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Comment by knolax | Hacker News Reader

A century old treaty signed at gunpoint can be dissolved at gunpoint.

That’s not how international obligations work. Most borders were defined at gunpoint but we generally don’t allow for arbitrary redefinition when the loser gets uppity, Crimea aside.

That's not how international relations work. Appealing to some arbitrary set of conventions (that you prove in your own comment don't get followed) and then complaining that the other side is "uppity" does nothing.

china probably wouldnt mind burning Versailles n Buckingham to the ground, recovering taiwan. then taking over hawaii and returning it 100 years later.

The history of the region is far more complicated of course, you’re neglecting that Macau wasn’t lost in a war. It was leased as a trading post. There’s no reason to believe that the contiguous border China would like to espouse is either historically fair or reasonable today. Macau is more like St Pierre and Miquelon or Point Roberts. It’s governed under the same terms as HK.

It’s also unclear why Taiwan should be “recovered” at all, they were two factions of the cultural revolution sure, but that doesn’t mean they should be unified now any more than the UK should “recover” America.

of their quarrels with the rest of the world. to the chinese. i think taiwan is the least negotiable. they're not done yet, their revolutionary war.

we can of course disagree with china. but ignoring what they want is...i don't know...naive?

For a long time American policy was also that these "unfair" treaties made by Colonial Powers should go. Roosevelt was very much of that opinion that these treaties should be abbrograted in the aftermath of World War II, and his views did lead to some differences of opinion with Churchill.

Infact all other concessions except HK and Macau were returned to Chinese about the end of the war.

We probably need to return California to Mexico by your logic.

It's not my logic, it is what the American Policy thought was the decent thing to do.

We're still the ones pointing the guns in that scenario.

Well in that case, you’re arguing that since you lost the war of 1812 when you tried to invade Canada, now that you’ve got the bigger guns you would just go for a quick stroll up north.

For the record Macau was leased freely to Portugal as a trading post in the mid 1500s. Not everything is an unfair imposition.

Then again, if the old loser is the new winner. They get to define the rules...

They've not won anything though, in fact they showed their hand to the world to wake us up, and sooner than later there will be a multi-lateral trade agreement between Democracies that will reduce the CCP's economic power - and India who' aligned with, allied with Democracies are readying to replace any economic activity in China. This isn't a war they can win.

That's exactly how international obligations work.

Any others you want to revisit? Maybe the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo? How about 1812? Should America get to annex Canada? America did lose the war of 1812 after all!

If breaking a treaty is in best interest and situation permits it, it will probably get broken. Annexing Canada is not very practical at this point is it? Breaking a bunch of treaties made with Native Americans, sure why not.

If one day situation permits it, Canada will become 5X US state.

Sure if you use your imagination and a pathological attitude anything can happen!

The laws of physics are inflexible.

The laws of man, including international law, treaties and borders, are made up and can be change with enough will or force.

I mean of course they can but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do, or even productive towards a country’s ends, or beneficial to then international community. Peace relies on honoring agreements. If you see countries start breaking their obligations, stand back and go “whelp that’s guns for ya” I’d call that a pretty regressive take on international relations.

China is violating the Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed between the UK and China in 1984. [0]

Not century old. And not at gunpoint.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration

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