John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Hong Kong police break up new protest with rubber bullets, tear gas
“Agency downgrades territory's credit rating ahead of protesters' plans to disrupt airport transport links”
Rubber bullets are still a lot better than what Macron has used on the streets of Paris, killing 11 and injuring a couple of thousand.
And certainly better than what Netanyahu has used on Gaza demonstrations, having killed more than 200 while injuring many thousands, all done on territory where he actually has no legal authority.
China, especially given the level of understood foreign interference, has been genuinely restrained.
Foreign interference? Not only was an American diplomat photographed talking to some of these guys, but video from raids at the time of the airport demonstrations shows various items almost certainly supplied by the United States, as wads of American cash and certain kinds of documents, including fake press passes.
The America of Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo just won't let anyone live in peace. It’s a dirty shame Canada supports them in so many ways.
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Hong Kong is headed towards relative decline, something already observable in various details.
The huge investments the government has made in Shanghai will assure its future pre-eminence. The city was virtually rebuilt, and it provides all the electronic and communications connections anyone could want.
New Chinese arrangements with Russia and many other Asian countries, new development banks, new agreements on trade and large projects, and the magnificent Silk Road project will all contribute to Hong Kong's relative decline. China certainly will encourage major new investments to locate on the Mainland.
China is building high-speed rail like no one else. It has thousands of miles in operation, about two-thirds of the entire world's total. It also has a vast project of airport construction underway, and it is expected to overtake the United States as the world's largest aviation market in just a couple of years.
So, the astute leaders of the country have been building a truly modern and fast national transportation system, a network that only will magnify the attractions of a place like Shanghai.
Hong Kong has many serious disadvantages, ones having nothing to do with government.
It's crowded and narrow, actually so much so that many photos of demonstrators filling the streets tend very much to exaggerate their numbers. Housing is terribly expensive. It has just the one airport that it seriously depends upon as a lifeline to the world's commerce.
Now, it has this. The demonstrators are only hastening the day for the decline and displacement of their city in importance.
