7 ms·
Hong Kong 'Umbrella' protesters found guilty of public nuisance
- devoply 8y agoWhat a disaster handing back Hong Kong to China without a plebiscite asking Hong Kong people what they actually wanted.
- arcticbull 8y agoTo be honest I'm not sure what difference it would have made. They're too close to the mainland geographically. At best it'd be a Taiwan Jr. (with Beijing asserting outright ownership and refusing to recognize independence while being in a position to do something about it physically), and at worst, well, let's just say there wouldn't have been 50 years of freedom.
- devoply 8y agoPut a hundred nukes and a few military bases and tell China to f-off. In fact that's what we should be doing in Taiwan right now. It's stupid to let this sort of government which to me closely resembles fascism do whatever it wants.
- golergka 8y agoSo, increase DoD spending even more (in such a way that cannot be easily reverted) and further antagonize with second most influential country on Earth which is really important to US economically - while confirming that all any small country needs to get free american help is to peddle a small democratic underdog narrative? Just to be clear - in Hong Kong case, I believe this narrative to be true, but it being true is much less important that it being perceived as true and actively promoted in american media.
- devoply 8y agoThis should be a global effort funded by democratic countries including the EU, North America, Britain, and maybe even India. The point is to keep the world from fracturing into hands of this sort of pseudo-fascism and capitalist-liberalism. The more I see the sorts of moves China is making, the more I feel that we're heading into a new sort of Cold War and America seems to be sitting back letting it happen rather than actively attempting to contain it... because it seems that they can't actually afford to do so.
- golergka 8y agoThat was the intent behind UN and League of Nations before that. Any new similar thing like will end up just like that - a beurocratic monstrosity that lacks any moral authority and is used as a pawn in realpolitik games.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jenshk 8y agoHong Kong, at least, is Chinese and always have been. The British leased the New Territories(90% of Hong Kong) from the Qing Dynasty. Hong Kong island is the only colonial possession, but it's too small to even fit an airport. So the Brits gave it up.
- nailer 8y ago> Hong Kong, at least, is Chinese and always have been That doesn't mean anything. Does it belong to the Chinese in the Communist party? Or the Chinese that live in Hong Kong?
- unchocked 8y agoYou’re thinking Democratically. Geopolitically, HK belongs to China, the historically established state of which Beijing is the capital.
- nailer 8y agoSo do you think Hong Kong 'belonged to Japan' when that was the realpolitik? Beijing might control HK now, but by acknowledging the tyrant's claim, we give them power. Beijing is the capital of the PRC, not 'China'. There are many Chinas, the PRC does not have a monopoly on the name. Hong Kong belongs to it's people.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- computerfriend 8y agoThat's not true, Kowloon was a colonial possession not under lease.
- afarrell 8y agoThe Sino-British Joint declaration was in 1984, when we needed the Sino-Soviet split in order to pressure the USSR.
- lvturner 8y agoThat worked so well in Korea...
- Mirioron 8y agoWorks for the South Koreans.
- arcticbull 8y agoAs it did for the people of Hong Kong. At the time of the handover it represented 20% of China's GDP. Today it's just 2.9%, although that's 5X per capita.
- _cerv 8y agoIn an alternate world where the New Territories had their lease renewed, they probably would remained semi autonomous and any kind of full on independence would agitate China. I don't think they would have sought to isolate other nations over recognizing HK as PRC territory as the UK wields a bit of weight, but you probably would have seen some measures put forth that would have at least required private entities operating in China to treat HK as an extension of Chinese territory, much like what goes on today with Taiwan.
- ElBarto 8y agoHongkong was taken away from China with cannons and drugs. Handing it back was the right thing to do legally (for the new territories), morally, and historically. It's sad to see people effectively praising European imperialism in 2019, reminds me of the old "civilising the natives" antics. Edit since I'm being prevented from relying to comments: There is no regression. Those protesters were charged under a colonial-era law. Hongkong did not even have the Legislative Council under the British, which was created it as a 'gift' to the Chinese. From the popular vote, it seems to me that the "pro-Beijing" camp has a majority, so that's what "the people want"... Let's be realistic and put things in perspective, shall we. Edit 2: To the person who replied: > Meanwhile, during those 100 years, a new, distinct, non Chinese culture developed. Hong Kong people speak a different language than mainland, have different food, culture references and desires. HK's culture is as Chinese as can be. In fact it is more traditional Chinese than the mainland. They speak Chinese (Cantonese is 'Chinese', it's the language spoken in Guangdong province hence why it is spoken in HK, 'Canton' is how Guangzhou used to be called...), they eat Chinese. It would be good to know a minimum about a topic before commenting.
- throwaway2048 8y agoWhat about what the people of Hong Kong want?
- ngcc_hk 8y agoLiberty. Can read reddit, Facebook, google and hacker news.
- conjectures 8y agoEuropean imperialism was bad. Therefore any criticism of contemporary repression is support of historical imperialism. This is a non sequitur.
- NotPaidToPost 8y agoI think the suggestion is that some comments give the impression that the "natives" would be much better off under Western rule than under their own people's. I can understand that this may pass off as supporting European imperialism, and even perhaps racism. We can hope that China becomes democratic but that is an issue for the Chinese people.
- dirtyid 8y agoHK was ran by a colonial government, the irony is that the British had 100 years to grant HK citizens full suffrage but chose not to do until China modernisation made handback inevitable.
- whooshee 8y agoWell, seems to be in accordance with the fact that the British never gave HK democracy.
- nailer 8y agoI know Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, but: > Ever since the 1950s, the Chinese government has continually threatened the British in attempting to bring any democratic developments in Hong Kong. Attempts to bring Hong Kong citizens on to the negotiating table by the British during the Sino-Anglo discussions were rejected by Beijing in the late 1980s. The last governor Chris Patten faced a great deal of opposition in changing the former colony's political system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_development_in_Hong_Kong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_development_in_Hong...
- shawnz 8y agoOnly tangentially related, but I saw a very upsetting video on Reddit yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOAbkTs_a4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOAbkTs_a4 In this video you see a Chinese woman being arrested for making online comments about Xi Jinping. She says everything right and it doesn't matter, they just take her anyways. I don't know what point I'm trying to make other than that it's a very sad state of affairs for Chinese people right now, and I feel for them.
- swarnie_ 8y agoI sometime wonder is heavy handed policing has always been common in major countries and we didn't have the mass communication tools to share it or if its a newer phenomenon
- iygghnkufdv 8y agoNumerous countries in the 20th century (China, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, even USA) have at some point either locked their people away in concentration camps, arrested them for dubious reasons, etc. Millions have been starved to death with no way to defend themselves or grow food. Such a world does not exist anymore of course just 70 years later, however the culture in my opinion persists-- local authorities continue to feel they have the right to force and intimidation for even the most pedestrian of investigations now, such as for comments made online, rather than for murder.
- keiferski 8y ago> Such a world does not exist anymore of course just 70 years later https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps
- jialutu 8y agoLearnt from the best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
- mruts 8y agoI think colonization (at least the latter parts, maybe WWI and after) has been unjustly demonized. I live in a previously colonized country, and let me tell you, The Germans and then the British knew how to run this country better than the locals ever did, even today. For 30 years after independence, the people literally starved under communism. And the president of the time is still regarded a hero, despite people remembering the mass famine!
- powerapple 8y agogood, let's go ahead and promote colonism. Imaging if Germans won the war and rule the world. Yep! What a world we are living in now!
- laHiesh1 8y agoI think it's important to draw a line between positive and negative colonialism. The British were legally given HK for 99 years, built infrastructure there, and turned it into a very wealthy territory that enjoyed many freedoms they would not otherwise have if it were a Chinese territory. Even today, there is a significant number of people within HK that want to go back to British rule. Why deny what the people want?
- gcb0 8y agobecause they are part of a ruling elite? I don't know anything, but that's usually the case
- ngcc_hk 8y agoTaiwan and a bit Hong Kong show there is a third way out of communist or colonisation.
- _iyig 8y agoPerhaps the answer is not a return to colonialism, but to ask what the colonial governments got right. They certainly got a lot wrong, about which much discussion has already been had. Maybe it’s also worth remembering the positive lessons from that period.
- ngcc_hk 8y agoNone of them are umbrella protestor core. They are OC which the Umbrella core may respect but sort of ignore. The localist and the young one are not these. Those have been jailed in previous sentence.