China cancels NBA stuff / Silver issues statement (pg1) /Ongoing discussion...

[spacemonkey]

Since when was HK a 100% democracy? Did they get any say at all during UK rule? Nope, they get zero say, UK just appoint some old white Duke/Lord of something to come over and rule over HK. Did UK and China agreed on letting HK to have 1 vote per person during the hand over? Did the rest of China get 1 vote per person and HK do not?

The truth is, HK is getting more control now. At the very least they get some say in chief executive and he/she is always a HK citizen.

This "fight for democracy" is for some simple minded people who ignores the history and reality of Chinese political structure and just chant freedom and democracy like it is the cure all miracle drug for all countries in the world. Chinese government has to manage a complex country of 1.3 billion people. They have proven their government works and they got great support from the Chinese people. HK is part of China and before the HK people ask what China can and must do for them and grant them this freedom and democracy, maybe they want to ask what they can do for their country like contributing to the sovereignty and stability of the nation?

I was expecting some whataboutism (which is another popular play out of the wumao guidebook). Yes, Hong Kong didn't have it under British rule (and I never said they did), but they want it now. That's life. Things change, and people's expectations change. (Actually, people's expectations changing is the thing the CCP fears most about it's own population. That's why they so heavily censor everything in China -- so expectations don't change. But, even so, they are changing, gradually. The CCP as we know it now won't be forever.)

The reasons are never singular, everything is intertwined, and China's various scandals certainly play a part, as does the rising level of general dissatisfaction in Hong Kong.

It's interesting you cite the Sino-British Joint Declaration considering China has been busy trying to erode that and speed up "2047". Hell, an example would be the proposed extradition bill which China tried to side-load in on the back of a murderer, the very same bill which sparked these protests to begin with.

The Hong Kong people just saw through it.

The ironic thing about all of this and how angry it's made CCP as well as many Chinese citizens is that had the CCP not tried to sneak this new bill in, none of this would have happened.

Like, if they had literally *not intervened* like they agreed not to in the declaration, this wouldn't have kicked off.

But I suspect the irony is lost.

[mkot]

Since when was HK a 100% democracy? Did they get any say at all during UK rule? Nope, they get zero say, UK just appoint some old white Duke/Lord of something to come over and rule over HK. Did UK and China agreed on letting HK to have 1 vote per person during the hand over? Did the rest of China get 1 vote per person and HK do not?

This just proved how little you know.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region established in 1997 was governed by the Hong Kong Basic Law, the "mini-constitution" of the region. The Basic Law set out the selecting method of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE) for the first two terms and the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) for the first three terms. The selection method of the CE and LegCo was left blank for the 2007 Chief Executive and 2008 Legislative Council elections. Hong Kong Basic Law Article 45 promised that "the ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage" while Article 68 stipulated that "the ultimate aim is the election of all members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage".

It's written in the Hong Kong Basic Law and was promised to be delivered by the 2007-2008 election year. It's 2019 now.

I will rest my case here. Can't with alternative facts. I just can't help myself sometime...

[seewhy]

Some of these "I live in HK" post we've had from a few posters on RGM are almost comically inaccurate.

A lot of it is the same cherry-picked, context-less, and outright untrue garbage propaganda the 50c wumao brigade are overloading the internet with.

From "jealous of mainlanders" to "stoked by western agents" to "separatists", the misrepresentation has become canonized much like the 5000 year glorious history and western imperial forces seeking to divide China, China is always the victim bits.

It's classic CCP playbook, allows them to pretend that this is a territorial sovereignty issue (it isn't, HK people aren't sececcionists) and has already blanketed the internet in any SEA country with a considerable Chinese population (Singapore being a prime example), and it is reaching other parts of the internet, too (such as here).

Unfortunately, the false information carpet bombing is working to the point where international media is picking it up and running it (like those that mischaracterize the protests as an independence movement).

LOL, why is it when someone post something not following the mainstream anti-China propaganda, it is some wumao brigade overloading the Internet? Is Joseph Tsai wumao brigade? He is not even remotely Chinese with his Taiwanese-Canadian background, and I am sure he make more than 50c, maybe you want to read what he has to say about this.

Quote:
“The one thing that is terribly misunderstood, and often ignored, by the western press and those critical of China, is that 1.4 billion Chinese citizens stand united when it comes to the territorial integrity of China and the country’s sovereignty over her homeland. This issue is non-negotiable"

And unfortunately I cannot post picture here, but how do you explain the fact when HK rioters stormed the Parliament and put the colonial flag right in the center of the Parliament chamber? and all these UK and US flag waving rioters? How much proof do you need to recognize that there are, at least a certain independence movement element in the whole thing.

[antonac]

Hi all,

I haven't posted here in a while, but felt compelled to provide a on the ground view about what has happened here in HK. I am of Chinese descent father from Shanghai and Mother from HK. I have lived in Asia for the past 10 years split between HK, Tokyo and Shanghai. Prior 30 years in Toronto and NY. If anything I would consider myself more tied to my HK and North American roots. With this being said, I am disgusted by the minority group that is trashing ruining HK with their calls for freedom.

The last 18 weeks in HK have been an absolute war zone on the streets of HK, hate between HK and people from China have gotten to extremes. I think China's reaction to the Morey tweet is probably a bit overkill, but Morey should have refrained tweeting about something that he understands at a very superficial level. First thing I want to clarify is that media today is absolute trash. Media when it comes to politics is not about free press and reporting the truth, but who has paid you more money. China has always been known for censorship and some level of propaganda, but what has disgusted me most, is the so called western international press that has manipulated stories, edited videos and banned freedom of speech on the media channels and forums. I went and witnessed a protest in my neighbourhood 2 months back. The street had probably around 500-600 protestors. You could visibly count. The amount the western media reported the next day was 55,000. Clearly trying to skew the view. You may have heard there were 1 million people that showed up for a protest at a park in HK. The park scientifically can only fit 150,000 people. It was raining that day too.

For those that want to understand what is going on in HK. I am sure the media you read is that it is about a fight for democracy. That is probably 20% of the battle. The rest is about social inequality, change in social status and an inability to accept that competition has risen over the years. All of you in North America, probably over the past 10-20 years have noticed the increase of immigrants and they work hard and compete for jobs. HK is no different. This goes back into history when HK was colonized by the British. HK at the time was used by the British as a business gateway into Asia Pacific and to ensure the simplest dealings, rules were extremely lax in order to provide the most economic efficiency. As a result HK become one of the most capitalist cities in the world. Tax rates are 15% at the highest level, zero rent control, garbage public education and healthcare and next to zero retirement pension. If you are willing to work hard and live modestly, you can make and save money big time in this city. Working 10 years in HK even today would allow you to save the equivalent of 25 years in North America. Two problems arose from this phenomenon first was an elitist mindset from Hong Kong people towards the Mainland. I recall as a kid my family would look down about China in the 80-90s and felt that we were more sophisticated, cleaner and smarter. My families perspective changed as we saw China grow over the last few decades, but many still live in this elitist world. The second problem is the extreme reckless capitalism in HK has resulted in the biggest rich poor gap in the world. To give you a sense. The cost to buy a new 500 square foot apartment in an average neighbourhood will run you between 2-2.25 million CAD. The average payback period in this city is 49 years. Add in garbage education, healthcare and pension. The picture is pretty grimm. Now it is always easy to point the finger at China cause they are the communist, which historically we are taught are the antagonist and the democracy fighters are the protagonist. Problem is people destroying and rioting in HK are hiding behind the democracy shield, when the bulk of their battle is social inequality, inability to accept that their cousins have gotten much more competitive and they have gotten too complacent over the years that all of a sudden they cannot keep up with society.

This is what is truly happening in HK. This is why Morey's tweet at the end of the day is a bit ignorant, because it lacks context of what is happening and people are fighting for.

I wish the protestors in HK were this noble and righteous to fight for democracy. But this is a city that has been poisoned by money. If there is something that runs in the DNA of this city before democracy, socialism or communism. IT IS CAPITALISM!

I'm not going to disagree with everything you said but as far as I understand the riots were started due to a Chinese extradition bill. Now I do think it's possible to draw a connection between civil unrest and social inequality, people tend to revolt against society if they think it's done them wrong, but still, the spark was Chinese interference and I don't really see why China needed to plunge ahead with right to extradite people.

I also don't see how or why the socially oppressed by capitalism have ended up being pro-capitalist protesters. Usually, and hell I may be wrong, in societies that capitalism has cause major inequality, the vocal opposition are not capitalists (as that would make no sense), this would be by supported by one of the 5 demands being "implementation of universal suffrage for Legislative Council and Chief Executive elections". That seems to me a strictly anti-capitalist move in that it seeks to remove power from business leaders in electing officials.

I'm no capitalist, in fact my political beliefs lie far close to communism than they do capitalism, but there's been a big price to pay for the law and order of China, and the the millions imprisoned for political reasons (which is why the HK populace fears this extradition bill so much) is not exactly anything to be proud of.

[ItsMyPotPie]

Reading this thread I think most people have a very idealistic view of the world. Humanity has been scum, is currently scum and will continue to be scum till the day we wipe ourselves out and go extinct. No amount of protests, justice for whomever, wokeness ain't gonna change that.

[Domejandro]

Trying to steer this conversation to be NBA related again.

Read on Twitter

[seewhy]

Since when was HK a 100% democracy? Did they get any say at all during UK rule? Nope, they get zero say, UK just appoint some old white Duke/Lord of something to come over and rule over HK. Did UK and China agreed on letting HK to have 1 vote per person during the hand over? Did the rest of China get 1 vote per person and HK do not?

This just proved how little you know.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region established in 1997 was governed by the Hong Kong Basic Law, the "mini-constitution" of the region. The Basic Law set out the selecting method of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE) for the first two terms and the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) for the first three terms. The selection method of the CE and LegCo was left blank for the 2007 Chief Executive and 2008 Legislative Council elections. Hong Kong Basic Law Article 45 promised that "the ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage" while Article 68 stipulated that "the ultimate aim is the election of all members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage".

It's written in the Hong Kong Basic Law and was promised to be delivered by the 2007-2008 election year. It's 2019 now.

I will rest my case here. Can't with alternative facts. I just can't help myself sometime...

1) The selection method of the CE and LegCo was left blank for the 2007 Chief Executive and 2008 Legislative Council elections.
2) Hong Kong Basic Law Article 45 promised that "the ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage" while Article 68 stipulated that "the ultimate aim is the election of all members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage"

Not sure where you learn your logic by equating 1) method of 2007/2008 election being left blank and 2) ultimate aim to be achieved without a defined year.

Oh and let me quote the part of article 45 that you conveniently left out:

"The method for selecting the Chief Executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress."

What about being 2019? again show us the part where it says universal suffrage must be given to HK people by certain date?

[spacemonkey]

And unfortunately I cannot post picture here, but how do you explain the fact when HK rioters stormed the Parliament and put the colonial flag right in the center of the Parliament chamber? and all these UK and US flag waving rioters? How much proof do you need to recognize that there are, at least a certain independence movement element in the whole thing.

You probably need to do more research on why the protestors are doing what they're doing, if you don't know. I'll help you out with the flags - for the most part they did it to gain international attention. They (correctly or incorrectly) believe that part of the process of attaining their goals is by getting international support.

They (correctly) realized that the best way to get Americans noticing the issue in Hong Kong is by waving the American flag. Cynical, funny, and true.

Since then, in all protests in the last few weeks, protestors have not just held up the American flag, but flags of many other nations as well. It's a cry for support.

Another (smaller) part of it was to piss of China. Yes, that is true; many protestors are angry that China tried to encroach on Hong Kong with the extradition law (violating the declaration you brought up earlier), and wanted to piss them off.

Further, I never said there weren't those who wanted independence. I have said that the vast majority of the protestors don't and aren't actively protesting for independence. I am talking vast, vast majority. It is, of course, always the extreme elements that make good news broadcasts.

Instead of focusing on the relatively few extremist radicals, focus on the hundreds of thousands of people who take to the streets literally every weekend to peacefully protest for their goals, none of which is independence.

Anyway, I think this will be my last post on the topic as it's not directly basketball related.

[seewhy]

Trying to steer this conversation to be NBA related again.

Read on Twitter

Yeap, time to go back to the NBA discussions. Agree with NBA that sports should be something to bridge people and countries. Unfortunately, the relationship between US and China has been very toxic and there are many untruthful and bias information flying around. Even as NBA try to stay neutral and respect Chinese market and customers, there will be people condemning the NBA for yielding to money and China's pressure. But people will believe that they want to believe, so be it.

[Tracymcgoaty]

Domino effect initiated this as expected became worse..So it's not enough now that Morey has to apologise along with Harden but now we have the Nets being involved in this aswell...Every team in the NBA that has business with China is going to get hit. Holy crap what a tweet can do these days!

[karkinos]

china showing serious insecurity about perception of them and their conservative history.

[Showdown]

There are plenty of other countries where the NBA can expand that doesn't have these types of blatant human rights issues. China's loss more than ours.

There are only UK, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand , and that's it. In Eastern Europe , Africa, Asia and Latin America there is always posibility that they can have dictators, military hunta, communist regime or some kind of theocracy plus there is a lot of hatred between ethnic and religious groups and lot of economic inequality so there is always opression against minorities or against poor where sometimes that become worse and you have wars or ethnic cleansing . In Africa you have movements that want nationalization of the lands and properties that are owned by whites and want to expel whites from their countries and those movements are very popular and there is danger that they can become ruling parties, you also have civil wars, terrorists and pirates, Australia has concentration camps in other pacific countries where they send immigrants from Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar and have serious problems with racism and islamophobia, India policies toward Kashmir and other areas with Muslim majority are similar to China's policy toward Uyghurs and their ruling party are Hindu nationalist so they are spreading hate towards Muslims and Christians and you have constant attacks against them. Even countries like South Korea and Singapore aren't great when you measure them by western standards because there is a lot of authoritsrianism in both countries, in Korea you have systematic discrimination against immigrants from North Korea and in Singapore you have death penalty and public punishments when someone break their laws.

NBA can expand only if they say that their only goal is popularisation of the NBA and basketball in general, if they want to be progressive league that take high moral ground then then expansion of the NBA has ceiling and i doubt that they could overcome it.

[TGM]

[quote="robbie84"][quote="TGM"]Hi all,

I haven't posted here in a while, but felt compelled to provide a on the ground view about what has happened here in HK. I am of Chinese descent father from Shanghai and Mother from HK. I have lived in Asia for the past 10 years split between HK, Tokyo and Shanghai. Prior 30 years in Toronto and NY. If anything I would consider myself more tied to my HK and North American roots. With this being said, I am disgusted by the minority group that is trashing ruining HK with their calls for freedom.

The last 18 weeks in HK have been an absolute war zone on the streets of HK, hate between HK and people from China have gotten to extremes. I think China's reaction to the Morey tweet is probably a bit overkill, but Morey should have refrained tweeting about something that he understands at a very superficial level. First thing I want to clarify is that media today is absolute trash. Media when it comes to politics is not about free press and reporting the truth, but who has paid you more money. China has always been known for censorship and some level of propaganda, but what has disgusted me most, is the so called western international press that has manipulated stories, edited videos and banned freedom of speech on the media channels and forums. I went and witnessed a protest in my neighbourhood 2 months back. The street had probably around 500-600 protestors. You could visibly count. The amount the western media reported the next day was 55,000. Clearly trying to skew the view. You may have heard there were 1 million people that showed up for a protest at a park in HK. The park scientifically can only fit 150,000 people. It was raining that day too.

For those that want to understand what is going on in HK. I am sure the media you read is that it is about a fight for democracy. That is probably 20% of the battle. The rest is about social inequality, change in social status and an inability to accept that competition has risen over the years. All of you in North America, probably over the past 10-20 years have noticed the increase of immigrants and they work hard and compete for jobs. HK is no different. This goes back into history when HK was colonized by the British. HK at the time was used by the British as a business gateway into Asia Pacific and to ensure the simplest dealings, rules were extremely lax in order to provide the most economic efficiency. As a result HK become one of the most capitalist cities in the world. Tax rates are 15% at the highest level, zero rent control, garbage public education and healthcare and next to zero retirement pension. If you are willing to work hard and live modestly, you can make and save money big time in this city. Working 10 years in HK even today would allow you to save the equivalent of 25 years in North America. Two problems arose from this phenomenon first was an elitist mindset from Hong Kong people towards the Mainland. I recall as a kid my family would look down about China in the 80-90s and felt that we were more sophisticated, cleaner and smarter. My families perspective changed as we saw China grow over the last few decades, but many still live in this elitist world. The second problem is the extreme reckless capitalism in HK has resulted in the biggest rich poor gap in the world. To give you a sense. The cost to buy a new 500 square foot apartment in an average neighbourhood will run you between 2-2.25 million CAD. The average payback period in this city is 49 years. Add in garbage education, healthcare and pension. The picture is pretty grimm. Now it is always easy to point the finger at China cause they are the communist, which historically we are taught are the antagonist and the democracy fighters are the protagonist. Problem is people destroying and rioting in HK are hiding behind the democracy shield, when the bulk of their battle is social inequality, inability to accept that their cousins have gotten much more competitive and they have gotten too complacent over the years that all of a sudden they cannot keep up with society.

This is what is truly happening in HK. This is why Morey's tweet at the end of the day is a bit ignorant, because it lacks context of what is happening and people are fighting for.

I wish the protestors in HK were this noble and righteous to fight for democracy. But this is a city that has been poisoned by money. If there is something that runs in the DNA of this city before democracy, socialism or communism. IT IS CAPITALISM![/quote]

LOL. Look at the five demands. How do they have anything to do with the dribble you are spouting?
Go away commies.[/quote]

You should go understand what democracy is before supporting these rioters. When someone has a different opinion and you mob beat them I'm not sure you should get your 5 demands.

[DowJones]

Hi all,

I haven't posted here in a while, but felt compelled to provide a on the ground view about what has happened here in HK. I am of Chinese descent father from Shanghai and Mother from HK. I have lived in Asia for the past 10 years split between HK, Tokyo and Shanghai. Prior 30 years in Toronto and NY. If anything I would consider myself more tied to my HK and North American roots. With this being said, I am disgusted by the minority group that is trashing ruining HK with their calls for freedom.

The last 18 weeks in HK have been an absolute war zone on the streets of HK, hate between HK and people from China have gotten to extremes. I think China's reaction to the Morey tweet is probably a bit overkill, but Morey should have refrained tweeting about something that he understands at a very superficial level. First thing I want to clarify is that media today is absolute trash. Media when it comes to politics is not about free press and reporting the truth, but who has paid you more money. China has always been known for censorship and some level of propaganda, but what has disgusted me most, is the so called western international press that has manipulated stories, edited videos and banned freedom of speech on the media channels and forums. I went and witnessed a protest in my neighbourhood 2 months back. The street had probably around 500-600 protestors. You could visibly count. The amount the western media reported the next day was 55,000. Clearly trying to skew the view. You may have heard there were 1 million people that showed up for a protest at a park in HK. The park scientifically can only fit 150,000 people. It was raining that day too.

For those that want to understand what is going on in HK. I am sure the media you read is that it is about a fight for democracy. That is probably 20% of the battle. The rest is about social inequality, change in social status and an inability to accept that competition has risen over the years. All of you in North America, probably over the past 10-20 years have noticed the increase of immigrants and they work hard and compete for jobs. HK is no different. This goes back into history when HK was colonized by the British. HK at the time was used by the British as a business gateway into Asia Pacific and to ensure the simplest dealings, rules were extremely lax in order to provide the most economic efficiency. As a result HK become one of the most capitalist cities in the world. Tax rates are 15% at the highest level, zero rent control, garbage public education and healthcare and next to zero retirement pension. If you are willing to work hard and live modestly, you can make and save money big time in this city. Working 10 years in HK even today would allow you to save the equivalent of 25 years in North America. Two problems arose from this phenomenon first was an elitist mindset from Hong Kong people towards the Mainland. I recall as a kid my family would look down about China in the 80-90s and felt that we were more sophisticated, cleaner and smarter. My families perspective changed as we saw China grow over the last few decades, but many still live in this elitist world. The second problem is the extreme reckless capitalism in HK has resulted in the biggest rich poor gap in the world. To give you a sense. The cost to buy a new 500 square foot apartment in an average neighbourhood will run you between 2-2.25 million CAD. The average payback period in this city is 49 years. Add in garbage education, healthcare and pension. The picture is pretty grimm. Now it is always easy to point the finger at China cause they are the communist, which historically we are taught are the antagonist and the democracy fighters are the protagonist. Problem is people destroying and rioting in HK are hiding behind the democracy shield, when the bulk of their battle is social inequality, inability to accept that their cousins have gotten much more competitive and they have gotten too complacent over the years that all of a sudden they cannot keep up with society.

This is what is truly happening in HK. This is why Morey's tweet at the end of the day is a bit ignorant, because it lacks context of what is happening and people are fighting for.

I wish the protestors in HK were this noble and righteous to fight for democracy. But this is a city that has been poisoned by money. If there is something that runs in the DNA of this city before democracy, socialism or communism. IT IS CAPITALISM!

This is nothing but communist propaganda. This is what the poor people in China hear every day.

[DowJones]

Being a Chinese Australian my perspective is that I don't know enough to comment and Morey probably should've taken that stance. Either way the NBA is now in a lose lose situation and despite being one of the best GMs in the league may find himself black balled by the league.

When the world can dissect anything you say, you better stand behind what you can say or else face the consequences.

If an American company black balls an American citizen because that citizen spoke out against the communist regime in China then we need to reevaluate whether or not we support that American company.

[sikma42]

Nobody was blackballed. Morey is still the GM of the Rockets. Regardless, this incident has really helped me understand why other countries hate Americans. The mix of ignorance and arrogance is something to behold.

Being a Chinese Australian my perspective is that I don't know enough to comment and Morey probably should've taken that stance. Either way the NBA is now in a lose lose situation and despite being one of the best GMs in the league may find himself black balled by the league.

When the world can dissect anything you say, you better stand behind what you can say or else face the consequences.

If an American company black balls an American citizen because that citizen spoke out against the communist regime in China then we need to reevaluate whether or not we support that American company.

Sent from my SM-N960U using RealGM mobile app

[toddlincoln]

Being a Chinese Australian my perspective is that I don't know enough to comment and Morey probably should've taken that stance. Either way the NBA is now in a lose lose situation and despite being one of the best GMs in the league may find himself black balled by the league.

When the world can dissect anything you say, you better stand behind what you can say or else face the consequences.

If an American company black balls an American citizen because that citizen spoke out against the communist regime in China then we need to reevaluate whether or not we support that American company.

I 100 percent agree. We need to as a fanbase be ready to boycott the NBA if they fire Morey over a harmless tweet to kowtow to an authoritarian, Orwellian regime.

[Dubious Handles]

This thread has gone to ****. Why has it not been moved to Political affairs section yet? Zero basketball is being talked about. Only uninformed people sharing their personal opinions/agendas.

[spacemonkey]

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[Overhere]

This is nothing but communist propaganda. This is what the poor people in China hear every day.

Get em, anyone who disagrees with the views you got from mainstream US media headlines is a shill spreading commie propaganda. US media reporting on foreign countries is 100% objective and anyone who disagrees is an enemy of freedomocracy.

So much projection and hypocrisy in this thread. Kobe vs Lebron threads from 5 years ago have more critical thought and background research put into them.