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Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoGreg Egan wrote a novel called Quarantine (which I liked quite a bit) that introduced New Hong Kong, a mega city built in Australia ahead of the British return of Hong Kong.
- kilroy123 6y agoWas the city called Sydney?
- ColanR 6y ago"Way of life"? Way to trivialize their loss of freedom and autonomy and habeas corpus.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoHave no idea why you think the phrase "way of life" trivializes their losses. If anything I feel it emphasizes how these losses are not just some abstract concept but will concretely affect the everyday lives of Hong Kong's citizens.
- ColanR 6y agoOppression is just as much a "way of life" as autonomy. Calling it that makes them of equal value as ways to live.
- hoytschermerhrn 6y agoWhy are you being pedantic? What’s your end goal here?
- arduanika 6y agoTo my American ears at least, "way of life" used in this sense _does_ encompass all those big, important things. The rhetoric has always been that the [Soviets, Al Qaeda, whoever] hate our "way of life" and want to destroy it, whereas Superman wants to protect "truth, justice, and the American Way". It's a stand-in for freedom, habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, and the rest. It's a sad time for HK and the world.
- reificator 6y agoIf you're unaware, the American meaning of the phrase "way of life" absolutely encompasses and does not trivialize those things. The phrase has been used in propaganda with the same meaning for maybe a century at this point, if not at least since the 50s. It's so ingrained that I had to reread your comment several times to understand how you could possibly be upset at that.
- robjan 6y ago"way of life" is a specific piece of terminology used in Article 5 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong which is why it's often referred in this way. The exact wording is "The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years."
- rkagerer 6y agohttps://archive.is/Rsirg https://archive.is/Rsirg
- oxymoran 6y agoThe rest of the world needs to wake up and realize that China is not messing around. There will be a long list of Hong Kong’s if we continue to look the other way to authoritarian regimes.
- baybal2 6y agoUS administration repeatedly failed to honour quite a number of defence treaties as of lately.
- AYBABTME 6y agoWhich?
- baybal2 6y ago1. US Philippines Defence Treaty, USA allegedly refused to honor it when Philippines demanded USA assist clearing Mischief Reef, multiple times, and under multiple administrations. 2. Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between the United States and Japan, refused to acknowledge Chinese hostility against Japanese controlled island. 3. Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea, Koreans requested US aid countless times, on record. 4. Taiwan Relations Act, repeatedly failed to classify air incursions as attack under the act. 5. Suggested that Montenegro is not protected by the Article V, and voila, they got a Russian Coup d'état attempt in a few months. 6. Ukraine, you know the story.
- claydavisss 6y agoNot even John Bolton would advocate starting WW3 for any of the trivialities you cite
- tingol 6y agoWhat Russian coup in Montenegro?
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- canada_dry 6y agoWhat has happened to Hong Kong is a strong canary-in-the-coal-mine indicator for other Chinese territorial disputes [i]. With Hong Kong it was somewhat inevitable but I can't help but imagine how different it would be if the US and EU/Britain (as leads) would have strongly denounced their approach. I suspect in a decade from now the West will be lamenting how Hong Kong was the right opportunity to stifle China's ambition. [i] https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/territorial-disputes https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/territorial-disputes
- dbcurtis 6y agoThat argument is a lot harder to sell since the Korea and Viet Nam wars. Not that I disagree with you. China does need to be reigned in, and we should have started years ago. But the leadership of the USA was mostly of draftable age during the Viet Nam war, or, like me, did their grade school homework in front of the TV news with Walter Cronkite reading the daily body count.
- hnarn 6y agoNobody in their right mind is arguing for a land based invasion of China, so this argument is completely moving the goal posts. It's not either-or, there are many ways to pressure a nation without military intervention.
- dbcurtis 6y agoTrue, but this is the ancient rhetoric almost word-for-word. The words are triggering for those of certain generations.
- bsanr2 6y agoBut the same generation was in power when we launched our twenty-year War on Terror, and the comparisons to Vietnam that started popping up a decade and a half ago didn't manifest in any sort of wariness to move forward and keep moving forward with our attempted "regime change." If anything, it's that which has changed our willingness to step forward militarily. The conclusion is that we spent our war capital on frivolous quagmires when real threats were looming but not being taken seriously. See also: cointel on BLM while white supremacists plan and execute with freely. Team America: World Police reflecting our actual police.
- sushshshsh 6y agoLove how when the same restrictions are imposed in the USA, everyone starts talking about "doing the right thing"
- d3nj4l 6y agoThere's a time and place for that conversation and it isn't this.
- anm89 6y agowhy?
- Ensorceled 6y agoWhataboutism is a distraction. This article is about the issues in Hong Kong, "what about similar things happening in country x,y or z" is an attempt to derail this important conversation.
- luxurycommunism 6y agoNo it's not. It's a valid comparison of a global trend that national governments all over the world have been claiming more and more power than they actually need.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoBecause this conversation is about Hong Kong. And by trying to make this conversation about America's failings, you make it hard for us to have a conversation about Hong Kong. Keep watching. Within a very few days, there will be an article on HN about BLM, or about police monitoring of US citizens, or about the NSA evesdropping. If you want to criticize the US for having less freedom than the label says, feel free to do it there. (And there we can yell at people trying to bring up Hong Kong, telling them that they're off topic.)
- dbcurtis 6y agoSo perhaps you were downvoted for being vague. But certainly things like the supreme court recently refusing to hear an important case on qualified immunity have me concerned that USA-ians are whistling past the graveyard right now.
- hh3k0 6y agoI've been boycotting Chinese goods whenever possible (it helps that I don't really buy electronics) because of Hong Kong. I regret not having started back when our professor urged us to do so roughly a decade ago. One time, we had officials from Chinese universities visit ours and he made sure to have big "free Tibet" patches on his jacket and backpack while always hanging around said officials. He was quite the character.
- croes 6y agoFree Tibet to go back to feudalism? You do know that Tibet and Taiwan wasn't any better for the poorer part of the people. Hong Kong is one of the most expensive places to live. The protesters are part of the privileged and are just fighting to keep them. Didn't hear them complaining back then in the asian banking crisis when China bailed them out with the money from exploited chinese workers.
- hkmaxpro 6y ago> Didn't hear them complaining back then in the asian banking crisis when China bailed them out with the money from exploited chinese workers China “bailing out” Hong Kong is a common myth popularized by the CCP [0]. China refused to interfere with Hong Kong during the 1998 financial crisis, according to former Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa [1]. The Monetary Authority head did not acknowledge any help from China back then [2]. [0] https://medium.com/@lineposthk/%E5%AF%92%E6%9F%8F-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E6%9B%BE%E5%8B%95%E7%94%A8%E5%A4%96%E5%8C%AF%E5%84%B2%E5%82%99%E6%95%91%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF-4fb1723292cd https://medium.com/@lineposthk/%E5%AF%92%E6%9F%8F-%E4%B8%AD%... (in Chinese) [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/2101761/beijing-refused-step-during-1998-hong-kong-financial-crisis https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/2101761... [2] https://hk.finance.yahoo.com/news/%E4%BB%BB%E5%BF%97%E5%89%9B-98-%E5%B9%B4%E6%BC%94%E8%AA%AA-%E6%B2%92%E8%AA%AA%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E6%95%91%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF-081319406.html https://hk.finance.yahoo.com/news/%E4%BB%BB%E5%BF%97%E5%89%9... (in Chinese)
- croes 6y agoThanks for the sources.
- pastaking 6y agoTruly sad. When HK was handed back to China in 1999, did we know this is inevitable?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- freedomben 6y agoI remember the conversations around 1999, and yes it was pretty well known to be inevitable. Perhaps the surprise is that it took 20 years.
- zdragnar 6y agoConsidering China's relationship with Taiwan, I would say yes, we absolutely knew that China would not allow a Chinese territory to be outside of thr CCP's control indefinitely. If anything, I am surprised it took them this long to decide the rest of the world would simply watch and do nothing of importance about it.
- dmurray 6y agoIt's not about geopolitics, it's about economics. China has been extremely pragmatic and results-oriented. When Hong Kong was the most economically successful part of China, they were happy to leave it be and learn some lessons from it. Now the rest of China has largely caught up and it's time for them to make HK more like Shenzhen, rather than the other way around.
- spectramax 6y agoGiving that Shanghai stock market trades more than HK, that argument doesn't hold up. China didn't need HK. They did not want a western-aligned population of 7M people within 40km of its borders and instead decided to deal with them with a heavy hand. I think China played their hand too soon and the west is waking up to it.
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- rado 6y agoThis "way of life" was unsustainable anyway, because of the property prices and the de facto feudal system with the tycoons on top. You can rage at the red flag all you want, but ideology has nothing to do with it. HK life was almost unbearable before all this.
- PakG1 6y agoHong Kong not being able to diversify its economy beyond real estate and finance disabled it from having strong leverage. The Hong Kong that was rich enough to support Sichuan after the 2008 earthquake is now arguably less economically dynamic than Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and of course its neighbour, Shenzhen. Hong Kong was in a weak position unable to dictate terms to Beijing. And I think Beijing of course prefers that. I think there is a lot of schaedenfreude in the hearts of mainlanders also, as Hong Kong people used to look down on mainlanders, especially when the HKD was worth so much more than the RMB. I remember people complaining how mainlanders would break toilets by squatting on them because they didn't know how to use sit-down toilets. China's basically like, "Look at me. I am the captain now."
- magicsmoke 6y agoHK has both the worst parts of a democracy and autocracy. It's got 35/70 seats in the legislative council made up of undemocratically appointed business interests that vote to preserve their profits at the expense of HK's inhabitants. Meanwhile, the handover treaty ties the hands of any autocrat that tries to reform the city's governance to better enable wealth redistribution from its finance firms. None of the representativeness of a real democracy but all the red tape of one. All the turmoil over this past decade's been over which side of the hill HK will start sliding down, democracy or autocracy. But given that the PRC will never let HK slide towards democracy now, maybe it's best they slide towards autocracy as fast as possible. Tear up the democratic red tape protecting corrupt business interests and start redistributing its wealth to the people via autocratic means.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoIs China any more sustainable?
- adaisadais 6y agoI was taught to prepare for globalization in most of my business classes in college. The world was now flat so you must prepare. We must be willing to compete and allow free trade as the internet (specifically the www) has opened the entire world up. But what’s really happened is that the internet has given new powers to governments to regulate and control the people. While I would love to talk about how big and bad the CCP is (they are both of those adjectives and many more) I would be in remiss if I didn’t look at my own country (US) and see that we have been guilty of creating false narratives on free trade. It’s sad to me that we lack Political leadership in our country. That’s one thing that China does not lack. Both governments are propagated by lies. But the difference is that the Chinese people have suffered greatly and now (on average) are suffering less. So they may be willing (as a whole) to turn a blind eye to situations like HK and what’s happening to the Uighur people.
- hervature 6y ago> what’s happening to the Uighur people. Let's call it what it is; genocide [1]. [1] - https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/chinas-forced-sterilization-uighur-women-cultural-genocide https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/chinas-forced-steri...
- adaisadais 6y agoDidn’t want to get down voted by the CCP but looks like it happened anyways lol.
- yodsanklai 6y agoDoes anyone here have an informed opinion on what will happen to Taiwan?
- PakG1 6y agoDid an MBA in Hong Kong, just finished earlier this year. A lot of my classmates are mainland Chinese. Bunch of them would regularly talk with each other and say that military action was the only way to resolve the situation, China needs to send its military to Taiwan and overrun the Taiwanese defenses quickly. Baffles my mind that they're so ready to default to war. Some other mainland Chinese people are more nuanced in their thoughts. I have no idea about population percentages for opinions. But this a world-class top 20 MBA school, and had one undergraduate student die while protesting (fell off a building). Bunch of these classmates are educated with masters degrees from American universities. If they default to war, I'm a bit concerned, I'd expect them to see more nuance in the world. For them, it's not really war of course, as Taiwan was always theirs in the first place in their eyes. Any foreign interference in the matter is a slap in the face of Chinese sovereignty, was the same for Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a difficult situation because the entire world agrees that Hong Kong belongs to China. Taiwan is difficult in that most of the world has agreed that Taiwan belongs to China, that is the crux of the One China policy that China forces all countries to agree to if they want to have diplomatic and trade relations with China. If you break with the One China policy, you break diplomatic and trade relations with China. Don't see most countries willing to take that step. Big game of chicken. For what it's worth, the Chinese government's official stance is that military action is a last resort option only if diplomatic negotiations fail.
- jimmaswell 6y agoMaybe now is the time to rip off the bandaid and break trade with China while we're already in a recession anyway.
- PakG1 6y agoI think you misunderstand how much of the world's electronics are manufactured in China and how difficult it would be to relocate all that. Like I'm invested in a rare earth element company in Canada, and I still expect to see the world rely on Chinese rare earth elements for a few years yet, let alone manufacturing know-how. It'll take a few years, maybe a decade, to set all that up in other countries, including in the US. Obama once asked Steve Jobs why the iPhone can't be manufactured in the US, Jobs said the skills weren't there. https://www.heraldtribune.com/article/LK/20120123/News/605191697/SH https://www.heraldtribune.com/article/LK/20120123/News/60519... And it's not like the American education system is the greatest. Great universities, but what of the high schools?
- lehi 6y agoThe circumstances of Britain's original forced takeover and colonization of Hong Kong in the Opium Wars are the greater evil to me. Righting that wrong after so long was always going to be painful. By analogy: a violent drug-dealer shoots you, robs you, and then kidnaps your child at gunpoint. Years later, you manage to have the child returned, but in the interim they have been taught by their captor to hate you and resist rejoining their family. What do you do?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- laretluval 6y agoWhat part of that was left unaddressed in 1997?
- ogogmad 6y agoThe people of Hong Kong aren't to blame for the original injustice, so why are they the ones being victimised?
- magicsmoke 6y agoThat's true, the people of HK were raised to believe in British values on conquered land then abandoned there when Britain couldn't hold it any longer. Britain should have repatriated them all instead of putting them through this mess. Even POWs are treated better than their home country denying any involvement or responsibility when their overseas outpost gets captured.
- ogogmad 6y agoRegarding your analogy, Hong Kong in this analogy should be a fully grown adult by now, and should have fully autonomy as a result.
- ginko 6y agoOnly it's not you that wants the child returned but the guy that invaded your house and is living there now.
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- dontcarethrow2 6y agoFrom a simpletons perspective, I don't understand why we get to have a say of how a country reclaims its former territory. Especially from Westerners(not even land connected) who have no claim whatsoever. Why do we have a negative outlook on our former empires colonizing the world while at the same time doing everything possible to retain profits/power from these bad things we shouldn't be doing? Very hypocritical to simpletons. Someone is shutting off our outpost, ofcourse we won't let it go without kicking and screaming to get everyones attention to what?
- spectramax 6y agoIt was done sooner than agreed upon date and lead massive protests on the scale that the world has never seen. Better half of 2019 was HK protests signalling China that the people of HK do not want assimilation. China struck HK 2 months ago with the new law at the weakest point in recent history with the pandemic.
- altcognito 6y agoThe key word there is former. We don't get a "say", there is an equal opportunity for influence because it is the former territory.
- will4274 6y agoThe universal declaration of human rights declares the right to self determination. I don't think it's hypocritical for the United States to preach principles of human rights.
- stann 6y agoOne wonders why Catalonia, Palestine, and Ambazonia rarely receive the same solidarity from the US in the defence of right to self determination
- akvadrako 6y agoThe right of self determination is only theoretical because in law it's always overridden by the right of territorial integrity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_integrity But just imagine how crazy it would be if every place could declare itself independent. Would states count? What about cities?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- xoxoy 6y agoI suspect we will see China attempt to invade Taiwan sooner rather than later now. In particular I’ve suspected for awhile that China desperately wants to “own” Taiwan Semiconductor ($TSM) since they’ve been trying to build up their own domestic chip business for awhile and $TSM is the gold standard in chip manufacturing.
- magicsmoke 6y agoAny invasion of Taiwan will just leave TSMC a smoking husk, either from PLA jets or from self-destruct switches. Invading won't help in terms of owning TSMC's facilities and technology.
- xoxoy 6y agohuh? by invade i mean they want to own Taiwan, not destroy it.
- yorwba 6y agoHow do you expect an invasion to happen without a lot of destruction? Maybe you should read this: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-wi...
- tomnipotent 6y agoAnd how do you think they come about "owning" it? Do you think Russia purchased Crimea from eBay?
- smithgeek 6y agoDedfddeecddzzfdrddffxcvXZXZCX XVVVVVBB. h bbbc
- srtjstjsj 6y agoChina is already paying most TSMC employees to move to China already. TSMC won't last 10years at its current strength.
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- cblconfederate 6y agoIsn't that an uber-wealthy city with the biggest concentration of billionaires? With so much wealth you 'd think they 'd have a say on what china wants to do with them. But maybe they just go along?
- ardy42 6y ago> Isn't that an uber-wealthy city with the biggest concentration of billionaires? With so much wealth you 'd think they 'd have a say on what china wants to do with them. But maybe they just go along? Why would the CCP defer to the wealthy when they already have far more power than they do?
- dqpb 6y ago> It's like watching a patient with cancer finally die Or perhaps it’s like police officers bearing down their weight on a man’s chest and neck, forcing all the oxygen out of his lungs and holding them empty for six minutes so the whole world can witness the life slowly drain from his eyes. Authorities around the world are highly effective at snuffing out human life and freedom.
- haunter 6y agoI'm starting to hate how every thread slowly ends up being about the US instead of the actual topic. HN avoided this for the long time but slowly crawling up here too. Reddit already past this, there is no post in almost any front page default sub without mentioning Trump
- dqpb 6y agoI’m sorry that pattern matching offends you.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't do this here.
- logotype 6y agoYep, it’s incredibly frustrating. Every article about CCP gets derailed or diverted. Mostly by the same predictable user ids, plus newly registered users. Given the traffic of HN I am certain that it’s the paid wumaos/shills of the CCP trying to change the narrative. Despicable!
- dang 6y agoIt's against HN's rules to post like this. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? Note this one: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." There is a vast amount of previous explanation on the subject: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chin%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a... The short version is that the HN community is legitimately divided on these issues, that fact suffices to explain everything we see here, and you can't make insinuations like this without some evidence. People holding differing views on a divisive topic does not count as evidence of manipulation.
- supernova87a 6y agoI don't know about you, but I see echoes of the US view in Vietnam that we were saving the country from some unspeakable evil that was expanding dangerously year by year. When we were 8000 miles away, looking at things just as symbols and not knowing whether that meant good or bad for the people actually living it day to day. That got us into some trouble, I seem to recall. Is this not similar? I worry this has a certain path written on it, with our good intentions paving the way.
- kilroy123 6y agoI mean have you been to Hong Kong? Have you ever spoken to people there about how they feel about mainland China? I heard a lot of not good things from the people I spoke with there.
- esturk 6y agoI wonder how long before services like Facebook is banned in HK under the new Security law. One interesting thing to see is whether Facebook would comply with censorship requests to appease the PRC. If not, could this be the single largest decline in users for Facebook?
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- koonsolo 6y agoI think we all agree that none of us would want to live under CCP. So the real question is what or who is going to stop them from expanding? Asians have a higher IQ, they have the human numbers and natural resources. The only thing I can imagine stopping them is that they will be composed of too many regions that want to split. But as long as they can maintain a strong grip, I don't think anything can split off. There is no world power that can or wants to face them head on, and it will only get worse when they grow bigger (which they will). Maybe I'm pessimistic, or maybe just realistic?
- sunstone 6y agoThe problem for Xi with respect HK and Taiwan is that plenty of mainland tourists will visit and learn from the locals how much they prefer democracy. These values will then seep back into the mainland and the CCP wants to maintain the fiction that democracy doesn't work for Chinese culture. Letting HK continue on for 30 more years might become uncontrable in China.
- coronasaurus 6y agoDoubtful. Most Chinese students who studied abroad only end up more nationalistic. https://supchina.com/2018/01/18/caught-in-a-crossfire-chinese-students-abroad-and-the-battle-for-their-hearts/ https://supchina.com/2018/01/18/caught-in-a-crossfire-chines...
- adultSwim 6y agoWhat would be wrong with One Country, One System?