zlacker

>We've already started to see the CCP losing ground (see HK)

How is violating the Sino-British Joint Declaration and getting away with it "losing ground"? The Hong Kong protests failed and Hongkongers now have less freedom than before.

>>mrob+(OP)
Foreign investment in HK was down 34.4% in 2019 versus the prior year [0]. Apart from the immediate ramifications of a year of protests, Beijing's effort to clamp down on HK was an economic self-own that opens the floodgates for Western hawkishness on Taiwan, Xinjiang, and every other area where China's expansionism overlaps with its economic ambitions. Beijing could have allowed HK to remain as it was, using it to entice the West. Instead, their authoritarian tack has reminded the frog to check the temperature of its bath.

I don't think they got away with much. Even if foreign investment rebounds in HK, Western complacency toward China will not find its voice again for many decades, and in that time, every Chinese treaty negotiation will be viewed as a bad-faith caricature of real diplomacy.

[0] https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/wir2020_en...