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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

#241

Post by ardy42 »

cblconfederate wrote: post #101

Isn't that an uber-wealthy city with the biggest concentration of billionaires? With so much wealth you 'd think they 'd have a say on what china wants to do with them. But maybe they just go along?

> Isn't that an uber-wealthy city with the biggest concentration of billionaires? With so much wealth you 'd think they 'd have a say on what china wants to do with them. But maybe they just go along?

Why would the CCP defer to the wealthy when they already have far more power than they do?

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

#242

Post by [deleted] »

esturk wrote: post #224

I wonder how long before services like Facebook is banned in HK under the new Security law. One interesting thing to see is whether Facebook would comply with censorship requests to appease the PRC. If not, could this be the single largest decline in users for Facebook?

[deleted]

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

#243

Post by ng12 »

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…

We have an answer for this: self-determination. If the population of HK democratically voted to rejoin China it would be a different story.

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

#244

Post by pas »

akvadrako wrote: post #168
will4274 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why would it be crazy? Local autonomy is a very important concept. That's why many regions want more of it. (Eg. Catalonia in Spain, Scotland in the UK, and HK in China.)

There's also the tradition of cities being "free" as in they were not feudal land.

Of course self-determination doesn't mean complete total independence. Sometimes cities/regions/states lack the ability to control their currency supply (see the problem with in the Eurozone due to the differing interests of Germany and Greece), but inclusive institutions should maximize the ability of the member to work within the institutional framework to have its problem addressed. And that's why democracy is such an institution, and in theory other institutions built on democracy have this ability too. Of course it needs many things for it to work well. (For example empathy of the other members.)

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

#246

Post by logotype »

haunter wrote: post #145
dqpb wrote: post #132

> It's like watching a patient with cancer finally die Or perhaps it’s like police officers bearing down their weight on a man’s chest and neck, forcing all the oxygen out of his lungs and holding them empty for six minutes so the whole world can witness the life slowly drain from his eyes. Authorities around the world are highly effective at snuffing out human life and freedom.

I'm starting to hate how every thread slowly ends up being about the US instead of the actual topic. HN avoided this for the long time but slowly crawling up here too. Reddit already past this, there is no post in almost any front page default sub without mentioning Trump

Yep, it’s incredibly frustrating. Every article about CCP gets derailed or diverted. Mostly by the same predictable user ids, plus newly registered users. Given the traffic of HN I am certain that it’s the paid wumaos/shills of the CCP trying to change the narrative. Despicable!

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

#247

Post by mensetmanusman »

rz2k wrote: post #155
hnarn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have sympathy for the statement that lifting 500 million people out of abject, generational poverty ranks among the greatest humanitarian successes in history. At the same time local corruption, and the number of protests against those officials was an enormous problem and seemed to get remarkably little coverage. A mature legal system is the only reliable way to combat problems like corruption. A legal system is m…

More were lifted out of poverty without needing concentration camps.

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

#248

Post by spectramax »

hnarn wrote: post #62
spectramax wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot that Chinese invasion on Indian borders left some 50+ people killed just 3 months ago. You can't give a pass by saying "They're just testing waters". Everything in war is testing waters.

I'm not "giving them a pass" for anything, that's your interpretation of what I wrote.

I read it as "They're just testing waters, they have no intentions for further expansion". I am sorry if I misread it. If I didn't, then I strongly believe that China wants to expand its terrorial powers to SCS, Taiwan, disputed areas on the Indian, Bhutanese, Nepalese and Vietnamese borders.

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

#249

Post by throw5543235 »

dirtyid wrote: post #221
hnarn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not ironic, because the United States is not claiming the area as territorial waters belonging to the U.S. China is clearly the "aggressor" in this situation because they are building military installations in an area that was previously not a militarized zone.

>clearly the "aggressor" China was the 5th out of 6th claimants to weaponize their holdings on the SCS. The last being Brunei who has nothing. China was merely responding, not initiating SCS weaponization (but mostly in response to US pivot to Asia and increased US basing in the area to contain China - same reason Russia took Crimea in response to NATO encroachment led by US). The difference being China reclaiming la…

Why is a comment that merely states the facts being downvoted?

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

#250

Post by throw5543235 »

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…

Hong Kong is not a territorial dispute. It’s like Macau, both were already meant to be integrated.

As for actual territorial disputes,

> ...China, which has displayed a willingness to negotiate in many such situations. In just over 60 years, China has gone from 23 land disputes down to just six. In the majority of its settlements, China accepted less than one-half of the territory it originally claimed.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/10/territorial-disp...

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