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Comment by justaguy88 | Hacker News Reader

I thought the UK might complain a little louder about this

Even if they did it would just be a strongly worded letter. The only way I can see to stop an eventual Chinese takeover of Hong Kong would be a military intervention, which would amount to an invasion of the Chinese Mainland. Which means not only taking and holding Hong Kong before Chinese forces can secure it but suppressing their Naval, Air and Rocket forces. Oh and they're a nuclear power.

For better or worse no one's wading into that clusterfuck in the name of civil rights, and no one outside the US has the force projection capacity to even consider it. Maybe we'll see some economic sanctions, but from an ideological perspective the CCP cannot and will not allow Hong Kong to leave China, it would invalidate a cornerstone of their existence (their ability to keep China united, a very rare historical anomaly).

The UK is weak (both in terms of their collective mentality and their influence on international politics), and they have an aggressive self-hate over their history of successful colonization efforts. This is what they decided they wanted for Hong Kong - they knew what would happen when they voluntarily ceded control of HK to China.

> This is what they decided they wanted for Hong Kong

Historical revisionism much? China was prepared to come and take Hong Kong, the only thing that preserved the current state was a deal that allowed China to save face. The U.K. had no ability to defend Hong Kong - they actually got a much better deal than could have been expected, with China worrying about its international reputation at the time. The Chinese could have walked right in to Hong Kong and taken it much, much more quickly.

The fact that China might have come in shooting doesn't make it any less of a choice. If they had thought it was critically important to maintain democracy in Hong Kong, they wouldn't have agreed to a 50 year phase-out, they would have simply demanded democracy forever and set up a government in exile if the tanks rolled in.

What good is a government in exile going to do? The 50 year phase out at least kept Hong Kong democratic for awhile so people could normalize it and expect and demand it, versus has China just rolled in many people would have died and they wouldn’t have enjoyed democracy at all.

As there was no realistic possibility of the course of action you advise preventing, as you put it, the tanks rolling in, you are suggesting there should have been a no-deal "brexit" from Hong Kong with the establishment of a government-in-exile.

As it happens, there has been a Chinese government-in-exile in Taiwan since 1949. Its practical influence on the governance of China itself since then has been zero to two decimal places, and is unlikely to increase in the future.

I am not at all sanguine about China's oligarchy, either for Hong Kong or the world, but geopolitical fantasies are just a way of avoiding facing the facts.

Britain did not get what it wanted, either for itself or the people of Hong Kong. What it got was what it was able to negotiate, and, given its weak position, it wasn't just a sell-out.

Our government are happy to sell us out for minimal payment...

Let's be realistic about what the UK can do here, especially in light of its need to deal with the consequences of brexit on its trading relationships.

In March the UK parliament broached the topic of Uighyrs;

https://twitter.com/nomsolence/status/1237906111837040642

The 1:20 clip I posted is the final summary, but the entire 20 minutes is worth watching.

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