If I was China, I would love for the US and the UK to take the law-aware and dissident people off my hands.
This level of brain drain, as in the other mass migration events away from HK, could trigger the government to loosen their grip.
I've heard that HK is no longer as important to China as it was 20 years ago. HK's contribution to China's GDP has declined in relative terms as the rest of China has developed. With regards to the brain drain I get the impression that there are plenty of people from the mainland that could fill the gap.
Plus the rule of law, I'd say. Well, historically.
It doesn't help that China is in bad terms with the U.S. and India. India is on track to become the third-world economy. China is gradually isolating itself from the rest of the world.
Which for Hong Kong as the universe of analysis would be a travesty, but for China is probably not a significant consideration against removing that population as a source of unrest which can spread beyond HK.
Nonetheless it is the right thing to do for the UK (where are the EU nations on this?), and exile doesn't have to mean abandoning the future of your birthplace. Hong Kongers might be able to achieve more for HK from the UK than under a Beijing cyber-dictatorship.
Actually that raises an interesting comparison with the Tibetan diaspora that mostly left during around 1950. How many of their descendants growing up in India/US/UK still know how to speak Tibetan?
IMO assimilation isn't a bad thing, rather an indicator of a culture they bring with them which is accustomed to concepts of citizenry (or even more evolved) and the state (confucianism?).
But it doesn't mean they are forgetting about their ancestors struggle or their heritage either.
not because of some special cultural quality
It could easily transcribed as education, no need to imply cultural patronzing.
HK is in a catch-22. Stay where they are and get absorbed into the Mandarin speaking behemoth that's mainland China like Hakka, Wu, and Hokkien speakers once the CCP starts tearing down border and population movement restrictions, or move abroad to a dozen different countries and be absorbed piecemeal into the Anglosphere. The third option would be for 1 million or so HKers to build a new city somewhere where they could be the dominant culture. Unfortunately, Singapore is a very unusual case in world history where Malaysia didn't care about sovereignty over the land Singapore stood on and actually forced them out. Very little chance of that happening a second time.
Hong Kongers are likely to achieve more for the world - from UK rather than from authoritarian China. The fate of Hong Kong, specifically, is not that important.
They're silent. It's not their ex-colony and, very sorry to say it like this, but HK isn't worth angering China over.
If it is so bad in the US, what is keeping you there? Many developed countries have relatively few immigration hurdles for US Americans to pass. UK in particular, European countries are lax in general in these regards (I live in Germany).
- if you're looking for a job here, as an US citizen you get 3 months visa without questions asked
- there is no minimum amount of money needed in Germany for US citizens, neither as a deposit nor as pay
I believe that is called minimum wage? So that would be already a given.
there's no distinction based on country of origin as you seem to imply
there is a distinction: There is a German by-law as well as a EU-decree that classifies US Americans as citizens of a "priviliged country" (§ 26 BeschV (Verordnung über die Beschäftigung von Ausländern)).
https://www.bdae.com/journalbeitraege/dezember-2016-leben-un...
Yes, a lot of those connections can potentially move to the same city & country as you but will your neighbor still be your neighbor? Will the bar at the end of the street you go to after a hard day still be there and know exactly what you want when you walk through the door?
The revolt started almost 15 months ago against this kind of crap from China. Emigration may protect you from getting arrested but you're giving up everything you know and love in exchange. That's not much of a deal.
[0] https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/31/china-families-interpol-...
Communism is manifestly a negative influence on mankind's well-being... don't know how anyone could rationally think otherwise (unless you grew up in a communist country and believe the propaganda).
No, chances are the person who downvoted you is someone who never has actually lived in a communist country and likely did so from the comforts of an overpriced western coffee shop. They probably think they're an intellectual who wouldn't be first against the wall in such a situation.
Take the downvote with pride, since you're speaking truth to abuse.
USSR : "The Gulag Archipelago" :: modern China : ?
Anyone got a suggestion for a well written modern book that exposes the sins of the CCP?
With the exception of my wife's grandmother, every member of her extended family spent time in either prison or forced-work camps. One of her aunts translated for me the "confession" she was forced to sign. None of this was related to what we'd consider crimes, but was entirely political.
The Communists took the family's house. They had a refrigerator and a piano, which the Red Guard destroyed on the basis that if everyone didn't have such bourgeois goods, then no one should. When TVs were made available for neighborhood viewing, my wife wasn't allowed to attend.
And there's the malnutrition and squalor they were subjected to. They shared one floor of a brownstone with 2 other families - so, 3 entire families sharing one kitchen and 1.5 baths. There was insufficient food, to the point where they had to eat insect-infested grain - while Party members got plenty.
So, all in all, my wife's experience with Communism wasn't positive, and having lived through that, she's the first to speak up against anything that exhibits any of those traits.
I though think it's worth mentioning that the China of today is absolutely not the China of the 50's.
I've personally spent quite a bit of time in China, and it's never seemed particularly "communist" - the middle class has long since been established and continues to grow, and capatalism is very much thriving. On a personal note, I've always really enjoyed my time in China.
I'm not saying it's a model of wonderdrous virtue either of course; there is a lot of corruption (hardly unique to China, mind), many people wouldn't even dream of openly criticising the CCP, there is little press freedom, and of course the Uigher (spelling?) camps are an abomination. Yet the overwhelming majority of the population have never had it better, and are happy with the way things are (of course, few will know everything about the way things are).
The thing is, it's very much a pendulum. The Cultural Revolution, when my wife was growing up, was one of the worst times. The couple decades starting in the 90s was relatively quite good. The thing is, since Xi took control the pendulum has been swinging back in the other direction. That's most obvious back in Hong Kong, but is also evident within the mainland, as reported by family members and we can see ourselves through online interactions (e.g., on multiple occasions my wife's WeChat comments have been censored).
In addition to religious and ideological persecution, we see grave human rights abuses continue unabated: forced abortions, arbitrary (non-rule-of-law) treatment of citizens, lack of habeas corpus, ruling officials and legislators who are unelected (or who are only eligible for election if they are CCP members), a secret police, massive slave labor camps, long prison sentences for journalists and human rights activists, etc.
Perhaps the only difference we're seeing since the 1950's is that capital and property ownership in themselves are not seen as anti-state.
Apart from reading in public and murderous hate for the president, can relate to everything you wrote. Never been to China to comment.
There is no guarantee that the system that is more just will win out. That's the reason why we have to do everything we can to make sure that liberal democracy works and to impede authoritarianism in all its forms and guises. The CCP should never have had the amount of international investment and export markets it has had, given the overall strategy of the party to hoard power and crush dissent.
And when this growth ends, what will happen? An authoritarian system is able to withstand challenges with the full power of the state behind it. People that dissent are crushed, and many times the people that dissent do so with the most honourable of intentions. Viewed under the prism of authoritarianism this matters not. It's a system that remains not because of consent and merit, but ultimately due to suppression of dissent.
Just because China is able to catch-up some of the growth that it completely missed out on due to the turmoil of the Communist revolution and the turbulent 50s and 60s, doesn't validate this system one bit. Other countries were ahead of China, with more growth and sustainability, minus the cruelty.
The most powerful countries in the world were literally coasting on stolen Chinese wealth for 100 years of so. When the UK couldn't coast anymore, it lost world reserve currency status.
Now, can we get back on the subject of how the CCP is treating dissidents (and neighbouring countries)?
India springs to mind as a good 1:1 comparison candidate and it seems to be doing much worse than China in most economic metrics.
Just because they both have large populations don't make them alike.
The CCP is super clever and imbued a sort of nationalistic pride from birth. Instead of the US's more complicated dualistic individualism/patriotism combo, the Chinese people actually get some sort of pride for being a cog in the CCP machine.
It's a completely different paradigm and obviously super dangerous because it allows the people at the top who aren't elected to pull the strings on a machine of 1.4 billion people. If they run the system correctly, it can be much more "effective".
Democracy has lots of pressure outlets, and it is definitely much more healthy longterm. That's why I think it's the better system, even vs a well-run (and let's even assume benevolent) CCP.
In East Asian countries and China especially, nobody gives a flying .... about collectivism and Confucianism, and cultural roots.
It's by far the most egoistic, conflict driven, cut throat society I've ever been.
Ahem... most Chinese can't get more curses for it. Even unranked CPC members, and civil servants quietly hate them.
One needs to read a lot of People's Daily to drink this koolaid
The few who do almost all are the poor, underachieving, and angry "little pink" flag waving youth, or are the actual accessories to the system.
Even in the US, that is the #1 issue in every Pres election. How's the economy? Aka do people with 401k's think that they are better off, and thus do they think they are doing better against their peers (their competition for finding a mate/maintaining their mate)