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An authoritative regime cannot allow open resistance to its power. Idea extracted from [0]. It signals to less-than-loyal supporters of the regime that they can take a bigger slice of the available resources, leading to instability.

[0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11612989-the-dictator-s-...

And that is a very non-sophisticated answer to a complex problem. This will not be tolerated in China, but HK is an entirely different story. What you need to do is to actually go into the pro and cons from the perspective of the Chinese government to predict their action, instead of just saying "China will not tolearte because all authoritative government will not tolerate dissent".

China has said they consider the treaty invalid, meaning HK is theirs already. Why would they treat it any different than the mainland?

What? We already know that China treats HK differently from the mainland..

Look, you can call the Chinese govt many things, but stupid is not one of them.

Is there evidence to suggest China sees '89 as a miscalculation? Seems like their ultimate goal was successful.

But the result of that success is a public backlash that I think they would today prefer to avoid.

Yeah, I’m not sure Tiananmen Square was a miscalculation. When’s the last time you heard about a serious mass democratic movement in China?

The point is China, not HK. Whatever HK does at the moment have 0 or negative effect in China itself.

The goal is to make HK part of China.

There was an article some where on the internets, that the protesters in the Tiananmen Square movement are the biggest supporters of the regime now. Given these people benefitted immensely from the China's economic growth after the immediate after math of that movement.

Interesting point, I would say while they have attained their goals since 89, it doesn't mean it's done right even from a Chinese government perspective. 30 years is a long time for anything to happen and I would say most of what happened doesn't relate much to the events in Tiananmen.

The fact that the government tries to pretend that it didn't happen suggests that they are at least embarrassed by it.

While there are more defenses, one chinese official did publicly admit it as a mistake. Unfortunately I can't find a source right now.

1) Was 89 a miscalculation? It went down basically as the CCP leaderhsip thought it would and accomplished the goals that they thought it would.

2) In this case, I think it's likely that military action against HK would be a miscalculation. Governments make miscalculations all the time, though. I'd be curious to know what are the different internal groups and their preferred approaches, as factional politics often drive these miscalculations.

Or the third choice or sending in covert units disguised as protestors, hk police, the triad or whatever else other than PLA troops. Plus a shit ton of modern crowd control equipment china has been working on

> not least because they labeled mainland people as 'locust' and waved British flags calling for foreign intervention

well when that's all the news is allowed to cover, it's no surprise they have that sentiment

how about Chinese living overseas? A discussion a few days ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20594103

A regime that relies solely on the threat of violence to maintain its legitimacy, but which is not willing to employ violence, is not going to last very long.

Exactly. It is not really a dilemma. If the Hong Kong people want to protest, let them be. It's their own problem. Mainland may help them if they appreciate it (clearly they don't). If they want freedom, let them be. If you truly love and care about Hong Kong, give it freedom and leave Hong Kong alone. There will be absolutely no forces needed in Hong Kong.

> If you truly love and care about Hong Kong, give it freedom and leave Hong Kong alone.

But this is fundamentally incompatible with the mainland's entire long-term goal for Hong Kong, which is to strip it of all its distinctive characteristics (which are seen as undesirable products of foreign meddling) and turn it into just another Chinese province.

This is why the treaty with the UK that handed over Hong Kong specified that the "one country, two systems" policy would definitively end in 2047. The idea of Hong Kong as a distinct entity with its own political and economic traditions was something the CCP could only swallow if they knew it came with an expiration date.

It is incompatible with CCP's views for sure. However, I don't think their long-term goal for Hong Kong is to turn it into another Chinese province though. Hong Kong has been doing well and prosperous under the current system. Hong Kong people enjoy more freedom, better quality of life. It does not really benefit CCP to turn it into a province which is less prosperous in many ways.

If what mattered to the CCP was keeping Hong Kong prosperous, why not extend "one country, two systems" indefinitely? Or extend it until such time as a majority of the citizens of Hong Kong vote to terminate it?

The CCP would never offer concessions like these, because this is a question of power, not economics. What matters to the CCP is that Hong Kong eventually be in a position where it can no longer defy it.

CCP has not decided not to extend "one country, two systems" either. 50 years is in the agreement with the UK when Hong Kong was returned to China. CCP has not said that they would not extend it either. I don't see why they would not if it works well for Hong Kong and CCP.

> It does not really benefit CCP to turn it into a province which is less prosperous in many ways.

What? The CCP cares far more about exerting control than about HK's prosperity. Especially now that they have dozens of equally prosperous but politically pacified cities.

There was a time that the CCP felt it benefited from HK's special status, when foreigners were more comfortable doing business there, but those days are in the past.

Or, the 3rd option, actually step up and show some leadership. The communist party higher ups just make ominous, nationalistic but cryptic statements. Carrie Lam is hiding in her bunker and she's pretty much a lame duck now. The police leadership could easily step in as an arbiter, but have decided to act as a political arm of the government rather than a professional keeper of the peace. I don't see anyone in leadership actually engaging in public discourse and trying to solve or negotiate solutions to the problems/demands the protesters are placing at their doorsteps - which are real political and economic problems that, not only HK, but the rest of China, eventually have to face.

The events of June 1989 were horrific, but were they actually a miscalculation? China wasn’t quite the world’s factory yet and the fall of communism was just starting around the world. If there was a time that the rest of the world would have imposed consequences on the Communist Chinese regime for murdering their own people, it would have been 1989. Instead everything was forgiven and after five years the US granted China “most favored nation” trade status.

These days China produces an absolute majority of the world’s steel, many individual products like port cranes are solely manufactured in China, Shenzhen is an indispensable center of economic activity to a probably higher degree than even Silicon Valley, and the Belt-and-Road initiative is establishing Chinese soft power throughout the most rapidly growing parts of the world.

At the same time, this is a regime that deals with ethnic and religious tensions by throwing people into concentration camps and brainwashing them into the majority culture, as they are doing with the Uyghurs today. Has that resulted in any consequences for them?

Let’s face it, the “free world” these days is feckless and divided, China has turned into a superpower even since 1989, and the developing world can tell which direction the wind is blowing. Nobody can tell the CPC what to do anymore. And Hong Kong is a “disharmonious” part of China, much like Xinkiang. The CPC has a history of “solving” these “problems” by any means necessary.

The CPC would like the world to believe that nobody can tell it what to do (not least of which for domestic political reasons), but it's not really the case. China may be bigger and more powerful now, but the (media) spotlight on it is consummately brighter.

I'm not terribly optimistic about the developed world's response to a hypothetical Tiananmen 2.0, but I also recognize that predicting what will capture the public imagination is an uncertain business. And in the case of actual worldwide widespread outrage (and accompanying economic penalties), you can look to pre-JCPOA Iran to see how that turns out. Even the US would buckle under that sort of pressure.

Iran has been hijacking merchant ships and shooting down American drones. And it’s not like the world actually needs Iran for anything the way we need China for steel and electronics.

> These days China produces an absolute majority of the world’s steel, many individual products like port cranes are solely manufactured in China, Shenzhen is an indispensable center of economic activity to a probably higher degree than even Silicon Valley, and the Belt-and-Road initiative is establishing Chinese soft power throughout the most rapidly growing parts of the world.

> At the same time, this is a regime that deals with ethnic and religious tensions by throwing people into concentration camps and brainwashing them into the majority culture, as they are doing with the Uyghurs today. Has that resulted in any consequences for them?

This is why I'm for the trade war, and frankly any action that decouples the Chinese economy from more of the world's. It turns out it was a lie that trade brings liberalization, the truth is trade actually protects authoritarians from being held to account (if they're big enough).

I am too, but like you, for entirely different reasons than Trump is pitching it.

I borrowed a heat gun from a friend once, and he gave me a safety brief that could be summarized as, “The important part of the term ‘heat gun’ is the word ‘gun’. Do not point this at something you’re not serious about using it on. It will melt your eyeballs.”

Analogously, the important part of the term “trade war” is the word “war”. We will damage our own economy and our own standard of living if we continue to carry out this trade war on China. We will pay a heavy price. Even if the Rust Belt is once again capable of producing the steel that we are no longer importing from China, we will come out of this a poorer country than we would otherwise. It’s a price worth paying, but we should be under no illusions about such an endeavor providing any net economic benefit.

> The troops in Shenzhen are most likely just a threat - if they do roll into HK it will be the worst miscalculation by Chinese government since 89.

This is CHINA we're talking about... bet on the worst.

That's a good point but most people in the West don't realized that. I can not rule out CPP could use military in future but that's a stupid move.

Exactly. Also the protesters are not doing themselves a favour by blocking the airport; giving up popular support in order to do economic damage.

The problem is that not doing anything signals weakness, as in Beijing stops trying to make a city do something if it protests. China can’t afford letting other cities learn ”wait, so if we protest the CCP would stop trying to forcefullt implement something we don’t want?”

Beijing wants the message to be ”protests lead to nothing but mayhem and disorder, in the end the CCP lays down the law of the land”.

nah other cities are as patriotic as it ever can be at this point.