Funny, I didn't expect to hear the CCP's narrative here.
You're so wrong I don't know where to start.
What you seem to be implying is that, as long as the government stays in power and maintains a facade of stability, they can presume consent of the people for any policy they manage to implement.
This doesn't sound like somebody from a democracy would say, this sounds like what the CCP says. (Which is fine, I've said this myself (with some reservations).) But it doesn't even make sense in this context.
If you even had a inkling of knowledge of what happened during the 1980s when the talks were taking place:
- The vast majority of Hong Kong people preferred keeping status quo (UK continue to govern HK). There were polls to this effect. You could not have lived in the 1980s and 1990s in Hong Kong and not notice that almost _everything_ in the media (films, TV shows, songs) expressed the anxiety of the Hong Kong people to the brave new world after 1997
- Many people started migrating away upon hearing news of handover in 1997. It resulted in a huge brain drain.
- As such the Brits had to grant UK citizenship to a bunch of Hong Kong elites, middle class professionals and government officials, to placate them and convince them stay (because with UK citizenship they can leave any time they want, no hurry)
- The ones who did not have means to leave were mostly skeptical about the whole situation, but since people with influence were "bought out" by the Brits with UK citizenship, and you can't "fight" a government to "force" them to govern you, nothing serious happened.
I don't think _anyone_ who knows this part of Hong Kong history could even argue that there was consent among the Hong Kong people for the handover. It was a closed-doors deal between the UK and China with little regard to what Hong Kong people thought. In all fairness the UK did what it could do at the time, but claiming that Hong Kong people had "consent" is simply a misrepresentation of history. Using your weird arguments to negate historical fact is either ignorance, or willful negation of clearly recorded history.
People under authoritarian rule know full well that the fact that the government maintains power is not evidence that they support their policies. People running authoritarian governments use your argument all the time. I really don't know where you got your ideas from.
Also, it reeks of ad hominem - presuming where I have lived and my ignorance due to it. Perhaps you're just trolling and I shouldn't feed a troll, but this is one of the few topics where I'm obliged to keep the record straight.
Be that as it may… the people of Hong Kong (and Taiwan) seem to be very emphatically (with few exceptions) communicating a distrust of and desire to be independent from China and the CCP.
You're so wrong I don't know where to start.
What you seem to be implying is that, as long as the government stays in power and maintains a facade of stability, they can presume consent of the people for any policy they manage to implement.
This doesn't sound like somebody from a democracy would say, this sounds like what the CCP says. (Which is fine, I've said this myself (with some reservations).) But it doesn't even make sense in this context.
If you even had a inkling of knowledge of what happened during the 1980s when the talks were taking place:
- The vast majority of Hong Kong people preferred keeping status quo (UK continue to govern HK). There were polls to this effect. You could not have lived in the 1980s and 1990s in Hong Kong and not notice that almost _everything_ in the media (films, TV shows, songs) expressed the anxiety of the Hong Kong people to the brave new world after 1997
- Many people started migrating away upon hearing news of handover in 1997. It resulted in a huge brain drain.
- As such the Brits had to grant UK citizenship to a bunch of Hong Kong elites, middle class professionals and government officials, to placate them and convince them stay (because with UK citizenship they can leave any time they want, no hurry)
- The ones who did not have means to leave were mostly skeptical about the whole situation, but since people with influence were "bought out" by the Brits with UK citizenship, and you can't "fight" a government to "force" them to govern you, nothing serious happened.
I don't think _anyone_ who knows this part of Hong Kong history could even argue that there was consent among the Hong Kong people for the handover. It was a closed-doors deal between the UK and China with little regard to what Hong Kong people thought. In all fairness the UK did what it could do at the time, but claiming that Hong Kong people had "consent" is simply a misrepresentation of history. Using your weird arguments to negate historical fact is either ignorance, or willful negation of clearly recorded history.
People under authoritarian rule know full well that the fact that the government maintains power is not evidence that they support their policies. People running authoritarian governments use your argument all the time. I really don't know where you got your ideas from.
Also, it reeks of ad hominem - presuming where I have lived and my ignorance due to it. Perhaps you're just trolling and I shouldn't feed a troll, but this is one of the few topics where I'm obliged to keep the record straight.