Hacker News Reader

Comment by tony | Hacker News Reader

If it turns out PRC messes with HK's traffic, PRC is going to lose a load of trust over this.

Businesses relying on VPN'ing home to function, those believe its a human right to choose their leadership.

Why shouldn't the fragrant harbor enjoy same autonomy the rest of these received?

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

What's there to fear? Do Hong Kongers not share the same kindred blood, language (as far as Cantonese, at least in Guangdong), culture.

Why not let Hong Konger's vote for independence? Scotland had a chance in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Scottish_independence_ref.... What keeps it together? I don't know. Trust? Respect?

Is there trust and respect between HK <-> China? I've been between GZ/HK many times. They're different places. If PRC wants to be an example to others of their own philosophy and system, they should do it by building trust over time, not by using a hammer.

View on HN

> Why not let Hong Konger’s vote for independence?

Probably the same reason Spain doesn’t let Catalonia vote for independence.

Or why America literally fought a war over secession.

I'm not an expert on Catolonia and Spain, but I don't see it that way.

I've likened Hong Kong to Singapore. It's leaning toward being fully independent and the momentum seems unstoppable. The question I'm wondering is why stop at HK? I want my access to KuGou back. That's what did it for me.

Spain and Catalonia both use the Euro. Catalonia has its own judicial system, but I believe they both are set to the EU in terms of bigger picture things.

HK and PRC have separate currencies. HK uses traditional chinese characters and speaks Cantonese. Not everyone in neighboring Guangdong speaks Cantonese, and they use simplified chinese characters.

Hong Kong has its own famous movies. It has its own cellphone companies and ISPs. Its own stock market. They drive on different sides of the road (left in HK, right in China). HK has trams. HK has its own customs. The legal system is in english and its a common law system and dramatically different than China's.

What momentum towards independence? Everything since the handover has been going against independence. Maybe the difference with Singapore is this cold reality:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/21/hong-kongs-inconvenient...

The article notes:

>the city looks to the mainland for most of its resources.

So does Singapore, which looks to Peninsular Malaysia for most of its resources (water and food).

That's the main problem with that opinion piece.

Here's the real difference:

- Singapore was expelled from the federation of Malaysia by politicians keen to keep their racialist affirmative action policy. AFAIK Malaysia has no official irredentist policy when it comes to Singapore.

- Hong Kong is in no danger of being expelled from the PRC because the PRC has an officially proclaimed irredentist policy regarding Hong Kong.

Sure, the dependency on resources exists in the case of Singapore as well, but the ratio of military capability between Singapore and Malaysia is much more balanced than that between HK and the PRC (since it's 0).

The relative military capabilities of the two parties, like the resource dependency, is a side issue.

Kuala Lumpur shows no sign of wanting Singapore back because Singapore would significantly alter Malaysia's demographics and push for racial equality, which is not what the ruling Malay political class wants.

Beijing, however, sees every reason to keep HK. Not just the irredentism: have a look at the map and you will see that HK is on the NE entrance of the Pearl River. HK may not be as economically important as before, but just like Macau on the other side of the mouth of the Pearl River, it is of immense geostrategic importance to the security of the river delta region.

>I'm not an expert on Catolonia and Spain

Here, let me wiki that for you (lmwtfy): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...

>I've likened Hong Kong to Singapore.

I love how people pull out Singapore (hey, why doesn't Hong Kong become an independent "authoritarian democracy", like Singapore?) at this point, but the analogy is spurious. The historical and geopolitical situations of these two cities are night and day.

I mean, lmwtfy:

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

Here's the relevant timeline:

1959: Singapore achieved full self-government as a British colony.

1963: In defiance of massive skepticism, Singapore merged with Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to form the federal constitutional monarchy of Malaysia.

1963-65: Massive protests rocked Singapore because of disaffection with the racialist affirmative action policy of the federal government in Kuala Lumpur.

1965: To avoid further unrest, the federal government of Malaysia decided to expel Singapore from the federation.

For your analogy to work, you'd have to substitute "Malaysia" in the above for "China", since Hong Kong depends on China for its food and water, as Singapore does. But the result of that substitution looks nothing like the actual history of Hong Kong.

Your analogy also breaks down for the following reasons:

- Malaysia does not have an official irredentist position regarding Singapore. The official irredentist position of the PRC is well-known when it comes to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

- Many Malaysian politicians at the time, including the then ruling party UMNO, were skeptical of Singapore's entry into Malaysia, and were quite relieved to be rid of Singapore. In contrast, the PRC's position is that Hong Kong is an integral part of its territory, come what may.

- Malaysia does not have any troops garrisoned in Singapore. There are PLA troops garrisoned in Hong Kong.

>Spain and Catalonia both use the Euro. Catalonia has its own judicial system, but I believe they both are set to the EU in terms of bigger picture things.

The EU, as a community of sovereign nations, is wary of being seen as supporting separatism within its member nations. This is one of the reasons why it let Spain do what it did to Catalonia.

>HK [...]

These are superficial differences. Power is power, as some have said. No matter how much you and others would like to liken Hong Kong to Singapore, the fact remains that they face vastly different geopolitical realities.

I just don't see it that way.

Without establishing any ground rules, (what similarities are we talking?) It's hard to do.

India, Canada, Pakistan, New Zealand, Australia, USA, Brunei. Former British colonies with bigger historical differences, isn't the final destination sovereignty?

Wouldn't Singapore be more analogous to HK than them though? For instance I never considered that Singapore broke away from Malaysia after Britain left.

Extradition bill in HK with support from the capital. Affirmative action policy in SG being imposed by the capital. Those kind of play toward the concept of a proud city-state breaking apart of a larger, country that doesn't seem to grasp what the people are feeling.

It reminds me of an unattuned parent trying to force their child behave a certain way when they're already stressed out by something else. If it goes too far, it creates this spiral and the child suffers, and has to leave the family. Obviously having people who don't care to understand your feelings in charge of your life isn't tenable.

What if HK were to decide "enough is enough", to move out, and live their own life? They have a developed economy, their own legal system, health care, and civil servants. They can make their own decision without a power thousands of miles away with a totally different organizational philosophy trying to control them.

Aside: If we wanted to contrast HK <-> SG, I'd probably pick different things. For instance Singapore speaking Mandarin and being more diverse culturally/linguistically. It's really cool. Look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Singapore#/media/...

>Without establishing any ground rules

All right, ground rules. My arguments are evidence-based and I assume that you'd have read any evidence I've cited. Any arguments that you make that are contrary to the evidence I've presented will be interpreted as being made in an attempt to distort the evidence.

>what similarities are we talking?

That was my question: what similarities are there between HK and Singapore? I only see differences that are critically important to the question at hand.

> Former British colonies with bigger historical differences, isn't the final destination sovereignty?

Sure, and the decolonization process took place under the auspices of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization.

However, there's a huge twist to the story when it comes to HK, which made it unlike any former British colony.

After the ROC was expelled from the UN by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 in 1971, the PRC's UN representative, Huang Hua, wrote to that Special Committee in March 1972 to assert China's sovereign right over Hong Kong and Macau:

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

This was acceded to by the Special Committee in its 1972 report (Ref: A/8723/REV.1[VOL.I](SUPP)):

https://www.un.org/ga/search/viewm_doc.asp?symbol=A/8723/REV...

Specifically, if you read that document I linked to above, on p.64 of the document, para. 183 states:

>The Special Committee also continued its review of the list of Territories to which the Declaration is applicable. In the light of the close examination of related matters, the Committee agreed that it should recommend to the General Assembly the exclusion of Hong Kong and Macau and dependencies from the list [...]

The list referred to is this list of territories that are subject to the decolonization process:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_list_of_Non-Sel...

This report was approved in para. 3 of UN General Assembly Resolution 2908, which passed 99-5 on 2 Nov 1972. You can read the text here:

https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/2908(XXVII)

The upshot of this is that, while the General Assembly believed that it voted in favor of the "Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples", it also voted for the removal of Hong Kong and Macau from the decolonization list by approving the Special Committee's report in para 3 of the resolution.

In short, UN General Assembly Resolution 2908 derecognized HK and Macau as territories to be decolonized, thereby recognizing China's assertion of its sovereign right over them.

>Those kind of play toward the concept of a proud city-state breaking apart of a larger, country that doesn't seem to grasp what the people are feeling.

That's a nice concept, but the proof of concept doesn't work.

Again, Singapore didn't "break away" from Malaysia. In fact, prior to the formation of Malaysia, the Singapore leadership had campaigned vigorously for Singapore to be incorporated into Malaysia.

Unfortunately, the political leadership in Malaysia was set on having its race-based affirmative action policy - which favored the race of the ruling Malay majority, by the way - and so it decided Singapore had to go.

Let me reiterate that: Malaysia made a unilateral decision, without consulting the people of Singapore, to evict Singapore from the federation. Singapore was kicked out. It didn't "break away".

Today is Malaysia's national day. I'd appreciate it if you could get your facts right before commenting on Malaysia going forward.

>What if HK were to decide "enough is enough", to move out, and live their own life?

They can't. They depend on China for their water and most of their food.

The same is true for Singapore: it depends on Malaysia for its water and most of its food.

The big difference is this: Malaysia is quite happy for Singapore to be independent; China sees HK as an inalienable part of itself.

>If we wanted to contrast HK <-> SG, I'd probably pick different things.

What, like this:

>For instance Singapore speaking Mandarin and being more diverse culturally/linguistically.

This is completely irrelevant to the issues at hand.

>It's really cool. Look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Singapore#/media/

I know.

>I just don't see it that way.

You're free to continue not seeing it this way, but inattention to detail can be costly (c.f. UN Resolution 2908).

You often get the impression that leaders are more upset about the fact that people are defying them than any underlying issue with people wanting different governance.

You'll sometimes see leaders proudly support independence movements abroad while insisting people pushing the same sort of ideas at home are criminals or terrorists.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com