
China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong - rootsudo
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52765838
======
arcticbull
This is the death knell for Hong Kong and for One Country, Two Systems --
which has effectively been over in Macau for years.

I can't help but wonder if things would have been different if the US had
different leadership -- actually interested in furthering the cause of freedom
and democracy throughout the world. While of course the UK is responsible for
policing the handover agreement, it's been too busy staring down its own
irrelevance while nursing the self-inflicted gaping wound of Brexit. I tip my
hat to Beijing, they sure did know when to strike.

It'll be very interesting to see if the UK goes through with it's offer to
provide a path to citizenship for 3 million HK'ers. Frankly, it's the least
they could do.

It's probably time to learn Mandarin, huh?

~~~
PakG1
>> It'll be very interesting to see if the UK goes through with it's offer to
provide a path to citizenship for 3 million HK'ers. Frankly, it's the least
they could do.

As far as I can tell, a lot of Brexit was driven by anti-foreigner anti-
immigration sentiment due to how easy it was for non-skilled people from other
countries to enter into the UK? If so, I think that although Britons might be
emotionally fine with that offer in the heat of things, they might not be so
OK once they remember the negative emotions that drove Brexit in the first
place. Either that, or Britons are extremely selective and discriminatory on
who gets to get a pass for immigration (but that wouldn't surprise me).

And then there's the other interesting factor in the wave of anti-Asian racism
due to COVID-19-induced negative emotions, which the UK has also been
experiencing. [https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-
reads/arti...](https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-
reads/article/3086438/how-east-asians-uk-are-fighting-back-against)

If they go through with the offer to provide a path for citizenship for 3
million HK'ers, I think that's a decision that will force the general
population to realize that they have a ton of cognitive dissonance all over
the place. Or they won't, and they'll act like everything's normal and as it
should be.

~~~
arcticbull
As far as I can tell, Brexit was largely driven by discontent around Polish
migration. There's over a million Polish citizens in the UK. This is a pretty
good read [1].

[1]
[https://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledge_detail/understand...](https://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledge_detail/understanding-
the-brexit-vote-the-impact-of-polish-immigrants-on-euroscepticism/)

~~~
Lio
Poles are well thought of here. The meme of the hard working Polish builder is
well known.

I think one Pro-brexit faction created disinformation around Romanian
immigrants.

The other main brexit faction created a meme around “taking back control” from
bureaucrats.

Neither is based on reality.

~~~
twelve40
So ok, honestly trying to understand this. You are saying a massive country-
wide vote was decided based on a couple of bizarre myths ("Romanians and
bureaucrats") propagated for some reason by some vaguely motivated groups, and
majority (slim, but nonetheless) of the country made a decision on some
ridiculous myths that have no basis in reality.

What was the motivation for these lie-spreading groups to propagate those
myths?

How could a majority of a Western, best-educated probably in the whole world,
about as democratic and core-value-believing country, be in a single moment
swayed by a bunch of scammers like that? Was there any other basis for that,
perhaps? Again, honest question, I know almost nothing about British politics,
but dismissing a major vote in a very rich and educated country as lunacy
seems ... not a great explanation?

~~~
Lio
The two groups are were Vote Leave and Leave EU.

I don't want to derails a discussion about China effectively ending One
Country Two Systems further but you can easily search for a description of
their tactics if you want.

You can also search for news on when the UK government report in to Russian
interference in the vote will be released but I wouldn't hold your breath...

Now back to what China is doing to the people of Hong Kong and why our
companies are still outsourcing manufacturing to China without restriction.

~~~
Taurenking
>You can also search for news on when the UK government report in to Russian
interference in the vote will be released but I wouldn't hold your breath...

Just like in the US, right? ;)

------
archibaldJ
As someone who lives inside China I just hope this will encourage more direct
and indirect confrontations with the system that defines the current central
government i.e. among the intellects and influentials in China, now that a
pillar of the freedom of Chinese expression is on its way to unnatural erosion
under the paradigm introduced by this new law unto Hong Kong, that of which
used to be where grey areas of Chinese politics surface themselves without
cease, and where parts of the contemporary Chinese history are still being
played on record, untampered.

~~~
koheripbal
What is the incentive for someone to "confront" the system in China? It means
imprisonment, career destruction, the destruction of their family's wealth and
well-being, and possibly death.

The way to change a belligerent governmental system isn't through direct
confrontation unless you can literally mobilize a majority of the population -
it is by changing it from within. Become part of the system, spread an
ideology, and change it where you can.

The protest mentality in Hong Kong just provided optical cover for Beijing to
accelerate their plans to implement centralized governance.

The peaceful protests had some positive impact, but directly confronting the
Chinese government through violent protests in Hong Kong made things worse,
not better.

~~~
archibaldJ
“Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely
mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director
of the opponent's fate.” ― Sun Tzu

I speak not of confrontation with the central government but confrontation
with many aspects of the things in "the system" that currently underlines and
defines how the cerntral government thinks and operates.

The ambiguities introduced by the word "system" here is in no means
unintentional in that it needs not even be political or geopolitical: it can
be cultural, it can be like you said ideological, it can be legalistic, it can
be infrastructural or componential, it can even be technological,
transnational, game theoretical, self-regulatory, etc. It's a board spectrum
having to do with the emergent phenomena in the power structures that spread
across different industries and establishments in and outside of China. As
much as the Chinese central government is central and monolithic in nature,
there are many shades to it, and for everyone involved in running this
conglomerate (including those at the top) it is a constrained optimization
problem to survive, diversify future risks, etc. Ultimately we are dealing
with human nature and the status quo here. There are some beauties and there
are lots of ugliness. But it is definitely not immutable. It will continue to
change.

What they are currently doing to Hong Kong is shooting themselves in their own
foot. It is a very short-sighted move and likely they are aware of the many
cons that come with it too. Now the question is what they are going to do next
to minimise damage and how the system that constraints them can be confronted
to encourage more freedom of Chinese expression.

In the next twenty years China will probably overtake the States in terms of
market sizes, but very unlikely in terms of science, art, technologies, etc.
And without all those wonderful human endeavors China as of now is and will
continue to be (if there are no changes) pretty much just one giant sweatshop,
except for small parts of Beijing and Shanghai, etc where the manufactured
consent are being examined and there are still traces of liberal arts (and
also maybe parts of Yunnan where the hippies live). One could argue that it
was necessary for China to position itself as a sweatshop in the post-Mao era
(1975~1989) under the darwinism-inspired mindset on national progress [1], but
as times change we are coming to a point where "the system" needs to be
adjusted to encourage more freedom of Chinese expression and confrontations
challenging the status quo. The act of postponing it or doing things aimed to
diminish it is very short-sighted, backward-thinking, self-mutilating, and
sad, and it would continue to screw up the reward systems of capitalism for
innovation domestically, and to an increasing degree around the world due to
its sheer market size. And I hope that is not the direction we as a
civilisation is heading towards.

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” ― Sun Tzu,
The Art of War

Confrontation needs not be violent.

[1]:
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1tg5mmd](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1tg5mmd)

~~~
koheripbal
Then the word "confront" is wrong to use, because 99% of the people reading
your first comment would not interpret it by the Sun Tzu interpretation.

------
rootsudo
Removed from title is that it just passed and is going to be enforced going
forth from July 1st. Less than 24 hours.

This is key because July 1st used to be the annual HK march since 1997, or the
hand over.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1_July_marches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1_July_marches)

------
ralph84
I thought China would wait to take Taiwan first, so they could limit
resistance in Taiwan by saying "we'll let you have your own system like we did
in Hong Kong." Now that China has reneged on Hong Kong, Taiwan won't believe
them.

~~~
chrischen
That's basically exactly what happened with the last presidential election.
The pro-China (conservative) party was heavily favored to win and then
suddenly the Hong Kong protests ignited and reminded Taiwanese about China and
the pro-USA party (liberals) ended up winning in a landslide.

~~~
Teknoman117
I hope we (the US) can clean up our act so we can go back to having at least
some credibility in the world again. (other than just being rich and having a
lot of guns) I'd love for us to be worthy of the praise we get from some
places.

I can't say that I've been particularly "proud" to say that I'm an American
when I started travelling abroad a few years ago. Hard for people to miss
though, I sound like a stereotypical Midwestern radio announcer.

Well, maybe except for that one very plastered German guy who kept yelling at
us for being English at Oktoberfest.

------
vincvinc
I know this is not on many people's radar right now, but I strongly believe
the rise of Xi's authoritarian nationalism is the biggest story of this
century (after global warming).

And this is our generation's "Berlin wall moment". By itself, you might look
at this law (after it's published) and not see anything bad. But in the
greater context of Chinese policy choices of the last few years, this is
nothing less than the signal to end democratic open society in another part of
the world.

This is not just about Hong Kong. It's about a small group of powerful people
thinking they can create a new order where they can do whatever they want to
their own people, their neighbors and the world. They take full advantage of
the naivety and openness of our global open system while openly threatening
anyone who dares speak out, be it individual Canadians or Australians, the
Indian state, a twitch Streamer or a Hong Kong comedian.

So, Is there anything we can do?

some ideas...

\- call to boycott the Beijing 2022 Winter olympics

\- share the story of the Uyghurs. Today's news include proof that Uyghur
women are being sterilized en masse:
[https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c](https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c)

\- if a company does not list Taiwan as an independent country, they are in
effect performing appeasement politics. Increase the cost of doing business
with dictators by loudly calling out these companies. Don't be shy, they are
getting much more pressure from the Chinese side. It is time to pick a side.

\- more importantly, do NOT tolerate any discrimination towards Chinese. It's
immoral and increases support for the regime:
[https://twitter.com/jenjpan/status/1277664711325048832?s=21](https://twitter.com/jenjpan/status/1277664711325048832?s=21)

... at least, that's what I can come up with in 10 minutes. I'm sure there's
much. We need to move the Overton window on this people, the longer we let
this go on, the bigger the consequences will be.

~~~
ztratar
Not sure why this is downvoted, so plz have an upvote!

~~~
iliketosleep
Posts that are critical of China's gov. will automatically get downvotes from
a particular subset of people.

~~~
vincvinc
I see my post going up and down, it's a true roller coaster, haha.

------
almost_usual
It’s 2020 and humanity is really scared of democracy.

~~~
koheripbal
There are many forces out there that are actively trying to diminish the
global public's respect for democracy.

It involves slowly eroding people's respect for the core principles we always
associated with democracy...

The First Amendment? We don't need that since Hate speech shouldn't be
protected - and there's the Paradox of Tolerance!

Second Amendment? We don't need that - no population could ever hope to topple
the military anyway!

Judicial process? Who needs a court, when I can organize a mob to get stuff
done? Besides, the courts are hopelessly corrupt rapists!

Executive branch? The police are racist belligerents who should be defunded
and removed, and the Military has a long history of war crimes!

Legislative Branch? Oh, that decrepit thing? Votes aren't proportionate so the
small states have all the power - controlled by racists. We need a revolution!

US History? It's all based on genocide and slavery. That's all we should
teach.

Statues / monuments? We need to tear it all down. They were all racist slave
owners.

When you destroy everything people believe in - it's a lot easier to get them
to embrace something more extremist.

------
yibg
This makes me sad. I loved Hong Kong the way it was and had held out some hope
that it can. stay more or less that way for a while. I knew of course that
Hong Kong had a huge uphill battle. But was still waiting for that miracle.

------
amriksohata
The people of Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong are all feeling the same about China
and now add India to the list with the recent tiktok ban.

------
quyleanh
Besides the politic, I eager to see the moving of the global technology
industries with these moving of China. Do hope the technology will go up in
spite of war, ban...

------
beatle_sauce
The core of the communist party follows an unambiguous agenda.

John Garnaut described this very well in his speech "Engineers of the Soul"

[https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-
in](https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in)

------
ngcc_hk
The key is still we do NOT have a copy of the law on us. That is how dead our
system is. This is the end. See you on the other side.

