I wish the U.S. would create an autonomous territory on the West coast and build a New Hong Kong and invite those brilliant people over here to reestablish themselves.
It would in some ways. Brain-drain from germany post ww2 decimated their hopes to rebuild, and exponentally accellerated our space, military, and energy sectors in ways that still influence US military dominance. I do, however agree, that the psudeo-communist despocracy is a net evil and should also be dealt with.
Purely speculation here on my part - I know there's other factors involved.
Doesn't it seem silly for China to be wanting to take over Hong Kong NOW, when all they have to do is wait X more years (ideally, I'm sure HK would protest to extend the autonomous-isity (lol))
Without knowing how financially locked HK is to Mainland China, it seems to me that China's economy is trashed and they're grabbing HK as a last ditch effort to keep the economy going.
From what I've read on China's mindset, they are impatient to regain middle-kingdom status. In other words, they are the economic, military, and cultural center of the world, and everyone else sends them raw materials. (trying to find the article where I read that - it was from some US diplomat).
A pre-req for that would be to secure complete control over all territorial claims. So if they can speed up the hong kong integration, they would do so.
Also pure speculation - Hong Kong really loses tons of face for China. It's a foreign concession that retains lots of British character, its economy is good, its media is excellent, and Chinese citizens envy HK standards of living. Tons of mainlanders commute over the border to work, play, and buy baby formula that won't poison their kids. Taiwan also loses face, but much less because it's not British and because it has less quotidian utility to mainlanders.
So, it's basically a question of when and how to push HK reunification. Now seems like a pretty good time. If China's economy is already going down the tubes and international sentiment is already turning against PRC over coronavirus, genocide, etc., then the marginal impact of bad things happening in HK is small. It also gives face to PRC government in a time when national unity might be wavering due to declining standards of living.
China considers Taiwan and Hong Kong both to be absolute existential to their safety and territorial integrity (as to be honest would every other country in the same position), and the leadership will never budge on the issue, so unless you're ready to start paying in bottlecaps probably not.
>Who, if anyone, should be 'world police'?
In an increasingly pluralistic world multilateralism is much more sensible position than some sort of hegemonic world police.
As a German, no, thank you. I get why some people think Germany would be a good fit but the German people don't want it. The parliament has enough trouble justifying German military involvement in peace keeping missions - playing world police would never fly.
