Live data from Hacker News

Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

bbc.co.uk

141–150 of 538 posts

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#141
post #127

Leaders in the former Soviet Union learned the easiest way to erase an historical event was to remove all public record of it. For those who do not remember they would arrest a member of say the Politburo and then all pictures of him with other leaders would be airbrushed out, sometimes even in library books. It was as if he was no longer ever born.

I work with a lot of Chinese nationals and they know far more about tiananmen than westerners. Look up operation yellowbird.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#142
post #105
post #9

The Chinese Government is speeding up their efforts to swallow Hong Kong and Macau into the Mainland. Closing the media outlets, museums, websites that speak against them. And a few key people get abducted here and there to scare more people and force them to accept the Beijing Regime. But... The people from Hong Kong still demonstrates and tries to fight for their lost rights.

If Beijing ever martyrs the protestors like tianeman again I don't think the world will take kindly to that at all. I even think russia would join an american coalition. China has no strong allies that wouldn't prefer to spare themselves in the event of worldwide intervention and they can't fight off the entire developed world alone no matter how far they came in recent decades.

I really think nobody cares. Even if China were to military invade Taiwan tonight, I'm not sure there would be any form of retaliation from western countries.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really easy to say when it's not you or your kids on the front line. Beyond just Taiwan, the last cold war kept the third world in a constant state of proxy war between the major powers, costing millions of lives in the short-term and delaying development in the long term. Worth considering if you're in favor of more of that in the name of human rights.

> ...the last cold war kept the third world in a constant state of proxy war between the major powers, costing millions of lives in the short-term and delaying development in the long term. And the alternative might have been "let the Soviets win." That choice would have definitely been a way to avoid war and achieve a kind of "peace."

What happened when we finally left Vietnam? Absolutely nothing, that's what. Lot fewer people dying from napalm.

We had to support one-way helicopter rides under Pinochet and contras gunning down nuns? Or else the soviets win?

If it's about national pride and staying on top, fine, but don't tell me it's human rights with that record. The Chinese haven't acted with force outside of what they consider their soil/sea in like 40 years. Xi is pretty worrying but until he starts doing that, let's not agitate for killing a bunch of people just in case.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#144
post #124
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are too optimistic. The US got too involved in too many wars for the wrong reasons and we got weary of them. China sees this as a weakness (admittedly). If the US does not flinch, no one else will and we won’t and no one else will. We know terrible things are happening en masse in Xinjiang, Iran does terrible things to dissidents, north Korea does terrible things. China and N Korea have nukes. Iran is close. In t…

US has sophisticated missile defense systems and enough nukes to send the entire continent of asia back to the stone age. A nuclear war started by any other nation than the U.S. is literally suicide, and these world leaders know it which is why all there has been since WWII in terms of nuclear warfare is saber rattling.

>US has sophisticated missile defense systems and enough nukes to send the entire continent of asia back to the stone age

So does China with the US.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really reminds me of the Taiwan election commercial that compares Taiwan and Hong Kong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykcVIQMrc4A

The amount of effort China is putting to sabotage Taiwan independence is astonishing. I have Taiwanese relatives and I'm very worried for them.

The USA has been losing all war games where it defends Tawain against China.

https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/us-war-games-over-china-threat...

It is not okay to assume USA supremacy against adversaries anymore.

Why Americans still do business with China is astounding to me.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallels are: Both driven by the left. Both claim nothing will happen, it’s just a myth, people are just being paranoid. Purge is the common theme across the history of leftism.

Define what you mean by left.

It's the correct side of the road to drive on, in the northern hemisphere! Roundabouts should be the same direction as sundials.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#147
post #116
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Beijing ever martyrs the protestors like tianeman again I don't think the world will take kindly to that at all. I even think russia would join an american coalition. China has no strong allies that wouldn't prefer to spare themselves in the event of worldwide intervention and they can't fight off the entire developed world alone no matter how far they came in recent decades.

Ah, but China holds all the financial levers to keep everyone in their place. If there were a war there'd be no "Made in China" goods being exported. Take a look around you and think about that for a few minutes. They can get away with almost anything. The only thing they fear is an internal uprising.

> They can get away with almost anything.

Not if factories move to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Bangladesh, India, etc., as the current trend continues.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#148
post #78
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect if this happened, it’d trigger an invasion by the CCP just to save face.

This would absolutely never happen, but if we were serious about completely removing the possibility of a Chinese mainland invasion of Taiwan, we could just publicly give Taiwan some nukes. It would be a global political shitstorm, but even mainland China would not be stupid enough to invade after that. Nuclear proliferation may be bad for all sorts of reasons, but MAD really does appear to work. Also Taiwan already…

> ...but if we were serious about completely removing the possibility of a Chinese mainland invasion of Taiwan, we could just publicly give Taiwan some nukes.

IIRC, that's one of the PRC's red lines to trigger an invasion.

Also, I'm not sure if Taiwan could get to the point of having a survivable nuclear arsenal that's large enough to guarantee MAD.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#149
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course USA does not have hate speech laws. But there is considerable extralegal hate speech regulation. Your face will be plastered all over social media and you will get "cancelled" and lose your career, and no "free speech" laws will protect you from that.

> and no "free speech" laws will protect you from that You have a right to speak freely without the government stopping you. You have no right to have people listen to you. In fact the same guarantee that you have for speech also enshrines free assembly. So everyone who disagrees with your bullshit is free to ignore you and convince others to ignore you. They're also free to boot you off or out of their property.

Important distinction: the government is allowed to do violence to people legally (during law enforcement). Private people generally are not.

This means that if you have free speech, you can't immediately suffer legal violence for saying things.

You may, of course, suffer other things, but it won't be legal violence.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#150
post #124
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are too optimistic. The US got too involved in too many wars for the wrong reasons and we got weary of them. China sees this as a weakness (admittedly). If the US does not flinch, no one else will and we won’t and no one else will. We know terrible things are happening en masse in Xinjiang, Iran does terrible things to dissidents, north Korea does terrible things. China and N Korea have nukes. Iran is close. In t…

US has sophisticated missile defense systems and enough nukes to send the entire continent of asia back to the stone age. A nuclear war started by any other nation than the U.S. is literally suicide, and these world leaders know it which is why all there has been since WWII in terms of nuclear warfare is saber rattling.

No sane person would initiate a first strike --it's uncertain whether someone would be able to launch a full retaliatory strike. Only insane people like Castro and LeMay would give orders to launch. Today's nukes are near-civilization ending. They are not the equivalent of a month's worth of carpet bombing executed in one sortie.
Post reply on HN