HK police enjoy the respect of the overwhelming majority of HK residents. There will be no crackdown. The whole thing will just fizzle out.
Tiananmen 2.0 in Hong Kong
- Thread starter eznutz
- Start date
After the Britts lease was over stealing billions of art works and treasures. The head guy of Hong Kong is called chief executive ? It's appointed by China government..That's why it'll never be a free democracy.You can 5-6 Hong Kong candidates and 1 mainland favour shoe -in candidate. Well the mainland guy a winner. TUNGChi Hwa back in late 90- early 2000's.
The sad thing there's almost a protest every week in Hong Kong. Marches are peacefully from Causeway Bay to Central. But seeing this news is terrible.
I was late one time to work as got stuck in traffic with demonstrators.49 mins or so.
Now this suck if you need to work in Central, but I'm sure it's on night and in the weekend as it'll dip the stock market drastically if no business happening in Central. I wounder where would the domestic helpers go on Sunday ?
The sad thing there's almost a protest every week in Hong Kong. Marches are peacefully from Causeway Bay to Central. But seeing this news is terrible.
I was late one time to work as got stuck in traffic with demonstrators.49 mins or so.
Now this suck if you need to work in Central, but I'm sure it's on night and in the weekend as it'll dip the stock market drastically if no business happening in Central. I wounder where would the domestic helpers go on Sunday ?
I would use the word benign authoritarian for countries like Saudi and Kuwait as their kings treat citizens reasonably well and economy is good. Dictatorships come with negative connotation usually associated with abuse of power and make the whole country poor and it's people starving. You will find a lot of examples of benign authoritarian government running the countries well -.such as Singapore. and a lot of democracies not so - like Mexico.
The west places too much value and emphasis on democracy when criticizing counties like China, while their own voters have little say about government policies.
In this case, I would point out the double standard. Ghadaffi was labeled a dictator by most Western leaders and their presstitute mainstream media. Libya had the highest standard of living on the African continent. Free education, subsidized marriage (free car), just about guaranteed jobs, rising quotas for Libyans in the foreign owned oil industry, equality for women etc etc etc.
Compare that to Saudi Arabia and its fairy-tale kingdom, in reality a one-family rule dictatorship: oppressed Shiite minority in the East, oppressed women who literally ride in the back of the bus through a separate entrance, women forbidden to drive, women who have to cover their faces with 6 veils, a state that has [frequent] capital punishment through beheading, a state that owes it's existence and continued support to wacko Wahhabi-Salafist-Taqfiri religious zealots, and to top it all, tolerates wholesale discrimination against foreign workers, especially Philippinos and Pakistanis. Oh, and by the way, you won't find churches in Saudi Arabia. There is poverty in Saudi Arabia; meanwhile, the 7,000 princes (and counting) enjoy blowing a large part of the national wealth due to the generous stipend paid to them by the treasury, while the country has been in a deficit for the last 2 decades.
You will excuse my scepticism whenever a Western Leader (i.e. Obama) labels one or another leader of another country as a dictator. The leader of a country is labelled a dictator usually by the leader of a (the) superpower when the former refuses to be subservient to the policies of the latter. So ya: King Abdullah is merely a fairy-tale king of a kingdom, according to the western mainstream media.
No offense!
I would laugh at anyone who believe China government is NOT = dictatorship.
However, in some ways, dictatorship is NOT bad at all.
It only takes China 7 years to build the high speed train system everywhere, while California has been debating whether it should have one between SF and LA since 2007 and just started.
The democracy is NOT pan-cure! However, in many ways, it is just a less evil approach!
I would laugh at anyone who believe China government is NOT = dictatorship.
However, in some ways, dictatorship is NOT bad at all.
It only takes China 7 years to build the high speed train system everywhere, while California has been debating whether it should have one between SF and LA since 2007 and just started.
The democracy is NOT pan-cure! However, in many ways, it is just a less evil approach!
China is an authoritarian regime but it is technically not a dictatorship. Power vests in the central committee, which is a fairly large group representing select but diverse interests.
Not even remotely democratic, but because power vests in a group rather than a single individual the system is more resilient than a dictatorship, in that if the top guy misbehaves, he can be removed.
Of course, the collective that runs the country cannot be removed, so when it collectively misbehaves there is no recourse.
But it is better than a dictatorship which succumbs to the whims of a single person.
Not even remotely democratic, but because power vests in a group rather than a single individual the system is more resilient than a dictatorship, in that if the top guy misbehaves, he can be removed.
Of course, the collective that runs the country cannot be removed, so when it collectively misbehaves there is no recourse.
But it is better than a dictatorship which succumbs to the whims of a single person.
Except with the advent of social media in China (Weibo and QQ), plus the independent press and TV, sometimes the sensors can't stop certain scandals and embarrassing news from spreading before its too late. Ministers and regional politicians get sacked for publicly visible screw-ups. Those senior politicians who deviate too much from the party line are nailed for corruption, a convenient charge since most of the senior ones are on the take. But then, China has been corrupt since antiquity. That's just the way the system works over there.
Nowadays, people join the Communist Party for the business connections. So much for patriotic fervor and the spirit of self-sacrifice.
The only difference between the US and China is that, whereas China is a one-party state, the US has a two-party state. The 2 parties have almost identical political plaforms. The US President is not even elected by universal sufferage, and the politicians are controlled by big business and the rich lobby groups who can contribute unlimited amounts of money to candidates. The mainstream media, owned and controlled by a few mega corporations, then brainwash the people into voting for the paid off politicians, while scare-mongering them along the way with the post-cold war invention of war against the concept of terrorism.
So, China seems to be a more honest system that the US system. At least, things get done in China without all that bickering and court challenges.
So, China seems to be a more honest system that the US system. At least, things get done in China without all that bickering and court challenges.
Chinese communist party is almost identical to Kuomintang used to be, very pro-business, very capitalist, and very much controlled by money.
Taiwan used to be a one party authoritarian state under Kuomintang rule, and gradually evolved into democracy of today.
I think democracy can't work without certain level of economic foundation. A lot of countries start with dictatorship -> authoritarian > democracy as economy rises from developing to developed. If you force democratic system on a poor country like Mexico or Lybia, all you get is chaos, mismanagement and corruption. So I think China is still on its way to democracy, but there is no rush.
There are no natural reasons why Mexico and Libya should be poor. In the case of Mexico it is because of government mismanagement and in the case of Libya it is currently in chaos because of maniacs running with guns and religious fervor. Both Mexico and Libya are rich in natural resources, it is humans that screw things up.
Agree. They will just wait it out. Time is on the governments side.
One can expect increased immigration in North America as a result of all of this.
That's for sure. Like the US led NATO bombing of Libya and ouster of its leader and government, leaving a huge power vacuum in its place. That has left Libya's tribal system (that only Ghadaffi could bring together and control) to fight it out amongst themselves for power using weapons looted from the vast weapons stores of Libya's army.
I can't see why they would want to emigrate all of a sudden. It is not as if Beijing is taking away their rights. Rather, the issue is that the democratisation process is not going fast enough for those who weren't born in 1997.
Half of legislative council members are elected by their local constituencies. The other half are elected by groups representing various social, business, industrial and union constituencies. It is this latter group that elects the chief executive. Election of the chief executive by universal suffrage is supposed to begin in 2017.
The article from the Guardian above notes that there are undertones to the demonstrations. I agree that there seems to be a lot of resentment in HK about the mainlanders visiting or buying property in HK; plus, HK is losing it's economic importance to places like Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou so a little bit of jealousy. You scan YouTube a bit and there's loads of videos from HK critical of mainlander visitors and migrant workers as being arrogant and lacking social graces. I found that more than a few HK people tend to be a bit arrogant themselves towards, not only mainlanders, but foreigners as well. Quite a few definitely have a superiority complex at times. I personally find mainlanders friendlier than HK people. Mainlanders working in HK shops are definitely friendlier if you speak to them in Mandarin a bit, even for a foreigner. Make you feel like you're from their hometown, and I'm as Canadian as they come.
Beware of bandwagon effects. The media is reporting the protests and pointing the finger at Beijing without reporting exactly the context. So in effect, a vilification campaign.
That's exactly what happened in Russia under Yeltsin after the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was economic chaos but they had democracy. Meanwhile, people's pensions fizzled out and countless people were screwed when state owned enterprised were sold off at fire sale prices to a few oligarchs. Things didn't start to improve until Putin put the oligarchs on notice (he had one jailed for 10 years when he started using his fortune for gaining political power).
China is wary of what happened in Russia and that's why they are taking it slowly. They know that China has to evolve, and the better off people are, the more freedoms they want. Democracy and prospery go hand in hand. Introducing freedoms and democracy when the people are poor is a recipe for unrest and revolution, or a system where chaos reigns like India.
Immigration over the next couple of years, I don't believe I used the word sudden.
This is just step one of Beijing taking them fully under their wing. Yes their rights are being taken away. Naive to think anything else. The smart ones will leave. They can't win.
Most of these protectors are students, and kids - under 18. Majority of countries don't seem to support them. Majority of HK people don't even support them. They should just go home.
