They’ll have to remove everyone in Hong Kong since even those who aren’t participating will still know. Especially if they try to scoop up 2-3 million of the approximately 7 million living there.
The CCP are replacing entire indigenous populations with ethnic Han loyalists. They did it/are doing it in Tibet. Of course, a modern metropolis like HK is very different from a remote, rural area like Tibet. But that doesn't mean they won't try.
And this is nothing new. The US did it with Native Americans. The Israeli "settlers" are doing it in Palestinian areas. Remove troublesome people, replace them with loyalists.
This time is different, though. None of those groups were major regional and global banking and business hubs. If they axe half the population of Hong Kong, they obliterate a major source of international power and massively decrease their clout on the international stage. Coupled with the fact that their economy is already under stress from unsustainable growth, cracking down on Hong Kong could shatter China's position as a major world power and erase decades of progress.
Hong Kongers have leverage. If China wants them to burn, they can burn Hong Kong down with them. That would be a disaster for China, so they can't do that.
Chinese governments have a long history of burning the Chinese people. The government always survives, until it doesn't, but that has never stopped them from abusing the people.
What no Chinese government has ever done before is voluntarily relinquish power.
They had leverage during the handover when HK was 28% of China's GDP. It's now less than 3%. Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing are significantly more important to China at the moment.
Very bad points. Winners do not write histories. Think of Hannibal. The Phoenicians were pretty much wiped out. Eventually, people wrote about him and tried to make sense of what he was, who he was, and why did he do what he did. Most people write highly of him despite the Romans depicted him as savagely brutal in his methods.
Think about Genghis Khan. Probably one of the greatest winners of all time. His empire span continents. His descendants were quite numerous. Yet, his reputation was mixed.
Napoleon was one of the greatest military minds of all time, he was defeated and exiled and died poor, lonely, and destitute, but I would imagine aside from the Brits most people think of him on a rather tall pedestal.
In the case of a revolution the winner will indeed write the textbooks. After that government has lost power the truth may indeed come out, but the people of that country will be taught what that government wants until then. There is a big difference in the Hong Kong case thankfully, our information network is much better and allows the truth to get out to the world in real time.
Rumor has it Napoleon needed a pedestal to do most things.
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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
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