't see everything that gets posted to HN, even in the same thread. There's far too much material here for anyone to read it all. So if you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
Sadly, EU institutions in the area of direct foreign policy have been continuously undermined - mostly by French and UK governments who wanted "their hands free", but also by tactical US moves to ensure NATO would stay relevant. There are real contrasts in outlook among member states when it comes to larger geopolitical issues (even extremely close to home, like Lybia and Turkey), coupled with a general unwillingness, among most member states, to engage in dangerous (and expensive) geopolitical games. That makes it hard to formulate robust action plans beyond the usual platitudes. There is no EU military force yet for that same reason, in practice.
The hope is that long-term economic integration will progressively reduce these problems, by turning "national spheres of influence" into "European spheres of influence". But at the moment, EU foreign-policy mechanisms (and appointees...) are fairly weak. We'll see what happens after we digest the loss of Britain, which was an extremely vocal (and followed / respected) member on these topics. Maybe we'll finally grow up a bit.
That argument is a lot harder to sell since the Korea and Viet Nam wars. Not that I disagree with you. China does need to be reigned in, and we should have started years ago. But the leadership of the USA was mostly of draftable age during the Viet Nam war, or, like me, did their grade school homework in front of the TV news with Walter Cronkite reading the daily body count.
Nobody in their right mind is arguing for a land based invasion of China, so this argument is completely moving the goal posts. It's not either-or, there are many ways to pressure a nation without military intervention.
But the same generation was in power when we launched our twenty-year War on Terror, and the comparisons to Vietnam that started popping up a decade and a half ago didn't manifest in any sort of wariness to move forward and keep moving forward with our attempted "regime change." If anything, it's that which has changed our willingness to step forward militarily. The conclusion is that we spent our war capital on frivolous quagmires when real threats were looming but not being taken seriously.
See also: cointel on BLM while white supremacists plan and execute with freely. Team America: World Police reflecting our actual police.
The victims of Western-backed dictators, American regime change campaigns, and the crushing poverty caused by austerity mandates, economic sanctions, and predatory international capital investment terms would like to have a word with you.
Also, victims of the Atlantic Slave Trade, anti-union riots, and lax labor safety law. I get that Mao is a high hurdle to pass but I think we've done it and then some.
It was about extending capitalism (well, democracy morally and structurally enabling capitalistic integration of ME into the global market), and also an extension of Cold War jockeying, which was anti-communist (and arguably hysteria).
The rest of the world needs to wake up and realize that China is not messing around. There will be a long list of Hong Kong’s if we continue to look the other way to authoritarian regimes.
In the last decade :
- Russia annexed Crimea;
- Turkey took control of most of the Syrian land across its borders;
- Israel continuously colonised bits of Palestinian land;
- China is now taking political control of Hong Kong;
- UAE forces tool over the Socotra Islands;
The West's reactions so far have been ranging from ineffectual economic sanctions to completely ignoring it. I would expect similar "annexations" by nationalist/totalitarian states to continue in the future.
Because none of those annexations haven't affected "core" territories of the west or their "core" population. The west definitely did not ignore 9/11.
Some people are more "western" than others. More specifically, the ones that can vote to mobilize the "western" military. Spill their blood and get demolished. Spill the blood of their worshipers and suddenly their own blood is too valuable to waste.
9/11 was an used as an excuse for pre-planned actions again unrelated entities. The US made huge efforts to avoid responding to the actual attackers for almost a decade.
Probably a natural cycle of violence. West grew their status after 2 world wars that no one wants to see again .. so nobody is ready to pull the trigger.
The West is in many ways equally as guilty but the stakes have changed dramatically. Russia and China are armed to the teeth. Turkey hosts some of the US nuclear weapons as well.
The West gets textiles from turkey and China, electronics from China (and many other natural resources), natural resources from UAE and Russia. And Israel has been viewed as a ‘stable’ partner in an unstable area.
I would agree that the annexations / subjugations have not been legal or good. And in some ways could be equated to what the Nazis began to do. But again, the stakes have changed. One bad decision could totally wreck the world as we know it. It would make the Second World War look small. I believe the West desperately wants to avoid that.
Plus, the US does not have a great (albeit recent) track record with helping out in regards to annexation / subjugation. See Vietnam war and Korean War and War on Terror and Bay of Pigs etc
That Russia and China are armed to the teeth is bollocks (at least compared to the US). Look at all aircraft carriers worldwide for example, its like what? 5⁵% US and 1-2(barely functioning) for china, and 1 for russia?
Aircraft carriers are a somewhat irrelevant metric. The US depends on them because their contested interests are strictly overseas. China and Russia's interests are in Eurasia, along their borders. Unless they plan full-scale invasion of the Americar, Africa, or Western Europe, they don't really need them.
What matters though are their nuclear arsenal and modern military technologies. They might or might not match the US's tech level, but it is more than sufficient to keep lesser powers from pestering them. And they probably have an idea or two about how to tackle the US aircraft carriers (ultrasilent submarines and hypersonic missiles come to mind).
I’m referring to nuclear capacity and abilities. I do not foresee the next War to be like the ones of old. Two+ massive powers competing will play ‘chicken’ until someone makes the wrong move.
“ If the button is pushed, there's no running away
There'll be no one to save with the world in a grave”
Hongkong is a Chinese territory that was annexed by a European colonial power then handed back (so pretty much exactly what the US want to see, right?). China is not annexing any foreign territory, it's managing its territory the way it sees fit. The aim of making noise is to create trouble for the Chinese government, it's a cynical, but classic, game with HK used as pawn because, of course, the West does not actually generously care about HK, they have 'friends' who manage their countries in the same way or worse.
Crimea is objectionable because of the method used. But no-one is willing to make too much noise because it's Russia, sure, but also because everyone knows that Crimea was Russian territory until the 1950s when it was moved to Ukraine by the USSR and because the majority of the population is Russian and quite happy with being back in Russia. When the time is right for everyone to save face and get something this will be accepted and everyone will move on.
On the other hand Turkey has indeed very plainly invaded a foreign country. But they are good friends of ours (well... at least still friends strategically). Arguably the same goes for Israel.
The US has a long history of failed honouring of international laws. Why should they honour any treaties?
There are not many countries that are allowed to support coups against elected leaders of one country with impunity, or are allowed to kill people in other countries by drone, or force other countries to implement their sanctions.
With their actions in the Middle East, South America or Kosovo they have provided the blueprints according to which Russia and China now act.
What is the status of the sanctions against Saudi Arabia for the assassination of Khashoggi? Are there no more, right?
You don't read about Raif Badawi anymore. Because we and our allies are the good ones. It is this hypocrisy that has brought us today's problems in the first place
BTW guess who sanctioned war crimes investigators for looking into possible war crimes of their troops?
You want peace and justice in the world, then start judging everyone by the same standards.
1. US Philippines Defence Treaty, USA allegedly refused to honor it when Philippines demanded USA assist clearing Mischief Reef, multiple times, and under multiple administrations.
2. Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between the United States and Japan, refused to acknowledge Chinese hostility against Japanese controlled island.
3. Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea, Koreans requested US aid countless times, on record.
4. Taiwan Relations Act, repeatedly failed to classify air incursions as attack under the act.
5. Suggested that Montenegro is not protected by the Article V, and voila, they got a Russian Coup d'état attempt in a few months.
Why do you think that? Hong Kong has historical ties to China and has always been part of it. The different status for Hong Kong has always been a thorn in China's side due to the Opium wars.
I mean outside of areas like Hong Kong and Taiwai that used to be part of China has China ever invaded foreign soil like Western countries to every few years?
The current conflict locations aren't near the headwaters of the Ganges, which are mostly on India's side of the Himalayas. They are near the headwaters for the Indus, but most of that flows to Pakistan.
I think war can still go on between nuclear armed nations - Tradional naval war happens in a localized region whereas the nuke option with current ICBMs is a complete and utter destruction of the country. Imagine 200 ICMBs landing in the US or China. So, I think this would be the last resort and not the first.
Nuclear deterrance works when one party is actually suicidal and weak (North Korea), because if they smell blood, it will be serious. It doesn't work when both states are on equal footing - neither one is going to push the red button when there are other options to solve the disputes such as traditional skirmishes.
Nope, there will be no great power wars while MAD still exists (and it does between china and the US).
At best, you will get some kind of military skirmish before they decide to pull out the nukes. There will likely be threats of nuclear exchange which lead to a cease fire. If there is no cease fire, than God help us all.
But no, two nuclear armed states are not going to fight a large scale conventional war. Partly this is because the US would spank China in a conventional war.
Not sure that the US would spank China in a conventional war. Offshore, maybe (I'm not even sure of that one). Air war, maybe (not sure about that one either). But China's not going to invade the US, and the US isn't going to invade China. That leaves a conventional war a standoff on the bottom line.
Invading is only needed if you want to control the place. A bombing/napalm campaign like the US did in the Korean and Vietnam wars, applied to the most important and populous regions of the country, would cripple the country for decades.
Unsure what their reaction would be. Probably not with nukes against the US, but slagging their allies in Asia is a plausible option, depending on their behavior before and after the event. The US might not be able to protect their allies in Asia from such retaliation.
I do wonder what will happen when we arrive at a point in the future where a country has developed perfect ICBM intercept technology. Of course there is still the submarine and bomber approach as well but they can’t as easily be dialed up in literal minutes.
If just one country has it, it will be safe from nuclear threats until the others catch up. However, it might still be vulnerable to conventional invasions. Because perfect ICBM interception doesn't change the equations for countries that are not nuclear and don't have a reliable ally that is.
If all powers have it and ICBMs become useless, WW3 is still possible, even more likely. After all, the Cuba crisis happened right after MAD became plausible and set a precedent that is hopefully followed in the future.
Finally, MAD is just as possible with bombers and cruise missiles, possibly launched by submarines. It's just a lot more expensive and probably less reliable. But if just, say, one or two nukes can reach their intended target, it might be enough to discourage large-scale and/or nuclear wars.
That would depend on what you mean by perfect and how this system would work? If it were to work in the end/reentry phase, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work against bombers, or ICBMs/cruise missiles launched from submarines also? Either it can fly-swat anything incoming, or it can't.
Money & power are greater than protesting/democracy is what people are waking up to. It's been that way since forever but a lot of dogma keeps people docile to the idea that change is made from the "people" instead of a few elect individuals by birth with circumstances of wealth and power.
This may be true in a minor bubble. The population can only decide things if enabled by quite a unwieldy and brittle scaffolding (separation of powers, free elections, free speech).
In a general case, as long as the living conditions don't get some sudden slump (i.e. if the frog is being boiled slowly) all limits are off for a ruler/dictator.
>Have you ever seen congressional approval ratings?
I have, have you? General approval ratings for Senators and Representatives tend to be extremely high, and in turn the reelection rate of incumbents is quite high as well. Or did you mean "approval of Congress as a whole"? If you did that's silly because people do not vote for Congress as a whole, people vote for their own representatives within that body. Since the population is not perfectly uniform in its beliefs or priorities, that means inevitably even the most perfect hard working representatives will certainly not get their way all the time, and will probably flat out lose fights sometimes, which means that the body as a whole will be making one group or another mad almost all of the time. That's the reality of organizing a diverse group of people though towards goals too big for them to handle individually. It would make no difference for any system of governance whatsoever short of some sort of compulsive mind control, the population will be angry about decisions some of the time.
If you were going to object to GP, a better (scarier) counter point would be that as technological advancement has ever more eclipsed individual human power, it's not at all guaranteed that at some point a totalitarian regime couldn't emerge backed (and/or run) by sufficient tech to be internally long term stable even against the wishes of the majority population. Or for another side, that could simply do away with said majority of the population.
> wake up and realize that China is not messing around
reality is, just a year ago, no one would have believe an outbreak like covid in China can become a worldwide pandemic that hit this HARD and ended all of our way of lives
it's too often we are blind and ignorant to incoming dangers
Plenty of us that experienced the original SARS knew about the threat of pandemic from China. That's the reason why places like SK and TW were on high alert from the beginning. It's only the rest of us further afield that didn't heed the warning and continued BAU.
I was on a flight back from Japan to Heathrow in early March and the only thing they did to contain it was announce that if you feel sick, please report it to the crew. Needless to say, nobody self-reported and they didn't do anything at all in immigration after we landed.
I've been boycotting Chinese goods whenever possible (it helps that I don't really buy electronics) because of Hong Kong. I regret not having started back when our professor urged us to do so roughly a decade ago. One time, we had officials from Chinese universities visit ours and he made sure to have big "free Tibet" patches on his jacket and backpack while always hanging around said officials. He was quite the character.
Free Tibet to go back to feudalism?
You do know that Tibet and Taiwan wasn't any better for the poorer part of the people.
Hong Kong is one of the most expensive places to live.
The protesters are part of the privileged and are just fighting to keep them.
Didn't hear them complaining back then in the asian banking crisis when China bailed them out with the money from exploited chinese workers.
The important part is the "wasn't" in "Taiwan wasn't any better".
After Japan lost WW2, the island of Taiwan they had annexed in 1895 was turned over to the KMT, who moved their capital to Taiwan as a result of losing the Chinese Civil War to the CCP and ruled the island as a one-party dictatorship with martial law lasting from 1949 to 1987, during which they killed and imprisoned many dissidents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)
Taiwan has only been democratic since the 90s. Before that, the only thing distinguishing their government from that of Mainland China was their anti-Communist ideology.
I suspect we will see China attempt to invade Taiwan sooner rather than later now.
In particular I’ve suspected for awhile that China desperately wants to “own” Taiwan Semiconductor ($TSM) since they’ve been trying to build up their own domestic chip business for awhile and $TSM is the gold standard in chip manufacturing.
Any invasion of Taiwan will just leave TSMC a smoking husk, either from PLA jets or from self-destruct switches. Invading won't help in terms of owning TSMC's facilities and technology.
It would be very difficult for China with its current resources to take Taiwan and keep its infrastructure and talent intact. If your main battle strategy is to rely on cruise missiles, expect a crater.
Greg Egan wrote a novel called Quarantine (which I liked quite a bit) that introduced New Hong Kong, a mega city built in Australia ahead of the British return of Hong Kong.
Did an MBA in Hong Kong, just finished earlier this year. A lot of my classmates are mainland Chinese. Bunch of them would regularly talk with each other and say that military action was the only way to resolve the situation, China needs to send its military to Taiwan and overrun the Taiwanese defenses quickly. Baffles my mind that they're so ready to default to war.
Some other mainland Chinese people are more nuanced in their thoughts. I have no idea about population percentages for opinions. But this a world-class top 20 MBA school, and had one undergraduate student die while protesting (fell off a building). Bunch of these classmates are educated with masters degrees from American universities. If they default to war, I'm a bit concerned, I'd expect them to see more nuance in the world. For them, it's not really war of course, as Taiwan was always theirs in the first place in their eyes. Any foreign interference in the matter is a slap in the face of Chinese sovereignty, was the same for Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is a difficult situation because the entire world agrees that Hong Kong belongs to China. Taiwan is difficult in that most of the world has agreed that Taiwan belongs to China, that is the crux of the One China policy that China forces all countries to agree to if they want to have diplomatic and trade relations with China. If you break with the One China policy, you break diplomatic and trade relations with China. Don't see most countries willing to take that step. Big game of chicken.
For what it's worth, the Chinese government's official stance is that military action is a last resort option only if diplomatic negotiations fail.
Taiwan is in 'China' in the same way as both North Korea and South Korea are in Korea.
The difference is that the People's Republic of China (what 'China' usually refers to) has decided that the Republic of China has ceased to exist in 1949 (Taiwan is the last remaining territory controlled by the Republic of China) and that they are strong enough to largely 'enforce' this policy on the world stage.
So, of course for Chinese this is a domestic issue.
The West cares because the PRC is an adversary and Taiwan has a strategic location on maritime routes to East Asia.
Yes, but my point is that most of the world, including the US, has agreed to acknowledge the One China policy as correct in order to access China on a diplomatic and trade basis. Hence why it's not so easy to resolve.
The difference being that the world never agreed to the idea that France was a part of Germany. The world has for the most part agreed that Taiwan is a part of China. It is what it is. Whatever people's personal feelings might be, that is what most of the world has agreed to at an international diplomatic level. Only insignificant countries like Paraguay have decided to consider Taiwan an independent nation state.
Taiwan is factually an independent state and in practice recognised as such by everyone, including the PRC. "Nation state" has a different meaning and that's not really the case for Taiwan.
There's a lot of propaganda like for HK, which is popular with the Western public who is naive and not well informed (as all public)
We can go back and forth about this, but political feelings aside, although Taiwan acts like an independent state and has its own government, no important independent state treats it like an independent state, including the US. Donald Trump is the first president in four decades to even send a cabinet-level official to Taiwan when Alex Azar went to visit last month. It is what it is. Whether you like it or not, no important country has official diplomatic relations with Taiwan because they've all agreed to the One China policy. It is partially because of this One China policy that Taiwan's economy has deteriorated so much, they are not on equal footing with other countries in being able to develop trade agreements with other nations. China has them boxed in.
>Hong Kong is a difficult situation because the entire world agrees that Hong Kong belongs to China.
It's more nuanced than that. The reason for the one country two systems policy was that the rest of the world doesn't agree that the CCP should hold sovereignty over Hong Kong.
China is seen as only temporality under the control of the CCP and that it will transition away from authoritarianism given the chance. The idea is that Mainland China will become more like HK. That didn't happen at all. With the passage of the security law, HK looks more like China.
I think you misunderstand how much of the world's electronics are manufactured in China and how difficult it would be to relocate all that. Like I'm invested in a rare earth element company in Canada, and I still expect to see the world rely on Chinese rare earth elements for a few years yet, let alone manufacturing know-how. It'll take a few years, maybe a decade, to set all that up in other countries, including in the US. Obama once asked Steve Jobs why the iPhone can't be manufactured in the US, Jobs said the skills weren't there. https://www.heraldtribune.com/article/LK/20120123/News/60519... And it's not like the American education system is the greatest. Great universities, but what of the high schools?
edit: Similar case in Augsburg, Germany where Fujitsu-Siemens had a very modern and automated assembly line, even allowing small batches of "built to order" variations out of common bases. Didn't matter. Gone. Recently(as in about 2 years ago).
Reunication deadline is 29 years away. A lot can happen until then, and while Taiwanese identity and independence movement is expected to solidify, 29 years is still several generations for sentiment and attitudes to change.
The reason why HK was taken now, with all narrative pointing it to be the death knell of 1 country 2 systems, is because HK nativism educated under western textbooks will be fundamentally incompatible with with "1 country" - for PRC any generation trained under Uk textbooks will be a perennial poison pill in terms of cross strait relations. So now new gen of HKers will get brainwashed on patriotic education and NSL will ensure future generations to be firmly pro-China which may coincide with revival of 1C2S if happenstance leads to compatible political shifts in Taiwan. Ideally it will coincide with a prosperous greater bay area with the simultaneous economic decline of Taiwan due to PRC geopolitical maneuvering. Again 29 years is a long time, that's the only hope for peaceful reunification. Meanwhile hope CCP manages nationalism, because a democratic China would have invaded Taiwan already. Fucking Taiwan would be everyone alternative factions trump card if there was ever internecine political struggle.
Alternative is engineering false flag attack from Taiwan and invading under guise of a retaliatory action. IMO all the scenarios of China flat out invading Taiwan because muh redlines is not credible. It will be hybrid warfare with gray zone tactics that China has perfected in SCS, belligerance will be ambiguous enough to provide ample excuse for most countries to sitout, except US, no one wants to intervene against a nuclear power, or just Chinese conventional power on current tracetry of acquisition.
>If Taiwan declares independence or develops nuclear weapons, expect war within a year.
It's my understanding that Taiwan is a nuclear threshold state and has pretty much everything in place to build nuclear weapons in a very short time. Similar to Japan and Germany.
Well, no one can tell because the future hasn't happened yet. Certainly the Chinese (both gov and people) consider Taiwan to be a temporarily out of control province that must be brought back under control. They are just waiting for the most opportune time.
Taiwanese themselves are more split on the question of independence. People's opinions and moods change over time as well.
I wonder how long before services like Facebook is banned in HK under the new Security law. One interesting thing to see is whether Facebook would comply with censorship requests to appease the PRC. If not, could this be the single largest decline in users for Facebook?
I lived in Hong Kong until 1995. The Basic Law is supposed to apply for 50 years, so we should only be about halfway through that. The sense in the HK expat community at the time was skepticism that it would make it the whole way unchallenged, but that China "needed" HK, so it wouldn't rock the boat too much.
Of course, now that is no longer the case. Any optimism we had at the time of the handover was rooted in HK's economic importance but China went and built Shenzhen into a bigger, better Hong Kong within two decades. Still a Special Economic Zone but without all the pesky political baggage.
Considering China's relationship with Taiwan, I would say yes, we absolutely knew that China would not allow a Chinese territory to be outside of thr CCP's control indefinitely. If anything, I am surprised it took them this long to decide the rest of the world would simply watch and do nothing of importance about it.
China has been extremely pragmatic and results-oriented. When Hong Kong was the most economically successful part of China, they were happy to leave it be and learn some lessons from it. Now the rest of China has largely caught up and it's time for them to make HK more like Shenzhen, rather than the other way around.
Giving that Shanghai stock market trades more than HK, that argument doesn't hold up. China didn't need HK. They did not want a western-aligned population of 7M people within 40km of its borders and instead decided to deal with them with a heavy hand.
I think China played their hand too soon and the west is waking up to it.
"Shanghai stock market trades more than HK" is a strange rebuttal to my argument. You presumably mean that's true now, rather than 20 years ago when China decided to go with "one country, two systems" - which is exactly my argument, that Hong Kong is no longer the needed as a moneymaker. Either way, overall stock exchange volume is not a very standard measure of economic activity - at the very least you'd want to weight it per capita.
Of course China is motivated to have Hong Kong aligned with it rather than flirting with the West. Whether the West is "waking up to it" is not so clear to me. The HK riots were a big deal in the Western media for a while but now we've moved on.
A lot of mainlanders still prefer to trade on the HK market because the inside trader rules are much more strict and actually enforced (for now?). If you trade on the Shanghai stock market, you need to learn how to follow in the wakes of whales, it isn't for the feint of heart.
Their navy is nowhere yet ready to fight a real war. Look at analysis of their fleet. Two aircraft carriers with limited capacity. But any war would have home court advantage with long-range missile support from the coast. That's the difference maker. Power projection beyond China's coast is currently impossible with their navy, and if there were a concerted allied operation, China's Navy would be unlikely able to handle battles on multiple fronts. But nobody wants war, China is banking on that. Look at how the world did nothing about Russia annexing the Crimea. Nobody wants war.
I was taught to prepare for globalization in most of my business classes in college. The world was now flat so you must prepare. We must be willing to compete and allow free trade as the internet (specifically the www) has opened the entire world up.
But what’s really happened is that the internet has given new powers to governments to regulate and control the people. While I would love to talk about how big and bad the CCP is (they are both of those adjectives and many more) I would be in remiss if I didn’t look at my own country (US) and see that we have been guilty of creating false narratives on free trade.
It’s sad to me that we lack Political leadership in our country. That’s one thing that China does not lack. Both governments are propagated by lies. But the difference is that the Chinese people have suffered greatly and now (on average) are suffering less. So they may be willing (as a whole) to turn a blind eye to situations like HK and what’s happening to the Uighur people.
I think we all agree that none of us would want to live under CCP.
So the real question is what or who is going to stop them from expanding? Asians have a higher IQ, they have the human numbers and natural resources.
The only thing I can imagine stopping them is that they will be composed of too many regions that want to split. But as long as they can maintain a strong grip, I don't think anything can split off.
There is no world power that can or wants to face them head on, and it will only get worse when they grow bigger (which they will).
The problem for Xi with respect HK and Taiwan is that plenty of mainland tourists will visit and learn from the locals how much they prefer democracy. These values will then seep back into the mainland and the CCP wants to maintain the fiction that democracy doesn't work for Chinese culture. Letting HK continue on for 30 more years might become uncontrable in China.
From a simpletons perspective, I don't understand why we get to have a say of how a country reclaims its former territory. Especially from Westerners(not even land connected) who have no claim whatsoever. Why do we have a negative outlook on our former empires colonizing the world while at the same time doing everything possible to retain profits/power from these bad things we shouldn't be doing? Very hypocritical to simpletons. Someone is shutting off our outpost, ofcourse we won't let it go without kicking and screaming to get everyones attention to what?
On of the reasons, perhaps a less important reason ethically but nonetheless, is that China has breached the terms of the territorial handover agreement.
The agreement does not grant China full control to do whatever it likes over the territory at this time.
So legally, in response, Westerners in the form of the UK still have some kind of duty towards the people there.
A second reason, which I rank higher ethically, is that just by virtue of people existing, we still have a duty to demand better treatment for people who are being treated badly, especially when it's an imposed political event (and therefore can be changed) which is going to radically change their lives for the worse as they see it. Landmass connection or not.
> From a simpletons perspective, I don't understand why we get to have a say of how a country reclaims its former territory.
The handover of Hong Kong from Britain to PRC in 1997 is based on the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, which is being violated [1]. PRC is violating an international declaration it signed, which at least Britain has a say.
Putting aside the international nature of Hong Kong, other nations should take a part in some extreme cases, such as to push back on concentration camps and genocide, be it in Nazi Germany or modern day PRC.
P.S. As other comments said, Hong Kong (transferred from Qing to Britain in 1841, 1860, and 1898) has never been a former territory of PRC (formed in 1949). It is also arguable if Britain should give Hong Kong to ROC instead of PRC.
The universal declaration of human rights declares the right to self determination. I don't think it's hypocritical for the United States to preach principles of human rights.
Why would it be crazy? Local autonomy is a very important concept. That's why many regions want more of it. (Eg. Catalonia in Spain, Scotland in the UK, and HK in China.)
There's also the tradition of cities being "free" as in they were not feudal land.
Of course self-determination doesn't mean complete total independence. Sometimes cities/regions/states lack the ability to control their currency supply (see the problem with in the Eurozone due to the differing interests of Germany and Greece), but inclusive institutions should maximize the ability of the member to work within the institutional framework to have its problem addressed. And that's why democracy is such an institution, and in theory other institutions built on democracy have this ability too. Of course it needs many things for it to work well. (For example empathy of the other members.)
Was it former territory? China has seen various power takeovers since the start of British rule in Hong Kong. In 1842, was ruled by the Qing dynasty, in 1912 it became the Republic of China, and in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party took over, leaving Taiwan to the Nationalist government. So you could also argue that Hong Kong should have been returned to Taiwan. Not that that could have happened, but it's not clear cut, IMO.
Interesting argument, but I think at time of the handover Taiwan was not recognized as a state by most major powers (including UK), or do I remember this wrongly?
They ruled China for 37 years. I'm sure they had diplomatic relations
Hong Kong should return to the Taiwanese government. The legitimate government of China
"Before the Nationalist government was ousted from the mainland, the Republic of China had diplomatic relations with 59 countries, such as Australia, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Panama, Siam, Soviet Union, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vatican City. Most of these relations continued at least until the 1970s, and the Republic of China remained a member of the United Nations until 1971."
It was done sooner than agreed upon date and lead massive protests on the scale that the world has never seen. Better half of 2019 was HK protests signalling China that the people of HK do not want assimilation.
China struck HK 2 months ago with the new law at the weakest point in recent history with the pandemic.
I'm starting to hate how every thread slowly ends up being about the US instead of the actual topic. HN avoided this for the long time but slowly crawling up here too. Reddit already past this, there is no post in almost any front page default sub without mentioning Trump
It's against HN's rules to post like this. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? Note this one: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
There is a vast amount of previous explanation on the subject:
The short version is that the HN community is legitimately divided on these issues, that fact suffices to explain everything we see here, and you can't make insinuations like this without some evidence. People holding differing views on a divisive topic does not count as evidence of manipulation.
This "way of life" was unsustainable anyway, because of the property prices and the de facto feudal system with the tycoons on top. You can rage at the red flag all you want, but ideology has nothing to do with it. HK life was almost unbearable before all this.
Hong Kong not being able to diversify its economy beyond real estate and finance disabled it from having strong leverage. The Hong Kong that was rich enough to support Sichuan after the 2008 earthquake is now arguably less economically dynamic than Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and of course its neighbour, Shenzhen. Hong Kong was in a weak position unable to dictate terms to Beijing. And I think Beijing of course prefers that. I think there is a lot of schaedenfreude in the hearts of mainlanders also, as Hong Kong people used to look down on mainlanders, especially when the HKD was worth so much more than the RMB. I remember people complaining how mainlanders would break toilets by squatting on them because they didn't know how to use sit-down toilets.
China's basically like, "Look at me. I am the captain now."
HK has both the worst parts of a democracy and autocracy. It's got 35/70 seats in the legislative council made up of undemocratically appointed business interests that vote to preserve their profits at the expense of HK's inhabitants. Meanwhile, the handover treaty ties the hands of any autocrat that tries to reform the city's governance to better enable wealth redistribution from its finance firms. None of the representativeness of a real democracy but all the red tape of one. All the turmoil over this past decade's been over which side of the hill HK will start sliding down, democracy or autocracy. But given that the PRC will never let HK slide towards democracy now, maybe it's best they slide towards autocracy as fast as possible. Tear up the democratic red tape protecting corrupt business interests and start redistributing its wealth to the people via autocratic means.
To my American ears at least, "way of life" used in this sense _does_ encompass all those big, important things. The rhetoric has always been that the [Soviets, Al Qaeda, whoever] hate our "way of life" and want to destroy it, whereas Superman wants to protect "truth, justice, and the American Way". It's a stand-in for freedom, habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, and the rest.
Have no idea why you think the phrase "way of life" trivializes their losses. If anything I feel it emphasizes how these losses are not just some abstract concept but will concretely affect the everyday lives of Hong Kong's citizens.
"way of life" is a specific piece of terminology used in Article 5 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong which is why it's often referred in this way.
The exact wording is "The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system
and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years."
The circumstances of Britain's original forced takeover and colonization of Hong Kong in the Opium Wars are the greater evil to me. Righting that wrong after so long was always going to be painful.
By analogy: a violent drug-dealer shoots you, robs you, and then kidnaps your child at gunpoint. Years later, you manage to have the child returned, but in the interim they have been taught by their captor to hate you and resist rejoining their family. What do you do?
Lmao. Talk to anyone from east or south east asia about their thoughts of the british (if they were part of a former colonized country) and the story will go something like this:
"Well, the british weren't perfect but compared to Japan, or the 50 years of totalitarian warlords who ruled after, they were a paradise"
That's true, the people of HK were raised to believe in British values on conquered land then abandoned there when Britain couldn't hold it any longer. Britain should have repatriated them all instead of putting them through this mess. Even POWs are treated better than their home country denying any involvement or responsibility when their overseas outpost gets captured.
I don't know about you, but I see echoes of the US view in Vietnam that we were saving the country from some unspeakable evil that was expanding dangerously year by year. When we were 8000 miles away, looking at things just as symbols and not knowing whether that meant good or bad for the people actually living it day to day.
That got us into some trouble, I seem to recall.
Is this not similar? I worry this has a certain path written on it, with our good intentions paving the way.
I mean have you been to Hong Kong? Have you ever spoken to people there about how they feel about mainland China? I heard a lot of not good things from the people I spoke with there.
Isn't that an uber-wealthy city with the biggest concentration of billionaires? With so much wealth you 'd think they 'd have a say on what china wants to do with them. But maybe they just go along?
> Isn't that an uber-wealthy city with the biggest concentration of billionaires? With so much wealth you 'd think they 'd have a say on what china wants to do with them. But maybe they just go along?
Why would the CCP defer to the wealthy when they already have far more power than they do?
As a counterpoint, I have never been made to realize the US origin of HN as in recent times. The "hacker" in the name is gradually being swallowed by the "news"-mainly US
So perhaps you were downvoted for being vague. But certainly things like the supreme court recently refusing to hear an important case on qualified immunity have me concerned that USA-ians are whistling past the graveyard right now.
USA is relevant because any discussion of HK democracy or capitalism places it along an axis between the virtues championed, globally, by China and the US. Otherwise, what discussion is there to have about a Chinese city that the Chinese are dealing with as they see fit?
Sure, if this comment actually WAS about that axis, and about how the UK and the US have taken a step back from their international engagement, THAT would have been an interesting and useful addition to the conversation. But, that isn't what this comment was.
Because this conversation is about Hong Kong. And by trying to make this conversation about America's failings, you make it hard for us to have a conversation about Hong Kong.
Keep watching. Within a very few days, there will be an article on HN about BLM, or about police monitoring of US citizens, or about the NSA evesdropping. If you want to criticize the US for having less freedom than the label says, feel free to do it there. (And there we can yell at people trying to bring up Hong Kong, telling them that they're off topic.)
Whataboutism is a distraction. This article is about the issues in Hong Kong, "what about similar things happening in country x,y or z" is an attempt to derail this important conversation.
With Hong Kong it was somewhat inevitable but I can't help but imagine how different it would be if the US and EU/Britain (as leads) would have strongly denounced their approach. I suspect in a decade from now the West will be lamenting how Hong Kong was the right opportunity to stifle China's ambition.
[i] https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/territorial-disputes