You could say "promised" as well. China promised "one country two systems for 50 years" in 1997. On the record.
What is all this escalation good for?

Im not really sure the Chinese government gives a **** what the Hong Kong people think.

They are a quasi dictatorship so why should they?

"....you're not sure..." ? Wow, it's bloody obvious the CCP don't "give a sh@t" what the HK people think. Let's just settle this by agreeing that you really don't see the bigger picture. Got it.

You sound like a child. “But they promised!” Seriously this is China! Did anyone really expect them to hold up their end of the bargain for that long? Of course not.

It's was the formal guarantee by the general secretary of the communist party of China.
They now can decide if they can be trusted. This will be interesting for many future deals.

The only “bigger picture” is that you either need to accept the Chinese government’s control or leave. Nobody in the west is going to come to your rescue as they are all subservient to China and that is only going to get worse not better.

Just trying to say make the best of what you can or pack up. Cause it isn’t going to get any better.

And you point is? China knows it’s the ascending power and the others are descending so they can and will do
whatever they like.

HF40, you have it in my eyes at least! A "deal" with China when the UK pulled out was only going to last as long as it suited Bejing. Why my pessimistic outlook? I saw what Mugabe did after Jimmy Carter (yep, read the history books!) put him in power. As one Zimbabwean said "We may now be in the cr@p but we put ourselves there!". When it comes to Dictatorships the one thing you can guarantee is our rules don't matter. I'm just amazed HK has lasted as long as it has! Do I think it's right? No. But that's this screwed-up world we live in. Just my view... ;-)

China, a "rising power"...? you obviously haven't been watching the latest news. Th the Chinese economy is collapsing. Millions of new unemployed...and they will take it straight to the Politburo. Then you have the fact that West has figured out the China game: they are now implacably opposed to China and all of their attempts to undermine the democracies of the west. The West will now set themselves against all that China represents. America will bring nearly all of their manufacturing back home. The UK and AUS will remove China from all the main parts of their economies. China's day is done. They are a paper tiger and the Xi regime will fall. Don't doubt it.

Australian farming will be wrecked without the PRC.
The UK need them even more after Brexit.
The US already has 36 million unemployed and massive debt.

Im not sure I agree and who is going to build all those cheap products in the USA at 7.50 an hour

One would hope so, it will take time, but production should be moved to other places like India and Vietnam.
The mainlanders will tolerate a lot as long as the economy is humming along fine, but who knows what will happen when the music has stopped.
Incredible to think that they have the balls to do what they are doing with Hong Kong now, with the rest of the world being very unhappy with them..

Mngmt Mol, you can't dispute China is a rising power. It is the largest economy in the world now, and it was gigantic rice field 30 years ago. If that is not a rising power then I don't know what is. You might wish for its demise, but that is a different story.

Oasis, if you want to move production from China to Vietnam you would need 20 Vietnams. India is so intertwined in corruption and cultural problems that it is not capable of building the required infrastructure or to generate the respective workforce. Additionally, Vietnam has not a democratic society either, actually the same power structure as China : a communist party. Bring production "home' is unrealistic, nor factually correct. Production of most goods now on the shelves in Walmart near have been in the US, nor was there ever an iPhone produced in the US. Plus, production in expensive countries like the West will be more and more automated anyway, a sad truth that still has to sink in. The idea America will be great again by moving production onshore is an illusion created by Trump.

You also completely ignore that China is not only a place of production, but actually the future biggest market of the world. Access is of paramount importance, and moving production away from your most important market is not a smart move. Donald Trump is branding China relentlessly as simply an evil and egoistic exporter, but the truth is much more complicated.

What is the real problem here ? It is our fear of instability and disruption. It is fear of losing power and influence. The West ruled for as long as we can think and now there is a new power rising. I would argue the living conditions and freedom rights of the Chinese are not the real concern for most, at least I did not hear much protests from any of you over the last years. Only now, with protests and instability on hand, China becomes a threat to us.

Cui bono?

Donald Trump is instrumentalising this fear systematically since years. He cleverly understood very early the usefulness of a foreign enemy. Since long before his rise to power he is projecting the fear of the unknown and foreign in all of us for his purpose. Many of us might have laughed about absurd tweets calling China the inventor of global warming, but if you look a it with a bit of distance you will notice the current attacks are actually very similar. They follow a clear pattern. There isn't much he did not blame on China, from currency manipulation or an alleged trade deficit to fabricating Viruses or undermining the WHO. It is all part of his strategy: creating more fear, because he knows his target group is more sensitive to fear than progressives or liberals. Donald Trump knows the political game better than perhaps anyone at the moment, he is in that respect truly a very stable genius. Blaming foreigners or minorities for home-made problems is the oldest political trick in the world, and Trump's use of Chinese (and Mexicans) is one more example the trick still works.

The bottom line is:

- Globalisation and international trade is the source of our wealth. We need to protect globalisation, not fight it. Trade deficits have many reasons and many aspects. For instance Europe has actually a negative trade balance with the US in the service sector. Overall, the trade balance for goods and services between Europe and the US is actually balanced. China will be the biggest customer of the West, for many companies it already is. Go figure.

- Donald Trump's retreat from international alliances and branding Europe and China as the enemy are not helpful ( except for himself). Only international alliances can solve the world problems, and now a united West would be more important than ever. My hopes are in November the US can re-calibrate past mistakes and become again the leader of the free world.

- Most expats will always follow the money and only when the money flow is threatened some will suddenly engage in moral discussions. That inclination might be universal, meaning any change in China would need mass unemployement first. But even then it is not a given, I would say rather unlikely at this point.

Sam. I agree that it "was" a rising power up to this point i history. I suspect it's rise is now at an end. "Rising" should mean a country that contributes to the worlds net improvement. England was a rising power in the past several hundred years, contributing greatly to the worlds benefit (law, language and science), America over the past two hundred (industry, economics, science and stability) and other mainly western powers, and some notable asian successes such as Singapore and Hong Kong. However, I believe China's turn towards abject tyranny has now ended their "rise". Now, the world as a whole has begun to coldly evaluate China's behaviour and their nature. They don't like what they see. The ingrained racism of the Han chinese (they generally care for nothing other than their own race and culture), their propensity to coerce, blackmail, steal and threaten has reached a point where the industrialised west recognises they have to strongly resist and thwart China's aims and goals. That is why I believe China's rise is at an end. They are ultimately a mortal danger to the world order, and no responsible western country can allow them to continue to influence and threaten their societies. Time will tell, but I suspect China's opportunity to become a responsible and valued member of the world order is at an end.

Globilasation is dead. If seeing China steal our intellectual property isn't bad enough, the reality of allowing unfettered mingling of untold millions of citizens who don't understand or respect our respective cultures has certainly now been proven a false premise due the present crisis (name a single country that is now going to be for aggressive immigration). I might add that globilisation has resulted in the USA having all their blood pressure meds and antibiotics being manufactured in China. One of Obamas "great" ideas as he attempted to hollow out Americas industry and security.

Donald Trump is the first leader to openly call out China for their beheviour. He rightly has labeled them a threat. Xi is well on his way to becoming more dangerous and tyrannical than Mao at his peak. Mix that personality and character with an unlimited military expansion and I suggest the world is in grave danger at some point. The plight of the HK people and the threat to Taiwan are just the beginning of a very dangerous era in world relations.

Moral discussion has nothing to do with "expats". It has to do with morals. For all their faults, the west is far better a steward of societal morality than an unaccountable, self appointed and paranoid CCP leadership who cares nothing for the world or it's accomplishments.

One could argue a large part of the world dislikes American hegemony. TheIr history post WW2 is littered with failed and unethical ventures.

The theme is pretty consistent from the bay of pigs, vietnam, central and s america, a trashed middle east and a long and pretty much futile campaign in afghanistan mostly in the name of democracy.

And yet they are still the country that most of the world turns to for security, economic support, science and technology. They may not be "liked", but the rest of the world wouldn't want China in the position as top dog in the world order (unless you want a brutal dictatorship who oppresses their own citizens in that role...).

Is this relevant …..
 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-...power/12281608

Perfectly summed up in the final question...

A short summary:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-mugabes-rise/

Clear your washingtonpost cookies if it won't let you see the article.