Hong Kong Protesters Keep Up the Pressure
wsj.com
wsj.com
I saw a whole lot of bridge layers with troops yesterday, now that.
Occasional troop movements can't be said to be unusual around here (74th army has bases all across the plain in between Huizhou and Guangzhou.) I used to see the almost every day, but never before saw them on the move whole day long.
I support the cause of Hong Kongers, the general the idea of maintaining both their political and social difference within greater China. I even accept that some political movements in Hk exaggerate the possible threats of Mainland to aid their political cause (considering Mainland might and their track record of intervention in other regions - the threat narrative has factual backing).
But what is happening in HK is the democratic expression of a unequal (politically) society and it will be workout politically and not militarily.
I suspect the most likely outcome, if the protests continue, will be the resignation of Carrie Lam followed by statements from Beijing about how she screwed up. They will want to pin the blame on her. If the protesters don't go home after that, the possibility of armed intervention will not seem so remote.
This is false. Beijing has many other options.
Xi's ineptitude and status as a lifetime leader does entrench China more than it should be. But there are many options between total escalation and total retreat.
All this drama is premature.
Also... The world, and China has grown alot since "face" has been excuses for military intervention. China is no.1 world economy with still a lot of bridges to build if they are surpass the west in influence. Mindless violence won't help build any bridges.
IMO these situations are fundamentally unpredictable, and a violent outcome is quite possible.
HK is not armed. The population is not violent. They are trying to be assertive (kudos for the Democratic society) but these are relatively reasonable masses.
If the situation ever became close to military violence HK would shutdown immediately because there 0 chance of a military confrontation between HKSAR and Mainland. And the US or Taiwan would not intervene in a clear domestic Chinese issue.
Guerrilla warfare only works against weak states or strong ones that will follow international law. The British won the Boer war. The PLA has more men and Hong Kong is a lot smaller than South Africa or even just the Orange after State. Hong Kong cannot win a guerrilla war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1920)
People are generally not willing to die when they know defeat is certain if life is an option. If the British had been willing to be as brutal as Cromwell to retain Ireland they’d have won. They weren’t.
There won't be any guerilla resistance in Hong Kong in the case of an armed intervention.
Would the Vietnam war not be a counterexample of this?
I prefer for my filmed entertainment to be completely fictional rather than to try to "teach" me about reality. When I want to refine my understanding of reality, I usually read nonfiction. It is too easy for filmed entertainment to "hack my brain".
Anyway, US bombers were forbidden to drop bombs within 15 miles or so of Haiphong harbor, probably because Russian ships were known to visit there regularly. Hanoi was also off limits for the vast majority of bombing missions. The directives forbidding these things came right from the top, i.e., from LBJ. In fact, LBJ would involve himself in the planning of individual missions, giving instructions such as approach this target from this direction because if you go in this direction, you fly over a school.
I'm not saying US soldiers and US pilots never committed atrocities in Vietnam, but the leaders of the US war effort were certainly never unrestricted in their willingness to kill North Vietnamese (although they probably would've chosen to kill every North Vietnamese communist combatant if there were a way to do that without killing any noncombatants). Consequently, it would've been rational for the US to continue the war effort in Vietnam even after it became obvious the war was unwinnable.
George Friedman says that the reason the US spent so much blood and treasure in Vietnam was . . . Charles de Gaulle. When de Gaulle was the leader of France, he was telling the other Western European nations that the US could not be relied on to come to the aid of Western Europe if the Soviets attacked. So, the US stayed in Vietnam to show Europe that a US military guarantee means something. Note that in order to achieve that goal, it was not necessary for the US to win the Vietnam war, only for it to try to hard enough and long enough. In other words, it was rational for the US to continue the war effort even after everyone realized that the US was unable to win the war (because the real goal was not to save South Vietnam from communism, it was to save Western Europe from communism).
The leaders of the US war effort certainly did not explain this reasoning in an effective way however to the American people -- maybe because there was no way to do so without severely demoralizing US soldiers, sailors and airmen.
Cities are people, not buildings. This underlines the Swiss defense strategy, for instance [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Redoubt_%28Switzerlan...
I also wouldn’t use France for an analogy here. They protest over literally everything. The politicians there must learn quickly how to ignore them.
This doesn’t happened often in Hong Kong, or most countries for that matter. But most countries aren’t facing such a dire future as HK. The Yellow Jacket people, while I support them, have no hardship comparable to facing extradition to China for political wrongthink.
Sounds like some sites like YouTube should take a look at how politicians in France cope with protesters.
At 20m in France, the president will probably resign in 2-3 days. If not from the street pressure, then from his allies pressure.
Which should be obvious from passive observation and history, but a whole generation of people have been told they matter, and that their form of government is the inclusive ideal that supports that outcome.
Peaceful protest can be judged on four goals: "(1) the extent to which the relevant outgroup (e.g., policy makers) would be influenced by the collective action (intergroup concerns), (2) the extent to which relevant third parties would be influenced by the collective action (broader societal concerns), (3) the extent to which the collective action would be successful in building an oppositional movement (intragroup concerns), and (4) the extent to which the collective action would be successful in expressing one’s values (individual concerns)" [1].
The Yellow Vest protests resulted in direct action (1) when Macron backed down on the proposed fuel-tax increase [2]. Hong Kong isn't a full democracy and Beijing is ruled by a dictator. Direct influence is thus unrealistic.
On influencing third parties (2), however, the protesters have leverage. By threatening Hong Kong's economy, they can swing the Legislative Council's tycoons [3]. International visibility, in turn, deters Beijing with the thread of sanctions and, potentially, military support (if not for Hong Kong, then Taiwan).
On building an opposition movement (3), we're witnessing a permanent political change in Hong Kong. The LC recently removed opposition candidates with minimal fanfare [4]. That will be difficult to replicate.
On (4), we again have a clear win in forging a Hong Kong identity built upon peaceful democratic solidarity. That shows brightly against Beijing's violent and autocratic alternative. (And has influence outside Hong Kong [5].)
[1] http://eprints.qut.edu.au/3815/1/3815.pdf
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-04/french-go...
[3] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/as-hong-kong-erupted-ov...
[4] https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013437...
[5] https://www.ft.com/content/2feba0a6-8eba-11e9-a24d-b42f641ec...
The loss of face that they have suffered from this will not stand.
Beijing has limited force projection options. Rolling in the military means inviting international sanctions and possibly military aid, if not for Hong Kong then almost certainly for Taiwan.
The protesters are rationally responding to a ham-fisted (yet weak) authoritarian move by Beijing. (The right move for Beijing is retreat. But that option went off the table when Xi installed himself as leader for life.)
From my limited knowledge, the US has a military base in Taiwan. It'd be hard to invade the country without conflict with such a base. And even a small incident can spiral into a war with China. So no, I think Taiwan situation is way different than Hong Kong.
It is. But re-integration remains a goal for Beijing. If not realistically, then at least politically.
The more aggressive Xi has been with Hong Kong, the more Taiwan has stiffened. Rolling tanks into Hong Kong would give Taiwan legitimate cover for being supplied weapons. For a variety of reasons, China doesn’t want that. That, in turn, gives the protesters leverage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/us/politics/trump-taiwan-...
Huh? No, it doesn't. It has military bases in nearby Okinawa, however. I'm sure the USA setting up a military base in Taiwan would really piss China off, and it would also be not very useful since the Ryukyu Islands are right next door anyways.
The USA simply provides Taiwan with weapons, and occasionally meanders an aircraft carrier around (or used to, it doesn't do that much anymore).
Taiwan existed because of the US. Basically, the other side of the civil war got defeated and come hiding in Taiwan behind US military. Otherwise, it'd have been invaded by China since.
It seems currently that there is no official military presence. However, there is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Assurances
I think it's enough to deter China from attacking Taiwan.
In an alternate dimension where Mao held back, we would have had a unified Korea and China, strange.
Rolling in the military as in deploying it against peaceful protesters. A second Tiananmen Square. They have the forces but are constrained in projecting them.