Ultimately, China owns Hong Kong and will subsume Hong Kong sooner or later. What leverage does HK have besides taking to the streets every few years? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests)
To the degree that China wants to maintain these relationships (and capture the GDP they represent), they treat Hong Kong as a peer. To the degree that China has built replacements for these relationships, they treat Hong Kong as a vassal.
Mainland China has no independent juridical system. Only reason to establish business there is if your business does something in China and you have to be there. You never use it as financial or business center for the operations in elsewhere.
The success of Hong Kong and Singapore is based on good legal framework. They are ranked among the best judicial systems in Asia. Businesses feels safe run business from there. Abu Dhabi financial center decided to emulate them. They created fully independent common law framework to adjudicate civil and commercial disputes.
It's possible that China decides to get rid of the law, but it will eventually bite them back financially.
[0] https://www.vox.com/2014/9/28/6857567/hong-kong-used-to-be-1...
HK is tiny. The importance of HK for China is in international trade and finance.
Is this even a question anymore? It seems like a given that Taiwan views Beijing as repressive, and the political differences in Taiwan are over how to deal with that reality: fight it or don't rock the boat.
What I wonder is what happens when China realizes it has nothing to gain by feigning acceptance of one country with two systems.
But yeah, it seems reasonable that this change in relative economic strength would affect the political dynamics.
Beijing is violating an agreement lodged with the UN.
The protesters just need to get the population in a G7 country pissed off enough to turn this bill into an international issue, thereby increasing the cost of its introduction to Beijing.
Oh how I wish this mattered, but the UN has time and time again proven itself to be the world's most expensive essay-writing club and little more. What exactly are they going to do?
Nothing. As you said, the UN is toothless.
What having an agreement lodged with the UN does is properly escalate this into an international issue. That makes it easier for governments to react. Those reactions could be harshly-worded statements, diplomatic mediation or even the threat of sanctions.
At the end of the day, this is still hugely important to prevent unnecessary war or conflict, but the UN is still bound by the actual realities on the ground, not the legal framework that sits above the reality.
The Hong Kongers believe that All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. This the Communist Party of China rejects.
They believe that Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. This the Communist Party of China rejects.
They make these protests because they stand for human rights that the CPC rejects. They wish to make it known to the CPC and to the world what they stand for. They may eventually fall to the cruelty of the CPC, but not just yet.
All the businesses that can move to another country should start doing so now.
I'm not sure what this refers to, and I'm having trouble finding anything about it. Could you clarify?
Anyways, besides nuclear deterrence, a suicide pact is about the only thing I could think would work as defense against a major global military power.
Self-sabotage, mostly through destruction of critical transport infrastructure as front advances.
The only thing I can come with HK, it is it being played in Lamma channel, if it can be blocked by scuttled ships.
If HK want to go that way, it will not win much things other than time. If PLA will really launch an operation, it only has to turn off water pumps, and wait.
Can you elaborate?
Swiss strategy was generally to be costly to invade, and for its independence not to cause Germany any trouble. The National Redoubt strategy was as much a deterrent as a plan.