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Comment by wtdata | Hacker News Reader

What does that got to do with anything? Why do people keep bringing centuries old examples of the shortcomings of western civilization, to apologize for the very present disregards against human rights in many non-western countries?

Specially in a case where the legacy that is being put in question is exactly the culture of respect for human rights, civil liberties and democracy brought by an Western nation, that is now under threat by an autocratic power: The central Government of China.

There is a term coined specifically for that: Whataboutism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

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My points about about native Americans and Australians could be construed as Whataboutism. But the Opium Wars aren't fodder in an equivalency argument, they are literally the very reason that HK even exists.

Again, I must repeat, I do not at all condone China's lack of respect for human rights. All I am saying is that people need to know the actual context of the situation. If HK had come into being due to centuries of mutual, conflict-free trade, then I think this would be different situation. The fact is though that HK is the legacy of a sustained, coordinated, state-level, brutal and greedy campaign to extract as much money as possible from the Chinese.

> All I am saying is that people need to know the actual context of the situation.

The actual context of the situation is that indeed, if the British hadn't controlled Hong Kong for a time this conflict wouldn't be happening.

It wouldn't be happening, because people in Hong Kong wouldn't know what it is to live in a free democratic society as they lived in the last half a century of British "occupation", so they would just accept the human rights and personal freedoms violations of the autocratic government of China, without knowing any better.

I agree that free, democratic societies are better. I am in fact British, so I should know.

Listen, I'm genuinely interested in how you and others justify the destiny of Hong Kong. So we're in agreement that democracy is better, and for example there's a very tenuous argument that the violence the West used in Iraq was necessitated by an existing autocratic regime. However the violence used by the UK to gain HK was utterly unprompted and motivated purely by economic greed. Democracy may well be the better choice for HK, but in what way does it deserve it? How can any argument in support of HK's democracy not also justify absolute violence against all other currently non-democratic states?

It's unfortunate, but HK didn't come across democracy by its own struggle in the way most countries did. Such foundations are just inherently unstable, how can it possibly be any other way?

> It's unfortunate, but HK didn't come across democracy by its own struggle in the way most countries did. Such foundations are just inherently unstable, how can it possibly be any other way?

Democracy in HK society seems actually very stable and ingrained into HK societiy mind. So much, that a territory that is 0.5% of the population of mainland China, is willing to stand up to the biggest army in the world to defend what is left of that democracy.

I know, that's why I said it's unfortunate. But that is not an argument for HK's right to democracy, for one simple reason: before the British invaded, the population of mainland China were also willing to stand up to the biggest army in the world. It is the exact same situation, just the other way around.

Neither is fair. Britain didn't have a right to HK and now China doesn't have a right to HK. They are both as bad as each other. You can't support one without implicitly supporting the other. Like I said, the world is a globalised now. We are all both Chinese and Western, the difference is superficial.

Then maybe china can offer hk folks help in resettling? Ask around and see if any other country would like to take in these people who clearly don't want chinese rule?

China's policy towards Hong Kong since the 1997 handover was to integrate them into China by showing how wonderful China would be and essentially convince them that they were better off being part of the Chinese mainland rather than a British colony. By 2019, though, it's become patently clear that many, if not most, people in Hong Kong have come to believe that there integration into China would amount to some sort of Chinese colonization and would destroy their heritage.

You're still doing a wrong to the people of HK by forcing them into an arrangement that they don't want, so it is in no way justified by righting previous wrongs.

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