The End of Hong Kong

[Celerity]

China has moved to take away the city’s autonomy, one of several aggressive actions by Beijing across the region.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/05/china-hong-kong-pandemic-autonomy-law-aggression/611983/



Over the course of April and throughout May, while much of the world’s attention was trained on the coronavirus’s spiraling death toll, hardly a day passed in Hong Kong without news of arrested activists, scuffles among lawmakers, or bombastic proclamations from mainland officials. Long-standing norms were done away with at dizzying speed.

In that time, Beijing was undertaking aggressive actions across Asia. A Chinese ship rammed a Vietnamese vessel in the contested waters of the South China Sea, sinking it. Off the coast of Malaysia, in the country’s exclusive economic zone, a Chinese research vessel, accompanied by coast-guard and fishing ships—likely part of China’s maritime militia, civilian vessels marshaled by Beijing in times of need—began survey work near a Malaysian oil rig. The standoff that followed drew warships from the United States and Australia, as well as China. Beijing then declared that it had created two administrative units on islands in the South China Sea that are also claimed by Vietnam. Chinese officials have reacted, too, with predictable rage to Taiwan, whose handling of the pandemic has won plaudits and begun a push for more international recognition.

The moves were capped this week when China’s National People’s Congress announced that it would force wide-ranging national-security laws on Hong Kong in response to last year’s prodemocracy protests. In doing so, Beijing circumvented the city’s autonomous legislative process and began dismantling the “one country, two systems” framework under which Hong Kong is governed, setting up what will likely be a fundamental shift in the territory’s freedoms, its laws, and how it is recognized internationally. The announcement late Thursday evening stunned prodemocracy lawmakers, diplomats, and many of the city’s 7.4 million residents, who awoke Friday questioning Hong Kong’s future. The stock market plunged, interest in VPNs shot up, and Hong Kongers wondered whether 2047, the year in which China was set to take back full control of the city, had arrived more than two decades early. “I’m heartbroken,” Tanya Chan, the convener of the prodemocracy camp in the city’s legislature, told me. “Last night was a complete setback.”

Though much of the world has come to a standstill as a result of the pandemic, China’s regional ambitions and grudge settling clearly have not. Beijing has offered provocations—with a dash of propaganda and medical diplomacy—pushing forward its agenda despite the unfolding public-health crisis. “This is business as usual—in the South China Sea, towards Taiwan—it’s all the same,” Greg Poling, a senior fellow with the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., told me. “Business as usual during a pandemic that people partially blame on you—it is more scandalous.”

snip

[procon]

1. The timing is rather obvious when China

seems certain that a weak America under the lax leadership of Trump poses no threat to the takeover of Hong Kong. With a little flattery Trump can be persuaded to ignore or even endorse China's threat to democracy.

[Kaiserguy]

3. The consequences of Trump weakness and failure to lead

will have a negative effect all over the world for a long time to come. Sad how many people all over are paying for our stupid citizens who elected and still support 45.

[chia]

6. +1,000

[gab13by13]

2. China found a weak spot,

it can just stop buying pork and soybeans again right before the election. No way can Trump put more tariffs on China with people hurting for money.

[pazzyanne]

4. Au' contraire, mon amie.

You forget that tRump and cult believes that China pays for the tariffs. Only his followers believe that. We all know the truth that it is us who pays them.

[Lonestarblue]

5. I think Xi will make some insignificant concessions to make Trump look good.

It’s obviously in China’s best interests to have a second term for Trump because they know that Trump is weak and will not stand in their way toward global dominance. With weak to useless US leadership, nothing will stand in the way of China reclaiming Taiwan and forcing their citizens to live under Chinese rule, as well as expanding their technology dominance around the world. The US is losing its edge, and it will continue to do so because many of the brightest foreign students no longer feel welcome here. Immigrants start new businesses at a higher rate than native borns.

Europe has already thumbed its nose at the US by refusing to heed Trump’s calls not to use China’s 5G network. The US was not even a player since Sweden and Finland are the other major options. I wish Trump supporters could understand that what they are gaining from Trump with some rabid, right-wing racist judges who might change some domestic policy is nothing compared to the destruction Trump has caused for the US in the international arena. We will be paying the consequences for decades because it is too late to stop China from its aggression, especially with another 8 months of Trump in charge.

[RVN VET71]

7. Xi is done with Trump

And I think this Hong Kong move is, among other things, a show of absolute disdain for Trump. Xi may be making a mistake, of course. If he guts Hong Kong's ability to operate with freedom in the world of finance, he will hurt China's efforts to enter and dominate that sphere. But he doesn't necessarily care about that -- not if he's made moves to protect his own position with the "Glorious People's Republic of China" -- by which, of course, is meant, the Communist Party of that over-populated nation.

But here's something bugging me about all of this: Trump has made mention of the need and his own desire to begin testing nuclear weapons once again. Yeah, a stupid idea, a moronic idea and, therefore, in Trump's cult, a brilliant idea. But what if the prompting to do this came from someone in the Administration with Trump's ear, someone with nastier military ambitions for the cult and the nation it has subverted? What I'm saying is that testing a hydrogen bomb at this time might be more than just rattling the nuclear saber for Xi's benefit.

And Xi may back away because of it -- or rattle his own nukes. Mao, the glorified somewhat corpulent murderer who established the Peoples Republic, said, long ago, that his country could easily sustain the loss of 250,000,000 to 500,000,000 people. So the question that sane people might ask, should Xi rattle his nukes at us, is whether Xi subscribes to Mao's belief. A second question that might be asked is whether the Chinese government has made serious preparations in the ensuing years (between Mao and now) to confront, survive, and emerge victorious in the worldwide nuclear rubble of what such a loss of people would entail?

Because we in America have a leader who is absolutely willing to take that gamble.

[Lonestarblue]

10. Scary thoughts but worth considering.

When Mattis and other traditional military leaders were still in the administration, I was somewhat comforted that they could talk Trump out of an order for a nuclear launch. I am no longer comforted because the rational people have left or been fired. Defense Secretary Esper has shown that he is a Trump sycophant who will do anything he wants. And as a former lobbyist for the defense industry, he knows how much money they would stand to make in a war.

The only thing that might stop Trump is if he is convinced that a nuclear launch would cost him the election, which it should.

[EX500rider]

11. China wants no part of a nuclear war with the US, no matter what preperations they have made.

2019, China has an estimated total inventory of 290 warheads, most without the range to reach the US.
The US 3,800 (2019).

[RVN VET71]

15. An old Irish (I think) adage about war:

The winners aren't the ones who inflict the most suffering but the ones who can bear the most suffering.

A Chinese leader, such as Mao, may imagine a post-nuclear war world in which the Chinese population survives and thrives -- maybe only a half of it, but what of that? Half of a billion and a half still puts China at the top in numbers. Mao, apparently, didn't take into consideration the ancillary destruction of such a war, for which see the ending scenes of Dr. Strangelove.

Is Xi more savvy than Mao? One prays he is.

Is Trump? It is to laugh.

(As I think of it, Xi is, definitely, more savvy than the fat mass murderer, and would not want to be a party to the kind of destruction a nuclear war would cause. For a moment, just a moment, I thought, well, that settles that. There will be no nuclear holocaust, then. But then I remembered the Gulf of Tonkin and the Maine -- 2 incidents that showed America does not need actual provocation to launch wars of death and destruction. And Trump's petulant query that essentially asked "What's the point in having nuclear weapons if we don't use them?"

[bronxiteforever]

9. +1 great points Lonestar

[bronxiteforever]

8. K&R. Great article. The discussion about Pompeo's failures

also illustrate the disastrous foreign policy in the era of Trump. Pompeo and Tillerson have pretty much destroyed the State Department and with Pompeo we have the added issue of his grifting.

[greatauntoftriplets]

12. I've been afraid of this since 1999.

[BrightKnight]

13. I get the impression that China doesn't take Trump seriously.

This is a really bad time to have a truly incompetent administration.

[Wounded Bear]

14. Why would anybody take Trump seriously?

He's a wimp.