(part 2)

> Oh, China isn't so bad, yeah. But think about it: millions of Hong Kongers are still living there. Apparently, to them, the riots aren't so bad that they would leave for the mainland. Isn't that strange?

I have heard of many Hong Kongers who actually did leave for the mainland. Both during, and way before the protests. You never hear about them because they consider themselves Chinese, and so are indistinguishable from other Chinese.

But I don't have hard data for you, so take this as you will.

> As a German, I think it's funny you say that

All right. Encouraging critical thinking is a fair point. I encourage critical thinking.

I would assert that the example question I posted, is not one of educating critical thinking. It is of deliberately downplaying the value of the Chinese identity. I don't have a better source ready to prove this point, but if you are interested I could go look for some.

Furthermore, would you agree that the appropriateness of this question depends on the population? Would the Poles, French or the Jews of Israel appreciate such a question in their text books, and would they also agree that it's a normal question for the purpose of educating critical thinking?

> Do you think he has a chance of getting elected without universal suffrage?

I believe so.

The pro-democracy party won the recent district elections. This already shows that Beijing interferes way less with the democratic process in Hong Kong, than is popularly believed. Everybody was saying "Beijing would never allow it" and then it happened anyway.

I think people misread Beijing. In my opinion, they are not per se against democracy. They want to uphold national security, and they want to avoid damaging the interest of the rest of the country. If that's achieved, Hong Kongers can do all they want.

In the past, Beijing proposed a limited form of universal suffrage. People could choose from pre-screened candidates. Opponents said that this is fake universal suffrage, that all candidates are just puppets. From the perspective of Beijing, they want to make sure Hong Kong doesn't elect a secessionist.

Given that Hong Kong never had true universal suffrage anyway, not during British times nor after handover, I would say limited universal suffrage is still an improvement. And if Hong Kong shows that such a limited universal suffrage doesn't result in a bad outcome, I think it's likely that Beijing will relax the requirements even more in the future. It could be a viable path towards better and better universal suffrage.

I think that by misreading Beijing, and by insisting that they must be bad, Hong Kong wasted that chance. If Beijing really wants to clamp down on freedom they could have done it ages ago. Why would they even bother offering limited universal suffrage, if they could continue to govern Hong Kong the way the British did, namely with no universal suffrage at all?

I think that Beijing is far more willing to cooperate, to comprimise, than people give it credit for. That does not mean it is easy, but it is possible, given that one understands what Beijing's interests are, and what they will absolutely not compromise on.

> online signatures are too easy to fake

The petitions were offline.

> the majority did not sign in support. So you cannot claim that "the" people of Hong Kong agree with you, just that some do, which is less surprising

Agreed. But can't you apply this logic to the protest movements too? Hong Kong has 7.5 million people. The high estimation of 2 million people who joined the protests, did not constitute the majority either. So why paint the situation as "the Hong Kong people want democracy"?

What matters to me is that there are more signatures than people who joined the protests. It's true that their motivations may be different from mine. But still: they signed it.

> I don't think what I said above changed your mind about anything.

You did make me think deeper about various issues, for which I think you. And let's not forget that we already agree on a substantial number of points.

What about you though, have I been able to convince you of anything?

> I do have one last recommendation I hope you'll consider seriously: don't think you have to pick from a limited selection of sides. You can slice and dice them however you want.

Thanks. This is actually what I intend to do. In some pro-China circles I am actually considered anti-China. It got me banned from some forums.