For anyone like me who was looking for some background on this, on Reddit, someone linked to a Vox video entitled "China is erasing its border with Hong Kong" [0]. At 15 minutes, it's a captivating introduction to the conflict.
Another video (6 minutes) you might be interested in by Vox is "China's trillion dollar plan to dominate global trade" [1], which is on China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Edit: One great passage from the first video [0] at 11:29 says:
"The [umbrella movement] protest didn't change the government's mind and it didn't immediately change anything in Hong Kong.
But this spectacle of young people rising up to defend their rights from the central government of China did spark a political awakening among the many in the city who had never before paid attention.
'I think post-umbrella movement was the first time that the middle class came out and voted in droves, and voted for the opposition force.' - HK Resident"
World bank analysis of BRI which shows that BRI is a net positive to the world:
"
BRI will potentially have a large effect on trade and welfare for many countries
▪ All countries in the world experience a decrease in trade costs
▪ Not all sectors/countries will gain but potential aggregate effect is largely positive
But many policy barriers still remain in place. Potential gains of BRI would be enlarged by complementary reforms
▪ Need to reduce border delays, trade barriers and FDI restrictions
▪ But also boost investor protection, open public procurement, ensure private sector participation
Economic and non-economic risks associated to BRI projects need to be managed
▪ Public debt sustainability, governance, environmental and social concerns
▪ Coordination problems, lack of data, poor transparency magnify these challenges"
The vox video paints the Belt and Road Initiative in a negative light - which i feel is wrong. Why shouldn't China be allowed to invest and gain soft power? Why shouldn't they be allowed to make deals with countries the US deems 'undemocratic'?
> Yes, debt is on the rise in the developing world, and Chinese overseas lending is, for the first time, a part of the story. But a number of us academics who have studied China’s practices in detail have found scant evidence of a pattern indicating that Chinese banks, acting at the government’s behest, are deliberately over-lending or funding loss-making projects to secure strategic advantages for China.
> The main example of these purported ploys is the Hambantota Port in southern Sri Lanka: The government handed control over the port to a Chinese company in 2017 after struggling to make its loan payments to China. But that’s a special case, and it is widely misunderstood.
> China does not publish details about its overseas lending, but the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University (which I direct) has collected information on more than 1,000 Chinese loans in Africa between 2000 and 2017, totaling more than $143 billion. Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center has identified and tracked more than $140 billion in Chinese loans to Latin America and the Caribbean since 2005.
> Based on the findings of both institutes, it seems that the risks of B.R.I. are often overstated or mischaracterized.
According to the wiki, BRI started around 2013 [1] so how come loans made prior to that being counted towards BRI?
My recollection is that, prior to BRI/earlier loan diplomacy from China, the strategic goal was for influence in the UN against Taiwan (checkbook diplomacy.) So the goals are completely different.
'Taiwan’s current foreign relations bind stems from a deal brokered in 2008. This “diplomatic truce” guarantees that neither China nor Taiwan will pursue formal diplomatic relations with a country that has already recognized one or the other. Beijing calls it the one-China policy, and it forces nations to choose between it and Taipei, with Beijing increasingly coming out the more appealing choice.'[2]
Lumping data over strategic change seems like a poor research to me.
If you're making deals with a government that is undemocratic, you're making a deal with the government, but not with the people. At that point, the deal is probably going to be one that benefits the government, but not the people. Countries do that, when it is in their best interest to do so.
But the US (rightly) gets criticism for doing such things. If it's right to criticize the US for such actions, it's also right to criticize China for them.
Your Lichtenstein example is nonsense. Liechtenstein is not "partly democratic" but fully democratic. It has a monarch as Head of State (like the UK and others), and an elected parliament that enacts the law. It is also a direct democracy, where voters can propose and enact constitutional amendments and legislation independently of the legislature. The fact that the prince got a few more veto powers in 2003 does not change anything about the fact that it is democracy, and - equally important - people have full freedom of speech.
It's a democratic process yes but the country is still a constitutional and largely functional monarchy.
Democracy is an indicator of whether the people are represented but it is not the definition.
I think a better indication of whether a government represents its people is whether the government acts according to the people's wishes.
At one end of the spectrum is Switzerland, where the people can choose to directly override any government policy by referendum (or propose an action of their own).
At the other end of the spectrum is a government like North Korea, where the people have zero say.
Somewhere in the middle you see most Western democracies.
> a better indication of whether a government represents its people is whether the government acts according to the people's wishes
How do you measure the latter? That’s the essence of democracy.
There are many democratic systems. Constitutional republics are democratic because the monarch must answer to the public. Dictatorships featuring leaders for life with limited options for sidelining or recalling are not democratic. The latter describes North Korea, China and certain African and central Asian states.
Another video (6 minutes) you might be interested in by Vox is "China's trillion dollar plan to dominate global trade" [1], which is on China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQyxG4vTyZ8
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvXROXiIpvQ
Edit: One great passage from the first video [0] at 11:29 says:
"The [umbrella movement] protest didn't change the government's mind and it didn't immediately change anything in Hong Kong.
But this spectacle of young people rising up to defend their rights from the central government of China did spark a political awakening among the many in the city who had never before paid attention.
'I think post-umbrella movement was the first time that the middle class came out and voted in droves, and voted for the opposition force.' - HK Resident"