Made in Hong Kong

It's anyone's guess how far the pendulum will swing in this direction, but the protests in Hong Kong seem to be having an effect.

Comments

[Mao]

Damn them liberals. Their protests are an act of Treason against the peoples republic of China!

[Mao is Left]

Actually they are protesting for rights and capitalism, they are dirty right-wing militia nuts!

[Malcolm X]

No they are protesting for the injustices visted upon the Black Man by White :Devils. By any means necessary!

[fyodor]

Lucky for Hong-Kong there's Taiwan. I've heard it said that China wants Hong-Kong to look good for Taiwan. Otherwise it would likely be Tianamen II.

[Anonymous]

The Reds need to learn a thing or two from the tolerent Religion of Peace:

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030716/1/3cljj.html

"A top Iranian government official admitted that an Iranian-Canadian photo-journalist who died after her arrest here last month had suffered a "brain haemorrhage caused by a beating""

[Mao is Dead]

No, they are protesting for their liberties, both socially and economically, that makes them liberals. Conservative commies do not like change and prefer the status quo.

[Mao is Progressive]

You are being China-centric! In other places, such as the barbaric US, communism is considered progressive by liberals. Free health care, gun control, democratic control of the media -- we have it all here.

[Mao is Oam spelled backwards]

They're protesting for free speech although, looking at the level of discussion here, they may want to rethink that position.

[Eric]

Even if Taiwan wasn't around, I suspect the Chinese would want to tread lightly here. After seeing Tianamen Square, most of Hong Kong's residents took out British passports before the place was handed over. Unlike the subjects on the Mainland, these people can leave whenever they want. If the Mainlanders did any sort of major crackdown, you'd see a loss of human and financial capital of epic proportions in what still is China's largest commercial hub. Not to mention that American hawks would take this as a sign that the Chinese are still a major geopolitical threat to us, thus adversely affecting Sino-American relations at a time when Beijing desperately needs American companies to keep pouring in capital.

The Chinese are learning the hard way about all the insiduous ways in which an embrace of capitalism can subvert the power of an authoritarian government.

[Sean]

I wouldn't be surprised if Taiwan starts cranking up the indepence rhetoric in the next few days. If China's hand are truly more tied with Hong Kong, as Eric stated, then this will mean a lot of hand wringing and probably more resignations in the Chinese govt.

[Neil Block]

It seems we need to learn the actual meaning of "liberalism"

[Anonymous]

anti-neocon

[joe]

We're anit-paleo con, anti-theocrat, and episodically anti-libertarian, too.

"If the Mainlanders did any sort of major crackdown, you'd see a loss of human and financial capital of epic proportions in what still is China's largest commercial hub." I've never really bought the "let them buy McNuggets and they'll choose to become democrats" argument for trading with tyrants. But the ability to make them dependent and coerce them by threatening to leave seems to be a pretty effective strategy.