Originally Posted by David4Maths:
Your wrong. For an example I give you the South China Sea, disappearing bookshop owners etc etc.
They will do anything they want, when they want, to whom they want and handle the fallout in their own , - Shrugs shoulders, " What me?" approach. They just don't do it "in your face" but rather behind your back and make judgements of time , place and severity based upon the events prevailing at this time. They challenge you to challenge them, knowing that those who have the ability to do it , won't and that they can control those who will get of their comfortable arses, through the appeasers
To do this to HK is now good on timing as everyone is distracted and financially weakened. Yes, there will be jaw jaw but no war war so they can basically put two fingers up and proclaim, " HK is China and this is an internal matter." The new law gives the police the refreshed, targeted, power to arrest and the courts to try, on anyone protesting , sedition ( questioning the state ) and foreigners for " foreign interference " so journos .. that's you. OR, they ( the police ) can just arrest on anything, like they do with assembly when no one is assembling and have the benefit to challenge in court the seriousness of charges so they get to keep the "offender" in custody and / or disqualify them from any public office. Either way, a tool to de-fang opposition.
But the US, Europe will raise the standard and defend the rights, I hear the cry. Trump is a bully blowhard, not a diplomat. He is playing in his East China Sea bathtub because it gives him a hard on. China will not want him for a second term because he is a loose cannon to their regimented approach to life and " the peoples happiness." I.E. Keeping them sweet with business coming in. They could care less about him, his bombers or aircraft carriers. he will be gone in 6 months and that is quantum time in their universe. The next guy they can deal with and no one ( but Trump ) uses battleship diplomacy anymore. China therefore wins. HK'rs show how naive they are believing in the Orange.
Europe? No one cares what those no hope deadbeats say or think. Their defence is around NATO (underwritten by the US) so, China would have to do a Genghis Khan to get them to take notice - so - no. There are not going to help because China doesn't do that because they know they do not have the tools to win. Like Russia they win by spreading confusion and aiming to destabilise. It's a Marxist / Leninist thing.
US will stop trade? Well then, China stops buying US debt, that alone is enough to stop the US in their tracks. Trump has piled up so much debt lining the pockets of his rich friends, that this trade is essential just to stand still. China chooses to nationalise all foreign factories? US loses again because their ( right or wrong ) capitalist system is based on cheap free trade which caused them to sell their soul to the China cheap labour market in the first place. Like the British textile and china industries, China has all your machinery and your technology ( thanks Elon Musk, GE, GM, etc etc ) that they can trade on without you thanks but the reverse in the short term is not true without more cost ( remember the debt market ), so .... China wins again because of capitalists ( good or bad ) deciding that the bottom line is more important than long term security. Thanks all you hedge funds that force companies to continually out perform the market to keep it's share price viable.
The only chink ( not racist ) in the Chinese wall is the people. Make them poor again or make them feel they WILL be and they WILL rise up and that is Xi basically sitting on the beach at Beidaihe swapping "what if" stories with Zhang and Hu. For that to happen he would have to lose the support of the PLA and his family is deep into them, so no, not expected. That is how he has managed to have himself declared "The Core" after all.
Long story short - we are f***ed. My 16 year love affair with this place is over and talking to local friends they all envy my passport to be able to contemplate a plan B. Oft quoted is "we have a BNO" and it is sad to think they hold store in believing the UK will honour anything with that. This is a sad time that will progress to a bad time and then further to a REAL BAD time.
I do not want to be offensive to our beloved multicultural community whom I think should be a model for a lot of countries BUT I can imagine what some people thought in 1933 as a certain political appointee made himself " King for life" and the Enabling Act of the same year led not.....( because millions of Austrians did not die ) his own people to such destruction and turmoil. Too much? We shall see but "he who shall not be named" is getting close and I don't see a Harry Potter in my rear view mirror.