141–150 of 426 posts
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Accusing people of being brainwashed isn’t a strong argument.
Accusing those who accuse people of being brainwashed of not having a strong argument is not a strong argument.
Just a side note: 1. Hong Kong, at least on paper, is ruled by a governing entity elected by Hong Kong people. Mainland party hasn’t acted yet because, again, on paper, this is a Hong Kong issue. But things could get messy when Hong Kong government cries for help 2. The protest started when a bill that many feared could be used to target and deport anti-China citizens. Hong Kong government was quick to withdrawn and…
There was public opposition since it was proposed in February but they only backed down in the presence of overwhelming public outcry and blamed the public for misunderstanding the intent of the bill. They were not "quick" nor were they easily persuaded to back down. They could easily reintroduce it after protests died down.
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Never underestimate the persuasive power of a regime murdering several thousand people in plain sight. I remember thinking the same thing about the Arab Spring in 2009.
I generally agree with you but it's a lot easier for the west to turn a blind eye to the middle east or Africa (especially post fracking) than it is to turn a blind eye to the far east. By virtue of their standards of living, deep economic ties and stable governments the more developed parts of the far east are basically honorary Europe in the west's mind and that comes with higher expectations of civility. It's real…
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> 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 woul…
I agree that free, democratic societies are better. I am in fact British, so I should know. Listen, I'm genuinely interested in how you and others justify the destiny of Hong Kong. So we're in agreement that democracy is better, and for example there's a very tenuous argument that the violence the West used in Iraq was necessitated by an existing autocratic regime. However the violence used by the UK to gain HK was u…
Democracy in HK society seems actually very stable and ingrained into HK societiy mind. So much, that a territory that is 0.5% of the population of mainland China, is willing to stand up to the biggest army in the world to defend what is left of that democracy.
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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
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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.
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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.
I might be misinformed but it looks to me like a lot of protests in Hong Kong are state orchestrated. The escalation in protests seemed very sharp. The ransacking of parliament appeared to have been allowed. There was no police presence at all. Almost as if they were being purposefully held back. I might just have my tin foil hat on. I wouldn't be surprised though if Chinese groups have escalated mostly peaceful prot…
From what I’ve read (which obviously is removed from the “ground” and has bias) China has inserted agent provocateurs, but haven’t coöpted the movement to that degree. It appears to be mostly grass roots though some of the lighter moderates evaporating leaving the moderates and hard core protesters to fight on which results in heavier tactics.
It sort of bothers me how conspiracy theorist this sounds, but I know for a fact that this is the case.
This is really bad and definitely triggers memorys of the Tiananmen massacre. I'm very interested how the rest of the world is going to react to these developments considering the position of China only got stronger since the Tinanmen situation. I recognized that the reaction of e.g. Germany was considerably weaker to the HK protests than e.g. the Arab Spring protests, but I guess we just have to wait and see. Edit:…
If you have a better memory, this is how it was: 1. Local police was sent, it either did nothing or deserted 2. Troops from BJ itself were sent in, largely the same happened 3. Liaoning military region troops were called, they fared just a bit better than BJ troops, made few attack attempts, but nevertheless withdrew 4. Finally, as Beijing was getting more and more desperate, Shaanxi military region troops - "the pri…
Also, even they weren't particularly loyal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insubordination_in_the_PLA_dur...
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I think hks importance is extremely arguable. Hks gdp is barely 3 percent of china's with a stalling growth rate. I've worked in both Shanghai and Hong Kong and I can say a lot of the large cities are much much nicer in China now. You also have a lot things like hackathons and events where you see lots of young creative people who really want to make things. In Hong Kong the culture is more towards looking good in a…
Let’s face it. Hong Kong is effectively a backdoor. It’s a great place for almost anyone rich enough to do money laundering like stuff. For example, when mainland tightened its currency exchange control, people still transfer money via HK in someway. It’s sometimes disgusting