What the protesters don't tell you is that there are nearly 1 million HKers signed and counting supporting the bill. https://www.safeguardhongkong.hk/
Nice, website was working before I posted here, guess some protesters here don't like it.
Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
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Re: Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's been referred to as "debt trap diplomacy". Here's a piece from last month reporting that a raft of countries including Turkey have refused to attend latest summit. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/belt-and-road-...
Alternative viewpoint: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/opinion/china-belt-road-i...
Thanks for sharing. Key point:
> Yes, debt is on the rise in the developing world, and Chinese overseas lending is, for the first time, a part of the story. But a number of us academics who have studied China’s practices in detail have found scant evidence of a pattern indicating that Chinese banks, acting at the government’s behest, are deliberately over-lending or funding loss-making projects to secure strategic advantages for China.
> The main example of these purported ploys is the Hambantota Port in southern Sri Lanka: The government handed control over the port to a Chinese company in 2017 after struggling to make its loan payments to China. But that’s a special case, and it is widely misunderstood.
> China does not publish details about its overseas lending, but the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University (which I direct) has collected information on more than 1,000 Chinese loans in Africa between 2000 and 2017, totaling more than $143 billion. Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center has identified and tracked more than $140 billion in Chinese loans to Latin America and the Caribbean since 2005.
> Based on the findings of both institutes, it seems that the risks of B.R.I. are often overstated or mischaracterized.
Re: Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do people think they'll be able to change things?
> Do people think they'll be able to change things? An unpopular chief executive resigned in 2004 to protests half as large [1]. Beijing is at least somewhat constrained with respect to what it can openly do. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tung_Chee-hwa
> In 2003, more than 500,000 protesters demanded Tung to step down in the light of the proposed legislation of the Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 and the SARS outbreak. Tung resigned in the middle of his second term on 10 March 2005.
2 years delay make attributing causality seem like a bit of a stretch. The Wikipedia article makes it sound like he resigned after losing the backing of the PRC government.
Re: Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do people think they'll be able to change things? An unpopular chief executive resigned in 2004 to protests half as large [1]. Beijing is at least somewhat constrained with respect to what it can openly do. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tung_Chee-hwa
> In 2003, more than 500,000 protesters demanded Tung to step down in the light of the proposed legislation of the Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 and the SARS outbreak. Tung resigned in the middle of his second term on 10 March 2005. 2 years delay make attributing causality seem like a bit of a stretch. The Wikipedia article makes it sound like he resigned after losing the backing of the PRC government.
Multiple elements weakened Tung, the most significant being his attempted pro-Beijing legislation and handling of the SARS epidemic. Those lead to a series of resignations and public dressings down. Beijing’s disapproval, while a factor, was neither the proximate nor dominant cause.
Hong Kong, politically and culturally, responds to protest.
Re: Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
#95Just finished the 8 hour march. That was insane. But the law is even more insane. A North Korea-like totalitarian state that puts people in camps can just snatch any lawyer, businessman our journalist and take them away without trial and without revealing their location. Imagine people at startups working in sensitive areas like DNA testing, biotech, finance or data mining can be taken away and forced to reveal data,…
(Perspective of an American who lives in a US Chinatown and speaks to many HKers, also went there last year)
Hong Kong is over.
Historically, it benefited from being one of the only open ports, proximate to China, but not in it. Good governance and rule of law (very important for mercantile activity, given how much finance, insurance, and complex legal codes around ownership / title / possession), nice real estate, etc.
Today, it feels like the PRC is playing the long game, and they're going to win -- they'll just hang up their hats and wait 50 years, only a generation or two, until they eventually take complete control of Hong Kong, maybe going as far as outright annexation. They're patient, determined, and focused in a way only a place ruled by a powerful, long-term oriented elite oligopoly can be (vs in the US, where we still can't fix Social Security, even though everyone knows it's a train wreck in the making, or build anything remotely resembling China's current high-speed rail network).
The real question I have is, what's going to happen in China when Xi Jinping (dictator for life) can no longer rule effectively? Will he willingly stop aside or is there going to be some kind of coup / violent overthrow if the CCP splits and can't decide whether or not it's time to replace him? That's what's got me thinking these days.
Re: Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
#96Just finished the 8 hour march. That was insane. But the law is even more insane. A North Korea-like totalitarian state that puts people in camps can just snatch any lawyer, businessman our journalist and take them away without trial and without revealing their location. Imagine people at startups working in sensitive areas like DNA testing, biotech, finance or data mining can be taken away and forced to reveal data,…
(Perspective of an American who lives in a US Chinatown and speaks to many HKers, also went there last year) Hong Kong is over. Historically, it benefited from being one of the only open ports, proximate to China, but not in it. Good governance and rule of law (very important for mercantile activity, given how much finance, insurance, and complex legal codes around ownership / title / possession), nice real estate, e…
> They're patient, determined, and focused in a way only a place ruled by a powerful, long-term oriented elite oligopoly can be
You’re modelling China circa 2005. Xi Jinping is now a ruler for life. Dictatorship predicts Beijing better than long-term oligopoly.
For example, he’s been impatient with Hong Kong. If Xi respected Hong Kong’s independence, the fraction of Hong Kongese identifying as Chinese would have stayed high (or risen); integration in ‘47 would have proceeded seamlessly. Instead, he got impatient. He’s impulsively abducting bookstore owners and ramming through measures. That is stoking dissent and economic corrosion in a totally unnecessary way.
> what's going to happen in China when Xi Jinping (dictator for life) can no longer rule effectively?
We’ve passed the point where Xi can peacefully cede power without fearing for his and his family’s lives.
There may be a few more peaceful transitions of power in China’s future. And there’s a lot of political capital to burn, which gives the process time. But any course correction will be effected by force.
Re: Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
SCMP has been pushing CCP propaganda since Jack Ma took over, it's just more subtle than GlobalTimes/XinhuaNet or other official sources. Not covering this protest would have been immediately obvious. You have to be a very subtle troll to make propaganda work abroad. It's similar to YC getting to open a China program in exchange for getting a few Mainland mods on HN. Any anti-China posts do come up to front page but…
"It's similar to YC getting to open a China program in exchange for getting a few Mainland mods on HN. Any anti-China posts do come up to front page but then disappear much faster than everything else (same will happen to this one)." So this is one big statement. Is it true, or are you just guessing at that? Is it common knowledge, or suspicion? Where are we with the validity of that statement?
I don't think there are any moderators besides dang and sctb; dang has denied accusations like this in the past (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19496933 )
Complaints like "disappear much faster than everything else (same will happen to this one)" are quite misplaced when they concern posts that spend 10 hours or so on the front page.
Re: Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
#98What the protesters don't tell you is that there are nearly 1 million HKers signed and counting supporting the bill. https://www.safeguardhongkong.hk/
Archived version with the vote counter stuck at 500,720: http://web.archive.org/web/20190528205611/https://www.safegu...
Unless that site requires valid ID to sign in support, I immediately disbelieve the number because bot activity is basically inevitable. (Not that I don't believe that there are people in Hong Kong who support the bill, just that online signatures don't help figure out how many there are.)
Re: Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
#99What the protesters don't tell you is that there are nearly 1 million HKers signed and counting supporting the bill. https://www.safeguardhongkong.hk/
These online petitions tend to be largely filled in by people from North of the border. There is no way of verifying that the signatories are Hong Kong people (the only validation is the last four digits of HKID which can be any four digit number)
Re: Hundreds of thousands take to Hong Kong streets against controversial bill
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Perspective of an American who lives in a US Chinatown and speaks to many HKers, also went there last year) Hong Kong is over. Historically, it benefited from being one of the only open ports, proximate to China, but not in it. Good governance and rule of law (very important for mercantile activity, given how much finance, insurance, and complex legal codes around ownership / title / possession), nice real estate, e…
> They're patient, determined, and focused in a way only a place ruled by a powerful, long-term oriented elite oligopoly can be You’re modelling China circa 2005. Xi Jinping is now a ruler for life. Dictatorship predicts Beijing better than long-term oligopoly. For example, he’s been impatient with Hong Kong. If Xi respected Hong Kong’s independence, the fraction of Hong Kongese identifying as Chinese would have stay…
Life-long dictator ended ... but for your worry many if not all his family are Austrilan, American etc. They run away long time ago, just like many elites there. Just still work for china’s interest in spite of any possible reflection by seeing what the host country do. Instead they will try to take advantage of that. That is the tragedy.