Poll Shows Hong Kongers Not Exactly Against China

[beijingwalker]

Poll Shows Hong Kongers Not Exactly Against China
Jan 2, 2020, 01:59pm

Only 17% of Hong Kongers say they want independence from China with just 20% saying China has abused the “one country, two systems” model to favor Beijing, a Reuters poll released on December 31 shows.

The survey, conducted by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Institute exclusively for Reuters, asked 1,021 locals in mid-December how they felt about the ongoing protests in the autonomous region, and asked for their thoughts on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam. A clear majority supported the protests, and 57% supported the removal of Lam as Hong Kong’s Chief Executive.

Protests began last year in response to a number of government issues, but exploded in regards to a proposed law that would allow for people in Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China to stand trial.

Hong Kongers saw this as a breach of the one country, two systems policy that has been in place since the U.K. government returned Hong Kong, once a colonial outpost, to the Chinese in the 1990s.

China has two autonomous regions that act independently from Beijing. Hong Kong is the biggest. The former Portuguese colonial territory and now gambling den, Macau, is the other one.

Both have their own currencies and freedoms not enjoyed by those ruled fully by the Communist Party in Beijing. However, Hong Kong is far and away the most important city for China as it is a massive source of dollars, a global financial center, and a great end-around current tariffs imposed by President Trump.

The reveal that a majority of Hong Kongers are not pushing for independence is a positive for Beijing, whose leaders have fallen short of calling the protest movement a CIA operation.

Chinese leaders, including Xi Jinping, have warned the U.S. to stay out of domestic affairs. The U.S. Senate passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last month, backing the Hong Kong protesters whom Trump said should have been listed in Time magazine’s Person of the Year issue.

Hong Kong protesters are often seen waving American and British flags at protest rallies.

Many young protesters will lose existing freedoms — such as access to foreign social media and content — by the time they are in their 40s. The one country, two systems model expires in 2047, making Hong Kong no different than Shanghai.

Some China watchers believe Beijing will extend that date, preferring to keep Hong Kong at status quo in order to avoid political unrest and an exodus of young people to other competing cities like Shanghai, Seoul, and to a larger extent, London and to cities throughout the U.S.

Hong Kong ended 2019 on both a high note and a low one.

Activist leaders were brutally beaten in October. But a month later, voters handed dozens of pro-Beijing politicians their hats in a romp that saw pro-Democracy politicians winning District Council seats.

Protesters were back at it again on Wednesday, with more taking to the streets to highlight their five demands, including the release of people arrested at rallies.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrap...ngers-not-exactly-against-china/#47bb07543b1a

 

[Song Hong]

China has given Hong Kong unprecedented freedom, and judiciary independence under the framework of 1C2S.

Hong Kongers shoot their own feet.

Poll Shows Hong Kongers Not Exactly Against China
Jan 2, 2020, 01:59pm

Only 17% of Hong Kongers say they want independence from China with just 20% saying China has abused the “one country, two systems” model to favor Beijing, a Reuters poll released on December 31 shows.

The survey, conducted by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Institute exclusively for Reuters, asked 1,021 locals in mid-December how they felt about the ongoing protests in the autonomous region, and asked for their thoughts on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam. A clear majority supported the protests, and 57% supported the removal of Lam as Hong Kong’s Chief Executive.

Protests began last year in response to a number of government issues, but exploded in regards to a proposed law that would allow for people in Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China to stand trial.

Hong Kongers saw this as a breach of the one country, two systems policy that has been in place since the U.K. government returned Hong Kong, once a colonial outpost, to the Chinese in the 1990s.

China has two autonomous regions that act independently from Beijing. Hong Kong is the biggest. The former Portuguese colonial territory and now gambling den, Macau, is the other one.

Both have their own currencies and freedoms not enjoyed by those ruled fully by the Communist Party in Beijing. However, Hong Kong is far and away the most important city for China as it is a massive source of dollars, a global financial center, and a great end-around current tariffs imposed by President Trump.

The reveal that a majority of Hong Kongers are not pushing for independence is a positive for Beijing, whose leaders have fallen short of calling the protest movement a CIA operation.

Chinese leaders, including Xi Jinping, have warned the U.S. to stay out of domestic affairs. The U.S. Senate passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last month, backing the Hong Kong protesters whom Trump said should have been listed in Time magazine’s Person of the Year issue.

Hong Kong protesters are often seen waving American and British flags at protest rallies.

Many young protesters will lose existing freedoms — such as access to foreign social media and content — by the time they are in their 40s. The one country, two systems model expires in 2047, making Hong Kong no different than Shanghai.

Some China watchers believe Beijing will extend that date, preferring to keep Hong Kong at status quo in order to avoid political unrest and an exodus of young people to other competing cities like Shanghai, Seoul, and to a larger extent, London and to cities throughout the U.S.

Hong Kong ended 2019 on both a high note and a low one.

Activist leaders were brutally beaten in October. But a month later, voters handed dozens of pro-Beijing politicians their hats in a romp that saw pro-Democracy politicians winning District Council seats.

Protesters were back at it again on Wednesday, with more taking to the streets to highlight their five demands, including the release of people arrested at rallies.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrap...ngers-not-exactly-against-china/#47bb07543b1a

 

[8888888888888]

I suspect Taiwan send agents into HK so that she can win the election.

 

[beijingwalker]

I think what happens in Hong kong and Taiwan is good for China, China needs a counterweight so the government can be constantly reminded not to go too far in centralization. Xi is indeed much more strict than his predecessors , I hope Xi leaves after his two terms being over end of this year.

 

[AViet]

Similar situation in Vietnam. Although most people, including me, are wary about China's intention, especially to our East Sea, most Vietnamese still admire Chinese culture and development, as seen in recent trend in every aspects of life in VN. Even children's names sound more and more Chinese nowadays, compared to 20 years ago. To be honest, I hate this trend, although I love China.

 

[beijingwalker]

I believe that China should go easy on south China sea and promote joint development with all the neighboring nations, South China sea is just not worth a fight, it's really not China's core interest, I just speak for myself though.

 

[Song Hong]

There was no rule of law in Hong Kong before 1997. She is similar to India. China has given Hong Kong rule of law under 1C2S.

Ungrateful Hong Kong and her disgusting judges deserve to be disgraced and humiliated economically, and in reputation.

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2017-07/01/content_29955754.htm

 

[Viva_Viet]

I believe that China should go easy on south China sea and promote joint development with all the neighboring nations, South China sea is just not worth a fight, it's really not China's core interest, I just speak for myself though.

Correct, thats why even CN Qing officers also said "those islands belong to VN" when some bussinessmen comlpain to CN that their ships were attacked by pirates in SCS( east VN sea).

CN always has so many enemies, if u keep occupying our islands, then u will make your friends become ur enemies, not mentioning CN never can totally wipe VN out of SCS ( east VN sea).

Ita time for CN to make the wise choice, let just say "those islands belong to VN" again like Qing officers said and focus on other much more dangerous enemies.

Never forget that Qing dynasty said "those islands belong to VN"

Political Map of the Lands of the Former Empire of the Qing Dynasty

https://i.redd.it/60iai4vua6201.png

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

You cant have your cake an eat it.

They want Chinese money, water, military and a host of other advantages and at the same time act all superior and be a slave to the west.

Its time to slowly relegate Hong Kong to a city of secondary importance and focus energy on Chinese cities who are not willing slaves of the west.

 

[OIO]

I believe that China should go easy on south China sea and promote joint development with all the neighboring nations, South China sea is just not worth a fight, it's really not China's core interest, I just speak for myself though.

Naïve
You have no idea how important SCS is.

 

[Mista]

I think what happens in Hong kong and Taiwan is good for China, China needs a counterweight so the government can be constantly reminded not to go too far in centralization. Xi is indeed much more strict than his predecessors , I hope Xi leaves after his two terms being over end of this year.

I don't think what's happening in HK and Taiwan will influence the political power structure in the mainland.

Some say that Xi is consolidating power to push through difficult reforms in the SOEs.

Few western experts know China better than Michael Pettis. He has been living in Beijing for 17 years, teaching finance at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, where he specializes in Chinese financial markets.

...

You mentioned that Xi had consolidated his power and was able to start reforms. Is he really a reformer?
China really does not have a choice. You can’t allow your debt to grow at two to three times your debt servicing capacity year after year, when already your debt is probably well over 300% of GDP and you’re a developing country. Most people realize that this is a ticking time bomb. Beijing has got to address the debt issue. I think there is this recognition that they’ve got to stop the debt from growing and they understood that it’s impossible to do that without seeing a significant drop in GDP growth.

How should the debt problem be addressed?
The typical economist would tell you that you have to implement productivity enhancing reforms and grow your way out of the debt. But let’s face it: No country in history with too much debt has ever been able to just grow out of it. They reduce their debt either by defaulting, by inflating it away, by squeezing the workers or expropriating the rich. In the case of China, the source of the huge growth in debt has been massive amounts of misallocated investment in non-productive infrastructure and unnecessary manufacturing capacity. So as a first step, you have to stop the non-productive investment. But if you do that, you reduce growth. And if you don’t want growth to drop too much, you need another source of demand.

Such as?
For an economy the size of China, the obvious choice is household consumption. Household income and consumption in China today are at below 50% of GDP. That is the lowest level ever recorded in history. So to me it’s clear that China’s economic growth now must come from the consumption sector. They need to replace non-productive investment with consumption.

How can that be achieved?
There are only two ways to grow consumption: One is to boost household debt, which is what they did in the last four years. Household debt in China has exploded. But of course that doesn’t solve the debt problem, it just moves it to the household side. The other way to boost household consumption is to boost household income. After 30 years in which the household share contracted, we now need the household share to expand. That means the group that benefited most in the last 30 years, the group that enjoyed an expanding share of a rapidly growing economy, must now retain a contracting share of a much more slowly growing economy.

Who is that group?
The local elites and the local governments, which are controlled by the local elites. So the solution is very simple: You have to transfer wealth from local governments and elites to ordinary households. They’ve known that solution since 2007, and if you look at the 2013 Third Plenum reforms, they were all about that transfer of wealth. It’s just politically incredibly difficult to do that.

To put it simply, you’re saying the central government is battling against the vested interests in the provinces?
Yes. It’s interesting to know that the term «vested interest» only emerged in China in early 2008, after premier Wen Jiabao promised to begin rebalancing the economy. That’s not a coincidence. If you’re going to impose those reforms, you have to significantly weaken the vested interests and strengthen the central government. Which is what Xi Jinping has spent the first five years of his presidency doing.

So let’s say the domestic debt level in China today amounts to 300% of GDP. How can that be wound down?
First, we need to understand that there are two types of debt: Good debt is when you borrow money to build something that creates enough economic value to repay the debt. And then there is the other debt, the bad one, that is used to build something that does not create economic value. The way to deal with that is you have to get rid of the debt and assign the cost to somebody. How can you do that? Well, you can default and restructure, which means the creditors bear the cost. That’s difficult in China, because the creditors are the banks and the banks are guaranteed by the government. Another way is you can assign the costs to the household sector, which tends to be politically weak.

How is that done?
By imposing negative real interest rates on household savings. That’s what happened in China in the last decades. The problem today is the issue we just talked about: If the government wants the households to boost their spending, they can’t squeeze them to bear the costs of all the unproductive debt in the economy. So who else? Ideally, you would like to get the foreigners to bear the cost of bad debt, but in China the foreigners are not the lenders. So there is only the government left. And by that, I don’t mean the central government, but local governments. The most effective way for China to reduce the debt level is to force local governments to pay for the debt in their region.

How can they do that?
Local governments own a lot of assets, such as real estate and state-owned enterprises. They should sell those assets and use the proceeds to pay down the debt. There have been many proposals, but it's just not happening. The power of the local elites depends to a large extent on the local government’s control of these assets. It’s incredibly difficult for the central government to take on the local elites.

The issue of the unsustainable debt level in China has been talked about for years.
Yes, that’s true. Ten years ago, it was still controversial. Two years ago it stopped being controversial. Everyone here knows that there is a serious debt problem.

If so, the trade war has a greater influence on Chinese domestic politics than what's happening in HK or Taiwan, since the phase 2 deal supposedly demands China to stop 'state subsidies' and lift 'digital trade restrictions'.

 

[Beast]

I believe that China should go easy on south China sea and promote joint development with all the neighboring nations, South China sea is just not worth a fight, it's really not China's core interest, I just speak for myself though.

South China Sea is a strategic location and has immerse resources hidden below.

It's not able worth picking fight anot but originally belong to PRC which China is late to exercise it's authority when it's navy is weak in early stages.

 

[beijingwalker]

South China Sea is a strategic location and has immerse resources hidden below.

It's not able worth picking fight anot but originally belong to PRC which China is late to exercise it's authority when it's navy is weak in early stages.

What I mean is if it's worth it to make a big deal out of it for the time being， isn't it a better strategy that China stays low key and keeps building up its economy and naval power quietly, when China can be truly on par with US in naval power and US navy has to withdraw from the west pacific, there'll be no noise from anyone as we hear everyday now.

 

[Beast]

What I mean is if it's worth it to make a big deal out of it for the time being， isn't it a better strategy that China stays low key and keeps building up its economy and naval power quietly, when China can be truly on par with US in naval power and US navy has to withdraw from the west pacific, there'll be no noise from anyone as we hear everyday now.

Isn't now the time to show muscle we are already second largest economy and US are declining?

Deng say we shall bide our time but he never say we shall never show it. China one belt one road are materializing now. China need to expand out to protect our Interest overseas if not. OBOR will never succeed.

SCS is only with Vietnam, indonesia and Philippines. Don't be fool by western media. Rest of ASEAN countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Brunei, singapore has not much of issue.

The recent slap on Indonesia on natunas island is warning to Indonesia regards to meddle into China xinjiang issue.

They are foolish enough to even summon China embassador regards to fake uyghur torture. While indonesian themselves are torturing west Papua people. China need to remind this attention wannabe to mind their own business.