18 ms·

Here we go again... Let me explain how Chinese people think about HK, since none of them ever seem to explain it on a site like this. Imagine you are a middle

by sho 7y ago

Here we go again... Let me explain how Chinese people think about HK, since none of them ever seem to explain it on a site like this. Imagine you are a middle class American. Maybe you are but if not, just imagine, tech city on the east or west coast. You're pretty invested in being an American, skin in the game, manifest destiny etc. Very good. They call this tianxia by the way, basically Chinese manifest destiny. Let's say one day some stupid little state that you don't care about and vaguely resent decides it wants to secede, wants all these rights others don't have, wants to be able to marry its cousins or make nukes at home or whatever. Alabama, say. Alabama wants to secede and they have some demonstrations. You think: "hahahaha no" They keep demonstrating. The larger country talks about sending in the national guard or something. "Good, who do they think they are" you say. Some alabamans post an app on the app store so they can avoid the national guard. It's linked to secessionist alabamans avoiding and even attacking the guard. Apple takes it down, then puts it back up, then takes it back down "Good" you say. This is how, conservatively, 90%+ of Chinese think. For them, HK is a tiny little past-glory city who thinks it's better than everyone else and is just causing trouble. They will eventually be brought into line, hopefully without too much bloodshed, just like Alabama. It's not really malicious. It's a province of China - it's misbehaving, and it will be brought into line in due course. Nothing more, nothing less. I expect someone explained these truths to Apple, they saw the futility of taking some hopeless, simplistic, you-don't-even-live-here side, decided this was not the hill they wanted to die on, and pulled the app. I don't blame them. I'd like to note that I do not support the Chinese Govt in any way and think the world would be a better place with an independent, democratic HK - a city I genuinely love. The Chinese have about as much chance agreeing with that as Americans would about an independent Alabama. Not going to happen.

zwkrt 7y ago
This is not an argument in good faith. Alabama has no precedence of self governance, and that precedence is not being actively threatened by the US government. The thought that HK protesters (or Alabamians) just want to “marry their cousins or something” is icing on the cake. Just because some people think it is so does not make it so.
- souterrain 7y ago
  Better examples might be Vermont or Texas.
  - shadofx 7y ago
    Those aren't recent enough to be comparable. Better examples would be Puerto Rico or Guam.
- sho 7y ago
  Oh come on I was trying to illustrate a feeling, not make a watertight legal argument. If you want to talk about precedent - how about polygamy in Utah? There was a long precedent of that. Substitute that if you like. I was trying to convey a feeling.
  - cageface 7y ago
    Utahns agreed to give up polygamy in order to join the Union. It's almost the opposite of the current situation in Hong Kong.
    - sounds 7y ago
      As a Mormon I still think this might be a reasonable case to use for the basis of comparison. (Alas I don't speak for any other Mormons, who will probably disagree with me.) User 'sho' wants to present Hong Kong's efforts to preserve their rights in a way that the USA would understand. When Utah wanted to become a state, they obviously would have liked to preserve their polygamy practice. It took a long time before things settled down and Utah became a state. In a sense, that's where Hong Kong is right now. "One country, two systems." They aren't a fully-integrated part of the country, though I don't want to delegitimize them by calling them a "territory," maybe the comparison isn't so bad. There's pressure from the mainland to conform. Just like there was lots of pressure put on Utah to conform. It seems like a decent comparison.
- jerf 7y ago
  "Alabama has no precedence of self governance," Yes, it does (assuming you mean precedent). Alabama was one of the initial members of the Confederacy, which it created/joined on March 13, 1861. Now, this might sound like I'm disagreeing, but I would say, consider the outcome of the next several years. It is true that the United States fought this out to the n'th degree, and self-governance lost. One relevant difference is that there is a fairly solid case that Alabama joined the United States of its own free will. (Whether they realized it was inherently a one-way trip, well, that's another discussion.) I'm not sure if I agree that Hong Kong was quite so free. But it was certainly legal.
whatshisface 7y ago
>You're pretty invested in being an American, skin in the game, manifest destiny etc. That's probably where you lose most of the US audience. One of the biggest differences between American and Chinese culture is that manifest destiny is mostly dead in America, but it isn't in China. Of course America has multinationals jockeying for global power, but that doesn't reflect how the voters think.
- glitchc 7y ago
  Americans still think of themselves as the best in the world. If that is not manifest destiny, then what is it?
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    From Wikipedia, >Manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the 19th century United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. The average American does not think that America should expand any further throughout the world, nor do they think that America has an irresistible duty to remake the world in its image. The theme of "the special virtues of the American people and their institutions" is only one part of the definition of manifest destiny. Also, if you've ever read an HN thread on public mass transit, I think there is evidence against the claim that Americans think that all of their institutions are the best in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny
    - glitchc 7y ago
      A thread on HN is a far cry from what a typical American thinks. America doesn’t need to take over other nations in the parochial sense. Rather the number of bases the US has established throughout the world accomplish manifest destiny in a modern fashion. No other country has or has ever had this level or scale of military deployment.
      - sho 7y ago
        I didn't really want to bash on the US too hard but yeah. America has over five hundred overseas military bases. To say no other country even comes close is an understatement. I'm not even saying the US overseas forces are bad. They've been misused, yes, but I don't want to argue about that - it's complicated. To disclaim America's outsize global ambitions, however - for whatever purpose - is just laughable.
idlewords 7y ago
You're ascribing motives to the Hong Kong protesters that they don't have. This is not a separatist movement, even though the Chinese government insists on characterizing it as such. Public opinion surveys in Hong Kong show the overwhelming majority of respondents aren't asking for independence. The five demands that are the crux of the current protests don't involve independence. They center on China holding up its end of the "One Country, Two Systems" arrangement by allowing genuine democratic elections in Hong Kong, as guaranteed to them under the Basic Law. The fact that Chinese authorities are lying to their own people about the nature of the protests in Hong Kong is significant. They are terrified of 'contagion'. But since we're discussing this on an American site, we can state the plain facts of the matter, too.
- vxNsr 7y ago
  You ignored the very reason for OP's comment: its the perspective of chinese citizens outside of hong kong Who's only knowledge of the situation comes from state media and what those who really care can glean from censored social media.
- khc 7y ago
  This is factually correct and relevant, not sure why it's downvoted
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
Double_a_92 7y ago
Wanting basic democracy and human rights is a bit different than wanting to "make nukes" or "marry your cousins"...
helen___keller 7y ago
> they saw the futility of taking some hopeless, simplistic, you-don't-even-live-here side, decided this was not the hill they wanted to die on, and pulled the app This is the problem though, that the CCP can strongarm corporations into these decisions. China poses a huge risk to any company that does a lot of business or does production there. Today it's just pulling an App, but what is it tomorrow? In the states this risk is predictable: The FBI can demand what it wants, and Apple refuses when they can, because they know they can weather a legal challenge. The risk is NOT predictable in the case of China: the government can demand what they want, and Apple's only choices are to play along or run home and tank the company. If things sour between nations, who knows what ultimatum is next. Moreover this unpredictable risk spills over into a chilling effect: to avoid even receiving an ultimatum, Apple and any other company will bend over backwards to always be in the good graces of the government.
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  There's also the risk that the US President might unilaterally ban American corporations from doing any business with you. Through secondary sanctions, that ban will extend to corporations around the world. The US has arbitrarily cut off entire countries from the world market, including Iran and Venezuela, and it has cut off individual corporations as well, including Huawei and ZTE. Everyone here seems to be up in arms about an NBA exec having to retract a tweet, but the US is throwing its weight around in much more damaging ways at the moment. The entire country of Iran is being economically strangled at the moment, based on the sole, arbitrary decision of the US President, but nobody seems to care too much.
  - helen___keller 7y ago
    No, I don't think there's any risk to Americans or American corporations that the president will unilaterally ban American corporations from doing business with me, an American There is a very real risk to me, an American, that the products or services sold to me by an American corporation will be degraded or changed at the request of the CCP in exchange for that corporations continued access to the Chinese market Does that clear things up?
jostmey 7y ago
Using Alabama is a flawed analogy. Hong Kong has always enjoyed greater autonomy than other Chinese cities. A better analogy would be Puerto Rico citizens aggressively protesting their lack of rights electing members to congress in the federal government. Do you think the US would react the same way as China?
- 66543throwaway 7y ago
  Waco. Ruby Ridge. Chicago MOVE bombing. I guess it depends.
  - non-entity 7y ago
    > Chicago MOVE bombing. I hate to be pedantic, but wasn't that in Philadelphia
matwood 7y ago
> wants all these rights others don't have This is exactly how the United States is setup. Notice how pot is legal in some states and not others? I don't see the National Guard marching on Colorado.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sho 7y ago
  Pot? That's your argument? Show me the state where you can show full penetrative sex on public TV at 9pm, like you can in europe, and I'll agree they're independent. EDIT: OK, that was a dumb example. Substitute banning guns, or lowering the drinking age, or lowering income tax. Country-level things.
  - mmazing 7y ago
    Seems like a pretty high bar.
  - metalchianti 7y ago
    Yes, a psychoactive drug with a longstanding and controversial social history having substantial legal differences state-to-state is VERY significant and representative of what statehood represents in the US. Are you from the US? Based on your OP I'm not sure how much you understand mechanics of the federation. And TBH I'm not sure how much you understand China--personally I think 1930s era fascism is a better analogy.
    - greedo 7y ago
      The Supremacy clause of the Constitution really has gutted the original premise of states rights. The only reason that the Federal government doesn't send in the DEA to Oregon/WA/Colorado much anymore is due to politics and culture, not legal mechanisms.
    - sho 7y ago
      > is VERY significant and representative of what statehood represents in the US Not really. It's frigging pot. It's been de-facto legal for decades. Show me a state doing something serious, like banning guns, reversing roe v wade, changing the state language, change the voting age. Difference-between-country stuff. I should have thought of something like that for my initial post; would have reduced this silly nitpicking. And thanks, I'm not from the USA but I'm from a federation too so yeah, I have some idea. As for the China knowledge - looking forward to your cogent, evidenced retort. 请说普通话。
learc83 7y ago
A better example is Puerto Rico. If they had a referendum that showed a clear desire for independence, the US would almost certainly let them leave.
- spinach 7y ago
  Even better example would be Hawaii state, previously the Hawaiian Kingdom. I doubt America would let Hawaii go.
  - learc83 7y ago
    If it was still a semi autonomous region, and a high enough percentage of the entire population wanted independence, yeah we probably would.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Puerto Rico is a 'foreign colony', so to speak, that the US 'acquired' in the first place following the war against Spain in 1898. Hongkong is a core part of China that was wrestled away by a foreign power. There is no analogy within the US for Hongkong because the US have always been sucking in territory since they were founded, and never had any territory taken away. A similar situation would be if the Japanese Navy had forced the US to sign the Cape Cod area, or parts of Long Island over to Japan, and then imagine what Americans would think of that.
  - WillPostForFood 7y ago
    China, like every single country in the world, does not have an inherent "core". All its territory was acquired by war, expansion, colonization, and settling. China simply has a couple thousand year head start on the new world.
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      And if we go far enough in the past no current country even existed... That's true, and that also completely irrelevant, and may even be disingenuous rhetoric.
UserIsUnused 7y ago
It's much different that that, as Alabama isn't a recently acquired former colony of an old empire, that have been enjoying an autonamous status due to that. The biggest different in metaphor is: -> state/city want something vs -> State/city doesn't want something removed. The origin of the manifest is due to HK losing some of its autonomy, it was a condition unique to it, it's not someone wanting to be special, it's someone special not wanting to be normal. There is a very huge difference in mental state.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
apocalyptic0n3 7y ago
> You're pretty invested in being an American, skin in the game, manifest destiny etc. Huh? You just described maybe 1 in 10 Americans. We genuinely do not care about "manifest destiny" and many of us don't put much value in being American either. I'm not even sure what you mean by "skin in the game" > Let's say one day some stupid little state that you don't care about and vaguely resent decides it wants to secede, wants all these rights others don't have, wants to be able to marry its cousins or make nukes at home or whatever. Alabama, go with them. Alabama wants to secede and they have some demonstrations. You think: "hahahaha no" But Hong Kong doesn't want to secede. They want to keep the freedoms they've had for decades and prevent an oppressive government from restricting those freedoms. Your example is entirely different and opposite sides of the spectrum. A more apt example would be the Occupy protests that happened throughout the western world close to a decade ago. Those were about returning the status quo to what it was before greed took it too far from the middle class. Looking back, it was highly ineffective. But those were months-long protests that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people took part in and for the most part, every day citizens who were not taking part in the protests supported them (or were at least indifferent). Tools were built to help these protesters find where to go and where to avoid (as with all large scale protests) and they were never an issue. Heck, one of the most widely used apps in the US is Waze and one of the primary appeals of it is the crowd sourced police location data. Law enforcement has complained about it, but no actions have been taken against it and no one seems to have any real issue with it.
- 66543throwaway 7y ago
  Didn’t Americans freak out over a few players kneeling for the anthem? Didn’t Americans freak out when Black Lives Matter protesters blocked the highway? A tactic the Hong Kong protestors are using? Didn’t Americans make fun of Occupy Wall Street?
  - eeZah7Ux 7y ago
    Not all of them - you are generalizing. Not all of them - you are generalizing. Not all of them - you are generalizing.
  - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jf- 7y ago
Your characterisation of the Chinese public does not make it seem more sympathetic, quite the reverse: it makes them seem petty and spiteful, lashing out at a population which is better educated and more prosperous than them, one unwilling to suffer under the yoke of the CCP as the majority have been indoctrinated to do. Why not let Hong Kong be independent? What moral claim does mainland China have to the territory over the people who live there? If China is so superior and resents Hong Kong then they are better off without it.
- sho 7y ago
  Please understand I wasn't trying to make it seem more sympathetic, just trying to shed light. I basically agree that they should grow a thicker skin and just let HK be HK. None of which changes the facts that China owns and shares a land border with HK, China is 200x bigger than HK, and might makes right.
spankalee 7y ago
Why would I want to stop people living somewhere else from exercising their right to self-determination? Go Alabama.
IanSanders 7y ago
Just one question. Yes or no. >Let me explain how Chinese people think about HK Do you mean all Chinese people?
- sho 7y ago
  No, just the majority, as I understand it, and as I believe their actions demonstrate. Of course I can't know the inner secrets of a billion minds, but it's my genuine belief that what I wrote is at least mostly in the right direction.
  - IanSanders 7y ago
    Is majority always right? Does the majority have complete information on the matter?
    - sho 7y ago
      Look man - I am not a philosopher. Ask yourself. I'm just some guy who has, or think I have, a little more access to "chinese thought" than I commonly see around here. I thought it would be useful or at least interesting to bring up a perspective I don't see commonly shared, not endorsing it, just tabling it for consideration. Answering questions such as yours is above my pay grade.
    - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
      > Is majority always right? No, it isn't. Hence why Peter Thiel's statement regarding freedom and democracy being incompatible is not as controversial as some people pretend.
blhack 7y ago
edit: I removed this comment. I travel in China. (HN doesnt' apparently allow me to "delete" it, so I apologize for the edit.)
- metalchianti 7y ago
  It's shocking to westerners but this is the nature of indoctrination. Also, note how OP compared tianxia to manifest destiny instead of lebensraum.
- 66543throwaway 7y ago
  The reason is because for the vast majority of Chinese, they are as likely to end up in a re-education camp as an American is to end up at a Chicago black site prison.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - fouric 7y ago
    ...and the only reason why that's true is because (1) the "vast majority" are not Uyghurs and (2) (rightfully) fear their tyrannical government and take care to not offend it. If you changed the criterion to "likely to end up in [bad place] if they said stuff their government didn't like", the likelihood for Chinese citizens would be multiple orders of magnitude higher than for Americans.
mikestew 7y ago
You think: "Well, what's the point of having individual states if they can't control their own destiny. But marrying cousins? A federal issue? Let me chew on that." Some alabamans post an app on the app store so they can avoid the national guard. "An app? Cool, plods have mass surveillance, the protestors have it now, too. Oh, you thought the 2nd Amendment was just about guns?" you say. I see what you're saying, but I will still disagree with the "90%+ of Chinese", and with the CCP's handling of the issue. Your hypothetical had me cheering for the Alabaman's, because frankly, I don't think we protest enough around here.
authoritarian 7y ago
> You're pretty invested in being an American, skin in the game, manifest destiny etc. Very good. No, I'm definitely not. Manifest destiny is just colonialism fueled by racism >Some alabamans post an app on the app store so they can avoid the national guard. It's linked to secessionist alabamans avoiding and even attacking the guard. Apple takes it down, then puts it back up, then takes it back down >"Good" you say. No, I certainly wouldn't
trophycase 7y ago
Right so first it's Hong Kong. Then Taiwan, just like Tibet before it, then whatever the next thing the Chinese government convinces the people that it owns. And next thing you know China is even bigger and more dangerous
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  There is no "next thing." China's territorial claims have remained exactly the same since 1949, and are identical to those of the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan). Actually, Taiwan's territorial claims are somewhat more expansive than those of China, since Taiwan still claims Mongolia. It's pretty simple: China claims territories that were part of the Qing dynasty until 1911, and internationally recognized as such (except outer Mongolia). Tibet was never internationally recognized as an independent country, and both the PRC and ROC have consistently maintained that it is part of China. That was also the internationally accepted legal view. The PRC and ROC agree that Taiwan is part of China - they just disagree about what "China" is. The PRC and ROC both resented British control over Hong Kong, which is understandable, given that it was taken in the Opium Wars. I wish people discussing the issues here knew the basic background. The idea that China is trying to gobble up territory, and will next try to annex Vietnam or Laos is just not supported by the historical facts. China's position on territory is pretty clear and has been consistent over time.
wbl 7y ago
The United States has asked Puerto Rico if they want to be in or out and if they had massively wanted out would have politely negotiated an exit. We gave up the Philippeans a bit later then planned, but there was a war on.
gok 7y ago
There's no confusion about what most mainlanders think about the protesters. Most protests in the US are also unpopular. The confusion is why the party is so insecure about their position that they need to lash out in seemingly childish ways like this. I think the difference is cultural here.
danShumway 7y ago
I get what you're trying to say, but this comment is really far off of the mark. It's good to care about Chinese culture, but it's another thing entirely to elevate culture over human rights. What does it matter what the average Chinese citizen thinks about this? By pulling the app, Apple is taking the side of an oppressive regime against Hong Kong. Whether or not 90% of Chinese citizens agree with Hong Kong is utterly irrelevant to the conversation. They're not the people being oppressed. I don't care if the average Chinese citizen likes Hong Kong, any more than I care about whether the average Chinese citizen likes Muslims, or any more than I care about whether the average US citizen likes immigrants or LGBQT+ citizens. The opinions of the oppressed matter, the opinions of unaffected third-party observers do not, in except that their opinions spur them to action to help the oppressed. If 90% of the Chinese population thinks that HK is just a misbehaving tiny city that needs to be brought into line, then 90% of the Chinese population is wrong, and Apple is wrong to side with them. Human rights are not a cultural artifact, they're not decided by majority. They're recognized, not granted.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
computerex 7y ago
Biased much? And why are you assuming that everyone here isn't familiar with the dynamics of China and Hong Kong? Maybe you just want to repeat the Chinese propaganda/rhetoric in hope of swaying some minds? You haven't even provided a single shred of evidence to support the beliefs you are attributing to the vast number of Chinese people. Hacker news is a site of logic and evidence based reasoning, not for propagating senseless propaganda.
- sho 7y ago
  Obviously I can't provide evidence supporting my understandings gained from personal relationships and private conversations. No, I haven't conducted some large-scale peer-reviewed survey. Of course they don't exist. I don't know what you imagine I might have to gain from "spreading propaganda". I'm simply trying to explain, from my understanding, how "the other side" often feels. I don't know where you think "bias" enters into it. I've even explicitly said I totally disagree. I don't know what else to say?
  - computerex 7y ago
    > Some alabamans post an app on the app store so they can avoid the national guard. It's linked to secessionist alabamans avoiding and even attacking the guard. What's your evidence that the app is being used to attack the police? And how are you drawing the parallel with the national guard? The things you are posting here are false and dishonest. You haven't provided any evidence to suggest otherwise.
    - sho 7y ago
      For fuck's sake I don't need to provide evidence for my thought experiment!
      - computerex 7y ago
        You can literally say anything you want and just say that it's a thought experiment. Thought experiments are not exempt from providing evidence where you can, especially when you are making sweeping, stereotypical statements that are clearly biased against Hong Kong and trying to sway the opinion in China's favor.
scarmig 7y ago
Terrible analogy. Even if you ignore the particular "special right" Hong Kong was arguing for (like, the right not to be extradited and disappeared for disagreeing with the government), it's still part of an existing system and series of agreements that are now being violated. It's closer to if the UK tried to disband the Scottish parliament, because those damn Scots get special privileges and still protest and whine all day about secession, and then started moving troops in and brutalizing student protesters. And, yes, everyone here would side with Scotland over the UK. The PRC needs to get better propaganda.
cryoshon 7y ago
this is a very interesting comment here because it exposes how different the chinese and american polities really are. america is not a unified bloc, internally. nor does it aspire to be. the differences between a city in massachusetts and a city in louisiana are greater than the differences between a city in massachusetts and a city in ontario -- and ontario's in a different country altogether. in other words, social and cultural distance between two regions in the US can be significantly higher than the cultural distance from one region in the US to another country. i do not think the same principle applies to china. for china, its neighbors are decidedly alien, so the cultural distance between regions within china seems very small in comparison, even if in reality it is substantial. to return to the OP's example: if alabama tried to secede, i'd be fine with letting them go. heck, i'd be glad they even tried to leave, because it would make a credible threat to the federal government that other states would follow along and also secede if things didn't improve promptly. i wouldn't wish them success though, because knowing that it's alabama, i would assume that their reasons for secession were incompatible with my vision for the country. in other words, if a state liek alabama really tried to secede, my position would be that they probably weren't going to be compatible with the best iteration of america anyway -- perhaps because they'd come off as a neo-confederate or something similarly regrettable. but in principle, i don't think i would support efforts to stop them leaving or claiming more rights. i'd prefer apple to not handicap them to appease the federal government, even if i don't like the alabamans or their values very much. why? because i understand that a restriction targeting them today will be used against me tomorrow. and i resent the idea that a private company can dictate what my hardware runs, especially retroactively.
the-pigeon 7y ago
This is not accurate at all. If you want to make an American analogy, it's more like if Puerto Rico wanted independence from the US. Because the US kept violating it's citizens human rights. That said Hong Kong is a fairly unique situation that doesn't accurately compare to any others in recent history.
- sho 7y ago
  I know it wasn't a good analogy; I couldn't think of a better one. Puerto Rico is not a better analogy. It's never been America proper and it's not even connected to the mainland. HK was China, it was occupied by force for a hundred years and now China has got it back. As far as China is concerned HK is China and that's the end of it. My analogy was flawed, yes, but nitpicking it doesn't really change the basic facts. I note that no-one is arguing that the Chinese don't think like I said.
stickfigure 7y ago
This analogy would only make sense if you used 'Puerto Rico' as an example instead of 'Alabama'. And then the argument completely falls apart; if Puerto Rico decided it wanted to be a separate country, the US (government and popular sentiment) would allow it.
computerex 7y ago
The parallels you are drawing aren't even close to being realistic. Hong Kong protesters want accountability for police brutality. You are twisting the truth.

by sho 7y ago

zwkrt 7y ago

This is not an argument in good faith. Alabama has no precedence of self governance, and that precedence is not being actively threatened by the US government. The thought that HK protesters (or Alabamians) just want to “marry their cousins or something” is icing on the cake. Just because some people think it is so does not make it so.

souterrain 7y ago
Better examples might be Vermont or Texas.
- shadofx 7y ago
  Those aren't recent enough to be comparable. Better examples would be Puerto Rico or Guam.
sho 7y ago
Oh come on I was trying to illustrate a feeling, not make a watertight legal argument. If you want to talk about precedent - how about polygamy in Utah? There was a long precedent of that. Substitute that if you like. I was trying to convey a feeling.
- cageface 7y ago
  Utahns agreed to give up polygamy in order to join the Union. It's almost the opposite of the current situation in Hong Kong.
  - sounds 7y ago
    As a Mormon I still think this might be a reasonable case to use for the basis of comparison. (Alas I don't speak for any other Mormons, who will probably disagree with me.) User 'sho' wants to present Hong Kong's efforts to preserve their rights in a way that the USA would understand. When Utah wanted to become a state, they obviously would have liked to preserve their polygamy practice. It took a long time before things settled down and Utah became a state. In a sense, that's where Hong Kong is right now. "One country, two systems." They aren't a fully-integrated part of the country, though I don't want to delegitimize them by calling them a "territory," maybe the comparison isn't so bad. There's pressure from the mainland to conform. Just like there was lots of pressure put on Utah to conform. It seems like a decent comparison.
jerf 7y ago
"Alabama has no precedence of self governance," Yes, it does (assuming you mean precedent). Alabama was one of the initial members of the Confederacy, which it created/joined on March 13, 1861. Now, this might sound like I'm disagreeing, but I would say, consider the outcome of the next several years. It is true that the United States fought this out to the n'th degree, and self-governance lost. One relevant difference is that there is a fairly solid case that Alabama joined the United States of its own free will. (Whether they realized it was inherently a one-way trip, well, that's another discussion.) I'm not sure if I agree that Hong Kong was quite so free. But it was certainly legal.

whatshisface 7y ago

>You're pretty invested in being an American, skin in the game, manifest destiny etc. That's probably where you lose most of the US audience. One of the biggest differences between American and Chinese culture is that manifest destiny is mostly dead in America, but it isn't in China. Of course America has multinationals jockeying for global power, but that doesn't reflect how the voters think.

glitchc 7y ago
Americans still think of themselves as the best in the world. If that is not manifest destiny, then what is it?
- whatshisface 7y ago
  From Wikipedia, >Manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the 19th century United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. The average American does not think that America should expand any further throughout the world, nor do they think that America has an irresistible duty to remake the world in its image. The theme of "the special virtues of the American people and their institutions" is only one part of the definition of manifest destiny. Also, if you've ever read an HN thread on public mass transit, I think there is evidence against the claim that Americans think that all of their institutions are the best in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny
  - glitchc 7y ago
    A thread on HN is a far cry from what a typical American thinks. America doesn’t need to take over other nations in the parochial sense. Rather the number of bases the US has established throughout the world accomplish manifest destiny in a modern fashion. No other country has or has ever had this level or scale of military deployment.
    - sho 7y ago
      I didn't really want to bash on the US too hard but yeah. America has over five hundred overseas military bases. To say no other country even comes close is an understatement. I'm not even saying the US overseas forces are bad. They've been misused, yes, but I don't want to argue about that - it's complicated. To disclaim America's outsize global ambitions, however - for whatever purpose - is just laughable.

idlewords 7y ago

You're ascribing motives to the Hong Kong protesters that they don't have. This is not a separatist movement, even though the Chinese government insists on characterizing it as such. Public opinion surveys in Hong Kong show the overwhelming majority of respondents aren't asking for independence. The five demands that are the crux of the current protests don't involve independence. They center on China holding up its end of the "One Country, Two Systems" arrangement by allowing genuine democratic elections in Hong Kong, as guaranteed to them under the Basic Law. The fact that Chinese authorities are lying to their own people about the nature of the protests in Hong Kong is significant. They are terrified of 'contagion'. But since we're discussing this on an American site, we can state the plain facts of the matter, too.

vxNsr 7y ago
You ignored the very reason for OP's comment: its the perspective of chinese citizens outside of hong kong Who's only knowledge of the situation comes from state media and what those who really care can glean from censored social media.
khc 7y ago
This is factually correct and relevant, not sure why it's downvoted
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

Double_a_92 7y ago

Wanting basic democracy and human rights is a bit different than wanting to "make nukes" or "marry your cousins"...

helen___keller 7y ago

> they saw the futility of taking some hopeless, simplistic, you-don't-even-live-here side, decided this was not the hill they wanted to die on, and pulled the app This is the problem though, that the CCP can strongarm corporations into these decisions. China poses a huge risk to any company that does a lot of business or does production there. Today it's just pulling an App, but what is it tomorrow? In the states this risk is predictable: The FBI can demand what it wants, and Apple refuses when they can, because they know they can weather a legal challenge. The risk is NOT predictable in the case of China: the government can demand what they want, and Apple's only choices are to play along or run home and tank the company. If things sour between nations, who knows what ultimatum is next. Moreover this unpredictable risk spills over into a chilling effect: to avoid even receiving an ultimatum, Apple and any other company will bend over backwards to always be in the good graces of the government.

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
There's also the risk that the US President might unilaterally ban American corporations from doing any business with you. Through secondary sanctions, that ban will extend to corporations around the world. The US has arbitrarily cut off entire countries from the world market, including Iran and Venezuela, and it has cut off individual corporations as well, including Huawei and ZTE. Everyone here seems to be up in arms about an NBA exec having to retract a tweet, but the US is throwing its weight around in much more damaging ways at the moment. The entire country of Iran is being economically strangled at the moment, based on the sole, arbitrary decision of the US President, but nobody seems to care too much.
- helen___keller 7y ago
  No, I don't think there's any risk to Americans or American corporations that the president will unilaterally ban American corporations from doing business with me, an American There is a very real risk to me, an American, that the products or services sold to me by an American corporation will be degraded or changed at the request of the CCP in exchange for that corporations continued access to the Chinese market Does that clear things up?

jostmey 7y ago

Using Alabama is a flawed analogy. Hong Kong has always enjoyed greater autonomy than other Chinese cities. A better analogy would be Puerto Rico citizens aggressively protesting their lack of rights electing members to congress in the federal government. Do you think the US would react the same way as China?

66543throwaway 7y ago
Waco. Ruby Ridge. Chicago MOVE bombing. I guess it depends.
- non-entity 7y ago
  > Chicago MOVE bombing. I hate to be pedantic, but wasn't that in Philadelphia

matwood 7y ago

> wants all these rights others don't have This is exactly how the United States is setup. Notice how pot is legal in some states and not others? I don't see the National Guard marching on Colorado.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sho 7y ago
Pot? That's your argument? Show me the state where you can show full penetrative sex on public TV at 9pm, like you can in europe, and I'll agree they're independent. EDIT: OK, that was a dumb example. Substitute banning guns, or lowering the drinking age, or lowering income tax. Country-level things.
- mmazing 7y ago
  Seems like a pretty high bar.
- metalchianti 7y ago
  Yes, a psychoactive drug with a longstanding and controversial social history having substantial legal differences state-to-state is VERY significant and representative of what statehood represents in the US. Are you from the US? Based on your OP I'm not sure how much you understand mechanics of the federation. And TBH I'm not sure how much you understand China--personally I think 1930s era fascism is a better analogy.
  - greedo 7y ago
    The Supremacy clause of the Constitution really has gutted the original premise of states rights. The only reason that the Federal government doesn't send in the DEA to Oregon/WA/Colorado much anymore is due to politics and culture, not legal mechanisms.
  - sho 7y ago
    > is VERY significant and representative of what statehood represents in the US Not really. It's frigging pot. It's been de-facto legal for decades. Show me a state doing something serious, like banning guns, reversing roe v wade, changing the state language, change the voting age. Difference-between-country stuff. I should have thought of something like that for my initial post; would have reduced this silly nitpicking. And thanks, I'm not from the USA but I'm from a federation too so yeah, I have some idea. As for the China knowledge - looking forward to your cogent, evidenced retort. 请说普通话。

learc83 7y ago

A better example is Puerto Rico. If they had a referendum that showed a clear desire for independence, the US would almost certainly let them leave.

spinach 7y ago
Even better example would be Hawaii state, previously the Hawaiian Kingdom. I doubt America would let Hawaii go.
- learc83 7y ago
  If it was still a semi autonomous region, and a high enough percentage of the entire population wanted independence, yeah we probably would.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
Puerto Rico is a 'foreign colony', so to speak, that the US 'acquired' in the first place following the war against Spain in 1898. Hongkong is a core part of China that was wrestled away by a foreign power. There is no analogy within the US for Hongkong because the US have always been sucking in territory since they were founded, and never had any territory taken away. A similar situation would be if the Japanese Navy had forced the US to sign the Cape Cod area, or parts of Long Island over to Japan, and then imagine what Americans would think of that.
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  China, like every single country in the world, does not have an inherent "core". All its territory was acquired by war, expansion, colonization, and settling. China simply has a couple thousand year head start on the new world.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    And if we go far enough in the past no current country even existed... That's true, and that also completely irrelevant, and may even be disingenuous rhetoric.

UserIsUnused 7y ago

It's much different that that, as Alabama isn't a recently acquired former colony of an old empire, that have been enjoying an autonamous status due to that. The biggest different in metaphor is: -> state/city want something vs -> State/city doesn't want something removed. The origin of the manifest is due to HK losing some of its autonomy, it was a condition unique to it, it's not someone wanting to be special, it's someone special not wanting to be normal. There is a very huge difference in mental state.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

apocalyptic0n3 7y ago

> You're pretty invested in being an American, skin in the game, manifest destiny etc. Huh? You just described maybe 1 in 10 Americans. We genuinely do not care about "manifest destiny" and many of us don't put much value in being American either. I'm not even sure what you mean by "skin in the game" > Let's say one day some stupid little state that you don't care about and vaguely resent decides it wants to secede, wants all these rights others don't have, wants to be able to marry its cousins or make nukes at home or whatever. Alabama, go with them. Alabama wants to secede and they have some demonstrations. You think: "hahahaha no" But Hong Kong doesn't want to secede. They want to keep the freedoms they've had for decades and prevent an oppressive government from restricting those freedoms. Your example is entirely different and opposite sides of the spectrum. A more apt example would be the Occupy protests that happened throughout the western world close to a decade ago. Those were about returning the status quo to what it was before greed took it too far from the middle class. Looking back, it was highly ineffective. But those were months-long protests that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people took part in and for the most part, every day citizens who were not taking part in the protests supported them (or were at least indifferent). Tools were built to help these protesters find where to go and where to avoid (as with all large scale protests) and they were never an issue. Heck, one of the most widely used apps in the US is Waze and one of the primary appeals of it is the crowd sourced police location data. Law enforcement has complained about it, but no actions have been taken against it and no one seems to have any real issue with it.

66543throwaway 7y ago
Didn’t Americans freak out over a few players kneeling for the anthem? Didn’t Americans freak out when Black Lives Matter protesters blocked the highway? A tactic the Hong Kong protestors are using? Didn’t Americans make fun of Occupy Wall Street?
- eeZah7Ux 7y ago
  Not all of them - you are generalizing. Not all of them - you are generalizing. Not all of them - you are generalizing.
- 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jf- 7y ago

Your characterisation of the Chinese public does not make it seem more sympathetic, quite the reverse: it makes them seem petty and spiteful, lashing out at a population which is better educated and more prosperous than them, one unwilling to suffer under the yoke of the CCP as the majority have been indoctrinated to do. Why not let Hong Kong be independent? What moral claim does mainland China have to the territory over the people who live there? If China is so superior and resents Hong Kong then they are better off without it.

sho 7y ago
Please understand I wasn't trying to make it seem more sympathetic, just trying to shed light. I basically agree that they should grow a thicker skin and just let HK be HK. None of which changes the facts that China owns and shares a land border with HK, China is 200x bigger than HK, and might makes right.

spankalee 7y ago

Why would I want to stop people living somewhere else from exercising their right to self-determination? Go Alabama.

IanSanders 7y ago

Just one question. Yes or no. >Let me explain how Chinese people think about HK Do you mean all Chinese people?

sho 7y ago
No, just the majority, as I understand it, and as I believe their actions demonstrate. Of course I can't know the inner secrets of a billion minds, but it's my genuine belief that what I wrote is at least mostly in the right direction.
- IanSanders 7y ago
  Is majority always right? Does the majority have complete information on the matter?
  - sho 7y ago
    Look man - I am not a philosopher. Ask yourself. I'm just some guy who has, or think I have, a little more access to "chinese thought" than I commonly see around here. I thought it would be useful or at least interesting to bring up a perspective I don't see commonly shared, not endorsing it, just tabling it for consideration. Answering questions such as yours is above my pay grade.
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    > Is majority always right? No, it isn't. Hence why Peter Thiel's statement regarding freedom and democracy being incompatible is not as controversial as some people pretend.

blhack 7y ago

edit: I removed this comment. I travel in China. (HN doesnt' apparently allow me to "delete" it, so I apologize for the edit.)

metalchianti 7y ago
It's shocking to westerners but this is the nature of indoctrination. Also, note how OP compared tianxia to manifest destiny instead of lebensraum.
66543throwaway 7y ago
The reason is because for the vast majority of Chinese, they are as likely to end up in a re-education camp as an American is to end up at a Chicago black site prison.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- fouric 7y ago
  ...and the only reason why that's true is because (1) the "vast majority" are not Uyghurs and (2) (rightfully) fear their tyrannical government and take care to not offend it. If you changed the criterion to "likely to end up in [bad place] if they said stuff their government didn't like", the likelihood for Chinese citizens would be multiple orders of magnitude higher than for Americans.

mikestew 7y ago

You think: "Well, what's the point of having individual states if they can't control their own destiny. But marrying cousins? A federal issue? Let me chew on that." Some alabamans post an app on the app store so they can avoid the national guard. "An app? Cool, plods have mass surveillance, the protestors have it now, too. Oh, you thought the 2nd Amendment was just about guns?" you say. I see what you're saying, but I will still disagree with the "90%+ of Chinese", and with the CCP's handling of the issue. Your hypothetical had me cheering for the Alabaman's, because frankly, I don't think we protest enough around here.

authoritarian 7y ago

> You're pretty invested in being an American, skin in the game, manifest destiny etc. Very good. No, I'm definitely not. Manifest destiny is just colonialism fueled by racism >Some alabamans post an app on the app store so they can avoid the national guard. It's linked to secessionist alabamans avoiding and even attacking the guard. Apple takes it down, then puts it back up, then takes it back down >"Good" you say. No, I certainly wouldn't

trophycase 7y ago

Right so first it's Hong Kong. Then Taiwan, just like Tibet before it, then whatever the next thing the Chinese government convinces the people that it owns. And next thing you know China is even bigger and more dangerous

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
There is no "next thing." China's territorial claims have remained exactly the same since 1949, and are identical to those of the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan). Actually, Taiwan's territorial claims are somewhat more expansive than those of China, since Taiwan still claims Mongolia. It's pretty simple: China claims territories that were part of the Qing dynasty until 1911, and internationally recognized as such (except outer Mongolia). Tibet was never internationally recognized as an independent country, and both the PRC and ROC have consistently maintained that it is part of China. That was also the internationally accepted legal view. The PRC and ROC agree that Taiwan is part of China - they just disagree about what "China" is. The PRC and ROC both resented British control over Hong Kong, which is understandable, given that it was taken in the Opium Wars. I wish people discussing the issues here knew the basic background. The idea that China is trying to gobble up territory, and will next try to annex Vietnam or Laos is just not supported by the historical facts. China's position on territory is pretty clear and has been consistent over time.

wbl 7y ago

The United States has asked Puerto Rico if they want to be in or out and if they had massively wanted out would have politely negotiated an exit. We gave up the Philippeans a bit later then planned, but there was a war on.

gok 7y ago

There's no confusion about what most mainlanders think about the protesters. Most protests in the US are also unpopular. The confusion is why the party is so insecure about their position that they need to lash out in seemingly childish ways like this. I think the difference is cultural here.

danShumway 7y ago

I get what you're trying to say, but this comment is really far off of the mark. It's good to care about Chinese culture, but it's another thing entirely to elevate culture over human rights. What does it matter what the average Chinese citizen thinks about this? By pulling the app, Apple is taking the side of an oppressive regime against Hong Kong. Whether or not 90% of Chinese citizens agree with Hong Kong is utterly irrelevant to the conversation. They're not the people being oppressed. I don't care if the average Chinese citizen likes Hong Kong, any more than I care about whether the average Chinese citizen likes Muslims, or any more than I care about whether the average US citizen likes immigrants or LGBQT+ citizens. The opinions of the oppressed matter, the opinions of unaffected third-party observers do not, in except that their opinions spur them to action to help the oppressed. If 90% of the Chinese population thinks that HK is just a misbehaving tiny city that needs to be brought into line, then 90% of the Chinese population is wrong, and Apple is wrong to side with them. Human rights are not a cultural artifact, they're not decided by majority. They're recognized, not granted.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

computerex 7y ago

Biased much? And why are you assuming that everyone here isn't familiar with the dynamics of China and Hong Kong? Maybe you just want to repeat the Chinese propaganda/rhetoric in hope of swaying some minds? You haven't even provided a single shred of evidence to support the beliefs you are attributing to the vast number of Chinese people. Hacker news is a site of logic and evidence based reasoning, not for propagating senseless propaganda.

sho 7y ago
Obviously I can't provide evidence supporting my understandings gained from personal relationships and private conversations. No, I haven't conducted some large-scale peer-reviewed survey. Of course they don't exist. I don't know what you imagine I might have to gain from "spreading propaganda". I'm simply trying to explain, from my understanding, how "the other side" often feels. I don't know where you think "bias" enters into it. I've even explicitly said I totally disagree. I don't know what else to say?
- computerex 7y ago
  > Some alabamans post an app on the app store so they can avoid the national guard. It's linked to secessionist alabamans avoiding and even attacking the guard. What's your evidence that the app is being used to attack the police? And how are you drawing the parallel with the national guard? The things you are posting here are false and dishonest. You haven't provided any evidence to suggest otherwise.
  - sho 7y ago
    For fuck's sake I don't need to provide evidence for my thought experiment!
    - computerex 7y ago
      You can literally say anything you want and just say that it's a thought experiment. Thought experiments are not exempt from providing evidence where you can, especially when you are making sweeping, stereotypical statements that are clearly biased against Hong Kong and trying to sway the opinion in China's favor.

scarmig 7y ago

Terrible analogy. Even if you ignore the particular "special right" Hong Kong was arguing for (like, the right not to be extradited and disappeared for disagreeing with the government), it's still part of an existing system and series of agreements that are now being violated. It's closer to if the UK tried to disband the Scottish parliament, because those damn Scots get special privileges and still protest and whine all day about secession, and then started moving troops in and brutalizing student protesters. And, yes, everyone here would side with Scotland over the UK. The PRC needs to get better propaganda.

cryoshon 7y ago

this is a very interesting comment here because it exposes how different the chinese and american polities really are. america is not a unified bloc, internally. nor does it aspire to be. the differences between a city in massachusetts and a city in louisiana are greater than the differences between a city in massachusetts and a city in ontario -- and ontario's in a different country altogether. in other words, social and cultural distance between two regions in the US can be significantly higher than the cultural distance from one region in the US to another country. i do not think the same principle applies to china. for china, its neighbors are decidedly alien, so the cultural distance between regions within china seems very small in comparison, even if in reality it is substantial. to return to the OP's example: if alabama tried to secede, i'd be fine with letting them go. heck, i'd be glad they even tried to leave, because it would make a credible threat to the federal government that other states would follow along and also secede if things didn't improve promptly. i wouldn't wish them success though, because knowing that it's alabama, i would assume that their reasons for secession were incompatible with my vision for the country. in other words, if a state liek alabama really tried to secede, my position would be that they probably weren't going to be compatible with the best iteration of america anyway -- perhaps because they'd come off as a neo-confederate or something similarly regrettable. but in principle, i don't think i would support efforts to stop them leaving or claiming more rights. i'd prefer apple to not handicap them to appease the federal government, even if i don't like the alabamans or their values very much. why? because i understand that a restriction targeting them today will be used against me tomorrow. and i resent the idea that a private company can dictate what my hardware runs, especially retroactively.

the-pigeon 7y ago

This is not accurate at all. If you want to make an American analogy, it's more like if Puerto Rico wanted independence from the US. Because the US kept violating it's citizens human rights. That said Hong Kong is a fairly unique situation that doesn't accurately compare to any others in recent history.

sho 7y ago
I know it wasn't a good analogy; I couldn't think of a better one. Puerto Rico is not a better analogy. It's never been America proper and it's not even connected to the mainland. HK was China, it was occupied by force for a hundred years and now China has got it back. As far as China is concerned HK is China and that's the end of it. My analogy was flawed, yes, but nitpicking it doesn't really change the basic facts. I note that no-one is arguing that the Chinese don't think like I said.

stickfigure 7y ago

This analogy would only make sense if you used 'Puerto Rico' as an example instead of 'Alabama'. And then the argument completely falls apart; if Puerto Rico decided it wanted to be a separate country, the US (government and popular sentiment) would allow it.

computerex 7y ago

The parallels you are drawing aren't even close to being realistic. Hong Kong protesters want accountability for police brutality. You are twisting the truth.