NATO return to Cold War force structure

[TrustMe]

2 hours ago, Martineleca said:

Wasn't the British military already present there, what would China have done if the deal was declared to be null and void, start a trade war before it had sucked up a lot of Western industry or even invade?

We had a Girkar battalion some patrol boat's plus police. We'd be outnumbered a gazzilon to one. When Russia used chemical weapons to kill a dissent in the UK all we did was imposes some useless sanctions on Russia. That's what would of happened if the Chinese invaded HK.

Edited May 20 by TrustMe

[seahawk]

The time of Western imperialism is over.

[sunday]

40 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

We had a Girkar battalion some patrol boat's plus police. We'd be outnumbered a gazzilon to one. When Russia used chemical weapons to kill a dissent in the UK all we did was imposes some useless sanctions on Russia. That's what would of happened if the Chinese invaded HK.

It almost looks like you wasted a lot of money on useless nuclear weapons.

[Josh]

36 minutes ago, seahawk said:

The time of Western imperialism is over.

Eh, I think it might catch a second wind. The Chinese government as it stands is younger than my mom and people judging it in it’s current form seem to be ignoring the millions it killed in it’s infancy under Mao. If that seems like a reach, consider how much Xi has centralized control, adopted a third term, imposed “Xi thought” as a thing, destroyed foreign investment and tech inputs, and likely slaughtered a couple million elderly Chinese citizens in the space of months with his zero covid/covid-is-over-and-we-shall-scrub-all-data-to-the-contrary flip flop. Lower totals than Mao, but probably achieved inside a single season.

And the coming Chinese population collapse is largely a Communist Party own goal created four decades ago.

i think the jury is still out on who has the superior system.

Edited May 20 by Josh

[TrustMe]

26 minutes ago, sunday said:

It almost looks like you wasted a lot of money on useless nuclear weapons.

MAD's not my thing  

[glenn239]

4 hours ago, Martineleca said:

Wasn't the British military already present there, what would China have done if the deal was declared to be null and void, start a trade war before it had sucked up a lot of Western industry or even invade?

Once the lease expired the British would be in illegal occupation of Chinese territory with the PLA free to drive them out.  No doubt they would not do so immediately, but the British position would be untenable and a debacle inevitable.  

[sunday]

1 hour ago, TrustMe said:

MAD's not my thing  

 

[sunday]

15 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Once the lease expired the British would be in illegal occupation of Chinese territory with the PLA free to drive them out.  No doubt they would not do so immediately, but the British position would be untenable and a debacle inevitable.  

Hong Kong island proper was handed over in perpetuity.

[TrustMe]

9 minutes ago, sunday said:

Hong Kong island proper was handed over in perpetuity.

If I remember right we had a 99 year lease. Of course back in 1898, with the full force of the British Empire behind us and China being so weak i'm sure that the politicans of the day thought all we had to do was re-negotiate another 99 year lease when the first one ended. Things have changed since then.

[urbanoid]

1 minute ago, TrustMe said:

If I remember right we had a 99 year lease. Of course back in 1898, with the full force of the British Empire behind us and China being so weak i'm sure that the politicans of the day thought all we had to do was re-negotiate another 99 year lease when the first one ended. Things have changed since then.

You're talking about New Territories, not HK proper.

[TrustMe]

1 minute ago, urbanoid said:

You're talking about New Territories, not HK proper.

Thanks for the correction I wasn't 100% sure.

[Josh]

Hong Kong was not sustainable by itself.

[Martineleca]

11 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Once the lease expired the British would be in illegal occupation of Chinese territory with the PLA free to drive them out.  No doubt they would not do so immediately, but the British position would be untenable and a debacle inevitable.  

The Falklands war created a precedent that NATO would not react if overseas territories of a member state were attacked, but I don't see how the UK's position in Hong Kong was going to be untenable after a treaty that wasn't signed with the Chairman of the CCP expires. China at that time crucially not yet a member of the World Trade Organisation was still rebuilding it's reputation in the West after the Tienanmen debacle and was not prepared for any political or armed confrontations, as the preceding Taiwan strait crisis had clearly demonstrated. Personally I think if British withdrawal was inevitable the people of Hong Kong should have been given a choice on which Chinese nation they wanted to join, as there are still two at present. 

[seahawk]

There is only one China.

[Stuart Galbraith]

14 minutes ago, Martineleca said:

The Falklands war created a precedent that NATO would not react if overseas territories of a member state were attacked, but I don't see how the UK's position in Hong Kong was going to be untenable after a treaty that wasn't signed with the Chairman of the CCP expires. China at that time crucially not yet a member of the World Trade Organisation was still rebuilding it's reputation in the West after the Tienanmen debacle and was not prepared for any political or armed confrontations, as the preceding Taiwan strait crisis had clearly demonstrated. Personally I think if British withdrawal was inevitable the people of Hong Kong should have been given a choice on which Chinese nation they wanted to join, as there are still two at present. 

Its really quite simple, there was two Hong Kongs. We could hold onto part of it without consequence. The problem was, the water to sustain it was all in territory that would become part of the PRC. Kowloon I think? We would either have to create a giant investment in delalination to sustain the colony, or pay probably extortionate rates to the PRC for the privilage of drinking water.

In the end, the US was brown nosing China, and we wanted to as well. It was low hanging fruit for us to decolonise, particularly as we had lost colonies that were far more financially consequential.

Its simple. Hong Kong was a colony. Colony's never get to decide what the nation states that own them choose to do. If they did, we would probably be in Burma to this day (and arguably a very good idea if we had).

If you dont like this, chalk  it up as one more poor decision made by the Margaret Thatcher Government.

[Martineleca]

3 hours ago, seahawk said:

There is only one China.

Oh really? Did the leaders in East Berlin believe there was only one Germany?

[R011]

The British government, indeed almost every government in the worlds plus  international organizations recognized the PRC as being the legitimate government of China, the successor state to the pre-1949 governments including the Empire.  There was no chance that Hong Kong would have been turned over to the so-called RoC, nor would Taiwan have accepted it given it would mean war with China..

[Perun]

20 hours ago, Martineleca said:

The Falklands war created a precedent that NATO would not react if overseas territories of a member state were attacked, but I don't see how the UK's position in Hong Kong was going to be untenable after a treaty that wasn't signed with the Chairman of the CCP expires. China at that time crucially not yet a member of the World Trade Organisation was still rebuilding it's reputation in the West after the Tienanmen debacle and was not prepared for any political or armed confrontations, as the preceding Taiwan strait crisis had clearly demonstrated. Personally I think if British withdrawal was inevitable the people of Hong Kong should have been given a choice on which Chinese nation they wanted to join, as there are still two at present. 

Argentina wasnt WP, second you have this:

"Article 6

“For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.”"

[seahawk]

18 hours ago, Martineleca said:

Oh really? Did the leaders in East Berlin believe there was only one Germany?

The goal was to unite Germany under Communist rule. Sadly this did not happen.

[Martineleca]

3 hours ago, R011 said:

The British government, indeed almost every government in the worlds plus  international organizations recognized the PRC as being the legitimate government of China, the successor state to the pre-1949 governments including the Empire. 

The idea is that ROC is a de facto Chinese nation that has just as much claim to that ancient heritage as the PRC that attempted to erase it during the cultural revolution, it was the UN that went out of its way to alter that in 1971, though if relations deteriorate further it may switch back once more.

[Martineleca]

2 hours ago, seahawk said:

The goal was to unite Germany under Communist rule.

Yeah I don't know how likely that was, some time ago I talked to a German fellow who's uncle worked as an engineer at Siemens and in 1988 was part of a group invited to East Germany as a sign of good will and to exchange industrial experience, there apparently wasn't too much of the latter. Traveling in a tight column of BMW and Mercedes cars they were stopped shortly after crossing the border and told they could go no further with them as the local population couldn't be permitted to see what vehicles the "US-enslaved West" was producing, so they were parked there and exchanged with East German cars for the remainder of their trip. In the middle of a very hot summer unexpectedly switching from an air-conditioned V12 750i to a chronically-underpowered and cramped Wartburg 353 I3 must have been a harrowing experience, anyway when he returned he'd been shocked by the use of sometimes pre-WW2 technology in some of the factories and that everything seemed to be close to shutting down, he proved to be absolutely right. 

Edited May 22 by Martineleca

[glenn239]

On 5/21/2024 at 3:17 AM, Martineleca said:

The Falklands war created a precedent that NATO would not react if overseas territories of a member state were attacked, but I don't see how the UK's position in Hong Kong was going to be untenable after a treaty that wasn't signed with the Chairman of the CCP expires. 

I'd assumed that the entirety of the territory was up with the expiration of the lease, but I see here the island itself was not.  That might have changed things in terms of the British being able to stay, not really sure.

[sunday]

2 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

I'd assumed that the entirety of the territory was up with the expiration of the lease, but I see here the island itself was not.  That might have changed things in terms of the British being able to stay, not really sure.

They decided that Hong Kong island would not be an economically sustainable territory by itself.

[glenn239]

10 minutes ago, sunday said:

They decided that Hong Kong island would not be an economically sustainable territory by itself.

That makes sense, but Martineleca might have a point that at least politically the British position was more viable than I'd assumed.  I had long assumed they were dead to rights on both fronts.

Edited May 22 by glenn239

[sunday]

47 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

That makes sense, but Martineleca might have a point that at least politically the British position was more viable than I'd assumed.  I had long assumed they were dead to rights on both fronts.

When the PRC got the permanent seat in the Security Council, it was clear who was China.