Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill • Hacker News Board

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#231

Post by TheCoelacanth » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

maxwell wrote: post #82

mikekchar wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A revolution is round :-) Of course one can't generalise at all, but very frequently quick change results in replacing one system with another that resembles the first one an awful lot. Real, long lasting change requires a long time to influence culture and to wait until the time is right to move. However, I will also agree that usually violence is involved, even if one side doesn't participate. Gandhi referred to th…

Look into the American Revolution.

That's actually a perfect example of a revolution resulting in a system that looks a lot like the previous system.

Mostly self-governing colonies with Parliament exercising some limited control over them turn into mostly self-governing states with a Federal government exercising some limited control over them.

Pretty much the only things that changed short-term were foreign policy and what kinds of imported goods were taxed.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#232

Post by spacehunt » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #230

spacehunt wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read it more closely. - Violence doesn't have to be actually carried out. - Once a "breach of peace" is declared, everyone in the general vicinty can be charged with rioting.

In general, behaviour that is threatening enough to cause alarm is considered violent. This what this law says, which is fairly standard. If you take part in a riot/violent protest you may be charged with a criminal offence. This is the way it works in most countries, including the UK. There is nothing extraordinary there. Being arrested or even charged is also not the same as being convicted. Note that the definitio…

So explain why even first aid officers and social workers were charged with rioting?

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#233

Post by AFascistWorld » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #220

whoevercares wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Recent 15 years Impressive how arrogant and ignorant this statement is. 15 years ago is 2004 and fk how superior am I to eat meat since 80’s in a third tier city

I agree. When I lived in China in 2002, meat wasn’t that rare, even in tier 88 cities I travelled to. The cafeterias in Beijing’s universities definitely had no problem finding it. Maybe in the 70s and early 80s?

The rate of urbanization in 2002 is 39.09%, note this includes small towns which are much poorer than cities, that means the majority of the population was still very poor and the trend to work in coastal factories barely began, so could you really see average people's daily dishes as a guest?

I'm not saying it's rare to eat pork, what I’m saying is eating pork almost everyday like it's a super normal thing, not just every now and then or even ocassionally. I don't doubt there were many people who can afford to tho it's 1.4 billion afterall.

In my mid-sized town eating pork was a treat back then, especially when there were guests or holidays, definitely not everyday, it was soy products, fish (near a big reservoir) and eggs, people's wages were 50 to 100 dollars, farmers were even poorer coz it was all susbsistence farming.

_

There's no reply button.

http://finance.sina.com.cn/x/20040908/07101007244.shtml

Do the math, pork was fluctuating around 1 dollar per 500g back then.

Yunnan is mountainous so it probably doesn't even qualify as susbsistence farming, but it's warm and has fruit industry and tourism now, you can still find extreme poverty in Guizhou's mountains which is right above Yunnan.

Leiyang is not a town in the American sense, it was a county now a city. Village → town → county → city → capital → province.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#234

Post by bouncycastle » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #207

bouncycastle wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And peaceful protestors can also be massacred and completely fail to bring about any change Can you give an example? Every example I can think of right now that had a massacre of innocent protestors and no armed struggle either led to some change later down the road (eg. galvanizing the movement, reforms, or total collapse of the opressor), or became a major problem for the oppressor later down the track. A massacr…

Tiananmen Square. Rabaa (Egypt, 2013). Prague Spring. Some more are scattered around this Wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_events_named_massacres The aftermath of a massacre comes down to the government’s willingness and ability to control the narrative and suppress further dissent. Some governments can be quite successful at this. There’s absolutely no guarantee that a massacre of protestors res…

Tiananmen Square still continues to be a major thorn for the CCP today, both internally and diplomatically, it's obvious that ramafications are continuing, and why Beijing just can't march in to Hong Kong.

Prague Spring lead to reforms and set the inspiration for the next generation that ended in victory (source https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr...) .

Rabaa, the situation is still ongoing, and unfortunately it's not a completely peaceful movement right now as it escalated to insurgency... (Source https://timep.org/esw/non-state-actors/revolutionary-punishm... )

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#235

Post by otakucode » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #164

justaguyhere wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

each time, HK will lose a few more rights they used to have. Very likely. Sucks for HK people though :( Same story everywhere - nothing much changed after the Arab spring protests, for example. As impressive as they are, how long can Hong Kong people keep up this level of protests? Beijing can keep the pressure forever and play the long game

It works in our countries too. Try to pass a terrible bill. Get rejected. Try again. Rejected. Again. Again. Again. They only have to get it through once, since laws are very rarely removed, only added.

It has bothered me for decades that this seems to be a 'bug' in the design of the US government system. ~500 people whose job is to create new laws. 9 people who can effectively remove them (SCOTUS), and who have a very limited schedule. Plus if they are ever too busy and pass on hearing a case because others are more pressing, that immediately cements the law into place and establishes it as having 'survived Supreme Court challenge' since refusing to hear is equivalent to accepting the lower court ruling and establishes it as precedent. I do not see how you can run a system with ~500 'inputs' and 9 low-flow 'outputs' for a long time without resulting in an overflow of oppressive tyranny.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#236

Post by SECProto » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #58

mytailorisrich wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some western countries have extradition treaties with mainland China. Beyond the obvious lack of trust the issue with such treaty is the procedure. Indeed it could give a say to HK courts or it could simply create a simple procedure where HK courts have no say beyond checking that the right forms were filled. I don't know how the bill was drafted. In general, it is not unreasonable for HK to have extradition procedur…

> Some western countries have extradition treaties with mainland China Few, and with strict legal and political supervision [1]. The proposed law would have single-handedly smothered Hong Kong’s rule of law and stability. It was a stupid, unnecessary move pursued solely for Xi’s political concerns. > HK is formally part of the PRC Hong Kong is Chinese territory from a military perspective. Civically, legally and admi…

> Few, and with strict legal and political supervision

The strict supervision is the key here - there could not be true supervision of an extradition treaty with China when the executive is appointed BY mainland China.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#237

Post by 24gttghh » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

gdhbcc wrote: post #229

icebraining wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution

That was an utter and complete failure in every sense of the word. And in any case the reasons behind it had nothing to do with a desire for democracy

So, Portugal is not a functioning democracy now? That's news to me.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#238

Post by bouncycastle » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

spacehunt wrote: post #215

bouncycastle wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And peaceful protestors can also be massacred and completely fail to bring about any change Can you give an example? Every example I can think of right now that had a massacre of innocent protestors and no armed struggle either led to some change later down the road (eg. galvanizing the movement, reforms, or total collapse of the opressor), or became a major problem for the oppressor later down the track. A massacr…

- The 2014 "Umbrella Movement" was peaceful yet the only thing achieved was the incarceration of the student leaders.[0] - On June 9th this year, a million people joined a peaceful march fighting this bill. Carrie Lam's response? Go ahead with the Second Reading anyway.[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_Movement [1] https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201906/10/P2019061000710...

Arguably, even if the 2014 "Umbrella Movement" didn't resolve anything immediately then, the repercussion are still continuing today so it's unfair to say it didn't do anything. It's too early to say.

So far, it seems like it helped to inspire the current protestors, and they're much better organized this time round.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#239

Post by otakucode » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

AFascistWorld wrote: post #63

nroets wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in China for 3 months this year. Both rural and urban areas. People said "You will never be hungry in China" and they are right. They are enough substitutes for pork, many of them just as delicious.

I believe that's not how economics works, it's like you can't just close your eyes to rocketing condo prices and expect evetything else to remain the same like salaries. Every animal protein source will be driven to raise prices coz it's not like China could produce vastly more but refrained, arable land is not enough, it imports 30% of it's food, they just can't produce the cheap feed crops needed not to mention the…

I hear pig farmers will have lots of land available soon.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#240

Post by mikeash » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

bouncycastle wrote: post #234

mikeash wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiananmen Square. Rabaa (Egypt, 2013). Prague Spring. Some more are scattered around this Wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_events_named_massacres The aftermath of a massacre comes down to the government’s willingness and ability to control the narrative and suppress further dissent. Some governments can be quite successful at this. There’s absolutely no guarantee that a massacre of protestors res…

Tiananmen Square still continues to be a major thorn for the CCP today, both internally and diplomatically, it's obvious that ramafications are continuing, and why Beijing just can't march in to Hong Kong. Prague Spring lead to reforms and set the inspiration for the next generation that ended in victory (source https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr... ) . Rabaa, the situation is still ongoing,…

What practical consequences did Tiananmen Square have? You say it’s why they can’t just march into Hong Kong, but I don’t believe that. They can’t just march into Hong Kong because of the international condemnation that would ensue, and because it would wreck an economically valuable city. Both of those would remain true if Tiananmen Square had never happened. You say it’s a “major thorn” for them today; how? Domestically, it’s like it never happened. Internationally, they happily ignore pressure to do better on human rights. I don’t see any consequences that vaguely resemble what the protestors wanted.

The Prague Spring’s reforms were quickly reversed and the country was communist business as usual for decades afterwards. Crediting it for the fall of communism in 1989 seems like quite a stretch; for any successful protest, there will be failed ones that came before and provided influence. Does that mean that all protests are successful by definition when you look at a long enough timeline? Seems like a highly pointless metric if so.