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Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#71

Post by hkmaxpro »

supernova87a wrote: post #4

I read all these headlines, but when I then followup to read more about the text of the proposed laws [1], I have a hard time seeing that aside from freedom of speech infringements (and ability to imprison, fine based on those -- which are clearly a bit vague in terms of enforcement, but otherwise as bland as a lot of US legislation), these laws are not egregiously different from what exist in some other countries. A…

If you blindly trust what’s written, then they do look similar.

Much like the Constitution of the PRC stating “citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration.” [1]

One would be a fool to believe it’s similar to the US constitution.

OK, here’s my answer to your questions:

Jimmy Lai runs the biggest pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, in Hong Kong, and his Twitter account was recently named by Chinese state media Global Times as providing “evidence of subversion under new national security law”. [2] Pro-democracy newspaper will be the first to disappear after passing the national security law.

Infringement on freedom of press (and speech) would have drastic consequences. Just look at Covid-19. When no newspaper stands up to reveal the scale of a mysterious disease and doctors were forbidden to warn others, the government can cover it up for much longer than in an open society [3], ultimately costing hundreds of thousands more lives [4].

When short selling in China could be classified as “malicious” and “illegal” [5], or as the rumor goes, “a financial coup to overthrow Xi” [6], I doubt Hong Kong can remain an international financial hub under the new law.

Media companies also like to stay in Hong Kong [7]. That could change with the new law, and with the loss of free flow of information, financial industry will hurt, too.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/grjw6s/traitor_ji...

[3] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3049606/cor...

[4] https://hongkongfp.com/2020/03/14/china-may-prevented-95-vir...

[5] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-stock-crime/chinese...

[6] http://www.rfi.fr/tw/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B/20200127-3%E5%B9%B4%... (in Chinese)

[7] https://www.ejinsight.com/eji/article/id/1104520/20150724-wh...

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#72

Post by aianus »

chrischen wrote: post #59
av_engr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially, yes. Besides China having sovereignty over the city, it has its own currency, government, different law system than China, a border with China, and different passport. In recent years on the rise of Chinese Nationalism, the Chinese government seems to downplay this a lot to eliminate the HKer's local identity and creates an image of HK = China. Culturally, it is also vastly different than China.

What i meant was it was under British rule prior to China. The British ruler was literally appointed by outsiders. From an American perspective it’s more about losing a territory under Allied jurisdiction. From the local perspective it’s about losing independence rights—though they didn’t really have that right under British rule either.

Towards the end, it was only under direct British rule because China threatened to invade if the British gave them self-governance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-pu...

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#73

Post by troydavis »

davidw wrote: post #30
m-p-3 wrote: post #8

And the real losers in this fight here are Hongkongese citizens, who fought for their freedom and ultimately are losing it, on top of facing an economic crisis.

I saw the suggestion on twitter that the US and other countries should hand out visas to people from Hong Kong who want to live in a free country (with the hope that the US doesn't continue to decline, from that perspective).

There’s a much stronger argument that Britain should do so, which would partially undo the damage they caused during the handover - not only not granting British passports, but pressuring Portugal/Macao to do the same: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/2156385... (2018, about the period leading up to the handover)

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#74

Post by bobthepanda »

jcranmer wrote: post #40
supernova87a wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I genuinely asked in my comment separately in the thread, what practical freedoms are being lost by the everyday person in Hong Kong that would not be considered crimes in the US (or Hong Kong prior to this), for example?

The obvious answer is criticism of the Chinese government, which is I believe a Chinese constitutional right that is ignored in practice. Although, practically speaking, this has already been lost in Hong Kong ever since the abduction of the bookseller.

This will become a lot more obvious though; the government will probably start feeling emboldened to do things like revoke media licenses.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#75

Post by bobthepanda »

av_engr wrote: post #56
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like Mandarin vs Cantonese Noob question, how much do these differ? Also does it go further, perhaps a difference in culture as well as language?

They are quite different. Personal take, imagine Scottish English vs American English but 2x that.

If you're talking about spoken, probably the difference is something more like English v German.

Individual words can look similar but combine them into a sentence and you probably wouldn't be able to parse it on a first take (if they were transcribed into romanized letters), and there are some grammar differences.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#76

Post by av_engr »

chrischen wrote: post #59
av_engr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially, yes. Besides China having sovereignty over the city, it has its own currency, government, different law system than China, a border with China, and different passport. In recent years on the rise of Chinese Nationalism, the Chinese government seems to downplay this a lot to eliminate the HKer's local identity and creates an image of HK = China. Culturally, it is also vastly different than China.

What i meant was it was under British rule prior to China. The British ruler was literally appointed by outsiders. From an American perspective it’s more about losing a territory under Allied jurisdiction. From the local perspective it’s about losing independence rights—though they didn’t really have that right under British rule either.

I see, you meant true independence as a nation?

Hong Kong has a very complex history and culture about independence. To be brief, majority of Hong Kongers never wanted independence as a country. (It's weird but there was a split of people being pro-China and pro-UK) The thought of Hong Kong independence has been around for long but didn't become major topic and a significant opinion until recent years (after 2014-2016 with rise of figures like Edward Leung).

Historically, China has threaten to "liberate" HK if UK gave Hong Kong any form of independence/progressive democracy. UK also has no intention on instigating conflict with China, especially US was friendly with China in the 60s/70s/80s to fight Soviet. There was an unclassified UK government transcript that backs this information. Ultimately, HKers/Brits/China wanted to maintain the status quo and the final solution was to give HK back to China with some underlying promises (1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration - Basic Law - 1 Country 2 System).

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#77

Post by eastbayjake »

chrisco255 wrote: post #54
davidw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the suggestion on twitter that the US and other countries should hand out visas to people from Hong Kong who want to live in a free country (with the hope that the US doesn't continue to decline, from that perspective).

We should go one further and carve out a territory for a New Hong Kong and let them re-build there.

Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) liked a tweet this week where someone proposed a charter city for Hong Kong in Colorado - the thread shows why that's probably a bad idea, but clearly surprising levels of support outside the Libertarian think tank world for charter cities in the US: https://twitter.com/ariarmstrong/status/1264628307586248704

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#78

Post by euroderf »

chrisco255 wrote: post #54
davidw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the suggestion on twitter that the US and other countries should hand out visas to people from Hong Kong who want to live in a free country (with the hope that the US doesn't continue to decline, from that perspective).

We should go one further and carve out a territory for a New Hong Kong and let them re-build there.

That's always been my solution for Israel. Give them a nice hunk of Pacific coast around Oregon/Washington.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#80

Post by OBLIQUE_PILLAR »

ecf wrote: post #10
m-p-3 wrote: post #8

And the real losers in this fight here are Hongkongese citizens, who fought for their freedom and ultimately are losing it, on top of facing an economic crisis.

How convenient for the Chinese government, huh? It’s almost like this Pandemic came at a perfect time for them.

stop polluting HN with comments like this
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