On the wall of the League of Social Democrats office, the Chinese characters for freedom are spelt out with court admission slips.
Members of the party take turns speaking into a microphone connected to a loudspeaker. They stand in front of a banner that reads “rather be ashes than dust”, written in Chinese. Founded close to 20 years ago, the party is known as the last protest group in Hong Kong.
“The red lines are now everywhere,” Chan Po Ying, the chair of the party, tells the BBC. “Our decision to disband was because we were facing a lot of pressure.”
The CCP can’t hold its iron grip on power forever. One day HK will regain its ability to choose its own destiny. I only hope these people will still be around to see it.
The CCP is no longer what it was decades ago, it has morphed itself into a weird amalgamation between communism and capitalism… and seeing how it can change itself without great upheaval shows it has a lasting strength that should not be underestimated.
It’s current strategy is that of patience and time, slowly it will erode away resistant forces or laws in a territory it wants to incorporate.
For the ccp time is not a pressing factor in this period, nor are human lives and living years of their ruling populace.
They currently have what they need and what they covet is extra, there is nothing that they urgently require.
Likely the same strategy is playing out in Taiwan, already there is a big political party that wishes to tighten bonds with “the mainland”, in 5-10 years time there will be a loud voice, created through years long whispers and propaganda, to join China directly as a state-aparte … soon after, the merger will be completed and laws and freedoms will be eroded away until Taiwan is as much China as Hong Kong is now.
And, for now, it looks like the West will bow out, they will have build their own semiconductor facilities, both Europe and the US are already working on this.
Which causes Taiwan to have less value to keep under its wing at any cost.
Looking at Hong Kong, I don’t think the CCP would ever allow it to go its own way again, it is as it is with Tibet…
The CCP is now what it was before. There was just a brief period inbetween horrible dictators after the last one died and before the new one dismissed the concept of term limits.