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Remember Hong Kong
- 31337Logic 6d ago...and the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
- jmclnx 6d agoAt this point there is really no Hong Kong of old. China now fully controls that area, breaking a treaty with the UK. Taiwan should take note and always remember what happened to Hong Kong because everyone knows they are next on the list.
- ramesh31 6d agoAs I get older it becomes more obvious that the whole "moral arc of history" line is complete nonsense. Evil usually wins. Goodness is a strange outlier in all of history. It has to be fought for relentlessly, and is fleeting at best. The world as a whole now seems to be reverting to the mean.
- camillomiller 6d agoSo, America good, China bad?
- ramesh31 6d ago>"So, America good, China bad?" No. Democracy good, autocracy bad. America is speed-running toward the latter at this point.
- jackb4040 6d agoA lot of American liberals just want to turn the clock back 20 years, when they were still doing military interventions everywhere in the world but at least the political class would get on TV and pretend to feel bad for it. In a world where technology has made gentle imperialism untenable, your system has chosen honest imperialism. Wishing you didn't have to deal with this contradiction won't work. You will have to choose between getting rid of the "autocracy" and keeping the empire.
- rayiner 6d ago> In a world where technology has made gentle imperialism untenable, your system has chosen honest imperialism. Wishing you didn't have to deal with this contradiction won't work. You will have to choose between getting rid of the "autocracy" and keeping the empire. This is one of the most insightful posts I've seen on this app. Thank you.
- ramesh31 6d ago>but at least the political class would get on TV and pretend to feel bad for it. Yeah. Words matter. I do indeed wish we were back to a time where that was the case. America has always been flawed and contradictory, but our greatness came from a shared sense of some higher ideals that we strived for, regardless of the messy reality. That's been lost, and it's sad.
- boxed 6d agoAmerica? It was the UK.
- throwaway2037 6d agoWhat do you make of the fall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain in Europe? In the last thirty years, lots of countries have gotten more democratic.
- ramesh31 4d ago>What do you make of the fall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain in Europe? As bad as the Soviet Union was, what came next for Russia was far far worse. The Soviets at least had party rule; Russia is now an absolute autocracy ruled with an iron grip of one man who is now liquidating 30,000 people a month in a pointless war. Orders of magnitude more people have died in the last four years of Ukraine than in every direct Soviet military action combined post-WW2. Remember that Afghanistan was their most infamous blunder, leading directly to the dissolution, and only killed half of what they are losing monthly now.
- KaiserPro 6d ago> Taiwan should take note It always had. The problem for them is that Trump is a bad ally. Their strategy is/was provide economic benefits to USA in return for a looming presence. the implication being, don't try it china, its not possible, you'll lose too many people. However thats not so much of a threat, partly because china has better anti-aircraft carrier weapons and partly because the US military has forgotten (well more accurately has fired the people who know) how to do logistics.
- deleted 6d ago[deleted]
- mytailorisrich 6d agoThis is a Western view of things. Hongkong was built by the British and a symbol of foreign aggression and imperialism for all Chinese (including in Taiwan actually, at least if you are more on the KMT side). It was never "free" under the British, and in fact the LegCo was only created when the British knew that they would hand HK over to China. Why should "Hong Kong of old" remain? Why should Chinese territory not under full Chinese control? (And by territory I don't mean some far away outpost, but really the heart of the country). There has been a lot of noise about "decolonising the curriculum" in recent years, which some have criticised as "woke", but it is striking that the narrative on HK is still fully colonial-centric with little opposing voices. In the West we are also oblivious to Chinese politics at historic scale. I.e., the conflict between communists and nationalists, and now also democrats. When there are conflicts about freedoms in HK it does not necessarily means against China, as the people are Chinese and in China, but against the communists. Likewise in Taiwan, although there is also an "independentist" "faction" there.
- maxglute 6d agoWhat happened in HK? Stupid nativist kids got disciplined for being pieces of shit, the treasonous ones jailed, and now post spanking they're partying it up on the mainland. TW should take note they're so so lucky to have that option, the alternative is Gaza.
- aurareturn 6d agoAt this point there is really no Hong Kong of old. China now fully controls that area, breaking a treaty with the UK. For much of Hong Kong's history under British rule, there was no freedom. It was whatever a single British man said. Let's take off the rose tinted glasses. A lot of Hong Kong people have fond memories of the "old HK" because their living standards and socioeconomics were well above Mainland Chinese. Today, this gap is much closer which doesn't sit right in many HKers minds. They were suppose to be the higher class, westernized Chinese. How dare any Mainlanders become wealthier, more capable, more cultured than we are. It wasn't because they had "freedom" under British rule.
- Sabinus 4d agoWhat makes you characterise Hong Kong independence movements as naive economic nostalgia and not a desire for political freedom or independent legal systems? Do you think individuals experienced more freedom under the British monarch and Parliament or under communist rule?
- aurareturn 4d agoBecause I’ve lived there for a long time and understand the locals more than whatever the western media tells.
- boxed 6d agoThis one time, turns out the colonialism was 100% on the side of moral right.
- kstenerud 6d ago> This one time, turns out the colonialism was 100% on the side of moral right. No, it wasn't. It was just coincidental that the UK still held a 99 year lease (from 1898) when the communists took over mainland China. How they got the lease in the first place is another matter.
- boxed 6d agoIt was right every day after the communists took over China. That's quite a few years. And it was wrong of the UK to give back Hong Kong, as can be clearly seen today as China can't be trusted to honor the treaty, and certainly not be trusted to treat its citizens with a minimum of dignity.
- vrganj 6d agoMaybe how China treats its citizens is no business of the UK and the fact they were treated differently from other Chinese citizens in the first place is a historic injustice rooted in the UK's desire to force Chinese citizens into opium addiction for their own profit? Why should the UK or you or I tell the Chinese how to do things? Who made us the ultimate arbiters of justice?
- Starman_Jones 6d agoWhy should one party to an agreement hold the other party accountable to the terms of the agreement?
- vrganj 6d agoWhy should anyone honor an agreement with the drug dealer that attacked you so they could keep selling drugs and stole some of your property in the process? If you were mugged and then the perp finally left you alone if you swore to do his bidding for another fifty years, you'd also tell them what they want to hear I assume. But I doubt you would honor your agreement once they no longer had power over you.
- roenxi 6d ago> Millions of Hong Kongers were determined to keep the freedom they had enjoyed. The CCP has won, at least for now. Fundamentally, I just don't see this frame as being a path to long term success for HK. If it is them v. the CCP: the CCP is alert to the political risk of HK, outnumbers them, controls the local military, has better propaganda and has more of a claim to success given that the British Empire has failed, the US Not-An-Empire seems to be struggling and morally bankrupt. At least the CCP has been delivering visible improvements in prosperity over the last few decades. It is a tragedy to lose the jewel of Asia that was old school Hong Kong. But they really need a frame that acknowledges a bit of the present political realities - there'll need to be cooperation with major factions in mainland China. Probably within the CCP. I assume there is a liberalising faction of some sort.
- garou 6d agoUSA propaganda. They try to weaken any democracy so they seems the least worst option. (Of course there is other "worst option" countries, who wants to live in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Rwanda, Uganda, Etc.? [allies of usa]).
- phantomathkg 6d agoPropaganda of what? If you have read news you should have seen the HK courts now jail people left right and center for against CCP.
- garou 6d ago[flagged]
- camillomiller 6d agoThis is bad American propaganda. I’m sorry but what Hong Kong are we talking about? And what advantages of democracy are we talking about? Unbridled inequalities fostered by a crooked ruling class with absolutely zero respect for international laws and diplomatic order? This narrative could work when the US were still disguising their true nature. Nowadays… not so much
- boxed 6d ago[flagged]
- garou 6d agothe usa propaganda is strong on you
- lenerdenator 6d agoIt's not propaganda. It's just the result of the policies that the CCP has implemented in the past, and given their death grip on politics in China, it could very well happen again should it be found advantageous to the survival of the party.
- boxed 6d agoEven the CCP admits the starvations they created under Mao dude.
- F3nd0 6d agoDemocracy ≠ US.
- est 6d agoHere's how it started https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Poon_Hiu-wing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Poon_Hiu-wing A guy commited homicide and walks free after 19 months in jail.
- ii41 6d agoAnd those "Free Hong Kong" protesters were for him, not against him.
- sajithdilshan 6d ago> We should not let Hong Kong fade away. We should not let Joshua Wong fade away. Or Jimmy Lai, or others Who are we? is it the people living in HK? then it make sense. Otherwise why would anyone else (someone else living on the other side of the world) care? People have their own countries to fix let alone worry about other peoples problems.
- jplrssn 6d ago> Otherwise why would anyone else (someone else living on the other side of the world) care? People have their own countries to fix let alone worry about other peoples problems. Do you care about your neighbours? How about people in the next town over? Why should that concern stop at the border of your particular nation state?
- sajithdilshan 6d agoI care about my neighbours because I know them. I don’t care about the next town because they might as well be same as people living in Tokyo. Also it’s their town, neighbours or country. Let them fix it however the way they want, why should I care or mingle on strangers business. A lot of problems in the world would have been solved if people actually minded their own business
- jplrssn 6d ago> I care about my neighbours because I know them. I don’t care about the next town because they might as well be same as people living in Tokyo. Fair enough, but many have the ability to empathise with people even if they don’t know them personally.
- sajithdilshan 6d agoTrue, but empathy and calling for actions is two different things
- aurareturn 6d agoI was living in Hong Kong when the protests first started and stayed through the entire 2019 year. First, the vast majority of the locals hated the protests and didn't support them. This isn't reported by the western media. The media reported it as all HK people were being wronged. Second, most of the protests were done by young people who lost hope in Hong Kong's ultra expensive housing and ultra stressful life. They live in tiny studio sized apartments with the entire family. Buying a home was out of reach for most young HK people unless they have financial help from parents. This was a key trigger in why the youth were protesting.[0][1][2] Again, this was never reported or mentioned by western media. Zoom out 10,000ft and the HK protests and Occupy Wallstreet protests aren't really all that different. Young people felt hopeless economically. Third, Joshua Wong went to foreign governments and invited them to help him against China. Hong Kong belongs to China if you forgot. This is considered treason in just about any country. Imagine if BLM protestors physically went to China's CIA equivalent to ask them for help against the US government. [0]https://johnmenadue.com/post/2021/04/hong-kongs-housing-crisis-an-underlying-factor-in-the-2019-riots/ https://johnmenadue.com/post/2021/04/hong-kongs-housing-cris... [1]https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/8/11/a-lack-of-affordable-housing-feeds-hong-kongs-discontent https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/8/11/a-lack-of-afford... [2]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.70001 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.70001
- lenerdenator 6d ago> Hong Kong belongs to China if you forgot If that's not a healthy attitude to take towards a territorial possession, I don't know what is.
- garou 6d agoICE is so healthy…
- lenerdenator 6d agoYou're right. Violent authoritarian thugs are bad. There should be systems in place to sweep them away. Ideally, through peaceful means. I'd be interested to see what has been implemented with regard to this under the stewardship of the CCP.
- swiftcoder 6d agoThe return of Hong Kong to China is the first global news item I really remember from my childhood (the death of Princess Dianna shortly thereafter being the second). One really felt a shift in england that day: this then is the final nail in the coffin of the british empire. I wish the whole thing had gone better for the folks on the receiving end. I was at university with a crowd who had grown up there seeing themselves as british, suddenly thrust into a strange nationality they didn't match their internal identity, and with no say in the matter.
- rwmj 6d agoOne good thing is that we've extended UK residency and a path to citizenship to anyone who was born in Hong Kong before the handover (so everyone over about 30 y.o). It's pretty much the extent of what the UK could do under the circumstances - not much chance of changing the CCP to respect human rights.
- m4r1k 6d agoThrough my hong kongese friends, I got pretty active in the 2019 umbrella protest. To me, one of the most impressive image of that era is the Kai Lan Egg japanese-styke manga use to show the world and the CCP what was going on. https://china-underground.com/2019/10/28/hong-kong-protests-art-kai-lan-egg/ https://china-underground.com/2019/10/28/hong-kong-protests-...
- jackb4040 6d agoThey really fucked up when they started wearing Maga hats and making signs asking Donald Trump to save them. Personal feelings aside, it was a strategic mistake and completely turned China and probably a majority of HK itself against them. And obviously they did not get the intervention they were looking for. If you ask a foreign power to intervene in your protest movement, then fail, you should probably consider fleeing if you don't want to go to prison. Just calling balls and strikes here.
- mytailorisrich 6d agoStorming the LegCo and install a British HK flag [1] has to be one of the most idiotic and self-harmful thing one could do. That really made me wonder what those guys were thinking. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-48832910 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-48832910
- maxglute 6d agoHK topics seems to active disproportionate amount of almonds in western discourse. 10-15 years from now, new HK gen under decolonized patrioitc education going to be thoroughly Sinicized and wonder why west still can't take the L.
- mieses 5d agoI don't like almonds and AI word-salads very much. Walnuts are yummy.
- maeln 6d agoI found that (like many things) it's impossible to talk about the HK protest (and somewhat HK future) on the internet. Aside from the obvious trolls, the misinformed and those with a vested interest in pushing a narrative, the protest in themselves regrouped a lot of people, had a lot of things going on, and make you able to push whatever narrative you want. They were some prodemocratic demonstrators. Laudable but sadly they had no chance of winning that fight. There were some genuinely weird people with weird demands too (like some far-right ultranationalist HKer). The attacks on some politician, journalist and medias, and extradition law passed at all cost, was a clear authoritarian push. But from a chinese perspective, it is just putting HK in line with the rest of the country. There was some weird disappearance of some protestor, the clear usage of the triad to inflict violence on some protestor, and some protestors turn violent too. One could say, every country would react the same to a part of a country trying to secede. But if we look at, for example, Spain and Catalonia, will independence is firmly denied, there was way less violence and authoritarianism (Catalonia still have some special status). All in all, the sad part is that some well-meaning idealistic kids might never be able to go back to HK. And with the integration with china, HK will slowly lose its identify and distinct culture. Now that it's no different than most other chinese territory, there is no real interest for foreign investor to invest there specifically, which was a part of what made HK rich. Its landscape will probably change a lot as the land value is not as prized anymore (which, tbf, might be a win for a lot of HKer). A lot of HKer now move to the bigger and richer Shenzhen for work, as more mandarin-speaking chinese move to HK. There are too many speakers for Cantonese to disappear overnight, but it might become a secondary language for most over time. The one you use to talk with you grandparent and feel slightly unique.