Earlier quoted context omitted.
ROC took over the assets and liabilities of the qing, just like russia did with the soviet union
What liabilities did the Russian oligarchs take on?
existing treaties with china, us, plus nuclear arsenal etc.
China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
171–180 of 186 posts
Re: China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
If my friends are any indication, most would be hesitant to move to the US due to physical safety issues in American streets.
That fear is overblown due to media focus. Attacks against Asians happen, but not in numbers that should make anyone hesitant to live here. If the media publicized every vending machine that crushed someone people would be scared of them, but the reality is different
I traveled to Hong-Kong right in the middle of protests and I actually felt much safer than in the US and my home country (France), and I am a white guy. It is ironic when protesters chanted "Hong-Kong is not safe", these people probably never went to the US or Europe, let alone Africa...
I mean just look at here: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Hong-Kong/... Basically safer by an order of magnitude.
It is not just the media, many western countries are unacceptably unsafe relative to their wealth and that includes the US. I mean, when you have to lock a bike with a lock that is heavier and more expensive than the bike itself, there is a problem. Going to low-crime country is always a pleasure and I would understand Hong-Kongers for refusing to leave for that reason.
Re: China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taiwan would be a straight-up war That will be shortest war ever. If China does an embargo on Taiwan and encircles it, there's nothing that Taiwan could do in the long run. They will be forced to negotiate. And you can bet the US has no intention to intervene.
It would most likely not be a very short war if the people of Taiwan are serious about their independence. What's an embargo really going to do? Piss off the whole world and create a shitload of sanctions on China. Taiwan is not a city state. They'd be devastated economically, but they'd survive for a good while. Taiwan is now building their own long range missiles to enable them to counter-attack strategic locations…
> Piss off the whole world and create a shitload of sanctions on China.
Since China provides the rest of the world with everything + owns the debt of countries like the USA, It would be highly doubtful anyone takes even remotely significant sanctions against China.
Re: China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taiwan would be a straight-up war That will be shortest war ever. If China does an embargo on Taiwan and encircles it, there's nothing that Taiwan could do in the long run. They will be forced to negotiate. And you can bet the US has no intention to intervene.
Ah yes short victorious war. Because taking over an island is so easy. Chinese economy is also completely dependent on imports. US does not need sail its carriers to Taiwan, it needs to park half a dozen attack subs on Chinese trade routes. Same applies to Taiwanese program to build indigenous electric subs with help of Japan, once even few those are complete the equation changes completely. PRC has no chance in hell…
> PRC has no chance in hell for an amphibious landing operation in Taiwan. So this is going to take quite a while.
PRC would easily have air superiority in no time.
Re: China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taiwan would be a straight-up war That will be shortest war ever. If China does an embargo on Taiwan and encircles it, there's nothing that Taiwan could do in the long run. They will be forced to negotiate. And you can bet the US has no intention to intervene.
>And you can bet the US has no intention to intervene. The most absolutely do. They might not want to, but they have no choice. Taiwan is a shackle in a long chain: From South Korea, across the Korean strait, to Japan. From Japan, along the Ryukyu islands to Taiwan. From Taiwan, across the Luzon strait, to the Philippines. From there to Malaysia (and Singapore) and Indonesia. Almost nowhere along this 4000 mile chain…
> The USA would absolutely carry on a multi-year war to regain Taiwan.
Where is the sign that USA is beefing up for such an obvious confrontation in the future? I don't see it.
Re: China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can all disapprove of what the current CCP is doing, but you cannot compare Hong Kong's situation to Taiwan, Tibet or Xinjiang, in fact you're muddling a bunch of completely different situations. Hong Kong has historically always been a part of "China", you could say it was "invaded" by the British and then the Japanese during WW2. I obviously disapprove of the suppression of the HK populace with force, but this i…
Just let the HK people decide. You know thats not going to happen because noone wants to be Chinese. Even the fucking Chinese dont want to be Chinese.
We've banned this account for nationalistic flamewar.
Abusing HN like this will get your main account banned as well, so please don't.
Re: China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't believe in media sensationalism. Yes, covid brought us an increase in violence, but that was simply relative to numbers that have been declining for decades. I'm not saying that we shouldn't keep improving this in the US, but it's still an extremely safe place. Also, most of the physical violence in the US is restricted to specific cities or areas within larger cities which you should generally be able t…
> the US [is] still an extremely safe place. That's incorrect, a misleading exaggeration. In any ranking about safety, it does not occupy the extreme end, but around the median or average. It would be accurate to say that the US, in the international comparison, is at best a somewhat safe place.
Let me avoid the word "extreme" then - it doesn't make any difference to the core of the argument. One will be happy to live in a place with "very high" safety levels instead of "extreme".
I don't agree with your characterization of overall safety based on ranking positions. The US, as a few other countries, has very localized violence and that sharply skews averages. This means that it's quite possible to live in a safe area even within notoriously violent cities (which often have high violence numbers in relatively small areas).
Also, by international standards, the US has very accurate reporting and crime statistics. So while you can see a few countries with surprisingly lower violence numbers, don't assume you are comparing apples to apples in terms of how accurate these countries' statistics are.
So while it's true that in aggregate the US doesn't sit well in safety rankings, this doesn't mean that a clear majority of the country isn't extremely safe - as in the chances of you suffering violent crime being very low by international standards.
By the way - I'm not saying it's okay to have localized violence. However, it's quite possible, and easy, to enjoy very high safety levels in the US even if you are not rich (while this isn't necessarily the case if you are poor due to limitations on where you can live).
Re: China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the US [is] still an extremely safe place. That's incorrect, a misleading exaggeration. In any ranking about safety, it does not occupy the extreme end, but around the median or average. It would be accurate to say that the US, in the international comparison, is at best a somewhat safe place.
Let me avoid the word "extreme" then - it doesn't make any difference to the core of the argument. One will be happy to live in a place with "very high" safety levels instead of "extreme". I don't agree with your characterization of overall safety based on ranking positions. The US, as a few other countries, has very localized violence and that sharply skews averages. This means that it's quite possible to live in a…
To me and hundreds of millions of others who live in actually safe places (and yes, with accurate statistics), it is mind-boggling that we would have to think about and avoid "specific cities or areas within larger cities". That's not normal. That's not '"very high" safety levels'.
If you want to improve, then you first have to admit to the problem and not make excuses.
Re: China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
#179Re: China passes Hong Kong “patriot” election law
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really died in 2019 when the protesters started setting fire to other Hong Kongers that disagreed with them by throwing Molotov cocktails at them, or just beating a guy in head with a large steel pipe for moving a brick out of the street. The CCP taking over now vs. after 2046 was the only predictable outcome here, but the freedom to speak your mind and disagree without threat of physical harm was lost before. EDI…
What's to say? The protests were against China's violation of the two systems agreement. There has been violence, detention, and suppression from China at every turn. Most of the protests have been nonviolent. I think with major protest movements, the question becomes, is the cause worth the unrest? Unrest is a negative in itself, and always results in, at mnimum, damage to property and disruption of life and also mo…
| Most of the protests have been nonviolent.
That's not true. There have been countless violent protests that have destroyed shops owned by mainland companies (like bakeries, nothing particularly nationalistic), set fire to and destroyed MTR (subway) stations, thrown petrol bombs at other unarmed civilians who disagreed and the police of course, and beat a guy in the head with a large pipe for removing bricks in the road. They even videotaped this because they were so proud of their actions. The people they severely burned were ridiculed in online forums (calling them "barbecue", etc.). Hundreds of posters chimed in and liked replies like this.
At the end of the day many people on that side will argue that each case of violence against other citizens was just undercover police trying to make them look bad, or just an isolated incident. It's like saying "fiery but mostly peaceful protests" on the CNN chyron. People can't credibly claim to be "for democracy" will silencing critics with violence. Otherwise anyone can claim to be a/for democracy, and who is anyone to say they aren't? Might as well add the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), the German Democratic Republic (former East Germany), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the list.
| ... is the cause worth the unrest? ... and, yes, violence do justify the (really, I think) relatively restrained HK protest movement.
I'm repeating myself here, but violence against fellow citizens is not justified in the name of democracy. Democracy would be the ideal outcome for HK, obviously, but neither the protesters nor the CCP are offering a path to that. It's possible for both sides to be bad. Quoting another poster in this thread:
"If we cannot beat them, at least we should get to see it burn to ground."
Well, guess what? Many people in HK aren't up for destroying everything in their lives and don't agree with the "protesters". Does their opinion not count, while they're claiming to care about democracy?
Quoting the same person:
"I think the best move for us HKers is to work overseas whenever possible."
So these protesters want to destroy everything they can in HK, and _then leave_. Thanks for nothing I guess. Perhaps they should change the order - leave for another country, then start assaulting people and setting things on fire. Maybe elsewhere they will be prosecuted and face justice for their actions.
| And, yes, the US isn't all unicorns and rainbows. We may be moving in an illiberal direction ourselves.
There needs to be an absolute standard for what's acceptable in a democracy, so it's not necessary to compare HK to the US or the US to anywhere else, but since you mention the US it's worth mentioning CHAZ in Seattle. There is absolutely zero chance that something like CHAZ could secede from the US had they wanted to do that. It's equally naive to believe that China would relinquish Hong Kong, or that any other nation would do anything other than write a strongly worded letter if the PLA were to move in and take over. Hong Kong _did_ have an agreement to have a separate way of life until 2046, but the CCP finally got the perfect excuse to move that date up by 25 years. Losing 25 years of relative autonomy with nothing to show for it was decidedly _not_ worth it.