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HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

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Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#241

Post by SonicScrub »

ekianjo wrote: post #223
prince781 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a reoccurring theme in political science research and yet we still delude ourselves that the United States is a democracy in any form.

its not a democracy. its a republic.

Which is a form of democracy. This is a nonsense take that somehow appears on any thread related to the US's status as a democracy.

I guess Canada isn't a democracy either, it's a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Oh and I guess Germany isn't either, it's federal parliamentary republic.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#242

Post by naturalauction »

nojokes wrote: post #232
naturalauction wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>citizens don't want more noisy minarets The referendum wasn't on noise or the legality of minarets broadcasting sound though, it was on the structures themselves. Churches can still build steeples (or even noisy belltowers). I fail to see why the simple construction of a minaret harms anyone any more than say a steeple of a church of a different denomination. If anything it just seems like legislation to tell Muslim…

Maybe people enjoy church bells but not the calls from the minaret?

But even minarets that don't make noise are banned. I also would not want to live next to a mosque that played loud noises 5-times daily as is done in many countries. But here in the UK most Mosques don't broadcast any noise at all despite having minarets. Like any other building, they have to apply for a permit if they want to do so.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#243

Post by derefr »

RobertKerans wrote: post #237
wyager wrote: post #5

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…

It's not Western though. You're right in that it generally doesn't work, but it's well known to only work in specific circumstances. Yes it's part of a political strategy, but the point of it is to demonstrate dignity, and given a state that is susceptible to shame, that greatly aids in the empowerment of blocs within the state to enact change. In retrospect, yes, it's fallacious thinking from the protesters if they…

The logical extreme here, I would think, is mass organized emigration to other countries who have offered to willingly take in HK political refugees.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#244

Post by RobertKerans »

derefr wrote: post #243
RobertKerans wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Western though. You're right in that it generally doesn't work, but it's well known to only work in specific circumstances. Yes it's part of a political strategy, but the point of it is to demonstrate dignity, and given a state that is susceptible to shame, that greatly aids in the empowerment of blocs within the state to enact change. In retrospect, yes, it's fallacious thinking from the protesters if they…

The logical extreme here, I would think, is mass organized emigration to other countries who have offered to willingly take in HK political refugees.

Yes, that has direct precedent. And with the most obvious precedent, was the alternative taken when that group [surprisingly! /s] didn't do what Gandhi thought they should have done.

Edit: but that isn't nonviolent protest, it's just leaving your home. It doesn't cause any political change, and it's not at all the logical extreme of nonviolent protest (the logical extreme is stupid, and seems only to have ever been carried out by millenarian cults, but hey ho).

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#245

Post by ampdepolymerase »

starfallg wrote: post #221
mytailorisrich wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the route that they would go in pursuing it. They are occupying the area to assert their claim. I don't see how that would change. They would not abandon their newly built bases or stop Navy patrols. That would be contrary to their sovereignty claim. There's a lot of propaganda on this topic and people are falling for it. But the reality is that China is only following a standard, tried and tested, way to asser…

> They are occupying the area to assert their claim. I don't see how that would change. They can stop expanding military bases in contested areas for a start. That's already a big change in policy. > A period of absolute Western dominance that started almost 500 years ago is coming to an end. What makes China a superpower and Japan not? What economic indicators are you using? Or the UK, France, and India for that mat…

The inability to unilaterally impose another Plaza accord speaks volumes.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#246

Post by LW9ucKsYuvuVeBa »

lucian1900 wrote: post #132
bhawks wrote: post #125

Empty words and token sanctions are not going to stop the CCP's blatant takeover of HK and trashing of the '1 country 2 systems' agreement. 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 g…

The local government in Taiwan still claims all of China as its territory, why would they want to be an independent country with only one island?

Tsai Ing-wen does not believe that.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#247

Post by naturalauction »

nojokes wrote: post #234
naturalauction wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>citizens don't want more noisy minarets The referendum wasn't on noise or the legality of minarets broadcasting sound though, it was on the structures themselves. Churches can still build steeples (or even noisy belltowers). I fail to see why the simple construction of a minaret harms anyone any more than say a steeple of a church of a different denomination. If anything it just seems like legislation to tell Muslim…

I fail to see why the simple construction of a minaret harms anyone any more than say a steeple of a church of a different denomination. Minarets do not build themselves. There would be very possibly some money and influence involved from countries that do not share Swiss people values.

>There would be very possibly some money and influence involved from countries that do not share Swiss people values.

But then why not address that by banning foreign funding of construction of religious buildings? If Swiss Muslims want to build a minaret on their mosque I personally don't see the harm. But it's clear that others disagree.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#248

Post by LW9ucKsYuvuVeBa »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #30
someperson wrote: post #7

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 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.

Crippling sanctions that killed over a million did not lead Iraqis to overthrowing Saddam. And CCP has more control over its subjects than he did.

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#249

Post by tablespoon »

RobertKerans wrote: post #237
wyager wrote: post #5

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…

It's not Western though. You're right in that it generally doesn't work, but it's well known to only work in specific circumstances. Yes it's part of a political strategy, but the point of it is to demonstrate dignity, and given a state that is susceptible to shame, that greatly aids in the empowerment of blocs within the state to enact change. In retrospect, yes, it's fallacious thinking from the protesters if they…

> In retrospect, yes, it's fallacious thinking from the protesters if they thought they could successfully press for change just via the protests. But that's in retrospect, previously it might have worked.

Not exactly, it actually did work at least once. Protests in HK had been previously successful at stopping a national security law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_(Legislative.... The official protest demands were actually pretty modest, and I think even the biggest one (a fully elected government) is actually called for in the Basic Law.

> But as you suggest, the Chinese state is in a position where it doesn't have to care and will happily exterminate the protests.

It's worth noting that one of the protest anthems was "Do You Hear the People Sing?" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Hear_the_People_Sing%3F) from Les Misérables, which is (in part) about a crushed pro-Democracy movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_ABC, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Rebellion).

Re: HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests

#250

Post by Lio »

calcifer wrote: post #88
nine_k wrote: post #83

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.

BNO citizens (i.e most HK people born before the handover) can get a UK visa [1] with a direct route to citizenship. [1] https://www.gov.uk/british-national-overseas-bno-visa

They can now. At the time this was not offered because the CCP was so against it.

In order to get the 1 country 2 systems deal the UK had to shelve the idea at the time. It was a massive gamble but it was probably worth trying for a peaceful hand over.

Since the CCP have broken their side of the agreement there's no longer a reason not to offer BNO citizens a route to UK citizenship now.

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