Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life

nationalgeographic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 288 posts

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

#231

Post by icebraining »

ardy42 wrote: post #166
srtjstjsj wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 indic…

That's not "schizophrenic". He dislikes China insofar as it harms US economic interests, not based on their internal policies. It's fully aligned with his motto of "America first" - first means before everyone, including the Uighurs.

Frankly, it doesn't even strike me as that different from previous administrations (it's not like the US particularly cared about what happened to the East Timorese, for example), he mostly just seems more short-sighted, by focusing on money rather than power.

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

#232

Post by mellow2020 »

hnarn wrote: post #54
canada_dry wrote: post #6

What has happened to Hong Kong is a strong canary-in-the-coal-mine indicator for other Chinese territorial disputes [i]. With Hong Kong it was somewhat inevitable but I can't help but imagine how different it would be if the US and EU/Britain (as leads) would have strongly denounced their approach. I suspect in a decade from now the West will be lamenting how Hong Kong was the right opportunity to stifle China's ambi…

The best predictor for future behavior is past behavior: China is testing the waters, in some cases in a quite literal sense (South China Sea), and you're correct that how the world reacts to Hong Kong and the Xinjiang "re-education camps" will be seen as a vital piece of information in the future when deciding on how to proceed with other "problematic" regions: for example Taiwan, which in the case where strong-armi…

For the totalitarian claim to rewrite history all territories are ultimately problematic.

> We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would require the control of the whole planet.

- Hannah Arendt

I would add that several totalitarian singularities, that each are closed off from one another or perceive each other through a completely controlled ideological filter, might also constitute such total control.

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

#233

Post by AnimalMuppet »

anm89 wrote: post #29
d3nj4l wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a time and place for that conversation and it isn't this.

why?

Because this conversation is about Hong Kong. And by trying to make this conversation about America's failings, you make it hard for us to have a conversation about Hong Kong.

Keep watching. Within a very few days, there will be an article on HN about BLM, or about police monitoring of US citizens, or about the NSA evesdropping. If you want to criticize the US for having less freedom than the label says, feel free to do it there. (And there we can yell at people trying to bring up Hong Kong, telling them that they're off topic.)

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

#234

Post by icebraining »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #223
Der_Einzige wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, there will be no great power wars while MAD still exists (and it does between china and the US). At best, you will get some kind of military skirmish before they decide to pull out the nukes. There will likely be threats of nuclear exchange which lead to a cease fire. If there is no cease fire, than God help us all. But no, two nuclear armed states are not going to fight a large scale conventional war. Partly t…

Not sure that the US would spank China in a conventional war. Offshore, maybe (I'm not even sure of that one). Air war, maybe (not sure about that one either). But China's not going to invade the US, and the US isn't going to invade China. That leaves a conventional war a standoff on the bottom line.

Invading is only needed if you want to control the place. A bombing/napalm campaign like the US did in the Korean and Vietnam wars, applied to the most important and populous regions of the country, would cripple the country for decades.

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

#235

Post by icebraining »

fc373745 wrote: post #63
kingkawn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the broad population decides you’re done; you’re done. Doesn’t matter what wealth or power you think you’ve got.

This is not true at all. Lobbying has more power in congress than actual voting does.

The population has other ways of enforcing its will besides voting. But you need a broad consensus, not a slight majority.

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

#236

Post by kilroy123 »

supernova87a wrote: post #203

I don't know about you, but I see echoes of the US view in Vietnam that we were saving the country from some unspeakable evil that was expanding dangerously year by year. When we were 8000 miles away, looking at things just as symbols and not knowing whether that meant good or bad for the people actually living it day to day. That got us into some trouble, I seem to recall. Is this not similar? I worry this has a cer…

I mean have you been to Hong Kong? Have you ever spoken to people there about how they feel about mainland China? I heard a lot of not good things from the people I spoke with there.

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

#238

Post by samus »

andi999 wrote: post #204
adaisadais wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The West is in many ways equally as guilty but the stakes have changed dramatically. Russia and China are armed to the teeth. Turkey hosts some of the US nuclear weapons as well. The West gets textiles from turkey and China, electronics from China (and many other natural resources), natural resources from UAE and Russia. And Israel has been viewed as a ‘stable’ partner in an unstable area. I would agree that the anne…

That Russia and China are armed to the teeth is bollocks (at least compared to the US). Look at all aircraft carriers worldwide for example, its like what? 5⁵% US and 1-2(barely functioning) for china, and 1 for russia? (Here a probably not current visualization): https://www.pinterest.de/pin/252342385341710559/

Aircraft carriers are a somewhat irrelevant metric. The US depends on them because their contested interests are strictly overseas. China and Russia's interests are in Eurasia, along their borders. Unless they plan full-scale invasion of the Americar, Africa, or Western Europe, they don't really need them.

What matters though are their nuclear arsenal and modern military technologies. They might or might not match the US's tech level, but it is more than sufficient to keep lesser powers from pestering them. And they probably have an idea or two about how to tackle the US aircraft carriers (ultrasilent submarines and hypersonic missiles come to mind).

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

#239

Post by samus »

nemo44x wrote: post #172
Der_Einzige wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, there will be no great power wars while MAD still exists (and it does between china and the US). At best, you will get some kind of military skirmish before they decide to pull out the nukes. There will likely be threats of nuclear exchange which lead to a cease fire. If there is no cease fire, than God help us all. But no, two nuclear armed states are not going to fight a large scale conventional war. Partly t…

I do wonder what will happen when we arrive at a point in the future where a country has developed perfect ICBM intercept technology. Of course there is still the submarine and bomber approach as well but they can’t as easily be dialed up in literal minutes.

If just one country has it, it will be safe from nuclear threats until the others catch up. However, it might still be vulnerable to conventional invasions. Because perfect ICBM interception doesn't change the equations for countries that are not nuclear and don't have a reliable ally that is.

If all powers have it and ICBMs become useless, WW3 is still possible, even more likely. After all, the Cuba crisis happened right after MAD became plausible and set a precedent that is hopefully followed in the future.

Finally, MAD is just as possible with bombers and cruise missiles, possibly launched by submarines. It's just a lot more expensive and probably less reliable. But if just, say, one or two nukes can reach their intended target, it might be enough to discourage large-scale and/or nuclear wars.

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

#240

Post by samus »

icebraining wrote: post #234
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure that the US would spank China in a conventional war. Offshore, maybe (I'm not even sure of that one). Air war, maybe (not sure about that one either). But China's not going to invade the US, and the US isn't going to invade China. That leaves a conventional war a standoff on the bottom line.

Invading is only needed if you want to control the place. A bombing/napalm campaign like the US did in the Korean and Vietnam wars, applied to the most important and populous regions of the country, would cripple the country for decades.

Unsure what their reaction would be. Probably not with nukes against the US, but slagging their allies in Asia is a plausible option, depending on their behavior before and after the event. The US might not be able to protect their allies in Asia from such retaliation.
Post reply on HN