61–70 of 94 posts
I'm impressed, this is much more responsive than how Macron has handled the gilets jaunes.
One can't really compare a democratically elected president bound by rule of law and various balances to a totalitarian puppet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s worth taking a moment to reflect that the PM in the UK is also not elected by popular suffrage. The next PM will (literally) be elected by 100,000 members of the Conservative party, not by general election. It’ll be the second time in recent memory this has happened, after Gordon Brown.
But people elect the parliament and the parliament electthe PM, so it's OK, there's a chain of accountability to the populace. In HK, the parliament has only 70 seats of the 1200-member committee, and only 35 of those are geographical constituents representing the people, the rest are "functional" constituencies mostly representing businesses). Laws have to be passed by a majority of the LegCo however, and the Chief…
Her discourse is really manipulative, in it you can find your typical attempt to divide people by focusing on the downside of demonstrations (injuries, crime, etc.), on the lie that it is a divisible bill, and on fake low numbers (10,000? more like millions). This is very concerning. It feels like Hong Kong is doomed to lose more and more of its independence, and freedom of speech, and freedom of press, as the years…
Oh, well, as a "mainlander", I tell you: Hong Kong citizens WILL lose all their rights, and it will come sooner than you think. If you watched this protest and all their other protests, it is very easy to see one thing: Their action is isolated， they don't have the power to unite people other than themselves. Nobody besides themselves will stand for them. Nobody in mainland support them, nobody in mainland understand…
> Why? Because they are protest only for their own rights, on their own little land that nobody cares anymore. It's not about greater good, not "making the entire China democratic". Just "We're Hongkongers, we are special, so we must have those rights", while don't give a damn when the rest of China is been stripped clean.
Every year on 4 June, Hong Kong people hold a vigil in Victoria Park for the Tiananmen square crackdown [1][2], and one main theme of the vigil is to continue the spirit of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests: to make the entire China democratic (one of the slogans is 建設民主中國, literally to make China democratic). In these years, this vigil in Hong Kong is the largest gathering to demand making the entire China democratic in the whole world.
Given that Hong Kong people are doing that every year on 4 June, I think it is reasonable that in this case--anti extraditions law protests on 9 June and 16 June this year--Hong Kong people are doing something else. But this does not mean that Hong Kong people do not fight for democracy in China or for greater good--to say the least, this anti extraditions law protest also benefits foreigners who stay in Hong Kong, or merely in transit.
Also, there are 6000 PLA troops stationed in Hong Kong, and there were cases of Hong Kong people getting abducted into China for publishing books that some members of CCP do not like [3]. There are not much more that Hong Kong people can do for themselves and for mainlanders... if you have better suggestions, please let us know.
I think they are doing their best.
> Nobody cares about your right if you don't defend the right of the others.
Then what have mainlanders done for Hong Kong?
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=64+hong+kong+vi...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorials_for_the_1989_Tiananm...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...
Her discourse is really manipulative, in it you can find your typical attempt to divide people by focusing on the downside of demonstrations (injuries, crime, etc.), on the lie that it is a divisible bill, and on fake low numbers (10,000? more like millions). This is very concerning. It feels like Hong Kong is doomed to lose more and more of its independence, and freedom of speech, and freedom of press, as the years…
Oh, well, as a "mainlander", I tell you: Hong Kong citizens WILL lose all their rights, and it will come sooner than you think. If you watched this protest and all their other protests, it is very easy to see one thing: Their action is isolated， they don't have the power to unite people other than themselves. Nobody besides themselves will stand for them. Nobody in mainland support them, nobody in mainland understand…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> block the UK from making Hong Kong democratic for over 60 years Citation needed. Also, the UK is extremely famous for intentionally or unintentionally leaving a mess when it leaves, any sane government will not just let the British do whatever they want. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/opinion/india-pakistan-pa... > nearly impossible to learn in Chinese media It is also nearly impossible to learn anything about…
>Citation needed. Here ya go (he has further citations at the bottom if you're really interested): https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/... Regardless of whose fault it is, it doesn't have any bearing on whether or not the people of HK should have self-determination. >It is also nearly impossible to learn anything about the opium wars in Western media, or how the governors of HK are all appoint…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> block the UK from making Hong Kong democratic for over 60 years Citation needed. Also, the UK is extremely famous for intentionally or unintentionally leaving a mess when it leaves, any sane government will not just let the British do whatever they want. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/opinion/india-pakistan-pa... > nearly impossible to learn in Chinese media It is also nearly impossible to learn anything about…
>Citation needed. Here ya go (he has further citations at the bottom if you're really interested): https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/... Regardless of whose fault it is, it doesn't have any bearing on whether or not the people of HK should have self-determination. >It is also nearly impossible to learn anything about the opium wars in Western media, or how the governors of HK are all appoint…
It appears Britain only tried to give them democracy when they knew the writing was on the wall. That seems disingenuous to suggest it was China that blocked them.
While technically true, if Britain truly wanted to help the Hong King people, they would have offered citizenship and let them immigrate, like Portugal did for Macau.
Instead, the British tried to stop Portugal from doing so, because they didn’t want to offer the people of Hong Kong citizenship.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
These types of protests are largely encouraged by the West to deepen division within it's enemies, same as with sunni/shiites in the middle east, or gop/democrats by the Russians. You can tell because the West didn't give a single shit when hk wasn't democratically ruled by the Brits, but now democracy there is headline propaganda.
The PRC didn't exactly cooperate when the UK wanted to introduce democratic measures in HK well before the handover. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_development_in_Hong...
But the UK did try to convince Portugal not to offer the people of Macau citizenship, because they didn’t want to do the same for the people of Hong Kong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, you only read the thread title of the first link I gave you. Obviously you aren't interested in learning anything. If you change your mind, read a little further. You claimed that it's impossible to read about the Opium Wars in Western media, I say I learned about it in high school history and give you one of thousands upon thousands of links about it that will come up when you search. I never claimed the West w…
OK I admit that I didn't read the whole thing. So I go back and read every single line of that link. OK, the Provisional Legislative Council was questionable in your view, I understand. But how exactly does this proves that the Chinese government blocked the democracy for 60 years? How about the existence of LegCo? Also I still don't think we agree on what the word "return" means. Yes there are thousands of links tha…
But, how often does the news need to talk about the Opium Wars? I would say there are plenty of long-form articles talking about it, but does every article about Hong Kong need to give century-old context?
It's brought up in Chinese media far more often because it's useful for the CCP to remind people. It helps keep them in power and feeds their narrative that China must never be seen as weak again. And while I personally don't think excessive nationalistic propaganda is a good thing, it's at least understandable.
However, my point is that this part of history being brought up more often in Chinese media doesn't mean it's the natural state of things, or that it should be brought up more often in Western media. No one reasonable thinks the British or other foreign powers involved did the right thing there.
You claimed straw-man really easily before. Don't you think saying that HKers think this one bill will turn HK into a 1984-like society is a bit of a straw-man? I think most of them might say that the problem is not one bill, but more of a slippery slope type thing. Give an inch, give a mile.
What beliefs do I have about why parts of the world are unstable? I don't think I've expressed any, so you must be making an assumption there. And actually, if you ask around, I don't think you'll find many westerners who think colonialism was a good thing, although I'm sure there are some.
Finally, about the British wanting Hong Kong to be democratic. After further reading, 60 years might not be right. There was a plan in the 40s and 50s for democracy, but it sounds like it was the British governor of the time who blocked it for unclear reasons. I don't know if there were other attempts before the negotiations for the handover began. The 1980s are more accurate, so maybe about 20 years before Chinese rule.
That said, I still think it can be assumed that the CCP opposed democracy in Hong Kong. If you want me to say Britain messed up with Hong Kong by not allowing democracy, then I can agree with that. And I'll certainly agree that Western colonialism was for the most part a terrible thing that made the world a worse place.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Citation needed. Here ya go (he has further citations at the bottom if you're really interested): https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/... Regardless of whose fault it is, it doesn't have any bearing on whether or not the people of HK should have self-determination. >It is also nearly impossible to learn anything about the opium wars in Western media, or how the governors of HK are all appoint…
Throwaway because I don’t want to be brigaded. It appears Britain only tried to give them democracy when they knew the writing was on the wall. That seems disingenuous to suggest it was China that blocked them. While technically true, if Britain truly wanted to help the Hong King people, they would have offered citizenship and let them immigrate, like Portugal did for Macau. Instead, the British tried to stop Portuga…
I definitely think Britain should have offered citizenship. I'm surprised they didn't want to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK I admit that I didn't read the whole thing. So I go back and read every single line of that link. OK, the Provisional Legislative Council was questionable in your view, I understand. But how exactly does this proves that the Chinese government blocked the democracy for 60 years? How about the existence of LegCo? Also I still don't think we agree on what the word "return" means. Yes there are thousands of links tha…
Okay, maybe you're more reasonable than it seemed at first. I understand some paranoia about foreign opinions. But, how often does the news need to talk about the Opium Wars? I would say there are plenty of long-form articles talking about it, but does every article about Hong Kong need to give century-old context? It's brought up in Chinese media far more often because it's useful for the CCP to remind people. It he…
"Chinese leaders were so opposed to the prospect of a democratic Hong Kong that they threatened to invade should London attempt to change the status quo"
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-pu...