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Simple: the Chinese had de-facto control of Macau starting in 1967. Portuguese sovereignty only existed on paper from 1974 (the Carnation Revolution) until the formal handover in 1999. Hong Kong on the other hand had another 30 years of Western style education, the people's minds weren't polluted. That's why there's so much opposition to Beijing's demands for "patriotism" classes and absurd spectacles of public loyalty to the communist regime.
I've also wondered why Hong Kong is so individualistic. Singaporeans are very westernized, too, but conformity is still deeply ingrained in their culture. That's why you don't see any protests (not to mention protests are illegal outside of one speakers corner in the entire city). Then again, Singapore is an independent country whose government, controversial as it may be, has done an excellent job economically and is still much freer than the communist Chinese regime. People protest only when things are going bad.
Simple: the Chinese had de-facto control of Macau starting in 1967. Portuguese sovereignty only existed on paper from 1974 (the Carnation Revolution) until the formal handover in 1999. Hong Kong on the other hand had another 30 years of Western style education, the people's minds weren't polluted. That's why there's so much opposition to Beijing's demands for "patriotism" classes and absurd spectacles of public loyalty to the communist regime.
then why hasn't the west treat macau like it treats china starting in 1967? so all this "we can't grand special status to HK any longer" is pure bs when macau has a special status since forever. macau has national security law since 2009, but where was the outcry by western governments?
then why hasn't the west treat macau like it treats china starting in 1967? so all this "we can't grand special status to HK any longer" is pure bs when macau has a special status since forever. macau has national security law since 2009, but where was the outcry by western governments?
because no one cares about macau! Gambling is a waste of money. It was also a portugeuse colony and not an anglo one. HK is a global financial hub. Macau's egg custards were not up to par.
I've also wondered why Hong Kong is so individualistic. Singaporeans are very westernized, too, but conformity is still deeply ingrained in their culture. That's why you don't see any protests (not to mention protests are illegal outside of one speakers corner in the entire city). Then again, Singapore is an independent country whose government, controversial as it may be, has done an excellent job economically and is still much freer than the communist Chinese regime. People protest only when things are going bad.
you can lump the anti chinese people in hk into two groups:
the older ones born before 1997
they hate the china/chinese from a long time either they were treated badly in china by the chinese people and ccp and they escaped to hong kong, but are too poor to leave hk and immigrate to another country. Most of these people will only protest and usually not the ones that commit the violence and arson.
I feel that these people are the victims of this situation since their peaceful protest is ruined by the violent youth group, but it's also their fault for not withdrawing their support for the violence.
the youth that were born after 1997:
these people are what you see does the actual "fighting" (illegal and violent acts). since they were born after 1997, they never experienced the colonized hk. Yet for some reason, they believe that era is better somehow.
The secret lies in the education. These all started when the chinese history subject was removed as mandatory curriculum in public schools several years ago. In its place, there is a new mandatory subject call "general or broadly used knowledge" in public schools. That's where the anti china stuff are being teach to middle school to high school students on a daily basis.
you can lump the anti chinese people in hk into two groups:
the older ones born before 1997
they hate the china/chinese from a long time either they were treated badly in china by the chinese people and ccp and they escaped to hong kong, but are too poor to leave hk and immigrate to another country. Most of these people will only protest and usually not the ones that commit the violence and arson.
I feel that these people are the victims of this situation since their peaceful protest is ruined by the violent youth group, but it's also their fault for not withdrawing their support for the violence.
the youth that were born after 1997:
these people are what you see does the actual "fighting" (illegal and violent acts). since they were born after 1997, they never experienced the colonized hk. Yet for some reason, they believe that era is better somehow.
The secret lies in the education. These all started when the chinese history subject was removed as mandatory curriculum in public schools several years ago. In its place, there is a new mandatory subject call "general or broadly used knowledge" in public schools. That's where the anti china stuff are being teach to middle school to high school students on a daily basis.
its not about being anti-chinese. Its about fascism and authoritarianism. The CCP is basically INGSOC from 1984. Free people don't want to live under that. The only history you need to read is Romance of the three kingdoms unabridged and water margin. No southie wants to be told by a northie what to do. Xi is basically Cao Cao. Pooh bear is grasping for honey because he messed up bad PLA bioweapon COVID-19 and tried to make all under heaven under the PRC .
The conflict going on in Hong Kong is very complicated and taking sides is simply going to worsen it. One major issue is that both sides seem to become more entrenched without any thought for compromise. Hong Kong identity has become more confused than ever.
My mother grew up in Hong Kong during the post WWII years. Back then, life in Hong Kong for many people was a struggle for every day survival so there was no time or appetite for political or social discussions. As a kid, you were lucky to have gotten a primary education, luckier if you made it to Form 4 and taken the O levels, much less pass them, and if you passed your A's and made it to Upper 6, you were considered brilliant. University (there were only 3 of them at the time) was pretty much hands off except for the children of the wealthy elite. For grownups, if you had a steady job that provided enough money to feed your family, it was good enough because it sure as hell was better than what was going on across the border where people were starving. Many Hong Kong residents didn't know who represented them, many likely didn't even know who the governor was at any time, interactions between Westerners and local Chinese were infrequent, and Queen Elizabeth was just someone they saw distantly on television and on currency. English was widely taught in schools but for working class Chinese who attended the poorer schools, instruction was often subpar and many in that generation grew up not speaking English fluently. Ironically, Mandarin was always around and Shaw Brothers Television was exclusively broadcast in Mandarin (Run Run Shaw was not a native Cantonese nor were many early actors who would form the nucleus of TVB in 1967) but no one ever pushed Mandarin to be the lingua franca. Likewise the British pretty much left the Chinese alone with minimal law enforcement. This might explain why in my mother's generation, all locals in Hong Kong considered themselves first and foremost Chinese and to claim otherwise would cause everyone else to have a huge fit of laughter. Sure there were conflicts between pro-CCP and pro-Guomindang groups but for the most part with few exceptions, Hong Kong Chinese of that generation feared communism, distrusted Chairman Mao and the CCP, but were generally indifferent to politics and British rule. They more or less wanted to be left alone to make a good living that's all.
Fast forward to now. Chairman Mao is long dead, Mainland China, while still authoritarian, no longer adheres strictly to Marxism-Leninism but has opened its economy up to the world, no one is starving anymore, in fact many Mainland Chinese make more money than Hong Kong Chinese nowadays. However, in the past few decades the desire to protect Hong Kong identity has intensified especially among the young people many of whom have not lived under colonialism and do not have a memory of life on the Mainland. This generation seems to be much more educated (everyone graduates from secondary school nowadays and many more attend university), can speak English fluently, and are much more participatory in politics. They value the standard Cantonese language, traditional characters, Western political thought and liberties that give Hong Kong its identity. To them, it's not enough anymore to distrust the CCP but for Hong Kong to actually carve out a secondary existence independent of the Mainland. This of course goes completely against the wishes of President Xi Jin Ping, who wants quick integration of the entire Pearl River Delta to make it a truly super economic powerhouse and who probably wishes 2047 was next year. Many older generation Hong Kong Chinese readily embrace this initiative, many actually are already working elsewhere in the Delta, and to them, economic prosperity is much more meaningful than exercising free speech or writing in traditional characters. So there is the real disconnect between the two sides.
Could there be room for compromise? Sure but there has to be will for it and right now both sides are not showing much will for compromise. One possible olive branch for the pro-liberty/pro-democracy camp to find a middle ground is to retract any thoughts of independence, nominally acknowledge the legitimacy of the People's Republic (i.e. sweat allegiance), restrict any literature deemed unacceptable from crossing into the Mainland and to respect the People's Republic national anthem "March of the Heroes" (a song once revered even by members of the Guomindang and which by the way was written by Tian Han, a musician who first supported but later criticized Chairman Mao and paid dearly with his life during the Cultural Revolution). In return, Mainland China can greatly restrict the number of Mainlanders crossing over into Hong Kong, restrict the number of Mainlanders who can do business in Hong Kong, ban parallel trading, retain the Cantonese language and traditional characters as official media, and otherwise leave the Hong Kong Chinese alone with minimal interference just as the British had done. This was how Deng Xiaoping envisioned this "One Country, Two Systems" formula to be and what I had witnessed myself back in the early 2000's. Unfortunately, this formula has been repeatedly violated in the past to the point that many moderate voices have turned radical, uncompromising and extremist. That is what makes the situation so dangerous right now.
But instead of beeing happy for the freedoms they got and promote their city, they instead decided to complain about everything and trying to force Chinas hand with violent protests.
They hoped that by involving China they would get more independence, but of course the opposite happen as China is not going to have a rebel province inside its borders.
Rebelling only occurred because of Mainland China interfered with their Sovereign rights agreed upon by China until 2047~~ Maybe look up the actual treaty and agreements that occurred?? Spreading mis-informed trolling isn't helpful since there's many on this site WHO know ALL about that treaty!!
What was agreed for the future of Hong Kong?
China agreed to govern Hong Kong under the principle of "one country, two systems", where the city would enjoy "a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign and defence affairs" for the next 50 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camlon
With the protests last year, this was the inevitable outcome. Hong Kong has already lost their economy and will now lose their freedom too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camlon
Most western countries are not free market either. Countries like France and Italy are characterized by a lot of government regulation, work regulation and protectionism. US was earlier a free market economy, but has been gradually abandoning it in the last 20 years.
The average Chinese only care about their own living standards, not the GDP number. And the mistakes CCP did in the beginning is overshadowed by the mistakes the western world did in February and March. You might not believe that Chinas urban unemployment only increased by 1% while US unemployment increased by 10% - 15%, or that China got 85000 cases while US got 1.7 million cases. But the claims that China lied massively do not match what people are seeing on the ground in China. People still have jobs and hardly anyone knows anyone that got infected.
If western countries want to convince Chinese to criticize their government, then their narrative needs to better match what people in China experience. If not, Chinese will just assume that western media lies all the time. In fact Chinese are more pro-ccp now than they were before covid-19, because they blame the first coverup on the authorities in Hubei and they think it was handled well by the authorities after the first coverup. So do not get hopes up.
It's obvious you are somehow attempting to rewrite HISTORY?? WHY??
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camlon
Hong Kongs rise was due to being the gateway to China. It was a place where you could be closely linked to the Chinese market and at the same time enjoy western laws and thinking.
In my opinion Hong Kong people did not understand their advantage, and this goes further than the protest. One of the thing I noticed back in 2010 was that a lot of people do not understand English or Mandarin. It made no sense to me, how can an international city be so weak in languages? If a western company could go to Hong Kong, and any employee could act as a translator between the western company and a mainland company, then a lot of companies would pick Hong Kong as the place to do business with China.
A lot of Hong Kong people seem to think that Hong Kongs advantage was purely that they were more western, so any meddling from China would take away their advantage. But that is not true, business do not go to Hong Kong just get a british legal system, then they would just go to Britain. They go to Hong Kong, because its the gateway to China and it has a trustworthy legal system. If you take away the gateway part, then they have no reason to do business in Hong Kong.
When Hong Kong started to push away mainland tourists, investors and diversify away from China, they removed their biggest advantage and replaced it with nothing. That is why Hong Kong is failing.
Hong Kong wasn't failing~~ China and take-over by China is the problem( long before Covid-19) The more you out and spread biased Chinese propaganda actually exposes just who is backing your postings.. SAD.. Thankfully there's many OLD enough to KNOW just what and WHY this is happening.. rewriting history isn't going to help you out!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greysholic
I know right? How dare they dislike China! How dare they voice their discontent! They should be content with their miserable life!
You are so full of ****.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camlon
You realize that Hong Kong is part of China and literally cannot survive without mainland China. Without China, every single industry in Hong Kong will collapse and they will not have enough water or electricity. Biting the hand that feeds you is stupid.
And if their lives are so miserable, then protest that. If 2 million Hong Kong people went out and demanded more public housing, then I am sure more will be built.
Hon Kong has survived for many decades WITHOUT CHina's assistance BTW Hong King citizens only went out to protest Mainland CHina's intervening in Hong Kong's "Autonomy" until 2047 Get your FACTS straight!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camlon
In what way is China trying to alter their culture or way of life? Do you mean by allowing chinese to immigrate and visit Hong Kong?
From what I see, China was perfectly ok with the status quo before the protests. It was the Hong Kong people who wanted change.
Sorry.. China mainland is failing and attempting to take over Hong Kong by force/intimidation and folks suggesting it's just OKAY isn't coming from a GOOD PLACE!! In fact it's seems to be coming from a "Propaganda Effort Place funded by China Mainland/ BTW China is NOT doing well either!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camlon
Take a look at any place dominated by Hong Kong people such as LIHKG, or reddit Hong Kong and you will only see pro-Hong Kong post and negative comments about mainlanders.
The average Hong Kong person are not reading the comments above on a daily basis. In fact if they read them at all, it is probably some Hong Kong person who has been searching Chinese social media and reposted it on Hong Kong social media. Also, Hong Kong is not a big conversational subject in China, people mostly talk about other things.
Hong Kong has always been distrustful against China and mainlanders, but I think social media made it much worse. Because of social media whenever you open up the app you will get bombarded with negative news about China and bad behaviour from mainlanders. Any positive news get downvoted and is not visible. When you end up in such a filter bubble, then that will influence their thinking.
Also, Hong Kong people do not consider themselves equals to mainlanders, they feel superiour. What they want is not for Chinese to treat them as equal, but to be left alone and get full autonomy. Hong Kongs biggest fear has always been to become just an another chinese city. And China mostly left them alone till the anti-Chinese culture got so strong that it become a national security risk.
Without the gateway to China there is nothing Hong Kong can offer that you cannot find anywhere else. And what Chinese company is going to pick Hong Kong now?
Hong Kong has already collapsed, and the wealth and status is not coming back.
I call this whole post as BS~ Take it as an Observer of Propaganda Social media Paid Propaganda observer!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camlon
Most of the damage was done some years ago when Xi Jinping wanted to project power. He pissed off the Japanese with the islands, Koreans with a boycott, Taiwanese by punishing them for voting for the wrong party and Hong Kong because they gave them a bad democracy deal leading to the umbrella revolution.
What we are seeing now is just the results of these actions combined with Trump and countries blaming China to cover up their mismanagement of the coronavirus.
Surely DJT promoted Xi Jinping's muscle by suggesting his support.. and Xi Jinping started this LONG LONG before Covid-19... Once again, Your promoting talking points loses all credibility given educated people who KNOW all about efforts by folks that spread BS and that also includes USA POTUS who spreads BS daily!!
Let it be known.. Efforts by Bots and Trolls has lost their impact today.. Proof is now in plain sight!!
The conflict going on in Hong Kong is very complicated and taking sides is simply going to worsen it. One major issue is that both sides seem to become more entrenched without any thought for compromise. Hong Kong identity has become more confused than ever.
My mother grew up in Hong Kong during the post WWII years. Back then, life in Hong Kong for many people was a struggle for every day survival so there was no time or appetite for political or social discussions. As a kid, you were lucky to have gotten a primary education, luckier if you made it to Form 4 and taken the O levels, much less pass them, and if you passed your A's and made it to Upper 6, you were considered brilliant. University (there were only 3 of them at the time) was pretty much hands off except for the children of the wealthy elite. For grownups, if you had a steady job that provided enough money to feed your family, it was good enough because it sure as hell was better than what was going on across the border where people were starving. Many Hong Kong residents didn't know who represented them, many likely didn't even know who the governor was at any time, interactions between Westerners and local Chinese were infrequent, and Queen Elizabeth was just someone they saw distantly on television and on currency. English was widely taught in schools but for working class Chinese who attended the poorer schools, instruction was often subpar and many in that generation grew up not speaking English fluently. Ironically, Mandarin was always around and Shaw Brothers Television was exclusively broadcast in Mandarin (Run Run Shaw was not a native Cantonese nor were many early actors who would form the nucleus of TVB in 1967) but no one ever pushed Mandarin to be the lingua franca. Likewise the British pretty much left the Chinese alone with minimal law enforcement. This might explain why in my mother's generation, all locals in Hong Kong considered themselves first and foremost Chinese and to claim otherwise would cause everyone else to have a huge fit of laughter. Sure there were conflicts between pro-CCP and pro-Guomindang groups but for the most part with few exceptions, Hong Kong Chinese of that generation feared communism, distrusted Chairman Mao and the CCP, but were generally indifferent to politics and British rule. They more or less wanted to be left alone to make a good living that's all.
Fast forward to now. Chairman Mao is long dead, Mainland China, while still authoritarian, no longer adheres strictly to Marxism-Leninism but has opened its economy up to the world, no one is starving anymore, in fact many Mainland Chinese make more money than Hong Kong Chinese nowadays. However, in the past few decades the desire to protect Hong Kong identity has intensified especially among the young people many of whom have not lived under colonialism and do not have a memory of life on the Mainland. This generation seems to be much more educated (everyone graduates from secondary school nowadays and many more attend university), can speak English fluently, and are much more participatory in politics. They value the standard Cantonese language, traditional characters, Western political thought and liberties that give Hong Kong its identity. To them, it's not enough anymore to distrust the CCP but for Hong Kong to actually carve out a secondary existence independent of the Mainland. This of course goes completely against the wishes of President Xi Jin Ping, who wants quick integration of the entire Pearl River Delta to make it a truly super economic powerhouse and who probably wishes 2047 was next year. Many older generation Hong Kong Chinese readily embrace this initiative, many actually are already working elsewhere in the Delta, and to them, economic prosperity is much more meaningful than exercising free speech or writing in traditional characters. So there is the real disconnect between the two sides.
Could there be room for compromise? Sure but there has to be will for it and right now both sides are not showing much will for compromise. One possible olive branch for the pro-liberty/pro-democracy camp to find a middle ground is to retract any thoughts of independence, nominally acknowledge the legitimacy of the People's Republic (i.e. sweat allegiance), restrict any literature deemed unacceptable from crossing into the Mainland and to respect the People's Republic national anthem "March of the Heroes" (a song once revered even by members of the Guomindang and which by the way was written by Tian Han, a musician who first supported but later criticized Chairman Mao and paid dearly with his life during the Cultural Revolution). In return, Mainland China can greatly restrict the number of Mainlanders crossing over into Hong Kong, restrict the number of Mainlanders who can do business in Hong Kong, ban parallel trading, retain the Cantonese language and traditional characters as official media, and otherwise leave the Hong Kong Chinese alone with minimal interference just as the British had done. This was how Deng Xiaoping envisioned this "One Country, Two Systems" formula to be and what I had witnessed myself back in the early 2000's. Unfortunately, this formula has been repeatedly violated in the past to the point that many moderate voices have turned radical, uncompromising and extremist. That is what makes the situation so dangerous right now.
thanks for the insight, though there are something that I do not agree with.
let's limit the scope to say the chinese that I'm talking about are the people of canton province that where most of the people in hong kong originated from.
a high number of hong kong people are actually canton people that literally swim to hk as the british had a policy of granting citizenship as long as you somehow reached hk legally or not. During the hard times in
china through out the 20th century, hong konger are being consider "higher class citizens" by all of the chinese. Chinese entertainment, fashions and technology are all centered in hong kong as all of the chinese look to the south as their prefer way of life.
As a result, the hong kong people has developed a sense of superiority over the rest of the chinese. What they are trying to do right now, is to hang onto that superiority. By the time the pearl delta area initiated, shenzheng and more or less guangzhou, has surpassed hong kong.
the chinese people value the cantonese language too, but from what I have seen, in the 2010s the chinese government, both local and ccp is doing better at protecting the local dialects than in the 2000s. there are no less if not more cantonese radio stations and tv stations in canton than ever before.
as for compromise, I don't think there is any room. Simply because the chinese people are simply not on the hong konger's sides. if the chinese people had their way, the measures will be a lot more drastic, as chinese think that the hong kong people should start paying taxes to the central government, and gets less discount on the electricity, water, and food they receive from the mainland.
also, I think there is a huge misunderstanding about the one country two systems "50 years doesn't change"
what does not change, is the capitalistic way of life, "horses races, dances continues". it does not say anything about the way of the government. In fact, the way of government can be changed and has changed many times already, the way the chief exect, or legislators are elected has changed in minor ways already.
also, "50 years doesn't change" does not mean that it will change after 50 years. I don't think there is any timeline or the need to "assimilate" the hong kong people.
Not a nice thing for natives of Hong Kong, but Beijing can do what it wants to Hong Kong. Everyone knew that Hong Kong was going to become like the rest of China once Great Britain hand them over. The writing on the wall is very clear.
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