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Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

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Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#101

Post by alexmlamb2 »

dep_b wrote: post #81

As incomes rise in China people will demand other things from the government than food, shelter and a comfortable middle class life. Hong Kong was ahead of the rest of China since they have been living pretty liberal under UK rule and were more prosperous. Whatever they do in Hong Kong now will not stop from things happening all over China at a given point.

This is just the brainwashing that you've received growing up in the west. I know because I grew up in the US, but I've learned more about other countries and realized that things aren't really like this.

Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#102

Post by tombh »

wtdata wrote: post #85
tombh wrote: post #73

Why aren't we talking more about the history of HK's creation, namely the Opium wars? I suspect that the majority of people that feel strongly about China's behaviour don't actually have any idea what the British did to China in the middle of the 19th century, namely: in the style of a mafia get 10s of millions of Chinese addicted to Opium and then go to war with them when China tried to put an end to the trade. It i…

What does that got to do with anything? Why do people keep bringing centuries old examples of the shortcomings of western civilization, to apologize for the very present disregards against human rights in many non-western countries? Specially in a case where the legacy that is being put in question is exactly the culture of respect for human rights, civil liberties and democracy brought by an Western nation, that is…

My points about about native Americans and Australians could be construed as Whataboutism. But the Opium Wars aren't fodder in an equivalency argument, they are literally the very reason that HK even exists.

Again, I must repeat, I do not at all condone China's lack of respect for human rights. All I am saying is that people need to know the actual context of the situation. If HK had come into being due to centuries of mutual, conflict-free trade, then I think this would be different situation. The fact is though that HK is the legacy of a sustained, coordinated, state-level, brutal and greedy campaign to extract as much money as possible from the Chinese.

Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#103

Post by markus_zhang »

dep_b wrote: post #81

As incomes rise in China people will demand other things from the government than food, shelter and a comfortable middle class life. Hong Kong was ahead of the rest of China since they have been living pretty liberal under UK rule and were more prosperous. Whatever they do in Hong Kong now will not stop from things happening all over China at a given point.

The history of HK is essentially the rule of the central government (UK or China) and the local overlords (The few families and their lackeys the triads). HK's prosperity was largely the result of Cold War and I'm afraid that is gone forever (unless of course the world goes on that route again).

Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#104

Post by tus88 »

gerbilly wrote: post #61
tus88 wrote: post #53

The title makes it sound like Shenzen is not part of China. You don't "enter" part of your own country.

If you are a military force, there absolutely is a concept of entering your own territory, going back to the Rubicon. When a country deploys it's own troops internally, as opposed to the police, it's often a forerunner to martial law or civil war.

I would have been happy with deployed.

Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#105

Post by baybal2 »

loyukfai wrote: post #99
baybal2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xi is very much a dictator, but he also needs money to maintain his dictatorship. To maintain dictatorship, you need bullets, not money. In USSR during Stalin, regular people were pretty much eating grass, but he never doubted his ability to do virtually anything to them without repercussions. Soviet army of the time had a meal of 3 slices of dried bread and a millet porridge. Even Stalin's personal bodyguards were…

Maybe yes, but Xi is not Kim, at least not yet.

I heard a good phrase for that: "you need to be pretty stupid to appoint yourself a president for life"

In other words, great villains have exit plans, bad ones don't

Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#106

Post by netsharc »

Causality1 wrote: post #82
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they absolutely cannot come into Hong Kong, it would be a totally stupid move Strategically, for China? Yes. Politically, for Xi? Maybe not. Remember that Xi is a dictator. Moves that boost him in the short term at China’s long-term expense are on the board.

Not to mention a military takeover of Hong Kong would generate valuable data and experience that could be usefully applied to an invasion of Taiwan.

Aah, crap, good point. And Trump will probably not do anything in both cases. Putin neither, and the EU can't go in themselves.

Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#107

Post by emptyfile »

dep_b wrote: post #81

As incomes rise in China people will demand other things from the government than food, shelter and a comfortable middle class life. Hong Kong was ahead of the rest of China since they have been living pretty liberal under UK rule and were more prosperous. Whatever they do in Hong Kong now will not stop from things happening all over China at a given point.

American delusions. I thought that the wide support for Trump's trade war was in part an admission of your politicians that precisely that sort of liberalization of China failed.

Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#108

Post by RobertKerans »

tus88 wrote: post #53

The title makes it sound like Shenzen is not part of China. You don't "enter" part of your own country.

Yes, you most definitely do. Be it for suppression ("British troops entered West Belfast", "The Syrian army entered Aleppo"), for removing occupiers ("French troops entered Paris", "Croatian troops entered Dubrovnik"), or whatever ("National Guard entered the Waco compound")

Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#109

Post by sfthrower89 »

It has been interesting reading the comments on related articles. PRC clearly has many 10s of thousands of trolls on staff to spread mis-information and leave broken English pro-China comments on basically every comment section in the world.

Re: Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

#110

Post by wtdata »

tombh wrote: post #102
wtdata wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that got to do with anything? Why do people keep bringing centuries old examples of the shortcomings of western civilization, to apologize for the very present disregards against human rights in many non-western countries? Specially in a case where the legacy that is being put in question is exactly the culture of respect for human rights, civil liberties and democracy brought by an Western nation, that is…

My points about about native Americans and Australians could be construed as Whataboutism. But the Opium Wars aren't fodder in an equivalency argument, they are literally the very reason that HK even exists. Again, I must repeat, I do not at all condone China's lack of respect for human rights. All I am saying is that people need to know the actual context of the situation. If HK had come into being due to centuries…

> All I am saying is that people need to know the actual context of the situation.

The actual context of the situation is that indeed, if the British hadn't controlled Hong Kong for a time this conflict wouldn't be happening.

It wouldn't be happening, because people in Hong Kong wouldn't know what it is to live in a free democratic society as they lived in the last half a century of British "occupation", so they would just accept the human rights and personal freedoms violations of the autocratic government of China, without knowing any better.

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