this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
130 points (95.1% liked)
World News
32076 readers
1585 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's a departure from the common law tradition. Furthermore common law is a completely different concept from British laws.
I'm not sure I understand your question.
You're replying to a tankie.
Just the usual knewjerk reaction to defend China.
Yeah, I noticed the instance only after I had already responded. Oh well, that solves the mystery of the questionable reading comprehension.
Hong Kong's common law tradition is entirely a colonialist imposition. Worse, common law doesn't apply to modern national security regimes. The US is a common law nation, but it has secret courts, enemy combatants designations, secret evidence, secret charges, and the federal court system has significant departures.
The idea that a national security proceeding in China should be constrained by thousand-year old precedent set in England is not just ridiculous it is a particular kind of white imperialist ridiculous.
Do you think that having the political leader hand pick a panel judges to try someone and do away with jury trial is a good idea then? Particularly when the defendant has a history of annoying said political leader? You don’t think it might be rather open to abuse?
Abuse. Abuse. You are worried about abuse? How about the occupation of Hong Kong, the attempt to extend occupation, and then, upon determining that the occupation could not be extended, doing everything in your power to create strife, division, conditions for counter-revolution and secessionary movements, and maintaining as much political and economic influence over the territory as possible?
Do you think that might be open to abuse? How would you solve that problem? What sorts of solutions exist in the imperial world for resolving this sort of problem?
What you don't seem to grasp is that One Country, Two Systems entails One National Defense. Collaboration with Western imperialists who have subjugated China for centuries is going to be handled by the One Country, not the Two Systems. Unlike the imperial holdings of the West, however, Hong Kong is actually democratically integrated into China. Ask Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, etc how democracy is working out for them?
You also aren't actually analyzing the bureaucratic workings of China's legal system and aren't steeped in their history, traditions, and precedent. You are reading a Western spin on what's actually happening. You can't read Chinese, so you can't read Chinese law. You can't actually engage with Chinese events at the same level of detail and analysis that you can of English, American, Canadian, and Australian events. So, forgive me if I don't find your arguments compelling, since they amount to accusing Xi of being an autocrat in what is demonstrably a democratic institution operating a rules-based bureaucratic system that has a decade-long 95% national approval while simultaneously operating the most complex multi-ethnic country in the history of the world including autonomous regions wherein ethnic nations experience a greater degree of cultural self-expression and self-governance than anything the West has ever produced. Clearly, if China worked the way you think it does Xi would be calling all the shots and people would be discontent and the governing of 1.4 billion people of 57 ethnicities would be coming apart at the seams. Instead we see that it is France, UK, and USA that is falling apart dealing with far fewer people and with far less ethnic diversity and with far less ethnic autonomy. Something in your analysis is fundamentally flawed.
Back to your point about abuse, though, should you be worried about abuse of power in China? Is that where your energy should be going? Does China operate 600 military bases globally? Does China operate extrajudicial torture chambers all over the world? Does China launch new wars of aggression every few years? Does China deploy chemical and nuclear weapons that continue to kill thousands of babies the world over for decades? Does China suppress language and culture of people living in its borders in a continuously unbroken 600-year genocide?
As far as I can tell, all systems have corruption, all systems have abuse of power - it's the essence of governing systems that they are this way. What we should be worried about is actual abuses, not potential abuses. Worrying about potential abuses allows you to focus on China while the USA kills millions, tortures with impunity, trains terrorists and death squads, and sows death and destruction everywhere it goes. Focus on the problem. China's not the problem.
Hong Kong's leader handpicked judges because the UK does it as well. This sounds very corrupt, but maybe it sounds normal for the Brits.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. The UK government does not ‘handpick’ judges for cases and under Hong among common law the Chinese government wasn’t meant to either.
While it's possible he's actually that stupid, he's not posting in good faith. Don't waste your time. :)
I'm not primarily posting for him. I'm posting for people who might otherwise be mislead
Fair!
I'm honestly intrigued by the tankie strategy of pretending to be dumber than a fence post.
I cannot see it working to convince anyone, so is the idea just to waste people's time? The strategy effectively draws more attention to the issues China and Russia tend to try to suppress - if it wasn't for tankies, this thread would have been completely uninformative in regards to Chinese human rights abuses. So it seems counterproductive.
Another theory is that a lot of them were hired to be Trump supporters online until recently, and that they're just not very good at being Chinese/Russian apologists just yet. It's a learning experience - we all have our rough days at work.
It's interesting stuff. In either case it's somehow nice to have someone ask the dumb questions, making the facts come out in the open for anyone whose just too afraid to ask. So I've change my mind - you're not wasting your time. :)
Hmmm, perhaps he's actually a HK pro-democracy activist posing a tanky to make them look dumb and spotlight China's problematic policies.
... this is an unlikely hypothesis :)
There is a third category. A lot of these people are legitimately edgy teenagers who haven't studied any history or political science outside of a very tiny socialist (and I use that term lightly, these are mostly anti-west reactionaries) information bubble and simply do not understand the enormity of their own ignorance. It becomes incredibly obvious once you've spent a bit of time engaging with them.
Do you have any intuition where these kids come from? Are they mostly Americans?
I guess I can see how dissatisfaction with the state of democracy, welfare, and media in the US could lead to the logical fallacy that things must be better in Russia and China. I just struggle to understand how the degree of sheer stupidity they often project can be genuine.
At least the Trump supporters came across as genuine lunatics. These people just appear to be eating crayons.
US and EU based on when they are active. I recognize the thought process precisely because I used to be like this too. It's easy to ignore nuance and tend towards extremism when you have no real stake in society or responsibility for others.
What made you snap out of it? Age? Or did your curiosity about the subject eventually lead you to challenge your beliefs?
Sorry if I come across as pushy, I just find this genuinely interesting.
Snap out of it isn't the right phrase. I would say a lot of my current views have similar origins, but what were once black and white ideas have been colored by experience and education. In particular, experience should naturally move most reasonable people past the easy, but simplistic idea that the modern era is so devoid of positive virtue that any evil is justified in tearing it down.
Hopefully they'll all get there with age.
I know socialism itself is not the problem - most of the opportunities I have had in my life I owe to socialism. I just find it strange that young Western people look to China and (especially) Russia and consider them to be even remotely aligned with socialist ideals. I would have an easier time understanding it if they were rambling on about Cuba and Yugoslavia under Tito. Back when I was young that was what the edgy Commie kids were all about.
So how are they picked?
There’s basically a pool of judges available to sit in any particular court, and the court’s admin staff picks them based on a rota system, workload and availability.