341–350 of 686 posts
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HK's problem isn't exactly "just" freedom. Everything since has been going downhill.
IMO, Hong Kong's number 1 problem is that its unique position as the gateway to China has faded away, both the role as an intermediary and as a key shipping port. Everything else is just detail.
>But in order to live everyday life, most people living in China find it necessary to turn a blind eye until it affects them directly. That became impossible during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the force of China’s technocracy was on full display it's amazing how people were able to delude themselves for so long, Tiananmen should have been enough to make people and governments realize things weren't going to change
It's not that amazing, it's just that American investors wanted to cut labor costs in the late 1990s and China was offering dollar-a-day workers. The claim that opening up trade with China would have a 'liberalizing influence on the country' was one of the key selling points back in 2000-2001, pushed by both Clinton and GW Bush: https://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/18/china.... See Clinton's Mar 2000 sp…
I'm not a fan of either Clinton or Bush, but this is unfair. There was far more going on.
At the time, there was a strong sense that democracy had won, and that it was inevitable. That empowering people economically would eventually, without fail, lead to democratic reform. Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" is one of the most influential books of the period.
But, Fukuyama and people like him (Reagan, necons, Bush, Clinton, etc.) turned out to be fatally wrong. They created an incredibly unequal world that has eroded democracy to the point where we can seriously discuss a US that isn't a democracy anymore in our lifetimes.
You should read the book. It's an interesting case of someone who originally set out to help people, but who created a hellscape instead.
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Because US and EU citizens think that "immigrant" is a dirty word for people from poor countries. To all the other people talking about intent to settle or not: read the post. The author lived in China for 20 years and built a family there. They're not an "expat" under any technical definition of the word.
This is silly. I migrated to the US from a wealthy country and I am an immigrant. I've also lived temporarily in other countries, and therefore was an expat. It's not hard to understand.
At the same time, it's also clear that the status of the country determines whether people call themselves immigrants or expats. In the US people are immigrants, in Japan they're expats, for example. US citizens in particular very rarely refer to themselves as immigrants in my experience.
I used to travel to China all the time for work during my first job in 2008. Those times were super optimistic. Hong Kong was filled with Chinese pride, and it seemed inevitable that China would absorb Taiwan. China had just hosted the Olympics. I visited Hong Kong late 2018 after many years of not having been there. It was a very different place from the Hong Kong I had visited in 2009-2011. The energy was a bit dar…
and it's not just one of those fake democracy - it's as free as a true democratic country can be, as experienced anecdotally and demonstrated in their constant top 3 finish in Freedom Index.
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Because US and EU citizens think that "immigrant" is a dirty word for people from poor countries. To all the other people talking about intent to settle or not: read the post. The author lived in China for 20 years and built a family there. They're not an "expat" under any technical definition of the word.
EU citizens mostly don't think in English at all... In most languages you would call someone who moves abroad an emigrant or something similar. From the point of view of the new country, they are obviously an immigrant. The word for people from poor countries is refugee or "economic migrant".
It's likely not an intentional choice, but a learned one, since other westerners around them use that term.
It's so interesting to read this perspective since it drives home "the grass is always greener.." for me. I've lived a pretty charmed life in the US for the past few years (like the majority of HN, I imagine) but I find myself longing to move to a country with dense cities, affordable housing in the city center, great public infrastructure and a modicum of agreement among the citizens and China fits the bill pretty g…
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> To all the other people talking about intent to settle or not: read the post. The author lived in China for 20 years and built a family there. They're not an "expat" under any technical definition of the word. And yet he's leaving. He calls the US "home". So evidently he was an expat.
He repeatedly talks about abandoning his plans to build a life in China. Changing plans when the government decides you're the enemy doesn't invalidate decisions taken before that.
No he doesn't. He says it once, in the tagline, and gives no details.
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And yet you are writing it on an american website and no one is censoring you. In China you have to be very careful of what you say and write, or you may just disappear from society, they don't need to kill anyone anymore, they even did it to former president, live. They remove you and that's it.
In America, working class people get killed by cops and corporations with little recourse. In China, elites get disciplined by the party with little recourse. It's a matter of which class you see yourself in. >According to Harvard University’s large-scale 2003-2016 study tracking the evolution of public opinion via 32,000 individual respondents, at the time of the study’s conclusion “95.5 percent of respondents were…
My friend's wife's family completely disappeared because they said something bad about the local government on WeChat. Their house was empty when she went to check up on them (after COVID). Neighbors said the police came in and they haven't seen them since. She now blames herself for not bringing them to Canada.
The reason the surveys are so high is because they fear it's a trap. If someone asks you if you like the government, your answer better be an outstanding yes.
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I'm Latin American and very, very happy we have China as an alternative to America's tyrannical Monroe Doctrine. The demonization of China feels incredibly absurd, like when someone wearing an exceedingly ugly outfit, lacking self-awareness, tries to criticize someone else's fashion.
Full mask off now, who would want to live in a democracy if you can live under the boot of an authoritarian narcissistic personality cult.
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It's not that amazing, it's just that American investors wanted to cut labor costs in the late 1990s and China was offering dollar-a-day workers. The claim that opening up trade with China would have a 'liberalizing influence on the country' was one of the key selling points back in 2000-2001, pushed by both Clinton and GW Bush: https://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/18/china.... See Clinton's Mar 2000 sp…
> Of course it was all nonsense, Clinton and Bush were just listening to Wall Street interests I'm not a fan of either Clinton or Bush, but this is unfair. There was far more going on. At the time, there was a strong sense that democracy had won, and that it was inevitable. That empowering people economically would eventually, without fail, lead to democratic reform. Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" i…
Could you elaborate? I find this too much of a stretch to think about and am not knowledgeable enough on the topic