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They've been able to get away with whatever they wanted in Xinjiang because it has no bearing on their economy. But HK has ties to the west, and enough people o
by koenigdavidmj 6y ago
They've been able to get away with whatever they wanted in Xinjiang because it has no bearing on their economy. But HK has ties to the west, and enough people old enough to remember something resembling liberal government.
HK's only play at this point seems to be the Northern Ireland strategy--be as ungovernable as possible, and rely on China having a bit of shame. I don't see that working, though--the UK in Northern Ireland had a reputation to maintain. I fear that turning HK into a prison camp would do to China's reputation exactly what they want it to do.
- free_rms 6y agoPoint of fact, colonization by the British wasn't exactly 'liberal government'. Anywhere. In HK's case, they only got their limited democracy in the last couple years immediately before handover to China. The 150 years prior, not so much. Back in the 1980s, while Thatcher and Reagan were preaching about freedom, british-ruled HK had less freedom than they do now under the bad guy commies. EDIT: This is not to cheerlead a regression of rights in HK. I'm just saying that being an imperial subject, being brutally put down every few decades when revolting, that's not some liberal utopia.
- alehul 6y agoWhat are some examples of British-ruled HK citizens having less freedom than today’s PRC citizens? From my limited knowledge, the government of Hong Kong was quite liberal, which created its large economic inequality, low literacy rate, and high spot in the freedom index today. Many would argue it was too liberal in some senses.
- hker 6y agoNote that Beijing limited Hong Kong’s democracy since the 60s, threatening invasion. See the following articles for the historical context [1][2]: "Even in the '60s and '70s, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London attempted to introduce democracy and free elections only to be told by Beijing, including by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, that under no circumstances would [China] tolerate a democratically elected Hong Kong because they saw that as the first step toward independence," she said. [1] "These documents … show that not only were the Brits mulling granting Hong Kong self-governance in the 1950s; it was the Chinese government under Mao Zedong who quashed these plans, threatening invasion." [2] [1]: https://asiasociety.org/new-york/why-didnt-britain-democratize-hong-kong https://asiasociety.org/new-york/why-didnt-britain-democrati... [2]: https://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of-hong-kongs-stillborn-democracy/ https://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of-hong-kongs-still...
- thedudeabides5 6y agoAlso note that if they do this, China will be in official violation of the Sino–British Joint Declaration of 1984. Meaning Hong Kong would technically no longer be part of China, and would revert to British sovereignty. Meaning, if they pass this law and take over defense/security in HK, they are essentially violating the Hong Kong Basic Law (Constitution) and invading what would then be (through their actions) a foreign country. Defer to international lawyers on the technicalities, but that's how I've seen this read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration
- hker 6y agoAs an academic exercise of what if the Sino–British Joint Declaration of 1984 is revoked, one alternative possibility to for Hong Kong to join Taiwan (quoting my earlier comment): Note that Hong Kong was given to the Britain by three treaties in the 19th century (1842 Treaty of Nanking, 1860 Convention of Peking, 1898 The Second Convention of Peking), and the true copies of all treaties are in the hand of Taiwan, which were brought to Taiwan by the KMT government during its retreat to Taiwan before 1950. So if the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, the declaration behind the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China, is revoked (partly because CCP declares it invalid), Britain might declare that Hong Kong should return to the holder of the three treaties–Taiwan. Extremely unlikely, but arguably has legal justification.
- aasasd 6y agoHow does this work? If a dude flies to Jamaica with these papers then Jamaica can own HK? Are those, like, bearer shares?
- hker 6y agoThe Britain signed the treaties with the Qing government (the last dynasty in China until 1912), and the bearer shares of the treaties were brought to Taiwan by the KMT government before 1950. So the issue is: who represents China? The government in Beijing or the government in Taipei? Later, Britain signed the Sino–British Joint Declaration of 1984 with Beijing to decide the (then) future of Hong Kong. If the Sino–British Joint Declaration is revoked, things could be different. Just recently US is asking the Beijing government to repay the debt of Qing dynasty [1], which Beijing said would be the responsibility of Taiwan. Following this logic, receiving Hong Kong from Britain could also be the responsibility of Taiwan. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-29/trump-s-new-trade-war-weapon-might-just-be-antique-china-debt https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-29/trump-s-n...
- thenewwazoo 6y agoI've never understood this line of thought. Things used to be bad, and it sucked. Then, they got better and that was good. But now if it gets bad again it'll be okay because it used to be bad? Regression away from freedom is always a bad thing.
- free_rms 6y agoI didn't say regression was ok, maybe I should have preempted such an accusation since I was criticizing the West. I pushed back against imperialism dressed up as liberation. Everybody's soooo concerned about Hong Kong civil rights, just like they were about Iraqi civil rights. Other places, where it's not to our geopolitical advantage? Crickets.
- 0xFFC 6y agoYeah, that is the thing, western mindset does not comprehend imperialism.
- thenewwazoo 6y agoI can comprehend imperialism just fine, thanks. In fact I get to see my government do it even today, despite my literal protest.
- 0xFFC 6y agoDon't get me wrong, I have nothing but deep respect for you personally since I don't know you. I was talking about more broad western mindset.
- thenewwazoo 6y agoYes, it would have been better if British imperialists had never decided to stick their swords where they didn't belong, but they did. Whether HK would have been freer today if Britain hadn't done so is conjecture. What we do know is that Britain violently subjugated HK, but before they left they liberalized the place to a greater degree than the CCP would have, as evidenced by the CCP's desire to deliberalize the place. Bringing up "British rule was no panacea" when we're talking about the CCP's efforts to deliberalize a de facto free society reads like you're apologizing for what the CCP wants to do.
- RavlaAlvar 6y agoHave you considered that China had vocally threatened military action against democratisation.
- koenigdavidmj 6y agoSure, I'm not saying it's "free and fair elections", but it had a functioning, western-style court system, a level of free speech recognizable to any part of the west, things like that. And given that the UK itself has most of these things, I highly doubt they'd arbitrarily deny them to a dependent territory without good reason (especially when their other territories all have some measure of representative government). Other comments describing Chinese threats provide one possible good reason.
- free_rms 6y ago> And given that the UK itself has most of these things, I highly doubt they'd arbitrarily deny them to a dependent territory without good reason (especially when their other territories all have some measure of representative government). Setting aside HK, we apparently have very different reads on how the British Empire acted everywhere else, as well.
- koenigdavidmj 6y agoApples to apples--I'm comparing Hong Kong in 1995 to the rest of the mostly-self-governing British territories in 1995. I'm not comparing them to India in the 1940s (as the most obvious example of the Brits' abuse of other peoples they ruled).
- nickik 6y agoIt maybe was not democratic, but its pretty hard to complain about your rulers if they transformed a poor small town into one of the richest places in the world, with pretty much every freedom of a comparable western democracy arguable in many aspects more free. Exactly how were the people not free, in the 1980s? Do you think its impossible to have freedom without local democracy?
- free_rms 6y agoThat's actually how a lot of mainland Chinese feel about their government, and I can sympathize with them to an extent. But it doesn't undo other things about their government, it's just a fuller picture. Same applies to UK colonialism.
- petre 6y agoThe only viable strategy for individuals is to move out of HK to Taiwan.
- 3pt14159 6y agoTaiwan has a different spoken language and culture than Hong Kong. If I were going to move away from Hong Kong I'd prefer an international, primarily English speaking city like London or Toronto.
- jaaron 6y agoWhile I agree most in Hong Kong would probably prefer to move to other large cities like Vancouver or Sydney, it's not due to language. Having lived in both for many years, most folks in Hong Kong wouldn't have any language trouble in Taiwan, at least not up north towards Taipei.
- exabrial 6y agoThat area of the world is also quite... racist... might be the word, but it's not quite equivalent. After traveling asia for work, it's quite a different form but the same principle. The more positive way to say it is there's is an extraordinary amount of identity wrapped up in your ethnicity and birth country. A HKer is not likely to be welcome in TW.
- robjan 6y agoNonsense. HKers and TW people welcome each other with open arms.
- imrehg 6y agoWouldn't be so sure about it, having lived in Taiwan for many years, a lot of my friends there people leaving HK and setting up a new base in Taiwan. The writing is similar (both HK and Taiwan are far from China's simplified Chinese), the spoken language has a lot of commonalities (bunch of dialects in Taiwan that are closer), and the culture & mindset is very close. Not totally a surprise as Taiwan has a lot of dissidents who left China in earlier conflicts, for quite a while back. So yeah, from personal experience, Hongkongers fit right in coming to Taiwan.
- vinay427 6y ago> the UK in Northern Ireland had a reputation to maintain Evidently not much of a reputation. In this conflict alone, the British state (army and police) shot and killed unarmed protesters, supported paramilitary groups in extrajudicial assassinations (including an attempt on a sitting British politician), indefinitely interned people with no evidence, looked the other way from attacks they could stop (and at least on one occasion even explicitly chose a random civilian to kill instead) if it would protect a source, pursued a strategy for a while of force-feeding certain dissidents, and even made it a crime to display certain flags.
- billfruit 6y agoThere were massive protests against British rule over the years too. Somehow viewing a colonial government as resembling a liberal government, seems rather incongruent to people who still have a living memory of British colonial rule across the world. Any way the one country two systems was set to expire in 2047.