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from the gunboats,-always-associated-with-diplomacy dept.
Hong Kong Airport Paralysed for a Second Day by Protesters:
The US is claiming its naval ships have been denied entry to Hong Kong, as Donald Trump suggests troops are “moving towards the border”.
A US Commander has confirmed China has blocked the Pacific Fleet’s naval ships from entering ports in Hong Kong.
Two US naval ships due to visit Hong Kong have been denied scheduled access to the city’s ports by China, the US Pacific Fleet confirmed today.
A US Navy spokesman today said two vessels had been blocked from entering the port, hours after President Donald Trump said China was moving its troops towards the border.
The president’s claims were made without specific evidence, according to The Australian
Commander Nate Christensen, the deputy spokesman for the United States Pacific Fleet, confirmed this morning the two US ships, USS Green Bay and USS Lake Erie, had been barred from entering the port. The first vessel, an amphibious dock landing ship, was due to stop in Hong Kong on Saturday, and the second was due in the city next month.
The last time the US Navy visited Hong Kong was in April.
Our Intelligence has informed us that the Chinese Government is moving troops to the Border with Hong Kong. Everyone should be calm and safe!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 13, 2019
[...]Hong Kong’s 10-week political crisis, in which millions of people have taken to the streets calling for a halt to sliding freedoms, was already the biggest challenge to Chinese rule of the semi-autonomous city since its 1997 handover from Britain.
But two days of protests at the airport have again raised the stakes for the financial hub.
Beijing is sending increasingly ominous signals that the unrest must end, with state-run media showing videos of security forces gathering across the border.
[...]All check-ins were cancelled on Tuesday afternoon after thousands of protesters wearing their signature black T-shirts made barricades using luggage trolleys to prevent passengers from passing through security gates.
[...]Demonstrators say they are fighting the erosion of the “one country, two systems” arrangement that enshrined some autonomy for Hong Kong since China took it back from Britain in 1997.
While Hong Kong is a sovereign part of China, the former colony has significant differences to the mainland, including separate legal and political systems, distinct currency, national sporting teams and a greater tolerance for freedom of expression.
Hong Kong also retains many of its pre-colonial features, including driving on the same side of the road as Britain and Australia but not China, the retention of many British place names and statues of British monarchs and dignitaries.
Those two different systems are supposed to remain in place for at least 50 years.
However, Beijing has sought to erode these freedoms in recent years through changes to the law, attempts to not allow pro-independence politicians to take their seats in the region’s parliament and even the disappearance of booksellers critical of the Communist Party leadership.
See also: Navy Times, Business Insider, CNN.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday August 14 2019, @03:12PM (9 children)
Time used to be that Americans wanted to see Democracy and Capitalism spread throughout the globe. We saw our system as superior and wanted to share it with everyone.
What happened? Did we decide that those people didn't want our help? Ha! Did we decide that we don't care about anyone else? Maybe. Did we decide that The Government knows best? I really don't see how that's possible, but it makes the most sense of conducting in a trade war with China while also commending them for cracking down on one of our historical trading partners.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Touché) by mhajicek on Wednesday August 14 2019, @03:43PM
That's only pretext. We topple democratically elected governments all the time.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday August 14 2019, @04:15PM
We realized it was long past time to worry about that crap and worry about fighting Communism here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 14 2019, @04:26PM (5 children)
Marxism happened, actually. Not formal Marxism, but college professors and educators steeped in Marxism who have spent a long time indoctrinating the youth across the Western world. First, they taught everyone that the Western tradition is evil. Then once they got enough people to acquiesce to that they curved it further into post-modern de-construction of everything. Now we're in end-stage semiotic meltdown where they've even got many people questioning how many genders there are.
Everything else that the Western tradition has produced, math, science, art, democracy, all that gets jettisoned as those turns of the self-destructive spiral tighten.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @04:57PM (2 children)
Education happened, actually. Not formal Education, but college professors and educators steeped in Education who have spent a long time teaching the youth across the Western world. First, they taught everyone that the evils that Western nations committed in the name of expansion and hegemonic empire. Then once they got enough people to acquiesce that the West aren't the heroes they portrayed themselves as they curved it further into post-modern re-construction of everything (after Modernist deconstruction, as anyone who has studied the subject knows came first). Now we're in next-stage semiotic rebuilding where we've even got many people recognizing that "different" doesn't mean "bad and must kill it!" Which is pretty emasculating to people who've only ever learned how to use guns instead of words.
Everything else that the Western tradition has produced, math, science, art, democracy, all that gets jettisoned by the rednecks as people with the brains to learn actually do so
FTFY.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @05:16PM (1 child)
^ reality
It makes a lot of older people uncomfortable since they were steeped in Heroic Patriotism (TM) from an early age. I have yet to see a single post on this site advocating for the government owning private business or any other aspect of communism.
We already have coops, and we already have socialized education / police / infrastructure all over the US. We just want the rightwing authoritarians to stop defunding these programs and we want healthcare to be socialized since medicine should not be profit motivated.
The facts are in but the rightwing nutters just REFUSE to accept facts. Feelz over realz, just more gaslighting projection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @05:26PM
It is just hilarious to read this knowing reality. The negative interest rates, etc are on their way. People are getting so rich off you easily misled people, and this is going to accelerate to unbelievable levels as soon as you get what you want.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @05:02PM
huh? maybe "marxism" doesnt mean what i think it means. it doesn't mean "the knowledge and philosophy by a dude called marx"?
anyways, i totally fought thru "das Kapital" (well it's ongoing, toilet literature, 2 pages per dump, 78% done), straight from the horses mouth.
it's massive and long winded. more is better(tm).
anyways, it does open eyes about alot of things. marxism is like kapitalism, two sides of a coin. one is informing the rich, the other the poor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @08:29PM
You are that worried about some people at a university or people demonstrating free speech that you feel threatened by them?
No wonder incels like you grab guns and start shooting random people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @04:50PM
Isolationism was a thing throughout the early 20th century. Then we won and became the world's policeman. An unenviable position.