Arrests of Hong Kong democrats shows why EU must reject China investment
hongkongwatch.org
hongkongwatch.org
Maybe it's time to de-colonise Hong Kong and just give it back to the Chinese properly?
It's not our business how they conduct their internal affairs.
Secondly, here is such a thing as human rights, and westerners believe that such a thing is worldwide. We should not close our eyes to the wrongdoing that is done to our fellow human beings.
It’s also unclear why Taiwan should be “recovered” at all, they were two factions of the cultural revolution sure, but that doesn’t mean they should be unified now any more than the UK should “recover” America.
we can of course disagree with china. but ignoring what they want is...i don't know...naive?
Infact all other concessions except HK and Macau were returned to Chinese about the end of the war.
If one day situation permits it, Canada will become 5X US state.
The laws of man, including international law, treaties and borders, are made up and can be change with enough will or force.
Not century old. And not at gunpoint.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration
Do you understand that the West mostly sanctions itself when it tries to sanction a country which:
1. Has surreal trade surplus with it.
2. Supports nearly entire consumer spending part of your economy.
3. Provides most of your light industry goods.
4. Buys a big chunk of your debt.
This is why I was saying that China can easily do a blunder, after a blunder, and still outmatch the West economically, and you need something other than simply sanctions.
They would've to be hard enough to make it more cost effective to create a new production line in another nation over buying the sanctioned goods.
Not without consequences for the consumer and political suicide if attempted... but technically possible
The key word here is other options. Are there any?
China on other hand has many other options than the US market. They will have no problem redirecting things like household goods, and other light industry products to other markets without impact to its industrial capacity.
That's what has happened in 2008, and indeed worked marvelously for them in the end.
When the American economy was flopped, they simply took all those luxuries destined for sale to America, dumped them on developing markets, and adjusted quality-quantity balance for this target market.
Yes if you ask about them at the right place, like https://www.reddit.com/r/avoidchineseproducts/
You're correct that more than sanctions are necessary, you need to also invest in the infrastructure and production of goods that your society primarily relies on. There's tons of space for innovation and improving efficiencies in this space via automation, vertical and horizontal integration, reducing planned obsolescence, etc. There's an incredible amount of waste in our societies, along with other types of pollution we must address. All this requires is work, which means jobs, and adequate organization and appropriate directing of resources.
This is also the reason China took hardline on Hong Kong as they see it as strategic weak spot. Moreover actions of China in Hong Kong are supported by majority of people in China. This tyranny of majority exists in democracy too, what happened in Kashmir is 100 times worse than HK.
Given the way US president pardoned people who committed genocide in Afganistan and killed scores of kids and unarmed civilians. There is hardly any ground left for them to teach others.
No real death in over an year of violent protests by police firing in Hong Kong vs 5 deaths in capitol building siege speaks volumes about the professionalism with which Hong Kong police handled the protests.
China is built by hard work of its people not by CCP [1].
May be work there for a while and than you can see why Korea, Japan and Greater China did so well not others in growth. It’s easy to talk rhetoric, but hard to do hard work to bring about transformation.
The Chief Executive election has been delayed for 2 decades requiring the CCP to "pre-filter" candidates which the public rejected.
The legislative council election has been controlled by disqualifying candidates as well as the mass arrest of 53 pro-democracy candidates for simply organizing the primaries and engaging in debates. [3]
TLDR; China wasn't as strong in 90s so took a softer stance. Later decided to go back on its words so had to find ways to control the elections or the results.
> No real death in over an year of violent protests by police firing in Hong Kong vs 5 deaths in capitol building siege speaks volumes about the professionalism with which Hong Kong police handled the protests.
This is not true. After witnessing the 2019 movement and the real police behavior captured on live tv/news[4], I have a much better understanding of the Stanford prisoner experiment.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law [2]https://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclawtext/chapter_4.html [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Hong_Kong_Legislative_Cou... [4]https://tl.hkrev.info/en/police-timeline/
People who support govt and not protestors their shops, restaurants, businesses vandalised and were constantly harassed. It became politically impossible to voice against the protestors due to fear of violence, know this first hand not by talking but living through it.
Please read the Basic Law and also the extradition bill [1]. Extradition being better was still opposed and ultimately National security law was passed to give teeth to administration to stop violent protests.
It’s the vehement majority of Hong Kong people who gave rights to reinterpret Basic Law to stem the flow of people from mainland China (since court of final appeal was going to allow spouses and children of Hong Kong residents from other parts of China to settle in HK). This is the same provision used for implementing National security law. So in HK people got what they asked for and also majority Chinese supported this action on HK. So like any democracy like USA and India a law which appease majority pass easily same happened here.
[1] https://www.legco.gov.hk/yr18-19/english/bills/b201903291.pd...
> So in HK people got what they asked for and also majority Chinese supported this action on HK. So like any democracy like USA and India a law which appease majority pass easily same happened here.
Both statements are false. The first reinterpretation of the Basic Law on the right of adobe in 1999 wasn’t the result of ANY DEMOCRATIC PROCESS involving the majority of Hong Kongers.
Some polls may show that a large fraction of Hong Kongers prefer the RESULTING VERDICT on right of adobe, but the reinterpretation is unlike any democratic process as in the US or India, that has a rigorous and formal voting process. And certainly not a majority of Hong Kongers support repeated interpretations of the basic law by people not directly elected in Hong Kong.
The end doesn’t justify the means. You have confused the end and the means.
You mean Hong Kong people wholeheartedly supported the spouses and Children to settle in Hong Kong from other parts of China in millions?
Even if you support violent protestors please don't be double face, even during one year of protests there was a constant call for throwing people from other parts of China back to China from Hong Kong, they were called locusts and what not.
The reinterpretation had a majority support of Hong Kong people and they liked that Tung Chee Hwa was able to stem the flow (instead of court of final appeal which in earlier ruling allowed spouses and childrent to settle in HK) and make it limited to 150 people / day instead of over million moving to HK.
> Democratic Process
Hong Kong is not a democracy, UK never granted it autonomy and always controlled it with appointed chief executive. With handover at least China made the committee which selected the chief executive. So not sure which is more democratic an appointed head by UK or a person elected by people from various sections of society (although it's flawed as most or rich and has allegiance to China, but it's still better than what UK had in Hong Kong).
Source for your claim?
Contrary to your claim, “The Democratic Party strongly believes that reinterpretation of the Basic Law by the NPCSC is unacceptable” https://books.google.com/books?id=1nccBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA348&lpg=...
> UK never granted it autonomy and always controlled it with appointed chief executive
UK didn’t grant democracy to Hong Kong because of the threat from China. China is to blame, not UK.
Quotes from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-pu...
> beginning in the 1950s, the colonial governors who ran Hong Kong repeatedly sought to introduce popular elections but abandoned those efforts in the face of pressure by Communist Party leaders in Beijing.
> Chinese leaders were so opposed to the prospect of a democratic Hong Kong that they threatened to invade should London attempt to change the status quo.
The way to slow China's growth most efficiently is through economics; it's not the people of China that we want growth to slow for, the purpose and intent is to take power away from the CCP - to free the people of China, as in America and other Democracies, we inherently trust - have faith - that individuals can make the right, good, best decisions for themselves.
"Moreover actions of China in Hong Kong are supported by majority of people in China" - this is the functional result of control-oppression systems on free speech with threat of a spectrum of potential harm that can come to you, your family, even your place of work. This isn't the positive argument point you think it is. The CCP can control the narrative and suppress the truth as they see fit.
"Given the way US president pardoned people who committed genocide..." - this is a very weak argument considering the US compared to the China is an apples to oranges comparison to begin with: every 4 years the US has an election vs. in China it's the CCP in control always; this is a weak foundation to argue from on its own. It's an even weaker argument when you don't understand that Democracy - and the freedom to vote - is literally polling the population to understand that state of the union, of the nation, their health and their beliefs. Trump is a symptom of multi-generational dis-ease progression, where the efficiencies of capitalism, along with the duopoly that's been able to form and solidify - along with the regulatory capture that has occurred for 4+ decades, industrial complexes and bad actors tightening their grip of society by extracting more and more resources from the average person, and allowing suffering and dis-ease progression to occur. Mainstream media has played a role as well, the amalgamation of it into just a small handful of controllers - for TV and newspapers - has allowed the narrative to be more easily controlled; not as much as the CCP's control but it gets close to it, resulting in only 2 main narratives - of the duopoly. It’s incorrect, a mistake to believe Trump is America, he simply made his way up through broken-weak systems that I just described - that exist via currently inadequate policy, this current state - status quo - that we can and have learned from - and will evolve from with new, updated policy to help steer, right this ship called America.
Sorry but the "no deaths" is a false dichotomy - the treatment of these people can be like of the Uighurs if they don't fall in line with whatever rules they want to enforce; and certainly the CCP will be looking into everyone in HK's past to then see what they should do with them on a case-by-case basis.
"China is built by hard work of its people not by CCP." - you're injecting an argument that that makes it seem like I or other people believe Chinese people aren't hard workers? I bet no reasonable person would put forward that argument, no reasonable person would think Chinese people are lazy. It sounds more like propaganda/narrative that the CCP would want to perpetuate to try to demonize the "other" - so the Chinese population will think "we" think lesser of them, to cause them to dislike, be angry with, or hate "us."
The majority of reasonable people of Democratic nations only want the best for the Chinese people, and the majority are reasonable - however there are for example the ~74 million Americans who have been mislead, manipulated, by Trump, the captured Republican party and mainstream media that these people watch - to believe Trump was the answer to "Make American Great Again" - except Trump isn't an entrepreneur or a businessman, he's a con artist and a pathological liar, and archetypical narcissist; someone like Andrew Yang, who's an entrepreneur and has been successful, learning through experience and understanding the foundation, math, and exponentials of how policy propagates - is the type of person, along with his holistic-foundational policy proposals, are the polar opposite to Trump; and the slogan play of MATH - "Make America Think Harder" is simply a beautiful refinement and contrast to MAGA.
And seriously - we only want the best for the people of China, and a foundational part of what's best for EVERYONE in the world - to avoid the pitfalls of tyranny and avoid potential scenarios like Uighurs "re-education" camps (genocide by internationally agreed standards) - is freedom of speech.
Happy to continue this discussion or clarify anything.
Chinese system is different politically and it’s hard to say it’s good or bad for its people, given on the ground it has proved good for majority with suppression of minority (see the same happening in any democracy too, tyranny of majority). So unless democratic system can really save its minority they can’t be on higher ground. Also if one needs over a billon dollar to fight election and win top positions there are favours to be done, like what happens in two largest democracies of India and USA. So every system has its positive and negative.
If you want to bring about change in China then may be go there do something great for the people and if they find it better than existing system for their livelihood and better life they will change.
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_...
If you truly believed the Chinese people were strong, capable, if you truly believed the CCP system would be what the majority of Chinese people would want (once their fear is diminished) the CCP's control in place, then the CCP should become a Democratic nation where people can vote - where you trust your people, and the current government not have fear or fear their people. In fact the reason there isn't a voting system is the CCP knows that their citizens wouldn't vote the CCP in, and whatever truths they're trying to keep hidden will be able to come to light - whether the majority of those truths are relatively benign or malicious in nature, I don't know - whether the CCP keeps records of all of their behaviours or not, I don't know either.
Tyranny of majority? That's not tyranny. If the majority of people vote in a legitimate, fair polling with adequate systems in place to make sure there isn't cheating/fraud - then the direction of who they voted for is what the majority want and policy will be changed/evolve based on whomever is currently in power. This is in fact a feature of Democracy, not a bug. Voting is literally polling to see the state of the union and what people's current beliefs and understanding of everything is, to understand how they're doing personally - are they suffering, are they thriving, etc; it's like a Litmus test to see where on the spectrum of abundance vs. scarcity mindset they are, state of health vs. dis-ease state.
Re: "So unless democratic system can really save its minority they can’t be on higher ground" - Yes, yes they can be on higher ground - and that happens because ultimately the government, party - the group of people/politicians who's policy and policy proposals align with the benefit of EVERYONE in the population - not just those who voted them into power will result in a higher quality of life for EVERYONE; the party who wins power, gets into government, and who attempts to punish or suffocate their non-voters (Republicans/Trump and party who clearly, multiple times attempted to harm Democratic voting states) is the opposite of this, and will cause non-voters and other citizens to start voting, the impetus will exist and strengthen because their suffering and ability to survive is lessening to a degree that they realize the system needs change, a course correction for the ship called America.
"Also if one needs over a billon dollar to fight election and win top positions" - Indeed, you're correct but Democracy is evolving and the duopoly that has formed due to current policy can be EASILY broken apart with the correct policies; Andrew Yang, who was a Presidential candidate, and his core policies are what will lead to the duopoly to break apart - along with disempowering the few mainstream media channels the majority of Americans watch: Democracy Dollars, Journalism Dollars, Ranked Choice Voting, and Freedom Dividend/Universal Basic Income - I'd urge you to research those policy proposals and read his book, if you're genuinely interested in understanding how Democracy is a better system; it's highly unlikely I'd be able to even have this discussion with you in China, or at least once I gain a large enough following to worry the CCP then I'd be punished God only knows how. Andrew Yang's book is called The War On Normal People.
The problem with your final paragraph is that the CCP will prevent/ban/block ideas and efforts, say in book form, that would present and provide a better solution than what the CCP is allowing. I don't know if you're arguing in bad faith or gaslighting, or you just haven't thought this through fully to include into your thinking how the CCP would influence such things to prevent change? Can you at minimum agree the CCP does ban/suppress certain speech and ideas - and I can easily be blocked if I was to try to present to the Chinese people a better system than their existing one? Do you actually believe the CCP would allow this?
I'd really love to continue this conversation after you've read Andrew Yang's policy proposals. I'm curious what resistance you may have with them, and I'd be happy to make clarifications or correct misunderstands of the policies if I see that you're misinterpreting something in them.
It’s just that the Hong Kong police is better at cover-ups.
A female protestors was found fully naked and dead at sea. A whistle-blower police officer confessed on a KBS documentary that the case was initially investigated as a murder case, but the higher-ups later forbade murder investigation, and hastily classified it as a “suicide”. [0]
Another man was seen suspiciously thrown out of a window at a disciplined services quarters (whose tenants are mostly police) [1], and yet the case wasn’t even investigated.
Neither of these cases is definite proof of Hong Kong police killing protestors. And yet without proper investigation, you can easily hide casualties even when there are.
I must stress that guns are forbidden in Hong Kong, whereas guns appeared in the Capitol Hill on Jan 6 among some protestors. It’s not surprising that Hong Kong police may have a milder response than the US police. You can’t compare apples to oranges.
[0] https://youtu.be/7y8f3l2Eve8?t=542
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/eo1l01/zoomed_ver...
What can an individual do to help Hong Kongers? Any suggestions?
How many firearms, and ammo you can buy, and how many politicians you can lobby? Even if you are a single digit millionaire, that's just enough to arm, and feed no more than a single lightly armed battalion for a few months.
I see other option than a military solution, either limited, or not.
Even if any Western power decide on half hearted piecemeal solution like smuggling weapons into to China, and rile up the populace, it will only bleed China a very, very little. China easily endure waging a civil war the size of Syrian, and continue growing economically like if nothing happened.
How would you feel if I advocated for arming communist rebels in your country? It's disturbing how normalized calls to violence are on HN when the violence happens far away.
Maybe the point is that armed people in a democracy is not that big of a deal, but armed people in a dictatorship can be a real problem.
You can scroll down a couple posts to see people being outraged that those who stormed the Capitol had weapons and bombs with them. I wonder how cavalier your attitude remains when the guns are pointed at your face. Then again second amendment fanatics like you are already totally fine with school shootings.
I was just pointing out the fact that "arming US fanatics" was a funny statement because they can just go out and buy guns anyway.
It sure is. HK was my favorite city. Great place. I liked to live in China too, but left when Xi got into power, because it was all too obvious, even 10 years ago, what would happen.
The turn to nationlism, xenophobia, and imperialism under Xi is insane. And the lack of reaction to it in the West (with the exception of the Trump administration) is even more insane.
Although it wasn't too obvious. As you might already know there's movie called Ten Years made in 2015, imagining 2025 HK after CCP erosion on culture, human rights and rule of law. 2017 me thought[0] it was an "exaggeration". Now it's just been upgraded to one of the most prophetic movies.
Support companies that voice support for those oppressed by the CCP (such as ProtonVPN, Notepad++).
Vote for politicians that are not afraid to stand up to CCP (I for instance voted for Trump despite having my political views mostly align with Sanders - solely due to his anti-China stance.. you can of course also argue that his administration has singlehandedly done more to stand up to China than the rest of the world combined in the past couple decades).
Spread awareness of China’s atrocities. If more people realized that CCP are even more evil and dangerous than Nazi Germany then we’d likely see more aggressive policies towards China (such as banning their companies from our markets, keeping the tariffs (Biden said he’d end them) - hopefully with other countries similarly implementing tariffs).
We, the US, simply don't have the literal bodies regardless of our economy.
Open immigration, create tax incentives for raising children, and start minting new US states. We could close the gap with China and India if we prioritized it. I think it's of strategic importance that we do.
This is called minimizing/minimization:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimisation_(psychology) https://counsellingresource.com/features/2009/02/23/minimiza...
This is a perfect illustration of the privilege I was talking about, thank you.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
On one hand, this type of submission is not a new phenomenon and has been submitted to HN multiple times. If you search for Hong Kong arrests on HN, you get dozens of results; for example, [2][3][4][5], etc. On the other hand, I understand why people who feel strongly about this topic want to submit content pertaining to it past an initial submission some months ago.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25654143
[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20846681
Your [2] and [5] are similar to the current post, and are both 3 days old. So the mass arrest of pro-democracy legislators using the National Security Law IS a new phenomenon: only 3 days old!
When political posts like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25661474 are allowed on Hacker News (by virtue of a “new phenomenon”), I guess this post can live on, too.
You are under no obligation to view or comment on posts that are not of interest to you. Should you care very strongly against a submission or comment, you can always flag them.
These mass arrests are just China getting ready to annex Hong Kong as soon as "the wheel" is in the hand of the guy they already know will no nothing.
Germany / Merkel (because she is the one who determines German foreign policy de facto) will not do anything that is against German business interests. As of 2021, Germany is neither left, nor right, neither liberal, nor conservative - on the international scene, it is a purely business-oriented nation.
https://www.politico.eu/article/germanys-drive-for-eu-china-...
And again, the whole world watches, this all brings me to the realization that the slogan "Never Again", is just that, a slogan, politicians and people in general throw around to signal. It really disgusts me.
Here's the author's obituary, it does a nice job summarizing his expertise on the subject https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-richard-baum-...
I will wholeheartedly not recommend anybody to read Kissinger.
The man has completely imaginary idea of what China is, and even more so about its leadership.
I can only lament at the fact that now multiple generations of Western politicians, and diplomats were grown upon his coolaid.
So now that Biden is practically in power, it makes sense that the CCP innitiates the process for the annexation of Hong Kong in the comming month.
My guess is that, before the end of the Biden term, the CCP will have made a move on Taiwan as well. And the West will not do anything about it other than "a strongly worded letter".
If we are sure that dictatorship brings misery and eventual failure, we should be happy about what's going on. They will be worse off and we, better.
The problem in the US is not intent but competence. Biden can be relied upon to not e.g. flip-flop as Trump did on North Korea or petulantly ask what the point of a long-term alliance is, and therefore is much better for those countries in Asia who want to resist China but want their major ally not to behave so erratically. In fact, Trump seemed to think of China as a counterparty with whom a ‘deal’ could be struck for his own political purposes:¹ he had no actual ideological objection to e.g. the camps in Xinjiang; Biden, like most members of the blob, at least pretends (probably even to himself!) to consistently and resolutely oppose that sort of thing (the obvious examples of e.g. support for Saudi Arabia notwithstanding), which means far more consistency. And consistency is good for alliances.
0. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/183...
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/us/politics/trump-uighurs...
https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/a...
China is not subject to the first amendment, you don't like it, make your own country!
Have you considered that Hong Kong is part of China, was taken as a colony, Democracy was introduced and by supporting a different system of government, in a country that isn't yours, is a form of internalized colonialism?
Our country [The United States] is literally falling apart.
Our biggest problem in the west is our tendency to export our problems. China is internally focused, and will solve its internal problems in Hong Kong. Whether you like it or not. It's simply how they operate considering their 5,000 year history.
> Have you considered that Hong Kong is part of China, was taken as a colony, Democracy was introduced and by supporting a different system of government, in a country that isn't yours, is a form of internalized colonialism?
> Our country is literally falling apart.
> Our biggest problem in the west is our tendency to export our problems. China is internally focused, and will solve its internal problems in Hong Kong. Whether you like it or not. It's simply how they operate considering their 5,000 year history.
China itself was built by imperialist and colonial actions. If you truly are against such actions (or if you support treaty agreements) you would support Hong Kong citizens in their attempt to stay some sort of separate entity.
People have this idea that an enormous unified China is somehow natural. The linguistic variation of Chinese is larger than the romance languages today. China being some unified country speaking Mandarin is about as natural as Rome coming back today and enforcing Italian on all its previous empire. I'm not personally arguing that China should break apart, but the "5,000 year history of China" somehow implying that they need to take over everything in the area is just a made-up historical argument to support their current imperialism.
Maybe we can't go back and give Hong Kongers a voice, but we shouldn't pretend like their fate was somehow natural or just. And we shouldn't watch them go down now without a care.
More drivel by someone who likely can't speak or read any dialect of Chinese and has no idea of history. Rome has been dead for millennia. The last emperor of the Qing dynasty died in 1967.
The Romance "languages" are only considered languages because the Latin alphabet has no way of dealing with natural drifts in pronounciation. Most differences between them are superficial at best. The language spoken in Northern Italy is functionally identical to that spoken in Southern France. It is only because every province sized country in Europe insists on creating their own orthography that they seem different. If you don't believe me just look at Catalan or Cantonese Wikipedia. Despite best efforts by the people writing the articles, they still appear almost identical to standard Spanish and Chinese.
Even if we take your claims about language for granted, The city that Cantonese is named after is on the Mainland, and mainlander Cantonese far outnumber those in Hong Kong. By your logic an independent Hong Kong is as natural as Brooklyn being independent from the rest of New York.
EDIT: You don't have a point and the claims you've made are egregiously wrong. Here's a hint, 1967 >>>>> 395.
EDIT In Response because of comment limits:
> My first point is that Hong Kongers of course should have had the right to vote on the handover back to China. They were not offered that and we can't go back.
In the 60s the Hong Kongese held mass riots against the British in support of reunification.[0] Linguistically and culturally the Hong Kongese they are no different from their fellow Cantonese in the mainland. Most of its residents are only a couple generations removed from the Mainland. This tactic of constantly trying to make some arbitrary strategic region of China seem like it's some cultural enclave is as ridiculous as claiming that maybe "San Francisco isn't preordained to be American". If you think there's some drastic cultural difference the burden of proof lies on you.
> You literally didn't contradict anything I said linguistically or culturally (i.e. that China is _not_ some singular linguistical/cultural area), which was my point. So no I _do_ have a point and you yourself agreed with it.
I am making the point that the linguistic differences between Romance language speakers are exaggerated and nonexistent in practice, not agreeing with you that the linguistic differences in China are significant.
> You made another point that the fact that China was unified more recently as an empire than Rome means they are somehow more legitimate.
You acted as if China was some newly formed entity, and used it to imply that it isn't natural for it to be unified. The amount of times China has been unified far outstrips the amount of times when a single city that's not even self sufficient infrastructurally has been independent.
> I’ve never heard someone claim otherwise.
How many Hong Kongese and Cantonese have you met? I doubt the number is more than a dozen. You keep doing this unbacked argument that "maybe X isn't shouldn't be a part of China because maybe they have a different culture" without any evidence they have a different culture, likely because you've never encountered their culture in person. The burden of proof lies on you when X has been a part of China for millennial longer than it's ever been indepedent.
You then act as if the Hong Kongese had no say during the handover when they were clearly much more violently in favor of reunification at the time. The scale of the present protests are not nearly as great as the ones in '67.
> So you agree that there is no natural cultural-linguestic reason for China to be unified in its current form
Jesus Christ how many times do I have to point out that China is linguistically unified and that the Hong Kongese have no significant cultural differences to justify independence. The burden of proof lies on you to disprove me. Countries don't stay unified for centuries without a linguistic and cultural common ground.
> I can't follow this anymore. Post replies like a normal person and I'll respond. If not, okay that's fine too. I think we've mostly explained our respective beliefs
And I can't reply to your comments because of rate limiting on HackerNews. No need to be extremely passive aggressive about it. I don't think you've understood my beliefs and I don't think you intend to. This entire time you've been putting words in ny mouth.
> Anyway I'll stop this discussion here so that you can focus on all the other posts you're apparently making. Maybe the extra bandwidth will allow you to post normally in the other conversations at least.
There's no way you don't have enough self awareness to notice how passive aggressive this sounds. Besides, you've posted 6 comments in the past hour. I posted 7 in the past day.
Pointing out that the Hong Kongese speak the second most common dialect in China, are only a couple generations removed from the mainland, spent most of their history not seeking independece from the rest of China, and obviously felt enough kinship to the rest of China to violently attempt reunification is enough justification that they are reasonably culturally unified with the rest of the country. You, on the other hand have provided no evidence to the contrary, and seem outraged that I even ask you for proof.
edit: Either I was blind earlier or you edited your post.
> Even if we take your claims about language for granted, The city that Cantonese is named after is on the Mainland, and mainlander Cantonese far outnumber those in Hong Kong. By your logic an independent Hong Kong is as natural as Brooklyn being independent from the rest of New York.
My first point is that Hong Kongers of course should have had the right to vote on the handover back to China. They were not offered that and we can't go back.
My second point is that we shouldn't just assume Chinese are some sort of hivemind of people of a single culture. Native Hong Kongers are not somehow culturally pre-ordained to be part of China. Even ignoring that the PRC is breaking its treaty agreement, their voices should not be ignored due to some idea of inevitable PRC rule.
You literally didn't contradict anything I said linguistically or culturally (i.e. that China is _not_ some singular linguistical/cultural area), which was my point. So no I _do_ have a point and you yourself agreed with it.
You made another point that the fact that China was unified more recently as an empire than Rome means they are somehow more legitimate. If that's your point, okay I understand your thinking. I don't agree with it (by that reasoning the British have a claim on a lot of the world's territory), but okay then that is your thinking.
> In the 60s the Hong Kongese held mass riots against the British in support of reunification.[0] Linguistically and culturally the Hong Kongese they are no different from their fellow Cantonese in the mainland. Most of its residents are only a couple generations removed from the Mainland. This tactic of constantly trying to make some arbitrary strategic region of China seem like it's some cultural enclave is as ridiculous as claiming that maybe "San Francisco isn't preordained to be American". If you think there's some drastic cultural difference the burden of proof lies on you.
“Linguistically and culturally the Hong Kongese they are no different from their fellow Cantonese in the mainland.”
Linguistically they are maybe no different from mainland Cantonese, but culturally they certainly are. I’ve never heard someone claim otherwise. They were a British colony for generations after all. That obviously left an imprint.
Secondly I’m not sure why you’re bringing Canton in. To say that’s Hong Kong should be part of China because of the Cantonese connection could simply be met with the response that maybe Canton just shouldn’t be a part of China.
Really it’s Hong Kongers that should have decided their fate. Not allowing them to vote was an injustice.
Btw I find it ironic that you bring up Hong Kong protests in support of unification. Well in the last couple years there have been huge Hong Kong protests against further integration. Can I take this to mean you support them in their protests there as well?
> I am making the point that the linguistic differences between Romance language speakers are exaggerated and nonexistent in practice, not agreeing with you that the linguistic differences in China are significant.
>> You made another point that the fact that China was unified more recently as an empire than Rome means they are somehow more legitimate.
> You acted as if China was some newly formed entity, and used it to imply that it isn't natural for it to be unified. The amount of times China has been unified far outstrips the amount of times when a single city that's not even self sufficient infrastructurally has been independent.
So you agree that there is no natural cultural-linguestic reason for China to be unified in its current form? You argue that the reason to support unification is because of China's past successes in militaristic imperialism support current unification? I mean if that's your point, then I hope more people read this so they understand the facts on the ground. You're basically saying that Hong Kong should be part of China because it can take it. Okay that's at least a consistent argument. I find it extremely immoral, but well I guess the only thing other countries can do is try to stand against China in that case.
So basically you're just stating opinions as facts and then claiming it's my job to disprove these "facts". Okay fine like I said in my last post we've made our positions clear and I don't see any point in going back and forth. Believe what you wish.
> And I can't reply to your comments because of rate limiting on HackerNews. No need to be extremely passive aggressive about it.
There's nothing "extremely passive aggressive" about pointing out that your posting style is extremely hard to follow. Maybe you should consider posting less frequently so that you're not rate-limited? Anyway I'll stop this discussion here so that you can focus on all the other posts you're apparently making. Maybe the extra bandwidth will allow you to post normally in the other conversations at least.
Well it’s not 2040, they broke the treaty, that fully is a justifiable offence.
HKers say they want democracy and fair elections. CCP and most Chinese think that's bullshit. MAGAs say they want democracy and fair elections. Most of the US Gov as well as most US citizens think that's bullshit.
CCP wants to ban "disharmonious activity" from social media. HKers think that's a front for suppression of dissent. US Gov wants to ban "hate speech" from social media. MAGA think that's just a front for suppression of dissent.
CCP runs pseudo-secret reeducation camps in Xianjian. US runs pseudo-secret detention camps at Guantanamo Bay.
Etc. etc. etc.
We're not counting the President of the United States as part of the US Government?
Please watch this Pompeo speech if you want to know how the Trump admin feels towards China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7azj-t0gtPM
That requires not considering the US President to be part of the US Government for it to be true.
I'd link you to the video of him saying this, but Twitter deleted it so I can't.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/politics/democrats-tru...
> Behind closed doors, he made clear that he would not resign and expressed regret about releasing a video on Thursday committing to a peaceful transition of power and condemning the violence at the Capitol that he had egged on a day before.
You need to read more about China. What you believe is simply not true. China is internally focused, The west is externally focused.
Have you actually been to HK or Beijing? I think you will find the way that the way HK protestors are viewed is not very similar to how BLM or the MAGA capital protest is viewed.