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.”

  • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    17 hours ago

    What’s so sad about Hong Kong is I know we’re probably all going to watch this go down again in Taiwan.

    • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works
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      8 hours ago

      Not quite. Hong Kong is a devolved democracy, the PLA has already occupied since 1997 when the british handed it over.

      This is more like the US sending troops to Los Angleas.

      The PLA does not occupy Taiwan. They don’t even occupy Kinmen Islands that’s very close to Mainland China (not sure why they still haven’t taken it). They’ll need to send troops to even control it in any way, where as in Hong Kong, they are already there.

      • Corn@lemmy.ml
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        7 hours ago

        Under Britain, Hong Kong was a literal bourgeois democracy. Like not as in “the capitalists are really in control”, but “only 18 of the 59 seats weren’t appointed by major companies, representatives of the crown, or the governor”. Hong Kong has only known anything remotely close to democracy under China.

    • KuroiKaze@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Highly unlikely, there’s us military stationed on Taiwan and it’s not connected to the mainland by train like HK

      • icelimit@lemmy.ml
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        40 minutes ago

        There are no us military bases (or any other foreign bases afaik) in Taiwan.

      • KumaSudosa@feddit.dk
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        8 hours ago

        And nobody even knows if the US administration would get involved in it. All depends on Orange’s mood on the day and whether his friends call him to “tell him good things”

      • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        17 hours ago

        There’s no US military stationed in Taiwan. The closest US bases are in Okinawa and the Philippines.

        The only “military” the US has in Taiwan are some training consultants for the taiwan army, there’s no boots on the ground.

        • Corn@lemmy.ml
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          7 hours ago

          No, and there weren’t in Ukraine, but the US has spent half a century and billions of dollars to ensure every last person on that island is ready to be sacrificed when the time comes.

          • ManixT@lemmy.world
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            4 hours ago

            Amazing how you attribute no fault to China, who would be doing the actual killing. No, instead it’s the US’ fault that China wants to murder these people.