Lincoln – In an earlier post, I looked at Hong Kong then and now, five decades apart. Soon thereafter, the NYT also looked back at the 1967 riots, which were much different compared to the 2019 riots.
Back then some of the rioters waved Little Red Books, with the sayings of Chairman Mao, which could be purchased at a special Red China outlet store in British Hong Kong. This is also where Hong Kong residents lined up to read newspapers published on the Communist mainland. See top photo, below.
The store was off limits to U.S. Navy personnel, which two of us conveniently learned only after getting our own personal copies of the Little Red Book. (Know your enemy – I still have my copy.)
Our ship was not off limits to the Mary Soo painters, who made a living by painting ships as they lay at anchor in Hong Kong harbor. They painted in exchange for spent brass, not for money. Ships saved up on spent brass when anticipating a visit to Hong Kong. Mary Soo's crew was mostly women, rescued from orphanages and shelters. See second photo, of a Mary Soo crew painting USS Rainier.
Back then, Red China was a threat to the United States' efforts in Vietnam and Korea, as well as an authoritarian regime dangerous to its own people and to peace in the area. It is now capitalist but still an authoritarian regime ruled with a heavy hand by the 70-year-old Chinese Communist Party, so not everything has changed.
But China increasingly blocks U.S. Navy ships from visiting Hong Kong. The Chinese Navy dominates the South China Sea from new bases in the Paracels and Spratlys. The United States is a fading force in the Pacific.
U.S. farmers have lost much of their carefully-developed Chinese markets because of tariff wars. Curiously, some farmers support the tariffs as leverage over China's theft of intellectual property (IP), although it is clear the leverage works the other way, against farmers. This might make sense if the theft of agricultural sector IP was of particular value to farmers, but the theft is from monopolist seed companies which, with their patents, have already made rural life in the American heartland difficult financially.
What would help U.S. farmers with China is a Congress that would take back tariff authority from the Executive (as provided in the Constitution) and a Congress that would break up seed monopolies and override, with legislation, the 2001 Supreme Court opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas (a former Monsanto attorney who did not recuse himself), which took away many farmers' rights to their own seeds.
The U.S. should also be more helpful to the Hong Kong protesters of 2019, who are making a courageous stand for democracy. Silence only encourages authoritarian regimes, and underscores our maritime weakness.
The bottom photo was not supposed to be blurry, but sometimes accidental photos also work out.
