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Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

nytimes.com

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Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#201

Post by MachinShinn- »

holydude wrote: post #17

Ofc China does not want HK to be free. China found out how to get "rich" without losing control. They want exactly the opposite of what makes HK HK. It's just sad that many strong economies feel like they need / want the growth based on chinese consumption and trade and are feeding this undemocratic behemoth. What is scary is that China is actively promoting expansion by resettling ethnic han chinese.

Huh? People in HK are already ethnic han chinese... If you're talking about Tibet/East Turkestan, sure.

Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#202

Post by imron »

dis-sys wrote: post #199
bilbo0s wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan is a "democracy", just a deeply corrupt one.

Calling Taiwan a democracy is like labelling the Culture Revolution a democratic movement. When elderly Chinese who actually experienced the terrible Culture Revolution go to visit Taiwan, many of them had the feeling that Taiwan make them feel young again as they saw the Culture Revolution again in Taiwan. Endless street politics for every single change to the society, hugely divided society, corruption from both si…

Sounds like you've been getting all your Taiwan news from 新闻联播.

Taiwan is nothing like what you said, and to compare it to Cultural Revolution China is just ridiculous.

Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#203

Post by dasil003 »

pm90 wrote: post #141
hencq wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. It touches on something I've been thinking about lately. The book Why Nations Fail [1][2] makes an argument very similar to yours that there are two factors that determine (economic) success of a nation: 1) inclusive economic systems and 2) inclusive political systems. They argue that these can form a virtuous cycle where they enhance themselves. However, if nations don't have inclusive systems, the…

Yes this is exactly correct. Which is why rising income inequality is hugely bad news for the US. But short of going back to higher taxation, I don't see the situation improving for the US. The rich will Marshall all their significant resources to fight tax increases. Just see the amount of money and effort Koch brothers have put into corrupting the system! It is deeply disturbing. Also, titans of economy should not…

In the US titans of the economy are given the reins of the country even being totally unqualified. In fact, the anti-intellectual streak is so strong, that incomprehensible slogan babble has proven to be a very successful strategy in convincing the average blue collar worker that the most elite of the elite silver-spoon nepotists will somehow represent their interests.

Frankly with the level which facts and reason have been shown to be utterly useless in the political arena, there's no way we'll avoid this fate unless the 1% themselves come to the conclusion that their lobbying and consolidation of power will ultimately destroy the country. However I'm not holding my breath for this to happen since game theory and Upton Sinclair inform us that's not how human interest generally works.

Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#204

Post by spacehunt »

contingencies wrote: post #135

I just crossed back to Shenzhen from Hong Kong yesterday. A few random observations... In HK, a lot of the taxi drivers are old guys who can barely read, don't speak English or mandarin, and are a real hassle to deal with unless you are a Cantonese speaker. A lot of the taxis have weird fare manipulation lookup tables instead of correct metering. Although the mass-transit oriented stored value card, Octopus, was esta…

> There are no electric taxis

We did have them, from BYD no less. Unfortunately they kept blowing up. The owners did the only sensible thing, which was to dump them.

Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#205

Post by pcr0 »

dis-sys wrote: post #188

I'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…

Funny bringing up DJI as an example of a Shenzhen company. They were actually conceived in a Hong Kong university but moved over the border due to cheaper rents and closer proximity to factories.

Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#206

Post by seanmcdirmid »

caretoomuch wrote: post #41

As someone lived in Hong Kong for quite a while (during the tail of its heydays) but now in the US, Hong Kong is indeed in big trouble. But not for the reasons mentioned/implied in this article. It's very easy to buy into narratives such as authoritarianism vs democracy, communism vs capitalism, China vs Britain/West, tight control vs freedom as the reasons for Hong Kong's decline, but that's just short-circuited thi…

And how are Hong Kong's tycoons any different from the mainland's princelings? The CCP is dealing with what it knows in Hong Kong, and the dysfunctions of both are not that different at all.

Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#207

Post by georgeecollins »

Gravityloss wrote: post #118
Analemma_ wrote: post #89

Earlier 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…

But maybe the better question is, why? The people of Taiwan for the most part don't want to be a part of China, and Taiwan doesn't pose a military threat to China.

Taiwan is very important to China strategically. It's an unsinkable aircraft carrier off of their coast. Think how sensitive the US has been about Cuba.

Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#208

Post by seanmcdirmid »

cilea wrote: post #92
caretoomuch wrote: post #41

As someone lived in Hong Kong for quite a while (during the tail of its heydays) but now in the US, Hong Kong is indeed in big trouble. But not for the reasons mentioned/implied in this article. It's very easy to buy into narratives such as authoritarianism vs democracy, communism vs capitalism, China vs Britain/West, tight control vs freedom as the reasons for Hong Kong's decline, but that's just short-circuited thi…

The same is happening to Taiwan (stuttered growth; in-fighting, etc.). The issue is deeply rooted in local power-wielding elites conspiring or opposing the ruling government. It has nothing to do democracy. The riches have already allocated some of their wealth elsewhere (see Canada and Australia), so they don't really care. It's always easy to blame it on Beijing, isn't it?

The elites of Taiwan are mostly mainlanders (well, 1949 descended transplants who suppressed the native Taiwanese elites) who prefer closer ties with the mainland. The violent swings in Taiwan's politics between the KMT and DPP are all relate to that.

Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#209

Post by inimino »

robotresearcher wrote: post #185
inimino wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now take Manhattan Island, politically and physically isolate it, restrict freedom of movement between it and the rest of the country, and shut the rest of the country off from international trade for a few decades and you'll begin to approach an apples-to-apples comparison with HK.

Re: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble

#210

Post by seanmcdirmid »

d_burfoot wrote: post #161

Before 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 city state, so it isn't very comparable to another country. HK and Singapore models don't really scale out of their limited scope.
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