5 ms·

It doesn't matter. You can kidnap a daughter from a poor family and now she doesn't want to to back. Yes, we should respect her decision, but it does not make k

It doesn't matter. You can kidnap a daughter from a poor family and now she doesn't want to to back. Yes, we should respect her decision, but it does not make kidnapping right. It is the result of the colonial age.

arcticbull 5y ago
Yes, however nobody is asking "should we do it again?" - I think the west has decided that's not their cup of tea - but instead "what should we do next?" The challenge is in a very real way the PRC is interested in replaying the colonial era, taking over Taiwan and exerting iron-fisted control over Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Macau.
- wonnage 5y ago
  Hong Kong and Macau are relics of the colonial era and exerting "iron-fisted" control there is no different from exerting it over, say, Shanghai
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Artifacts of the era, sure, but I think that's a very incomplete take. IMO they're closer to the people of St. Pierre and Miquelon than they are to Shanghai. [1] The people of Hong Kong were British Citizens until 1997, and the citizens of Macau, Portuguese citizens until 1999 (it's a little more complicated there, it's ~1981-1999, depending). Just as the Miquelonians are French citizens - not British, not Canadian and not American. A tiny island, in North America, that retains its allegiance to France and uses the Euro. Even flights to Paris are limited, to say the least. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon
    - powerapple 5y ago
      As colonial power, they can issue passports for oversea citizens, it does not mean anything. When returning to China, citizens are given a choice to take whichever passport they choose. To fix a colonial problem, you need to have the power to confront them, British left Hong Kong, and Portuguese left Macau not because those details, because they couldn't hold on to it As in Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, British still owns properties legally from colonial age, and they are able to extract wealth legally. They have papers, documents and everything. Does legal papers make it right?
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        For clarity (1) "As colonial power, they can issue passports for oversea citizens, it does not mean anything." -- French folks living in any Overseas Territories are French-French, EU citizens free to live anywhere in the EU or Metropolitan France. This is not true of for instance folks born in British Overseas Territories. So YMMV. Depends on the nation. Your take is more a reflection of UK policy than colonial policy. (2) "When returning to China, citizens are given a choice to take whichever passport they choose." - Unfortunately they were not. You could register as a BN(O), a British National (Overseas) which conveyed no right of abode anywhere on Earth - not in the UK, not in the EU - but when combined with an HKID offered you one complete 'passport.' Valid for permanent residency in Hong Kong plus consular protection of the British when traveling abroad that the PRC has chosen not to respect. Or you could be a Hong Kong (SAR) Citizen if the PRC would take you, which roughly required you to be ethnically Chinese. BN(O) registration has been closed for years I believe. I think Macau followed a similar model, with SAR passports, but I'm not 100% sure. (3) "To fix a colonial problem, you need to have the power to confront them, British left Hong Kong, and Portuguese left Macau not because those details, because they couldn't hold on to it." - Do you think the French could defend St Pierre and Miequelon? From America? I agree that Portugal could not defend Macau and the UK could not defend Hong Kong but that’s not really all there is to it - see Taiwan.
        hef19898 5y ago
        I always thought HK citizens were British the same way people living in French overseas territories are French. That not being the case was quite shitty IMHO.
  - lmm 5y ago
    What's different is the will of the people. If Shanghai, or San Francisco, or anywhere, developed a cultural consensus that it wanted to leave its parent country, it would be evil to prevent them.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Several US states south of the Mason-Dixon line developed a cultural consensus that they wanted to leave their parent country. Was it evil to prevent them?
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        A substantial number of their residents weren't included in that decision making process, as I recall.
      - lmm 5y ago
        Declaring after the war that the secession had never happened and was impossible was an evil move in my book. (Though whether there was any desired to maintain the Confederacy without slavery I don't know). Going to war with the seceding states over their endemic human rights abuses is more arguable. Personally I despise the holier-than-thou attitude of so many northern states, who had tolerated those same human rights abuses for centuries and then suddenly decided that they were utterly unconscionable, coincidentally just after the northern economy became able to manage without them. But maybe that's ultimately how moral progress gets made.
- powerapple 5y ago
  In PRC's opinion, it is not colonial replay. Taiwan was returned to the China after WW2 officially, and the government that time was ROC, Republic of China, and there is no official end of the Chinese civil war, no peace agreement signed. Taiwan's independence party want to make Taiwan to be the front of containing China, which can only make the situation worse. I don't like to predict, but I have to say a war will happen. Ever since PRC was founded, unifying China is part of its mission. There was a hope for a peaceful unification of some sort, it is long gone now. It is the reality now.
hef19898 5y ago
Argentina never had meaning full settlement there, and there was never really a native population neither. The Falklands are a bad example to show the bad things caused by colonialism, if you need examples of British colonial atrocities pick anything from Africa to India and you'll find plenty up to the 20th century.
Anon4Now 5y ago
That analogy might work for the Falklands, but with Taiwan it would be more like "a poor family that abused the daughter". Anyway, I dislike analogies for political discourse because they over simplify the issues at hand.
- hef19898 5y ago
  That analogy doesn't work for the Falklands neither, the only people ever living there are British. There never was a native nor an Argentinian population there.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    EDIT: Except for long abandoned French (the very first) or Spanish settlements.
whoaisme 5y ago
Your analogy is insipid. If kidnapping is not right, the people who sold their children to kidnappers should never again get custody of their children, especially if the children are begging not to go back. How ridiculous to claim something belongs in the colonial age while defending the nations that continue the practice today, namely China. China defenders are the lowest of the low, the political equivalent of the pedophile defenders.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hong_kong 5y ago
The "kidnapping" in your example happened in 1949. It's no longer about the hypothetical daughter, but more likely her grandchildren. Given the passage of time it's farcical to insist on reversing this.

arcticbull 5y ago

Yes, however nobody is asking "should we do it again?" - I think the west has decided that's not their cup of tea - but instead "what should we do next?" The challenge is in a very real way the PRC is interested in replaying the colonial era, taking over Taiwan and exerting iron-fisted control over Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Macau.

wonnage 5y ago
Hong Kong and Macau are relics of the colonial era and exerting "iron-fisted" control there is no different from exerting it over, say, Shanghai
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Artifacts of the era, sure, but I think that's a very incomplete take. IMO they're closer to the people of St. Pierre and Miquelon than they are to Shanghai. [1] The people of Hong Kong were British Citizens until 1997, and the citizens of Macau, Portuguese citizens until 1999 (it's a little more complicated there, it's ~1981-1999, depending). Just as the Miquelonians are French citizens - not British, not Canadian and not American. A tiny island, in North America, that retains its allegiance to France and uses the Euro. Even flights to Paris are limited, to say the least. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon
  - powerapple 5y ago
    As colonial power, they can issue passports for oversea citizens, it does not mean anything. When returning to China, citizens are given a choice to take whichever passport they choose. To fix a colonial problem, you need to have the power to confront them, British left Hong Kong, and Portuguese left Macau not because those details, because they couldn't hold on to it As in Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, British still owns properties legally from colonial age, and they are able to extract wealth legally. They have papers, documents and everything. Does legal papers make it right?
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      For clarity (1) "As colonial power, they can issue passports for oversea citizens, it does not mean anything." -- French folks living in any Overseas Territories are French-French, EU citizens free to live anywhere in the EU or Metropolitan France. This is not true of for instance folks born in British Overseas Territories. So YMMV. Depends on the nation. Your take is more a reflection of UK policy than colonial policy. (2) "When returning to China, citizens are given a choice to take whichever passport they choose." - Unfortunately they were not. You could register as a BN(O), a British National (Overseas) which conveyed no right of abode anywhere on Earth - not in the UK, not in the EU - but when combined with an HKID offered you one complete 'passport.' Valid for permanent residency in Hong Kong plus consular protection of the British when traveling abroad that the PRC has chosen not to respect. Or you could be a Hong Kong (SAR) Citizen if the PRC would take you, which roughly required you to be ethnically Chinese. BN(O) registration has been closed for years I believe. I think Macau followed a similar model, with SAR passports, but I'm not 100% sure. (3) "To fix a colonial problem, you need to have the power to confront them, British left Hong Kong, and Portuguese left Macau not because those details, because they couldn't hold on to it." - Do you think the French could defend St Pierre and Miequelon? From America? I agree that Portugal could not defend Macau and the UK could not defend Hong Kong but that’s not really all there is to it - see Taiwan.
      - hef19898 5y ago
        I always thought HK citizens were British the same way people living in French overseas territories are French. That not being the case was quite shitty IMHO.
- lmm 5y ago
  What's different is the will of the people. If Shanghai, or San Francisco, or anywhere, developed a cultural consensus that it wanted to leave its parent country, it would be evil to prevent them.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Several US states south of the Mason-Dixon line developed a cultural consensus that they wanted to leave their parent country. Was it evil to prevent them?
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      A substantial number of their residents weren't included in that decision making process, as I recall.
    - lmm 5y ago
      Declaring after the war that the secession had never happened and was impossible was an evil move in my book. (Though whether there was any desired to maintain the Confederacy without slavery I don't know). Going to war with the seceding states over their endemic human rights abuses is more arguable. Personally I despise the holier-than-thou attitude of so many northern states, who had tolerated those same human rights abuses for centuries and then suddenly decided that they were utterly unconscionable, coincidentally just after the northern economy became able to manage without them. But maybe that's ultimately how moral progress gets made.
powerapple 5y ago
In PRC's opinion, it is not colonial replay. Taiwan was returned to the China after WW2 officially, and the government that time was ROC, Republic of China, and there is no official end of the Chinese civil war, no peace agreement signed. Taiwan's independence party want to make Taiwan to be the front of containing China, which can only make the situation worse. I don't like to predict, but I have to say a war will happen. Ever since PRC was founded, unifying China is part of its mission. There was a hope for a peaceful unification of some sort, it is long gone now. It is the reality now.

hef19898 5y ago

Argentina never had meaning full settlement there, and there was never really a native population neither. The Falklands are a bad example to show the bad things caused by colonialism, if you need examples of British colonial atrocities pick anything from Africa to India and you'll find plenty up to the 20th century.

Anon4Now 5y ago

That analogy might work for the Falklands, but with Taiwan it would be more like "a poor family that abused the daughter". Anyway, I dislike analogies for political discourse because they over simplify the issues at hand.

hef19898 5y ago
That analogy doesn't work for the Falklands neither, the only people ever living there are British. There never was a native nor an Argentinian population there.
- hef19898 5y ago
  EDIT: Except for long abandoned French (the very first) or Spanish settlements.

whoaisme 5y ago

Your analogy is insipid. If kidnapping is not right, the people who sold their children to kidnappers should never again get custody of their children, especially if the children are begging not to go back. How ridiculous to claim something belongs in the colonial age while defending the nations that continue the practice today, namely China. China defenders are the lowest of the low, the political equivalent of the pedophile defenders.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hong_kong 5y ago

The "kidnapping" in your example happened in 1949. It's no longer about the hypothetical daughter, but more likely her grandchildren. Given the passage of time it's farcical to insist on reversing this.