https://thoughtcrime.moe/tags/china/ Recent content in china on ThoughtCrime Hugo en-us Sat, 10 Oct 2020 02:56:00 +0000 https://thoughtcrime.moe/the-death-of-hong-kongs-freedoms---part-1/ Sat, 10 Oct 2020 02:56:00 +0000 https://thoughtcrime.moe/the-death-of-hong-kongs-freedoms---part-1/ <p>Democracies die. If you lived or live in a well adjusted country where the probability of an authoritarian leader can rise in a few years and the instituitions are solid enough, this death may not be so easy to grasp. People living in such places more or less take for granted that their rights will not be arbitrarily striped. But, even so, there is always a risk that given enough time, such tragedy will happen. Those democracies slowly may fade away, turning first in semi-democracies, where authoritarism and nullification of many freedoms will be accepted under the guise of &ldquo;protecting the children&rdquo; or &ldquo;counteract terrorism&rdquo; (we all have listened such excuses before), and then one day you realise you are living under an authoritarian rule. <br><br> For Hong Kong, that never was a true democracy, the day when it will become part of a totalitarian state is already set to July 1st, 2047. But, kind of unexpected, this city-state have had a taste of limited democracy, but still something to be proud of, and it is sad to see that so quickly this place, that saw many of freedoms and rights unthinkable to anyone in China, has dived into semi-totalitarism. How could it came to be, under millions of silicon eyes and in the era of instantaneous flow of information? This is the thing I want to think along this two posts, because I already typed 8 Word pages and filled only half of the things I wanted to say, so I split in two because I can.</p>