Hong Kong is in turmoil
More than two decades ago, when China took over Hong Kong, I recall getting a very uneasy feeling. How could this possibly go well?
Here are some recent events there:
Also please see this by Michael Yon:
The conflict in Hong Kong is not about the Extradition Bill — and now many other issues are piling up almost weekly. The issue is that Communist China is trying to swallow and digest Hong Kongers who know the taste of freedom.
Humans are far more likely to fight to keep something they have than to fight for something they do not have. Mainland Chinese as a group never in their lives have tasted freedom. The communist cowboys in Beijing ride their broken slave horses daily and the broken horses just stare at the ground and go where they are told.
The British helped Hong Kongers taste freedom, and rule of law, and Hong Kongers love their freedom and legitimate judicial system. They will fight. The real fight is beginning.
Honk Kong is a key battle ground in a much larger war. Taiwan and others are watching.”
The Squad should calm the angry citizens of Hong Kong by informing that freedom is overrated, and that they should just learn to love the lash.
Oh yes. Tiananmen Square II coming up. Trump is not GHW Bush willing to help them cover it up. We are now watching for signs of troop movement from western provinces just as they did in 1989. The troops need to be from isolated districts so they do not identify with the people they are killing.
Imperialism the true watchword: long story short, Hong Kong is fucked.
Others “watching” won’t cut it.
Bilwick:
As John Kerry said in the early 70s about the people of South Vietnam.
Imperialism the true watchword: long story short, Hong Kong is fucked.
sdferr: I’ve got a bad feeling about it too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China
Hong Kong had been in turmoil since forever. Back in
How convenient that the new bridge linking HK with the mainland has just recently opened.
There are two choices for HK – submit or be smashed.
One country, two systems – seriously?
And I give Taiwan less than a decade.
Taiwan has treaties with the US to protect it. I don’t think Hong Kong has protection beyond the reluctance of its ChiCom overlords to kill the economic goose that lays the golden eggs and risk some bad international press.
It’s worked since 1997. I wouldn’t bet on it long term. There’s no missing China’s current expansionist tendencies.
Mr, Williams nails it. I couldnt have said itbettrr. H3ll. Tried to say it and my new tablet went into resurrection mode or something.
Anyway Lazarus is back from the dead. I. will leave it to the rest of you to decide if it is a good thing my computer has been restored.
I finished M. Pillsbury’s “The Hundred Year Marathon” finally. It’s long and only a little dry, but seems to be worthwhile. He intimates that the big switch in China happened right after Tiananmen square, but pols in the U.S. didn’t catch on for at least 15 years.
By Pillsbury’s telling, those hard-liners who took over in the switch are obsessed with the history and lessons of “the warring states period,” which lasted hundreds of years. It all sounded to me a little like the Klingons or Romulans; a culture obsessed with war.
HK was doomed in 1997 when the UK served up on a silver platter. China is imperialistic in nature, has been for over 1,000 years. When china invaded Vietnam in 1979 they got their butts kicked. Yes, their military has become more professional since then and they have nukes, but they are not the superpower many fear.
My wife was born in Beijing in the late 60’s, and I’ve been to China some ten times since the 1990’s. The material progress has been amazing, to say the least. It has made Chinese puff their chests out.
China has a superiority complex that masks an inferiority complex. Their superiority complex is all about their history up until the Europeans came along, being the ‘Middle Kingdom’ of East Asia, and all that. Their inferiority complex is because they know their newfound power is not home grown, but rather had to be learned from the West (mostly US), mirroring Japan of over a century ago.
The honeymoon with the West is over, now that they’ve taken what they need.
All of this HK/Taiwan stuff is pride, pure and simple. And now that they are feeling their oats they feel it is their time to dictate things in their neighborhood. They hate that the US is there.
Few in the US even think about China and HK and the S China Seas. Believe me, Chinese – with their state controlled media – are being fed a steady diet of anti-West propaganda. We are the problem for them.
And it makes me wonder what Japan is thinking these days.
Perhaps the one good thing Obama did in the White House was to convince all of our allies that we are only their friend when there is not a Democrat in the White House.
This is why Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Britain all started building carriers.
South African Expat who has lived in Mainland China for years and has married a Chinese woman.
Cut to 5:55 and shortly following as he discusses Mainland techniques for subverting/ cutting short, the handover agreement terms a couple of decades early.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQM0NL6fBU8&feature=youtu.be&t=196
I very much enjoyed P. J. O’Rourke’s article on the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. It was another in the large genre of works of which the subject is, “Irishman says Englishmen can’t do anything right”.
Huxley: “Taiwan has treaties with the US to protect it.”
Depends on whose president and who controls Congress when that happens. Vietnam was actually “won,” until the Democrats got rid of Nixon and screwed the South Vietnamese.
If China had tried to annex Taiwan when O way president, he’d’ve just let it happen. And he’d’ve probably tired out up with a bow for them.