Taiwan should take note and always remember what happened to Hong Kong because everyone knows they are next on the list.
No. Democracy good, autocracy bad. America is speed-running toward the latter at this point.
In a world where technology has made gentle imperialism untenable, your system has chosen honest imperialism. Wishing you didn't have to deal with this contradiction won't work. You will have to choose between getting rid of the "autocracy" and keeping the empire.
It always had. The problem for them is that Trump is a bad ally. Their strategy is/was provide economic benefits to USA in return for a looming presence.
the implication being, don't try it china, its not possible, you'll lose too many people.
However thats not so much of a threat, partly because china has better anti-aircraft carrier weapons and partly because the US military has forgotten (well more accurately has fired the people who know) how to do logistics.
Hongkong was built by the British and a symbol of foreign aggression and imperialism for all Chinese (including in Taiwan, actually at least if you are more on the KMT side). It was never "free" under the British, and in fact the LegCo was only created when the British knew that they would hand HK over to China.
Why should "Hong Kong of old" remain? Why should Chinese territory not under full Chinese control?
There has been a lot of noise about "decolonising the curriculum" in recent years, which some have criticised as "woke", but it is striking that the narrative on HK is still fully colonial-centric with little opposing voices.
In the West we are also oblivious to Chinese politics at historic scale. I.e., the conflict between communists and nationalists, and now also democrats. When there are conflicts about freedoms in HK it does not necessarily means against China, as the people are Chinese and in China, but against the communists. Likewise in Taiwan, although there is also an "independentist" "faction" there.
No, it wasn't.
It was just coincidental that the UK still held a 99 year lease (from 1898) when the communists took over mainland China. How they got the lease in the first place is another matter.
Why should the UK or you or I tell the Chinese how to do things? Who made us the ultimate arbiters of justice?
Fundamentally, I just don't see this frame as being a path to long term success for HK. If it is them v. the CCP: the CCP is alert to the political risk of HK, outnumbers them, controls the local military, has better propaganda and has more of a claim to success given that the British Empire has failed, the US Not-An-Empire seems to be struggling and morally bankrupt. At least the CCP has been delivering visible improvements in prosperity over the last few decades.
It is a tragedy to lose the jewel of Asia that was old school Hong Kong. But they really need a frame that acknowledges a bit of the present political realities - there'll need to be cooperation with major factions in mainland China. Probably within the CCP. I assume there is a liberalising faction of some sort.
If you have read news you should have seen the HK courts now jail people left right and center for against CCP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Poon_Hiu-wing
A guy commited homicide and walks free after 19 months in jail.
Who are we? is it the people living in HK? then it make sense. Otherwise why would anyone else (someone else living on the other side of the world) care? People have their own countries to fix let alone worry about other peoples problems.
First, the vast majority of the locals hated the protests and didn't support them. This isn't reported by the western media. The media reported it as all HK people were being wronged.
Second, most of the protests were done by young people who lost hope in Hong Kong's ultra expensive housing and ultra stressful life. They live in tiny studio sized apartments with the entire family. Buying a home was out of reach for most young HK people unless they have financial help from parents. This was a key trigger in why the youth were protesting.[0][1][2] Again, this was never reported or mentioned by western media.
Third, Joshua Wong went to foreign governments and invited them to help him against China. Hong Kong belongs to China if you forgot. This is considered treason in just about any country. Imagine if BLM protestors physically went to China's CIA equivalent to ask them for help.
[0]https://johnmenadue.com/post/2021/04/hong-kongs-housing-cris...
[1]https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/8/11/a-lack-of-afford...
[2]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.70001
If that's not a healthy attitude to take towards a territorial possession, I don't know what is.
I wish the whole thing had gone better for the folks on the receiving end. I was at university with a crowd who had grown up there seeing themselves as british, suddenly thrust into a strange nationality they didn't match their internal identity, and with no say in the matter.
https://china-underground.com/2019/10/28/hong-kong-protests-...
If you ask a foreign power to intervene in your protest movement, then fail, you should probably consider fleeing if you don't want to go to prison. Just calling balls and strikes here.
Joshua Wong went to the streets for the murderer, not against him, by the way.
It does seem most widespread revolutions only happen when the discomfort grows big enough (as the saying (1) goes, "civilisation is n missed meals away from anarchy" (n = a number below 10, I thought 3, but it's 9)).
Same thing with Russians and the war: 2). Heck, Americans are anguishing but most are too comfortable/don't want to go through the discomfort to actually do anything against the rising fascism in their country.
1) https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/05/02/nine-meals/
2) https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2022/06/war-of-the-worl...
31337Logic•58m ago