121–130 of 346 posts
Taiwan is next, in 10 years.
The government of Taiwan does not report into the Chinese Central Government like in Hong Kong. It's controlled by an independent government on disputed land.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't buy the argument that economic sanctions/boycotts lead to overthrown governments, but I'll assume it does. The result of that strategy would be crippling poverty for hundreds of millions of people, with results likely to last for decades.
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Getting HK back is a major achievement for them with the full support of the Chinese public (even for people sympathetic with HK's struggle to maintain its democratic rights).
I think this is something overlooked in the West, if not purposely ignored, with Western media continuously trying to paint an image of China vs HK. HK is a Chinese city within China, inhabited by Chinese people. It just happens to have a special administrative status. The issue is the issue of democracy in China, and whatever will happen to that will be achieved by the Chinese people themselves (see Taiwan), not by foreigners with ulterior motives.
The most interesting idea I heard about the hand-over of HK is that UK should have offered a UK permanent resident (or even a citizen) status to all HK residents, once China started the pressure. Of course, HK's population is 11% of UK, not a small deal, likely such a bill won't pass anyway. But I also see it as a missed opportunity to bring in some world-class human capital.
I like the idea floated by an acquaintance of mine, which sounds more or less like “the British could just give us some island they don’t need, and we’d build another city there”.
What about the people who are already living on that island, what if they dont want foreigners?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government of Taiwan does not report into the Chinese Central Government like in Hong Kong. It's controlled by an independent government on disputed land.
What matters is CCP wants it. The disputed land status will be used as a pretense. The US won't dare to start a war and will write off the loss. Other countries won't even dare to comment on the situation.
Isnt Taiwan too valuable right now for the US specially TSMC. US will need to step in to protect Taiwan to protect US interests.
Real action - offer US citizenship to Hong Kong era that want it. Then go recognize the Republic of Taiwan as an independent country.
Unfortunately the CCP is probably right in their assumption that our politicians are to greedy and spineless to make anything beyond a soundbite gesture. They'll keep expanding their borders, putting minorities in concentration camps, forced organ harvesting and researching interesting new viruses.
We're all complicit, sickening really.
The best way to put pressure on the Chinese Communist Party and help pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong (and the reduce Uygher genocide) is to avoid buying Made in China goods where possible. This means buying Western, Korean and Japanese brands that aren't manufactured in China. Eg, a Samsung phone over Apple (made in Vietnam than Made in China), a Western Digital hard drive (made in Thailand) etc. There are an incre…
I don't know why the parent is getting voted down, not buying PRC is good advice. Cheap slave labor is the main factor that allowed PRC to grow into a superpower. Ironically, they developed using Taiwan as their model (with the Taiwanese corporate helping -- Foxconn). Since the tariffs a lot of goods that used to be made in PRC are now (at least assembled) made in Vietnam. I personally regularly pay more just to avoi…
Developed countries used the same model as well.
The most interesting idea I heard about the hand-over of HK is that UK should have offered a UK permanent resident (or even a citizen) status to all HK residents, once China started the pressure. Of course, HK's population is 11% of UK, not a small deal, likely such a bill won't pass anyway. But I also see it as a missed opportunity to bring in some world-class human capital.
They have. At least for the HK residents which predate the '97 handover and therefore have British Overseas National status. This is about 1/3 of the HK population which is now allowed to settle and work in the UK on a track towards permanent residency. If they can get the permission to leave, that is.
Yet many seem to be protesting, despite it really looking like they have hardly any chance of their protests getting anything they want.
There must be more to the story that I'm not seeing...
I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”. I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerabl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Eventually, Xi will die, and it's more likely than not that his successors will liberalize It is more likely there will be a contest for power. It could become violent, though that is unlikely. In that event, I see no reason to ensure like-minded Chinese are sufficiently armed, or at the very least informed. China's path changed when Xi installed himself as dictator for life. It's foolish to ignore that seismic shi…
I think eventually something is going to break with the CCP system. But that could easily take another 50 years or more. Something many of us will not live to see. The Chinese government sustains itself in power through economic growth and nationalism. That then leads to the two most likely factors (in my opinion) to lead to its eventual downfall – (i) if economic growth gets replaced by stagnation or even decline; (…
On the world stage the focus is on the CCP and China's political regime because it makes selling anti-China campaigns and measures to the public much easier but it is a red herring. If tomorrow the whole of China became a democracy very little to nothing of their key policies and aims would change, the difference would be that the US would have a harder time explaining to us why China is "evil" (the reason being simply that they are getting too powerful for the West).
I lived in HK 2018-2020, leaving around the passage of the “national security law”. I think HK is a perfect case study of a line of fallacious thinking popular among westerners: the idea that peaceful protesting or rule-abiding political opposition is generally effective. This is wrong for at least two reasons. The first mistake is failing to recognize that many governments (case in point) are not nearly as vulnerabl…
I remember a good thought experiment. Gandhi's peaceful protests were successful because they impressed the British public via free press, and the public opinion affected the British government. Now imagine that instead of post-war British, the colonial regime were held by their contemporary Stalin. How much would a peaceful protest achieve?
It does seem like opposing nonviolent and violent factions who reject each other works better than just one.
Northern Ireland, Malcolm X/MLK, etc.