Comment by theseadroid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by theseadroid | Hacker News Reader

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As a Chinese mainlander emmigrated because BOTH of the Chinese gov and the people, I'm fine with an independent Taiwan or Hong Kong or whatever. With that being said, I find the stupidity in those reportings and conversations around Hong Kong's protest astonishing. It is sad to see illogical media-induced anger has taken the better part of many commenters here at HN as well.

There's no incentive for the Chinese gov to use military force, period. What the protestors are doing is actually pretty beneficial to the Chinese gov. The protest is destroying HK's economy, yes. But HK's economy is actually not vital to China's economy anymore[1]. Instead, a less economic significant HK would be much easier to govern in the long run. China would rather further develop its Shanghai or Shenzhen, than investing into HK.

What's more, the recent trade dispute with US, and the Hong Kong protest, have made significant negative impact on mainland Chinese attitude toward the western countries and idealogies. If there's any internal conflicts and fights for certain types of freedom before, they certainly become muted now. The rise of nationalism is surely making the higher-ups happy.

1. https://www.vox.com/2014/9/28/6857567/hong-kong-used-to-be-1...

I very much agree that most reportings and conversations lack proper context, especially non-Chinese ones (although I refrain from describing them as _stupid_), but can’t help but wondering whether your concluion is also missing some other context.

Reports conflict on how China is faring on the trade disputes, but Hong Kong, being the only place not affected in these trade conflicts, may be too valuable to give up as a worst-case plan, even if it might not be vital in numbers. Even given the same information, a spectator’s mindset can be drastically different than a player’s, since a spectator has nothing to loose, but a player does.

The current Hong Kong incident is really, really complicated not only because of China itself, but also it happens at a very perculiar time. The fact that China chose this particluar time to assert control on Hong Kong (proposing the Fugitive Offenders Bill and providing the sparking point) is also under-discussed, and no-one AFAIK has a good explaination–it can’t be simply stupity, for sure? I certainly would not jump into the conclusion that China has “no incentive, period” to use military force without first understanding all those nuances and much more.

Genuine question, with all the context and nuances you have provided, what positivity would bring to Beijing if they use military force? For me I dont see a militarized HK will help with the trade dispute in any way.

A militarized HK certainly won’t, but China may be convinced they could use military to bring Hong Kong back to approximately its pre-protest state. Hong Kong in its current state would be increasingly less likely to fill the economic role Beijing might need it to. It’d be reasonable to risk military action if they think they can repeat Tiananmen, with (western) countries repeating the appeasement policy on that occassion.

And honestly I kind of feel they actually might have a chance to pull it off. Prominent countries don’t have a good track record reacting to China’s bullying tactics (except Trump, as much as I dislike him).

You think Beijing would think pulling a Tiananmen 2.0 would bring HK into the right track fulfilling its economic role after? I dont think almost anyone, include almost every mainland Chinese would think that way.

If military is involved, economies will crash, hard. Not only HK's economy, a lot of economies will crash. It will be an economic suicide for mainland China. Is there any doubt about that? And that's irrelevant if any western countries intervene or not.

You probably haven't talked to any educated mainland Chinese recently? For the ones who would like to get HK in line and even get Taiwan back, the only feasible way they see is economic dominance over those territories. As a strategy by itself, I kinda agree.

Edit: I dont think PRC depends on HK more economically than emotionally. HK is one of the symbols of western countries invasion 100 years ago. Getting it back has a great deal of emotional value for mainland Chinese. What I see PRC can extract more value out of HK right now is to emphasize the western influence over the protest, making regular Chinese more in line with PRC's world view and values. Anger directed towards other countries rather than introspective is a good thing for the gov if and when there's any hardship inflicted during the trade dispute period.

I agree as much as the next commenter here that HK can’t survive Tiananmen 2.0, but am not so sure about the CCP leadership. And I do have actual interactions with mainland Chinese (although I don’t know whether you’d consider them “educated.”)

> It will be an economic suicide for mainland China. Is there any doubt about that?

Why not? I would most definitely doubt it. Again, I do assume it would crash, but there is absolutely no actual proof that is the case. This wouldn’t be the first time CCP uses armed forces against civillian protest, and on every previous occassion they ended up just fine.

>This wouldn’t be the first time CCP uses armed forces against civillian protest

Europeans have killed how many American Indians and ended up just fine. But can they do that today? Coerced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada had been legal for as late as 1970s and do they dare to do that today [1,2]?

What I'm saying is the world has changed quite a bit and so do CCP.

>and on every previous occasion they ended up just fine.

Really? For starters during previous conflicts CCP rarely had an economy to crash.

Again, the legitimacy of CCP within mainland is almost purely lay on its power of economy growth. There are many Chinese people who are not content with it but bear CCP because of the economy growth [3].

You probably knew the 2014 Hong Kong protest, which had a similar scale? If CCP can wait that one out, why can't it do it again this time? [4]

1. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-la...

2. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sterilizat...

3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20148705

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Central_with_Love_and_P...

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