That's what the CCP always does: invade, stick their tentacles into every possible crevice, cut off any avenues by which it might lose power, and begin tightening and strangling, over the screaming protests of the local people. They did it in Tibet, they're doing it in Xinjiang, they're doing it in Hong Kong. They plan to do the same thing in Taiwan.
I am also upset by the lack of elections, but looking at the US politics from Hong Kong, I see a lot of similarities.
The attempts to silence and stigmatize opposition, to close opposition media outlets and deplatform them on social media, harassing advertisers to make sure they don't advertise with the opposition, and the media working with the government to promote some events or views and to bury some others — that all is painfully similar to Hong Kong.
You guys over in the US should take a closer look at that.
Quite a few of us are aware and are taking a look at it. It’s an interesting parallel, and I haven’t heard it drawn quite the way you did. The situation here is a fascinating study that I’d love to read about and analyze in retrospect. Unfortunately, it’s not as fun to live through in real time.
If you look at the New Silk Road Initiative with that mindset, China is in the process of building up influence over countries around half the globe. Foreign governments get huge loans for funding immense infrastructure projects to facilitate trade with China. Reportedly, these loans come with terms that prevent these governments from speaking or acting against China. At least some states are too poor to repay the loans as a lump sum, which gives these agreements teeth.
It's a concerted propaganda effort that is unfortunately not helped by the multitudes of people that uncritically accept their home country's stance on everything.
Conversely, if not for that argument, China would be a hodgepodge of local warlords (what it was post Qing, before ROC's unification). A problem of claims by irredentism is what time period do you consider the proper extent of a nation's territory?
This applies to both the rationalisation of Tibet belonging to China, and for not belonging.
And Corsica was part of Italy (or italian states at least) for 5 centuries and only part of France relatively recently. According to your logic it should return to Italy?
What do I mean by invade? Simply ask anyone in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, or Taiwan, if they want mainland Chinese there, or if they want to be governed by the CCP. I accept that territory is won or lost, and the Tibetans and Uyghurs lost their territory, but they were definitely invaded and conquered.
I have asked many people in those regions excluding Xinjiang, and the answers are never as black and white as the narratives you read online.
In Tibet, people were not too happy about the military presence on the streets, the cultural assimilation or the mao statue in the shadow of Potala palace, but on balance are were happy to be part of China due to the economic development. People felt they would be unemployed without han presence.
In Hong Kong, the most common thing I heard was vaguely racist grumblings about mainlanders. People were unhappy with mainlanders behaving in an "uncivil" manner. There was a majority acknowledgement of China's sovereignty over Hong Kong, and a strong "Chinese" identity.
In Taiwan, things did fit your narrative pretty closely. People want nothing to do with the CCP, and many even wanting nothing to do with the mainland at all.
> In Hong Kong, the most common thing I heard was vaguely racist grumblings about mainlanders. People were unhappy with mainlanders behaving in an "uncivil" manner. There was a majority acknowledgement of China's sovereignty over Hong Kong, and a strong "Chinese" identity.
Really interested to know when did you talk to the people in Hong Kong. What you described might have been the views of some Hong Kong people 10 years ago, but it's definitely not the mainstream view nowadays.
Well, if you are correct, the CCP could/would organize a public vote in Tibet and Hongkong, just like France did in New Caledonia. That is how you handle such a question.
I'm just reporting some anecdotes from my personal experience that I thought were relevant to the discussion. I don't see how that can be "correct" or not.
I agree with you on the principle of the right to self-determination, but it's not so clearly defined. I.e. how do you define "peoples'? I can't succeed from my nation just because me and my family would like to start a principality. At what point does a group become a 'people' deserving of the right to self-determination?
Historically that is done when you either known the result will fall your way or you don't really care.
If California might have a small risk of voting to leave the US do you think the government would hurry and let them vote or try to block it?
I cannot think of a single example where there was a vote of independence where it wasn't either forced (by unrest, war, etc.) or the result was know or didn't matter much. Votes of independence are rarely happening under nice circumstances.
Have you read any well done and independent surveys that support your claim ? Majority does not support the take over like this and chinese identity is much less than hker identity.
We can all disapprove of what the current CCP is doing, but you cannot compare Hong Kong's situation to Taiwan, Tibet or Xinjiang, in fact you're muddling a bunch of completely different situations.
Hong Kong has historically always been a part of "China", you could say it was "invaded" by the British and then the Japanese during WW2.
I obviously disapprove of the suppression of the HK populace with force, but this is no different to how the CCP operate in the rest of China. If anything the British mandated China had to apply different rules to a portion of their own territory, in classic imperialist fashion.
> Hong Kong has historically always been a part of "China", you could say it was "invaded" by the British and then the Japanese during WW2.
Who cares about History? What matters is now and what people want now. If not, you could use that excuse "but X was always part of Y" to justify just about everything.
Well geopolitics is simply not that simple. What if the Chinese government kept telling the USA that california should hold an independence referendum? Might sound like a stupid example, but Americans would be up in arms at such a proposition.
What if China told the USA to end the trade blockade on Cuba so that they fairly take part in the global economy and climb out of poverty? Again, the USA would never consider such a proposition.
The reality is we don't know how many HK residents want to be independent. Ideally they could hold an independence referendum, but the Chinese government don't want that, and due to the geopolitical tensions in the world right now they're not going to take advice from Western nations.
You could make the same argument to the UK about Wales and Scotland, or Spain with Catalunia and the Basque Country. Neither government is going to let a referendum happen for quite a while.
> What if the Chinese government kept telling the USA that california should hold an independence referendum?
If there was good reason to think Californians wanted this, I'd be all for it. Also, there most pressing issue is American investment in California, which isn't so much of an issue in HK.
> What if China told the USA to end the trade blockade on Cuba
Not sure what this has to do with HK, where trade and international relations are generally better than the mainland..
> we don't know how many HK residents want to be independent
and we never will because PRC don't want to know, don't want anyone to know, and make it clear that it will punish democratic support, let alone independence.
> You could make the same argument to the UK about Wales and Scotland, or Spain with Catalunia and the Basque Country
And indeed, I would. But the Spanish government isn't ripping up agreements like PRC, plus its a willing member of the EU.
History does matter. You cannot just invade a country, steal territory and then later say "it doesn't matter if this was once your territory, what matter is NOW and now I own it so get off my lawn".
That's just not how it works. In terms of history Hong Kong belongs to China and only in super recent history it was "taken" by the British always with the arrangement that it still belongs to China and would get handed back to China. So now that China does what is rightfully their right people act surprised, because the West hoped that if a little bit of time passes that China will stop caring but they were wrong. China took care of what was rightfully theirs and kept a tight grip over it because it saw what the West wanted to do and honestly fair play to them.
When I read the constitution of Hong Kong (Basic Law) and the supporting laws in mainland China, I come to the same conclusion as you.
To me, this obviously overrides the text or "spirit" of any handover treaty, specifically the Sino-British Joint Declaration, as the Basic Law is a constitution.
Leaning on that treaty as a Hong Kong citizen or non-British outside observer requires either complete ignorance, or complete desperation to ever reference it. Which I understand for the people of Hong Kong who have no options and don't want the change of life, but it doesn't embolden me to see it as exceptional as it follows their form of due process, by the book.
So, I agree with you. Disagreeing with you requires me to have a completely separate higher standard than how governments we actually respect operate and what they would tolerate.
I'm not comfortable with any of the procedures, but I really do see how we get a very distorted view of what China is, its goals, and how it operates. And there is a level of constitutional consistency towards territorial unity, which is very predictable. If you are willing to accept that (and how almost every action can be construed to undermine territorial unity) then China is very easy to operate and live in comfortably. Not so dissimilar to an institution or amusement park where you never look behind the scenes and just do the PG-rated activities made available to you, and if you stick with that you're fine. Obviously not what we are used to and strive for in "the west", but not really the nightmare its portrayed as either. Its sad to me that even trying to explain things to you all in a pragmatic way could get me detained in China (because its not completely exalting the territorial unity of China and raises questions about it), but I really think its useful to understand and that its impossible to explain another way.
Here's how. Hong Kong is part of China, yeah, but it was (under one country two systems) an autonomous part, with its own constitution, law and judiciary, which was democractic. What makes a state? Territory, legal and executive autonomy, defense. HK did not have defense, but it had everything else. It was a de facto state, and unfortunately HAD to be, because it was to be democratic in China. Hence, it was de-facto invaded when the "security law" was imposed (in violation of HK autonomy). The analogy is not perfect, and for sure this does not make it worse or better (it's bad because it's a violation of democratic rights and against the expressed wishes of at least half the population that demonstrated against the extradition law, NOT because of souvereignity issues). But there is an analogy with invading a foreign country that is pretty strong.
I interpret the parent comment "Chinese don't want to be Chinese" as no one (including Chinese citizens) wants to be under the thumb of an authoritarian government. Not a racist comment.
Don't confuse anti-PRC sentiment with anti-Chinese sentiment. It is a classic strategy to conveniently conflate the two only when the CPC is being criticised.
Surely you should be aiming this at the person who said "Even chinese don't want to be Chinese" - conflating the two, and not the person pointing out how incorrect that statement sounds.
Both points are over generalizations. It's obviously a complex issue. I've been to Taiwan, I've been to Hong Kong, and from my conversations with all types of people the best I can understand as a foreigner is that the Government is not what being Chinese is about. It's about the culture at the end of the day. You could argue that some population of Chinese have kept a certain culture present from a particular time. There's a lot of what I was told (I can't really know) traditional culture in Taiwan. There was an interesting mix of old and new in Hong Kong. It's sad to see so much conflict as a result of weaponizing identity and heritage. The stuff of lore is what makes any story interesting, and we destroy it with inept government structures.
I think you missed a subtlety there, the point is not even the Chinese (people) want to be Chinese (citizens).
It’s not sinophobic to say that the Chinese government and the CCP are messed up. I don’t doubt that many Chinese people would rather they weren’t subjected to that regime.
That is entirely separate from hatred/fear/negativity toward Chinese people and/or their culture.
>If a US born american like his country, it's patriotism.
I'm familiar with lots of narratives that say an American who loves America has been brainwashed by the system. Or is in a position of privilege and is thus not familiar with the problems inherent in the system.
Maybe my experience is limited as I only live in a neighboring country, but the majority of Chinese I know here, and those I have met in China identify strongly as Chinese, even if they dont agree with everything the government does. This take seems borderline sinophobic.
It relates to what I heard in Taiwain (obviously from a biased leaning). But it's not sinophobic from my perspective, let me explain:
From the perspective of some people I talked to in Taiwan, they see it as they "saved" what Chinese culture is, and what China represents today isn't "Chinese culture."
That may not even be the right way to describe it but essentially there's culture vs government as the issue and they're not the same thing. A big fear of the non CCP people's I talked to is that CCP is destroying Chinese culture and that means they aren't Chinese.
Again, just trying to add some color to what I can identify. I rather add color than blur the lines.
Taiwanese are not Chinese though, so my point responding to OP wasn't about them. I mean people who are born & raised Chinese - they usually do want to be Chinese, even if its just in the cultural sense and not the CCP (but even then, most don't seem very vehemently opposed).
Taiwans different as they've had to largely reframe the Taiwanese identity to be more about the island and its history and people who came (including indigenous peoples), rather than just centric to the Han immigration history which was framing the Taiwanese identity more Chinese-centric. I don't expect them to identify as Chinese citizens, even if they share Chinese culture. But again, not my point.
True, I have heard of those people. The handful of Taiwanese people I know say only older people really feel that way anymore, though my mates are all in their 20s, mostly lgbt and living in Tokyo/Taipei - so I can't claim to have an unbiased sample
One issue I constantly run into speaking to friends in English, is that we use the word "Chinese" for a lot of different ideas (even the language). I think its a bit of a semantic landmine in English for these conversations.
