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Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#161

Post by roughly »

deburo wrote: post #143
roughly wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an important point. From a political standpoint, one of the purposes of the defense treaties has been to discourage allies from building up their own militaries. This was an explicit policy in the wake of WW2 to promote both US hegemony, but also to promote stability - the theory being a world with one dominant military power is less likely to see large wars like WW1 and WW2.

Is this true? I keep reading that the US is putting increasing pressure on allies not spending at least 2% of GDP in their military.

It was for a long time. This is why GOP handwringing about our allies underspending on military defense is so incongruent - other countries underspending on their militaries was a cornerstone goal of post-WW2 policy. Complaining that Germany doesn’t have a strong enough military marks a pretty sharp break from prior US policy goals.

Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#162

Post by treeman79 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #134
dbcurtis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument is a lot harder to sell since the Korea and Viet Nam wars. Not that I disagree with you. China does need to be reigned in, and we should have started years ago. But the leadership of the USA was mostly of draftable age during the Viet Nam war, or, like me, did their grade school homework in front of the TV news with Walter Cronkite reading the daily body count.

> China does need to be rei[]ned in, and we should have started years ago. Why? What would the benefit be? What would the benefit have been?

Perhaps avoiding Millions be put in camps and used as cheap source of organ harvesting.

Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#163

Post by yorwba »

xoxoy wrote: post #146
magicsmoke wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any invasion of Taiwan will just leave TSMC a smoking husk, either from PLA jets or from self-destruct switches. Invading won't help in terms of owning TSMC's facilities and technology.

huh? by invade i mean they want to own Taiwan, not destroy it.

How do you expect an invasion to happen without a lot of destruction? Maybe you should read this: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-wi...

Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#164

Post by srtjstjsj »

rado wrote: post #25

This "way of life" was unsustainable anyway, because of the property prices and the de facto feudal system with the tycoons on top. You can rage at the red flag all you want, but ideology has nothing to do with it. HK life was almost unbearable before all this.

Is China any more sustainable?

Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#165

Post by stann »

will4274 wrote: post #125
dontcarethrow2 wrote: post #78

From a simpletons perspective, I don't understand why we get to have a say of how a country reclaims its former territory. Especially from Westerners(not even land connected) who have no claim whatsoever. Why do we have a negative outlook on our former empires colonizing the world while at the same time doing everything possible to retain profits/power from these bad things we shouldn't be doing? Very hypocritical to…

The universal declaration of human rights declares the right to self determination. I don't think it's hypocritical for the United States to preach principles of human rights.

One wonders why Catalonia, Palestine, and Ambazonia rarely receive the same solidarity from the US in the defence of right to self determination

Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#166

Post by ardy42 »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #140
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can no longer say "the west" and expect a unified response - brexit, the constant attacks on member nations of NATO by Trump, The Iran deal that Europe still backs but the US doesn't. There's a reason Russia and China are bold right now. EDIT: I get it, it's politically charged, but I remind everyone to discuss, rather than downvote, based on your own political opinion.

That doesn't make sense. Trump is pro Russia and anti China. Chinese facing more heat now than in the past 50 years.

> That doesn't make sense. Trump is pro Russia and anti China. Chinese facing more heat now than in the past 50 years.

Trump is schizophrenic on China. His "anti-China" attitudes right now seem more of a function of a need for an external enemy to blame/distract from his domestic failures. His trade war with China occurred around the same time he initiated trade disputed with even allied nations. There are even indications that he is not bothered by, and perhaps even approves of, Chinese human rights violations (e.g. IIRC Bolton has said he expressed approval of the Xinjiang camps directly to Xi).

I believe some of his advisors are more opposed to current Chinese government actions, but Trump's shown a willingness to do foreign policy 180s against their advice before.

Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#167

Post by tomnipotent »

xoxoy wrote: post #146
magicsmoke wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any invasion of Taiwan will just leave TSMC a smoking husk, either from PLA jets or from self-destruct switches. Invading won't help in terms of owning TSMC's facilities and technology.

huh? by invade i mean they want to own Taiwan, not destroy it.

And how do you think they come about "owning" it? Do you think Russia purchased Crimea from eBay?

Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#168

Post by akvadrako »

will4274 wrote: post #125
dontcarethrow2 wrote: post #78

From a simpletons perspective, I don't understand why we get to have a say of how a country reclaims its former territory. Especially from Westerners(not even land connected) who have no claim whatsoever. Why do we have a negative outlook on our former empires colonizing the world while at the same time doing everything possible to retain profits/power from these bad things we shouldn't be doing? Very hypocritical to…

The universal declaration of human rights declares the right to self determination. I don't think it's hypocritical for the United States to preach principles of human rights.

The right of self determination is only theoretical because in law it's always overridden by the right of territorial integrity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_integrity

But just imagine how crazy it would be if every place could declare itself independent. Would states count? What about cities?

Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#169

Post by zinckiwi »

pastaking wrote: post #13

Truly sad. When HK was handed back to China in 1999, did we know this is inevitable?

1997. 1999 was Macau.

I lived in Hong Kong until 1995. The Basic Law is supposed to apply for 50 years, so we should only be about halfway through that. The sense in the HK expat community at the time was skepticism that it would make it the whole way unchallenged, but that China "needed" HK, so it wouldn't rock the boat too much.

Of course, now that is no longer the case. Any optimism we had at the time of the handover was rooted in HK's economic importance but China went and built Shenzhen into a bigger, better Hong Kong within two decades. Still a Special Economic Zone but without all the pesky political baggage.

Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

#170

Post by RustyBucket »

treeman79 wrote: post #162
thaumasiotes wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China does need to be rei[]ned in, and we should have started years ago. Why? What would the benefit be? What would the benefit have been?

Perhaps avoiding Millions be put in camps and used as cheap source of organ harvesting.

This is a weak argument: Should USA be reigned in as well to avoid millions be put in prisons and used a cheap source of labor?
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