Can’t I critically support Hong Kongers in their desire for independence, while also criticizing the parts of their attempt that I find less than ideal?
No. That makes you a useful CIA tool. I'm sorry if that's blunt or sounds mean but if you propagate their lies, if you attack their enemies and support their agenda and efforts they don't care a whit nor does it matter to the impressionable liberal a whit if you sign your support with an asterisk and several paragraphs of short-comings beneath it. Because you've picked a side, theirs and everything after that point will be ignored by liberals. It doesn't make you a reasonable centrist or enlightened person to accept the western propaganda's aim but compromise by rejecting specific points.
Why not critically support China while criticizing the parts you find less than ideal? I always find this interesting and it is a result of indoctrination and latent anti-communism, western chauvinism, and internalized capitalist propaganda, that your left-liberal will nod in agreement at the crimes of the US, at the fact the Democrats abet these horrible crimes and yet when the time for support comes they'll refuse support to socialist nations on the grounds the capitalist media told them they were committing atrocities and that they believe them. Yet many of them will still critically support the US, the Democrats, the efforts of the CIA which they acknowledge as less than perfect in an incredible show of charity to the CIA, to capitalist interests, to US hegemony and allies to it, that is strangely not extended to socialist nations that are less than perfect.
Also most Hong Kongers do not want independence[1] nor should they get it were they brainwashed enough to. Hong Kong is not an ethnic group, it is not a native or indigenous group of people put upon by colonizing forces. It is a colonial wound full of Han Chinese people left by the British after the century of humiliation, it should have been fully repatriated to China but the Chinese being overly reasonable and not in any position to wage a full war with western powers offered concessions, that it would be independent. The West by sewing anti-communist, anti-China propaganda there broke that bargain, the west by sponsoring a color revolution attempt broke that bargain. They teach their school children terrible lies about China in their curriculum. Hong Kong is Chinese land, now and forever. It cannot and will not be split off by western powers into a toe hold once more which is the whole point.
Like, China has the power to change the Hong Kong system to be more democratic, right?
De facto? Yes. They could roll the PLA tanks in tomorrow and the world would sob but no one could stop them nor would anyone mobilize any force to do so. But China abides by its treaties and laws or tries to unlike lawless nations such as the US. Even though it is an unfair treaty forced on them they are upholding it for the most part. And that's the point. If they did roll in and abolish the SAR state or just blatantly install Beijing underlings or otherwise change it the western media would be screaming, the US would sanction them, Britain would sanction them, etc. Also much of the investment and companies in HK who use it as an offshore base for entry into China would flee. China's wisest course of action is to allow things to continue, to attempt media outreach and education and hope the people of Hong Kong vote in a way that makes changes in their own favor. But it won't be easy, the powerful wealthy interests there who puppet these protests alongside the western government interests won't have it. Never forget what set these protests off was an extradition treaty with all the usual protections set off by a piece of shit man who murdered his girlfriend and fled there. China very much wants to play by the international rules, it wants to do this for its own benefit and to win disputes in international institutions as well as garnering international support. The African nations among others can see the US hypocrisy to China's good law abiding nature and it makes them favor China.
No. That makes you a useful CIA tool. I'm sorry if that's blunt or sounds mean but if you propagate their lies, if you attack their enemies and support their agenda and efforts they don't care a whit nor does it matter to the impressionable liberal a whit if you sign your support with an asterisk and several paragraphs of short-comings beneath it. Because you've picked a side, theirs and everything after that point will be ignored by liberals. It doesn't make you a reasonable centrist or enlightened person to accept the western propaganda's aim but compromise by rejecting specific points.
Why not critically support China while criticizing the parts you find less than ideal? I always find this interesting and it is a result of indoctrination and latent anti-communism, western chauvinism, and internalized capitalist propaganda, that your left-liberal will nod in agreement at the crimes of the US, at the fact the Democrats abet these horrible crimes and yet when the time for support comes they'll refuse support to socialist nations on the grounds the capitalist media told them they were committing atrocities and that they believe them. Yet many of them will still critically support the US, the Democrats, the efforts of the CIA which they acknowledge as less than perfect in an incredible show of charity to the CIA, to capitalist interests, to US hegemony and allies to it, that is strangely not extended to socialist nations that are less than perfect.
Also most Hong Kongers do not want independence[1] nor should they get it were they brainwashed enough to. Hong Kong is not an ethnic group, it is not a native or indigenous group of people put upon by colonizing forces. It is a colonial wound full of Han Chinese people left by the British after the century of humiliation, it should have been fully repatriated to China but the Chinese being overly reasonable and not in any position to wage a full war with western powers offered concessions, that it would be independent. The West by sewing anti-communist, anti-China propaganda there broke that bargain, the west by sponsoring a color revolution attempt broke that bargain. They teach their school children terrible lies about China in their curriculum. Hong Kong is Chinese land, now and forever. It cannot and will not be split off by western powers into a toe hold once more which is the whole point.
De facto? Yes. They could roll the PLA tanks in tomorrow and the world would sob but no one could stop them nor would anyone mobilize any force to do so. But China abides by its treaties and laws or tries to unlike lawless nations such as the US. Even though it is an unfair treaty forced on them they are upholding it for the most part. And that's the point. If they did roll in and abolish the SAR state or just blatantly install Beijing underlings or otherwise change it the western media would be screaming, the US would sanction them, Britain would sanction them, etc. Also much of the investment and companies in HK who use it as an offshore base for entry into China would flee. China's wisest course of action is to allow things to continue, to attempt media outreach and education and hope the people of Hong Kong vote in a way that makes changes in their own favor. But it won't be easy, the powerful wealthy interests there who puppet these protests alongside the western government interests won't have it. Never forget what set these protests off was an extradition treaty with all the usual protections set off by a piece of shit man who murdered his girlfriend and fled there. China very much wants to play by the international rules, it wants to do this for its own benefit and to win disputes in international institutions as well as garnering international support. The African nations among others can see the US hypocrisy to China's good law abiding nature and it makes them favor China.
[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/wiki/faq/hong-kong-taiwan/summer-2019-protests#wiki_important_polls_and_numbers