Senate Asian Geopolitics

I guess, if the world works like the way Ghost thinks it does. But we're better than that, so no.

The whole point of Hong Kong as an SAR is higher autonomy and preservation of the democratic process enacted first by the British and guaranteed for another 30 years.

Beijing has continually encroached upon these procedural concessions. Most of the native Hong Kong Cantonese Chinese resent the mainlanders as a kind of crass, "nouveau-riche but with blue collar manners" invader class who are diminishing what the province had to offer; and they feel their identity and freedoms are being constantly eroded. As a result, there is a strong independence movement against China and a desire to have HK entirely self-governed.

Beijing has a few times banned politicians from standing for legislature elections because they're pro-independence. There's no smear here.

 

You're obsessed with me (and wrong about me, as usual).

 

No, Alpha was just channelling your ill-deserved confidence when discussing a world that doesn't exist. It's no less infuriating when others do it, don't worry.

 

Okay, well then this is the first I've heard of it. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm getting my news from the same places you do...Economist, the Diplomat...I've never heard of a Hong Kong independence movement.

 

Ender worked there as an English teacher for a while.

 

Regardless, there were some articles in the news a while back. About the umbrella protestors, and how polite they all were.

 

Question for those who are more knowledgeable about this sort of thing: What's the likely fallout going to be from the recent assassination of Kim Jong-un's brother?

 

China sanctions

China is halting all coal imports from North Korea in direct response to missile tests.

 

Totally expected and good riddance. Maybe it's not such a good idea to elect the daughter of a piece of **** dictator who ran on her father's legacy.

 

The South Korean corruption scandal has been among the most bizarre I have ever read up about.

 

South Korea has a presidential election today that nobody's covering, and it seems like Park's party isn't gonna win this if polls are correct.

 

The Economist articles about the movement and umbrella protests from The Economist and Foreign Affairs are more than a few. Just do a google search. Lots of good stuff about how Xi would deal with HK and some of the differences from his predecessors that might be gleaned from actions or inactions to the protests.

 

I am amazed someone hasn't heard of the Hong Kong independence movement, which received vocal support from the Bush administration.

 

And just a testament to how little this election matters, people revived older conversations now that this thread has been upped.

 

Most nations don't have their elections covered in great depth unless it portends some major policy shift? Is there, in this case? My understanding is that this was rightly eclipsed by the corruption of the previous administration and multiple commercial industries.

 

In further testament to this election's meaningless, Wocky chooses to criticize me instead of discussing the election.

 

As China-North Korea ties cool, Russia looks to benefit

 

Lord of Vivec, I'm literally asking you to share your knowledge. When I was the only one that understood about Elizabeth I didn't just pout about how no one cared. I tried to arrange for ways others to find out so they could join in.

I would love to talk about the Korean elections. I don't know anything about them. Can you help us all out here?

 

Yes, what are the alternatives to Park's party? I do know the Democratic candidate is growing in popularity, Moon, and that the Democratic Party has a less aggressive stance toward NoKo.

 

Yes, the only nugget of information I heard about this is that a candidate that is against confrontation with NK and is also opposed to the deployment of the THAAD system is gaining in popularity. But that's it.

 

Yes that is Moon. His party is seems, if not outright reconciliatory towards NoKo, then at least less aggressive towards it.

 

https://www.economist.com/news/lead...le-political-prisoner-holds-message-china-and

China’s conscience | Liu Xiaobo’s death holds a message for China
And for the West, too

print-edition icon Print edition | Leaders

Jul 15th 2017
LIU XIAOBO, who died on July 13th, was hardly a household name in the West. Yet of those in China who have called for democracy, resisting the Communist Party’s ruthless efforts to prevent it from ever taking hold, Mr Liu’s name stands out. His dignified, calm and persistent calls for freedom for China’s people made Mr Liu one of the global giants of moral dissent, who belongs with Andrei Sakharov and Nelson Mandela—and like them was a prisoner of conscience and a winner of the Nobel peace prize.
Mr Liu died in a hospital bed in north-eastern China from liver cancer (see article). The suffering endured by Mr Liu, his family and friends was compounded by his miserable circumstances. Mr Liu, an academic and author specialising in literature and philosophy, was eight years into an 11-year sentence for subversion (see our obituary). His crime was to write a petition calling for democracy, a cause he had been championing for decades—he was prominent in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Though in a civilian hospital, he was still kept as a prisoner. The government refused his and his family’s requests that he be allowed to seek treatment abroad. It posted guards around his ward, deployed its army of internet censors to rub out any expression of sympathy for him, and ordered his family to be silent. The Communist Party wants the world to forget Mr Liu and what he stood for. There is a danger that it will.

A cynical game
Western governments have a long history of timidity and cynicism in their responses to China’s abysmal treatment of dissidents. In the 1980s, as China began to open to the outside world, Western leaders were so eager to win its support in their struggle against the Soviet Union that they made little fuss about China’s political prisoners. Why upset the reform-minded Deng Xiaoping by harping on about people like Wei Jingsheng, then serving a 15-year term for his role in the Democracy Wall movement, which had seen protests spread across China and which Deng had crushed in 1979?
The attitudes of Western leaders changed in 1989 when Deng suppressed the Tiananmen unrest, resulting in hundreds of deaths. Suddenly it was fashionable to complain about jailing dissidents (it helped that China seemed less important when the Soviet Union was crumbling). From time to time the government would release someone, in the hope of rehabilitating itself in the eyes of the world. Western leaders were grateful. They wanted to show their own people, still outraged by the slaughter in Beijing, that censure was working.
By the mid-1990s China’s economy was booming and commerce consigned dissidents to the margins once again. In the eyes of Western officials, China was becoming too rich to annoy. The world’s biggest firms were falling over themselves to enter its market. America, Britain and other countries set up “human-rights dialogues”—useful for separating humanitarian niceties from high-level dealmaking. The global financial crisis in 2008 tipped the balance further. The West began to see China as its economic saviour. Earlier this month leaders of the G20 group of countries, including China’s president, Xi Jinping, gathered in Germany for an annual meeting. There was not a peep from any of them about Mr Liu, whose terminal illness had just been made known.

Time to name names
Why complain? China retaliates against countries that criticise its human-rights record. It restored relations with Norway only last year, having curtailed them after Oslo had hosted the Nobel ceremony in 2010 at which Mr Liu got his prize (as China would not free him, he was represented by an empty chair).
Moreover, Mr Xi is unlikely to listen. Before he took power in 2012 he scoffed at “a few foreigners, with full bellies, who have nothing better to do than try to point fingers at our country.” In office he has ratcheted up pressure on dissidents and others who annoy the Communist Party, helped by new security laws (see article). He is also embracing new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, which promise to monitor troublemakers more effectively (see article).
Yet there are good reasons why Western leaders should speak out loudly for China’s dissidents all the same. For one thing, it is easy to exaggerate China’s ability to retaliate—especially if the West acts as one. The Chinese economy depends on trade. Even for little Norway, the economic impact of the spat was limited. For another, speaking out challenges Mr Xi in his belief that jailing peaceful dissenters is normal. Silence only encourages him to lock up yet more activists. And remember that, for those who risk everything in pursuit of democracy, the knowledge that they have Western support is a huge boost even if it will not secure their release or better their lot.
A vital principle is at stake, too. In recent years there has been much debate in China about whether values are universal or culturally specific. Keeping quiet about Mr Liu signalled that the West tacitly agrees with Mr Xi—that there are no overarching values and the West thus has no right to comment on China’s or how they are applied. This message not only undermines the cause of liberals in China, it also helps Mr Xi cover up a flaw in his argument. China, like Western countries, is a signatory to the UN’s Universal Declaration, which says: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” If the West is too selfish and cynical to put any store by universal values when they are flouted in China, it risks eroding them across the world and, ultimately, at home too.
The West should have spoken up for Mr Liu. He represented the best kind of dissent in China. The blueprint for democracy, known as Charter 08, which landed him in prison, was clear in its demands: for an end to one-party rule and for genuine freedoms. Mr Liu’s aim was not to trigger upheaval, but to encourage peaceful discussion. He briefly succeeded. Hundreds of people, including prominent intellectuals, had signed the charter by the time Mr Liu was hauled away to his cell. Since then, the Communist Party’s censors and goons have stifled debate. The West must stop doing their work for them. Mr Liu’s work is, sadly, done.

 

So, hasn't your position generally been that values are not universal and therefore you'd disagree with this article?