Great article. I agree that the HK situation is quite a reality check for neocameralism. Patchs simply won't admit that they have failed, and shutting them down from the outside will be bloody and painful.

Well-p, it seems like the point is "The strongest survives, the weakest dies, but because of American Empire - the weakest somehow survive". Still, I dont really get the idea of some details. If I do remember correctly (I may not), You said that to preserve European Culture, locals have to stop being pussies, grow a pair and kick out arabian/negroes invaders. Still, in case of Hong Kong, who are trying to preserve a shadow of their "cultural superiority" with that much arrogance, you say that the most preferable scenario is to crush them with Chinese tank treads. Still, they do just fight to assert their status. Moreover, I have a lot of questions about China's role in contemporary status-quo from the perspective of NRx (at least - your thoughts). Because, wellp, it seems that the CCP is just the same bone in the throat as the Cathedral, with the main difference of being a regional superpower (Asia Africa). If the main point is "They are bad cuz they are sponsored by status-quo Cathedral and American Empire" - that makes sense, though (even on intuitive level, at least for me and, probably, other NRx-collegues). But if not - are they bad only because they are arrogant, unnoble and trying to desperately protect their doomed culture? If I misunderstood something - I'm sorry.

I actually agree with the majority of what you say, expect with a few caveats about Mainland vs Hong Kong differences, with the Hong Kong still ahead of the Mainland in many ways: Wages for the lower and middle classes are actually higher in Hong Kong than the Mainland, and in the case of the working class, much higher. Its just that Hong Kong cost of living is very high so quality of life may be better in the Mainland. On the other hand, the Mainland does have major quality control issues with a lot of everyday life consumer products. First world-quality products, including imports from just about anywhere in the world, are readily available, but everything is at a mark-up, and out of reach from the lower middle and working classes. Ole is such a chain in all sizable Chinese cities: Shanghai and Beijing specifically have specialty supermarkets specializing in Western or Japanese produce. Hong Kong doesn't have stifling censorship, but the Mainland does. This is a major annoyance, big enough to dent quality of life, if one needs frequent contact with foreigners, such as researchers, expats, or international businessmen. YouTube videos loading at 360p can be very frustrating after a while. There's much more detail being paid into infrastructure in HK than the Mainland. Mainland infrastructure is better from a macro perspective. The sheer size and beauty and complexity is hard to beat. It's the little things that Hong Kong do much better such as quality of signage, the cleanliness of bathrooms, the amount of lighting, and A/C. The Mainland has a penchant of barely turning on the A/C and using dim lighting and unpolished marble floors. At the HK-Shenzhen border, the HK side feels very first world: Its essentially British infrastructure but 50-50 Chinese and English. On the Shenzhen side, the building itself is just as nice as the customs building on the HK side, but you have little things like: Dirty bathrooms, dim lighting, a couple of taxi touts, the occasional comically translated Chinglish sign, or the funniest of all at the Futian checkpoint: To remind people to obey security checks, instead of using a proper PA announcement they just place a portable loudspeaker on a table with a pre-recorded low quality message that repeats over and over again (I kid you not). On the other hand, infrastructure built in the last 5 years are at Hong Kong standards. Older infrastructure in China is still very bad and mostly haven't been updated to first world standards. Also, in the Mainland, there's a lot of corner-cutting among the working class, much more so than the Hong Kongers: There's a reason why there's such a massive parallel trading industry not just in Hong Kong but also to a lesser extent South Korea, Japan, and even Australia: People in the Mainland trust overseas products much more so than domestic products. Up until the eve of the protests, many, many Mainlanders are rushing to study, work, and live in Hong Kong because of perceived prestige. Mainlanders are slaves to prestige and before the protests, Hong Kong was still considered more prestigious than the Mainland. This is why so many Mainlanders send their kids abroad: Its just so much more prestigious to have your kid living overseas, and overseas degrees are seen as prestigious even if somewhere like Tsinghua or Fudan is much more competitive and with higher quality education. There's also an international, first world vibe in Hong Kong that no Mainland city is able to replicate yet. But Shanghai is rapidly catching up. Even within the Mainland there's a sense of superiority: Shanghainese people write off the rest of China as country bumpkins and the rest of China considers Shanghainese to be arrogant pricks full of weak beta males. This has declined after Shanghainese has been banned from education since 1992, although a revival of Shanghainese has started around 2012: Kids born since then have regained the ability to speak Shanghainese. There's a lot of pride in holding Shanghai and Beijing hukous: pride in being natives of a superior city is what's reviving Shanghainese while dialects in the rest of the more transplant-heavy regions of China continues to wither away at alarming rates.

I think you have a point but you are too focused on that single point. Like you said, it's human nature to seek high status. But that high status and sense of superiority need evidence to back up, otherwise it's too cheap to worth anything. Millions of HKers cross the border daily to visit mainland China, do you really think that those HKers are so blind to ignore China's development and justify their sense of superiority? The Chinese government is right. The riots are mainly due to the lack of social mobility for young people (because of the ruling of the tycoon oligarchy), in addition to USG meddling. When the youngsters see no hope for home ownership ever and social mobility, some form of catharsis is just a matter of time. Ironically, the Chinese government isn't completely innocent at this outcome. After all, the HK basic law that has enabled the ruiling of real estate tycoon was enacted by the Chinese government and is supposed to last 50 years. The universal suffrage the rioters ask for doesn't seem that unreasonable given that the Chinese government could do nothing about the HK legCo until 2047. Look, everything you say about HongKong is more or less the same in Singapore except for the home ownership. Do Singaporeans hold such hostility towards mainland Chinese or even their own nondemocratic and authoritarian government?

I'm still wondering why the cops don't shut down the more violent protests for good, maybe enjoying that sweet double overtime pay? As of a week or two ago, the mob instigator crowd was crying about how over 800 people or so were arrested and 1200 tear gas grenades fired over the span of 2 months, claiming this was police brutality. The numbers are meant to "shock" but the actions of the Hong Kong police are what a Western police force will use in a single day during a major riot. Lam's strategy of doing nothing and letting things boil may or may not be the wisest course of action, but as the saying goes, never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. There aren't that many "hardcore" rioters, simplest thing to do is once engaged, move cops behind them and block the roads with vehicles. Use an armoured car or bulldozer to smash their zip tied barriers and them club them senseless and arrest them for rioting. Stops the madness on the streets and the rest can get on with their powerless bourgeoisie peaceful protests that everyone ignores.

Forgive me for what may seem like a dumb question, as I am not embedded in the Chinese sphere as you are. I've never even visited, though I hope to at some point. Is it true that China (even if we are just including the 1st tier cities) is in totality richer than Hong Kong? While I don't doubt that at the upper levels salaries are greater than or equal to those in Hong Kong, there seems to be a high level of income inequality within 1st tier cities. Is it not possible that life for the average uneducated person is, at this stage, better in HK? So a portion of the protesters actually do fare better in Hong Kong. Hong Kong does have a higher than average gini coefficient, it just seems that tier 1 cities have even higher ones than Hong Kong in the .7 to .9 range. https://www.scirp.org/pdf/ChnStd\_2018052914020102.pdf Of course this could be wrong, outdated, propaganda, whatever. It is very difficult to get accurate information about China as a Westerner who speaks no Chinese, having to sift through propaganda on both sides.

Great article, neatly boils down and explains a confusing phenomenon. I'm certain you're right about the HK mindset, their entire national consciousness seems to boil down to disdain for mainlanders, and they'll adopt whatever metric they need to uphold that superiority, even if they were actively aware that it would lead to trans kids, mass migration, and empowered wahmen (the wahmen are already pretty empowered though). It's pretty mind-boggling how 99% of the right, even the "dissident" right who claim to have at least a rudimentary understanding of how leftist power operates, is suddenly jumping into agreement with Cathedral journos thinking this is all about muh freedomz and muh human rights. You may be one of the only people I've seen with a better take. Partly related but mostly tangential: what do you think about the increased migration from Africa to China? Also, according to Western media, China's planning on introducing #metoo laws in their civil code. Does China have its own bioleninist cathedral, or are they paying lip service because they're not yet powerful enough to tell globohomo to fuck off?

My travels in China have been limited to Hong Kong and Guangdong province, so perhaps my observations don’t apply to places like Shanghai and Beijing. But in comparing Hong Kong to Shenzhen, there are some points that need to be made, particularly since China’s stated plan in response to the protests is to “build up” Shenzhen and make it better than Hong Kong. It has a way to go in many respects. I agree with most everything AquariusAnon said above. Hong Kong food industries: Hong Kong and mainland have different food safety and quality standards. Food is more expensive in Hong Kong than in Shenzhen but it also tastes different. This is true of everything from expensive restaurants to McDonalds. There is also the issue of variety. Hong Kong has it, Shenzhen does not. If you go to an Italian or Mexican restaurant in Hong Kong, you get Italian or Mexican food. In Shenzhen, you get a rather pathetic imitation, with inferior ingredients. “Hong Kongers are, generally speaking, a bunch of rude, uncultured, materialistic, annoying, semi-glossic, entitled twats.” This is equally true of Shenzheners. The difference is that Hong Kong people actually have style and some sophistication, whereas mainlander tuhao look ridiculous and have obnoxious personalities, the result of having acquired money without ever acquiring manners or education. “Their average looks, famously the ugliest in China” Sorry but no way. Cross the border and compare Shenzhen or Guangzhou girls. But for the moment let’s chalk that up to personal taste and instead note that one of the things which makes Hong Kong girls better looking is their healthier skin. Why do they have that? Two reasons: better quality beauty products (which the aforementioned traders always grab) and better nutrition. The current chaos notwithstanding, Hong Kong generally has a sense of order. People know how to queue, and how to use a toilet rather than a sidewalk (even with a dearth of public toilets). Standards of cleanliness, both on the street and inside buildings, are higher than anywhere I've seen on the mainland. “the vast majority of HKers would hang themselves in the nearest lamp post before considering the logical option of just packing up and moving to Dongguan” - Because even if you have an apartment three times as big for one quarter of the price, you still have to live in Dongguan, which is a shithole. The little differences in Hong Kong add up to a lot in terms of quality of living. The attitude problem you identify in Hong Kongers is real, but that’s not the only thing keeping them from moving to Dongguan or Guangzhou. “It doesn’t help that there’s much fucked in Hong Kong for it being a tax haven where all of China is parking their money in real estate, and the government is captured by Lee Ka-shing and fellow oligarchs.” This is the root of the problem, which hardly anyone talks about. The stupid Murkans think Hong Kong wants muh freedumb and the stupid protesters think Beijing is the reason for all their troubles. Meanwhile, the city’s oligarchs are laughing. (And I have no doubt Murkan blackhands are fanning the flames and are responsible for the most violent protesters.) P.S. Hong Kong music bad? How can you not love melodramatic Cantonese renditions of American 80s power ballads? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxdecmjANMI

Many people in the Rightosphere talks about the Anglo American Empire and how it meddles in everyone's country with muh democracy and freedom. They are not wrong, but guess what? There is a group of ethnicity that massively eggs on these developments. And all for the interests of themselves or for their own clique within their ethnicity. I have partial ancestry from China, so what happens in China concerns me greatly. Hong Kong, like it or not, outperforms China on basic material prosperity, institutional and social trust, food safety and medical care, and many other reasons. You don't see as many Hong Kongers moving to China as mainland Chinese moving to Hong Kong to enjoy things you don't get in mainland China. And as someone who's in love with Chinese traditions, I cannot say that the current Chinese government are really doing their best to improve their own country, from a traditional Confucian perspective or from a modern economic perspective. I cannot and will not support the CCP under any circumstance. You need to look at how Chinese communist nationalists are protesting against the Hong Kongers and their supporters in Australia, Canada, NZ and elsewhere to see how drone-like and prone to violence they are. Of course there are violent protesters in Hong Kong too, but in the overseas field, the mainlanders are failing to show the world why they should support China, with their Communist flags, their Ferraris and big speakers blasting Chinese songs. Not to mention many of these protests are run by students who can't speak decent English, and prone to swear off. There is a lot more to say about the moral and spiritual status of most mainlanders, but I can't say they are the best of the Chinese race at the moment. Now, come to the Chinese government themselves. They recently did this : https://qz.com/1690276/chinas-state-media-compared-hong-kongs-protests-to-the-holocaust/. You see how they just buy easily into the "muh evil whitey Westerners" narrative? This is the same government that partnered up with the US decades ago via the arch globalist Kissinger. And Kissinger still enjoys star status in China. They have great relations with the Bidens and the Clintons. And lately, I have seen China partnering up with certain leftists from the anti-imperialist sphere (Venezuela, Iran, Russia) to portrays how the USA is racist and such, thus buying into the Cathedral's narrative. Such action will only contribute further to the destabilization of Western countries. Both the current Chicoms and the USG are the enemies of civilization. Everyone should be careful in supporting the Chicoms because they seem more "based" than the US at the moment. By the way, the Chicoms don't need to show the world how "inclusive" they are compared to the "racist" USA, yet this is what is on CCTV English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZIAUfB2bwA . My recommendation is to support alt-Chinese folks who are racially aware and know the real history of the CCP, and alt-East Asian people, of which your acquaintance Augustus Manchurius is one. By the look of it, if China gets into a civil war (between say, Xi Jinping and Jiang Zemin), then the country will go into the cycle of disunion and reunion again. I'd say that, if that's the case and if you love China, you better find ways to build your local power and become a warlord who can bring order to chaos.

You sound like Kevin Williamson. The “anywhere people” chauvinism rubs me the wrong way.

This is a good piece, but as other commenters have pointed out, it is let down by your false claim that HK is being outstripped by China. The only mainland city which can compete with HK in terms of living standards/quality of life etc is Shanghai, and even that is arguable. The rest of the Tier 1s are still far behind, the Tier 2 are decades behind, and the remaining 99% of the country is light years away.

I'm with hbd chick. No way are a group of populations as numerous and dispersed as the Han all identical. Yes, HK Chinese tend to inflate their own sense of uniqueness, but that doesn't mean they aren't different from the great mass of mainlanders to some degree. Call good Samaritans the narcissism of small differences if you wish; it's still nice to receive help immediately upon collapse from insulin shock rather than being left to die. Lots of usable real estate sits idle in tycoon land banks thanks to Hong Kong's fuck-backwards public revenue system. Very little incentive to develop those properties into reasonably priced housing.

In the Anglosphere press, I always hear normies making fun of Chinese state media for going on about the CIA, pointing at any random white guy in HK and labeling them an intelligence operative/asset. How much public attention does Beijing focus on NGOs, foreign civil service, and Western media in general?

"Most likely it will just come up with some lame rationalization about how their backwardness is actually just a sign of their superior status, and before changing a iota of its own habits, will rather go to war with the richer city for having the audacity of not accepting the poor city’s cultural superiority" This is exactly the kind of thing that I keep talking about under "subjective status" although "illusionary status" might be better. That while, yes, status is in the eye of the beholder, there is a difference if it is actually in the eye of the beholder. Or if you just think it is in it. Or if you just think it should be in it and get angry because it isn't and come up with justifications, conspiracy theories (Surely HKers also say they are getting poorer because China is conspiring to rob them of their well deserved money? These types always say this.) and stories about past glories. One typical thing is to double down, try to ignore the external world and just keep performing the kinds of things they used to in the past when things went better for them, as a kind of ritual and tradition. Now, the likely reason I am not really getting much attention to this argument is that only losers do this. The people who actually rule the world, who really matter, like, Washington, don't LARP. They have very keen eyes for seeing and grabbing actual status. But most of the world is losers. And they absolutely do this. They don't work on getting real status, they just want to sit around and tell each other stories why should they have high status and how they, in a certain (bullshit) sense are still better than others. Recently I had a stupid spell and thus started preaching absolutism to a group of libertarians. It went differently as I expected as they told me absolutists don't actually govern shit, and told me about this book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Art\_of\_Not\_Being\_Governed which seems to be right up your alley as it says absolutism in Southeast Asia didn't actually govern shit. Which implies patchwork is not necessary for a monarchy to not turn into tyranny.

I enjoyed this article and the loads of information about the current situation in HK. But I have trouble tying together the various strands of this argument. You argue: 1. HK is inferior to Mainland China (OK, that's subjective, but let's say to an informed outside observer, they would prefer to live in Mainland China rather than in HK *right now*) 2. Yet HK does not acknowledge its inferiority. (Of course not. Somalia doesn't acknowledge its inferiority, why should HK?) 3. This is because HK has developed a nativist culture that refuses to acknowledge how much better the mainland is (Yes, this is one of the criteria of developing a native culture, or a separate identity from the mainland.) 4. Therefore this reveals a failure in nativism (huh? It's the definition of nativism!) 5. The only solution for China to turn HK into a patriotic and willing part of China is cultural annihilation (Of course). As to point 4, take a look at Poland. It was constantly invaded and at one point completely disappeared. Now those intransigent Poles, the inferior nation to the superior Germans and Swedes, those who refused to be assimilated, turn out to be one of the last bulwarks in Europe. The Czechs were wiped off the map for a few hundred years and also re-emerged. So we see that a diversity of cultures is an advantage for purposes of robustness across changing circumstances even though it's a disadvantage for purposes of efficiency during any particular set of circumstances. If, for example, China were to descend into another cultural revolution or deeper into a cult of personality for Xi, then HK would start looking better again. So tying all this together, we have: - Political control is not cultural control. - Cultures do die over time due to normal assimilation and birthrate decline/emigration, but the process takes a long time and is unpredictable. The only way to force cultural control over short periods is cultural genocide via forced population transfers, murder, or similar techniques -- let's call these "Extreme Measures". And as Stalin discovered, even these extreme measures can often fail, and of course they are very expensive. - Cultures, by virtue of their differences, can be inferior in some circumstances and then emerge superior when the circumstances change, perhaps hundreds of years later. - Cultures emerge unpredictably and not necessarily from moral reasons, whether a rape of Sabine women or greedy Cantonese emigrating to a diseased ridden rock to exploit trade loopholes, or Latin refugees taking shelter in a diseased ridden Venetian swamps to hide from goths. *** And your conclusions are that this is some sort of problem, whereas really it just a problem for mainland China's program of enforcing both cultural and political homogeneity on all areas with an ethnic Chinese majority. That is an ambitious, bizarre, and fragile program. No one would consider enforcing political and cultural homogeneity on all European whites, for example. Long term, this program will fail at least a few times, and will require a lot of Extreme Measures, whether what is happening in Xinjiang, or previously Tibet, or HK, or in the future Taiwan. And China is going to keep having these problems as different cultures form within it due to the fact that both genetically and culturally China is a heterogenous nation with at least the diversity that you saw in the old Holy Roman Empire, but China is insisting on keeping the whole thing together at all costs. That means Extreme Measures forever. On the one hand, that provides stability and peace, but on the other hand, that monoculture means failure modes are truly catastrophic. Bad government becomes bad government for all Chinese. At the same time, it requires a great deal of energy and discipline. And at some point, generally during a failure, that discipline/energy is going to dissipate and then different cultures are going to break off and form their autonomous areas or even nations. China's will and energy are not infinite, and over time, just as old cultures naturally die off, new ones are naturally born, even if we think the source of the birth is illegitimate. The rape of the Sabines was not legitimate, but it doesn't matter why people in one place have a different identity, all that matters is that they do. It is completely irrelevant whether HK is better or worse than mainland China. All that matters is that it sees itself as different. Once that happens, China has 2 options -- a) leave HK alone and admit a foreign culture living in its territory, content to have political but not cultural domination. Or b) go the Xinjiang route and adopt Extreme Measures yet again. The problem for China is that its economy is dependent on exporting to the West, who although they don't really give a shit about what happens in Xinjiang, do care about what happens to HK. So Extreme Measures are unlikely to happen as they would risk destroying China's unbalanced economy. At least until China rebalances, it's going to have to content itself with political, but not cultural, control over HK, and the HK people know it. Whether they are good people, or bad people, is beside the point. Whether they "deserve" to have a unique identity is beside the point. Whether their stereotypes of mainlanders are accurate is unimportant. None of those things matter. They shouldn't matter to you and they certainly don't matter to anyone outside of China. All that matters is that HK has its own cultural identity, and China is currently in no position to crush it. Everything else is hurt feelings.

The similarities between Hong Kong and Barcelona are stark. 1. Both have a fake "national" culture that is indistinct from China and Spain, except for what Globohomo has implanted 2. They're both regional capitals of globohomo financial capitalism 3. Their economies are driven by real estate speculation 4. Most young natives can't afford to reproduce The only major difference is that Hong Kong has not yet started to import massive amounts of Africans and Arabs

On HK vs Shenzhen: If you want a more authentic Chinese experience, Shenzhen would be better as there are still very few foreigners. You also get a slice of Mainland culture from all over the country due to its status as a migrant city. For expats or even Chinese people with a more Westernized mindset, Hong Kong still wins hands down. The different culture formed during the British colonial times really affects the general vibe of the city in just about every facet. Crossing the border at Luohu or Futian you instantly get the vibe that you are in a de facto foreign country on either side. It is just easier to relate to Hong Kongers for those coming from overseas. Besides, expat culture is formed differently in Hong Kong than Shenzhen having been around for over a century. There's nothing resembling SoHo in Shenzhen not just in number of foreigners and quality of restaurants, but the general life. There likely won't be for decades. Hong Kong bureaucracy can be inept at times, but things actually work just like you'd expect in a first world country. Chinese bureaucracy can be mind boggling, with a lot of paperwork that doesn't make sense and the enforcement of the law can be arbitrary: Chinese law is extremely strict but they rarely enforce it properly. Also, corruption hasn't been eradicated in China at all. As of 2016, I still remember bribery. There's a reason why most Hong Kongers anywhere in the Mainland are only there temporarily, for money making purposes exclusively, and send their kids to international schools. And these are the pro-Beijing ones. Everyday life simply functions so differently between Hong Kong and the Mainland that Hong Kongers in the Mainland generally feel like living in a foreign country that's difficult to adjust to, and vice versa. For example, Hong Kong's educational system and internet ecosystem isn't just different from the Mainland's: It's different enough to be incompatible. And the average girl in Hong Kong is hotter than the average girl in Shenzhen. Shenzhen has so many peasant girls with weird fashion sense and give off a distinct peasant vibe. Hong Kong doesn't have that. They are better dressed and "Westernized" in a way that its just easier to make a connection with them. On the other hand, HK girls are inferior wife material, though I'd rather deal with HK inlaws than Mainland inlaws. Shenzhen might be Tier 1 economically, but it still generally feels like a Tier 2 city. The masses of peasant migrants, the mediocre upkeep of otherwise really nice places, and the group exercises that restaurant waiters do after their shift all give it an unmistakable Tier 2 vibe. I would call Shenzhen the largest and most developed Tier 2 city, not a Tier 1. There's only really one Tier 1 city in China, and that's Shanghai. Beijing is Tier 1.5. Tier 2 cities in China still have a set of issues that not even Shanghainese natives can truly feel comfortable living in. Non-regional food in Tier 2 cities are no better than the "authentic" Chinese restaurants overseas, and the Western food that are not 5 star hotel restaurants is generally laughable, with some exceptions. Not to mention nongs and tuhaos combined form the majority of the population in Tier 2 and below cities. China has come a long way, but it still has a LONG way to go before you can call a city like Shenzhen or Chengdu superior to Hong Kong.

For what it worths, some folks I know who travelled around China and HK 12 years ago would say HK's superiority complex is well-grounded. That you can sit in a park without people spitting all around you. They are better dressed. They are helpful to Western tourists. It's cleaner. Lack of masses of peasants. They said it was the first place they saw in the whole world that has a huge, five-story mall only for top-end luxury brands. Not only an Armani boutique but also an Armani bookstore and Armani confectionery. These things apparently exist. In HK. But 12 years is 12 years. They are of course a bunch of SWPL types. Of course they like HK. Snobs like snobbish places.

The one absolutely important takeaway for Chinese/HK authorities is: stop housing speculation dead. It wouldn't make a huge difference if house prices were, say, 20% lower, which is probably as much as you could get with a rational housing policy. But it would make life easier for a significant slice of the population, especially younger workers, those most prone to riot. Singapore, an actual city-state, has been killing off speculation (and God knows there's no place to build there either) by making it expensive to hold and transfer houses as investments. That's the government's explicit policy: they don't want a country made up of rentiers and property tycoons. But that has a negative effect on economic growth (fewer jobs for realtors, for example) so only the well-protected heirs of Lee Kuan Yew have been able to pull it off, overcoming fear of electoral consequences.

Good points regarding status. This is a universal impulse that also drives some of the animus and hostility towards China from the US, including the alt-right and far-right in the US who normally despise the reigning political and cultural regime in the US. Status is fixed and zero-sum, and everyone in the US, whether an SJW or an alt-rightist, is going to derive to a large extent their status from the US being the most powerful state and largest economy in the world. If China becomes much more powerful and richer, and suddenly a billion people are as well off or even better off than Americans are, American status will decline accordingly, no matter what happens in America, simply because status is a relative feature. This is partly why most alt-rightists will ultimately tolerate an extremely leftist social and political climate domestically over declining in status.

That Hongkongers are ugly and puffed up is an infantile interpretation of the situation. There were some very important rights going with a Hong Kong passport and residence permit. For example, they were untouched by what was going on in the mainland such the Cultural Revolution, the one-baby massacre, etc. China is not a paradise, many try to move their savings and their children to the West. They know why. If I were a Hongkonger and see the re-education of the Uyghurs, I would have a premonition of the things that may come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueNr7mfFZu8&t=1s How to turn a locust into a first rate human? Get him into HK for 50 years..... evolution has never been that fast!

Excellent analysis Spandrell. Is it the perils of nativism, or the perils of imported democratic ideologies posing as nativism? The CCP has innovated and of the best alternatives to democracy to date, in the last 30 years. Not quite Moldbug’s formalism, but a unique, highly competent, locally loved (but hated by the Cathedral) technocracy with peaceful power transitions, internal checks. One of the best innovations is the natural immune system to Western progressivist thought. This aspect of the fight between HK and China is really understated, and even anti-protestor folks are afraid to make the alternative-to-democracy argument. There is indeed a philosophical basis for Beijing’s power structure and superiority to chaos that goes beyond GDP growth and new apartments China has very little reason to preserve “two systems with universal suffrage” all the way to 2047 as the system is failing before our eyes. Sure, some fifth columnists still want to hide capital there, but the biggest threat is allowing the poison to spread. Instead they should just experiment with various “reforms” in the Moldbuggian sense

You give a very good explanation of the motivation of the rioters. You say nothing about their opponents, namely HongKong government and police. Why are they allowing it to happen? I have no knowledge about HongKong, but the situation suggests that the people in charge of HongKong do not want to crack down on the rioters. Probably for the same reasons the Russian czar did not want to crack down on rioters, i.e. the people in charge consider the rioters "holy". Are there any other possible explanations? What about the mainland Chinese goverment? Why are they allowing to happen? The propaganda efforts you discribe are directed to mainland China only. I understand that they are reluctant to send tanks into HongKong, but arent't there any more subtle means they can employ? For example, force the HongKong government to employ the police in a more effective manner?

I'd be interested to read how France destroyed its regional cultures, anything you could recommend?

I have a question, if anyone here would be kind enough to answer. Why doesn't the Chinese government expand Hong Kong's territory? Feathers would be ruffled, of course (in Shenzhen, but in HK, too), but it would allow for further housing development under the system of government that the HK-ese prefer, lower prices for "gentrifiers", while introducing more mainlanders who would eventually erode the HK-ese identity, if that is to be desired. It would bind Hong Kong to China even more since, eventually, the newly expanded Hong Kong will be unable to split apart, just like the original HK did not make sense without the New Territories which were the part under lease till 1997.

I think Nativism is a neutral thing on it's own. It's up to the group and circumstances that they can make their identity competitive. One has to fight for a place under the Sun. It's not given. They can claim to be superior to the mainlanders, but they have to prove it. I am usually romantically minded about nation and the people, but other groups too have their own goals. The CPC and the elite of China is insisting in keeping the country together and they won't allow the domino of either Tiber, Hong Kong or Taiwan to fall. They have studied the dissolution of the Soviet Union enough to see that showing weaknesses here would be a disaster for them. Also I do believe that the PLA and Chinese Intelligence Services already have a dozen plans with how to deal with a possible uprising in Hong Kong. Overall the protests look like a flex from the USA against the PROC instead of a realistic separatist movement. I think with the current trends in economics, political stability and population the Chinese will answer in kind later down the road... I sincerely hope no Hong Kong people believe that any other country will risk taking on a Superpower to help them. That would be both massive arrogance and insane delusion.

Your criticism seems to ignore the government system of Patchwork, only focusing on the small jurisdiction size. Moldbug explicitly stated, repeatedly, that shareholders should idealy be prohibited from living in patches they own shares in. If Hong Kong was owned by a foreign investors (likely including a lot of mainland Chinese), they would feel no attachment to Hong Kong's identity, especially if it got in the way of making money. Moldbug even suggested removing and replacing the population as something neocameral states might have to do in extreme cases. A better point to make would be that neocameralism ignores people's desire for status and power even at the expense of wealth, essentially bribing shareholders to give up decision making power to the CEO. It works in nonsovereign corporations, but I think the incentive would break down if the corporation had the powers of a sovereign city state at its disposal. Even if a coherently run organization would be more profitable, shareholders could demand to have influence over the day to day operations of the realm. This is essentially what happened to elective monarchies such as the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The best future I can see for neocameralism is as a system of local government for a city inside a larger country or as an early-stage colonial system of government, like the EIC or some early American colonies.

Semi-related but I mostly just wanted to share this, I vaguely remember a discussion on how the Dutch like to investigate racial and ethnic shit but we are otherwise pretty deracinated. I found some pretty good research by Dutch researchers on white flight (in English) for whoever would like to read it. https://papers.tinbergen.nl/16062.pdf So the conclusion is basically as such: people prefer living among their own ethnic group, in a somewhat diverse neighbourhood, where they are dominant. It seems to make sense to me. Pro-migration people are generally quite sanctimonious but seem to be zapped by lightning whenever someone brings up white marginalization. Seems to conform to a 'some ethnic food is nice, some extra color is nice, makes me feel tolerant, as long as we are the majority and enforce our own norms' type of mentality.

Great post about Hong Kong. I don't see them being finished as you said. China will not be able to have the same laws so financial sector will still be strong for someone wanting to do business in China. People like to use Hong Kong as a transit hub because they perceive it as a international place. The U.S. allow for import and export of things that they otherwise does not allow in and out of Mainland China. A fellow named Janus from Quora wrote this piece about some possible post 2047 scenarios here https://www.quora.com/One-Country-Two-Systems-What-will-happen-to-Hong-Kong-after-2047 Basically splitting Hong Kong into different zones to both capture these functions (finance and international travel hub) as well as a place with Western style voting in one of the regions to quarantine all the people who wanted to go that way. I think China can have its cake and eat it too. While the travel hub employs a lot of people, the financial center work could be offshore to other places. Just set up a back office in Dongguan. How many people did the Bahamas employ for having so many companies register there?

“These kids are just too hot headed but their heart is in the right place”. The sort of thing that your average Muslim says about Al Qaeda. Or that the average Christian says about their own various religious extremist groups.

If HKs have a superiority complex and view mainland china as "low status" (kind of how Baltic countries and ukraine view Russia as low status), I figured out a way to make them sing the Chinese anthem or move without genocide - economic collapse. The CPC can topple the HK economy and basically make them Low Status in the rest of china. When they are confronted with this fact, they will either move or begin to view China as a savior (which can then move in an save them from poverty)

Great post on Hong Kong. First time leaving a comment. I live about 40 minutes away from Kowloon so it is a local issue for me too. The riots are triggered by (1) the fact that most HKers are descended from people running away from famines and other disturbances in mainland between 1900 to 1980 and their families irrationally hate / look down on the mainland especially the PRC government; (2) the fact that Anglosphere colonial-imperial ideology has continued untouched since 1997 and even melded together with Falungong-related anti-China hate campaigns starting from the 1990s; (3) the fact that, before Xi Jinping arrived, the mainland elites used HK as a playground for their capitalist fantasies, enriching the local HK elites and impoverishing the local HK working class and (4) mistaken belief on Beijing's party that sending endless hordes of (often) rude mainlanders would make the locals feel more affection for the mainland. Beijing thought buying out the HK elites after 1997 meant the HK elites would put a lid on working class discontentment. As it turned out, as soon as working class discontentment at the housing prices and at (often) rude mainlanders reached a critical point, the HK elites stepped aside and let the rioters vent their age at Beijing the HK government or local real estate developers who are actually hording the land. The rioters are venting their rage at the mainland because of causes (1) and (2) above. Broadly speaking, the riots are driven by nativism (HK Cantonese chauvinism). HK is a combination of the very good and very bad. The very bad include that most people living in cage-sized housing, which makes them very grumpy and rude toward anybody not speaking Cantonese except Caucasians. The housing prices are so high that it makes no economic sense for HK working class to stay there rather be working class in the mainland. The only reason why they don't make the economically rational decision is because of blind hate for the mainland. Sure the food safety might be worse but at least they would live in reasonably sized apartments. Aside from the housing problem, rude working class and Falungong anti-China hate campaigns, in terms of economy, infrastructure, culture and urban lifestyle, HK is far better than Shanghai or any other Chinese city. The present riots are just the very bad of HK (actually a slight majority of the population) taking the city hostage by threatening its international financial center status if Beijing doesn't accede to their political demands. They have ratcheted up their anti-China hate so much that the only way to really end the conflict is to put a large portion of them into a re-education camp Xinjiang style. It is a risky wager for the slight majority of HKers to make their hometown the front-line of a violent geopolitical struggle. I think they underestimated Beijing's determination and the entire cohort of teens to 20-somethings in HK will end up in some kind of re-education camp for years or even decades. Beijing has been very restrained but just wait until after the Taiwan elections in January 2020.

What struck me when I went to HK was how unfriendly the people were. I went from Singapore, where the people were incredibly friendly and helpful to me - a tourist - to HK, where the people were cold and unhelpful. I couldn't even get directions to the subway station. Then after a week in HK I went to Shenzhen, where the people were friendly, unlike HK. My impression of HK was quite bad.

Too much nonsense about culture and feelings of superiority. You should apply dialectical materialism to analyze social processes. Feeling and culture are the soft superstructure based on hard material/economic relations i.e. the ownership of the means of production. Hong Kong has developed a very successful capitalist economy, which an outside power tries to appropriate. It is very superficial and unbehooving for Spandrel to see only feelings of superiority or inferiority where the fight is for the ownership of the means of production. Re-read Hegel, Marx and Engels.