I’m probably totally wrong on this, but wasn’t the deal the UK made over Hong Kong with the Republic of China and not the horrible People’s Republic, which I don’t even classify as a country btw. Wouldn’t it just be the biggest slap in the face if the UK handed Hong Kong over to Taiwan instead of China?
Get 'er done, McFly.
Wikipedia is your friend:
[quote=“Wikipedia”]Hong Kong’s territory was acquired from three separate treaties: the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, the Treaty of Beijing in 1860, and The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory in 1898, which gave the United Kingdom the control of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon (area south of Boundary Street), and the New Territories (area north of Boundary Street and south of the Shenzhen River, and outlying islands), respectively.[/quote]Those treaties date back to Imperial Qing Dynasty China.
The ROC came into being 1 Jan 1912.
If it weren’t for the Taiwan Strait, the ROC wouldn’t exist today. How much sense would it make to hop across the water and stick a finger in the eye of the PRC? :loco:
Why did the UK not simply keep Hong Kong? After all, the treaty was with the Qing government, which is no more.
+1 on that one
One of many problems was that China controlled much of the freshwater that HK gets. Shut off the water, shut down HK>
There was no NOT dealing with the PRC on this. Thatcher hoped to get another 100 year contract signed. Teng decided to do something historic before he faded.
nytimes.com/learning/general … /1219.html
in hindsight, maybe the PRC couldve gotten the UK to rent HK for like 10 billion a year or something?
Now its just another Chinese city.
[quote=“Chris”]Why did the UK not simply keep Hong Kong? After all, the treaty was with the Qing government, which is no more.[/quote]I assume treaties are inherited by successive governments. Had it been before the 70s, it might have well been the ROC government, as they were the recognised successor to the Qing dynasty at the time, and ROC does own the original treaty.
Just last week I was working on the archives of that era. Fascinating stuff, with the ROC really staking a claim on HK.
See I always wonder what would happen if the world decided to recognise the ROC’s claim as the rulers of China. I also wonder what it would take to make the PRC collapse and get a good government in power instead of the horrible people that are there now who torture their citizens on a daily basis.
[quote=“tommy525”]One of many problems was that China controlled much of the freshwater that HK gets. Shut off the water, shut down HK>
There was no NOT dealing with the PRC on this. Thatcher hoped to get another 100 year contract signed. Teng decided to do something historic before he faded.
nytimes.com/learning/general … /1219.html
in hindsight, maybe the PRC couldve gotten the UK to rent HK for like 10 billion a year or something?
Now its just another Chinese city.[/quote]
The lovely irony is that the UK treated its colony like 2nd class citizens, and only espoused democracy, etc. when in talks to give it back to China.
Many of the HK Chinese still believe they will get a true and fair democratic system :roflmao:
Oh how I wish the KMT had beaten the communists in 1949.
Oh how I wish the KMT had beaten the communists in 1949.[/quote]
Tell us how you really feel
Oh how I wish the KMT had beaten the communists in 1949.[/quote]
Tell us how you really feel[/quote]
Ok, if you insist, I think that the CCP are a bunch of ruthless, cruel, vile little children. Everything in China is just for show, they don’t educate their people, and all they do is lie and steal. They want everything their own way and don’t give a damn about anything else, or anyone else. I could go on.
Oh how I wish the KMT had beaten the communists in 1949.[/quote]
Tell us how you really feel[/quote]
Ok, if you insist, I think that the CCP are a bunch of ruthless, cruel, vile little children. Everything in China is just for show, they don’t educate their people, and all they do is lie and steal. They want everything their own way and don’t give a damn about anything else, or anyone else. I could go on.[/quote]
Sorry, did you write CCP or KMT, DPP and just about every other political party in the world?
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”][quote=“ninman”][quote=“Jack Burton”]
Sorry, did you write CCP or KMT, DPP and just about every other political party in the world?[/quote][/quote][/quote]
I don’t know much about the KMT admittedly or the DPP for that matter, but I do know that they don’t have a comprehensive torture program for people with the wrong religious beliefs, and I’m pretty sure that’s true in most European and western countries. I also know that there isn’t the same level of corruption in Taiwan as there is in China, in fact the former leader of the DPP and president went to prison for that a couple of years ago if I’m not mistaken. I also know that the CCP executed a mentally ill British man without giving him a professional medical assessment in December last year.
There is also the problem of deep seated racism in China which the CCP does nothing to correct, as well as hate for Gay’s, Lesbians and Transvestites. The workers in China have no rights at all, nor are they allowed to form unions. If you are a woman in China then your family will force you to get married to a rich man for money, either that or sleep around. If you don’t do either then you will starve. The minimum wage in China is a complete joke. Add to that the fact that their population is totally uneducated and has been brainwashed by years of propaganda and censorship. Just to give you an idea my ex-wife, who is Chinese, has been living in the UK now for 8 years, but still gets viciously angry at anyone who criticises the CCP, Mao Zedong or anything related to China, and dismisses anything that’s said in news, books or any other form of media as “capitalist propaganda”.
If the KMT had defeated the communists in 1949 I think China today would be a fully developed country, very rich, prosperous, democratic, and one of the most powerful countries in the world. As it stands Mao and CCP have held China back massively, and they are in for a very severe crash given that their economic growth is mainly export based, not home consumer based (like India). Not only that they build masses of buildings that just stand empty, just go to Pudong in Shanghai and you will see huge skyscrapers which are unoccupied. China is going to fall apart, and I think it’s going to happen sooner or later.
Serious question: Are you aware of the KMT “white terror” period, and the time of martial law that ended only not so long ago?
Serious question: Are you aware of the KMT “white terror” period, and the time of martial law that ended only not so long ago?[/quote]
Absolutely, but the point is that they still turned Taiwan into a democratic country eventually. Sure it wasn’t that long ago, but it still happened, and Taiwan is a far more developed and open country now than China is. There’s no reason to believe the same thing wouldn’t have happened if they beaten Mao and his communists and taken control of all of China.
That little snippet was quite unnecessary, it being painfully obvious.
“I might not know shit from shinola, but let me tell you THIS…!”
Dude! Just… DUDE! 
That little snippet was quite unnecessary, it being painfully obvious.
“I might not know shit from shinola, but let me tell you THIS…!”
Dude! Just… DUDE! [/quote]
Yeah, if you’d read the rest of it you’d know that I didn’t discuss the KMT at all, but went to great length to describe a vast amount of the human rights abuses that the CCP commits every single day, and I certainly know enough to know that things like that simply don’t happen in Taiwan. But well done for showing how pig ignorant you are.