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Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
181–190 of 323 posts
Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
#182Before pontificating too much about the doom of Hong Kong, you should observe that compared to the US, HK has: - Far lower crime and incarceration - Better education (measured by PISA scores) - Incomparably better infrastructure (compare beautiful, clean HK subways with laughably pathetic US ones) - Better health outcomes than the US, 84 year life expectancy vs 79 for the US - Preserves an incredibly large percentage…
Now compare GDP/km^2:
USA: 1,773,047 USD/km^2 HONG KONG: 63,633,823 USD/km^2.
Huh. Hong kong has almost 36x the GDP density... With comparable GDP per capita. Is that significant?
Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Main points, like talking about all 1.3B people as if they are of the one mind? 1.3B brainwashed chinese, unlike the 300M free-thinking americans, none of whom buy into any sort of blind nationalism, amirite? Also, how does 'extreme nationalism' manifest in the expat community? Is it just talking passionately about your homeland? Or are these people actually taking physical action? I mean, 'extreme nationalism' is su…
> 1.3B brainwashed chinese, unlike the 300M free-thinking americans, none of whom buy into any sort of blind nationalism, amirite? Textbook whataboutism. The US isn't jailing people who talk about government missteps. China does jail people who talk about what happened in 1987. > Also, how does 'extreme nationalism' manifest in the expat community? Is it just talking passionately about your homeland? Or are these peo…
>The most patriotic thing is to believe your country's form of government is better than others, or at least as good as others.
No, that'd potentially be a delusion of patriotism. Or nationalism. Patriotic would be to make your countries government better than others. Not merely believing it is.
Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mentioned this in the last thread about Hong Kong, but they're not as dumb as you think. Taiwan (both the Blue and Green coalitions) has always distrusted "one country, two systems", even way back in the 90s before Hong Kong's autonomy started getting salami-sliced away. China knows that, and knows they're not really losing anything by abandoning that approach. That's not their plan anyway. The parallel tracks for…
Why do they just -need- to have Taiwan back that they would kill for it? Just let it be.
The CCP can't formally acknowledge Taiwan's independence from the mainland because that would set a dangerous precedent for the conquered peoples living in Tibet and Xinjiang. Similarly, the party can't formally recognize and respect Taiwan's right to self-governance short of formal independence because the CCP believes (and is probably correct in believing) that any centers of power within China that are not explicitly subordinate to the party are an existential threat.
The party really has only two options - the status quo, or the subjugation of the island.
Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
#185Before pontificating too much about the doom of Hong Kong, you should observe that compared to the US, HK has: - Far lower crime and incarceration - Better education (measured by PISA scores) - Incomparably better infrastructure (compare beautiful, clean HK subways with laughably pathetic US ones) - Better health outcomes than the US, 84 year life expectancy vs 79 for the US - Preserves an incredibly large percentage…
Hong Kong is a port city conveniently located (politically and physically) between China and the rest of the world. To compare a uniquely positioned city like that to the entire US population (which, for example, includes Detroit) is not particularly meaningful.
Replace the US with San Francisco or NYC and the list still applies.
Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
#186If I were China I would point out the HK's entire existence is because Britain needed a staging area from which to wage war upon China so that Britain would have a market to sell all the opium it was producing in the Raj, which set the conditions for the Taiping Rebellion, which killed over 20 million people.
Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1.3B brainwashed chinese, unlike the 300M free-thinking americans, none of whom buy into any sort of blind nationalism, amirite? Textbook whataboutism. The US isn't jailing people who talk about government missteps. China does jail people who talk about what happened in 1987. > Also, how does 'extreme nationalism' manifest in the expat community? Is it just talking passionately about your homeland? Or are these peo…
>The most patriotic thing is to believe your country's form of government is better than others, or at least as good as others. No, that'd potentially be a delusion of patriotism. Or nationalism. Patriotic would be to make your countries government better than others. Not merely believing it is.
> No, that'd potentially be a delusion of patriotism. Or nationalism. Patriotic would be to make your countries government better than others. Not merely believing it is.
I agree. The original argument of this thread was that without free press, doing things like making your country's government better is difficult, if not impossible.
Therefore, it seems contradictory to be patriotic in a system that does not permit its citizens to improve upon that system.
Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
#188I'd like to offer my views on the decline of HK -
1. HK was a middleman, it used to connect the mainland China to the world. That worked for HK very well after 1949, but clearly the people living in the mainland do not want to see HK to keep having its cut for the flow of capitals/goods for a very reasonable reason - there are more and more professionals/businesses in mainland China that are eager/qualified/happy to take over what HK was offering.
2. HK failed to develop its industrial base. Let's compare it to Singapore, you see different high tech companies in that city nation, but what HK has developed in the last few decades? You can also compare it to the neighbouring Shenzhen, if Shenzhen can offer companies like Tencent/DJI, why HK can not do the same in a so called free environment? FTA is long available to HK, there are numerous HK based companies doing business in mainland and making good profits, just in the wrong sector - they are all in real estate. Rather than blindly blame Beijing, there are more meaningful reasons to look at.
3. HK's retail sector is no longer comparable to what you can expect from tier-1 Chinese cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen). Mobile payment, online shopping, delivery, large and easy to use e-commerce sites, you name it. Sure you can easily argue that HK has a few department stores with pretty good services, but is that enough to support the future of a city with millions of residencies? The consequence is simple - Chinese from the mainland stopped going to HK for shopping, they start to feel its out of date payment systems, 1990s style department stores are getting less and less attractive.
4. HK's Infrastructure is no longer considered as good. I first visited HK 13 years ago when HK's metro was far better than anything you could possibly expect in Shanghai. Today there is high speed rail that can get me anywhere within 200km radius of Shanghai, Shanghai metro's scale is 2-3x times larger. How fast you can get yourself from HK's central to Guangzhou? I can get myself to a nice office building or hotel in Hangzhou from my home in Shanghai door to door in 90 minutes.
5. HK is losing its financial capital status fast. Chinese Yuan will be internationalised eventually, that is probably THE biggest financial event in the next 30 years, but how many people would possibly believe that having HK dollar in HK is a smart move? Let's remember that HKD is never allowed to freely float, its exchange rate is fixed to USD.
All this come to a real question here: is HK declining or just returning to where it suppose to be?
Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
#189of course it's in trouble. There's 1.3 billion brain-washed citizens, many of whom are working here in the bay, who believe: 1) taiwan is a part of china 2) tiannamen square didn't happen 3) the CCP is ok how can they study here for grad school, want to stay for h1-b and get the green card, have extreme nationalism for their officially communist government, yet happily participate in the fruits of capitalism and west…
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I prefer to think of this comment as more of a critique on the Chinese government than the people.
However, with the way it is worded, you're right it seems to be a direct attack on people.
It is unfortunate that people of a nation get lumped together when discussing bad government policies.
Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The issue is deeply rooted in local power-wielding elites conspiring or opposing the ruling government. It has nothing to do democracy. Seems like democracy would make this problem worse, since it redistributes power to local informal power elites.
Disagree. In a functioning democracy, you have less entrenchment of power elites.
While democracy alone makes no such promise. If majority of people votes for entrenchment of power elites, that's what you get from democracy