HK's Apple Daily raided by 500 officers over national security law

In some areas, they may not be so far ahead in key tech, but they are further ahead in operationalising it.

California can't build a single fast train, while China is laying down more rail than anyone in history in a very short period of time.

Soon they will start building commercial aircraft and wipe out Boeing and Airbus in everything but domestic markets.

The only two areas I think they will have difficult is with chips, and jet engines.

For most other things, the 'product' and 'operation' is just as much or more important than the 'key research'.

It doesn't matter if the US researchers 'published the paper' if China can take it to market to the 'rest of the world' 10x more quickly.

The US has had high-speed rail since the 1960s (Metroliner service, now the Acela Express), in the same decade that the technology was introduced in Japan and France. The failure of the technology to see further adoption in the US is due to politics, economics, competition from alternative transport modes, etc, not due to any purely technological issues. China's lead in implementation of high-speed rail is due to a political decision to invest in deploying it, not because China has any significant lead in the underlying technology.

> Soon they will start building commercial aircraft and wipe out Boeing and Airbus in everything but domestic markets.

Comac hasn't wiped Airbus and Boeing out yet. That is surely their aim but time will tell whether they actually manage to achieve it. Their main customer base is Chinese airlines, who will follow the CCP’s instructions in buying local. Comac will likely have some success in Africa and parts of Asia, but is unlikely to challenge Airbus and Boeing's lock on major first-world air carriers. The US is unlikely to allow US airlines to buy from Comac, and will encourage allied governments to apply the same policy.

Many Chinese people already speak English, have lived and travelled overseas, but "dangerous" Western ideas have not penetrated into and changed their culture. The reason is not because: "the CPC controls it", it's because people Chinese people are very proud of who they are, and they accept the CPC is doing the right thing. Not meaning 100% agreement with the government -- it regularly bends to the will of the people to cool their anger when it's done something that didn't work.

Somewhat related to your point: I think people should definitely engage with China more, rather than just the biased hologram of China presented in Western media. That's good for everyone, whatever your goal is.

The culture bias goes both ways, and there's probably people who hope Westerners don't get a clear idea of China, and don't want them to learn Mandarin and engage more, because they're afraid of "Chinese ideas" penetrating and "expropriating" (to use your term) their culture and control.

It's not about dissent. Dissent is useful. It's about narratives that go against the country, sovereignty and threaten security. CPC has no total grip on power. It has many internal factions jostling for power, and > 90% of the population are not party members. That's why it is so sensitive to disturbances, because it's a constant struggle to build something that lasts.

HK is not crushed and silenced, it is liberated from violence and chaos, and empowered to build a new future, if only its youth will take the responsibility and do something constructive to that end. It has not been 'caught off guard' by the 'speed'. The NSL was supposed to have been implemented after the handover, over 20 years ago, and local media and people actively provoked risks to country, sovereignty and security, through 2019-2020 thus providing a pretext for NSL promulgation. Even so, it took more than a year of, as you say, "horrifying wanton violence, where we witnessed the rapid destruction of the freest laissez faire city state in the world", for NSL to arrive.

It's not freedom that was destroyed tho, unless you consider 'freedom to violence and chaos' as freedom. It was a required-by-the-Basic-Law long-overdue legal-loophole that was ultimately the thing that was destroyed by all that violence, and, tragically a few people's lives who suffered terrible injuries and death. Maybe one day they can be remembered as important people who contributed, however unwittingly, to ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity in HK. To the new decade!

[0] https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/935/90/sites/default/fi...

>perceived security (of the party)

Hundreds of terrorist's attacks in XinJiang, Tibetans being weaponized by CIA for decades, HK being vulnerable spyhub into PRC activities... none of this is perceived. XJ/Tibet was left relatively alone by old oblast model and sheer inability for poor PRC to project influence, HK had 20+ years to ratify NSL. Doing nothing failed.

>not pose any material threat

It's pretty charitable to assume Apple Daily had no material influence on protests. There is zero reason for HK media tycoon to coordinate with US Secretary of State / ex CIA Head during period of Sino/US tensions and have it quoted on US state department website as discussions that has material impact on PRC foreign policy [1]. Thinking otherwise is naïve. Or assuming CCP merely over reacting when they have credibly demonstrated ability to expose foreign intelligence assets. HK is spy capital of Asia after all, CCP good at catching spies and crushing foreign influence.

[1] https://2017-2021.state.gov/secretary-pompeos-meeting-with-h...

There's probably some alternative chain of events where HK met PRC half way by introducing NSL that would have opened up for some political reforms HKers wanted. No sane government would grand _more_ privileges to subjects not beholden to national security, less flaunts against it, which is an absurd arrangement in the first place.