> Critics say those freedoms are now under threat with China's recent moves and the UK has accused China of flouting the terms of its handover agreement, but China denies this.
To be more precise, last year or so Chinese government has issued a statement (on record, googleable) that HK handover agreement is not valid/recognized by them. So far there had been no consequences.
> China said on Friday the joint declaration with Britain over Hong Kong, which laid the blueprint over how the city would be ruled after its return to China in 1997, was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance. … Lu told reporters during a regular briefing on Friday that the document no longer binds China.
The problem with that is that the UK had been one of the first Western nations to recognise PRC, all the way back in 1950.
I think in hindsight, this was a big mistake on UK's part. Not that they shouldn't have recognised PRC eventually, but they should have held off doing so and extracted greater concessions in exchange. They gave away one of their biggest pieces of leverage at the very start of the game.
The only reason they handed it over at all is their lease on the New Territories ended in 1997 and it was impossible to defend or administer Hong Kong without them. Even if you are convinced that they are the "rightful owners" of the territory, the ROC probably wouldn't find any better way to square that circle than the British would, and it seems less like a gift than an albatross to give it to them and ask them to try.
If PRC was the same mess it was in the 50’s they could have ignored them without issue. The problem for the UK was they had something to lose from offending China and it was a politically tricky situation domestically. They needed to hand HK to someone and doing what was best for HK was never a serious consideration.
I mean, sure, they probably could push around a weak state in violation of international law more easily; that's how they ended up administering the territory in the first place. I can't see what that implies though; the situation would have been just as sticky for cross-Strait relations if not more so.
> Britain should have handed Hong Kong over to it's rightful owner, the Republic Of China.
LOL, just squirted the tea through my nose. That would have been an epic troll move. Unfortunately (for HK) the british empire had long lost its spine by that time and could only bully tiny nations, not powerful ones.
The Republic of China are a nation of people that ran away and started their own place after the PRC drove them out. Putting whether China is the rightful owner of Taiwan aside, that's a lot of politics and back and forth. But how would Taiwan be the rightful owner of Hong Kong in any case?
The treaty of Nanjing which gave HK to the UK was made between the Queen of England and the Emperor of China. The Republic of China was the successor state to the empire. The present official Chinese copy of the treaty is kept in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
Historically, the People's republic of China had to lobby the UN quite hard to take over the treaties and privileges (UN security council membership) which the Republic had assumed.
The remarks supposedly uttered by Trump on this topic [0] are one of the truer things he said: "Taiwan is like two feet from China. We are eight thousand miles away. If they invade, there isn’t a fucking thing we can do about it."
There's a lot of talk about standing up to China, but in concrete terms, what does that mean? It's hard to see how any "kinetic" action doesn't go nuclear. I think we should just stop poking the hornet's nest; the Chinese would be quite happy leaving the 1992 Consensus alone.
“Limited” nuclear war is one people are talking about, or else first use that’s so devastating that it removes the Chinese ability to respond. I think they’re ill considered but I suppose they are options.
> the Chinese would be quite happy leaving the 1992 Consensus alone.
No and that's the main issue. China has a long term strategy going all the way to 2049, the centenary of the revolution and Xi has repeatedly hinted that getting Taiwan back is part of it.
Modern China has an aggressively expansionist political strategy. Leaving China alone now would be making the same mistake which the world did with Nazi Germany in the 30s. Direct war is made complex by China's nuclear arsenal yet might be unavoidable in the long run but as of now all the diplomatic tools available should be used to contain them.
The way things are going right now is the US and Taiwan taking provocative actions to disturb the consensus and then acting like China is the aggressor when they respond.
Having boats in Tawai waters which China illegally claims is not an aggression. Would you mind reminding me of which country has been building artificial islands in the strait for military purpose for years and is now harassing civilian boats?
Sadly for the Chinese propaganda, the rest of the world still has access to free information.
The ROC nationalists "ran away" because they did almost all the anti-Japanese fighting during WWII, while the communists sat back and conserved their strength for the coming civil war. Which they proceeded to win.
> This would be the trend of the entire war. As two scholars note, “From 1937 to 1945, there were 23 battles where both sides employed at least a regiment each. The CCP was not a main force in any of these. The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.”
There are revisionists who cliam Chiang was better than commonly held but, for instance, this book presents the traditional view and pretty extensively quotes from frustrated American advisers who didn't think he had much interest in fighting the Japanese himself: https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Against-Sun-American-Japan/dp/0...
Do you have a page number for your claim? Because the mainstream view is that the KMT did much more to fight Japan than the CCP. It is bizarre for you to claim that Chiang "didn't have much interest in fighting the Japanese" when the KMT suffered the bulk of the casualties (and led most of the battles) in the war against Japan.
It's been a while since I read it and I have a digital copy but here's an excerpt from the beginning of chapter 15:
> The reality of the war in China was far different. The Chinese army had not fought a serious battle with the Japanese since 1938. In the western sense it was really not an army at all, but a coalition of warlord bands scattered over twelve “war areas” which roughly corresponded to groupings of the old provinces of Imperial China. Each local warlord functioned as war area commander; in this capacity he exercised both civil and military control. Many of the warlord armies were ill-equipped and poorly trained. They seldom fought the Japanese, serving mainly to buttress the power of the war area commander instead. The core of divisions directly under the control of the generalissimo were better trained and equipped. But even they were undermanned and lacked artillery; in most cases they were commanded by officers chosen more for their loyalty to the generalissimo than for their military prowess.6
> “ ‘The general idea in the United States that China has fought Japan to a standstill and has had many glorious victories is a delusion,’ ” wrote a member of the American military mission to China. “ ‘Japan has generally been able to push forward any place she wanted to. She has stopped mainly because of the fact that a certain number of troops can safely hold only a certain number of miles of front. . . . The will to fight an aggressive action does not yet exist in the Chinese Army.’ ”7
> Corrupt, demoralized, inefficient, and oppressive, Chiang’s Kuomintang government was uninterested in “aggressive action.” It was interested in surviving the war against Japan with its armies intact, ready to deal with the generalissimo’s rivals among the warlords and his far more dangerous enemies, the Chinese Communist forces of Mao Tse-tung. A handful of Americans on the scene, like Ambassador Clarence Gauss, a dour New Englander with few illusions, attempted to enlighten Washington about the actual state of things, but had no discernable impact.8
And here's some discussion of Mao found in chapter 17:
> Yet the Communists profited from their mistakes. Under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung (who blamed the setbacks on his rivals, whom he then purged), the Communists concentrated on guerrilla warfare by small, widely dispersed units; their strategy emphasized the importance of building a solid base of support among the peasants by living among them and sharing their burdens and hardships.38 As Japanese units were gradually withdrawn from northern China to meet the Allied attacks in the Pacific, the Communists stepped up their guerrilla attacks. The Ichigo offensive brought them still more opportunities. By the fall of 1944 the Communists controlled large portions of four provinces. Their base areas were established in territory supposedly held by the Japanese but where the latter were too weak or too thinly spread to exercise any real control.
> At the start of the Ichigo attacks, Vice President Henry Wallace, on a special visit to Chungking, had urged that the Communists and Nationalists attempt to settle their differences in the face of the common danger and that an American military mission be allowed to visit the Communist base areas in the north.39 Chiang reluctantly agreed. The so-called “Dixie Mission,” composed of a small group of American soldiers and foreign service officers under Colonel David Barrett, arrived at Yenan in July 1944.
> The men of the Dixie Mission were favorably impressed by the Communist display of energy and aggressiveness. Communist leaders like Chu Teh, Chou En-lai, and Mao Tse-tung—with their informality, homely manner and apparent frankness—struck the Americans as a favorable contrast to the traditionalism and ritual formality of Koumintang leaders in Chungking.40 Discussions were held; plans were made by Wedemeyer’s headquarters and the OSS for military cooperation between the Americans and Communists, and for the Communist forces to receive lend-lease military supplies and American military instructors. (The OSS had, in fact, already begun some elementary small-arms and demolition training for Communist soldiers.41) All these projects came to nought, however, because of the strong opposition of General Hurley who, shortly after Stilwell’s recall, had replaced Clarence Gauss as U.S. ambassador to China. Hurley was in the midst of tortuous and ultimately futile negotiations to persuade the Chinese Communists to enter a coalition government under Chiang’s leadership; he wanted to use access to military assistance as a bargaining tool.42
I'd say that the comparison of the number of traditional battles fought that you're offering as evidence does not make sense given the nature of the two forces.
Why are you misleadingly quoting this wall of text as if it supports your thesis when it doesn't?
The fact of the matter is that the KMT by far did most of the fighting against Japan. This was directly admitted by Lü Zhengcao himself. It is also the mainstream view held by war historians. See [0] for a quick summary. You are the one putting forth a revisionist thesis.
The CCP's priorities were clarified in the orders Mao issued to the Eighth Route Army:
The Sino-Japanese war affords our party an excellent opportunity for expansion. Our fixed policy should be 70 percent expansion, 20 percent dealing with the Kuomintang, and 10 percent resisting Japan.
There are three stages in carrying out this fixed policy: the first is a compromising stage, in which sell-sacrifice should be made to show our outward obedience to the Central Government and adherence to the Three Principles of the People [nationality, democracy, and livelihood, as outlined by Dr. Sun Yat-sen], but in reality this will serve as camouflage for the existence and development of our party.
The second is a contending stage, in which two or three years should be spent in laying the foundation of our party’s political and military powers, and developing these until we can match and break the Kuomintang, and eliminate the influence of the litter north of the Yellow River. While waiting for an unusual turn of events, we should give the Japanese invader certain concessions.
The third is an offensive stage, in which our forces should penetrate deeply into Central China, sever the communications of the Central Government troops in various sectors, isolate and disperse them until we are ready for the counteroffensive and wrest the leadership from the hands of the Kuomintang.
From [1]:
By the CCP’s own accounts during the war, it barely played a role. Specifically, in January 1940 Zhou Enlai sent a secret report to Joseph Stalin which said that over a million Chinese had died fighting the Japanese through the summer of 1939. He further admitted that only 3 percent of those were CCP forces. In the same letter, Zhou pledged to continue to support Chiang and recognize “the key position of the Kuomintang in leading the organs of power and the army throughout the country.” In fact, in direct contradiction to Xi’s claims on Wednesday, Zhou acknowledged that Chiang and the KMT “united all the forces of the nation” in resisting Japan’s aggression.
From [5]:
Of course, wariness of fighting Japan was not the only reason Mao preferred guerrilla tactics to mobile warfare. Political calculations were at work as well. By focusing on the construction of base areas behind Japanese lines, Mao knew the CCP could build up its strength and improve its position vis-a‘-vis the KMT. Years later, one of Mao’s secretaries would recall a revealing remark Mao made to Lin Biao after the revolution: “Some comrades believed the less land Japan occupied, the better, only later was there unified recognition: allowing Japan to occupy more territory is the only way to love your country. Otherwise, it would have become a country that loved Chiang Kai-shek.” This comment, made to close associates in confidence, suggests that Mao saw Japan’s invasion as an opportunity to boost the CCP’s position in its continuing struggle with the KMT.
For example, after the Hundred Regiments Offensive [4], Mao purged Peng Dehuai for "wasting resources" fighting the Japanese rather than the KMT.
Even the CCP itself has been (slowly) starting to publicly acknowledge the historical truth [2][3].
> From 1937 to 1945, there were 23 battles where both sides employed at least a regiment each.
Communist guerilla armies tend not to deploy regiments regularly. Mao discusses this in "On Guerilla Warfare". The NLF in Vietnam, the 26th of July movement in Cuba etc. we're not big on regiments.
Vietnamization and US withdrawal from Vietnam happened without much regiment deployment (other than the Tet offensive and a handful of other occasions). The guerilla tactics were fairly effective though.
"Guerrilla armies should fight like large, well funded armies" is a very old complaint that has been made. I'm sure the British and loyalists used it against George Washington.
If you look at the article, there's plenty more to make it clear the communists did no pulling:
> The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.”
and
> Specifically, in January 1940 Zhou Enlai sent a secret report to Joseph Stalin which said that over a million Chinese had died fighting the Japanese through the summer of 1939. He further admitted that only 3 percent of those were CCP forces.
Also, guerilla tactics are effective when the enemy is not willing to exterminate the enemy population. The Japanese absolutely were.
> I'm sure the British and loyalists used it against George Washington.
This is kinda overwrought. The US continental army did refrain from some continental-style line-up-and-shoot "tactics", but outside the south they engaged mostly in pitched battles. They didn't win by sniping redcoats here and there.
> The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.”
This is implausible, considering the Eighth Route Army (counted as the 18th Group Army by the Nationalists), which participated in e.g. the Battle of Taiyuan, started out with more than 30,000 soldiers and grew to several hundreds of thousands over the course of the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Route_Army
The only way you could come to the conclusion that the Communists only fought once is if you tried to assign all soldiers to either Nationalists or Communists, and discounted all Communist forces fighting as part of the United Front, which officially placed them under Nationalist command.
You broke the site guidelines egregiously with this comment. Posting insinuations like this without evidence (no, patterns that you think you see in downvotes are not evidence) is seriously against the rules here, for reasons I've explained hundreds if not thousands of times over many years.
I feel like "egregiously" is a little unfair, absent an aggravating factor. However, you're absolutely right, I'm absolutely wrong, and I apologize. This was an emotional and low-effort comment and I wish I could take it back. Mea culpa.
You're right - "egregiously" was excessive. Sorry about that bit and thanks for the open-minded reply. That is rare in cases like this so I appreciate it.
It is a very contentious discussion, and it seems like a lot of half-educated people are sharinng opinions. The way I understand it, today's population of Taiwan largely want to be an independent state, and all those uncreative jokes about ROC being the real China actually torpedo that.
I'm generally very careful with downvotes on this platform, as I think they should only be used when something is plain wrong or detrimental to the discussion. For me, your comment falls into the second category though; it doesn't add anything to the discussion, but seeks to rile up people to start downvoting or brigading others.
I think the idea of independence is still fairly contentious within Taiwanese politics, though they're currently governed by a pro-independence party so maybe that doesn't really matter. It is true, though, that the current cross-Strait consensus would be upset by Taiwan NOT claiming to govern the Mainland, making the "West Taiwan" jokes not make any kind of sense.
Well, it could be that there is an army of paid trolls targeting this relatively small and specialized forum, but it strikes me as much more likely that this is a contentious issue and not everyone feels the same way about it.
Considering how frequently I find people who just don't like what I have to say accusing me of being bought off by some state, company, or other entity, I find such accusations less than compelling when thrown around on so little evidence.
If we assume RoC is the rightful government for China as a whole, it stands to reason that they are also the rightful owner of Hong Kong, no?
And since one is a democratic government and the other is a totalitarian state actively comiting genocide, then I know whom I would want as my government.
But the question of whom you would want has nothing to do with who is the "rightful owner" or the one who enjoys the support of the people they claim to govern.
There are two theories of government: One says that they rule by divine right, the other says that they rule by the consent of the governed. One does not recognize human rights, the other does. I know which one I want to live under; I hope that those that argue the other never have the misfortune of experiencing their wish.
Let’s run with the second. Do you actually think the majority of the people who live in the PRC wish for their government to be overthrown? It is obvious to me that that is not the case.
I think it's pretty foolish to assume that just because a government is not elected means it doesn't enjoy substantial support, especially in the face of a galvanizing force like a foreign country seeking to destabilize it.
Your chatty, polite tone doesn't compensate for or conceal the fact that you're trying to provide justification for why a government that has suspended the democratic rights of its citizenry to choose its own government and their rights to freedom of expression isn't that bad.
What exactly is the aim of your litany of past comments in support of the CCP?
Am I to believe you just genuinely think democracy and individual liberties are not the preferred method of governance by most people around the world, and that you think the world is better off without them being campaigned for?
Under which form of government do you currently find yourself?
My polite tone is not meant to compensate for or conceal anything. Am I supposed to be rude and combative, especially in an environment where I'm well aware that my mostly-sympathetic view of China is unpopular? The aim of my "litany of past comments in support of the CCP" (how far are you digging? I post about all kinds of topics) is just sharing my opinion and the facts as I see them. In particular, I think our (i.e., the US, to answer your other personal questions) sudden turn on China is unwise.
I think it's probably true that many or most people like democracy and individual liberties, but I think it's equally true that these are not the sole criteria by which they decide which government they support. If they were, and that meant that China were ripe for regime change, Singapore would only be a little behind. I think the world is better off without them being "campaigned for" if "campaigning for" is instituting a big global chess game where we try to destabilize certain governments (and an honest accounting of those rarely ends up favoring one side as purely as we'd like to flatter ourselves).
I take objection to the polite tone because it is the kind that only a dispassionate academic could take when discussing the horrors that appeasement of the form of government you're advocating for will cause the citizens of those countries. You should seriously consider the real consequences of appeasement for people not as fortunate as you to live in the U.S. as you go about saying that we can't "prove" that a dictatorship which has suspended the rights to freedom of speech and elections doesn't have popular support.
You seem to frame this as me arguing in favor of the US, which makes it very easy for you to then rightly question the true objectives of the US and even the validity of its supposed moral authority.
I am simply discussing the validity of a government which has no individual liberty nor democratically elected leaders. This is unequivocally a tool for oppression and evil in the modern world. If you made friends who lived under communist regimes, and turned your abstract reasoning into concrete feelings, your feelings on this subject might change.
Well because I have, in fact, made a number of friends with Chinese people, I don't think we think should unleash a nuclear holocaust because we're unhappy with their government. Is this blunt enough for your liking?
You know, another thing I'll say about this is, your problem obviously isn't actually my tone. If I were combative and forceful in everything I said, you'd find a way to take issue with that too (probably more convincingly). Because your actual problem is you dislike the content of what I'm saying. Fine. Argue against it, or ignore it, but let's not waste our time pretending there is any manner I could possibly present the same view that you wouldn't find fault with.
Victims of communist regimes all have terms for Westerners like you who make apologetic arguments in favor of their dictators from the safety of a Liberal democracy.
The role you're playing and your perspective is nothing new in the last century of fascist dictators depriving people of rights under the banner of communism.
And again, you're framing it as an American vs China thing (nukes?). You're a useful tool of the CCP, even adopting their talking points and framing it in the ways they do when they indoctrinate their own citizenry.
Your final argument sounds like a doctor complaining that the patients family won't like hearing the news that insurance won't cover cancer treatments no matter what tone they use. The content you are delivering is in support of cruelty and evil in the world, I'm protesting that you try packaging it in courtesy to disguise that fact.
I think presenting my views politely is better than just personally attacking the character of people talking to me and accusing them of being dupes. Clearly you see it differently, and I welcome you to engage in mud-slinging with others whose idea of a productive discussion better matches yours.
They didn't take it over "forcibly", they took it over with popular support from the Chinese people. If that doesn't grant you legitimacy I honestly don't know what would.
US does not support any idea other than handover. It is called handover in English, but somehow in Chinese it is return to china or hand back to china. Subtle but substantial difference. ( Only New Territories belongs to the them, not Kowloon or HK Island ) Deng Xiaoping also made it explicitly clear, hand it back or soldiers will cross border.
If they dare to hand it over to ROC, they might as well kept it themselves.
> It is called handover in English, but somehow in Chinese it is return to china or hand back to china.
The UK recognizes the PRC as the successor regime of China, and thus the rightful owner of all that's due of the UK to China under the various treaties between them.
Somehow? That's how.
> Only New Territories belongs to the them, not Kowloon or HK Island
Kowloon and HK Island had always been Chinese territory. The British defeated China in a series of wars, mostly for the right to sell opium in China, and took them as spoils.
When China became strong enough to defeat the British, they wanted them back, and there's nothing the British could do except handing them back.
Just as I suspected, you did know the history, you were just feigning ignorance.
So I suspect you do know the relevant internation laws as well. But allow me to quote myself:
> The UK recognizes the PRC as the successor regime of China, and thus the rightful owner of all that's due of the UK to China under the various treaties between them.
You are free to live in your make-believe world in which Kowloon and HK island were never part of China. The rest of us? We live in the real world.
>You are free to live in your make-believe world in which Kowloon and HK island were never part of China.
Qing Dynasty?
And forget about the history part, It is rather obvious you dont know the difference between China the country or land ruling under CCP or China itself as an entire entity.
I fear that West Taiwan is going to invade East Taiwan, and it’s going to happen while the President of the United States is bumbling his way through another press conference. I think it’s highly likely that China views the United States is very weak right now, and they may take this decision to invade.
I find the lack of understanding of what is happening a little bit baffling (and comic at times).
We are used to living in countries where people have rights. We have constitutions which guarantee citizen these rights and make the governments subservient to the population. Our government is elected by the people directly or indirectly and technically works for us.
This is not the case with China. In China, people have no innate rights. Any rights they have, are given by the ruling body, whether it is an emperor or its continuation, the CCP.
For China, what they are doing in Hong Kong is completely normal. They have been doing the same to their own mainland population for thousands of years and the changeovers from monarchy to communist party is basically cosmetic.
China does not recognize Human Rights and so it is difficult to say they are "breaking" them.
It is a construct we made for ourselves in countries that technically the people are governing themselves (ie democracies).
This is an abstract concept in China. Just as if Iran started accusing Canada of breaking Sharia.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not absolving China of the crimes they are committing. Just because something is legal in China doesn't mean it is not a crime. We can and we should react to this and try to bring basic rights to Chinese people.
But it is much more complex and delicate problem than people try to make it.
> China does not recognize Human Rights and so it is difficult to say they are "breaking" them.
Whether or not China recognizes human rights doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not they are breaking them.
The international community recognizes human rights at least on some level, and it’s not particularly useful to use China’s perspective as a lens here any more than it would be useful to judge other atrocities throughout history through the eyes of the perpetrators.
Edit: Adding [0] for consideration as some responses seem unaware.
A right without enforcement is just a nice idea. I don't think we've ever had anything close to international human rights. It is not remotely obvious how a framework of global human rights would work in current times.
Poorly, and with lots of violations, is how I imagine the framework would work, but by having such a framework we have something that we can refer to, something that we can point to when countries aren't living up to it.
Yes, it is just a peace of paper, except that it is also not once it becomes something to fight for and something that people believe in.
The US declared itself independent while British troops were in the country. It asserted rights against somebody else who didn't recognize them.
And that worked well enough that later people would refer to those assertions when debating freeing the slaves, and it was that which MLK was able to refer to in his speech.
I won't live long enough to see international human rights become a norm and neither will anybody else alive right now. But that doesn't mean that it isn't important that we start creating the norm now.
> A right without enforcement is just a nice idea.
There was a time that all of these were just "nice ideas" in the US
- Same sex marriage
- Women having the right to vote
- People of color having the right to freedom
- And on the list goes
Most of these rights were not enforced, or even recognized until people fought either with pens or with weapons and progress was made.
I linked to the UN's framework for this in my parent comment, and while I agree that this is an incredibly hard problem to address globally, we shouldn't discount the value and power of "nice ideas".
This is poor logic, even if we agree on the ultimate result.
> Whether or not China recognizes human rights doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not they are breaking them.
"Whether or not your country recognizes Sharia doesn't have any bearing on whether or not you are breaking it and you should be prosecuted for breaking it."
See how stupid your logic sounds when it is told from another perspective?
If you want to fight for something at least try to understand what makes you right and the other one wrong.
Humanism? How do you check this? Why not “It’s extremely probable that economic development brought the quickest most effective reduction of human suffering”? Why not “Fossil fuels brought the quickest reduction of suffering”?
Maybe our interest for humanism depleted when we had to get rid of fossil fuels because of climate change; at which point we noticed that humanism was only a pipe dream atop a fossil-dependent society, and coal had made our life much easier for a short period of time, until we fell into hard times again.
Killing millions of innocent people in a pointless war does not seem like a very good way too prove that all countries should respect human rights. I mean as oppressive as the Chinese government is almost all of the people they oppress in Honkong or the mainland are still much better of (and more free) than they would be during or after WWIII regardless of who won. And claiming that it would be the right way to solve these "irreconcilable" differences is much more antithetical to the Declaration of Human Rights than whatever China is doing now...
We don't have to kill them. Instead, we just have to recognize where they are wrong, and oppose them as much as is feasible.
If there was a modern day nazi nation, that was genoiciding people en mass, that had nukes, such that invasion was impossible/mutually destructive, the answer would be the same.
Yes, sometimes it is difficult to stop all the bad things that evil people are doing. But that does not change the fact that those actions are still clearly evil and should be opposed where possible.
> And claiming that it would be the right way to solve these "irreconcilable" differences is much more antithetical to the Declaration of Human Rights than whatever China is doing now...
I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying its inevitable.
>hat only means that there is an irreconcilable gap between the moral cornerstones of civilisations, and because of that, we will at some point have some huge war to figure out which one will turn out to be right.
This sound like the "trial/judgement by combat", that the Gods will favor the guys with the "right" morals. My hope is that education/information in all camps would slowly but surely increase the global level of empathy,
> This sound like the "trial/judgement by combat", that the Gods will favor the guys with the "right" morals.
That specific comment was made in the light of the statement 'even if you make a convincing argument for moral relativism'. At that point there is no longer a right or wrong, there is just "this exists" and "this does not exist".
The difference is that the other perspective is wrong, and ours is much closer to being correct (even if it still has problems).
So that is why your statement is silly.
And before you say it, no, I do not care about any of your arguments about cultural relativism.
I am perfectly happy, saying that people who, for example, want to kill gay people, have morals that are wrong, and that our morals, which are that we shouldn't do that, are correct.
the "international community" is dominated by an affluent western minority that had no qualms about pillaging the rest of the world for centuries with no regards for human rights. _This_ is the Chinese - no, the foreign - perspective. If we think it's not useful to consider then so be it, we'll be locked in cold war for the foreseeable future. Personally I think there are more productive methods than hypocritical grandstanding.
Looking back at what other countries did centuries before is a weak argument for justifying what one does today. The “international community” includes more than a western minority when it comes to the issue of Hong Kong.
yes, basically the argument against 'whataboutism'. however I have a hard time to process the idea of 'follow what I told you, not what I have done' attitude.
The affluent Western minority is led by an anti-colonial rebellion whose record on this issue, while nowhere near perfect or even an absolute good, is the best of any major power in the history of humanity.
When China says "You know what, China? No. We will not break our own agreement. How could you even suggest that? Hong Kong is sovereign" (as the United States recently did in McGirt v. Oklahoma), then we can talk about whataboutism. Until then, that kind of argument is utterly unconvincing.
Sure is easy to give ourselves a good grade when we're also the judges. Shall we discuss track records of interference in external affairs? How many foreign regimes have we toppled in comparison?
Always disappointing to see such vitriolic rebuttals to the mere idea of considering a Chinese perspective.
The issue is its not a Chinese perspective, it's the CCP perspective. The Hong Kong narrative inside the mainland is heavily guided by the media in China. You average Chinese person either has no opinion or just repeats the Party line, because they don't know much else.
It is a cornerstone principle that all people everywhere have innate rights. The entirety of the Enlightenment is based on this idea. And while China may be actively involved in oppressing these rights domestically, it tacitly endorses them on the international stage.
Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better.
One of my political science professors in college claimed that they used to struggle to translate constitutional documents to Chinese, as they didn't even have an agreed upon word for "human rights" until the 1970s or so.
I think this is what the parent was trying to communicate. All humans may have certain inalienable rights, but not all humans fully understand the concept, let alone demand (or even desire) that their rights be respected.
It's kind of mindblowing to contemplate, but enlightenment thought has yet to deeply penetrate the mainland Chinese populace.
> One of my political science professors in college claimed that they used to struggle to translate constitutional documents to Chinese, as they didn't even have an agreed upon word for "human rights" until the 1970s or so.
That claim appears to not be true. And since many Western concepts (like all the specialist communist terminology) made their way to Chinese through Japanese words using Chinese characters, if it _were_ true it would seem like it'd imply something about Japan too. Japanese uses a word with the same characters but I couldn't run down a good citation of the first dates all of these appeared besides the ngrams.
Half the point of civilization is accepting the fact we're all terrible people ready to stab each other in the back to get ahead and deciding not to do so so we can actually take a shot at building something great.
And honestly, that's a trick question, because one is a subset of the other. Despicable people being a superset of moral relativists.
The enlightenment was a European ideology. China is influenced still by Taoism, which has very different belief structure that emphasizes harmony with the masses over the individual.
> The enlightenment was a European ideology. China is influenced still by Taoism
That doesn't mean one isn't morally right and one isn't morally wrong.
If you want a hint for which one is which: one asserts that every living person has basic human rights. The other has frequent videos of people ignoring people who are dying, are currently destroying an indigenous population in concentration camps, and when a novel virus broke out, first shut up scientists trying to get the news out, then underplayed it, and then as it started spreading saw citizens weld shut doors of people suspected of having that virus.
>If you want a hint for which one is which: one asserts that every living person has basic human rights. The other has frequent videos of people ignoring people who are dying...
A big argument I see by Chinese nationalists online, which I think carries validity, is that Western governments who enshrine human rights and democracy in their constitutions throw their weight behind horrific dictators that support their business interests and suppress democratic movements that don't.
Basically, Western governments aren't more moral than China; just more constrained by our institutions.
Regarding the lack of good samaritanism in China, this is a recent thing stemming from a 2000s legal case where a man was sued after taking an injured girl to hospital.
Most Chinese, especially the older ones, find this aspect of their culture abhorrent and there are active campaigns against it in several cities.
I'm not sure who/what you're replying to here. I wasn't making a moral judgement at all. I'm just correcting the GP suggesting that the Enlightenment is somehow a universal ideal (the way I read it), when that's far from the case. In fact there have been many ideologies even in Europe since then dealing with criticism of each former philosophical movement.
Meanwhile it's undeniable that Taoism is a major cultural cornerstone of China and very much affects how the state and its population are related. Thus "Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better." is actually quite an ignorant statement that applies a specific moral lens to the entire world without acknowledging the lack of universality in ideals across humanity.
> Thus "Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better." is actually quite an ignorant statement that applies a specific moral lens to the entire world without acknowledging the lack of universality in ideals across humanity.
The existence of other frameworks of morality doesn't mean that there isn't one True Morality. It just means that some people act against it.
And that One True Morality is from the Enlightenment? Humans have existed a lot longer than the Enlightenment and battled with ideals of morality throughout the ages. To suggest that there's somehow a single philosophy that's correct is quite pompous.
> And that One True Morality is from the Enlightenment
Probably not, because anything human will only be an approximation. It's probably a whole damn closer than the Chinese morality though.
> To suggest that there's somehow a single philosophy that's correct is quite pompous.
Why? In science we accept that there's one true way that any process can be described. Others might be entirely wrong (theory of Humors), or partially wrong, but useful (Newtonian physics). Why is the notion that there's on true moral framework so outlandish?
No living creature enjoys suffering therefore do no action of intent which causes suffering to any other living thing. That's the One True Morality and every person can measure it for themselves because all of us is directly connected to suffering.
It's not pompous, it's reasonable, as in it's a deduction that anyone can make for themselves with the reason they have, applied to the vessel they were born with.
I am an American that loves to read the Global Times sometimes because it often has brilliant pieces. Media like we use to have before the internet.
Chinese leaders might even understand America better than we understand ourselves.
I had just read an op ed the other day how America has no strategic thinkers in positions of power at this point. Someone like Kissinger. I don't even know how to argue with that because we don't. We don't even have the political will to want someone like that. We want a circus. China can see this, we are basically blind to it.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted, because it is most likely true.
Focus in Western civilization shifted to trivia. We are spending all our effort deciding whether or not to take vaccines rather than deal with this problem efficiently and talk about really important problems like, you know, future of our civilization.
I am very well aware that Taoism is thousands of years old. I have an undergraduate honors thesis on the confluence of Taoist traditional thought and Buddhist influences expressed in the Lieh Tzu. I have spent considerable energy trying to convince Western military fans of Sun Tzu to teach it in its proper context, such as by requiring reading Lao Tzu first. You can stop being condescending at any point.
Your argument appears to be that modern Chinese actions should not be judged against the rubrics of Western philosophy. I disagree because I do not believe in moral relativism. However, if their actions are to be judged only against the rubrics found in, e.g., Taoism, then judge them against those rubrics.
Do you have anything approaching a good faith argument that the actions of China with regard to Uyghurs, Tibet, greater Guangdong (including HK), or any of the countless ethnic or political minorities in China comport with an ideal of harmony?
I’m not being condescending at all. I’m not even sure what came off as condescending, but I apologize if it did.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to debate here. I’m replying to the idea of a universal set of human rights, and that somehow the enlightenment is relevant to this globally, and that “moral relativism is lazy.” So I bring up that the enlightenment is specific to a set of cultures versus being globally accepted, and even within those cultures, there have been many philosophical movements since. Thus there isn’t some universal way that humans think about each other, or actions onto each other, and most importantly, China has been influenced by a different set of ideals that are thousands of years old.
You then bring up abhorrant behavior of current CCP, when in fact I’m talking about something more timeless - ideals. Atrocities have been committed worldwide under just about every philosophical guidance, including those who have been influenced by Enlightenment. Philosophy and religion can always be twisted to suit the needs of whoever is in power, and the majority/base from which they pull their power.
If by "invaded it" you mean "dropped two nuclear weapons on its enemies, saving it from utter destruction, and then mostly let it do its thing and even helped them grow economically," then sure.
I know the Chinese government themselves are just as given to engaging in it, but the idea of talking about "thousands of years" of Chinese administration as if there's no real difference between China's various dynasties and the modern state makes about as much sense as considering the Firth Republic as representing an unbroken chain going back to Charlemagne.
History has shown that there is absolutely nothing the CCP can do to provoke the west to care more about the freedom of Chinese citizens than we do about thr availability of cheap goods for consumers.
Xi could literally kill 60m of its own peoples, and the west wouldn’t even declare sanctions.
Not enough of a threat for the western world to cut them off. Until everyone stops trading with them, they'll keep getting richer and developing themselves.
> China has around 1/5'th of the emissions per capita compared to western countries. It's western countries that are a threat to the environment.
China has roughly twice the per capita CO2 emissions of the UK, France or Italy (about 10 tonnes per capita to 5). It’s 2019 level of 10.1 tonnes per capita is significantly than higher the European average of 6.6 tonnes, but less than the US average of 17.6 tonnes.
These statistics don't take into account consumption based emissions, only production based emissions (except oil production, I believe). Western countries have outsourced their production to developing countries (which looks nice for them on emission graphs), but their consumption based emissions are steadily rising. If you take into account trade of goods as well as production of goods, it's not as nice of a picture as those graphs would have you believe.
So I researched this a bit. Accounts vary on this.
The RCG source I linked above puts China's territorial CO2 emissions at around 14 gigatons and China's consumption based emissions (accounting for place of consumption) at around 13 gigatons. So that's not actually a particularly significant adjustment.
The Global Carbon Project also attempts to quantify this. They put China as a net exporter of CO2 to the order of 0.7 tons of CO2 per capita in 2018. Compared to this Western European countries imported around 1-2 tons of CO2 per capita (https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2). According to Global Carbon Project estimates China's 2018 CO2 consumption was similar to that of France or Spain. Of course since 2018 China's economy and CO2 emissions have continued to grow.
So to summarize even adjusting for place of consumption China's CO2 emissions are at best broadly similar to those of Western Europe and certainly not 5x lower as originally implied. That said the US is definitely a worse emitter per-capita.
That aside I think the problem of consumption based emissions accounting is that it ignores the impact of different industrial development choices made by different countries. For example if China chooses to burn dirty coal so that it can provide cheap energy to increase the competitiveness of its exporters that's okay, it's the fault of the countries taking those exports not China.
Wonder how much of this is Chinese emissions being construction driven, especially on "new" stuff developed west gets to hide into historical emissiond data. This is the same in most developing countries who need to build on massive scale for the first time if they want to be uplifted from outdated building stock. More so in Asia lacking in renewable construction materials like wood. So we get stats like China using more concrete in a few years than US in last century. PRC is still at 60% urbanization rate. Even accounting for ghost city memes and 60M+ empty apartments, that's still ~300M dwelling units and infrastructure short for 80% urbanization goal in next 50 years. Unless there's significant building material improvements, China and many other countries still has a lot of emissions to "catch up". And for the purpose of development and alleviating poverty, the faster the better.
>it ignores the impact of different industrial development choices made by different countries.
That's another consideration that seperates PRC, who is actually competent at expediently building massively, both politically and industrially. A capability many countries lack. Majority of countries are unable adopt emission heavy policies even if they wanted to. Would be interesting to see projected US emissions if they could actually pursue uncompromised infrastructure plan. Something like total emission of plan since it'll likely be stretched over much longer period due to how slow US builds. Or what was Europe / Japan / Korea's per capita emission rebuilding the country post war which is akin the the breadth and speed of developement in China.
Those statistics are very incomplete, as they don't measure the emissions connected to the whole lifecycle of products, but rather seem to track only a weighted average of production based emissions (which appears to be their definition of consumption based emissions).
In order to get a realistic measure, we need to keep track of the whole product lifecycle, from gathering materials and production, to lifetime usage, waste disposal and reabsorption into the earth and atmosphere. This multiplies the total sum of emissions many times over, and heavily disfavours high-consuming per capita countries.
If we compare household consumption rates, China is emitting only a fraction of that of western households. In terms of money spent, consumption per capita of the US is about 6-7 times larger than that of China.
The statistics I posted make a reasonable attempt to quantify consumption based emissions. If you have a better source I’d be interested in seeing it.
Just stating dollar based household consumption values seems like a very poor proxy though. It assumes each dollar of consumption is equally emissions intensive and ignores non-household consumption.
More fundamentally though shifting accounting for emissions to place of consumption absolves China of responsibility for its own industrial development choices.
China is free to have lose (or laxly enforced) emissions standards to make its industry more competitive. For example China’s free to produce huge amounts of steel in inefficient blast furnaces instead of using more efficient, more expensive methods.
According to consumption accounting all the responsibility for those emissions falls on the countries consuming those goods, even if they might not have ever wanted their industry to be undercut by cheap imports. It assumes that all the benefits of the CO2 emissions accumulate with the country consuming the goods, not the country producing the goods.
According to the most obvious metric (territorial emissions) China’s per capita are significantly higher than Europe but trail those of the US.
Such data, when generally available, will give us a better picture of the overall global situation.
> Just stating dollar based household consumption values seems like a very poor proxy though
I think it is, actually. Western citizens and US citizens in particular does not only have a much higher expenditure of consumer goods, the goods they prefer have higher emissions connected to them also.
Here is a report from 2015 about Germany's average household emissions:
“In the years when HCEs were first reported (1995 in China, 1990 in Canada and 1997 in UK), per person HCEs in China, Canada and the UK were 0.54 tCO2, 13.54 tCO2 and 9.63 tCO2, respectively. These values had changed to 1.77 tCO2, 13.14 tCO2, 8.20 tCO2 by the end of reporting (2011 in China and UK and 2007 in Canada),”
As you can see, such analyses paints a very different picture, one where western households appears to be the main driver of global emissions. And thus the focus on production based emissions is largely a red herring, due to the fact that China has to catch up in infrastructure. The emissions tied to western infrastructure have already been emitted.
In essence, China has become the scapegoat of the guilty conscience of the west, who will twist the data in such a way to paint themselves in the most flattering light they can, and China in the worst possible way.
> It assumes that all the benefits of the CO2 emissions accumulate with the country consuming the goods, not the country producing the goods.
All countries have a responsibility for decreasing emissions tied to the production of goods, but all goods are essentially produced for the global market and as such is driven by global demand. Hence consumption is the most important measure when delivering blame. Moreover, if hypothetically western Europe had been forced to produce the goods that China produces (per capita) and vice versa, the emissions tied to European production would rapidly increase, and the production of them would naturally become much dirtier as well due to the limited amount of green energy and cheapness of dirty sources of electricity. So delivering the blame on countries for the production of goods assumes the impossible alternative scenario where the west hypothetically could do a lot better in terms of production. It’s not clear that they could.
The figure of 1.5 tonnes you gave for China only looks at direct household energy consumption sources (I.e fuel, heating and electricity). It’s not at all comparable to the German paper.
The figure of 1.7 tonnes is only for household consumption figures from 2011. China’s economy (and emissions) has grown enormously in the last 10 years.
These aren’t fair comparisons based on recent data, and they only look at household consumption.
And I’d maintain that China bares responsibility for its industrial development and energy mix choices. No one has forced those choices on China. China has pursued those policies with the aim of increasing export competitiveness, often at the cost of manufactures in western nations.
We don't have exact data for the entire product life cycle emissions, but the data I provided give some indications of the difference in scale. What we can see is that
1) Household emissions represent the largest share of global emissions
2) Household emissions are very roughly proportional to expenditure
So while we don't have exact numbers, the 1/5'th estimate is actually roughly on the spot given the disparity in household consumption. I'll also just reiterate my point that temporarily building infrastructure in order to catch up with western countries is not blameworthy in itself. While the production has much room for improval in terms of emissions, it is wrong to blame China for the emissions simply for existing.
At any rate, the narrative that China is the most blameworthy actor falls flat on its face. The take-away should be that, as the German paper mentions, that we must drastically reduce household emissions in order to reach our climate goals.
Instead, the debate is mostly political and one-sided, where the ideal (i.e. most convenient) goal for western policy makers appears to be to put an end to or hamper China's infrastructure projects which are crucial to the welfare of the Chinese people, and by extension, the peoples of other nations affected by the Belt and Road initiative. To me, it suspiciously looks like the climate debate in the media has been to some degree hijacked by forces that seeks to undermine China's Belt and Road initiative.
>China has around 1/5'th of the emissions per capita compared to western countries. It's western countries that are a threat to the environment. China is also the largest investor in green technology globally.
But western countries emissions have been gradually declining while China's has been increasing rapidly. China being the largest investor in green energy is a red herring because they are also the biggest investor in coal because of an expanding electricity grid.
>Are you aware of Snowden's leaks? Of Wikileaks? US military and intelligence is active and aggressive around the entire globe. China is not.
And I wouldn't doubt that China has it's own military and intelligence operations. And China is just as aggressive, did you forget about the recent Microsoft hacking scandal? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27881219
> Through direct action and funding of terrorist groups, the US is responsible for the death and displacement of tens of millions innocent people in the middle-east and Africa just for the past few decades. The US government is a much bigger threat than the rest of the world combined.
Versus China who supports autocratic regimes such as North Korea, Syria and the Taliban who repress their populations with death and suffering? I don't know of any death and displacement of people as a result of US military action in Africa, but the middle east is complicated because of geopolitics and most notably Arab Spring, which the US did not really have any direct action and was mainly Arab nation's citizens to topple their regimes.
>China managed the spread of Covid within their borders in an excellent manner. Many western countries had a catastrophically bad reaction to the pandemic with many millions dead. Only a handful dead compared to literally millions? Who's the biggest threat to human lives during pandemics?
I don't understand how western countries management of covid19 has got to do with anything. And at the end of the day, it was the Chinese government trying to cover up the disease from WHO and failure to contain the disease that allowed the disease to become a worldwide pandemic.
> But western countries emissions have been gradually declining while China's has been increasing rapidly.
This is a half-truth. Production based emissions have gone down in western countries and up in China. However, this doesn't take into account consumption based emissions, i.e. imported products, which are extremely high in western countries, and only going up. Western countries exporting production to developing countries does not absolve them of responsibility just because it looks nice on graphs. Unfortunately, the whole global emissions story only takes into account production based emissions, except for oil production, which AFAIK is measured as consumption based emissions (very convenient for some western countries, like the US).
> And China is just as aggressive, did you forget about the recent Microsoft hacking scandal?
The scope of US intelligence clandestine operations, including hacking, vastly exceed the entire worlds clandestine operations combined. Just as their military budget and activity does. We know this by Snowden's leaks. By Wikileaks. The US even regularly hacks western companies and governments (not to speak of non-western companies and governments), as well as forcing all US companies (by law) of handing them whatever information they demand. The entire US tech sector (including Google and Microsoft) is an enormous sink of information directly accessible to the US intelligence community. The scope of the crime of US intelligence is so enormous it can't even be compared to other nations.
> Versus China who supports autocratic regimes such as North Korea and Syria who repress their populations with death and suffering?
It's the US that keeps Syria in perpetual war. Whatever you think about the Syrian government, a country in war is way worse. It simply can't be compared in terms of human suffering.
> was mainly Arab nation's citizens to topple their regimes
NATO literally bombed Libya to dust, which resulted in creating the largest slave market in the world, and enormous human suffering. It's a terrible, awful situation for millions of people, who actually enjoyed peace and European-like material living conditions under Gaddafi. If we put this on a scale and compare, you'd have to be a pentagon war hawk or a totally ignorant person to prefer the former.
> And at the end of the day, it was the Chinese government trying to cover up the disease from WHO
Absolutely not, western corporate media certainly fronted that narrative, which actually triggered WHO researchers themselves to come out publicly and deny it, because it's simply a false narrative. The WHO leadership has literally praised China all along for their transparency and openness. As have the teams of WHO researchers who have visited China for investigations. The media narrative (as well as White House announcements) is the opposite, in direct conflict with the facts on the ground.
"But what about the US". We are talking about China but this is predictable at this point. You also avoided addressing half the things mentioned and gave me how China is managing Covid but what I had in mind was how it originated from China and China silencing its own doctor when trying to warn others about it. We can also talk about growing evidence of being lied to about the origination. And on the topic of emissions, China emissions exceed all developed countries combined, that includes India, Russia, US, the whole of Europe and more and it is still on the rise.
The talk about China is predictively ignorant and in conflict with facts. Since you're still mentioning total emissions instead of per capita emissions, I can only assume you have a political axe to grind.
Silly police. This noise actually signifies jubilation and support for the General Secretary of the CCP; it's just a cultural difference between HK and the mainland.
To be more precise, last year or so Chinese government has issued a statement (on record, googleable) that HK handover agreement is not valid/recognized by them. So far there had been no consequences.