Demonstrators breaking into Hong Kong’s Legislative Council Chambers
Written by Godfree Roberts; Originally appeared at The Unz Review
In chats about Hong Kong and the mainland, we always reached a consensus: if you want to develop you can go to the United States or back to the mainland, but there is no future in Hong Kong. In recent years, the decline has happened with shocking speed. At handover in 1997, per capita GDP was twice Macao’s. Hong Kong’s GDP was 18 percent of China’s then; in 2013 it was three percent. Now, Macau’s is three times Hong Kong’s. In 1997, neither Beijing, Shanghai nor Guangzhou had GDPs approaching Hong Kong’s; now all are higher, as are Shenzhen’s and Tianjin’s. Hong Kong, Please Forget Me.
THE GOOD OLD DAYS
Under British rule, Hong Kong’s public had no say in political appointment and the Governor, who was Commander in Chief of military forces, could do anything short of sentencing people to death. Wiretaps didn’t require warrants; when police denied demonstration permits the courts could only review their paperwork; the legislature was a rubber stamp and there was no political opposition. Under Communist oppression, the courts review police decisions for reasonableness, citizens elect their legislators, the government has a political opposition, and the Chief Executive can neither declare martial law nor call out the military. Some things haven’t changed, however: it is still illegal in Hong Kong to join the Communist Party of China.
MISSING ELEMENTS
Some aspects of contemporary Hong Kong missing from our media’s coverage:
- As long as it controlled access to China’s gigantic market, Hong Kong flourished. Capitalism, Democracy, and British Justice had nothing to do with it.
- Had Hong Kong joined the mainland in 1997 its prosperity would have been assured.
- Before the handover the UK introduced electoral democracy, the poisoned chalice that ended the Colony’s hopes for development.
- When the Asian Financial Crisis crashed real estate markets Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa created the ‘85,000 Housing Development Project’ to build affordable homes and diversify the economy by building the Hong Kong Science Park and increasing investment in commerce, education, industry and tourism.
- Once the affordable housing units came onto the market the bourgeoisie opposed them because they affected real estate prices, the legislation voted with the bourgeoisie and the youth demonstrated in their support. Tung was vilified and thrown out.
- After they killed 224 people in the post-Tiananmen riots in 1989 French Intelligence, Britain’s MI6 and the CIA smuggled 600 agents out through Hong Kong to Western countries. The PRC arrested three Hong Kong-based activists but released them after intervention by the Hong Kong government.
- When China joined the WTO in 2001, trade bypassed Hong Kong, stagnation set in and the city’s best and brightest joined Taiwanese[1] seeking a better life on the mainland.
- Hong Kong’s profile now resembles Britain’s: 23% of its children live in poverty– compared to the mainland’s 1%.
- Home ownership–a marriage prerequisite–fell from 53% in 2010 to 49% in 2018– compared to 78% on the mainland.
- Hong Kong trails only London and New York for the largest concentration of individuals worth more than $30 million.
- Hong Kong’s ten richest citizens account for 35% of its GDP.
- Hong Kong’s household GINI is 0.539, Singapore’s is 0.458 in 2016, America’s is 0.394 and the UK’s is 0.358. (0=equality).
- Rent for an HK ‘coffin apartment’ is HK$2,000/mo.
Hong Kong’s woes illustrate capitalism’s familiar shortcomings: wealth accumulation has far outstripped the development of productive forces and the vast majority of citizens have no way to share its benefits. A large rentier class owns most of the city’s social resources, the same contradiction–between capital accumulation and society’s desire to live a dignified life–we confront in the US.
What do Hongkongers really need? Economic growth, employment opportunities and better housing, tasks the mainland has already accomplished. If they want a bright future Hong Kongers need to work together harder and bring their education standards up to the mainland’s. Their youth must develop a clear understanding of their true friends and real enemies.
THE PROTEST PUZZLE
The protests are interesting for several reasons:
- They’re directed at Beijing, which does not even have an extradition treaty with HK and has never requested one.
- They’re timed (probably by the NED) to coincide with the anniversary of the handover.
- They ignore the financial institutions and capitalists blocking legislative change.
- Western media cover them sympathetically, almost hysterically, while ignoring real protests in Gaza, Honduras, Sudan, Yemen, and Brazil.
- British media–which have persecuted, tortured, and incarcerated Julian Assange for non-political crimes–now urge his extradition, while trembling lest the PRC use ‘non-political crimes to prosecute critics.’
- The UK Government has refused to sell crowd control gear to Hong Kong police.
- Imagine how the NYPD would respond if one of their officers were assaulted like this:
- Or if demonstrators behaved like this:
- Hong Kong police reported firing 150 tear gas canisters, several rounds of rubber bullets and 20 beanbags during the one day of serious violence, causing 72 injuries, none of which required hospitalization, and making 30 arrests.
- French police, by contrast, fired 19,000 rubber bullets last year and 5,400 shock grenades, caused 850 serious injuries and 30 mutilations, dozens of facial and skull fractures. Twelve French demonstrators lost one eye. Including those injured by tear gas, water cannon and truncheons, the number would approach six figures, a level of repression not seen since the German Occupation.
- French police arrested 9,000 on March 24 alone, half of whom received prison sentences–and that was before orders were issued to arrest protesters even faster.
- The almost total Western media silence about French figures has been matched with relentless propaganda presenting their demonstrators as destructive hooligans.
THE NED: DOING GOD’S WORK
Beijing’s completion of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Hong Kong-Mainland high-speed railway, along with the relentless decline of voter support for ‘democracy’[2] parties at every Hong Kong election are speeding the West’s ungraceful retreat from an Asia that never invited them. The extradition law will further erode Western influence and accelerate the political and economic integration of Hong Kong. Here are some elements of dis-integration:
- There are 37,000 NGOs registered in Hong Kong (compared to 13,000 in Shanghai, which is four times larger), many of which receive funding from the US and Europe.
- In March 1997 the NED[3] sent their first survey mission to Hong Kong to assess the political environment and identify possibilities for NED programming in the territory1.
- Fourteen NED survey missions had visited Hong Kong by 2012 to assess the political environment and identify possibilities for NED programming.
- In 2004, the NED found little interest among university students in activism,2“Many critics still lament the low level of interest and activism by university students in Hong Kong”.
- Between 1995 – 2013, HKHRM received more than $1.9 million in funds from the NED.
- Through its NDI and SC branches, NED has had close relations with other groups in Hong Kong. SC has given $540,000 to the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions in the past seven years.
- The current protest’s messaging and its associated groups raise questions about how organic the movement is:
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- Some of the groups receive significant, direct funding from the NED.
- The Canadian and British foreign ministries have publicly thrown their weight behind the protests.
- The protesters appeal to Western audiences, using signs in English and the hashtag “AntiExtraditionLaw”.
- The group below is waving colonial Hong Kong flags while accusing China of colonialism.
- Keeping Hong Kong from China has been an American priority for decades. One former CIA agent even admitted, “Hong Kong was our listening post.”
- Seventy international NGOs have endorsed an open letter urging the bill to be killed, but signed only by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor (HKHRM)–all US fronts.
- In 2018, NED granted $155,000 to SC and $200,000 to NDI for work in Hong Kong, and $90,000 to HKHRM, which is not itself a branch of NED but a partner in Hong Kong.
- The coalition cited by Hong Kong media, including the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Free Press, lists as organizers of the demonstrations the Civil Human Rights Front. That organization’s website lists the NED-funded HKHRM, Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Civic Party, the Labour Party, and the Democratic Party as members of the coalition.
- Since Beijing made a big deal of NED’s influence in the 2014 Occupy protests, it is inconceivable that the current protest organizers are unaware of NED’s ties to its members. One NED official, Louisa Greve, told the Voice of America that “activists know the risks of working with NED partners” in Hong Kong.
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Congress has “no choice but to reassess whether Hong Kong is ‘sufficiently autonomous’ under the ‘one country, two systems’ framework.”
- The State Department says the extradition bill could “could undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy and negatively impact the territory’s long-standing protection of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democratic values.”
- Martin Lee, founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, a member organization of the Civil Human Rights Front, met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who expressed support for the protests
- Why are the protests supported by a foreign power currently carrying out a coup in Venezuela, threatening the DPRK and trying to start a war with Iran?
THE ACTUAL AMENDMENT
The amendment would “allow Hong Kong to surrender fugitives on a case-by-case basis to jurisdictions that do not have long-term rendition agreements with the city,” among them mainland China and Taiwan. It was introduced when authorities found that a Hong Kong man wanted for murdering his pregnant girlfriend could not be returned to Taiwan to stand trial. Under current law, criminals from other parts of China can escape charges by fleeing to Hong Kong (imagine if Louisiana, under its Napoleonic code, refused to extradite fugitives from Texas or California for crimes committed in those states). Under the amendment the following crimes will be extraditable:
- Aiding, abetting, counseling or procuring suicide.
- Maliciously wounding; maiming; inflicting grievous or actual bodily harm; assault occasioning actual bodily harm; threats to kill; intentional or reckless endangering of life whether by means of a weapon, a dangerous substance or otherwise; offences relating to unlawful wounding or injuring.
- Offences of a sexual nature including rape; sexual assault; indecent assault; unlawful sexual acts on children; statutory sexual offences.
- Gross indecency with a child, a mental defective or an unconscious person.
- Kidnapping; abduction; false imprisonment; unlawful confinement; dealing or trafficking in slaves or other persons; taking a hostage.
- Criminal intimidation.
- Offences against the law relating to dangerous drugs including narcotics, psychotropic substances, precursors and essential chemicals used in the illegal manufacture of narcotics and psychotropic substances; offences relating to the proceeds of drug trafficking.
- Obtaining property or pecuniary advantage by deception; theft; robbery; burglary (including breaking and entering); embezzlement; blackmail; extortion; unlawful handling or receiving of property; false accounting; any other offence in respect of property or fiscal matters involving fraud; any offence against the law relating to unlawful deprivation of property.
- Offences against bankruptcy law or insolvency law.
- Offences against the law relating to companies including offences committed by officers, directors and promoters.
- Offences relating to securities and futures trading.
- Offences relating to counterfeiting; offences against the law relating to forgery or uttering what is forged.
- Offences against the law relating to protection of intellectual property, copyrights, patents or trademarks.
- Offences relating to bribery, corruption, secret commissions and breach of trust.
- Perjury and subornation of perjury.
- Offences relating to the perversion or obstruction of the course of justice.
- Arson; criminal damage or mischief including mischief in relation to computer data.
- Offences against the law relating to firearms.
- Offences against the law relating to explosives.
- Offences relating to environmental pollution or protection of public health.
- Mutiny or any mutinous act committed on board a vessel at sea.
- Piracy involving ships or aircraft.
- Unlawful seizure or exercise of control of an aircraft or other means of transportation.
- Genocide or direct and public incitement to commit genocide.
- Facilitating or permitting the escape of a person from custody.
- Offences against the law relating to the control of exportation or importation of goods of any type, or the international transfer of funds.
- Smuggling; import and export of prohibited items, including historical and archaeological items.
- Immigration offences including fraudulent acquisition or use of a passport or visa.
- Arranging or facilitating for financial gain, the illegal entry of persons into a jurisdiction.
- Offences relating to gambling or lotteries.
- Offences relating to the unlawful termination of pregnancy.
- Stealing, abandoning, exposing or unlawfully detaining a child; any other offences involving the exploitation of children.
- Offences relating to prostitution and premises kept for the purposes of prostitution.
- Offences involving the unlawful use of computers.
- Offences relating to fiscal matters, taxes or duties.
- Offences relating to unlawful escape from custody; mutiny in prison.
- Bigamy.
- Offences relating to women and girls.
- Offences against the law relating to false or misleading trade descriptions.
- Offences relating to the possession or laundering of proceeds obtained from the commission of any offence described in this Schedule.
- Impeding the arrest or prosecution of a person who has or is believed to have committed an offence described in this Schedule.
- Offences for which persons may be surrendered under multilateral international conventions; offences created as a result of decisions of international organizations.
- Conspiracy to commit fraud or to defraud.
- Conspiracy to commit, or any type of association to commit, any offence described in this Schedule.
- Aiding, abetting, counseling or procuring the commission of, inciting, being an accessory before or after the fact to, or attempting to commit an offence described in, this Schedule.
The current spate of US-initiated wars, threats of wars, embargoes, threats of embargoes, coups, threats of coups, heavy censorship and massive propaganda, while impressive in its breadth, seems to lack strategic coherence, tactical effectiveness, credibility or effectiveness.
Notes
[1] Taipei recently fined 30 Taiwanese for taking jobs in mainland China.
[2] Hong Kong’s Court ruled that Howard Lam, the 42-year-old founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party,who claimed he was abducted on August 10, 2017 by Mainland agents, lied about being kidnapped and tortured with a stapler by mainland Chinese agents.
[3] The NED has four main branches, at least two of which are active in Hong Kong: the Solidarity Center (SC) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
Thank you Godfree, for the most thorough, clear and accurate summaries of the situation in Hong Kong available on the web.
This is one to keep to counter the massive campaign to demonise the Hong Kong administration and China. It’s a pity all of those demonstrators couldn’t go to weekend school to read the article above and have explained to them how they are being used to support American and Britain’s neo-colonial recidivism and how they are paying the cost.
I think that there is an opportunity for reforms or maybe synthesis here. Otherwise, the two system approach is inherently contradictory and inevitably leads to China’s destabilization. Party thought is just so opposed to some liberties. We are all familiar with the pitfalls and excesses of democracy. However, it is not all good for communism too, when all that matters is the party living off from the exploited worker. Any advancement in life is tied to membership to the party and how hard they can kiss big brother’s ass. 2000 for a HK apartment??? It is a good thing we didnt push through a HK scholarship. lol
‘However, it is not all good for communism too, when all that matters is the party living off from the exploited worker. ‘?
Not THAT exploited! Next year every Chinese will have a home, a job, plenty of food, education, safe streets, health- and old age care. 500,000,000 urban Chinese will have more net worth and disposable income than the average American, their mothers and infants will be less likely to die in childbirth, their children will graduate from high school three years ahead of American kids and live longer, healthier lives (there will then be more drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, hungry and imprisoned people in America than in China).
All good yes, then they have social credit scores, their wages are among the lowest in the world with poor working conditions, while in their midst are the biggest conglomeration of new millionaires and billionaires in the world, the party allows the capitalists to fully exploit the Chinese worker, party supremacy, pitiful environmental protection, great fire wall, one child–> 2 child policy, atheistic religion, censorship, imposed party thought/propaganda, death penalties for a lot of crimes, etc. I hear overseas Chinese employers treat their workers lowly.
So, when you have two operating systems, that other autonomous system serves as the trojan horse that may bring about the downfall of the whole system. Think Berlin wall. But if there are reforms, or perhaps a new synthesis, sharing of power, a new generation of HK taskmasters lol or whatnot, then that crisis can be averted.
Yes, that’s what our media would have us believe, but it is very far from the truth–as you may yourself have suspected when you saw some of the 150 million Chinese tourists wandering your streets.
Adjusted for productivity, regulations and benefits, Chinese manufacturing workers were costing their employers more than their American cousins three years ago, and their wages have risen 21% since then[1].
Their base wage, which rises with seniority, comes with annual bonuses of up to one hundred percent, plus a thirteenth monthly payment at Chinese New Year.
Manufacturing wages average $1500 monthly PPP, and overtime, bonuses, company housing and free meals let workers send money home. Earlier this year, Mentech, a Dongguan telecom manufacturer, was advertising regular monthly wages of $1,100 plus guaranteed overtime, air-conditioned dorms, free Wi-Fi and birthday presents.
An American friend of mine who hires workers for factories in both the US and China sent me this:
Manufacturing in the US is a nightmare. At our US facility our only requirement for assemblers was a high school degree, US citizenship, passing a drug and criminal background check and passing a simple assembly test: looking at an assembly engineering drawing and then putting the components together. While the vast majority of Americans were unable to complete the assembly test, in China they completed it in half the time and 100% of applicants passed. Hiring for an assembler position in the US would require 30 interviews a day and produce 29 rejections, not to mention all the HR hassles of assemblers walking off shift, excessive lateness, stealing from work, slow work speed and poor attitudes. The position starts at $12 an hour in flyover country which is pretty reasonable compared to other jobs that only require a GED and no prior work experience. It offers medical, dental and annual raises with plenty of opportunity to move up in the company and earn the average salary for a Production Assembler, $33,029 in US, if they stay for 5+ years. Identical positions in China pays the same wages as other positions there with only a high school degree and no work experience. Yet the applicant quality is much higher and this also applies to the white collar support professionals: schedulers, quality inspectors, equipment testers and calibrators, engineers, supply chain managers, account managers, sales. Their labor quality is simply higher. At the end of the day, high-end and middling manufacturing is not moving to either the US or Mexico because average people in flyover country are as dumb as rocks.
Chinese employees covet overtime because the law stipulates a forty-four hour workweek with overtime at 150 percent of base salary, two hundred percent on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and three hundred percent on national holidays.
Employers can hire workers on contracts only twice (two six month contracts, for example) after which they automatically become permanent.
Tenure, based on cumulative experience with all previous employers, lets job-changers keep their seniority and accumulated vacation time: five days for the first nine years, ten for the next nine and fifteen days thereafter.
Companies pay another thirteen percent of wages into a tax-exempt fund for employees’ housing deposits and a further[2] thirty percent into retirement, medical, unemployment, maternity and occupational injury funds–which employees match one hundred percent.
_________________________ [1] Surprise! Making goods in China isn’t actually that cheap. CNN, by Sophia Yan March 17, 2016.
[2]Mandatory Social Welfare Benefits for Chinese Employees: n overview of social welfare obligations and costs for employers of Chinese staff. By Adam Livermore. http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2012/02/21/mandatory-social-welfare-benefits-for-chinese-employees.html
“Their labor quality is simply higher.” That was surprising. As the number one most populous country in the world, that is scary for the rest of the developing and developed countries.
The real scandal is that it’s not even on Congress’ radar–or any of the states, for that matter. We seem to be sleepwalking, living in denial.
Here’s the 2015 PISA test report: “The PISA 2015 assessment of financial literacy was the second of its kind. The results show the extent to which 15-year-old students have the financial knowledge and skills needed to make a successful transition from compulsory schooling into higher education, employment or entrepreneurship. For many 15-year-olds, finance is part of everyday life, as they are already consumers of financial services, such as bank accounts, and earn money from formal or informal small jobs. As they near the end of compulsory education, students will face complex and challenging financial choices, including whether to continue with formal education and, if so, how to finance such study.
“Students in Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong (China) (hereafter “B-S-J-G [China]”) score at the highest level among the countries and economies that were assessed in financial literacy in 2015 [Figure IV.3.2].
“Only 9% of students in B-S-J-G (China) do not reach the baseline level of proficiency (Level 2) in financial literacy (compared to 22% of students on average across the 10 participating OECD countries and economies) [Table IV.3.2]. At best, these students can identify common financial products and terms, recognise the difference between needs and wants, and make simple decisions on everyday spending in contexts that they are likely to have experienced personally. For instance, students performing below Level 2 in financial literacy can, at best, answer a question like INVOICE – Question 1 (available at http://www.oecd.org/pisa/test), which asks them to recognise the purpose of an everyday financial document, such as an invoice.
“Some 33% of students in B-S-J-G (China) are top performers in financial literacy [Table IV.3.2], meaning that they are proficient at Level 5 (compared to only 12% on average across the 10 participating OECD countries and economies). These students can analyse complex financial products, solve non-routine financial problems and show an understanding of the wider financial landscape. For instance, students performing at Level 5 are able to answer a question like BANK ERROR – Question 1 (available at http://www.oecd.org/pisa/test), which asks them to identify and respond appropriately to a financial scam e-mail message.
“Students in B-S-J-G (China) perform better in financial literacy than students around the world who perform similarly in mathematics and reading. About 73% of students in B-S-J-G (China) provinces perform better in financial literacy than expected, given their scores in mathematics and reading [Table IV.3.11].
“The relationship between socio-economic status and performance in financial literacy is above the OECD average, as 17% of the variation in student performance in financial literacy is associated with countries/economies) [Table IV.4.12].
“Moreover, students in B-S-J-G (China) who attend schools in cities score 54 points higher in financial literacy than students of similar socio-economic status and at the same level of education who attend schools in rural areas [Table IV.4.15].
https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-2105-Financial-Literacy-Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong-China.pdf
Read it and weep. Literally.
I guess many people in the west simply can’t imagine, that there could be a other way of life then the one they know. a And people in the west have no own personal experience how state-run health system is, so how should they know, what this is worth? :-)
Anyone who can not acknowledge China’s very real “Leap Forward” is blind. To go from poorest to richest in 25 years is outstanding to say the least, 4 concurrent items # 1 One Child Policy, # 2 adopting market economy from the ground up # 3 US Corporations moving their production to China. # 4 Highest savings rate in the world, 40 %, they are a “Gold Mountain”. There are ecological corrections they will have to make, they will do that. They might even solve the Japanese nuclear disaster that could still kill us all.
Blindness is, unfortunately, endemic in the West!
Just the US/UK making trouble as usual. Both are malignant nations.
Unlike your great shithole
Thats funny i always thought australia was a really nice place and not a shithole!!
Where are you from that better bacon?
For mee seeing protesters throwing stones and bottles is enough to know, how “political” they are.
(At every protest there may be some aggressive young people, but at every political protest the organizers try everything to keep it peaceful and if some individuals go crazy, then to deescalate as good as possible. What I see on the videos is fully violent riot, aggressive idiots.)
Communism & Captalism….experiments in Population-Management… both Invented & Excecuted by the 1% Elites..they Fooled us All…Drag’m out of their Penthouses…Chop’m up….Hang ‘em High…The War is on
There are 40 ethnicities in China, once the Commies are gone, Chinese Empire is gone forever, like USSR
China has more millionaires and billionairs than all of Europe and north America put together. The Chinese Empire is just about to begin. The free market economy re-introduced twenty years ago, is something they already have lived for thousands of years. Central government only keeps control of the ‘key’ items (as in military).
…and the re-education camps for those who criticize the corrupt politicians. Communism is perfect, there are no corrupt politicians in communism.
Are you talking about the uighurs??
The same uighurs that are being used in Syria? Now who’s hand is up these uighurs pants now? The same hand thats im ukraine right now stirring shit up! Thats the anglos and no one else!
Get lost Russian bitch
Bwahaha that all the argument you have?
I am canadian btw i told you where i live yesterday because im not cowardly little bitch hiding bedind a computer like you!
I have real arguments that adults use, you have schoolyard arguments such as get lost bitch!
I got news for you BITCH, I am not going anywhere, and I wont tolerate you and your like polluting our community with your constant lies insults and racism! The shallowness of your arguments are comical!! Seeing Russian boogeymen everywhere! Ima call you occupy McCarthy from now on how about that?
Go to wal mart and get a real job pussy ass kid! Its 2019 not 1959 the russians arent coming to get you,!
Unless your a treasonous russian!
Ohh yeah I remember you gave the the address from Canada. You are a luxury golf yard owner, don’t you? Here’s mine:
1100 S Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480, United States
Liar you have stated.more than once your not american, i wont bother clicking on the link.
Be a man now, or are too much of a pussy?
Do you suffer that I’m not American? Because unlike me, they don’t have time to spend on obscure sites. If I was American I wouldn’t spend time here either. You are looking for someone important to argue because you are frustrated that you belong to the irrelevant masses like Arabs and Russians that can’t afford to buy a life.
Wtf are you blabbing about? You mad brah??
I aint frustrated, im harassing fascist pigs like you and your chums!
All I want is a goddamned honest answer! You have been honest with me in the past , and im generally always honest!
I dont really care where your from, its not like im going to go beat you up, i aint a barbarian ffs!
Be honest like a real man/woman would, is that too much to ask?
Concrete ass Mike woke up, it’s time to roam the streets to bring me the moola, I need to pay the bills, bitch.
Morning sunshine! You were up early werent you!
I aint roaming the streets today , im in the lab today sorry mac!
Lab ?? You mean you’re in the glory hole room, making money for me
Hah as if anyone would work for you, a stupid sheep!
You never had a job in your life!
True that, I’m pimping your family, I don’t need a job.
So Mr, if i cant afford to buy a life how come i have this degree here, an suv and a car and a mortgage, for an east coast lad im doing ok!
What makes you better than me? Better than us? Exceptionnal much?
Admit it Mike, you are a Cat pretending to be a human. Any cat can pretend to be a human behind it’s computer. If not, make a short vid with the nice things you claim to have: the golf yard, the nice house and car and let us see your face to determine your age. Don’t forget to mention SF. Or you’re a poor Russian teen, thinking he’s an Internet Genius because he found an address and he pretends to live there, and all the others are stupid and we will decline our real identity, you sneaky basterd
Ahh you got me oww.
We will decline eh?
Whose we?
Whooppsss?
The chinese have been around for 4000 years, we are cultural midgets compared to them.
The west will rot and die before china goes anywhere!
Indeed the Chinese are slaves for thousands of years and their slave mentality will not change too soon.
“Hong Kong’s GDP was 18 percent of China’s then;”
“As long as it controlled access to China’s gigantic market, Hong Kong flourished. Capitalism, Democracy, and British Justice had nothing to do with it.”
Is sounds like veritable Chinese logic to me.
China is just doing a better job than HK! Its not chinas fault hong kong has no higher gdp! they didnt touch the economic rules . Mainland china is just pushing ahead!