6 ms·

Hong Kong can be a gateway to liberal values for China

60 points by baylearn 7y ago

ovi256 7y ago
This is wishful thinking, the mainland Moloch will devour and assimilate any traces of liberal values in Hong Kong. It's a tiny morsel by Chinese standards, they've assimilated much more.
- xwolfi 7y ago
  Heh don't be so sure. At least we're trying, not armchair losing before even fighting. China is large, vastly uninformed and HK is very far from liberal values by western standards. But heh we can show them small improvements, like how to change their over protective labor law encouraging slacking at work.
- s_Hogg 7y ago
  Incorporating HK isn't going well so far though, is it? The future isn't written. A few weeks ago, it was inconceivable that the extradition bill will be withdrawn. I'm not saying things will turn out one way or another, only that it feels misguided to think anything about this situation is a foregone conclusion.
- ur-whale 7y ago
  Agreed. And if there ever was a chance for HK to be free, it all disappeared in a sudden pop when Winnie the pooh took over and made himself leader for life.
wei_jok 7y ago
The author of this story was a front line protester involved in the LegCo incident in early July. He is a currently PhD student studying political science abroad. Not sure he will ever be able to return to HK ... An interview with him about the smashing of LegCo building: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017530/only-unmasked-protester-hong-kong-legco-takeover-has-fled https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017530...
analyst74 7y ago
I think that was actually part of the original plan, China didn't have to agree to the two system thing, but Deng chose to do it. China under Deng's leadership was very bold on testing big policy changes, from various special development zones, to limited experiment with democracy in HK. Sadly several key reformists had to resign after Tiananmen massacre, so when Deng stepped down, the more conservative forces took over and have been dominating since.
- baylearn 7y ago
  I'd argue that had also things have been going in that direction (to some extent), before Xi Jinping assumed power in late 2012.
  - xurias 7y ago
    Deng stepped down in '92, so sure, it's been something that's been developing before Xi Jinping.
- bakuninsbart 7y ago
  Small correction: Tiananmen protests started in part because of the death of one of the biggest reformist voices in the Polit Buro, Hu Yaobang. Other reformers were sidelined during the protests. Basically, in the beginning many voices in the CCP and Deng Xiaoping himself were sympathetic to the protests, but as they dragged on and more radical voices gained ground with demands like opening the country and introducing free elections, the tides in the upper (and lower) branches of the CCP turned against the reformers. It is also interesting to note that while the reformers have been mostly side-lined since then, and Xi especially is a hard-right hardliner, the party is still at least paying lip-service to reformers. - For example one of the key policy goals of the last 5-year plan was to continue to develop Hong Kong into a global financial centre and broadly liberalize the chinese economy.
  - pishpash 7y ago
    And HK protestors are making the same mistake, radicals have taken over.
powerapple 7y ago
I guess this is exactly why a popular opinion in mainland China now is that there is safe net between China and rest of world. Most of them don't want to be liberated, at least not to outsiders' terms.
- Dude2029 7y ago
  Probably because liberty does not mean prosperity.
  - adventured 7y ago
    > Probably because liberty does not mean prosperity. In the post WW2 era, it has overwhelmingly meant that. Not subtly, not kinda sorta, overwhelmingly. And the lack of liberty has overwhelmingly meant poverty. The scales are so radically tilted toward those things, that the outliers are few on each side, counted on one hand typically. Prosperous + high degrees of liberty: Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Iceland, US, Canada, UK, Denmark, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Belgium, France, Japan, Israel, New Zealand, Italy, South Korea, Spain You know, just nearly all the most affluent nations on the planet. Nearly all the most prosperous nations are also high liberty nations. The list continues even further on down the line: Taiwan, Portugal, Estonia, Slovenia, Czech, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Greece, Poland Even Romania for example now has a GDP per capita well exceeding that of China and Russia. How is that possible, that Romania is embarrassing Russia economically? One has far more liberty than the other; one is democratic, the other is autocratic to an extreme. In the not so distant future, Romania will double Russia's GDP per capita. Russia's liberty deprivation is beginning to show itself - again - in their economic regression (eg falling incomes for 5-6 years) and general stagnation. What are examples of very impoverished high liberty nations? There are exceptionally few. So few I would challenge anybody to name more than three or four out of ~196 nations. Outliers in the prosperous group when it comes to low liberty? Also exceptionally few: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE The low liberty group of nations is dramatically dominated by poverty by comparison.
    - raquo 7y ago
      > Russia's liberty deprivation is beginning to show itself - again - in their economic regression (eg falling incomes for 5-6 years) and general stagnation. Let's be fair, the last few years recession in Russia was largely, if not entirely, caused by post-Crimea sanctions and crashed global oil prices, it had little if anything to do with liberty deprivation. As to the general point, nobody in Russia knows or cares how well off an average American is. People care how well off they are relative to their own yesterday. Russians know they have it better today than in the 90s, and they (think they) know whom to thank for that. I guess same goes for Chinese as their economy has been growing wildly at the time, although I have no personal experience there. To be extra clear, this does not mean at all that autocracy contributed to that growth in any positive way – most probably the opposite, – only that it appears so from the inside, as without freedom of speech it is very easy for the regime to take credit for any improvements and blame the west for any setbacks. Russia excels at that game domestically, which explains why Russians are largely fine with the relatively small amount of freedoms they're enjoying. Again, probably a similar situation in China. (I didn't downvote you, just wanted to expand on GP's point)
sarcasmOrTears 7y ago
Pathetic as usual. First economic development had to be the gateway, now Hong Kong. These overpaid, overtitled intellectuals have no ability to understand the world. They live in fantasy land, probably because everything went well in their life, after all they're in that position, and are surrounded by others like them. I wish they would just shut up, they're only doing damages. I also wish HN users were smart enough to not upvoting such inferiors editorials only because they come from publications whose reputation probably never respected the quality of the content. The internet is full of blogs with pieces that show real human nature, from people who are sane and not privileged, ungrateful, deluded bootlickers.
rsj_hn 7y ago
They say that history repeats, first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. I think with HK, the situation is reverse. It was farce in 1996 and tragedy today. Just before the handover, when there was a buzz of discussion around the relationship between Hong Kong and China, one of the common talking points in the West was that legally China may be absorbing HK, but economically HK would absorb China. The party line was that 1. China needed more foreign capital inflows, and so HK would be a model of open capital markets. (see this Rockefeller report: "One important component of this trade, and a major engine of Chinese economic growth, has been the freer flow of foreign capital into the Chinese economy. Foreign- funded enterprises — the majority of which are supported by overseas Chinese based in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries in Southeast Asia — account for more than one-third of Chinese exports." https://www.rbf.org/sites/default/files/attachments/china_confronts_the_challenge_of_globalization.pdf https://www.rbf.org/sites/default/files/attachments/china_co... 2. China would need to democratize more to overcome problems with CCP rule. 3. China's economy was reaching diminishing returns in the current system. I recommend reading the summaries of that Rockefeller paper, starting on page 4. HK was so much wealthier and advanced whereas China was considered backwards, and so it was just assumed that China would be copying HK as much as they can. The reality proved..different. China became an industrial powerhouse (something HK never was) much more dependent on capital outflows than inflows. It increased centralization, reversing Deng's reforms. It did not suffer any diminished capacity to either act internationally (see Belt and Road) or to increase industrialization. There was no devolution, no reform, no democratization, and no financialization or internationalization of the economic decision making process. Even culturally, HK had a movie industry in the 90s that was completely eclipsed by mainland China. Same for fine arts, classical music, everything. There is no area, either cultural or economic, where HK has a leadership role now. And the position of HK as a crucial financial gateway to China that allowed China to access western capital began to fade, as did the wealth discrepancy between top tier cities in China and HK. At this point, HK's economy is underperforming mainland China and most mainland Chinese don't view it as having any kind of leadership role, either as demonstrating a system to be emulated and admired or even as demonstrating a possible path forward for China, which is deep into nationalism and xenophobia. So today, given the huge reversal of importance of HK and China, to be bringing out this old line -- it seems crazy.
dragonsh 7y ago
How Hong Kong can be gateway to liberal values when it itself cannot be liberal enough to reconcile with the fact that everyone in Hong Kong is a Chinese citizen (except few permanent residents) following Chinese nationality law. Unless it cannot be liberal enough to acknowledge it's true state how can it serve as an example to others. For people who lived in Hong Kong before 1997 and after it Hong Kong people (except the discriminated groups) discrimated openly people from China and other parts of Asia except Japan. If they happen to seat in MTR, the Hong Kong person will not seat next to them even, deny them jobs due to ethnocity. Indeed in some cases they run full page ads against them openly without repurcussions, which might result in a severe punishment in UK in the form of libel laws, in USA in the firm of racial discrimination. There are no laws against racial discrimination or discrimation based on color in Hong Kong. There is a small toothless organization trying to show as if they care. This is laughable by the economist to even think Hong Kong can ever be an example of liberal values to Chinese in China who did not treat people from other parts of Asia with open contempt like in Hong Kong. Again as it is a minority view I know it will be downvoted, but for people who lived there know the truth.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Arn_Thor 7y ago
  It is true that mainlanders face discrimination in Hong Kong. But let's not forget that a huge portion, if not the majority, of people who call themselves Hong Kongers were born in the mainland, or have parents that came from the mainland. So it's worth examining where those feelings of ill will towards mainland Chinese come from, because it's certainly not ethnic. Hong Kong has a very "western" culture (for lack of a better term, because Hong Kong certainly has a heady mix of Chinese, British and American culture, with the rest of Asia sprinkled in). The increase in anti-mainland sentiment seems to me to correlate closely with the fear of Chinese government encroachment on Hong Kong's institutions, and outright attacks on those institutions and values. From national security legislation, to education reform, to reducing the prominence of Cantonese, to the stifling of the free press by purchases of news organizations by mainland companies, all of this creates a feeling among Hong Kongers that they are losing the way of life they treasure. In addition to that, there is the economic pressure from rising property prices spurred by endless flows of money and people (albeit in quotas) from the mainland, and world-record income and wealth inequality (a problem Hong Kong's government set itself up for long before the handover). This is in no way a defense of the despicable treatment many mainland Chinese have experienced in Hong Kong. That is indefensible, and it is shameful in an otherwise liberal society. But it is just that, an exception to the rule in a liberal society being squeezed relentlessly by the mainland government—and most lately by the Hong Kong government itself, which no longer makes its own decisions.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
The 'gateway' to liberal values in China really is Taiwan that shows that China and Chinese culture are compatible with democracy and these values despite what some claim to justify refusing any such development on the mainland. Taiwan is the home of the Chinese state that ruled over the whole country from 1912 to 1949 and it managed a democratic transition. Hongkong has no "liberal" credentials. It has always (which means 150 years) been a commercial and trade centre only without democratic tradition and the recent protests show that politics very quickly turns into "my way or the highway" on both sides.
- milansm 7y ago
  Exactly. > Taiwan, officially the Republic of China... ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan
- Hasknewbie 7y ago
  Moreover Taiwan's transition to democracy was 'indigenous', as it was never effectively colonized by the West (barring some isolated outposts), therefore defeating all the silly talk of "democracy is a cultural norm imposed by the West and is not compatible with Chinese culture" that pops up every now and then, including in this thread.
- shp0ngle 7y ago
  Taiwan was no democracy until 1989. It had a right-wing dictatorship with a one-party rule.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    Yes, exactly my point. The political regime was very authoritarian and under martial law, and then they opened and liberalised.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
No, it can’t. This line assumes a rational, strategic-thinking CCP with long time horizons. Pre-Xi, possibly. But Xi is a dictator, a leader for life. He is optimising for short-term political survival. There is zero chance of China liberalising until he either dies or is deposed. With respect to either, Hong Kong will likely be irrelevant.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Hong Kong could be the catalyst for Xi being deposed. Not likely, but it could happen.
m00dy 7y ago
"Hong Kong can be a gateway to liberal values for China". Oh really ? Is China aware of this ? I think we should stop trying to export western values to China. Ladies, Gentlemen and all non-binary people, I have a news for you. These guys are a bit different.
- DeonPenny 7y ago
  Exactly we should be exporting anything their or doing business with them
emptyfile 7y ago
Pure, unadulterated propaganda on HN... I despair. Even worse it's total nonsense.
steenreem 7y ago
I'd be very interested in understanding mainland Chinese sentiment better. My impression is that there is a lot of love for the current Chinese political system, and I'd like to understand why that is. Can anyone refer me to writing pieces that focus on this?
- dirtyid 7y ago
  https://supchina.com/2019/07/22/why-do-chinese-people-like-their-government/ https://supchina.com/2019/07/22/why-do-chinese-people-like-t...
AndyMcConachie 7y ago
You gotta love how predictable and consistent The Economist is. When it was founded in the 19th century it was a strong advocate for forcing China to open up to British opium. It was important to The Economist then, like it is important to The Economist now, that westerners be allowed access to Chinese people and Chinese markets. One could argue that the United States has been operating a regime change operation in China since 1949. But The Economist, they've literally been arguing the same thing since like 1850.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  A guest post from one of the protesters, who happens to be a student at the University of Washington, is not "The Economist" arguing anything. It couldn't be more clear that it's an independent view from some third party.
DeonPenny 7y ago
Stop trying to make china something they are willing to fight be. Stop financing authoritarians on your way to doing so.

60 points by baylearn 7y ago

This is wishful thinking, the mainland Moloch will devour and assimilate any traces of liberal values in Hong Kong. It's a tiny morsel by Chinese standards, they've assimilated much more.

xwolfi 7y ago
Heh don't be so sure. At least we're trying, not armchair losing before even fighting. China is large, vastly uninformed and HK is very far from liberal values by western standards. But heh we can show them small improvements, like how to change their over protective labor law encouraging slacking at work.
s_Hogg 7y ago
Incorporating HK isn't going well so far though, is it? The future isn't written. A few weeks ago, it was inconceivable that the extradition bill will be withdrawn. I'm not saying things will turn out one way or another, only that it feels misguided to think anything about this situation is a foregone conclusion.
ur-whale 7y ago
Agreed. And if there ever was a chance for HK to be free, it all disappeared in a sudden pop when Winnie the pooh took over and made himself leader for life.

wei_jok 7y ago

The author of this story was a front line protester involved in the LegCo incident in early July. He is a currently PhD student studying political science abroad. Not sure he will ever be able to return to HK ... An interview with him about the smashing of LegCo building: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017530/only-unmasked-protester-hong-kong-legco-takeover-has-fled https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017530...

analyst74 7y ago

I think that was actually part of the original plan, China didn't have to agree to the two system thing, but Deng chose to do it. China under Deng's leadership was very bold on testing big policy changes, from various special development zones, to limited experiment with democracy in HK. Sadly several key reformists had to resign after Tiananmen massacre, so when Deng stepped down, the more conservative forces took over and have been dominating since.

baylearn 7y ago
I'd argue that had also things have been going in that direction (to some extent), before Xi Jinping assumed power in late 2012.
- xurias 7y ago
  Deng stepped down in '92, so sure, it's been something that's been developing before Xi Jinping.
bakuninsbart 7y ago
Small correction: Tiananmen protests started in part because of the death of one of the biggest reformist voices in the Polit Buro, Hu Yaobang. Other reformers were sidelined during the protests. Basically, in the beginning many voices in the CCP and Deng Xiaoping himself were sympathetic to the protests, but as they dragged on and more radical voices gained ground with demands like opening the country and introducing free elections, the tides in the upper (and lower) branches of the CCP turned against the reformers. It is also interesting to note that while the reformers have been mostly side-lined since then, and Xi especially is a hard-right hardliner, the party is still at least paying lip-service to reformers. - For example one of the key policy goals of the last 5-year plan was to continue to develop Hong Kong into a global financial centre and broadly liberalize the chinese economy.
- pishpash 7y ago
  And HK protestors are making the same mistake, radicals have taken over.

powerapple 7y ago

I guess this is exactly why a popular opinion in mainland China now is that there is safe net between China and rest of world. Most of them don't want to be liberated, at least not to outsiders' terms.

Dude2029 7y ago
Probably because liberty does not mean prosperity.
- adventured 7y ago
  > Probably because liberty does not mean prosperity. In the post WW2 era, it has overwhelmingly meant that. Not subtly, not kinda sorta, overwhelmingly. And the lack of liberty has overwhelmingly meant poverty. The scales are so radically tilted toward those things, that the outliers are few on each side, counted on one hand typically. Prosperous + high degrees of liberty: Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Iceland, US, Canada, UK, Denmark, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Belgium, France, Japan, Israel, New Zealand, Italy, South Korea, Spain You know, just nearly all the most affluent nations on the planet. Nearly all the most prosperous nations are also high liberty nations. The list continues even further on down the line: Taiwan, Portugal, Estonia, Slovenia, Czech, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Greece, Poland Even Romania for example now has a GDP per capita well exceeding that of China and Russia. How is that possible, that Romania is embarrassing Russia economically? One has far more liberty than the other; one is democratic, the other is autocratic to an extreme. In the not so distant future, Romania will double Russia's GDP per capita. Russia's liberty deprivation is beginning to show itself - again - in their economic regression (eg falling incomes for 5-6 years) and general stagnation. What are examples of very impoverished high liberty nations? There are exceptionally few. So few I would challenge anybody to name more than three or four out of ~196 nations. Outliers in the prosperous group when it comes to low liberty? Also exceptionally few: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE The low liberty group of nations is dramatically dominated by poverty by comparison.
  - raquo 7y ago
    > Russia's liberty deprivation is beginning to show itself - again - in their economic regression (eg falling incomes for 5-6 years) and general stagnation. Let's be fair, the last few years recession in Russia was largely, if not entirely, caused by post-Crimea sanctions and crashed global oil prices, it had little if anything to do with liberty deprivation. As to the general point, nobody in Russia knows or cares how well off an average American is. People care how well off they are relative to their own yesterday. Russians know they have it better today than in the 90s, and they (think they) know whom to thank for that. I guess same goes for Chinese as their economy has been growing wildly at the time, although I have no personal experience there. To be extra clear, this does not mean at all that autocracy contributed to that growth in any positive way – most probably the opposite, – only that it appears so from the inside, as without freedom of speech it is very easy for the regime to take credit for any improvements and blame the west for any setbacks. Russia excels at that game domestically, which explains why Russians are largely fine with the relatively small amount of freedoms they're enjoying. Again, probably a similar situation in China. (I didn't downvote you, just wanted to expand on GP's point)

sarcasmOrTears 7y ago

Pathetic as usual. First economic development had to be the gateway, now Hong Kong. These overpaid, overtitled intellectuals have no ability to understand the world. They live in fantasy land, probably because everything went well in their life, after all they're in that position, and are surrounded by others like them. I wish they would just shut up, they're only doing damages. I also wish HN users were smart enough to not upvoting such inferiors editorials only because they come from publications whose reputation probably never respected the quality of the content. The internet is full of blogs with pieces that show real human nature, from people who are sane and not privileged, ungrateful, deluded bootlickers.

rsj_hn 7y ago

They say that history repeats, first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. I think with HK, the situation is reverse. It was farce in 1996 and tragedy today. Just before the handover, when there was a buzz of discussion around the relationship between Hong Kong and China, one of the common talking points in the West was that legally China may be absorbing HK, but economically HK would absorb China. The party line was that 1. China needed more foreign capital inflows, and so HK would be a model of open capital markets. (see this Rockefeller report: "One important component of this trade, and a major engine of Chinese economic growth, has been the freer flow of foreign capital into the Chinese economy. Foreign- funded enterprises — the majority of which are supported by overseas Chinese based in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries in Southeast Asia — account for more than one-third of Chinese exports." https://www.rbf.org/sites/default/files/attachments/china_confronts_the_challenge_of_globalization.pdf https://www.rbf.org/sites/default/files/attachments/china_co... 2. China would need to democratize more to overcome problems with CCP rule. 3. China's economy was reaching diminishing returns in the current system. I recommend reading the summaries of that Rockefeller paper, starting on page 4. HK was so much wealthier and advanced whereas China was considered backwards, and so it was just assumed that China would be copying HK as much as they can. The reality proved..different. China became an industrial powerhouse (something HK never was) much more dependent on capital outflows than inflows. It increased centralization, reversing Deng's reforms. It did not suffer any diminished capacity to either act internationally (see Belt and Road) or to increase industrialization. There was no devolution, no reform, no democratization, and no financialization or internationalization of the economic decision making process. Even culturally, HK had a movie industry in the 90s that was completely eclipsed by mainland China. Same for fine arts, classical music, everything. There is no area, either cultural or economic, where HK has a leadership role now. And the position of HK as a crucial financial gateway to China that allowed China to access western capital began to fade, as did the wealth discrepancy between top tier cities in China and HK. At this point, HK's economy is underperforming mainland China and most mainland Chinese don't view it as having any kind of leadership role, either as demonstrating a system to be emulated and admired or even as demonstrating a possible path forward for China, which is deep into nationalism and xenophobia. So today, given the huge reversal of importance of HK and China, to be bringing out this old line -- it seems crazy.

dragonsh 7y ago

How Hong Kong can be gateway to liberal values when it itself cannot be liberal enough to reconcile with the fact that everyone in Hong Kong is a Chinese citizen (except few permanent residents) following Chinese nationality law. Unless it cannot be liberal enough to acknowledge it's true state how can it serve as an example to others. For people who lived in Hong Kong before 1997 and after it Hong Kong people (except the discriminated groups) discrimated openly people from China and other parts of Asia except Japan. If they happen to seat in MTR, the Hong Kong person will not seat next to them even, deny them jobs due to ethnocity. Indeed in some cases they run full page ads against them openly without repurcussions, which might result in a severe punishment in UK in the form of libel laws, in USA in the firm of racial discrimination. There are no laws against racial discrimination or discrimation based on color in Hong Kong. There is a small toothless organization trying to show as if they care. This is laughable by the economist to even think Hong Kong can ever be an example of liberal values to Chinese in China who did not treat people from other parts of Asia with open contempt like in Hong Kong. Again as it is a minority view I know it will be downvoted, but for people who lived there know the truth.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Arn_Thor 7y ago
It is true that mainlanders face discrimination in Hong Kong. But let's not forget that a huge portion, if not the majority, of people who call themselves Hong Kongers were born in the mainland, or have parents that came from the mainland. So it's worth examining where those feelings of ill will towards mainland Chinese come from, because it's certainly not ethnic. Hong Kong has a very "western" culture (for lack of a better term, because Hong Kong certainly has a heady mix of Chinese, British and American culture, with the rest of Asia sprinkled in). The increase in anti-mainland sentiment seems to me to correlate closely with the fear of Chinese government encroachment on Hong Kong's institutions, and outright attacks on those institutions and values. From national security legislation, to education reform, to reducing the prominence of Cantonese, to the stifling of the free press by purchases of news organizations by mainland companies, all of this creates a feeling among Hong Kongers that they are losing the way of life they treasure. In addition to that, there is the economic pressure from rising property prices spurred by endless flows of money and people (albeit in quotas) from the mainland, and world-record income and wealth inequality (a problem Hong Kong's government set itself up for long before the handover). This is in no way a defense of the despicable treatment many mainland Chinese have experienced in Hong Kong. That is indefensible, and it is shameful in an otherwise liberal society. But it is just that, an exception to the rule in a liberal society being squeezed relentlessly by the mainland government—and most lately by the Hong Kong government itself, which no longer makes its own decisions.

mytailorisrich 7y ago

The 'gateway' to liberal values in China really is Taiwan that shows that China and Chinese culture are compatible with democracy and these values despite what some claim to justify refusing any such development on the mainland. Taiwan is the home of the Chinese state that ruled over the whole country from 1912 to 1949 and it managed a democratic transition. Hongkong has no "liberal" credentials. It has always (which means 150 years) been a commercial and trade centre only without democratic tradition and the recent protests show that politics very quickly turns into "my way or the highway" on both sides.

milansm 7y ago
Exactly. > Taiwan, officially the Republic of China... ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan
Hasknewbie 7y ago
Moreover Taiwan's transition to democracy was 'indigenous', as it was never effectively colonized by the West (barring some isolated outposts), therefore defeating all the silly talk of "democracy is a cultural norm imposed by the West and is not compatible with Chinese culture" that pops up every now and then, including in this thread.
shp0ngle 7y ago
Taiwan was no democracy until 1989. It had a right-wing dictatorship with a one-party rule.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Yes, exactly my point. The political regime was very authoritarian and under martial law, and then they opened and liberalised.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

No, it can’t. This line assumes a rational, strategic-thinking CCP with long time horizons. Pre-Xi, possibly. But Xi is a dictator, a leader for life. He is optimising for short-term political survival. There is zero chance of China liberalising until he either dies or is deposed. With respect to either, Hong Kong will likely be irrelevant.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Hong Kong could be the catalyst for Xi being deposed. Not likely, but it could happen.

m00dy 7y ago

"Hong Kong can be a gateway to liberal values for China". Oh really ? Is China aware of this ? I think we should stop trying to export western values to China. Ladies, Gentlemen and all non-binary people, I have a news for you. These guys are a bit different.

DeonPenny 7y ago
Exactly we should be exporting anything their or doing business with them

emptyfile 7y ago

Pure, unadulterated propaganda on HN... I despair. Even worse it's total nonsense.

steenreem 7y ago

I'd be very interested in understanding mainland Chinese sentiment better. My impression is that there is a lot of love for the current Chinese political system, and I'd like to understand why that is. Can anyone refer me to writing pieces that focus on this?

dirtyid 7y ago
https://supchina.com/2019/07/22/why-do-chinese-people-like-their-government/ https://supchina.com/2019/07/22/why-do-chinese-people-like-t...

AndyMcConachie 7y ago

You gotta love how predictable and consistent The Economist is. When it was founded in the 19th century it was a strong advocate for forcing China to open up to British opium. It was important to The Economist then, like it is important to The Economist now, that westerners be allowed access to Chinese people and Chinese markets. One could argue that the United States has been operating a regime change operation in China since 1949. But The Economist, they've literally been arguing the same thing since like 1850.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
A guest post from one of the protesters, who happens to be a student at the University of Washington, is not "The Economist" arguing anything. It couldn't be more clear that it's an independent view from some third party.

DeonPenny 7y ago

Stop trying to make china something they are willing to fight be. Stop financing authoritarians on your way to doing so.