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Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

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Re: Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

#111

Post by y2kenny »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #46
jakear wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or the signatures are fake? Petition fraud. Happens in US too, see net neutrality.

Or coerced. Note that the coercion doesn't have to be blatant or explicit. China said some fairly threatening things about Hong Kong, and some number of residents may have decided that, for their own safety, they needed to signal that they were in support. What they actually feel or think may be different.

Yes, big businesses as well: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/06/03/hsbc-backs-c...

>> Last Friday Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing former leader, demanded that HSBC state its position after enjoying privileges in the territory that “should not be taken for granted”.

He also warned that it could “be replaced by banks from China or other countries overnight”.

In a Facebook post he wrote: “We need to let … British companies such as HSBC know which side of the bread is buttered.”

Re: Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

#112

Post by yashap »

FabHK wrote: post #90
yashap wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been plenty of successful, peaceful-ish secessions in history. Off the top of my head, the British Empire mostly dissolved semi-peacefully, which was basically a tonne of secessions. Norway essentially seceded from Sweden. Russia didn’t fight TOO hard against the fall of the USSR. You could argue Brexit is a secession of sorts. I’m sure there are more. Not that there wasn’t plenty of protest, struggle and…

I think the point of the OP is that HK is in a fairly bad situation to survive as an independent state with one potentially hostile neighbour. Nearly 80% of HK's water supply is imported from China [1]. Only about a quarter of food imports are from China [2], so the situation there is better. But what if China were to close the land borders and impose a maritime blockade? It wouldn't be pretty. When Japan invaded Hon…

Yeah, HK independence is certainly not something that would happen SOON. But for decades, nobody thought the British Empire would give up India. After decades of protest and resistance, and shifting political landscapes, they finally did. HK protesters are likely hoping for something similar. It's a long shot, but if they stick with the resistance for long enough (like, literally decades most likely), there may finally come a point when China decides they're just not worth holding onto anymore.

Re: Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

#114

Post by caycep »

yomly wrote: post #72
robjan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainland Chinese stocks have been listed on HKEX and even been components of the Hang Seng Index (kind of like our SP500) for a long time. The main reason that there aren't more HK stocks in the tech index is that there aren't really any HK based tech companies listed on our exchange.

...are there any HK tech companies? Slightly facetious but HK really dropped the ball in not chasing tech IMO

well, there are small start ups and engineering firms, back when things were considered "open" and the taxes were fairly low...a lot were doing under the radar type stuff and using the HK-Shenzhen connection to get rapid prototyping done and so forth. I know of a few companies doing LCD panels for stadiums, a few fabless chip design firms going for embedded markets, etc. But no "unicorns" in the American sense.

Re: Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

#115

Post by bllguo »

yashap wrote: post #112
FabHK wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point of the OP is that HK is in a fairly bad situation to survive as an independent state with one potentially hostile neighbour. Nearly 80% of HK's water supply is imported from China [1]. Only about a quarter of food imports are from China [2], so the situation there is better. But what if China were to close the land borders and impose a maritime blockade? It wouldn't be pretty. When Japan invaded Hon…

Yeah, HK independence is certainly not something that would happen SOON. But for decades, nobody thought the British Empire would give up India. After decades of protest and resistance, and shifting political landscapes, they finally did. HK protesters are likely hoping for something similar. It's a long shot, but if they stick with the resistance for long enough (like, literally decades most likely), there may final…

"Likely hoping for something similar"? Is this just naivete? As many other comments here point out, there are zero sources that suggest anything close to a majority of HK protesters want independence, let alone HKers overall.

Re: Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

#116

Post by koenigdavidmj »

mywittyname wrote: post #70

Does anyone have insight into how secessionists think that a successful campaign will play out? The state is small and a shares border with China, so it's not some situation where it will be easy to repeal invaders. And the people are at a severe military disadvantage. Even if every Hong Konger was armed, trained, and well lead, China could wage a war of attrition and win without a single shot fired. I feel like thei…

The Northern Ireland approach would work if China had any sense of shame. The UK rules of engagement were tied to the idea that some atrocities would be embarrassing if they were in the morning paper the next day.

It helps if the area to be governed is full of sympathetic, English-speaking westerners with a lot of family ties back to the oppressing nation. That’s why this would never work in Xinjiang. It’s slightly less unlikely in HK.

Re: Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

#117

Post by throw443563 »

dumb1224 wrote: post #95
BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is his plan for Hong Kong moving forward? I'd be interested to see what a local activist thinks could be a solution to their "China problem", especially considering that a country as big and powerful isn't going to simply back off. His fight is a tough one and I have great respect for a person so young to commit to it so fully.

A HK friend of mine who's strongly opposing CCP told me independence isn't what most HK citizens want (a hoax even quoting his words). It was a merely a weaponised piece of propaganda by the CCP mouthpieces. By now I can't tell whether he's right or not only from reading main stream media articles. Also curious to learn what will be the ultimate goal.

The problem is the protesters were waving UK flags.

Can you imagine if the protesters in Kashmir were waving UK flags?

Re: Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

#118

Post by andyshuxin »

mywittyname wrote: post #70

Does anyone have insight into how secessionists think that a successful campaign will play out? The state is small and a shares border with China, so it's not some situation where it will be easy to repeal invaders. And the people are at a severe military disadvantage. Even if every Hong Konger was armed, trained, and well lead, China could wage a war of attrition and win without a single shot fired. I feel like thei…

From what I heard, they intend to win the way France (de Gaulle really) won the World War II – by losing on the ground but siding with the victorious.

Many of the secessionists hope for or expect an immediate collapse of the Chinese central government, either due to internal economic, political, or ethnic problems, or to external pressures applied especially by US, at which point, with support from the Anglosphere, they could obtain and sustain sovereignty.

Re: Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

#119

Post by throw443563 »

wendyshu wrote: post #76

Ideally Britain would have kept HK island and/or transferred HK to Taiwan rather than China. But I guess that wasn't workable. So the only option for HKers is emigration.

Britain should have just accepted them back in 1997. Instead they tried to stop Portugal from giving the people of Macau citizenship because they were afraid the people of Hong Kong would ask for citizenship too.

Re: Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK

#120

Post by throw443563 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #5
FooBarWidget wrote: post #3

It is interesting that there was recently a petition asking for people to support the national security law, and that it managed to gather 3 million signatures. For comparison, high estimations on the number of people who went on the streets to protest, was about 2 million. Both numbers are likely to be overestimations, but it seems to show that the Hong Kong people are divided about whether China is good for them, a…

Does anyone know why my post gets downvoted? Is it not neutral and balanced enough?

It’s an uncomfortable truth, so they would rather downvote and not allow others to see.
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