Hmmm .. trick question ?<g>
No, it was not meant as a trick question. I understand that you have your own style with regard to capitalizations, and I assumed you were trying to be emphatic about HK belonging to China. Assuming you have strong opinions on what and who belongs to China, I was hoping to start a conversation about the foundations of your beliefs because, well, I am generally curious about such things.
But no, China proper (before current division) in fine European fashion, stole it FIRST LOL, from the first nations. … Taiwan was settled by Chinese who stole the land from first nations.
OK, so I think you are saying that Taiwan does not belong to China in the same way as HK.
To Natural Born China haters, it is cut and dry, but that rationale has nothing really to do with the welfare of any Chinese anywhere.
I am not sure what rationale you are referring to, but I will guess that it’s that the people of HK don’t have any right to self-determination and that they must eventually fully submit to the will of the Chinese Communist Party. This could be the central party’s rationale for ending the protests. On the other side, one possible rationale for the Hong Kong demonstrations would be the “one country, two systems” agreement. If HK felt that the CCP was violating the spirit and letter of the agreement, would they have a right to maintain the city’s basic law until at least 2047? To me, the basic law has everything to do with the welfare of HK. I don’t think many people would expect the basic law to apply to “any Chinese anywhere” even if it would actually benefit them.
For me personally, I always separate the Chinese Communist Party from the rest of the people, culture and history of China. My understanding is that the CCP operate as if the country belongs specifically to the them and not to the people. The PLA are supposed to show loyalty to the party and somehow not to the people of the country. I mentioned before that I believe in the rule of law, the consent of the governed and free speech for everyone on the planet. From this alone, I support the protesters in Hong Kong and I can’t support the CCP for anything other than self-defense, and even this is limited.
The Taiwan issue is like asking if North Korea belongs to South Korea or vice versa. There was essentially a civil war.
This is a good point. There are now two distinct countries and both are recognized by the United Nations. The British stole Hong Kong from the Qing Dynasty which ended in 1912, and then it changed to the Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek overthrew the Beiyang government in 1928, and this led to a civil war between the ROC and the CCP which ended in 1949. Through all this Hong Kong was its own distinct entity. The British were still too much of a colonial power to ever give away Hong Kong, but even if they had allowed the people to form their own government, HK would have likely been forcibly annexed by the CPP soon after.
Crimea comes to mind... and Qing Dynasty not equal to present day Russia.
OK, so present-day Russia recently annexed Crimea and the Qing Dynasty was never strong enough to annex back Hong Kong before it ended. I would like to make a general point about national behavior before and after the United Nations. There was a lot of annexing going on before the UN which led to two devastating world wars, and after the UN there have been fewer wars and casualties, and this is often referred to as the “long peace.” UN issued Resolution 68/263 regarding the “territorial integrity of Unkraine” had 100 nations voting for it and 11 against it. The countries voting against it were Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. As you know the annexation of Crimea led to Russia being expelled from the G8, and they worked hard on Trump to get him to reinstate them.
My point would be that forcibly annexing other people is not generally accepted in the modern world. Sort of like buying Greenland. |
