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Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#141

Post by dnautics »

firecall wrote: post #131
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very bad tool for that particular job, as we discovered in Iraq -- it hurts the most vulnerable members of the society, and does very little to the elites making the policies we don't like.

True. But it's not the point; The intention is reduce the capabilities of the country as a global influence and generate internal state turmoil.

After decades of sanctioning Libya the united states finally got what it wanted by decapitating the state with violence; one wonders (global political dynamics aside) if for the unfortunate citizens of Libya, it would have just have been better to have gotten it over with earlier.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#142

Post by ipiz0618 »

jcranmer wrote: post #40
supernova87a wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I genuinely asked in my comment separately in the thread, what practical freedoms are being lost by the everyday person in Hong Kong that would not be considered crimes in the US (or Hong Kong prior to this), for example?

The obvious answer is criticism of the Chinese government, which is I believe a Chinese constitutional right that is ignored in practice. Although, practically speaking, this has already been lost in Hong Kong ever since the abduction of the bookseller.

Also with government officials starting to describe every protest as "riots" and "terrorism", it's feared that they are paving the way to grant Chinese authorities power to legally "arrest" anyone anywhere. It's not yet confirmed that the execution will be carried out by Chinese officials, but the law grants them power to do so.

Also search warrants were originally needed for the police force to break into private properties (not that the Hong Kong police respect any of the current laws now though), after passing the law, they are no longer need.

The scariest part, however, is how vague the law is. One can never truly define what is criminalized. For example, what is "foreign interference"? The HK government has been criticizing the protests as being "influenced" by the US. It's their say to impose a crime upon you. Most "criteria" for acting against the "law" are speculations.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#143

Post by z3ncyberpunk »

khuey wrote: post #63
wahern wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're positioning Shanghai for that. Shanghai was something like a free city until WWII. I think things escalated in Hong Kong much quicker than the CCP wanted--Shanghai isn't ready to take its place. But Shanghai is the long game, and business leaders in HK know that.

Shanghai doesn't (and never will, at the rate things are going) have things that international companies care about like the rule of law.

Since when do international companies care about laws? If they did, tax havens wouldn't be a thing.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#144

Post by zachguo »

ww520 wrote: post #108

This is better understood in the context of Hong Kong's trade relating to China. HK import volume 2018: USD $627 billion [1] HK export volume 2018: USD $568 billion [2] The top 2 imports are: (see [3]) 1. Electrical machinery, equipment: US$307.7 billion (53.2% of total imports) 2. Machinery including computers: US$66.4 billion (11.5%) HK has only 7 million people. There's no way it can consume that much import nor p…

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/hon...

Trading volume with US is just a fraction, and US actually has a surplus. It's unlikely for US to change the status quo in HK which would hurt US companies more.

> Most of the imports are purchased by China because it cannot buy them legally and has to use HK's "autonomous" status to import.

This is simply groundless speculation without concrete data.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#145

Post by chrischen »

spacehunt wrote: post #98
chrischen wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Towards the end the British tried to increase Democracy as a an anti-PRC political move but efforts were stalled by HK people themselves. This is a reminder that it’s important to fight for rights everywhere, not just when it suits your interests. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_development_in_Ho...

> stalled by HK people themselves From the article you linked, it says it was stalled by vested interests and the CCP. Where does it say it was stalled by HK people?

> Although full universal suffrage was never granted by the British to its colony before the handover in 1997, some democratic reform began in 1984.

> ... but they stalled due to opposition from Beijing, local business interests as represented by Executive Council, and the British Foreign Office under the pretext that it would bring chaos to Hong Kong.

> In 1987, many surveys indicated that there was more than 60% popular support for direct elections. The government, under governor David Wilson, issued another green paper in 1987 proposing direct LegCo elections for 1988.

> However, the proposal was ruled out after a government consultation concluded that people were 'sharply divided' over its introduction that year.

It links to an article here: https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1618427...

The "vested interests" you refer to is "Patten's push for reform was strongly opposed at the time by vested interests within LegCo and by former ambassador to China Percy Cradock." However that was in response to "labour rights and collective bargaining" and not strictly democratic elections.

Local business interests, and a "sharply divided" public were the reasons democracy never came sooner. Of course I'm not sure how reliable those government consultations were. I do want to point out I fully support Democracy in Hong Kong. I'd just rather not be a pawn in an opportunistic power grab by business elites who decided Chinese rulers don't work out as well for them as their former British ones. Freedom of information and thought aside, the elites have more to lose from Chinese rule than the working class.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#146

Post by sudosysgen »

firecall wrote: post #131
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very bad tool for that particular job, as we discovered in Iraq -- it hurts the most vulnerable members of the society, and does very little to the elites making the policies we don't like.

True. But it's not the point; The intention is reduce the capabilities of the country as a global influence and generate internal state turmoil.

This will not really hurt the capabilities of China in the long term.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#147

Post by camgunz »

supernova87a wrote: post #14
m-p-3 wrote: post #8

And the real losers in this fight here are Hongkongese citizens, who fought for their freedom and ultimately are losing it, on top of facing an economic crisis.

As I genuinely asked in my comment separately in the thread, what practical freedoms are being lost by the everyday person in Hong Kong that would not be considered crimes in the US (or Hong Kong prior to this), for example?

- freedom of expression

- freedom of association

- freedom of religion

- freedom of the press

- the right to privacy

- the right to a democratic, representative government

- the right to a fair trial

- freedom from cruel and unusual punishment

The CCP is one of the most oppressive regimes on Earth, depriving its people of even the most basic of rights and freedoms.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#148

Post by camgunz »

supernova87a wrote: post #4

I read all these headlines, but when I then followup to read more about the text of the proposed laws [1], I have a hard time seeing that aside from freedom of speech infringements (and ability to imprison, fine based on those -- which are clearly a bit vague in terms of enforcement, but otherwise as bland as a lot of US legislation), these laws are not egregiously different from what exist in some other countries. A…

It’s less the text of the law (though it’s vague and meant to function as a pretext for the CCP to take my action in the name of “national security “) and more that they’re inserting it into Article III, which they legally cannot do. It functionally kills HK’s Basic Law.

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#149

Post by spacehunt »

chrischen wrote: post #145
spacehunt wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stalled by HK people themselves From the article you linked, it says it was stalled by vested interests and the CCP. Where does it say it was stalled by HK people?

> Although full universal suffrage was never granted by the British to its colony before the handover in 1997, some democratic reform began in 1984. > ... but they stalled due to opposition from Beijing, local business interests as represented by Executive Council, and the British Foreign Office under the pretext that it would bring chaos to Hong Kong. > In 1987, many surveys indicated that there was more than 60% po…

No, by "vested interests" I mean whoever had power at the time. In the 70s-80s it was the ExCo, which had on it a few business elites hand-picked by the British.

In the 80s-90s, as China opened up its markets and needed HK investment, many business elites cozied up with Beijing, gaining political power in the process; they became the vested interests today. But they are not exactly the same group as the vested interests in the 80s.

> > However, the proposal was ruled out after a government consultation concluded that people were 'sharply divided' over its introduction that year.

By that time the CCP was heavily involved. People feared that introducing direct elections would (and eventually did) antagonise Beijing.

> rather not be a pawn in an opportunistic power grab by business elites

This is an interesting take. Do you have anything to support this claim?

Re: Hong Kong’s security law is going to devastate its economy

#150

Post by Obsnold »

ww520 wrote: post #134
blackrock wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plugging up the China gateway, also kills the billions of dollars in profits, that American companies make in China. Look it up. Qualcomm now makes over 60% of their revenue from China! Just in Intellectual Property royalties alone. Boeing, Coke, KFC, Microsoft, Apple, AMD, Intel, nVidia, Ford, GM, Starbucks, and on and on.. All American companies. These companies depend on China, to make the cream of their profits,…

What these companies do are selling/shipping components to China for assembly and then re-export the final products, which make the biggest revenue and profit. It's relatively easy for these companies to shift the manufacture (assembly) to other countries to keep the same revenue and profit. An India or Vietnam assembled iPhone generates the same profit for Apple. Foreign companies have difficult time making profit i…

I think a lot of people underestimate how difficult it is to move manufacturing out of China. Manufacturing isn't all unskilled labour that can be moved to whatever the cheapest country is. There is a lot of expertise needed in modern manufacturing and these days China has most of the experts. I'm not saying it won't happen but it will be a more gradual shift over time than a sudden change.
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