Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national security trial
367 comments
·December 15, 2025JumpCrisscross
jameslk
> One of the dark consequences of America losing its city-upon-a-hill aspirations is we're less able to effectively call out evil abroad.
"City-upon-a-hill" is marketing and has never been grounded in fact. It’s hubris and arrogance. The US is viewed as that place if you get on the wrong side of, it will bomb you or replace your government through coercion. It outspends every country on "defense" to ensure this.
History is littered with plenty of examples where the US favored a more authoritarian or "evil" government over less, sometimes even installing them. Arab Spring is a recent example where you saw governments replaced with the US' help, while leaving some notable monarchies alone.
In reality, the US employs its foreign policy for its own interests. It’s always been like that.
epistasis
The Arab Spring is a bad example if you're trying to say that the US is installing governments... South America's history provides far better examples.
That said, the US doesn't need to be perfect to still be an example of providing freedom for its own citizens.
jameslk
There’s a lot of examples, yes in South America too, but the US helped replace or tried to help replace some governments during the Arab Spring. Libya being the biggest example, where the US and its allies imposed a no fly zone to help topple a dictator it didn’t like [0]. It could have done that in other places, but you didn’t hear a peep from the US when those protests were crushed by their governments during the Arab Spring.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_...
psychoslave
States don't have friends, only interest (of transforming humans in bomb targets and genocide victims).
elektrontamer
> In reality, the US employs its foreign policy for its own interests.
Sometimes I'm not even sure it's for it's own interests.
phainopepla2
Most of the time when we people talk about the interests of a country they really mean the interest of a class of people within that country.
jandrese
Someone can be and asshole and still be right. It will be harder to convince other people to go along with you if you are an asshole, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't call out wrongdoing when you see it.
ngruhn
But you're word doesn't really have weight, if you did the same thing 10min ago.
glenstein
Which is a fair charge of ethical character, but not of truth. What makes whataboutism a fallacious rhetorical move is not that it fails to identify someone's ethical shortcomings, but that it tries to substitute them for subject matter.
The logic of whataboutism is fascinating, because as long as someone is deemed a bad enough actor, their statements have the effect of dynamically rewriting reality in real time to be the opposite of whatever Bad Actor says. Which, to my mind, gives them too much power. It's simpler to just believe in objective reality, believe that language works roughly according to a correspondence theory of truth and that statements are or are not legitimate on account of their corresponding to reality, which isn't something you can determine based on character alone.
But I admit on some level this might be a misunderstanding of whataboutism, because it's holding it to a standard of intellectual consistency that it's not aspiring to.
maxglute
Something less effective about ass holes doing wrong things complaining about other assholes doing wrong things, a while insisting they're not assholes. Ultimately the "damage" isn't being called out as a hypocritic asshole, it's the world realize there's nothing wrong with said wrong things. Although to some that's not damage but nature healing.
embedding-shape
Go back a couple more years, and the UK is probably more relevant to bring up (especially considering the context), they used to have similar aspirations before they learned better.
lossolo
I would like to remind you that HK was a British colony for more than 100 years, and there was no democracy or freedom then. They only allowed the first partly free elections two years before they gave it back to China, in 1995. And not because they suddenly wanted freedom and democracy for HK, but because it would be harder for China and better for their own interests. Hypocrisy all the way.
Herring
That's kind of misleading. HK had a lot of civil freedoms (rule of law, independent judiciary, freedom of speech). China explicitly blocked earlier democratization. The vote only managed to get through after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown made HK panic.
simianparrot
They didn’t learn better. They lost their aspirations and decided to give up as a nation.
tempest_
They didnt lose aspirations.
A lot of the UK seems to be struggling with their loss of Empire even 80 years later.
They ran out of money, 2 world wars bankrupted them.
embedding-shape
They decided to stop being a world police, and correctly so. Now we're just waiting for US to understand the same thing, which is slowly happening, finally.
reenorap
Why is America all of a sudden part of this? HK was a British colony, what is the UK doing to preserve freedom in HK?
A_D_E_P_T
The UK's having a hard enough time trying to preserve freedom in the UK.
Hold up... So you're saying that they're actually not trying to preserve freedom in the UK and have arrested hundreds of people over twitter memes?!
In all seriousness, you're approximately as free in HK as you are in the UK. In HK, don't promote democracy or insult the government in Beijing. In the UK, don't suggest that diversity isn't Our Greatest Strength.
Every society these days has an untouchable third rail. None are without beams in their own eyes.
xbmcuser
"Most of it is a lie that they tell their own citizens, though, as America and the West only want democracy and promote it for their own ends. They destroy any democracy that might not align with their worldview or serve their interests.
The current administration is overtly doing what was previously done covertly. Dictators are acceptable as long as it is politically convenient. One of the most recent cases is Pakistan, where the army has taken over, and EU and Commonwealth election monitors did not issue even election monitor report even after two years. Instead, they have facilitated the murder and killing of Pakistani civilians. But maybe Pakistanis are brown-skinned, so for them, democracy is not allowed.
Pakistan should be under sanctions, but it is not, as it is providing ammunition for Ukraine. That is the biggest problem of the West: their hypocrisy. They are calling for democracy in Hong Kong, as that serves their own agendas, but will say nothing about an apartheid state like Israel."
"Imran Khan, the former prime minister, has been jailed without trial for the last two-plus years and has been kept in solitary confinement for months out of those. How many newspapers mention it in the West or make it a news topic? But this Hong Kong (HK) Jimmy Lai conviction will be the headlines in most of the Western media a clear example of propaganda to rile up the population against China and socialism.
This is why I laugh when people here on Hacker News mention China's control of media and its propaganda, when the Western media is no better than them. At least many Chinese citizens know they are being propagandized against and can filter it out."
bryanlarsen
> when the Western media is no better than them
better is a continuum across many dimensions. Therefore when you say "no better than" you're saying "worse than".
I'm not saying Western media is good, but it's really hard to argue that it's worse than the Chinese media, given the headline story above and our freedom to discuss it here and elsewhere.
Both can be bad, but one is more bad than the other.
calf
Sure but this was prompted by the absurdly self-congratulatory "city on a hill" comment which shows how out of touch the West is with critical thought from the global south.
echelon_musk
Why are your comments in double quotes?
buellerbueller
The human condition is hypocrisy. The weak want fairness. The powerful want their power unbridled. Only anomalous humans can be powerful without abusing that power.
xyzal
Can you imagine a Chinese person writing like you just did on Weibo?
Democracy/liberalism/civil liberties etc. isn't 100% or not at all.
benmmurphy
That reminds me of an old cold war joke. In China you are free to criticise western governments on Weibo. What is the problem?
snapcaster
This feels very dismissive. The comment you responded is about the very real killing of a lot of people and your response is "at least we can talk about it?"
Being free to talk about the horrible things happening doesn't appear to stop them from happening so what exactly is your point here?
glenstein
Exactly right. And what's more, I think this is cynically exploited by apologists who want to defend evil by resorting to whataboutisms. State sponsored troll farms are real and the market for buying and selling, and mobilizing accounts is increasingly mature. And even, dare I say, strategically and intellectually sophisticated in some ways while simultaneously being intellectually and ethically bankrupt.
But I actually don't think it's that hard to understand that (1) the US has significantly compromised moral authority, but also (2) China bad and (3) there's important differences of scale of moral offense depending on what you are talking about. You can land a perfectly coherent point about, say, China's hostile takeover of Hong Kong being bad, it's military ramp up to seize Taiwan by 2027 being bad. But too often, I think bad faith actors will intentionally exploit the complexity to try and muddy the waters, and the only reason it seems like it's hard to articulate the distinction online is because of motivated performances.
Of course there Poe's law element too, which is that you should never underestimate the ability of people online becoming confused about politically charged topics, but in this case I think it's a bit of column a, a bit of column b synergistically amplifying one another.
SilverElfin
America was on the decline for a while already. Look at how forgotten Tibet is. Why would HK be any different when a treaty was signed to hand it over? It’s more official than Tibet which was just annexed through force. Although it’s worth remembering that China has violated the terms of the HK treaty as well.
Also as a reminder, back in 1993 Richard Gere was banned from the Oscars for 20 years for advocating for Tibet (https://www.foxnews.com/media/richard-gere-speaks-out-nearly...). American institutions have been declining/corrupted for a lot longer than the current administration.
paganel
By “calling out” you mean invading, or what, exactly? And haven’t you guys had enough of fighting “evil” while causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians? See Iraq.
mikkupikku
Assuming that somebody is implying something as insane as an invasion of China when they say something as mellow as "call out" is certainly.. a take.
netbioserror
So then what use is any other approach than simply letting it happen? Words are just that. If violence is out, then the only other approach is escalating the trade war and Chinese isolation, at great cost.
null
colejhudson
Obviously not.
As in the 20th century, it means to cultivate moral, and thereby political, opposition to imprisoning activists.
It’s a soft power the US has gradually lost.
lvl155
Democracy that we knew from 60s to 00s is effectively dead everywhere. I would like to think that social media and surveillance technology both played roles in accomplishing that so quickly and without public outcry/protests. All that blood spilled in 1900s to spread democracy wiped out in a matter of couple of years.
HumblyTossed
The Heritage Foundation has been operating since 70s. They've played the long game, and it's only now that we are, en masse, looking at the culmination of decades of work by them and thinking, "wow, that was quick!".
guerrilla
> both played roles in accomplishing that so quickly and without public outcry/protests.
Bread and circuses. Everyone is comfortable and entertained to the point of drooling. They won't be leaving their cozy warm houses with TV and video games to do anything. Brain isn't built that way. If it were, there wouldn't be an obesity epidemic. It'll always be short-term rewards over long-term most of the time for most people.
On the other hand, none of this is sustainable in the long-run, so it'll all come crashing down and things will work out. We'll probably be dead long before then though. Gotta go through some rough shit first.
leftouterjoins
It never existed in the first place. You just were unable to see the machinations behind the scenes when all of media was a newspaper and 3 TV stations.
mothballed
I've found the most freedom on the fringes of the earth. Rural South America and Kurdish Syria to name a couple.
Anywhere with any real government though, it's dead. My theory is the period of classical liberalism in the world was largely a result of the brief period where firearms were the main form of warfare, which represented a short period in history where violence was most decentralized and the government had the least leverage. Before that it was years to train archers or swordsman, after that fighter jets/ missiles / technology tilted back in power of government. In the golden era of the age of the firearm one person was basically one vote of violence (giving the populace the greater leverage); whereas before/after that time each vote was heavily weighted by a government actor.
throwaw12
"Democracy that we knew from 60s to 00s is effectively dead everywhere."
What if it was a fake all along and was just a facade and social media exposed it?
guerrilla
It was, but what we have no is also much worse. Both can be true.
throwaway29812
[dead]
mrtksn
Interestingly, places that used to be shit holes are becoming better or at least show a desire for becoming better. For example in eastern Europe, there are movements that demands democracy and destruction of the establishment.
So if all the world is against the establishment, it only makes sense that shit holes become better places and better place become shit holes.
That's it I suspect that these moments can be quite fragile. Turkey was crashed, Georgia was crashed, Belarus was crashed, Russia was crashed, Ukraine is fighting generational war, Serbia is teetering, Bulgaria is on to something but its only a spark ATM. However, the crashed ones also did not stabilize, they just become brutal and visibly oppressed and IMHO anything still can happen.
null
tokai
The anglosphere is not the entire democratic world.
lvl155
Agreed but even in places like South Korea where they staged national weekend strikes to remove a sitting president, it’s withering away. People are tired of politics and politicians. It’s death by apathy.
erxam
Democracy died in 1989-1991. We've been riding on the fumes since then.
dh2022
If anything, these actions will make Taiwan even more opposed to unification with China and will strengthen their resolve to oppose China.
For China it would have made more sense long term to first "incorporate" Taiwan into their country and only after that start turning the screws on both Taiwan and Hong Kong.
maxglute
Naw, now Taiwan will have a few years to realize being 1C2S is no big deal, kids in HK are going to mainland to party, next gen is going to be even more integrated thanks to patriotic education. In 5-10 years you'll have patriotic HKers lol at TWers being brained for for prefering Gaza solution over HK solution. Which realisitically is really what the offer is now.
maxloh
The Taiwanese support for pro-independence actually skyrocketed in 2019. I don't think anything bad happening to Hong Kong activists would be a good look for China.
maxglute
Yes in 2019, look what's happening to TW politics now, green fatigue, DPP anti PRC rhetoric secured a couple elections but now the island new gen is increasingly jaded and post political because they realize the DPP Anti PRC card isn't improving their QoL. VS a few years post getting crushed, HKers also post political who realized they can simply live much better lives by embracing mainland (SZ) and not be such nativist/supremecist. Reality is democratic and shitlib politics is structurally failling everywhere, if the authoritarian gives you a priveledged deal, many TWer might eventually take it. Just look at HK reaction to recent fire, HKers lamenting how much more SZ and mainland tier1s have their shit together. The vibe is changing. PRC needs carrot and stick for TW, like how it's always been. Let's be real, in a post TW crisis there will be winners and losers, TWers need to see how winners are treated (tier1 affordtable life style) and how losers are treated (Gaza).
dh2022
I am still waiting for the widely advertised and announced China attack on Taiwan.
And I do not think Taiwan will become Gaza if China eventually attacks - unlike Israel, China has quite a lot of enemies in the West.
maxglute
PRC never advertised a timeline outside of implying national rejuvenation (which can't happen without reincorporating TW) by PLA centennial by 2049. If you depend on western propaganda like Davidson Window 2027 then you can keep thumb twiddling. What's likely going to happen is some inciting event or some engineered out of blue casus belli.
PRC doesn't have any capable enemies in the west, including US, that can prevent PRC from turning TW into a Gaza. Which PRC can do with purely mainland based fires at this point. The force balance is too lopsided off PRC shores now. PRC's fleet of PL191 can basically level all of Taiwan urban areas in a few months, weeks considering other munition stockpiles. They can build a few hundred more chasis and frankyl TW->Gaza would take a couple weeks. Otherwise every inch of TW is within a few minute strikes from mainland, so resupply is out of question. There's nothing preventing TW from becoming Gaza except Xi is kind of nice bro.
demarq
> The law was enacted without consulting the Hong Kong legislature and gave authorities broad powers to charge and jail people they deemed a threat to the city's law and order, or the government's stability.
The UK throwing a very big rock at a thin glass house.
I don’t agree with any such laws in any country, but I think it’s important to point out the hypocrisy here
thenanyu
When I was in my early 20s I used to think I was very clever for pointing out apparent hypocrisies. Now I realize how easily that devolves into “you are imperfect therefore you may never criticize anything”
Americans can never call out human rights abuses because of slavery. The British can never because of colonialism. Period. Forever.
If you find this line of argumentation compelling there’s no discussing anything with you.
epolanski
You can easily call out way more recent stuff such as what's happening in central America right now with Colombia and Venezuela.
Sinking half a dozen ships in international waters is a crime.
Sanity would ask for intercepting those boats in your waters, and that's it, controlling what's in them, who are these people and send them in front of a court if they breached your law, on your soil (or waters).
Yet we are at the point nobody raises the voice where sinking civilian ships on the basis it's drug smugglers (without providing a proof, let alone the fact that even if it was true it's still insane) has any leftover of decency or justice.
Or calling for the annexation of Greenland and Panama by any means.
Or bombing Iran on the basis that it's developing nuclear weapons on behalf of the Israeli government (which is an act of war if Iran could wage it, the US does not get to decide who can have a nuclear weapon and who does not).
The list of breaches in decency or law is basically infinite.
rq1
As much as I agree with you. Iran is signatory of the NPT with all its consequences.
Instead of letting more countries develop these weapons, we should work on denuclearizing all countries, starting with the US and Russia and their insane arsenals! And maybe build a unified international legal framework for civilian nuclear developments and applications from energy to medical outside of the "security council's" ferule!
A nuclear war cannot be won, thus never fought!
wrs
You're not wrong, but I just wanted to point out that this level of arbitrary executive behavior and blatant massive government corruption is pretty new to us (the many millions of decent US citizens who are appalled at it), and we're still trying to figure out what the heck we can do about it. So at least for now I really hope it's valid to ascribe this just to the current administration, not assume the US will stay like this.
torstenvl
> Sinking half a dozen ships in international waters is a crime.
Citation needed.
ufmace
This isn't about things that happened decades or centuries ago though. It's about how right now, today, the UK is arresting 12,000 people a year, 30 a day, for supposedly "offensive" posts on social media.
https://freespeechunion.org/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for...
notahacker
As your own article points out that stuff has been on the statute books for years (covering stuff which is generally illegal everywhere like death threats as well as stuff which was merely allegedly sent to cause others distress or anxiety) and convictions actually fell between 2015 and 2023. For all its much vaunted constitutional protections, the United States has also arrested a whole bunch of people for vague and difficult to call a crime stuff like Charlie Kirk memes or (nuanced or otherwise) criticisms of Israeli policy recently as well as more obviously menacing stuff that happened to take the form of social media communication.
Neither are quite the same thing as railroading a government critic for "sedition"
RobotToaster
The current UK government has arrested over 2000 people for holding signs on charges of terrorism, and is currently in the process of abolishing jury trials. This isn't about history.
boplicity
The UK is also not a single person, but a collection of millions of individuals and diverse groups with diverse opinions and actions.
0x3f
Your examples are a bit weasely because they happened long ago, and so seem sillier. What I assumed was meant here is that, currently, the UK government is out to punish wrongthink.
Dracophoenix
> When I was in my early 20s I used to think I was very clever for pointing out apparent hypocrisies. Now I realize how easily that devolves into “you are imperfect therefore you may never criticize anything”.
What's the solution? The alternative, where we can't criticize our governments on account of their hypocrisies and imperfections, robs citizens of their check against an institution with a monopoly on violence.
> Americans can never call out human rights abuses because of slavery. The British can never because of colonialism. Period. Forever.
There's certainly a difference between holding countries responsible for events that have long since ceased and holding a government responsible for double standards practiced presently. The UK lacks credibility on Hong Kong when its own citizens are being jailed on the basis of overbroad hate speech regulations and when its government agencies attempt to claim extraterritorial jurisdiction over the operation of foreign social media companies. Westminister can't be so empty-headed as to believe that its actions will go unnoticed by other governments.
avidiax
It goes beyond just pointing out hypocrisy. This is a well known propaganda strategy called "Whataboutism." [1] It's unfortunately a tremendously effective smokescreen that divides the audience and shuts down meaningful debate.
janalsncm
There is some nuance, because I’ve also seen genuine discussion falsely labeled as whataboutism.
If the point in bringing up the hypocrisy is to end or distract the discussion, it is whataboutism. However, if the point is to compare two instances of a thing to make a point it’s fair game imo.
mc32
I don't see slavery as an albatross. If anything, America accelerated its demise by its abolition at home --where America wasn't even the biggest enslaver of people; Brazil, The British empire (Caribbean), France (colonies), Russia (serfs), had way, way more slaves than the US. Today, India, China, Horn of Africa, NK have large slave populations.
mig39
Is it whatboutism?
knallfrosch
The British have a clear connection to Hong Kong. And they're right. And their rule would be freer.
buellerbueller
Even bad people can be correct. Evaluate every claim on its merits, as opposed to its speaker. Only when you get down to resolving ambiguities is the evaluation of the speaker necessary.
martythemaniak
the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"
-@dril, 2014
nutjob2
Why is every political discussion boiled down to a whataboutism? Who cares what the UK does when the subject is HK's obvious slide in to naked authoritarianism.
Can we not simply condemn that?
demarq
Because once upon a time it was with pride you could point out all the ways your democracy was different than “theirs”.
Now you’re just condemning what you’ve already done. Why should anyone respect it? At some point you loose respect and eventually you just look confused.
jimbokun
So you support China's actions because UK also bad?
0x3f
Whenever one 'side' makes a statement about the other it's often dripped in some kind of righteous indignation or other moralistic tone, so it's hard not to descend into whataboutism in those cases. The Chinese, of course, do this too, just with their own ideology baked in.
LudwigNagasena
Why shouldn’t it boil down to “whataboutism”, aka comparison and putting things into context? Especially during UK’s obvious slide in to disguised authoritarianism.
One can also ask how HK ended up with English language and common law in the first place… though that wasn’t so recent.
the_af
Great Britain is very directly involved in a whole bunch of relatively recent messes in the Middle East, China, etc.
It's not whataboutism to point up the current messed up situation is not unrelated to the behavior of the UK, and their fingerprints are all over it. Of course things aren't static and new actors have changed the conversation, but this doesn't absolve them and they shouldn't be pointing fingers.
andy_ppp
What on earth are you talking about? The UK has just done whatever the US wanted for about 40 years or more.
If you’re saying historically as an imperial power we’ve done terrible stuff we can all agree with that!
the_af
> Why is every political discussion boiled down to a whataboutism?
Unfortunately, just like whataboutism can be a disingenuous rhetorical device, so is anti-whataboutism. Sometimes the comparison is relevant, sometimes it's not. In this case, I think it is.
andy_ppp
Sigh, you know the UKs laws are much more complicated than right wing media in the US will explain to you.
0x3f
I don't think that's really true and I live here. People are convicted for saying 'rude' things online all the time, even if some of those stories are also hyped up in the news. Attempting to backdoor/otherwise break e2e encryption... also literally the case. I'm not sure where you think the nuance is.
andy_ppp
You can say pretty much anything so long as you don’t insight violence or religious hatred. Nobody is allowed to shout fire in crowded theatre. Nobody has been convicted for saying something rude.
With relation to the article + Grand parent, the government first of all does not write on behalf of the BBC and in fact both Labour and Conservatives especially have had massive problems with its editorial decisions.
The ideal the you cannot criticise the government in the UK and that our laws here are similar to the ones in HK is honestly not a fair parallel at all.
I think the government are extremely naive and the security services try to push them into extremely stupid decisions on encryption.
buellerbueller
And yet, none of that has anything to do with the conviction of Jimmy Lai.
embedding-shape
> let him who is without sin cast the first stone
And all that. We're all evil at one point or another, from someone's perspective.
spankalee
This is crazy logic. It leaves no one with the ability to critique another country when it abuses its citizens.
embedding-shape
No, that's not the right takeaway, at least for me. For me it means that even if a country isn't perfect, doesn't automatically mean they can't be against others doing harm.
nutjob2
It really is crazy. A lot of people here seem to miss the relative nature of countries' behavior and think they're all as bad as each other when the difference is huge.
Especially when it comes to China and Russia, people seem to think they're about as bad as the West when nothing could be further from the truth.
Maybe thats due to more people from the hard right haunting this place, or the general shift of the tech crowd to the right. I'm not sure what it is exactly.
kyralis
I'm sorry, but "calling out apparent injustice" is not comparable to "literally throwing the first rock to stone someone to death".
That quote gets bent very far out of context. You could use it to justify any inaction under that interpretation, on the theory that you are not qualified to take it simply due to being imperfect.
embedding-shape
> rock to stone someone to death
Not sure where you get this from?
For me it means even "evil" people/countries can raise valid points, nothing more, nothing less.
andrewflnr
In fact they are referencing the phrase, of much later origin, "those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".
dfee
Would love to see X's "account based in" for this thread to assess bias.
barfoure
/pol/ has entered the chat.
azinman2
What happened to one country, two systems?
embedding-shape
Recommended reading on that: One Country, Two Systems in Crisis: Hong Kong's Transformation - Wong, Yiu-chung (2004)
In summary, since 1997 it has for all intents and purposes been abandoned.
roncesvalles
That was always meant to be transitional. Also, as China marches forward, Hong Kong loses its leverage over Beijing. Now it's just one of a dozen HK-like cities for China. It went from "little prince" to "problem child".
Terr_
Certainly a factor: IIRC Hong Kong's GDP versus the mainland has gone from 20-30% to 2-3% in the ~28 years since the handover, as the mainland has modernized.
While that still puts in the ballpark of "top 5 cities", it's not quite the same (relative) prize as before.
aprentic
I'm pretty sure China considers that as "signing under duress" and therefor invalid.
The relevant points on the timeline, from China's perspective, are:
China: Stop selling opium in our country. UK: How about no? China: We're kicking out your drug dealers. UK: How about an Opium War? China: Oh crap, you have way more guns. We surrender. UK: OK We're taking HK for 100 years. China: I guess we don't have any say in the matter....
A few years later... China: We get HK back now, right? UK: Yeah but we've altered the terms. Take it or leave it. China: OK. I guess.
A few years later... China: Now we have more guns so here are the new terms. Take it or leave. UK: But our deal!!
0x3f
Might makes right, as always was.
dist-epoch
A sovereign can change it's mind. It's the whole point of being sovereign.
Not saying I like what they did (I don't).
derektank
This was a joint agreement between two sovereigns. You’re correct to say that it’s within the power of a sovereign to reneg on their word, but it’s a violation of international law and the UK would have every right as a sovereign itself to seek redress through whatever means it deems appropriate.
azinman2
Except they had an agreement for 50 years to keep it that way. So basically what you mean is anyone can change their mind, which means agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
Then why would anyone agree to anything?
ekunazanu
> Agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
Pretty much. They are only as effective as the body trying to enforce it. The entire point of being a sovereign nation is nobody can force you to do anything. Now it is in a nation's self interest to not violate agreements and get along nicely, but sometimes the calculus changes and the punishment may not outweigh the benefits.
0x3f
I don't really like what China did with Hong Kong, but some things you surely agree transcend 'contracts' or normative behavior. I can't, for example, agree to be murdered in exchange for money. I might also lie to protect my children from the local murderer, or in any other case where I'd consider the outcomes 'extereme'.
tyre
Because the British didn’t have much of a choice.
It would have been better for Hong Kongers if they’d kept it, but alas here we are.
dist-epoch
Sovereigns can withdraw from agreements. It's the whole point.
The only thing you can do about it is shaming them, sanctioning them, going to war if you really care, ...
kevin_thibedeau
The agreement was BS imposed by their colonizer. Why would anyone bother to abide by such terms when there are zero consequences for canceling them?
dionian
We all knew it was a lie from day one.
silenced_trope
they came up with that phrase to put the british at ease
HSO
[flagged]
mothballed
Mr. Lai is the real deal. He started out as a child laborer and worked his way up from nothing to owning a clothing brand and then Apple Daily pro-democracy publisher. He had the option to leave Hong Kong, but stayed and kept up the fight.
He's facing life in prison right now, so this conviction puts everything on the line.
Glad to see this hitting the front page. I posted an article earlier with not much movement which was really worrying for the HK free thought movement; happy that this turned out to not be the case.
danjl
I did some consulting for Jimmy at Apple Daily, and he took me out to the best street-food lunches I ever had. His car took us to a busy street corner, where four of us had a huge lunch for two hours while the car disappeared. When the car magically showed up at the end, Jimmy told me that he paid ~$20 for that amazing food for all of us. No pretense. A lovely man. Very sad.
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cedws
Alexei Navalny’s death, leaving behind his wife and two children, showed the harsh reality that martyrdom isn't always worth it. Sacrifice is not always rewarded. Sometimes the tyrants win. Unless you believe in karma or divine retribution.
tyre
Well it’s not martyrdom if you aren’t sacrificing and we don’t know the true outcome of Russia soon after his death.
Do you think, were you to talk to Alexei now, you could convince him that his life fighting dictatorship wasn’t worth it?
cedws
I think Navalny was counting on the Russian people to respond strongly. Unfortunately after his death, everything carried on as normal. Western governments continue to be a soft touch and buy oil from Russia. I'm not sure he would still give his life after seeing how the world failed him.
AnimalMuppet
Depends on what price you have to pay in order to avoid martyrdom. Who are you willing to become in order to live?
regularization
The US is currently expelling students, firing professors and college presidents and so on, not because they aren't US aligned, but because they allow people on campus to criticize Israel.
CBS just got taken over by the same cabal.
Amidst ICE grabbing people out of Home Depot parking lots in the US, China is just doing the same thing over there.
E-Reverance
One can care about both
tmpm
ICE doesn't grab citizens out of Home Depot parking lots.
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GenerocUsername
Imagine a major city in America that were politically dominated y China for 50+ years and it is hard to imagine this type of blowback not occuring eventually.
AnimalMuppet
Hong Kong is dead.
Yeah, sure, there's still a city there with that name. But the Hong Kong we knew is dead. What made Hong Kong what it was is dead.
RegnisGnaw
The purpose of Hong Kong globally, a port for trade with the closed off China, has been dead for a long time.
spacebanana7
Hong Kong is the only business friendly place in the world that’s genuinely independent of the US/EU transatlantic regulatory blob.
The mainland government want to keep it prosperous so will likely work to protect it from sanctions or international regulations.
If you’re a Russian oligarch it’s probably safer to keep your money in HK than Cayman or Switzerland these days. Even if you’re a petrostate sovereign wealth fund or non NATO central bank there’s some value in holding assets that can’t be frozen at will by the US treasury secretary.
You could argue that Signapaore and the UAE compete here but they have much more dependency on the west for security and diplomacy.
realusername
Well now it's dependent on the Chinese regulatory blob which I would argue is worse.
The EU is still debating after 3 years of war in Ukraine and weekly nuclear threats what to do with the Russian funds, let's be real, with the same situation in HK, the funds would have been seized within a week.
jskrn
This is sad to read as someone who only recently started appreciating Wong Kar Wai films and wants to visit. Although I have been reading about the speech/thought suppression and creative exodus for a long time.
derelicta
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rockskon
Its citizens don't share your enthusiasm.
embedding-shape
Some do, some don't. I was there recently, most of natives who I spoke to didn't really care that much, and the people who cared, was basically 50/50 between agreeing to more Chinese control vs against. Still, I'm a foreigner, so I'm likely not getting the full picture, people don't exactly go around flagging they're opposing China's crackdown, so YMMV.
lostlogin
The beatings will continue until they do.
mytailorisrich
There is a duality.
The Chinese were obviously always opposed to British imperalism and it was a major victory to finally get HK back, including in HK, and even acknowledged in Taiwan. There is a large body of quite nationalistic and anti-European/British films in HK cinema from British times.
However, this does not mean that there is no domestic politics with pro and anti communist party, but daily life hasn't changed in HK except from the larger influx of "mainlanders".
The narrative on HK in the West is simplistic and, frankly a little racist. European imperialism and colonialism has long been rejected except somehow for the so great thing it did in HK, conveniently forgetting that the British never had any democracy in HK and acquired HK by pretty nasty means.
regularization
Yes, I watched the BBC a few years back and saw bureaucrats ranting about what the Chinese owed the English due to English sovereignty or treaties over territory in China. Colonial craziness.
Of course this guy isn't sone factory worker but a CEO. He met with Mike Pence, Pompey and Bolton, i.e. the West so he's "pro democracy".
ICE is in my city pulling people out of their cars, then releasing them with no charges days later. Wish there was some democracy in this country.
Stevvo
Hong Kong the liberal democracy, that you think you knew, never existed. Most in HK will tell you that that have more freedom under China than they ever had under the British
regularization
In 1967 the Chinese people in Hong Kong were fighting against the English, English officers killed dozens of Chinese to retain their control on their "democracy". A city they had violently seized decades earlier to push opium and heroin on Chibese people, against the Chinese authorities wishes.
Now white, professional westerners who lost control of China weep and gnash about their supposed moral superiority over China.
yieldcrv
> The law was enacted without consulting the Hong Kong legislature
And a plain reading of the Basic Law (Hong Kong's constitution) permits everything that's happened, and expecting the contrary seems like a coping mechanism. There are massive exemptions for Hong Kong's autonomy and deferrence to Beijing at Beijing's discretion, or by the Head of Hong Kong who is appointed by Beijing
I wasn't around for the handover so I'm largely exempt from the emotional marriage to an ideal Hong Kong residents and people affirming Hong Kong resident's feelings seem to have
The legislature wouldn't have to be consulted for the National Security Law to have been enacted, the article and seemingly all of the west seems to think that is a controversy when it isn't necessary
And then there is another layer where the structure of the legislature doesn't even match western ideals and wouldn't have made a difference. The legislature is 50% popular vote and 50% corporations. So even if 100% of the population voted for the same thing, they would only have 50% of the vote, and the corporations are all pro-Beijing by nature of being able to economically exist in that environment.
(Notably, the ancient City of London within London functions nearly the same way. Actually in an even more egregious way with the non-natural persons having a more extreme weighting of votes)
People act like a different founding document governs Hong Kong (Sino British joint declaration? Some comments by representatives), when it doesn't. People act like the governing document of Hong Kong was supposed to be ignored for 50 years, when something way different and way more integrated is supposed to happen at the end of the handover period.
I think there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to. They’re imagining a different governing system than the one they live in, thats incompatible.
thedudeabides5
The NSL (and the way it was implemented) is as stark a violation of he Sino British Joint Declaration as possible without PLA tanks on the ground.
Game over. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
yieldcrv
but the Sino British Joint Declaration is not the constitution of Hong Kong. It is not even an enforceable treaty.
Its analogous to an American finding a piece of the Declaration of Independence to confirm their views after finding the US constitution too inconvenient. A pointless exercise, levels worse than even the Federalist papers.
aprentic
> there is zero path to the goals Hong Kong residents espouse and are used to
From talking to friends and relatives from HK I've seen huge diversity in how people think about HK, China, their relationship with each other, Mandarin, Cantonese, food, and "the West".
There are certainly large groups of HKers who would prefer for HK to seced from China. There are also many HKers who love the UK and mourn the loss of HK to China.
There are also huge swathes of the population that chaffed at being colonized. Long time residents can show you the old police barracks where British troops would beat the locals in black bag operations. They'll tell you about how the feng shui of the Bank of China Tower lead to the collapse of the British empire. They'll tell you that they spent their lives paying taxes into a "democracy" they never got to vote in.
The opinions within HK are far more diverse than we make them out to be.
yieldcrv
Exactly, which goes to my point about the absurdity of the legislative body, even if 100% of residents voted for the same thing it would only be 50% of the vote, and 100% of residents won't vote for the same thing.
bArray
Remember, Hong Kong was supposed to be in a 50 year transition period from 1997 where there were supposed to be one country, two systems [1]. The national security legislation is just one in a long line of failures [2]. If nothing else was learned, it was this: China, specifically the CCP, cannot be trusted.
It makes me sick that the UK sends billions to Ukraine to interfere in a war we have no fundamental right to involve ourselves in, meanwhile, Hong Kong was allowed to fall with only light media coverage. It is outrageous. The politicians that oversaw it should be ashamed.
Not to mention that Carrie Lam, former leader of Hong Kong, sold her people up the river by allowing the national security law in [3]. She was even hiding out in the UK with her husband from her own countrymen.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#Imple...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems#2020_...
waffleiron
Hong Kong Basic Law also required a national security law since 1997. Lets not be selective.
> Article 23 is an article of the Hong Kong Basic Law. It states that Hong Kong "shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies."
ronsor
Don't worry, China is learning a lot from Russia. Taiwan is next.
vachina
As a non-us observer, I'm unsure where this "China gonna invade Taiwan" hysteric come from. It never made sense.
dionian
They'll say the same thing about Taiwan. And do the same thing.
AnimalMuppet
Um, at the time of the National Security Legislation (your reference [2]), we were not sending billions to Ukraine, because Russia hadn't started their open attack yet.
Simulacra
Is it possible to get a fair and just trial in China? I have trouble accepting this or any verdict from a Chinese court and would appreciate examples that counter this.
0x3f
Of course it's possible to get a fair and just trial in China, since that can happen even coincidentally to the process. E.g. I'm sure an actual murderer has been given a just punishment in China, at some point in the history of the Chinese legal system.
Is it possible to get a fair trial if you're an enemy of the state? Well... what defines fair and just? In accordance with the will of the Chinese people? Or are we talking about Western standards?
the_af
> Is it possible to get a fair trial if you're an enemy of the state?
In which country is it possible to get a fair trial if you're an enemy of the state, especially in today's climate?
0x3f
Well it's possible in the same coincidental sense that I described, right? You can be railroaded _and_ be guilty of horrific crimes. It depends whether fairness and justness are properties of the process or the outcome.
Regardless, it's presumably all relative. At least there's certainly an ordering of states I'd rather have against me, as a person living in them. Maybe Sweden?
mothballed
To some extent, Somalia. They have a 'xeer' system which is by design independent of the government and works as essentially a peer-to-peer justice system but with a fairly common set of 'law' throughout the country. It works through a process of decentralized judges which are appealable through inter-tribal courts ensuring the process is largely divorced from both the government and any one tribe.
There have been a few cases of Somalis for example even killing government police/military and them being found not guilty in xeer court and even the government respected the decision.
pbhjpbhj
>Or are we talking about Western standards?
Like USA-standards, or past-Western standards. Currently USA's law is 'did you pay the president a bribe to be pardoned'. CCP looks positively enlightened compared to that.
aprentic
Do you have some test for fairness or justice?
The best measure I can think of is per capita prison population. It's not great because it doesn't directly address fairness but it's likely related.
Two countries, with roughly the same "fairness" of courts, should, ceteris paribus, have roughly the same per-capita prison population. By that measure, China would be slightly on the fairer end 92nd lowest out of 224.
I don't remember if HK does the same thing but China divides their police into two groups. The more common type are basically public safety officers. They are unarmed but I saw a few places where the had plastic riot shields and catch poles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_catcher#/media/File:Mancat... The armed police are only called out as needed.
The airport had a two of military guys standing at attention with rifles. They looked like a couple of wax figures until I saw them do a formal changing of the guard.
I don't know if anyone has assembled data on actual court records. How often are police charges prosecuted? How often do they go to trial? What percentage end up getting convictions? What are the average sentences?
It would also be good to decide what we're comparing it to. A rich white person in the US can expect a very different level of fairness than a poor black person. Is a random Chinese person's experience more like the rich white persons' or the poor black person's?
maxglute
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throwaw12
"Is it possible to get a fair and just trial in China?"
What makes you ask a such question? Here are some bad ideas which comes to my mind:
* you think China is inferior?
* or maybe Chinese are inferior?
* maybe you think they always lie?
* or maybe they don't have laws?
* maybe plain old racism?
Forgive me, but your question sounds so bad. Counter question, did any of war criminals get a fair trial in the USA? (I am not listing countries they did war crimes, because there are too many)
Vegenoid
> What makes you ask a such question?
Obviously, it is that a political opponent of the administration is facing life in prison seemingly for being an outspoken critic of the administration.
skippyboxedhero
He isn't a political opponent, he isn't a politician. He met with high-ranking officials of a foreign nation and lobbied them to take action that he believed would harm China and lead to a change in government.
I also wouldn't call him outspoken critic either. For obvious reasons, the main one being a level of economic development unknown in human history, there isn't very much to criticize outside of politics. His gripe is solely political in that he believes that a different system of government is required (one assumes with more input from people like himself, again though he isn't a politician and, afaik, has no real political positions apart from supporting Trump and NY Post-style sensationalism/xenophobia, iirc they created a meme depicting mainlanders as locusts...it is quite funny to see people who, I can only assume, are not massive fans of Trump cream themselves over the Chinese equivalent).
One of the dark consequences of America losing its city-upon-a-hill aspirations is we're less able to effectively call out evil abroad. Jimmy Lai should not have been allowed to this quietly.