Funnily enough, it is!
14. "Newspeak" – Fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
You just strolled right into that landmine, huh. Lol.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
You can't possibly be any more ironical bringing up newspeak, but that's alright, that's fine
Last edited by Yadryonych; 2021-07-13 at 06:36 PM.
It's only ironic in that we have an actual Soviet trying to assure us that fascism and "communism" as practiced in the PRC are totally different things. Remember kids, Ingsoc, Neo-Bolshevism, and Obliteration of the Self have no similarity to each other whatsoever.
Orwell is laughing in his grave.
Last edited by Elegiac; 2021-07-13 at 06:38 PM.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
This thread is a perfect example of the point OP (if annoyingly dramatically) was making. Tankies, infighting, open bullshit and accusations.
USA elections of 2016 showed how vulnerable Western world is to calculated and directed propaganda, indeed repeat a lie often and it will be accepted as truth, or at least taken into account. Books will be written about that vulnerability. Not so sure about lessons learned, though...
Meh, it seems like wumaos aren't very effective because people don't like the CCP's China very much and nobody wants to emulate their culture, except for maybe the food which people seem to enjoy. Maybe people don't like the West either but many places work on voluntarily emulating Western norms and consuming Western culture to a much higher extent.
Last edited by PC2; 2021-07-13 at 09:36 PM.
So...flagrantly violating the treaty and then expecting that modern China would still be totes cool with that and wouldn't in any way be ramping up hostilities against the foreign invaders that refuse to leave formerly colonial lands?
I'm supportive of folks in Hong Kong, but baiting a global conflict over this isn't exactly a "better" solution.
"They just didn't act like an imperial power hard enough!" is not a good argument.
I'm not clear what your point is here?
Hong Kong was a colonial territorial concession made to the British Empire at a time when the British Empire primarily used it as point from which it could run the largest drug cartel in human history. The British never had any particular fondness for Hong Kong, beyond retaining it as a major commercial port.
From a purely legalistic standpoint the UK was never in the position to do anything definite with Hong Kong no matter what. The treaty that gave the UK control of well over half of the territory of Hong Kong came with a definite expiration date.
I'm not very clear what you are trying to say here.
While the UK could take and hold Hong Kong in the late 1800's, by the mid 1930's the geographical realities of Hong Kong's position have caught up with it. The UK could not realistically defend Hong Kong. Not from the Chinese nationalists (who at the time simply ignored it as they were too busy dealing with the Japanese) and not from the Japanese (who did eventually capture it). Post World War 2 the only thing that kept Hong Kong outside China was the willingness of the new Communist Chinese government to uphold the Second Peking Convention (which it was only willing to do because China had greater diplomatic objectives, such as keeping itself out of the Kremlin's orbit and gaining recognition at the UN), the British have never been in a position to hold Hong Kong.
Furthermore Hong Kong simply cannot be defended by conventional means, hell it cannot even be supplied by conventional means (maritime trade) if China refuses to play ball. Putting nukes in Hong Kong would also never fly as the US would have had a thing or two to say about that, considering its presence in Japan, and the USSR wouldn't have been a fan of that little undertaking either, and in the 1950's the UK was absolutely not in a position where it could have ticked off the Chinese, the Americans and the USSR at the same time, just so it could hold onto some random colonial possession in China.
Yes, Hong Kong is fucked. Yes the British carry much of the blame for the situation. But beyond that, I'm not sure what you're fantasizing about here.
So...just completely ignore all context and history? Again, this is the, "They just didn't act imperialist enough!" argument, which is awful.
And by the time the treaty was relevant, China had considerable power and violating the treaty would have likely provoked a serious international incident, if not armed conflict.
Ultimate responsibility is on China. Not the UK.
I'm not? They bear responsibility, yes, but you're essentially asking them to remain an imperial power. Which is similarly awful. There are mistakes to go around, but when we're talking about the recent events with China violating the agreement, the fault lies with China for violating the agreement. The UK isn't about to send over warships into Chinese territorial water and drop paratroopers into Hong Kong, nor should they. That won't make anything better, that will just make things worse for everyone, including folks in Hong Kong.
They could impose sanctions, cut trade ties, within the treaty decades ago they could have made anyone born in Hong Kong during their occupation automatically a British citizen. I find your lack of imagination disturbing. There was no will so dumping HK like a hot patato was what they did and currently doing fuck all about it.