I’ll admit I’m a little surprised by this development. I figured the regime would figure it had already “won” in Hong Kong by taking it under its control and would be willing to allow the fig leaf of local autonomy to exist for a while longer for international public relations purposes.
But I guess the Convid19 crisis gave them both the incentive (there must be some domestic unrest over the government’s handling of the crisis that needs to be distracted) and the cover (the world is paying attention to the disease right now and the United States isn’t likely to form a coherent response under the current administration) to put an end to the illusion that Hong Kong has any real autonomy.
About three years ago we went to Hong Kong as tourists. I had never been there, and it was one of the places I definitely wanted to visit sometime. We had a wonderful time.
I’m so glad I got to go because it doesn’t look like it will be a welcoming place for tourists again for many years.
Suspect? How about there is widespread fraud and little oversight even of publicly listed companies. And all the state owned enterprises or pseudo-state owned enterprises.
Covid has probably killed a lot of the small players in the global supply chain already in serious pain based on the tariff war.
I wrote on these boards maybe in Feb, that this is “peak” China.
Indeed. I was fortunate enough to have visited Hong Kong several times in the 1990s, both before and after the handover. Lovely place. Shame to see it all go to shit.
I apologize in advance for my ignorance, but would it be possible to get a seriously dumbed-down nutshell of what is happening now, and what the significance might be?
I tried reading up on the Hong Kong situation, and to be frank, every article assumes that you know what’s what and why things are the way they are, and why some people want things to be different from whatever the hell things are now, and I don’t even really grasp what any of it means.
Maybe this isn’t the right place - in which case, feel free to swat me & I’ll go start a thread to ask separately, I guess. But I figured y’all are in this thread already because this is a topic near & dear to your collective hearts, and I want to ask YOU and not get the opinions of a bunch of randos.
As for other countries taking note of the Chinese failing in their commitment to “one country, two systems”, the idea is that any nation that’s reached an agreement with China should wonder whether and when the Chinese will ignore it because it suits their purposes.
Hong Kong was annexed by China in 1997, but Beijing promised Hong Kong it would get to enjoy relative freedom and autonomy for fifty years (until 2047.)
Instead, that day has come 27 years early. Beijing has passed/invoked a law that would allow for sweeping crackdowns on things like “sedition” (which is so vague and broad that it will likely include things as minor as protesting or criticism of the Communist Party.) Essentially, Hong Kong would become little different than any other Chinese city like Xiamen or Tianjin, and free speech would likely become nonexistent.
As for the significance - the significance is that for a long time, China has been pressuring Taiwan to become like Hong Kong - unify with China under the same system that Hong Kong did. Now that Taiwan sees what “becoming like Hong Kong” really means, this likely sounds the death knell for peaceful unification of Taiwan with China. From this point on, unification will only happen by war, or not at all.
From friends who visited, they thought it was one of the best food destinations in the world. Up there with Singapore, Strasbourg, or Dijon----a town where pretty much any street you walked down, you could find something delicious.
Perhaps it will remain such after the transition. I have doubts.
Really? Sucking up to an actual dictator with actual concentration/death camps to own Trump? TDS is too ture.
There something about Mussolini and trains, too.
Taiwan has expressed support for the protestors in HK and has offered them unspecified ‘help’. Taiwan knows that a free Hong Kong is to their benefit.
This is an extraordinarily dangerous time in the world. Old orders are creaking, leaders are facing incredibly hard decisions, economies are at risk, and the world is focused on Covid. This is the kind of environment that causes desperate leaders to engage in desperate measures.
"Hawaii is on an island. Not many people know that. Surrounded by water. Big ocean water. And Hawaii, as you know, is where that very bad man lived, after he was born in Kenya. So we really don’t want that. That’s why we are going to bring our beautiful troops home, and our really big ships. The biggest ships! There was an admiral here the other day, a real admiral. Big man. Huge head. Anyway, he said to me “Sir, we have the biggest ships and we have you to thank for that. Thank you sir!” And he had tears in his eyes.
So this is why we’re going to just leave that Hawaii place to itself, because they don’t appreciate me there."
ive always thought there was going to be an insurrection/civil war going on in HK since they handed it over …
I’ve never understood why in the 50s when mao took over the UK just didn’t void the treaty and make HK an independent protectorate or even they gave it back at all …
On the one hand, Hong Kong was physically undefendable and everyone knew it. On the other hand, pissing off the UK or even worse the USA would have been a risky move for a small territory that wasn’t really worth it. As long as it wasn’t causing any problems, both sides were content to let the status of Hong Kong be deferred until the expiration of the treaty.
William Marshall did a series of mystery novels set in the Yellowthread Street police station in Hong Kong, pre-return. Every one, IIRC, contains a boilerplate piece on how the Chinese controlled the Hong Kong water supply and could turn it off at any moment.
Hong Kong was not “annexed” by China. Hong Kong was “ceded” by China during the Opium Wars to the British. Under gunboat diplomacy, Hong Kong island was given to the British under a 99 year lease (with Kowloon and the New Territories ambiguously outside those 99 year terms). At the end of 99 year, specifically 1997, control of HK passed from being an unequal part of the UK back to China.
This was a shameful episode by the UK, which had benefited from HK being part of the Empire, yet the residents of HK had few to no rights to the UK. Even so far as to issue the “British National Overseas” passport that was not worth the paper it was printed on. A dark stain in the last days of the Empire.
All that said, China is not living up to the commitment under Deng Xiao-ping for “no change for 50 years. Or longer if the local honkies demand it*.” But “annexation” is not the correct term. (Russian annexed the Crimea, China patiently waited for the gunboat agreement to expire and HK defaulted back to Chinese control.