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Comment by steveooo | Hacker News Reader

A significant number of the seats in Hong Kong government are voted/belong to "industry/corporations", and these have been able to decide the Government recently. China buying control of the corporations will further subvert the democracy.

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Rather like the City of London then [1] - not the only similarity between the two places. I think the system dates to British rule in Hong Kong, which became partly democratic rather late in the day.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London#Elections note: this is the City of London (~1 square mile) not the metropolis.

Edit: ninja'd by louthy and djcapelis

Towards the end of British rule in Hong Kong the Brits sought to make HK more democratic but were rebuffed by Beijing, as in the 1960s [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-pu...

The original source of this narrative is VJMedia.hk [1], popularized by QZ in English web [2]. VJMedia is operated by RongLeQi who was a member of the League of Social Democrats at the time, aka pro-democrat party who participated in the LegCo oath-taking controversy. Unsurprisingly, it's a fairly biased and disingenuous interpretation of FCO40/327 and the Thatcher memo that border on propaganda. The primary sources quoted in the article has nothing to do with democratic reforms but UK seeking HK sovereignty as a self-governing dominion like Singapore (not just democratic reforms) as an alternative to handover because it would stabilize investor fears - the concerns were purely economic. Obviously China would reject this proposal which basically tried to circumvent handover by making HK dejure independent in 1997. The reason why UK/Patten introduced some democratic reforms near handover was a last minute effort to maintain some political and economic influence over the colony. There was never any effort in the 60s to grant HK democracy within the context of Extension of Hong Kong Territory lease - they asked for sovereignty which was never an option - and what little that was given was a last minute geopolitical power play.

[1] https://www.vjmedia.com.hk/articles/2014/01/11/60039

[2] https://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of-hong-kongs-still...

Is there a problem with a de jure independent HK like Singapore, if so I can’t see one. I’m not saying Beijing would agree to be sure.

The greater context according to FCO40/327 (1960s source), "self-government" was actually suggested by the US, probably in context of cold-war containment, the Chinese viewed it as US imperialism. More importantly in the Thatcher memo, I think Deng pretty much states the legitimacy of the CPC rests on it's ability to reunite HK and if that didn't happen the CPC should just disband. There's also no geopolitical benefit to ceding territory, especially developed metropolis to ideological opponents.

> There's also no geopolitical benefit to ceding territory, especially developed metropolis to ideological opponents.

I think that can be true, but it's a difficult needle to thread. I don't know there's huge geopolitical benefit in holding onto a tiny outcrop of land that actively rebels against you on the regular and causes trouble. It's pretty insignificant these days in the bigger picture of the PRC except to your point the CPC's ego rests on it.

As I see it, it's mainly because not that many people live in the City, and this enfranchises employees.

CEOs/industry could be boycotted induce political change. To mitigate that risk, China really should just have elected representatives as a political proxy. Then HK can have the same system we do where corporations really run the show.

Sounds like their cup didn't runneth over with democracy even beforehand... that's bizarre. Like a modern House of Lords that just leans into giving corps a seat in government...

IMO this has to do with Beijing's pushback in the mid 1900s against expanded political freedoms in what I would assume was an anticipation of the end of the 99 year lease on the New Territories [1] and the fact that HK was caught as the middle region in a multi-circle Venn diagram (between China, the UK, the US and other regional powers). They weren't able to really push any one thing too far in any direction without pissing off one of them. So they focused on what they could control: creating an incredibly effective financial center. Corporations in HK don't have nearly as much power in the US as if they pulled to far, someone would come knocking.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-pu...

Probably more like the Corporation of London

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation

"recently"?

That's how it was designed by Beijing. Every single Chief Exec since handover has been Beijing's choice, and the legislature balance has always been in Beijing's majority. That's because the proportion of votes to each trade and whether an industry gets a vote at all was decided in proportion of how Beijing sympathetic they were. There's more - Wikipedia has the full absurdity.

That is how you create a show democracy, with show elections, and give the impression there is democracy to subvert.

Companies are buying the American democracy through lobbying and campaign contributions. The disastrous decision of the supreme court called "Citizens United" puts the US in a similar situation as Hong Kong. That's why the flow of foreign money (including Russian money) will not stop to influence US politics in the foreseeable future.

Citizens united was about people not losing their individual rights when they group together.

Do you have a problem with someone writing a book about a presidential candidate?

If not, why would you have a problem with a movie being released?

Do you think newspapers and tv shows should endorse candidates? Or choose which ones to cover and how much to cover?

Citizens united is incredibly misunderstood.

If anything, the problem is that there is so much money being spent by the federal government that it makes sense to try and and get it.

That's nonsense. People don't lose their rights when they control a company. They continue having the ability to contribute to whomever they want as an individual.

> there is so much money being spent by the federal government that it makes sense to try and and get it.

The money spent by the federal government is people's money. Trying to get it is called stealing.

Citizens United was a group of people who made a film and wanted to release and the government said that couldn't. The created a corporation to make and release the film.

Citizens United has nothing to do with campaign contributions.

Let's not pretend corporations are groups of people.

Let's not pretend the Sierra club and ACLU are _incorporated_ entities whose speech could (and would) be throttled by restrictions on "corporate" spending.

Citizens United was the an extremely beneficial ruling IMO. Your opinion on it being a “disaster” is not a fact, it is an opinion. Citizens United allows everyone who wants to, whether its corporations or unions or groups of people, to make their case directly to citizens. This is a Good Thing. It also isn’t the case that spending hundreds of millions of dollars guarantees you a victory, as the recent example of billionaire Tom Steyer entering the presidential race and being unable to qualify for the debates despite millions of dollars spent on advertising.

The difference is that billions of dollars tends to make a "better case" than those ideas without billions of dollars. Why do you think that money accumulated by the greedy should be given an advantage in the marketplace of ideas?

Trump won both the primary and the general even though he spent significantly less than his opponents in both.

Money talks, but it isn’t everything and can’t buy elections in the USA right now.

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