Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by croes » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

hh3k0 wrote: post #8

I've been boycotting Chinese goods whenever possible (it helps that I don't really buy electronics) because of Hong Kong. I regret not having started back when our professor urged us to do so roughly a decade ago. One time, we had officials from Chinese universities visit ours and he made sure to have big "free Tibet" patches on his jacket and backpack while always hanging around said officials. He was quite the char…

Free Tibet to go back to feudalism? You do know that Tibet and Taiwan wasn't any better for the poorer part of the people. Hong Kong is one of the most expensive places to live. The protesters are part of the privileged and are just fighting to keep them. Didn't hear them complaining back then in the asian banking crisis when China bailed them out with the money from exploited chinese workers.

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

#72

Post by sgarman » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

magicsmoke wrote: post #50

peterlk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War doesn't care what you want. It's already starting. For example, look at the China/India conflict

That's a slap fight over bits of ice and rock compared to a real WW2/WW3 style war.

I don't know if the supply of clean water really counts as rock and ice or slap fighting.

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

#73

Post by spectramax » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #39

zdragnar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering China's relationship with Taiwan, I would say yes, we absolutely knew that China would not allow a Chinese territory to be outside of thr CCP's control indefinitely. If anything, I am surprised it took them this long to decide the rest of the world would simply watch and do nothing of importance about it.

It's not about geopolitics, it's about economics. China has been extremely pragmatic and results-oriented. When Hong Kong was the most economically successful part of China, they were happy to leave it be and learn some lessons from it. Now the rest of China has largely caught up and it's time for them to make HK more like Shenzhen, rather than the other way around.

Giving that Shanghai stock market trades more than HK, that argument doesn't hold up. China didn't need HK. They did not want a western-aligned population of 7M people within 40km of its borders and instead decided to deal with them with a heavy hand.

I think China played their hand too soon and the west is waking up to it.

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

#74

Post by ciarannolan » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #35

dbcurtis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So perhaps you were downvoted for being vague. But certainly things like the supreme court recently refusing to hear an important case on qualified immunity have me concerned that USA-ians are whistling past the graveyard right now.

They are also being down voted for trying to make this a conversation about the USA instead of about Hong Kong.

There's a "but America" comment in all of these threads, usually more than one. It's boring and played out. I just downvote and move on.

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

#75

Post by lehi » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

The circumstances of Britain's original forced takeover and colonization of Hong Kong in the Opium Wars are the greater evil to me. Righting that wrong after so long was always going to be painful.

By analogy: a violent drug-dealer shoots you, robs you, and then kidnaps your child at gunpoint. Years later, you manage to have the child returned, but in the interim they have been taught by their captor to hate you and resist rejoining their family. What do you do?

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

#76

Post by bassman9000 » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #69

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…

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.

Most of the West wants to appease China. What response are you talking about. It's not standing in front, that's for sure. EU silence is deafening, except for some weak, mild comments here or there. China's diplomacy barks back, and EU commissioners become silent.

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

#77

Post by croes » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #9

oxymoran wrote: post #5

The rest of the world needs to wake up and realize that China is not messing around. There will be a long list of Hong Kong’s if we continue to look the other way to authoritarian regimes.

US administration repeatedly failed to honour quite a number of defence treaties as of lately.

BTW guess who sanctioned war crimes investigators for looking into possible war crimes of their troops? You want peace and justice in the world, then start judging everyone by the same standards.

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

#78

Post by dontcarethrow2 » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

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 simpletons. Someone is shutting off our outpost, ofcourse we won't let it go without kicking and screaming to get everyones attention to what?

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

#79

Post by bsanr2 » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

dbcurtis wrote: post #38

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…

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.

But the same generation was in power when we launched our twenty-year War on Terror, and the comparisons to Vietnam that started popping up a decade and a half ago didn't manifest in any sort of wariness to move forward and keep moving forward with our attempted "regime change." If anything, it's that which has changed our willingness to step forward militarily. The conclusion is that we spent our war capital on frivolous quagmires when real threats were looming but not being taken seriously.

See also: cointel on BLM while white supremacists plan and execute with freely. Team America: World Police reflecting our actual police.

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

#80

Post by PakG1 » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

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.

Hong Kong not being able to diversify its economy beyond real estate and finance disabled it from having strong leverage. The Hong Kong that was rich enough to support Sichuan after the 2008 earthquake is now arguably less economically dynamic than Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and of course its neighbour, Shenzhen. Hong Kong was in a weak position unable to dictate terms to Beijing. And I think Beijing of course prefers that. I think there is a lot of schaedenfreude in the hearts of mainlanders also, as Hong Kong people used to look down on mainlanders, especially when the HKD was worth so much more than the RMB. I remember people complaining how mainlanders would break toilets by squatting on them because they didn't know how to use sit-down toilets.

China's basically like, "Look at me. I am the captain now."