Strategically, for China? Yes. Politically, for Xi? Maybe not. Remember that Xi is a dictator. Moves that boost him in the short term at China’s long-term expense are on the board.
That's why we haven't become Xinjiang, IMO.
Personally I think that ship has long sailed and it's not particularly anyone's fault.
China desperately requires dollars to keep its debt problems floating and to interact with the global economy (relatively little is settled in Yuan outside of China's borders). Without a steady inflow of dollars China cannot function normally; their economy would seize up.
Hong Kong is a critical inflow port for US Dollars into China's economy and is largely spared from the tariff war.
This is why Hong Kong is so important to China right now, and it's also why China has been so careful in suppressing the protests (by their standards). China is afraid of the US changing Hong Kong's special status. People often don't think China can be swayed: the US slapped currency manipulator status on them, and they immediately backed off from letting the Yuan sink, carefully pegging it just inbounds near the 7 line.
Not to mention that many CCP members have a lot of investment in Hong Kong, a collapse of the HK economy, should the PLA be deployed, would be quite problematic.
But I generally agree with your observations.
Culture is more than the rack (or tailor) you buy your suit from. If you choose to wear one. Things like personal space and not spitting in public and not having to kowtowing to whomever is the current President, are things some hold dear. Others may not. Other still, may look to the past and ask: what started on 15th April, 1989 and ended on 4th June 1989, in Tiananmen Square, and elsewhere in China?
To maintain dictatorship, you need bullets, not money.
In USSR during Stalin, regular people were pretty much eating grass, but he never doubted his ability to do virtually anything to them without repercussions.
Soviet army of the time had a meal of 3 slices of dried bread and a millet porridge. Even Stalin's personal bodyguards were eating thin gruel, but none of them ever dared to do anything about that.
A tactic of trying to economically starve a dictatorship has no logic. Yes, you can cripple a country, but not the dictatorship itself.
In other words, great villains have exit plans, bad ones don't
Do not expect Xi to do something sane, especially if he feels insulted. I think HK's best hope is for something else big to distract him. Unfortunately, I think it is very likely right now that he will invade HK and kill a lot of people.
I'm not sure if this will change your opinion, but this isn't true.
I asked my friends that are in China now to search for Winne The Pooh on Baidu and Bing, and they were able to find pictures of the character.
The are also Winnie the Pooh cartoons and movies and dolls readily available in China. Along with various merchandise for sale.
So no, it is not banned in China. Neither are time travel movies and TV shows, despite the English news reporting as such.
It wouldn't surprise me either, that the decision was made not by Xi, but by someone who wanted to appease him or the part or whatever.
- Winnie the Pooh Baidu search: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/49120719/62957954-...
- Baidu image search featuring both Winnie and Xi: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/49120719/62958027-... (Memes are filtered or at least demoted, though.)
My local friends don’t think it was ever banned. (Of course they aren’t bored enough to monitor this every day.)
A lot of stupid claims about China in the Western press are easily debunked with the teeniest amount of Mandarin knowledge, or none at all. If it sounds too crazy, it’s probably false. Doesn’t help when people reaffirm each other’s totally unfounded opinions, and discredit anyone who speaks otherwise.
https://www.hk01.com/中國/105476/太像習近平-小熊維尼-慘遭-河蟹
Of course you wouldn't have problem about it now.
Yes, there are a lot of stupid claims a out China in the western press, but there are easily equally, if not more, absurd claims about USA in China too.
Same for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, so on and so forth.
BTW, maybe try 8964 八九六四 and see what you get.
> but there are easily equally, if not more, absurd claims about USA in China too.
I wouldn't be surprised. Naturally this is what happens when you talk about things you have zero experience with.
> BTW, maybe try 8964 八九六四 and see what you get.
I never said nothing is censored. Btw at least every single soul I've talked to about this in China knows exactly what it means, contrary to claims I've seen from certain Western journalists that people typically aren't aware. Censoring something inevitably makes people more interested.
A news report within the PRC that "Winnie the Pooh" was banned?
Reports from Hong Kong and Taiwan is the closest thing you can get.
Do you think there was ever a ban?
This is like saying Ford's factories have no competitors, and that's true too. Ford isn't going to farm out their car manufacturing to some other company. (I mean the final assembly; of course carmakers routinely get various components from suppliers, such as airbags, infotainment computers, seats, etc.)
Chipmaking is a little weird because, unlike carmaking where the automakers all own and operate their own final-assembly factories, or aircraft makers like Boeing which own their own factories, chipmakers are frequently "fabless" these days and do the design work but partner with a fab like TSMC to actually make the chips. Intel is an exception and doesn't do this.
Intel's own messaging in this regard refers to the competition.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/foundry/sunit-rikhi-...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nato-runs-short-on-some...
> Libya “has not been a very big war. If [the Europeans] would run out of these munitions this early in such a small operation, you have to wonder what kind of war they were planning on fighting,”
China could just dangle the promise of a post-Brexit trade deal (the Brexiters need anything to look good, they were ready to brag about deals with S. Arabia and Turkey).
As someone has mentioned, imagine if Le Pen wins in France, the UN Security Council would be run by Xi, Putin, Trump, BoJo and Le Pen...