Another One Bites the Dust

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

I’m watching the local Chinese news feed with my wife acting as translator. It seems like the free world has ‘lost’ Hong Kong and it will shortly become an Orwellian police state.

I fully understand that HK was LEASED to the UK for 99 years and reverted back to CCP control years ago. That said, the CCP guaranteed he ‘one country, two systems’ - essentially so that they didn’t lose the financial clout of HK due to the flight of capital if they went in ‘ham handed’.

It would be nice if the CCP allowed those that now want to leave HK now to do so. This would only work if other countries agreed to take them.

Just a thought...

[ralfy + 55]

The origins include the First Opium War. The British wanted to negate the trade imbalance with China by growing and selling opium in the mainland. The Chinese refused but lost, and was forced to cede Hong Kong.

It didn't stop there, as other military powers wanted to carve up the country.

 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

3 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I’m watching the local Chinese news feed with my wife acting as translator. It seems like the free world has ‘lost’ Hong Kong and it will shortly become an Orwellian police state.

I fully understand that HK was LEASED to the UK for 99 years and reverted back to CCP control years ago. That said, the CCP guaranteed he ‘one country, two systems’ - essentially so that they didn’t lose the financial clout of HK due to the flight of capital if they went in ‘ham handed’.

It would be nice if the CCP allowed those that now want to leave HK now to do so. This would only work if other countries agreed to take them.

Just a thought...

"Guaranteed" is a laugh.  Show me the document.  They made "promises" back then because they were only concerned with the advanced markets and access provided by Hong Kong, and deceitfully held the carrot of One China Two Systems back when China was firmly 3rd world.  That kept the Hong Kongers in line for a long time.  The thing most people missed, and Hong Kongers hoped wouldn't happen, is that like everything else in the Chinese government's strategy, all they wanted was to control Hong Kong, AND THEN COPY IT.  From the day of handover until the copying was done and they were no longer needed (er, Now!).  China doubled down on this relatively smaller foray by gaining acceptance into the biggest world level trade and dispute organisms, and owning as many of them as possible.  I'm not at all sure it will make any difference now if they are thrown off the exchanges where they have entrenched themselves around the world.

A promise from a politician isn't worth the climate changed air it is made up of.  For anyone who's not paying attention, the U.S. gets a new president every 4-8 years, and the President is in charge of trade and foreign policy.  If you still can't figure it out, try this: you had better be able to extract all the value from his promise before his term is up, because the next guy is bound to change the "promise".

[Jim Profit + 46]

China well on its way to become an hi-tech dystopian state..

Have you seen the experiments around digital yuan ?
Chinese state will be able to see every single financial transaction..