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Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

bbc.co.uk

361–370 of 538 posts

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time Afghanistan was also a country.

I don't think it was ever a _stable_ country.

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/07/afghanistan-in-the...

Besides that, stability is always relative, in the longer term no country is ever stable, in the shorter term in the case of countries like Afghanistan they are stable about as long as other nations don't cross their borders.

Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and many others besides. All of these were at some point reasonably stable, and then someone somewhere decided to attempt to enlist them in one scheme or another and/or tried to wage a proxy war through them or actively tried to install regimes more friendly to foreign interests.

The Roman Empire in the long run also wasn't stable, but it fell to rot from within, as most countries eventually do. But in the case of Afghanistan the destructive force was applied from without.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would not be able to stop it though. By the time it was announced, it would already be done. The only real option China would have would be 'force' and a frontal war with China is a really big deal. That said, US-provided nukes for Taiwan would be a major escelation and fingers would be pointed in the direction of the US for 'blame' etc.. A lot of people would throw a fit over that. It might be better to just pu…

Your presumption of unity is doing a lot of work here. I, for one, would absolutely oppose going to war against China for the sake of Taiwan, instead preferring that that money go to humanitarian causes that would help Taiwanese suffering under a CCP regime. War, especially nuclear war, is abhorrent and I would not stand for it.

You're an idiot. It is hard to believe China would actually resort to nuclear war. What is happening now is they keep bluffing and everyone falls for it.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its sad. when Sun Yat-sen the father of modern China take on the Qing dynasty. Hong Kong was the base. It wasn't part of China and a lot of Chinese who is educated under the British rule understand what Sun try to achieve. a modern and free country. Hong Kong have been a base for a lot of progressive Chinese. Now that Hong Kong is fully back into China and the 50 years of no changes (for Hong Kong) promised by Deng X…

Some think that if the US extended their protection to Taiwan, Beijing would not attempt to take Taiwan. Let's just assume for a moment that the US will fight off attacks by China to take Taiwan. And that US successfully ward off an attack. What next? What is there to prevent China from trying again and again and again? Will the US be prepared to ward off attacks after attacks after attacks? This is unlikely to happe…

> Let's just assume for a moment that the US will fight off attacks by China to take Taiwan. And that US successfully ward off an attack. What next? What is there to prevent China from trying again and again and again? Will the US be prepared to ward off attacks after attacks after attacks? This is unlikely to happen.

America did this in Korea and it split the country in half.

> With this, lets again assume that China eventually successfully takes Taiwan. What next? They would have taken over an island with a large number of people who resents their rule. There will be a persistent resistance group as long as Beijing continues her ways and Beijing is aware of this and is trying to shape the education of the younger generations so that the resentment does not cross generations.

Also, brainwashing via complete control of the media, disappearing dissidents... They're doing it to the Falun Gong and the Muslims and others and they'll have no problem doing it to more.

> Even if all these were to take place and all hope seems to be lost. There is a glimmer of hope. A totalitarian state has one major fault. There is no effective feedback mechanism and to assume that this one man can make the right call, the right decision all the time is a stretch. At some point, be it internal infighting, or a policy misstep creating intense misery amongst the people, there will be discontent and if the history of China is any indication, the discontent can trigger uprisings and eventually a change of regime.

Also possible for there to be enough bureaucratic momentum that those within it have enough skin in the game to want to install a new head. But once China's growth starts to slow down I wouldn't be surprised at the CCP losing the Mandate of Heaven and the Ouroboros eating its tail again.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still Singapore, and it is not in the line of fire of China.

> There's still Singapore, and it is not in the line of fire of China. Isn't Singapore already pretty authoritarian?

Singapore does not significantly differ in its authoritarianism from the PRC. They are however much richer, much smaller, and decided to follow a "capitalist" model, so they get less hate in our political discourse.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Replace Taiwan with Republic of China (i.e. formal name) and it isn't nearly as astonishing anymore isn't it.

Deep. Bet you think New England belongs to the British.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#366

Police have accused Ms Chow of inciting subversion, her lawyers said. The absolute genius of the CCP isn't that they're cracking down on Hong Kong and domestic democratic movements. The brilliant part is spending the last forty years forging a culture that approves of it. Many Westerners perceive the Chinese populace as ignorant of what their government does. That is not true. Speak to some international students som…

Indeed. I have an otherwise quite reasonable friend whose stance on Xinjiang province is: "The camps aren't real, it's just an exaggeration. And if they're real, it's because the Xinjiang people are there voluntarily. And if they're not there voluntarily, it's probably better anyway, since it would be a really bad thing long-term to have a large minority of people that is not culturally united with the rest of China.…

How do we know your friend is wrong about their existence?

I can say that at least, it's hard not to be surprised by such opinions. I've been to Xinjiang and know people that live there. Pretty sure you could live your whole life without seeing said camps.

I also know people that have had family members die from attacks from the Uighurs. If real, I suspect the CCP started the camps after the terrorist attacks - if you look up cities like Korla you'll know what I mean - the security there is insane, complete with officers with submachine guns escorting school children. I didn't have the balls to take a picture...

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you can also examine recent US defense proposals / thinktank wonks gaming out indo pacific strategy, i.e. AGILE deployment in Japan, hosting IRBMs in region. The overwhelming pattern and prevailing consensus for those that follow the space is that despite proposals being aspirational / borderline geopolitical fantasy, US blobs aren't even pretending to pursue strategies that explicitly defend TW anymore. Fo…

Japan would care a lot if China made a move on Taiwan. They recently strengthened defense ties there. Wouldn't just be the U.S. Oh, and two of the above mentioned countries have real blue water navies that can go anywhere to cut supply lines like say, oil from the Middle East. One does not.

the thing is Taiwan can't count on the US as we have demonstrated that we aren't willing to help when called on by a nation we have treaty obligations to. The US agreed to defend Ukraine from Russia in event of invasion in exchange for Ukraine getting rid of its nuclear stockpile. Then Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula, part of Ukraine, and the US did nothing.

Why would the US treat Taiwan any differently when China is the US biggest trading partner?

As for Japan, they are constitutionally prevented from declaring war.

So of Taiwans strongest alies, one cant defend them,and one wont defend them.

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#368

Genuine, non-inflammatory question: Who's behind this, in China? I know that "Winnie the Pooh" gets the public blame, but this seems to be a very... public, provocative thing to do. Is the person ordering it aware of that, and how provocative it is? Is it Carrie Lam? Their chief of police? Orders from someone higher up in the party, maybe at the ministerial level? Or does the order really from the top? Frankly, I wou…

> Who's behind this, in China? Xi and his ally within the CCP. Even within CCP there are power split and Xi needs to create a scene to concentrate the power to himself.

> Is the person ordering it aware of that Surely they do, but to CCP, this is the only way to make them feel confident enough, by squashing all dissidents.

> Is it Carrie Lam? Their chief of police?... Personally, I guess the order from CCP to HK govt is, "get rid of all dissident, use any means that you think that will work."

> I would think that Mr Xiping would have better things to do running a country of a billion people than decide to provoke the HK populace on a random day in September.

CCP have crack down so many things these day, no? Things happen in parallel.[1][2][3][4]

1: https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/the-real-cause-of-chinas-ali... 2: https://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/tenc... 3: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/china-xi-jinping-... 4: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58459318

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its sad. when Sun Yat-sen the father of modern China take on the Qing dynasty. Hong Kong was the base. It wasn't part of China and a lot of Chinese who is educated under the British rule understand what Sun try to achieve. a modern and free country. Hong Kong have been a base for a lot of progressive Chinese. Now that Hong Kong is fully back into China and the 50 years of no changes (for Hong Kong) promised by Deng X…

There's still Singapore, and it is not in the line of fire of China.

Actually it is. Any place successful with out the ccp is. They built a whole neighboring city to devalue it and blocked water deals with Singapores neighboors

Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum

#370

Police have accused Ms Chow of inciting subversion, her lawyers said. The absolute genius of the CCP isn't that they're cracking down on Hong Kong and domestic democratic movements. The brilliant part is spending the last forty years forging a culture that approves of it. Many Westerners perceive the Chinese populace as ignorant of what their government does. That is not true. Speak to some international students som…

Indeed. Look at how much China has evolved since WWII and you can see how many could believe that the ends justify the means.

The last few years of the US would certainly validate and solidify those beliefs.
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