|
Ardennes posted:Anyway, the situation in Hong Kong is interesting, because Beijing was forced into a somewhat significant course correction because of public opinion. Tang was obviously their man, although Leung is obviously going to keep things relatively as they are. Although, I guess he might be a little more economically to the left of Tang. Maybe, this is how managed democracy will actually function, the elections will be rigged but the government still has to find a way to make people happy and has to find someone at least palatable. I don't know if it's because of public opinion, or whether it was because Tang showed that he couldn't be trusted by Beijing, after he claimed that Leung had suggested using riot police against protesters in 2003. Combined with rumours of Leung being an underground communist party member, and China putting pressure on people to vote for Leung, it's not surprising that Leung's popularity has become disastrously low since then. A mock vote held a day before the election saw around 220,000 people participate, and 54% of the votes were protest votes. A large proportion of the voters were probably relatively pro-democracy, but still. The guy isn't even in office yet and a significant part of the population already view him with either skepticism or outright hostility. That's worse than any of his predecessors. Now that Leung is in power, the expectation is that he'll be asked to press ahead with unpopular measures like Article 23, so it's hard to see how his popularity is going to get much better. I laughed when I read the WSJ article described him as a "charismatic politician". He's not charismatic. Everything he says seems like it's being read from a script.
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2012 09:36
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:29 |
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:It's not surprising that 2,000 Chinese students tried to get into the American Consulate in Chengdu today, over issues with the Japanese Perhaps. Or maybe they all just wanted to defect and offer details of high level corruption instead. It'll be interesting to see how the government tries to quell the unrest. Protests against an external foe are well and good, but if there's one thing the government hates, it's disorder. How can you control the people if you just let them go wild?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2012 17:20
|
|
|
Heh. I just read a news item about what a teenager said on TV. "Boycotting Japanese goods doesn't mean breaking all the Japanese goods we have. It means we have to be better than the Japanese at everything. Our officials need to be more incorruptible than theirs, our streets cleaner than theirs, our bridges stronger than theirs, our youth having better futures and hopes than theirs." Responses to his words included "this is what Chinese youth should be", as well as "afraid for your safety, hope you're still alive tomorrow"
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2012 14:31
|
|
|
Warcabbit posted:So... if the Chinese are sending 1,000 ships over to some islands, while Japan sits on its rear end, then that's Japan trying to take China's stuff? Not that I agree with that person at all, but Japan is sitting on its rear end because it has ships permanently patrolling the waters around the island.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2012 18:28
|
|
|
Longanimitas posted:Most educated Chinese people see those claims as farcical. They are held unironically only by officials, the uneducated, and the brainwashed. Unfortunately for China and the world, that's a lot of people. Really? Here in Hong Kong even the most vehement anti-communist government, pro-democracy activists are adamant that Diaoyu belongs to China. In fact they even landed a few guys on the island recently, and are planning to again (the HK government is so far not allowing their boat to leave). The most anti-China paper (apple daily) characterises the activists as heroes.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2012 12:36
|
|
|
Bloodnose posted:People in Hong Kong are aware of what the Apple Daily tells them. Not much more. It's like the Fox News of the SAR. As opposed to the two free tv channels that both basically spew out pro-China rhetoric all day long, especially ATV (owned by mainlanders, surprise surprise). The whole media culture in Hong Kong is just sad. Nobody has anything of any substance to say.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 25, 2012 11:45
|
|
|
hitension posted:Wonder what happened to his son? Last I heard, Bo Guagua was applying to law schools in the US-- so if so, he should have enrolled by now... http://guaguabostatement.tumblr.com/
|
|
#
¿
Sep 30, 2012 13:43
|
|
|
Bloodnose posted:Also most people believe that Catholics aren't Christians. I assume this is a linguistic issue because of 基督教 versus 天主教. What really? I don't think that is remotely true. Yes, those terms mean Protestant and Catholic. Yes, people probably don't know the difference. Big leap to go from there to "they think Catholics aren't Christian". Also the majority (literally over 50%) of Muslims living here are actually domestic workers from Indonesia.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2012 09:53
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:29 |
|
|
Well I'm going to have to hold my hands up and offer another worthless anecdote in a thread chock full of them: I've never met anyone who would know enough about Catholicism to see them as a creepy cult or whatever. They wouldn't even know the first thing about Catholic rituals. The only thing they'd know about Catholicism would probably be that Joseph Zen was a pretty powerful Catholic dude, and maybe the fact that Donald Tsang is a really religious Catholic.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2012 10:46
|
|