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China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

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Re: China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

#82
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unavoidable actually. Basically US just begins to treat China as an eligible opponent. There were never "friendly" relationships between two superpowers in history if I remember correctly.

There were, up to a point. France and the UK carved up several continents without much tension, after 1850 or so. Provided that China becomes less authoritarian and the US doesn't do something stupid, it's not impossible for both to coexist, while still competing.

It’s also not that impossible to imagine both being peer stakeholders in a renewed liberal trade order, ala US + EU.

Re: China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

#83
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unavoidable actually. Basically US just begins to treat China as an eligible opponent. There were never "friendly" relationships between two superpowers in history if I remember correctly.

There were, up to a point. France and the UK carved up several continents without much tension, after 1850 or so. Provided that China becomes less authoritarian and the US doesn't do something stupid, it's not impossible for both to coexist, while still competing.

It took a thousand years for Franco-British relations to settle to peaceful tolerance, then the Entente Cordiale. I can't, for example, imagine calls for a China-US union like Franco-British Union was seriously suggested twice in the 20th century.

The second time might have been interesting for world history, as the French PM proposed it before France decided to join the Treaty of Rome nations to bootstrap the EU.

Re: China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

#84
post #82
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were, up to a point. France and the UK carved up several continents without much tension, after 1850 or so. Provided that China becomes less authoritarian and the US doesn't do something stupid, it's not impossible for both to coexist, while still competing.

It’s also not that impossible to imagine both being peer stakeholders in a renewed liberal trade order, ala US + EU.

And yet the US/EU relationship is at an all time low.

Re: China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

#85
post #3

I wonder if the mainland will ever force either of the 2 ex-colonies to convert into using the "right hand road" orientation? That would be an interesting experiment.

Sweden did exactly that in 1967.

Samoa did the opposite in 2009. The main reason was to have easier access to the (relatively) nearby Australian vehicle market.

Re: China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relationship looks tense, but Chinese leadership seems to feel that they have everything under control; like this particular kerfuffle is an unavoidable step on their march toward becoming a superpower. I would be comfortable if I were seeing the world that way, too.

Indeed, Beijing's leadership tends to take a very long term view of growth plans. This lines up with my mental model of how they operate.

This is a bit more of a meme than truth

Re: China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The PRD megalopolis is an urban area of gargantuan proportions with few like it in existance. >It's home to 65 million people, a population similar to that of the United Kingdom. >It covers an area around 55,000 km^2, about the size of the country of Croatia. >The GDP of the PRD megalopolis clocks in at over $1.2 trillion, about the same as Mexico. Well damn, I live in Croatia, can't even make a mental image of that…

To be fair, NY state is large and sparsely populated. The NY Metro area is much smaller and more dense but includes parts of several states. The NY Metropolitan Statistical Area is 20.3 million residents in 17,405 km2, according to Wikipedia.

So the PRD is basically three NY metro areas.

Re: China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

#88
post #28
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems China proper has over-extended itself with the BRI and is going to use Hong Kong resources now... The rest of the objectives just seem contrived.

What makes the BRI an over-extension? How does it compare to the economic and military extension of the other super-power?

Not only do you have BRI but massive internment camps, massively expensive surveillance systems, massive number of police officers, expensive great firewall. Look China is at war. It's just at war internally and spending a lot of money on it. This internal war is likely more expensive then USA's many foriegn misadventures. Thus China needs to go to Hong Kong to use their money and connections. China has no choice.

Re: China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

#89

Interestingly the plan mandates the use of IPv6 pretty much everywhere, as well as FTTH to all homes in all cities across the PRD. It doesn't give the reason why these specific technologies are mentioned in what's meant to be a strategic plan though.

Too bad everyday citizens and businesses can't access the services they want with it, most of the bandwidth will probably be used for surveillance and control.

They actually can. IPv6 support was recently enabled by many ISPs, online services and mobile applications.

Re: China Unveils Plan to Tie Hong Kong, Macau Closer to Mainland

#90

Firstly, this plan has been unveiled for a while now. Secondly, this plan is as much hong kong/macau trying to "tie" itself closer to the mainland as vice versa. But bloomberg being bloomberg, we get a dose of stale news mixed with propaganda. Thirdly, rather than hong kong and macau being tied closer to the mainland, it's really the pearl river delta cities just integrating together as you'd normally expect cities i…

There's also Yangtze River Delta (YRD) emerging megalopolice, now planning to connect subway systems of Shanghai and Suzhou. In fact it is more populous and economically successful than PRD.
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