7 ms·

If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China. China is trapped. They are stuck with this democratic appendix attached to a com

by mantap 7y ago

If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China. China is trapped. They are stuck with this democratic appendix attached to a communist body. China can't keep Hong Kong under a democratic system as they have zero understanding of democracy. But if they try to repress it they risk endangering China's relationships with the rest of the world. They made a mistake thinking they could transform a democratic territory into a communist one without any consequences.

ahbyb 7y ago
>If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China. Will it? Because nobody gives a fuck about Palestine, and Israel is not suffering much (or at all) because of what they did and do.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  If nobody gave a fuck about Palestine, people wouldn't be so bent out of shape over Representative Omar's comments on the topic.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > If nobody gave a fuck about Palestine, people wouldn't be so bent out of shape over Representative Omar's comments on the topic. Nearly nobody (outside of Palestine, and weighted by political power) has a positive concern for the Palestinians, but lots of people (particularly in the US and Israel) have an interest in assuring that anyone who shows any sign of such a positive concern be punished to pressure them to recant and, even if that fails, to discourage others.
- chronic71819 7y ago
  > Will it? Because nobody gives a fuck about Palestine, and Israel is not suffering much (or at all) because of what they did and do. Unfortunately I agree with you. Very few people in the US even care about Israel/Palestine. I don't know how the sentiment is in Europe, though.
- mantap 7y ago
  People do give a shit about Palestine in Muslim countries, to the extent that Israel is not recognised in those countries and/or Israelis are banned from entry. China risks making Hong Kong into what Palestine is to the Muslim world. China, as the largest exporter of consumer goods, is much more exposed than Israel. If China wants to become an advanced economy such as Japan and South Korea (and this is what China wants most of all) they need to keep consumers in democratic countries on their side.
  - aripickar 7y ago
    >People do give a shit about Palestine in Muslim countries, to the extent that Israel is not recognised in those countries and/or Israelis are banned from entry. As much as I don't want to get into an Israel Palestine debate, that's not because they displaced Palestinian, it's because Israel is filled with Jews.
_bxg1 7y ago
It's worth pointing out that today's China is communist in name only. They literally arrested the president of Peking University's Marxist society on ideological grounds: https://news.yahoo.com/china-arrests-marxist-student-leader-celebrating-maos-birthday-005941312.html https://news.yahoo.com/china-arrests-marxist-student-leader-... China in 2019 is a simple fascist dictatorship. Edit: Fixed a broken link
- loceng 7y ago
  Broken link?
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Fixed, sorry
- newfangle 7y ago
  Communists killing and imprisoning other communists has happened since the ideology was first conceived so you will need a better argument than that to say they are not communist. I really dont understand why so many people feel the need to post comments online distinguishing that China is not communist. Its a disgusting authoritarian regime just like every other self proclaimed communist country in history.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Historically communist countries have been pretty fascist, but communism itself (in theory) is about workers' rights and the elevation of the little people. I don't know how genuine Mao was about those ideals, but Xi is dropping all pretense by intentionally targeting labor movements. So he shouldn't even get to hide behind a flawed idealism. He has no idealism except power.
    - pvg 7y ago
      You're just ascribing the negative aspects of communism-as-realized to fascism but this seems trivially ahistorical. The internecine conflicts in communist states were much more pronounced than in the fascist ones, perhaps in part because communism was always a more complex and developed movement ideologically.
harshreality 7y ago
Hong Kong's entire value, as far as I can see [and I'm referring to the value of Hong Kong as a community including people and businesses, not just their geographic value], either as a place to live or to do business or to visit, comes from it being a SAR with its own government, culture, historical legacy, and lack of interference from its mother country. If it becomes a homogenized satellite of Shenzhen with sky high real estate, which seems to be what China wants, what's left of Hong Kong? I thought China was smarter than this. I thought they would realize the value of Hong Kong. Apparently China doesn't want Hong Kong. They want to remove the perennial thorn in their side, that democratic city-state of Chinese heritage right on their border. They want to grind it into dust, slowly if possible, but immediately if Hong Kong makes too much fuss about the pestle. They want to remove the painful reminder of [their losses during] the Opium Wars and British influence in the Sinosphere. They want to do that at any cost, including destroying Hong Kong's culture and attractiveness as a business location. This is the height of tragedy. There will never be another place like it, and China is destroying it out of spite and ideological inflexibility.
- morningseagulls 7y ago
  >Hong Kong's entire value, as far as I can see [...] Keep in mind that that's the perspective you've been conditioned to see by the media you've consumed. >If it becomes a homogenized satellite of Shenzhen with sky high real estate, which seems to be what China wants, what's left of Hong Kong? Well, for one thing, the unstable political condition is likely to change the "sky high real estate" bit. >I thought China was smarter than this. I thought they would realize the value of Hong Kong. Apparently China doesn't want Hong Kong. Oh, please. They do want Hong Kong. They just want Hong Kong in a different way from how the rest of the world thinks Hong Kong is valuable to China. >They want to remove the painful reminder of the Opium Wars and British influence in the Sinosphere. The Anglosphere wants to remove the painful reminder of the Opium Wars. You seem to. China doesn't. As for foreign influence in their own backyard, ever heard of NIMBY ("not in my back yard")? >There will never be another place like it, and China is destroying it out of spite and ideological inflexibility. Not quite. For one thing, Hong Kong has lost its lustre as "a place to live or to do business or to visit". Recent IMF data show that its GDP per capita is almost half that of Macau SAR: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/2158708/macau-poised-become-richest-place-planet-2020 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/articl... It's also fallen far behind as one of the world's busiest ports: Shenzhen now outranks it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_ports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_port... It's not a matter of whether Hong Kong becomes "a homogenized satellite of Shenzhen", but when, because Hong Kong is already heading down that road. What you, and other commentators, seem to fail to understand is that China absolutely wants Hong Kong, but not for it being an SAR. No. Reread Carrie Lam's leaked comments again: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-carrielam-specialre/special-report-hong-kong-leader-says-she-would-quit-if-she-could-fears-her-ability-to-resolve-crisis-now-very-limited-idUSKCN1VN1DU https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-carriel... >Lam noted, however, that she had few options once an issue had been elevated “to a national level,” a reference to the leadership in Beijing, “to a sort of sovereignty and security level, let alone in the midst of this sort of unprecedented tension between the two big economies in the world.” This has now been elevated to an issue of national security for China. Do you know why? Because the Hong Kong activists are now demanding independence. Set aside the issue of self-determination for a minute. Suppose you are playing as China in this game of Civilization and a city that you've got back is doing this. How would you react? Would you fold to the demands of Washington and Elizabeth? Or would you look at South Korea? At Taiwan? At how Mongolia got away with the help of Catherine? Notwithstanding the rhetoric around the Opium Wars, Hong Kong is strategically valuable -- and not simply economically valuable -- to China because it's located on the other side of the mouth of the Pearl River from Macau. It's literally a physical gatekeeper to Guangzhou. Have a look at the geographic reality: https://www.google.com/maps/@22.4267643,113.6415031,9z https://www.google.com/maps/@22.4267643,113.6415031,9z (China does have detailed economic plans for the region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Delta_Economic_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Delta_Economic_Zon...) Which is why China would hold on to Hong Kong tightly, as tightly as it'd hold on to Tibet or Xinjiang. For strategic reasons.
morningseagulls 7y ago
>If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China. Nope. Like Palestine, it'd just be another showcase of the British strategy of "divide and quit". Heck, someone wrote a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Divide-Quit-late-Penderel-Moon/dp/0195644220 https://www.amazon.com/Divide-Quit-late-Penderel-Moon/dp/019...

by mantap 7y ago

ahbyb 7y ago

>If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China. Will it? Because nobody gives a fuck about Palestine, and Israel is not suffering much (or at all) because of what they did and do.

shadowgovt 7y ago
If nobody gave a fuck about Palestine, people wouldn't be so bent out of shape over Representative Omar's comments on the topic.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > If nobody gave a fuck about Palestine, people wouldn't be so bent out of shape over Representative Omar's comments on the topic. Nearly nobody (outside of Palestine, and weighted by political power) has a positive concern for the Palestinians, but lots of people (particularly in the US and Israel) have an interest in assuring that anyone who shows any sign of such a positive concern be punished to pressure them to recant and, even if that fails, to discourage others.
chronic71819 7y ago
> Will it? Because nobody gives a fuck about Palestine, and Israel is not suffering much (or at all) because of what they did and do. Unfortunately I agree with you. Very few people in the US even care about Israel/Palestine. I don't know how the sentiment is in Europe, though.
mantap 7y ago
People do give a shit about Palestine in Muslim countries, to the extent that Israel is not recognised in those countries and/or Israelis are banned from entry. China risks making Hong Kong into what Palestine is to the Muslim world. China, as the largest exporter of consumer goods, is much more exposed than Israel. If China wants to become an advanced economy such as Japan and South Korea (and this is what China wants most of all) they need to keep consumers in democratic countries on their side.
- aripickar 7y ago
  >People do give a shit about Palestine in Muslim countries, to the extent that Israel is not recognised in those countries and/or Israelis are banned from entry. As much as I don't want to get into an Israel Palestine debate, that's not because they displaced Palestinian, it's because Israel is filled with Jews.

_bxg1 7y ago

It's worth pointing out that today's China is communist in name only. They literally arrested the president of Peking University's Marxist society on ideological grounds: https://news.yahoo.com/china-arrests-marxist-student-leader-celebrating-maos-birthday-005941312.html https://news.yahoo.com/china-arrests-marxist-student-leader-... China in 2019 is a simple fascist dictatorship. Edit: Fixed a broken link

loceng 7y ago
Broken link?
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Fixed, sorry
newfangle 7y ago
Communists killing and imprisoning other communists has happened since the ideology was first conceived so you will need a better argument than that to say they are not communist. I really dont understand why so many people feel the need to post comments online distinguishing that China is not communist. Its a disgusting authoritarian regime just like every other self proclaimed communist country in history.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Historically communist countries have been pretty fascist, but communism itself (in theory) is about workers' rights and the elevation of the little people. I don't know how genuine Mao was about those ideals, but Xi is dropping all pretense by intentionally targeting labor movements. So he shouldn't even get to hide behind a flawed idealism. He has no idealism except power.
  - pvg 7y ago
    You're just ascribing the negative aspects of communism-as-realized to fascism but this seems trivially ahistorical. The internecine conflicts in communist states were much more pronounced than in the fascist ones, perhaps in part because communism was always a more complex and developed movement ideologically.

harshreality 7y ago

Hong Kong's entire value, as far as I can see [and I'm referring to the value of Hong Kong as a community including people and businesses, not just their geographic value], either as a place to live or to do business or to visit, comes from it being a SAR with its own government, culture, historical legacy, and lack of interference from its mother country. If it becomes a homogenized satellite of Shenzhen with sky high real estate, which seems to be what China wants, what's left of Hong Kong? I thought China was smarter than this. I thought they would realize the value of Hong Kong. Apparently China doesn't want Hong Kong. They want to remove the perennial thorn in their side, that democratic city-state of Chinese heritage right on their border. They want to grind it into dust, slowly if possible, but immediately if Hong Kong makes too much fuss about the pestle. They want to remove the painful reminder of [their losses during] the Opium Wars and British influence in the Sinosphere. They want to do that at any cost, including destroying Hong Kong's culture and attractiveness as a business location. This is the height of tragedy. There will never be another place like it, and China is destroying it out of spite and ideological inflexibility.

morningseagulls 7y ago
>Hong Kong's entire value, as far as I can see [...] Keep in mind that that's the perspective you've been conditioned to see by the media you've consumed. >If it becomes a homogenized satellite of Shenzhen with sky high real estate, which seems to be what China wants, what's left of Hong Kong? Well, for one thing, the unstable political condition is likely to change the "sky high real estate" bit. >I thought China was smarter than this. I thought they would realize the value of Hong Kong. Apparently China doesn't want Hong Kong. Oh, please. They do want Hong Kong. They just want Hong Kong in a different way from how the rest of the world thinks Hong Kong is valuable to China. >They want to remove the painful reminder of the Opium Wars and British influence in the Sinosphere. The Anglosphere wants to remove the painful reminder of the Opium Wars. You seem to. China doesn't. As for foreign influence in their own backyard, ever heard of NIMBY ("not in my back yard")? >There will never be another place like it, and China is destroying it out of spite and ideological inflexibility. Not quite. For one thing, Hong Kong has lost its lustre as "a place to live or to do business or to visit". Recent IMF data show that its GDP per capita is almost half that of Macau SAR: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/2158708/macau-poised-become-richest-place-planet-2020 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/articl... It's also fallen far behind as one of the world's busiest ports: Shenzhen now outranks it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_ports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_port... It's not a matter of whether Hong Kong becomes "a homogenized satellite of Shenzhen", but when, because Hong Kong is already heading down that road. What you, and other commentators, seem to fail to understand is that China absolutely wants Hong Kong, but not for it being an SAR. No. Reread Carrie Lam's leaked comments again: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-carrielam-specialre/special-report-hong-kong-leader-says-she-would-quit-if-she-could-fears-her-ability-to-resolve-crisis-now-very-limited-idUSKCN1VN1DU https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-carriel... >Lam noted, however, that she had few options once an issue had been elevated “to a national level,” a reference to the leadership in Beijing, “to a sort of sovereignty and security level, let alone in the midst of this sort of unprecedented tension between the two big economies in the world.” This has now been elevated to an issue of national security for China. Do you know why? Because the Hong Kong activists are now demanding independence. Set aside the issue of self-determination for a minute. Suppose you are playing as China in this game of Civilization and a city that you've got back is doing this. How would you react? Would you fold to the demands of Washington and Elizabeth? Or would you look at South Korea? At Taiwan? At how Mongolia got away with the help of Catherine? Notwithstanding the rhetoric around the Opium Wars, Hong Kong is strategically valuable -- and not simply economically valuable -- to China because it's located on the other side of the mouth of the Pearl River from Macau. It's literally a physical gatekeeper to Guangzhou. Have a look at the geographic reality: https://www.google.com/maps/@22.4267643,113.6415031,9z https://www.google.com/maps/@22.4267643,113.6415031,9z (China does have detailed economic plans for the region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Delta_Economic_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Delta_Economic_Zon...) Which is why China would hold on to Hong Kong tightly, as tightly as it'd hold on to Tibet or Xinjiang. For strategic reasons.

morningseagulls 7y ago

>If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China. Nope. Like Palestine, it'd just be another showcase of the British strategy of "divide and quit". Heck, someone wrote a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Divide-Quit-late-Penderel-Moon/dp/0195644220 https://www.amazon.com/Divide-Quit-late-Penderel-Moon/dp/019...