Forcefully reintegrated? Colonialism was the forceful part. Not a country having control of its own land.
He isn’t demanding any will of the people. Unlike the EU, US, etc, Chinese people are actually happy with their democratic China.
In no way in Europe or US can a city claim they want “democratic” independence and go completely against the rest of the country on the side of recent protests and meddling by outside state depts. They would correctly be viewed as traitors and agitators.
The PRC never owned Hong-Kong before the handover and I don't remember the population of Hong-Kong voting for reintegration so yes, forcefully reintegrated seems like a nice way to frame it. Actually taken over would be more correct, traded as merchandise would also be appropriate I guess. You get the idea.
China existed 100 years ago. Hong Kong is Chinese.
I have never come across a person who isn’t a bigot and raging chauvinist who tries to act like the Chinese civilization and the PRC are distinct things. Though not saying you are, you may be an exception
So you are saying that world borders should be redrawn according to a state some few hundred years ago? Please tell be, which exact year do you think we should use for that?
How can they be democratically independent when the entire continent is controlled by NATO? Democracy means something. Democracy can’t exist while you’re a vassal state.
There is nothing democratic about China. This is just a fact. Admittedly western countries are also not democratic per definition, but at least they have an elected oligarchy, which is miles closer to democracy than Chinese despotic regime. Even if the regime in China is kinda benevolent to the subjects, it doesn't matter for this question. Democracy is a word used a for a very specific thing, and it's completely absent in China.
It obviously is how? Because they are yellow Asians and not white like you? Hilarious that Europe and the west’s govts are not liked by their people. China’s is. And yet these same westerners act like China is the non democratic and non free country.
Because that's how autocratic regimes like the CCP (asian), Belarus (white), Uganda (black) work? As opposed to states like Taiwan (asian), France (white), South Africa (black).
> Hilarious that Europe and the west’s govts are not liked by their people. China’s is
Tell me you're a CCP troll without telling me you're a CCP troll.
China is basically the epitome of non-democratic - the CCP has even gone so far as to point to the messiness traditionally involved in democracy as a justification for why it doesn't work.
In a country with a one-party authoritarian politicial system, the only conceivable way they'd be allowed to not be so is if a non-predetermined outcome was not considered to be a threat to the CCP.
So in a country of 1.4 billion people, literally it might not be the case, but it 100% effectively is so.
I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of one party systems. One party systems do not mean everyone agrees on everything. It still has all the nuances of any other political party. There are different factions, ideas and plans and that's what party members run on to get elected. It's pretty much identical to any other democracy with a majority across the government. Plenty of people are cheering on Japan who just elected that.
Obviously the goal is the betterment of the country and society is shared among all the elected officials. That's why they get elected. I think a good portion of the west likes to pretend that they have parties and elected officials who want to overthrow the government in their government. But that's just not true. The overwhelming majority of western countries have actively suppressed or fought back anyone who wants to dismantle or reform the country. So are all democratic elections predetermined as well?
> I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of one party systems. One party systems do not mean everyone agrees on everything.
I am aware of this, and that the USSR had elections which allowed the people to express themselves to some extent, though never in any major way.
> It still has all the nuances of any other political party
This simply cannot be true on a very fundamental level, which is the lack of competition that other parties bring. Multi-party systems have both inter and intra party dynamics; by definition single-party systems can only have the latter. Saying "it's pretty much identical" shows a fundamental misunderstanding on your part.
> Plenty of people are cheering on Japan who just elected that.
I fail to see how this is relevant.
> Obviously the goal is the betterment of the country and society is shared among all the elected officials
Well, no, not at all. History is replete with examples of officials of all political, cultural and ethnic persuasions being far more interested with enriching themselves than the betterment of society. This statement comes across as rather naive.
> who want to overthrow the government in their government.
If you're talking about a ruling party losing an election to another party, we don't call that a government overthrow, we call that a transition of power. It is a feature of the system, and there is a lot of concern that it is done fairly and peacefully.
> The overwhelming majority of western countries have actively suppressed or fought back anyone who wants to dismantle or reform the country
This just reads like outright propaganda, I'm not going to bother addressing it on the merits.
> So are all democratic elections predetermined as well?
This is predicated on your previous propagandized statement having any real substantive factual bearing, which I don't believe it does, so my answer is no, they aren't. In fact, there are many, many examples of surprise results (see JFK, Obama, Trump, Brexit, Ukraine, etc.). So if there is some kind of global suppression operation at play, it doesn't have a very good track record of success.
Not sure what the USSR has to do with Chinese elections. Which is the topic.
The "lack of competition because other parties don't exist" is simply a naive view. Single party system DO have those same dynamics. The difference is purely aesthetic. If you think they don't then you're the one repeating propaganda.
It's relevant because it is an effective one party system when one party gains full control of the government. But because another party exists it's okay then?
Saying bad people existed in history doesn't mean everyone today is bad too. It's a bit reductionist. The point I was making is that one party systems eliminate the dynamics of "the other". Multiparty systems inevitably lead to tribalist behavior of "we're the good ones and the other groups are the bad ones". It's not productive and prevents progress for political theater.
No, I wasn't talking about one party winning over another. I'm talking about actual revolutions against the current government of any country.
I think you're continuing the misunderstanding. I am talking about actual revolutionary action. Regardless of political flavor revolutionary actors are suppressed by the state. The US didn't welcome the communist party and the UK didn't invite ISIS to form their own party.
Your last paragraph just continues this misunderstanding further. My point still stands that democracy can absolutely exist under a single party system and it's purely a cosmetic difference from a multiparty one. That doesn't mean it is ALWAYS the case or that one party systems are the best and flawless. Way too much anti-soviet era propaganda still shapes our views on politics and what is and isn't good. If we fail to honestly engage with our own and other political systems then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the past.
“Used for a specific thing”. Democracy doesn’t mean liberalism. You can’t take a word and make up a meaning. Democracy is a govt that is the will of the people. China is quite literally democratic per that definition. While Europe and the west are not at all.
Also electoralism isn’t democracy. The west is not the entire world. What the west says does not make things so.
I'm not sure what do you mean by liberalism or electoralism or even a will of a people. Especially in this context.
Democracy is a power of citizens to decide on the governing of a country they live in. This doesn't happen anywhere nowadays, except in Switzerland, where "demos"=people can actually execute their will of majority "kratos" to vote on the governing of their country. With some limitations of course, but it is a real democracy.
Other western countries have an elective oligarchy, and people can't decide on what those oligarchs will vote on, the system is indirect.
And China is pure and simple autocracy. A despotia governed a by a single man plus his cronies. There is no election process in China, so demos is completely separated from governing, there is not even indirect link.
The smugness and superiority about how the rest of the world are immoral barbarians and the global status quo of white/western hegemony is amazing and very moral is pretty funny.
It’s pretty obvious these same people in the past would’ve said the US’s chattel slavery is not that bad because other countries do slavery too. The equivocations westerners will do.
Let’s start with it being hell bent on annexing a peaceful independent island democracy, by force if needed, because of their own political insecurities.
The examples expand from there, but that one alone is sufficient.
You aren't familiar with Chinese illegal occupation of the South China Sea? Or the official government documentation claiming that independent Taiwan is their property?
Brinkmanship with the Philippines and Taiwan, and direct threats of imperialist takeover against the latter (Xi has reaffirmed this recently).
Exploitative labor in Xinjiang is imperialism and led to genocide.
African "investments" is imperialist, it's focused on resource extraction, debt traps and the like. Or was Japan not imperialist when it took over Taiwan, because they built our trains?
Not just westerners can correctly identify PRC imperialism.
This thread casually talks about Taiwan being a vassal state of the US during a civil war and Hong Kong being a colony of the British. Yet the world, largely the global south, should intervene and help the global north to exploit the rest of the world more?
Every one gets that far away countries across the world can’t put military bases right next to Europe or the US. However when it comes to China, that is not only acceptable but it’s the anti-cowardly move to support outsider aggressors.
> can’t put military bases right next to Europe or the US
Indeed, Japan and Korea and the Philippines have American military bases on them.
You mentioned Taiwan, curious why? It has no American military bases. Perhaps of all the countries in the region, it's the most sovereign in that sense.
This doesn't make any sense, the USA hasn't touched anything about Taiwan in any meaningful way ever since it became the ROC, and certainly not at all since the KMT was overthrown. In fact American overtures to control chip manufacturing here were rejected explicitly as "economic imperialism."
What's with this Americentric geopolitical analysis?
You mean when the American ambassador escorted Mao to the signing of the Double Tenth agreement because the Americans were worried the KMT would go back on their word and assassinate him? Or in 1950 when Truman announced Taiwan as "Chinese territory" and directed that no American navy presence was to be permitted in the Taiwan strait?
Anyway take up your grievances with the KMT, don't worry, they're about to come crying back into the CPC's arms begging for a shred of political power now that their regime has been overthrown for 30 years, and their efforts to sell Taiwan to the CPC in exchange for a teaspoon of political legitimacy are failing spectacularly.
I’m sure the western chauvinists all over Hacker News and Reddit are actually correct. NATO, US, EU going into East Slavic civilization are the innocent ones.
“what's a little colonialism between friends” who has ever said that? Why not stick to what is actually said, that it’s an aggressive war by NATO?
I'm from Ukraine and I'm very curious about this "East Slavic civilization" you mention. What is it? Are my cousins who are fighting to defend their homes, relatives and neighbours from Russian fascists part of this civilization, or only the scumbags trying to re-colonize them?
Europe and the EU, Japan are vassal states curently occupied by the US. China, Russia, India are largely independent states. I am sure once Europe is not occupied, it will be talked about more.
The soft power is partly based on the belief that the systems it’s built will constrain the US into acting reasonably (at least from the west’s perspective). The Greenland thing was not shut down on the US side hard enough and that has shattered that. Now Europe has to contend with the fact that the US system won’t rein in a president that goes too far, and so it basically has to be treated like the absolute dictatorships with all the risks of a mad king that goes with that
Does not mean too much coming from Europe when the EU wants to militarize and the institution is closer to absolute dictatorship than democracy. Similar to Canada and Europe talking about colonizing the world with the US yet Greenland is an issue lol.
I should’ve also said that like the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, Israel are very very racist, chauvinist, exceptionalist. That benefits US hegemony.
Something also not brought up much is how many people have colonized minds around the world. Colonized minds don’t largely change because of a temporary brash leader.
I believe the damage is done and there will be no going back to the old ways.
This time around I'm sensing a real change in attitude. People in Europe are sick and tired of all the US bullshit that's been going on for far too long. It's not just the lunatic in the White House. It's the whole system that's being rejected. The endless greed. The bigotry. The war on everything.
Peaceful cooperation and coexistence, that's what we want. I'm for my part quite happy and optimistic about the deal with India and I hope more regions will follow soon.
Europe and the five eyes are far too racist and/or chauvinist for what you’re saying. HN is a great microcosm of liberal (which is western and white) ideals and thinking. You can’t really post about resistance to western hegemony here or in most situations around Americans, Canadians, Europeans.
Something not brought up much is how colonized minds works. Colonized minds don’t suddenly become uncolonized because of a brash leader. Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviets is a great example of this.
The soft power stuff has been canned. That has not generated good will, but that act pales compared to kidnapping, threats to invade various places and the destabilising effects of chaos as a leadership strategy.
The US has done those stuff since world war 2 ended. Continuously. Trump has hurt things but if anything bringing up things the US has always done as if it is novel under Trump shows how well US hegemony works and will continue to work.
Another thing no one is bringing up is how colonized minds works. Colonized minds don’t suddenly become uncolonized because of a brash leader.
Trump might be gone but project 2025 will continue. They're now most of the party, his cabinet and they're replacing government employees with loyalists (hiring program was part of it). They're attacking the election system again, maybe it won't work but there's a pretty big chance it will.
That is not how people and society function. The status quo and culture is that open source is good for society and all. You are not told about why big corporations can use all this code for free. You’re actually told you’re doing a good deed by making code open source.
Then you jump on to a place like Reddit or HN and you have people mostly supporting the status quo. Of course people are going to do open source more than they should. And then if they complain later on, you will say they chose to make it open source. Reinforcing the status quo by blaming the individual.
It certainly no other persons fault than the person that wrote the software and gave it away. Making them out to be the victim in all this is ridiculous.
Yes. The only real conclusion from people like NEETs is that society failed them. Outside of a fraction of total people (or when addictions are at play), it is very rare that someone never wants to be productive.
He isn’t demanding any will of the people. Unlike the EU, US, etc, Chinese people are actually happy with their democratic China. In no way in Europe or US can a city claim they want “democratic” independence and go completely against the rest of the country on the side of recent protests and meddling by outside state depts. They would correctly be viewed as traitors and agitators.
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