
China Seeks to Buy Control of Hong Kong Companies - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-13/china-seeks-to-buy-control-of-hong-kong-companies-reuters-says
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steveooo
A significant number of the seats in Hong Kong government are voted/belong to
"industry/corporations", and these have been able to decide the Government
recently. China buying control of the corporations will further subvert the
democracy.

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dontbenebby
Sounds like their cup didn't runneth over with democracy even beforehand...
that's bizarre. Like a modern House of Lords that just leans into giving corps
a seat in government...

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arcticbull
IMO this has to do with Beijing's pushback in the mid 1900s against expanded
political freedoms in what I would assume was an anticipation of the end of
the 99 year lease on the New Territories [1] and the fact that HK was caught
as the middle region in a multi-circle Venn diagram (between China, the UK,
the US and other regional powers). They weren't able to really push any one
thing too far in any direction without pissing off one of them. So they
focused on what they could control: creating an incredibly effective financial
center. Corporations in HK don't have nearly as much power in the US as if
they pulled to far, someone would come knocking.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-
pu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-push-against-
hong-kong-elections-in-50s.html)

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PorterDuff
Also:

[https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/china-seeks-to-buy-
cont...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/china-seeks-to-buy-control-of-
hong-kong-companies-reuters-says/ar-AAHe1bJ)

That seems pretty smart to me. If your two choices are either assimilation or
to make a separate state (with separate laws, etc.) out of your 8th or so
largest city, I can see doing this.

Obviously, both sides will alter each other with the largest one doing most of
the altering.

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popotamonga
Thats is the obvious move. Can't beat them into submission? Buy them.

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spuz
Obvious in what way? The protestors are not the same people who run these
companies as far as I am aware so not sure what you're referring to.

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paganel
Not the OP, but I guess that most of those protesters work for said Hong Kong
companies and when your new politically-appointed boss tells you that you
either fall in line or you can go and look for another job I think most of
those protesters will choose to fall in line.

~~~
spuz
I guess that makes sense but aren't the protestors already risking their jobs
by continuing to protest? I've heard of people having "sick" days and "working
from home" in order to plausibly skip work in order to protest. If the goal is
to fire protestors from their jobs, I don't think China buying controlling
shares in a few companies makes much sense. The other comment in this thread
about buying votes in the government seems to be more plausible.

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throwaway1997
You can't fire 2 million+ people in a city with a population of 7 million

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AstralStorm
You could, and people would likely start springing up cooperatives and
forcibly taking company property over like what happened in Italy during the
crisis. Not sure how well those fare now.

Not to mention this would vastly fuel the protests.

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tony
I find a lot of parallels with the French Enlightenment and HK.

It caught my attention because I'm listening to _Living the French Revolution
and the Age of Napoleon_ by Suzanne M. Desan on Audible.

Soon the course will cover the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Bastille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Bastille).
Apparently it's common in history for societies facing extreme tension to have
groups rise up and loot military garrisons (lest they starve). Thankfully,
this doesn't happen as often because societies let their people participate in
the future of their country by voting.

Backing up though, in last weeks audible lesson, I learned coffee shops were
popular in pre-Enlightenment France for people to discuss their disapproval of
the rulers and ideas for a new system (Voltaire loved coffee). During this
time, plain clothes police would write dossiers on the speakers. The French
had a name for them, "flies". This reminded me of claims on /r/hongkong
spotting infiltrators blending in with protesters.

I hope HK protesters don't suffer unnecessarily for being targeted for
political disagreements. From the news, protesters are interpreted as a
national security / subversion concern, if this is true, doesn't that sort of
contradict the 2 systems concept?

If HK can have their system, how can the law be improved if citizens can't
communicate their feelings without harassment / surveillance? Wouldn't
chilling of expression / speech spoil a system where the people rule?

The French Revolution had many differences, but the core of it is people were
allowed to think, have self-rule, and wouldn't be bullied when they
communicated displeasure it sucked they starved while aristocrats ate well
(among a trove of other things).

In HK, wouldn't having more direct rule by the people result in new laws to
ease the housing costs and make people feel pride, inclusion in their own
region?

With this enthusiasm for liberty and democracy surging through HK, it's only a
matter of time until they are granted universal suffrage forever, since PRC
agreed that they are a separate system and always intended this level of
freedom and flexibility for them.

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tacostakohashi
The obvious response is going to be boycotts of those companies.

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antoniuschan99
There’s a CGP Grey video on the London inside London
[https://youtu.be/LrObZ_HZZUc](https://youtu.be/LrObZ_HZZUc)

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cominatchu
I see almost all comments on this article are sympathetic to China. I have not
dug deeper but I wonder if the accounts making these comments are all real, or
could they be part of China’s propaganda apparatus?

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sangnoir
Kindly re-read the HN guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

 _Please don 't make insinuations about astroturfing. It degrades discussion
and is usually mistaken. If you're worried, email us and we'll look at the
data._

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MelodyConcerto
It's spooky to see this going on. I can only hope that this is resisted by
those companies and the people sufficiently enough to limit the damage this
could do.

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rolltiide
It would be nice if Hong Kong citizens had a choice of where to emigrate
outside of China but Hong Kong should be integrated into the Greater Bay Area.

Hong Kong’s economic relevance to the story of China has fallen to almost
negligible levels, it doesn't make sense to identify it as separate from the 8
megacities that surround it which are economic marvels and productivity
houses.

Our news should be populated by the numerous things occurring in the 8 larger,
more populated, higher GDP outputting cities in the Guangzhou region. Shenzhen
alone, bordering Hong Kong, is likely more interesting this decade and into
the future.

Hong Kong functions as a mere administrative convenience for circumventing
customs duties to the rest if the world.

Any nation in a similar situation would look at all avenues of integration, no
matter how skeptical people were. Is that inaccurate?

I think this perspective isn't presented.

