81–90 of 243 posts
China is a horrific, authoritarian monster. I hope this century sees their vision checked and reduced back to the edges of humanity.
In the last 40 years, while China lifted a billion people out of poverty, what evil did they commit that is even remotely comparable to what the US did in, say, Iraq?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ultimately, the UK had absolutely zero chance at holding HK against the Chinese, HK was a tiny colony that could be seized basically instantly, and at the time decolonialization was still a global hotbutton issue. A few decades before negotiations began between China and the UK, India seized the Portuguese colony of Goa[1]. Nobody acted on behalf of the Portuguese. With the USA having just a few years beforehand suff…
A China still badly crippled by World War 2 almost single handedly defeated an entire coalition of western powers I think the 1.5M North Korean who died might disagree that China "almost single handedly defeated the coalition". China paid a huge price for that war that ended in a stalemate. 200,000 dead and probably the same wounded/missing. That's ~12% of the Chinese military at the time. By contrast the US lost ~1M…
The troops sacrificed were also mostly former Nationalist units from the civil war that ended the year before.
First Hong Kong, next Taiwan?
Unless something seriously changes, such as a full scale invasion by China, in which hundreds of thousands get killed on both sides, the situation is not even close to the same thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Say what you will about the US, we still haven’t run citizens over with tanks and hosed them down drains. do you know what happened in iraq?
Feel free to enlighten us.
The Sino-British Joint Declaration was a mistake. What did they think would happen? If not now then what about in 2047?! Were they hoping that was enough time to warm the new generations to the idea of giving up their rights? There is no fixing this, but I appreciate the effort by the British. Many will not want to leave, understandably. But the threat of draining HK is an interesting sort of pressure to put on China…
There was no alternative really, China would have just seized HK by force. Jolly good show by the Brits to standby the people of Hong Kong though with this immigration offer. Politicians rarely do the right thing instead of the self-interested thing, but you have to hand it to Johnson's government on this one.
This is very much a long term, self-interest thing. Britain (just like any other developed country) heavily depends on immigration to not fall into Japanese-style deflation, since nobody wants to have kids any more. Hong-Kongers will probably make for some really good immigrants.
That's what good business is like: win-win. The only downside is the possible retaliation by the CCP. And let's see if they actually let people leave HK en masse, or will they just lock all exits. And let's see how many people will actually want to go, even if you open all the doors for them. Whoever really wanted to leave has probably left quite a while ago.
China is a horrific, authoritarian monster. I hope this century sees their vision checked and reduced back to the edges of humanity.
In the last 40 years, while China lifted a billion people out of poverty, what evil did they commit that is even remotely comparable to what the US did in, say, Iraq?
Go away, propagandist troll.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ultimately, the UK had absolutely zero chance at holding HK against the Chinese, HK was a tiny colony that could be seized basically instantly, and at the time decolonialization was still a global hotbutton issue. A few decades before negotiations began between China and the UK, India seized the Portuguese colony of Goa[1]. Nobody acted on behalf of the Portuguese. With the USA having just a few years beforehand suff…
A China still badly crippled by World War 2 almost single handedly defeated an entire coalition of western powers I think the 1.5M North Korean who died might disagree that China "almost single handedly defeated the coalition". China paid a huge price for that war that ended in a stalemate. 200,000 dead and probably the same wounded/missing. That's ~12% of the Chinese military at the time. By contrast the US lost ~1M…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think that would give the HKers access to the Pacific and a place to rebuild. I'd love to have those brilliant entrepreneurs and engineers over here. Not many special "brilliant entrepreneurs". Just regular ole entrepreneurs taking advantage of the specific spot HK was in, and the specific relationship between Britain and China for global trade. Merely bring the same people elsewhere would accomplish no great mir…
There's nothing particularly special about SV VCs /programmers. Just a crapload of capital allocated there. Programmers are abundant throughout the country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is factually incorrect. China's legislature amended Hong Kong's constitution to add the new national security law precisely because the Hong Kong legislature - even under heavy influence by mainland China - was unable to pass it.
Sure. Regardless, legislative means were used, not force.
You are correct to point out that force was not used (n/m the divisions of tanks that have been on the border), and Taiwan is different.