Are you arguing that it's legitimate to put a 78 years old from a former democratic city forcefully reintegrated to another state in jail for 20 years because he is saying that the will of the people should be heard?
All previous governors were simply appointed by the UK.
You think he wasn't condemned because he expressed pro-democracy view and this is not a speech issue?
I would like to read it rather than vague call for nuance.
The charge of colluding with foreign governments is blowing his actions way out of proportion so as to artificially inflate the severity of his "crime" for political reasons. We can argue that?
We could also argue that the reason the CPC is doing this is to suppress any Hong Kong self-determinist agitation?
Is anything I've said disagreeable on the premise of them being strawmen?
I don't think anything you said is a strawman though. You can of course argue whether that's right or wrong or how it fits into the greater whole. That's showing nuance. You can come to it with your own opinions and feelings but it's another thing to approach with a predetermined idea of what happened that is nothing like what happened.
I mean, originally you only complained about the hyperbole and lack of nuances, there wasn't even anything that implied you agreed with the conviction, let alone the rationale.
Like the charges themselves seem hyperbolic to me.
He isn’t demanding any will of the people. Unlike the EU, US, etc, Chinese people are actually happy with their democratic China. In no way in Europe or US can a city claim they want “democratic” independence and go completely against the rest of the country on the side of recent protests and meddling by outside state depts. They would correctly be viewed as traitors and agitators.
Sure, it was a lease from the Qing dynasty which doesn't exist any more, but still.
> Hilarious that Europe and the west’s govts are not liked by their people. China’s is
Tell me you're a CCP troll without telling me you're a CCP troll.
China is basically the epitome of non-democratic - the CCP has even gone so far as to point to the messiness traditionally involved in democracy as a justification for why it doesn't work.
Get off your high horse re westerners and debate the topic on its merits. Facts are readily available to this end: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China
So in a country of 1.4 billion people, literally it might not be the case, but it 100% effectively is so.
Obviously the goal is the betterment of the country and society is shared among all the elected officials. That's why they get elected. I think a good portion of the west likes to pretend that they have parties and elected officials who want to overthrow the government in their government. But that's just not true. The overwhelming majority of western countries have actively suppressed or fought back anyone who wants to dismantle or reform the country. So are all democratic elections predetermined as well?
I am aware of this, and that the USSR had elections which allowed the people to express themselves to some extent, though never in any major way.
> It still has all the nuances of any other political party
This simply cannot be true on a very fundamental level, which is the lack of competition that other parties bring. Multi-party systems have both inter and intra party dynamics; by definition single-party systems can only have the latter. Saying "it's pretty much identical" shows a fundamental misunderstanding on your part.
> Plenty of people are cheering on Japan who just elected that.
I fail to see how this is relevant.
> Obviously the goal is the betterment of the country and society is shared among all the elected officials
Well, no, not at all. History is replete with examples of officials of all political, cultural and ethnic persuasions being far more interested with enriching themselves than the betterment of society. This statement comes across as rather naive.
> who want to overthrow the government in their government.
If you're talking about a ruling party losing an election to another party, we don't call that a government overthrow, we call that a transition of power. It is a feature of the system, and there is a lot of concern that it is done fairly and peacefully.
> The overwhelming majority of western countries have actively suppressed or fought back anyone who wants to dismantle or reform the country
This just reads like outright propaganda, I'm not going to bother addressing it on the merits.
> So are all democratic elections predetermined as well?
This is predicated on your previous propagandized statement having any real substantive factual bearing, which I don't believe it does, so my answer is no, they aren't. In fact, there are many, many examples of surprise results (see JFK, Obama, Trump, Brexit, Ukraine, etc.). So if there is some kind of global suppression operation at play, it doesn't have a very good track record of success.
The "lack of competition because other parties don't exist" is simply a naive view. Single party system DO have those same dynamics. The difference is purely aesthetic. If you think they don't then you're the one repeating propaganda.
It's relevant because it is an effective one party system when one party gains full control of the government. But because another party exists it's okay then?
Saying bad people existed in history doesn't mean everyone today is bad too. It's a bit reductionist. The point I was making is that one party systems eliminate the dynamics of "the other". Multiparty systems inevitably lead to tribalist behavior of "we're the good ones and the other groups are the bad ones". It's not productive and prevents progress for political theater.
No, I wasn't talking about one party winning over another. I'm talking about actual revolutions against the current government of any country.
I think you're continuing the misunderstanding. I am talking about actual revolutionary action. Regardless of political flavor revolutionary actors are suppressed by the state. The US didn't welcome the communist party and the UK didn't invite ISIS to form their own party.
Your last paragraph just continues this misunderstanding further. My point still stands that democracy can absolutely exist under a single party system and it's purely a cosmetic difference from a multiparty one. That doesn't mean it is ALWAYS the case or that one party systems are the best and flawless. Way too much anti-soviet era propaganda still shapes our views on politics and what is and isn't good. If we fail to honestly engage with our own and other political systems then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the past.
Also electoralism isn’t democracy. The west is not the entire world. What the west says does not make things so.
Democracy is a power of citizens to decide on the governing of a country they live in. This doesn't happen anywhere nowadays, except in Switzerland, where "demos"=people can actually execute their will of majority "kratos" to vote on the governing of their country. With some limitations of course, but it is a real democracy.
Other western countries have an elective oligarchy, and people can't decide on what those oligarchs will vote on, the system is indirect.
And China is pure and simple autocracy. A despotia governed a by a single man plus his cronies. There is no election process in China, so demos is completely separated from governing, there is not even indirect link.