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The Chinese Government is speeding up their efforts to swallow Hong Kong and Macau into the Mainland. Closing the media outlets, museums, websites that speak a
by kunagi7 5y ago
The Chinese Government is speeding up their efforts to swallow Hong Kong and Macau into the Mainland.
Closing the media outlets, museums, websites that speak against them. And a few key people get abducted here and there to scare more people and force them to accept the Beijing Regime. But... The people from Hong Kong still demonstrates and tries to fight for their lost rights.
- president 5y agoVery sad and parallels what seems to be happening in the US and other western democracies as well. There is a trend of certain dominant power in all of these countries that is quashing all opposing voices. I predict that some major global events are going to happen within the next few years. EDIT: Case in point - the quashing of opposing voices occurs on this board on this very comment. You cannot even bring up this fact. Thank you for proving me right fellow HNer.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoYou're welcome.
- throwawaylolx 5y ago>Thank you for proving me right fellow HNer. Well, who do you think does the censoring in the West? Companies that employ people browsing this very forum.
- warning26 5y agoOr, consider this alternative hypothesis -- people are downvoting you for whining about being downvoted.
- president 5y agoHappened well before my edit. People associate narratives with tribal politics and vote accordingly. For those like me who think and speak independently, it is a massive disappointment to get caught in the crossfire.
- temp8964 5y agoThe parallels are: Both driven by the left. Both claim nothing will happen, it’s just a myth, people are just being paranoid. Purge is the common theme across the history of leftism.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoThe Nazis were totally right-wing. Their purges shocked the world. It's not just a left-wing thing, it's a common theme across all forms of extremism. Left, right, religion-based (look at the Taliban now, they don't really fit in the left or right category at all)... It always comes down to the same thing. Not listening to the other person but choosing to silence them with violence instead. The flag they wave is different but the extremism remains the same. What we need is balance. Left and right together. Agreeing to disagree and finding a way to work together anyway. That's democracy. It's hard but it's the only way.
- another_story 5y agoDefine what you mean by left.
- analognoise 5y agoWhose voice is getting quashed in the US? Everyone has a Facebook, Twitter, email, phones, a magazine, protests, their own news channels, subReddits. What group doesn't have all those things? Whose voice is being quashed - exactly? Even straight up Nazis have websites, newsletters, gatherings, organized protest marches and Facebook pages. The fucking Taliban is on Twitter. So...who is being quashed because of their beliefs, exactly?
- temp8964 5y agoI have a quick example: the former president.
- jjoonathan 5y ago...and what did he do to get banned? (Hint: it wasn't "having ideas.")
- kemiller 5y agoHmm... https://lmgtfy.app/?q=donald+trump https://lmgtfy.app/?q=donald+trump So, so quashed. You can barely find any information about him!
- chasd00 5y agoFor one, it's well known in tech that you're putting your job/livelihood at risk by speaking contrary to the political groupthink. Many people who didn't vote for Clinton or Biden are effectively in career hiding. Threatening someone's job over their beliefs/opinions is very effective censorship.
- krapp 5y ago>Many people who didn't vote for Clinton or Biden are effectively in career hiding. Are they? Where? In the American South, where I live, Republicans, Conservatives and Trumpists are still loud and proud, and gainfully employed.
- 5y ago
- ssully 5y agoAre people using the downvote button incorrectly here?
- telllersid 5y agoThe US republic was basically founded on pamphlets, newspapers, books..then incredibly long debates and respectful discussion. Look at the structure of the Lincoln–Douglas debates. One candidate spoke for 60 minutes, followed by a 90-minute response and a final 30-minute rejoinder by the first candidate. That doesn't work anymore. None of this works. Yes, all opposing voices will be silenced until there is 1 party basically everywhere. That is what people want and so that is what you will get in a democracy. There is no evidence to the contrary. I am just glad I am old enough to have lived most my life already.
- kemiller 5y agoNowhere in the constitution are you protected from consequences when you say something stupid, and right-leaning folks have been saying this particular stupid thing a bit too often. Have the offices of Fox News or Breitbart or the Creation Science Museum been raided by police? No? Then this is not even close to parallel.
- alentist 5y agohttps://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1282404647160942598.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1282404647160942598.html
- systemvoltage 5y agoOne side has to show tolerance, convince others and be kind. Instead, we are throwing people under the bus, enranging them further and permanently affecting their mental health - they'll never to ever listen to any progressive voice. This is an absolute disaster. People forget that the point of debates and exercise in politics is to convince the other side and get their vote. May be I am crazy to think this way.
- inopinatus 5y agoThere’s a seam of individuals cutting across the political spectrum that is confused about their right to speak freely. They think it translates to a right to force everyone to listen to them. Then they become shirty when told to fuck off. It’s naturally correlated to extremities of viewpoint, both due to the absence of critical thinking on the part of the complainant and the elevated likelihood their views fall outside a certain window of acceptability.
- president 5y agoThere are plenty of examples but you won't hear about those things if all your information comes from the corporate press. Someone else in the comments posted a twitter app with many examples but when someone finally posts the receipts, nobody follows up. What does that tell me? People are not interested in the truth but defending their tribe.
- yuy910616 5y agoReally reminds me of the Taiwan election commercial that compares Taiwan and Hong Kong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykcVIQMrc4A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykcVIQMrc4A
- vmception 5y agowow that was really powerful makes me want to rethink some of my flippant comments about Taiwan's impending doom after we get our semiconductor pylons up in other places, but now at least they have my sympathy
- elihu 5y agoNote: there's English subtitles available if you enable close captioning.
- AussieWog93 5y agoEven creepier listening to it with no subtitles and a primary school level understanding of Chinese. All I heard was "husband", "daughter" and "whole family".
- yodsanklai 5y agoThe amount of effort China is putting to sabotage Taiwan independence is astonishing. I have Taiwanese relatives and I'm very worried for them.
- gogopuppygogo 5y agoThe USA has been losing all war games where it defends Tawain against China. https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/us-war-games-over-china-threat-warn-of-likely-defeat-report/ https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/us-war-games-over-china-threat... It is not okay to assume USA supremacy against adversaries anymore. Why Americans still do business with China is astounding to me.
- tw04 5y ago
- vmception 5y agoWhat’s going on in Macau? I thought there is no contention there. They can if they want, they can do the perpetual lease if they want.
- niij 5y agoPortugal gave up their perpetual lease of Macau in 1999.
- arcticbull 5y agoOn the same terms as Hong Kong.
- kingkawn 5y agoThe only reason Hong Kong has had this period of independence is a side effect of western power subjugating the Chinese mainland. As the Chinese mainland grows in global power and the west decays into internal squabbles there should be no expectation that the pretenses of western power will remain intact.
- VictorPath 5y agoYes, the UK (with US help) stole Hong Kong from China to help in its effort to turn Chinese people into drug addicts during the Opium wars. It's why they killed Chinese in Hong Kong in 1967 protesting the UK occupation (a few years later the UK gunned down unarmed protestors in Derry marching against British internment camps). Watched the liberation of Kabul from foreign imperialists last month and have to laugh at the pious western liberal imperial impotent ramblings I see here.
- kingkawn 5y agoI think I'm being downvoted out of some sense of political duty to Hong Kong from westerners, but really there has been nothing holding the mainland back other than the threat of western power. If there is no threat, there is nothing that will hold them back, whether we find it tasteful or not.
- asdff 5y agoIf Beijing ever martyrs the protestors like tianeman again I don't think the world will take kindly to that at all. I even think russia would join an american coalition. China has no strong allies that wouldn't prefer to spare themselves in the event of worldwide intervention and they can't fight off the entire developed world alone no matter how far they came in recent decades.
- Yeroc 5y agoAh, but China holds all the financial levers to keep everyone in their place. If there were a war there'd be no "Made in China" goods being exported. Take a look around you and think about that for a few minutes. They can get away with almost anything. The only thing they fear is an internal uprising.
- hker 5y ago> They can get away with almost anything. Not if factories move to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Bangladesh, India, etc., as the current trend continues.
- pempem 5y agoIn most of the countries you've identified China has a strong toehold already.
- ekianjo 5y agonot really. those neighbors have absolutely no trust in China. There is history too between these countries in Asia.
- teawrecks 5y agoPolitics isn't that simple. Not everyone in those countries feels the same way or is being paid by the same people. Even in HK where citizens regularly fill the streets to openly protest Chinese influence, the HK govt has many Chinese sympathizers who are trying to ensure the situation shakes out in China's favor.
- justicezyx 5y agoI am disappointed by the naivete displayed by Hong Kong and their Western supporters (plus some mainlanders who privately admitted so). They are just replaying the tiananmen square riot, and had been setup from the beginning to be walking into the trap that happened before, and many times over the course of human history... They had a very good chance of inducing meaningful change into Chinese people's mindset, and plant the seed for much bigger scale of change in China. Imagine a free and solidified China, with Taiwan finally joining the whole under a free nation. That would be the real junvanation of the nation. They squandered, they lack the discipline, showing stutling naive approach to serious politics, they are put down like weak fire in the winter days... What a pity...
- Zenst 5y agoMakes you wonder how much transpired over the past COVID News saturation that may of been buried, or missed completely by the media.
- MangoCoffee 5y agoits sad. when Sun Yat-sen the father of modern China take on the Qing dynasty. Hong Kong was the base. It wasn't part of China and a lot of Chinese who is educated under the British rule understand what Sun try to achieve. a modern and free country. Hong Kong have been a base for a lot of progressive Chinese. Now that Hong Kong is fully back into China and the 50 years of no changes (for Hong Kong) promised by Deng Xiaoping is gone with Xi, basically a emperor for life. There is no hope for China to turn into a democratic country. Taiwan is the last place for the progressive Chinese. After Chiang's family, Taiwan have progressed to be the most democratic and open minded country. It elected a first female president in Taiwan, allowed gay marriage...etc. While American left Taiwan to have a business relationship with China (CCP) for more than 40 years. I fear Taiwan will soon be conquered by China, not by force but suppression and economic ties. After Taiwan is gone, there is no more place for any open minded and progressive Chinese.
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- jeswin 5y ago> I fear Taiwan will soon be conquered by China, not by force but suppression and economic ties. A majority in Taiwan (two-thirds) are against unification, and that's hardended further after what's happened in HongKong. This is especially so among young people, who mostly also identify as being exclusively Taiwanese. Support for unification mostly comes from KMT, who are older and identify as Taiwanese and Chinese. As that generation fades away, these ratios will tilt even further. For most young Taiwanese, Mainland China has nothing to offer for them to want unification.
- etaioinshrdlu 5y agoThere's still Singapore, and it is not in the line of fire of China.
- davesque 5y agoHong Kong seems really like a canary in a coal mine. Shouldn't it be easy for any of the world's democracies to speak out for such a small territory that is being threatened by a dictatorship? Apparently not in this sad era of decline. I swear I can feel it in the air. Principles are seeming more and more old fashioned. Money trumps all.
- Haga 5y agoWrong first is a knowledge (technology) gradient. Then a economic rift. A framework to explain the difference as natural. Then comes the cruelty. The next knowledge leap destroys the local maximum empire.
- me_me_me 5y agoHong Kong is chinese at the end of the day. Sure Xi is breaking agreements of backing of for few decades, but in the end HK was to be integrated. Not a lot of interest in fighting china on this as they have 'colonialism' card ready. But not acknowledging Taiwan as a country, denning them flag in the Olympics is a worrying creeping level of Chinese soft power. Eastern countries should be working on decoupling as much of their economies from china.
- qwerty456127 5y agoThey don't only want to close those who speak against them. Actually everyone they don't have full control of. AFAIK the mainland China is a separate world with its own different Internet and business ecosystem and little interaction between it and the rest of the world allowed.
- belter 5y agoAided by the finest Silicon Valley intelligentsia: "Apple Removes App That Helps Hong Kong Protesters Track the Police" https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/technology/apple-hong-kong-app.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/technology/apple-hong-kon...
- justicezyx 5y ago> The Chinese Government is speeding up their efforts to swallow Hong Kong and Macau into the Mainland. What do you expect them to do? Put them into a reserve area, like Indian reserve? How about Xinjiang or Tibet? What do you mean by swallowing anyway? You mean HK and Macau people are not living the same life as before? All I know is that most people are better off than before.