> The Franco-Spanish border runs for 685.42 kilometres (425.90 mi) between southwestern France and northeastern Spain. [1]
> The Brazil–France border is the line, located in the Amazon Rainforest, that limits the territories of Brazil and France. The border is located between the Brazilian state of Amapá and French Guiana. It is 730 kilometres (450 mi) in length. [2]
Is there a standard for measuring borders for these purposes, in light of the coastline paradox?
I don't mean to suggest that there's no sensible way to do it; I just wonder if people might be using inconsistent methods sometimes, leading to not-very-comparable estimates.
It's an excellent question. The Wikipedia citations don't actually lead to much, and there's no indication they use the same methodology.
Best I can find is the CIA World Factbook [1] which lists France's border with Spain at 646 km (under "France" and "Spain", same value), and Brazil's border with French Guiana at 649 km (under "Brazil").
So, already a radical difference -- from a 45km difference to a 3km difference (just 0.5%). But there's more:
> When available, official lengths published by national statistical agencies are used. Because surveying methods may differ, country border lengths reported by contiguous countries may differ.
But there's no indication whether these particular measurements are made by the CIA using the same technique with maps of the same resolution... or, being so close to begin with, whether different resolutions would change the asnwer... or if these are official lengths derived using totally different and ultimately incomparable procedures.
So maybe it's not so cut-and-dried that France's longest border is with Brazil...?
When the measurement was taken is important too because any border based on natural features is in constant flux. A big storm could cause the Oyapock River to straighten or create new bends or both.
Borders are not like coastlines because they’re abstract delineations, not physical things, even though they’re frequently defined using geographic features.
In this case, the length of the border is dominated by the length of the thalweg of the Oyapock river. Using thalwegs is SOP in international law when using rivers as the natural border and the choice of river is due to treaties that are hundreds of years old.
That works for smooth vector lines, like the border of Colorado, but not for rivers. The thalweg of a river is the same as a coastline -- it has the same fractal nature to it. The more you zoom in, the more it wiggles back and forth.
So yes, the length of the border is dominated by the length of the river, but that's just repeating the question, precisely because the thalweg is a physical thing, not a geometric delineation.
In international law (w.r.t. borders) thalwegs are not dependent on coastlines but on navigable channels with a finite precision. The boundary monuments are often kilometers apart which creates a straight line regardless of the shifting coastline (which is a much bigger problem than the coastline paradox, since rivers can change on a dime).
Are you sure there's an official survey of every twist and turn, composed of "boundary monuments"? Is there a link to these things or something? It's not really clear to me there's any official "navigable channel" at all.
Is there anything you can link to that shows the actual legal boundary if it's made of vector segments? Or do we know if that's what Google Maps uses directly, or if that's what's being used for the length calculation?
Maybe some borders are that way but not all. The thalweg is the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande and the International Boundary and Water Commission semi-regularly swaps territory to deal with the changing border.
It should eventually get removed by ICANN, since the country code TLDs are managed by ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 (it's however not an exact match), and the transfer will mean the British Indian Ocean Territories will no longer exist. ISO is going to be the entity in charge of removing the io country code, which it probably will do since ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 isn't just used for domain names. There's a standardized process for this; from the top of my head, you'll have 3-5 years before the TLD fully vanishes and for current domains to expire. (Also, because it's a country code, certain protections you're supposed to have as a domain owner won't apply to you; ICANN basically gives up underlying management of the ccTLD space to the countries that own them, meaning anything you're given is at the grace of the country owning them - this applies for all ccTLDs, which is why some UK domain owners suddenly lost control over their .eu domains when Brexit happened.)
It's not the first time a TLD has been removed; a couple of TLDs have been scrapped in the past when countries split up or got merged (chiefly in the aftermath of the cold war)[0]. For the most part, those domain names weren't in heavy use. There's also a few high-profile failures of removal: .uk was used instead of .gb in the early days of the internet before 2-letter codes were standardized to ISO, which is why the UK uses .uk instead of .gb (an attempt to scrap .uk was attempted, but failed almost immediately). .su also should have been scrapped ages ago, but because the Russian entity that manages it refuses to cooperate with ICANN, the TLD is still in use, from what I can tell just because they don't want to risk breaking the internet.
The .su TLD is the one with the closest amount of use as the .io TLD has today. That said, it's unlikely that the entity currently managing .io (a hedge fund if I'm not mistaken) has the legal muscle to force ICANN to keep it in the list, the way the Russian domain name registrar has been able to.
> That said, it's unlikely that the entity currently managing .io (a hedge fund if I'm not mistaken) has the legal muscle to force ICANN to keep it in the list
ICANN periodically lets anyone with $1 million create random new generic TLDs like .top and .win and .google and .hiv and .amazon and .zip - it's pretty clear there aren't any real rules or standards for TLDs apart from having money.
Why should ICANN break things for .io and its users, when they could instead keep things working, and extract $1M from a hedge fund, at the same time?
country-ish entities. For example European Union has .eu despite not being a country. They gave Taiwan one while simultaneously calling it "Taiwan, Province of China". And Russia has three: .ru, .рф and .su. The latter arguably falls in the same category as .io since the Soviet Union has ceased to exist, yet ripn.su is still active and you can apparently still get new .su domains
people forget the fact that countries can break up in the future
example: what happen if canada break up into 2 different state that want to their unique tld???? also what happen to current .ca ??? do you migrate all that domain and .ca ceased to exist????
internet is faily new in terms of human history (30+ years) while countries or kingdom has been ceased to exist and "rebrand" all the time
its not so simple to just put on "acronym" countries name
Am I the only one who sees no upside whatsoever in sunsetting a well-established, widely used, reasonably operated TLD?
To my mind, the only reason to unregister a TLD would be the TLD falling into disuse (the registrar having gone incomunicado, too-level DNS servers unmaintained, etc), and nobody agreeing to pick it up at the price of a new TLD ($1M?).
There is a lot of money to be made from the .io domain. My guess is that it will continue to exist as some kind of gTLD. Google already treats it like that.
The sun does not set on the French Empire is still alive with french Guyanna in South America, Mayotte and la Réunion in Africa and New Caledonia and French Polynesia in Pacific Ocean.
By that argument, Americans can leave the US right now and give it back to the original inhabitants of the country.
Various parties want more autonomy in New Caledonia which France is more than ready to give. The process is somewhat sabotaged by a tiny group of Marxist but it is moving in the right direction.
Take a better look at Fiji - the indigenous people there have been outnumbered by the people bought into the country from India (by the English)
The Fijians have had multiple coup, and changes to their constitution to ensure that only indigenous people can run the country
Whether I agree with that or not is beside the point, the point is that what you claim is false, what can happen has happened elsewhere, and where things end up is very much determined by whether or not the "sun is setting on the French empire"
Wether you agree or not is the entire point. This is not a theoretical question about what could be done.
The question is why should it happen in the first place? Why do you think people who have been there for 150 years and ask nothing more than cohabitation should be forcefully removed from a place?
As I said, it is not that simple. It has absolutely nothing to do with "the sun setting on the French empire".
Yes and no. They're painting it as somehow legitimate and relevant. If you were seriously just enumerating possibilities then you could equally ask e.g. what if the Spanish decide to invade and reclaim their ancestral homeland?
If you meant the general point that some territories are disputed or revolutions can happen, you could have said them as such. It's pretty clear from your replies that you have an agenda in regard to this specific claim.
Once again the question is not if it’s doable but why it should be done. Indian in Fiji is entirely irrelevant here (unless you think a military dictatorship supported by the church is somehow what New Caledonia needs).
If you are arguing they should leave because New Caledonia is the ancestral land of the indigenous population, well, I will let you apply the argument to the USA and Israel. See, it’s not that simple.
> Are you intentionally entirely missing the point?
Ok angry dude.. what point am I supposedly "intentionally missing"
> why it should be done
Yes, why should people have the right to self determination of a land they have occupied for thousands of years.
> Indian in Fiji is entirely irrelevant here
Since f*cking when?
> unless you think a military dictatorship supported by the church is somehow what New Caledonia needs
I explicitly pointed out that whether I think things should or shouldn't happen is besides the point, and you deliberately ignore that because you have a problem.
Facts don't need me to agree or not, what has happened has happened.
> If you are arguing they should leave because New Caledonia
Please, do copy and paste where I have said, or inferred, anything of the sort.
> apply the argument to the USA and Israel.
So, now they're relevant, but not Fiji and the Indians.
Well the argument was about the French empire sun setting, and the evidence is what's happening in the Caledonian political sphere.
You are providing a perfect example of the USA's empire still being alive and well, and more than in control of what it considers to be its territories.
Once the USA's empire does recede, like every empire before it, whomever is the strongest will take those lands.
I've long enjoyed the blooper from Richard Lederer's collection that asserted "The sun never sets on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the east and the sun sets in the west."
To be satisfyingly pedantic, my King isn’t the same King. Mine is the King of Canada. It just happens to be the same person as the King of England and the King of Australia ;)
Some friends and I started playing Crusader Kings 2 recently. If anyone wants a thorough education in the weirdness of feudal monarchy, I highly recommend it, half the game is manipulating weird inheritance laws/scenarios to grow your holdings.
Still it skips over weirdness like the same person being both a sovereign king and vassal of another king. See for example King Henry II of England and Duke of Normandy etc.
“””
Charles III, by the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
“””
So in my head canon, he is the King of the UK and Canada … the same person and the same office. Ie there is no King of Canada officially - the title is always King of UK (first) and of other places as well … in short whilst Canada has a King, there is not a title “King Of Canada” that he can hold as well as holding “king of UK”
"""
Queen Elizabeth II was the first of Canada's sovereigns to be proclaimed separately as Queen of Canada in 1953, when a Canadian law, the Royal Style and Titles Act, formally conferred upon her the title of "Queen of Canada". The proclamation reaffirmed the monarch’s role in Canada as independent of the monarch’s role in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms.
"""
The other realms the British King has are the Crown dependencies, eg Isle of Man. Australia is the odd one out in naming the UK as one of the other realms. Your head canon was true, before the independence of the Commonwealth countries.
Jamaica has the monarchy. Jamaican forces were part of the US-led coalition that invaded Grenada in 1983, after the communists seized power. The communists found it politically expedient to maintain the structure of parliamentary government, and so the head of state of Grenada also remained nominally, Elizabeth II.
There is an even more pedantic objection to your claim: there is no such person as the “King of England”; this is like saying Donald Trump is the President of California.
That page correctly describes the different entities that are all called ‘Canada’. It’s not wrong. The one that has its own monarch - the King/Queen of Canada - is the modern one, established in 1984.
Previous to that, the UK’s monarch had dominion over Canada. In 1984 the roles were made distinct.
the last time the British tried to have anything to do with the governing of Canada was a century ago, and it went poorly (and led to the statute of Westminster, removing that as an option).
The pictures of Queen/King is on the money, and not to mention this little fiasco in the 70's [1] is when the rub meets the road, and we figure out who is really wearing the pants in this geopolitical relationship.
The legal landscape is very different now, that triggered a constitutional crisis that basically ensured it will never happen again. A lot of things were also formalised after that by Acts of Parliament like the Australia Act 1986 which cut off basically all legal ties (like any remaining ability of the UK Parliament to make laws in Australia)
I'll give you another reason to consider Canada as part of the British empire. It's actually called Canada.
The local Indians have two words for settlements - one word for their own settlements, and another word for the settlements of other peoples who have come to their lands. Canada is the latter - it actually means "foreigner's settlement on our land" or "invader's settlement". Interestingly, I just tried to Google it and the only two websites I looked at - Wikipedia and some official Canada site - both conveniently leave out the part about it being a foreign settlement. Both simply translate the word as settlement, without the nuance.
I feel a citation is needed for that, since it seems in direct conflict with the given history of the word which was that Cartier heard the local indian youths at the village of Stadacona call their village "kanata" (village) and believed that it was the word for the entire area. There was no "invader's village" to even refer to at the time.
Looking into it online now, yes I agree that wherever I heard that from contradicts the established histories. It's too late for me to delete my comment, so if we could just start downvoting it so it disappears that would be great.
Kind of! There's nothing on paper that says the King can't just decide that democracy is over and dissolve Parliament. Another example is that the King's representation in Canada, the Governor General, unilaterally gets to decide whether or not to give any passed legislation "royal assent." However in practice, they always do and they otherwise never put their thumb on the scale. Doing so would be a constitutional crisis that would likely end our relationship with the Monarchy more formally and put pen to paper that no, you don't actually have any real kingly powers.
The Governor General has in recent times prorogued Parliament when the Prime Minister asked them to. Ie. "This is politically nasty. Let's hit the pause button and come back when things are better and we're not about to be ejected from power..." And that has been politically controversial. Historically the Governor General just says yes because they want to avoid playing a political role at all (ie. preserving this convention that the Monarchy is really just a decoration of our government).
If by 'their king', you mean 'the king of England'. No, the king of England holds no power in Canada or Australia. However, the king of Canada holds limited power in Canada, and happens to be the same person as the king of England, and it's expected that that will continue as all countries that share that monarch have agreed to the same rules of succession.
Constitutionally, the king of Canada is the commander in chief of its armed forces, provides consent or assent to all laws passed by Parliament, has some immunity from prosecution, and has a pardon power. In actual practice, most of those powers are performed perfunctorily by delegates based on either action by Parliament or by recommendation of ministers determined by the Prime Minister.
In 1975 the British Queen instructed her representative the governor general to dismiss the Australian prime minister, dissolving the Australian parliament.
I don't think the Queen instructed the Governor General to do that. He made the decision.
I'm old enough to remember it and remember a statement from the palace saying something like "The Queen is watching events in Australia with interest" but I don't think she took an active part.
I quick search reveals this. I don't know this site but if true then some letters seem to confirm the above. She told the GG to obey the Australian Constitution.
We do not have the same king. The King of Great Brittan is not the King of Canada, they just happen to be the same person. Is the US also part of the British Empire?
Well I did not expect the thread to be that good ... but I am definitely going to get popcorn out to eat while I read all the people telling me that :)
Ha! Yeah, Canadians are quick and eager to describe their independence from the UK, relatively fresh as it is :)
Americans had 200 year dramatic and violent head start and everyone has figured that out by now. The details of Canada’s status are understandably less well known.
The British banks and their tax heavens still very much control the world of money.
The commonwealth barely hangs together outside of the world of cricket.....
"Gott strafe England!" (translates to "May God punish England!")
Whenever the British Empire is mentioned, I involuntary have to think of this German slogan from WW1. The only military memorabilia I own carries this slogan. I came across the slogan in a meme featuring Donald Duck and found the vignette on a flea market.
I wonder what will be the legacy of the British Empire. The Roman Empire lived on in a sense as many of the barbarian kingdoms purported to be continuations of the empire for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian_kingdoms. That hasn’t been the case with the British Empire.
The British Commonwealth isn't entirely different from the Barbarian Kingdoms -- a lot of the political structure (elections to a Parliament modelled on Westminster, a nominally apolitical civil service) have been largely retained, and even almost a century after the Statute of Westminster the Commonwealth countries routinely look to the British for leadership in matters of foreign relations.
History doesn't repeat, but I think we're well into the realm of history rhyming here.
In some small sense the British Empire lives on through the US hegemony. The British were experts at replacing local governments with people they could control, and since the Second World War we have tried doing the same thing.
America? the Anglosphere? the improvements to India? The almost complete eradication of slavery? The web? The British Empire arguably has a greater legacy than the Roman Empire.
Virtually ever state today has more in common with Western States in the 19th century than their political predecessors. It would correct to say that we are "Western Cores" with X cultural skin than the opposite. Within that core, whether it's common law, parliamentary systems, or even beachgoing as a recreational activity, the British contributed major parts that define our day to day life.
It's sadly symbolic of the current political direction of the UK. It's probably not too important either way, but the chagos island deal is one of the most one sided I have ever seen. On a darker note the UK was unable to protect the people of Hong Kong when it mattered in another symbol of it's decline. At least they had enough courage and strength to support Ukraine in the early days of the war when nobody else would. Boris Johnson for all his other faults deserves full credit for that
No, it’s not symbolic of anything. The reality is that the UK has long been relegated to the status of a non-world power, but still acts as if it is one by clinging onto its colonial past.
This reminds me of an interview with the CCP spokesperson from last year when asked about how China sees the UK (timestamped): https://youtu.be/8jZ0KTRUgpU?t=240
you'd be naive to believe anyone saying anything like this. in fact if a speaker with vested interests feels the need to say something like this, then more than likely the reverse is true. the UK often tiptoes where it should stride, and it's in China's interest to keep it that way. it's obviously not a super power and hasn't been since WW2--or Suez depending on how you look at it--but it's still the world's sixth largest economy, has nukes, and has masses of soft and hard power that other powers would prefer that it doesn't make use of
They mostly don’t have a seat because they don’t actually want one - and China would get nervous. it pays better and is more stable for them to be the outsider.
The UK offered residence with a path to citizenship for all BNO holders in Hong Kong, which was pretty much the limits of the UK's power. What are we going to do? Invade Hong Kong? Hold China over a barrel by refusing to sell whatever it is we sell to China (Scotch whisky?)
As for the Chagos islands, it's by far the best thing to get rid of them. There's no value at all and a lot of trouble keeping them.
I heard a Hong Kong national argue that that the end of the agreement should have seen Hong Kong go back to Taiwan, not China, because the initial agreement wasn’t made with the CCP and the Taiwanese government is closer to being the natural successor.
I can only begin to imagine the shit storm this would have caused.
> In a similar vein, Russia should never have got USSR's UN security council seat.
Now that's an interesting counterfactual. The legal case was weak, and certainly they didn't have to on account of Russia's strength. Other than nukes, which a few non-SC members have, a lot of mostly empty land area and a space programme, Russia's credentials as a superpower aren't great when it's not the same country as Ukraine and central Asia and doesn't also hold sway over Warsaw Pact countries. Not sure China necessarily saw them as a friendly counterweight to the West then either. On the other hand, they had the other CIS states all insisting Russia was the true continuation of the USSR, no objections and they probably thought that it would help Russia become friends. Does the world look vastly different if Russia goes through an application process to rejoin the UN and doesn't get a seat on the Security Council? Perhaps not, but I'm sure Mearsheimer et al would explain that every act of violence Russia undertook afterwards was a natural response to it...
The Chagos Islands are very valuable as an unsinkable, static aircraft carrier in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Obviously valuable to a nation with the capability to actually support and operate such an aircraft carrier.
Last time I checked, most countries today, aside from Russia, aren't in the business of invading other countries and expanding territory or forming colonies. The UK will be just fine - it's doing as much as any other western country to keep it's relevance.
I’m unfamiliar, what’s the trouble in keeping them? I thought they’d long ago evicted the natives, and more or less handed the islands over to the Americans—does this move relieve them of either of those headaches?
Is the idea that Chagossian repatriation now becomes a Mauritian problem? Had the British been taking that problem particularly seriously?
Or more to do with the British not really wanting to be caught between the Americans and increasingly assertive regional powers who may be annoyed by the Americans’ stronghold there?
It's a constant source of legal action and negative news. There's not any strategic need for the UK to keep an island in the Indian Ocean. Might as well get rid of the whole mess for someone else to sort out.
I'm sure that showing ourselves as happy to be bullied into paying to give up territory by legal action and negative news will in no way give anyone else ideas about what might be a good way to get stuff they want from us
I don't agree. The UK can still accomplish great things if has the political will, but each time they concede they lose more and more ground. Could they have done more to protect HK? perhaps but they didn't try and now we'll never know.
Again the chagos islands, I know very little about them, but I understand that the islanders themselves hate the deal. And the UK is offering a whole lot of money to keep the military bases they had for free. You can say it was a matter of international law but Mauritius claim to the island is laughable, they are more than 1000 miles away. Also the way the deal was presented as a step away from colonialism etc just feels wrong. Timid apologetics isn't a good way to advance the UKs interest, nor is it helpful for the rest of the world for the UK to be weak and ineffective. Just look at how they helped Ukraine. Again the politicians have no will or national pride to stand up for the UKs interests and it's a shame.
Do we know that? Presumably there were negotiations. Normally both parties in a negotiation start at extreme opposites and make their way somewhere in the middle. Obviously we don’t/won’t know every detail but I don’t know you can say they didn’t try. Simple reality is that the UK wasn’t holding a lot of cards in that negotiation.
How would the UK have kept Hong Kong if China didn't want them to? Would an invasion have been better for the people of Hong Kong? How would the UK have won that battle from that far away?
Are you aware that is an impossible situation in the UK and that you should never listen to journalists or economists on this topic. They haven’t a clue what they are talking about.
Look at the one month Treasury bill to see the actual situation.
I don't know how much I trust bond buyers and other "Market participants" to have a meaningful long-term view of a financial position with the many destabilising factors we are seeing (Social, Climate, etc..). They are accurate until they aren't.
Maybe 20 years from now, you will be on a resort laughing at the treasury bill rates of 2025 and compare their accuracy to pets.com.
I know and it's a crying shame, we should be doing everything we can to encourage innovation and growth, not finding new ways to tax businesses and the people who run them. The conservatives kind of gutted public services, but the governments priority atm should really be on increasing prosperity. I can only think of one recent prime minister who had that vision and the less said about her the better.
They could have done quite a lot to piss of the Chinese while still honoring the treaty. The lease was only for the New Territories, but they gave all of HK back. Or they could have tried to give it to the government in Taiwan.
Whether that would have protected the people of Hong Kong is another matter. I think at the time people were still optimistic about the direction China was taking and they might have thought China would be a democracy by 2047.
If you think the UK gov’t was in any position to piss China off then (or now!) without it costing them and anyone else involved far more than it’s worth, I don’t know what to say.
It’s honestly amazing that China didn’t apply more ‘direct’ pressure to get HK bad sooner. There is nothing the UK likely would have done about it. Bad for business I guess? Macau transferred over around the same time.
The Qing dynasty ‘remnants’ in Taiwan would have just been steamrolled if they’d gone anywhere near it. And not like there was any real cultural reason why HK’ers would accept them anyway, or that the Qing were well loved. CCP steamrolled them in mainland China like they did because they were, by all accounts, terrible.
They might mean “retaliate to the violation of the treaty they signed”. Hong Kong was supposed to get fifty years of autonomy; the National Security Law ended that prematurely.
The UK long ago lost any ability to meaningfully enforce those terms. Or do you expect them to somehow start torpedoing Chinese boats in the Straight or something to make China pay?
Not only were the PLA and CCP massively popular because of the insane corruption and hyperinflation under the Nationalists, the ROC imposed (at the time), the longest martial law in human history [1]
Taiwan is democratic today, because of transitional justice, but at the time when the PRC succeeded the ROC in China, the nationalists led by Chiang were as dictatorial as you can get
As to how they think that has anything to do with their points, it doesn’t of course - and the UK agreed, which is why they left. Also, because it’s not like the UK had any other choice.
The UK had no ready means to replace their (far more significant than anyone expected) losses, and were at the very far end of their logistics chain. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War]. Which for the UK is crazy embarrassing. ‘Sun Never Sets on The British Empire’ and all.
They lost 6 ships (including 2 destroyers and 2 frigates), 24 helicopters, and 10 fighters + 255 KIA in the debacle. If the french hadn’t disabled those missiles, it would have been an even bigger mess. Do you think the UK gov’t wants to admit they got saved by the French?
If Argentina had their act even a little more together, or had even a little more commitment, there is nothing the UK could have done about it - except maybe nuke Buenos Aires. Which would probably have been a step too far, even for Thatcher.
Argentina was expecting zero resistance and got embarrassed they lost ships and soldiers too, and pulled out because it was making the Argentinian gov’t look bad.
But it was also really embarrassing for the UK. They had more losses there than they did fighting the Gulf War alongside the US.
> Do you think citizens of Hong Kong would choose the Chinese rule of today, or go back to British rule if they could?
I think the people that lived there in 1997 would absolutely want to go back to British rule. But you have to remember that it's been nearly 30 years since it went to Chinese rule. All the young people there prefer Chinese rule, because they grew up with schools teaching them that the British were bad and the Chinese were good.
And at the same time, the most pro-British people left, either going to the USA or Canada, or actually taking advantage of the UKs right-to-return programs and going to the UK itself.
So if you asked the people who lived there today, they majority say they prefer Chinese rule.
My prediction is that they will no longer operate as an SEZ within the decade and will be folded fully into China.
That was over a decade ago. There is almost an entire generation that has come up since then, being told China is good and British is bad. And in the meantime China made protesting illegal, and now rounds up and ships off anyone who protests.
However what that shows is that the majority of adults in HK (74%) feel an attachment to China, and in the meantime China is making it illegal to disagree with them.
>> Hong Kongers ages 35 and older are more likely than their younger counterparts to feel very close to China.
> That's the exact opposite of what you claim.
No, it's not. What I said was young people have been growing up with propaganda, and of the people who were there for the changeover and remember it (people over 35), the ones who don't like China have left the country because they could. The ones under 35 (well technically 28) don't have that option, because you had to be born before the changeover to get the British citizenship, which is what lets you easily move to Canada, Australia, and lots of other places.
Which would mean that those over 35 that are still there are the ones that were already pro-China. So that tracks with the data.
In other words, China is indoctrinating the youth and the people who have to option to leave and hate China are leaving, so only the people that love China or were indoctrinated by it are left behind.
That's a possible explanation, but I'm not completely convinced it is without numbers. Maybe it's those under 35 who don't remember the bad of the British rule?
But even then, less than 50% of people under 35 call themselves Chinese (not even both Hong Konger and Chinese). And half of the adults call China a major threat, 22% a minor threat. Those are pretty bad numbers for indoctrination.
Do you think the subjects of British colonies ever had much of a say in the matter?
If they really really wanted too, they could have tried to go the USA route and kick both parties out and be independent. But there is approximately zero chance they would have succeeded, eh?
This is great! It’s high time a brutal empire that starved Ireland and India and created the situation that resulted in the genocide in Palestine loses its literal shine.
Honestly it is crazy that this country still exists as a monarchy in the 21st century.
Unfortunately in the case of Palestine Britain merely handed over the baton to an even more hideous imperialist monster - the U.S.A. - which has reverted to Napoleonic levels of barbarity. Imperialism is alive and well in 2025.
That's right, though I don't want to undersell the massive levels of suffering and trickery played by the British. Their stock in trade was to sow ethnic division and steal whatever they could. For example, the million+ that died in the partition of India was a result of their sowing of tensions between Hindus and Muslims. They also did a lot of looting in Africa.
Going back in time, if you read about the Duchess of Sutherland, the UK created their own internal Nakba where they internally displaced peasants to make way to "Sheepe Walks" and forced them to the sea to benefit the textile industry. Then they later wanted that land and attacked them again. The West is very familiar with creating Gaza-like situations.
Where do you guys get this nonsense from? Is there some sort of conspiracy theory factory? Do you have any idea how the rest of the world behaved during this time period? You are aware that the Muslims literally had multiple empires?
If you fail to see how divide and conquer strategies are employed by the imperial west both externally and internally, much of politics will become mystifying to you.
You seem to misunderstand the subcontinents history. Separation into India and Pakistan was of territories conquered by the British (from the previous 'Imperialists' by the way - which maybe you've overlooked). So 'Divide and conquer' is incorrect.
Feel free to bring merit to this discussion.
I’ve been really sad getting older and having so much more context on Britain. My family weirdly had access to all of British TV in US growing up and they had fantastic programs.
Now, I feel they are a joke. They seem like a strong example of what absolutely not to do. Their cultural exports have sunk. The arrested citizens for social media posts seems draconian. The economy barely hanging on.
I understand the Media has a bias and they been hitting the UK hard since Brexit (liberals think it ended the world) and now even conservative/alternative media hates UK for the pro-immigration stances.
With all that said even trying very hard to find things to like about the UK in a neutral way (I am a fan of PG, who I assume makes very smart decisions) I think the country is completely toast. Worse off than SPAIN! I never had a high opinion of Spain but it looks more likely to outgrow its troubles than the UK.
Prince Andrew and Kate seem nice. The British countryside seems nice. But what else will these people ever be capable of again?
When I read or interact with Britains irl I lump them in one of the lowest buckets for intellectual conversation. Does anyone have any hope for Britain to share or at least data to tell me I’m wrong about the UK?
You seem to be prejudice and cherry picking to backup your opinion judging from the way your post reads and the random unhinged comments on Spain for some reason, HN is attracting more pseudo-intellectuals these days unfortunately. I don't think anyone can help you apart from maybe a therapist but getting laid and interacting with people outside in a non-transactional may help
Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire. The ones who are thriving today owe a huge debt of gratitude, and the languishing ones are that way because they decided not to continue the British tradition.
The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures, on par with the decline of the Roman Empire.
I remember asking this question to a work colleague from India almost 30 years ago. I asked something like if he hated the Brits for invading his land. He said on the contrary. They advanced their people so rapidly and efficiently through education and technical advances that would have taken hundreds of years by themselves. He said this allowed them to kick the British out once they had outlived their usefulness. Or something like that. It's been along time since I thought about it.
Like anything, it depends on your point of view and time.
My grandparents and their generation were all born in Ireland, and had a very different outlook than the people who remained and folks you talk to today there. People just want to live their lives.
Th vast majority suffered under various Indian empires too. The lower castes suffered millennia of oppression (and still do) - imagine millennia of Jim Crow or apartheid. Some of them benefited hugely from British rule as a result, probably including my mother's ancestors.
But then again, without the British, there wouldn't have been a unified India but a multitude of states, sort of resembling the EU (in the best case). Worst case scenario, mini Africa.
Having a common hated enemy did have its benefits.
The brits took India from a variety of different rulers, but principally the Mughals. The Mughals werent any one thing, but they were despised in a lot of places.
The brits also largely permitted the caste system to proceed. my experience is that upper caste indians preferred the brits, where the lower caste ones dont really discern the difference.
> British colonies universally benefited from the British empire
I can’t tell whether this is a joke or a sincere opinion, but HN readers might be misled if it’s allowed to stand. Briefly, this is an absurd claim.
I can speak confidently about India, and I am pretty sure the story is similar for other unfortunate colonies. Instead of arguing here, let me provide an accessible starting point to learning about it:
The podcast “Empire,” by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand. The first series looks at the British in India, covering The East India Company, the Raj, Gandhi, Independence and Partition.
I like to read HN because the conversation here is higher quality than elsewhere, when the subject is tech. But when the conversation deviate to politic, I'm reminded that outside their limited expertise, people here are no better than elsewhere as I read the same ignorant drivel I can find everywhere.
Yeah. I'm from Malaysia, and while we definitely benefited in many ways, to state that we do not still have massive and pervasive social issues as a result of colonization is insane. I'm glad you posted the link above and spoke up. I didn't even know where to start, but was worried someone might take the original comment seriously.
This viewpoint is still way too popular and was also used to genocide millions of indigenous people, we definitely need to keep speaking up against that.
> Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire.
That's not at all true. There are many examples, but no need to look farther afield than Ireland, which has not yet recovered from the deliberate genocide of the Irish famine.
The island of Ireland had not yet reached the population it held pre-famine, and if Ireland had grown at the rate of its neighbours, it would now being closing in on 25 million+ instead of the ~7 million across the island.
> The ones who are thriving today owe a huge debt of gratitude, and the languishing ones are that way because they decided not to continue the British tradition.
Britain owes a debt to its colonies. The colonies owe nothing to it, except contempt.
> The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures, on par with the decline of the Roman Empire.
In a comment brimming with ignorance, this becomes absurd. The dissolution of the British empire is the great victory of the 20th century. A victory of human rights, decency, and even off the British population, who are disposable to the empire as foreign "subjects" were.
Hm. I feel like the french republic can still make the claim though, at least according to this wikipedia map. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Mapadefr...
I measured it a while ago (well, 11 years now) and both France and the UK made the cut[0].
France has much more margin though, IIRC no single territory becoming independent would make the sun set on France.
[0]https://ssz.fr/sun-never-sets/
I'm glad someone did this, because for a moment I was thinking that I was going to have to do the math on France.
It is always funny to ask people what country has the longest land border with France.
It's funny because you can't measure borders due to the coastline paradox.
The other funny thing is the land border with Netherlands ... in the Caribbean.
For those wondering, it's Brazil.
> The Franco-Spanish border runs for 685.42 kilometres (425.90 mi) between southwestern France and northeastern Spain. [1]
> The Brazil–France border is the line, located in the Amazon Rainforest, that limits the territories of Brazil and France. The border is located between the Brazilian state of Amapá and French Guiana. It is 730 kilometres (450 mi) in length. [2]
I'll be damned!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France–Spain_border
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil–France_border
Is there a standard for measuring borders for these purposes, in light of the coastline paradox?
I don't mean to suggest that there's no sensible way to do it; I just wonder if people might be using inconsistent methods sometimes, leading to not-very-comparable estimates.
It's an excellent question. The Wikipedia citations don't actually lead to much, and there's no indication they use the same methodology.
Best I can find is the CIA World Factbook [1] which lists France's border with Spain at 646 km (under "France" and "Spain", same value), and Brazil's border with French Guiana at 649 km (under "Brazil").
So, already a radical difference -- from a 45km difference to a 3km difference (just 0.5%). But there's more:
> When available, official lengths published by national statistical agencies are used. Because surveying methods may differ, country border lengths reported by contiguous countries may differ.
But there's no indication whether these particular measurements are made by the CIA using the same technique with maps of the same resolution... or, being so close to begin with, whether different resolutions would change the asnwer... or if these are official lengths derived using totally different and ultimately incomparable procedures.
So maybe it's not so cut-and-dried that France's longest border is with Brazil...?
[1] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/about/archives/2022/f...
When the measurement was taken is important too because any border based on natural features is in constant flux. A big storm could cause the Oyapock River to straighten or create new bends or both.
[flagged]
Please don't do this here. If a comment seems unfit for HN, please flag it and email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can have a look.
Borders are not like coastlines because they’re abstract delineations, not physical things, even though they’re frequently defined using geographic features.
In this case, the length of the border is dominated by the length of the thalweg of the Oyapock river. Using thalwegs is SOP in international law when using rivers as the natural border and the choice of river is due to treaties that are hundreds of years old.
That works for smooth vector lines, like the border of Colorado, but not for rivers. The thalweg of a river is the same as a coastline -- it has the same fractal nature to it. The more you zoom in, the more it wiggles back and forth.
So yes, the length of the border is dominated by the length of the river, but that's just repeating the question, precisely because the thalweg is a physical thing, not a geometric delineation.
You’re thinking of a hydrological thalweg.
In international law (w.r.t. borders) thalwegs are not dependent on coastlines but on navigable channels with a finite precision. The boundary monuments are often kilometers apart which creates a straight line regardless of the shifting coastline (which is a much bigger problem than the coastline paradox, since rivers can change on a dime).
Fascinating, I wasn't aware, thank you.
But when I look at Google Maps, the Oyapock river is extremely meandering. Major 180° bends within just 500 ft, e.g.:
https://www.google.com/maps/@2.3210582,-52.7667375,16z/data=...
Are you sure there's an official survey of every twist and turn, composed of "boundary monuments"? Is there a link to these things or something? It's not really clear to me there's any official "navigable channel" at all.
Is there anything you can link to that shows the actual legal boundary if it's made of vector segments? Or do we know if that's what Google Maps uses directly, or if that's what's being used for the length calculation?
Maybe some borders are that way but not all. The thalweg is the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande and the International Boundary and Water Commission semi-regularly swaps territory to deal with the changing border.
Related. Others?
On Friday 21st March 2025, the sun will set on the British "Empire" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41957938 - Oct 2024 (23 comments)
When (if ever) did the Sun set on the British Empire? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40631309 - June 2024 (41 comments)
But the real question... what will happen with .io TLD? (British Indian Ocean Territory's)
It should eventually get removed by ICANN, since the country code TLDs are managed by ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 (it's however not an exact match), and the transfer will mean the British Indian Ocean Territories will no longer exist. ISO is going to be the entity in charge of removing the io country code, which it probably will do since ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 isn't just used for domain names. There's a standardized process for this; from the top of my head, you'll have 3-5 years before the TLD fully vanishes and for current domains to expire. (Also, because it's a country code, certain protections you're supposed to have as a domain owner won't apply to you; ICANN basically gives up underlying management of the ccTLD space to the countries that own them, meaning anything you're given is at the grace of the country owning them - this applies for all ccTLDs, which is why some UK domain owners suddenly lost control over their .eu domains when Brexit happened.)
It's not the first time a TLD has been removed; a couple of TLDs have been scrapped in the past when countries split up or got merged (chiefly in the aftermath of the cold war)[0]. For the most part, those domain names weren't in heavy use. There's also a few high-profile failures of removal: .uk was used instead of .gb in the early days of the internet before 2-letter codes were standardized to ISO, which is why the UK uses .uk instead of .gb (an attempt to scrap .uk was attempted, but failed almost immediately). .su also should have been scrapped ages ago, but because the Russian entity that manages it refuses to cooperate with ICANN, the TLD is still in use, from what I can tell just because they don't want to risk breaking the internet.
The .su TLD is the one with the closest amount of use as the .io TLD has today. That said, it's unlikely that the entity currently managing .io (a hedge fund if I'm not mistaken) has the legal muscle to force ICANN to keep it in the list, the way the Russian domain name registrar has been able to.
[0]: See a more detailed explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_code_top-level_domain#...
> That said, it's unlikely that the entity currently managing .io (a hedge fund if I'm not mistaken) has the legal muscle to force ICANN to keep it in the list
ICANN periodically lets anyone with $1 million create random new generic TLDs like .top and .win and .google and .hiv and .amazon and .zip - it's pretty clear there aren't any real rules or standards for TLDs apart from having money.
Why should ICANN break things for .io and its users, when they could instead keep things working, and extract $1M from a hedge fund, at the same time?
> ICANN periodically lets anyone with $1 million create random new generic TLDs
Why? Isn't ICANN non profit?
I'm sure any profit they make is redirected back into the organization's mission.
That's not what nonprofit means.
Aren’t two letter codes reserved for countries though IIRC.
country-ish entities. For example European Union has .eu despite not being a country. They gave Taiwan one while simultaneously calling it "Taiwan, Province of China". And Russia has three: .ru, .рф and .su. The latter arguably falls in the same category as .io since the Soviet Union has ceased to exist, yet ripn.su is still active and you can apparently still get new .su domains
people forget the fact that countries can break up in the future
example: what happen if canada break up into 2 different state that want to their unique tld???? also what happen to current .ca ??? do you migrate all that domain and .ca ceased to exist????
internet is faily new in terms of human history (30+ years) while countries or kingdom has been ceased to exist and "rebrand" all the time
its not so simple to just put on "acronym" countries name
This happened to Yugoslavia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.yu
exactly, this is happen to "old days" of internet and they need years to get rid of that
I cant imagine nation have enough power that can keep these thing for years just for historical standpoint
Am I the only one who sees no upside whatsoever in sunsetting a well-established, widely used, reasonably operated TLD?
To my mind, the only reason to unregister a TLD would be the TLD falling into disuse (the registrar having gone incomunicado, too-level DNS servers unmaintained, etc), and nobody agreeing to pick it up at the price of a new TLD ($1M?).
There is a lot of money to be made from the .io domain. My guess is that it will continue to exist as some kind of gTLD. Google already treats it like that.
It'll stay grandfathered like .su which has essentially no reason to still exist.
Discussed last year here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41729526>
The sun does not set on the French Empire is still alive with french Guyanna in South America, Mayotte and la Réunion in Africa and New Caledonia and French Polynesia in Pacific Ocean.
The indigenous people of New Caledonia are currently in a deep battle (politically) with the French colonialists for the governance of the lands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_New_Caledonia_unrest
Over simplification.
By that argument, Americans can leave the US right now and give it back to the original inhabitants of the country.
Various parties want more autonomy in New Caledonia which France is more than ready to give. The process is somewhat sabotaged by a tiny group of Marxist but it is moving in the right direction.
Take a better look at Fiji - the indigenous people there have been outnumbered by the people bought into the country from India (by the English)
The Fijians have had multiple coup, and changes to their constitution to ensure that only indigenous people can run the country
Whether I agree with that or not is beside the point, the point is that what you claim is false, what can happen has happened elsewhere, and where things end up is very much determined by whether or not the "sun is setting on the French empire"
Wether you agree or not is the entire point. This is not a theoretical question about what could be done.
The question is why should it happen in the first place? Why do you think people who have been there for 150 years and ask nothing more than cohabitation should be forcefully removed from a place?
As I said, it is not that simple. It has absolutely nothing to do with "the sun setting on the French empire".
> The question is why should it happen in the first place?
The OP never indicated if they agreed with the claims or not. They raised it just because it was relevant to the sun setting on the French Empire.
Yes and no. They're painting it as somehow legitimate and relevant. If you were seriously just enumerating possibilities then you could equally ask e.g. what if the Spanish decide to invade and reclaim their ancestral homeland?
Oh, my bad, I am supposed to mention every example that ever occurred on the face of the planet..
Instead of just showing the (relevant) example that should be watched to see if the sun is setting on the French Empire.
I mean, if you were seriously just enumerating examples you would have included more than 1... right?
If you meant the general point that some territories are disputed or revolutions can happen, you could have said them as such. It's pretty clear from your replies that you have an agenda in regard to this specific claim.
The Indians have been in Fiji for the same amount of time. (they were first taken to Fiji in 1879, 145 years ago)
Please, do try to make an effort.
Are you intentionally entirely missing the point?
Once again the question is not if it’s doable but why it should be done. Indian in Fiji is entirely irrelevant here (unless you think a military dictatorship supported by the church is somehow what New Caledonia needs).
If you are arguing they should leave because New Caledonia is the ancestral land of the indigenous population, well, I will let you apply the argument to the USA and Israel. See, it’s not that simple.
> Are you intentionally entirely missing the point?
Ok angry dude.. what point am I supposedly "intentionally missing"
> why it should be done
Yes, why should people have the right to self determination of a land they have occupied for thousands of years.
> Indian in Fiji is entirely irrelevant here
Since f*cking when?
> unless you think a military dictatorship supported by the church is somehow what New Caledonia needs
I explicitly pointed out that whether I think things should or shouldn't happen is besides the point, and you deliberately ignore that because you have a problem.
Facts don't need me to agree or not, what has happened has happened.
> If you are arguing they should leave because New Caledonia
Please, do copy and paste where I have said, or inferred, anything of the sort.
> apply the argument to the USA and Israel.
So, now they're relevant, but not Fiji and the Indians.
Well the argument was about the French empire sun setting, and the evidence is what's happening in the Caledonian political sphere.
You are providing a perfect example of the USA's empire still being alive and well, and more than in control of what it considers to be its territories.
Once the USA's empire does recede, like every empire before it, whomever is the strongest will take those lands.
Thanks to you for proving my point.
I've long enjoyed the blooper from Richard Lederer's collection that asserted "The sun never sets on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the east and the sun sets in the west."
I think I saw it in the fortune file first.
Side note: some people may not be able access it outside of specific area.
https://archive.is/lCNgp
(original url sometimes times out)
Ah, the british empire- the modern atlantis- as in its gone with no relevance for aeons, but still on the frontpage.
As an outsider I consider Canada and Australia - British Empire.
Hard to think otherwise as they have the same king.
To be satisfyingly pedantic, my King isn’t the same King. Mine is the King of Canada. It just happens to be the same person as the King of England and the King of Australia ;)
Some friends and I started playing Crusader Kings 2 recently. If anyone wants a thorough education in the weirdness of feudal monarchy, I highly recommend it, half the game is manipulating weird inheritance laws/scenarios to grow your holdings.
Still it skips over weirdness like the same person being both a sovereign king and vassal of another king. See for example King Henry II of England and Duke of Normandy etc.
Much like how one of the princes of Andorra is the same person who is president of France.
Is that true?
“”” Charles III, by the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. “””
So in my head canon, he is the King of the UK and Canada … the same person and the same office. Ie there is no King of Canada officially - the title is always King of UK (first) and of other places as well … in short whilst Canada has a King, there is not a title “King Of Canada” that he can hold as well as holding “king of UK”
Those are the titles bestowed upon him by the UK. But here is the full titles given to him by all entities (including Canada)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_titles_and_honours_of_...
In Masai he's known as "The Helper of the Cows" (literally: he whom the cows love so much they call for him when they are in times of distress)
Yep, it's absolutely true.
Reference: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/crown-ca...
""" Queen Elizabeth II was the first of Canada's sovereigns to be proclaimed separately as Queen of Canada in 1953, when a Canadian law, the Royal Style and Titles Act, formally conferred upon her the title of "Queen of Canada". The proclamation reaffirmed the monarch’s role in Canada as independent of the monarch’s role in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms. """
The other realms the British King has are the Crown dependencies, eg Isle of Man. Australia is the odd one out in naming the UK as one of the other realms. Your head canon was true, before the independence of the Commonwealth countries.
Elizabeth II was at war with herself, briefly.
Jamaica has the monarchy. Jamaican forces were part of the US-led coalition that invaded Grenada in 1983, after the communists seized power. The communists found it politically expedient to maintain the structure of parliamentary government, and so the head of state of Grenada also remained nominally, Elizabeth II.
One wonders what to do, when's One's subjects are wont to misbehave so?
Do you have different rules for succession to where it might eventually be a different person?
No I believe we have a "rule of recognition" where our monarch is just whoever the UK's monarch is.
The last time the succession rules were changed (2013), it was following an agreement by the relevant countries. It was called the "Perth Agreement".
If it walks like King Charles, and quacks like King Charles, then it must be...
Depends if you’re comparing the people or the office holders. The office holder is a tuple.
Dude lives in Buckingham Palace In UK … that’s kind of a dead giveaway :)
He actually lives in Clarence House (when in London), Buckingham Palace is currently only used for official business, parties etc.
Arguably, Buckingham Palace should be turned into a museum (like several other former royal residences, e.g. Tower of London, Kew Palace).
I guess the Axiom of Extensionality doesn’t apply to kings. Interesting.
There is an even more pedantic objection to your claim: there is no such person as the “King of England”; this is like saying Donald Trump is the President of California.
Coincidentally, that has been true for a while, through multiple kings/queens of Canada.
Since 1984. One of the facts I learned for the Canadian citizenship exam.
So only Elizabeth and Charles.
Perhaps so.
Should you care, here’s the link to correct Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_monarchs
That page correctly describes the different entities that are all called ‘Canada’. It’s not wrong. The one that has its own monarch - the King/Queen of Canada - is the modern one, established in 1984.
Previous to that, the UK’s monarch had dominion over Canada. In 1984 the roles were made distinct.
the last time the British tried to have anything to do with the governing of Canada was a century ago, and it went poorly (and led to the statute of Westminster, removing that as an option).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%E2%80%93Byng_affair
The pictures of Queen/King is on the money, and not to mention this little fiasco in the 70's [1] is when the rub meets the road, and we figure out who is really wearing the pants in this geopolitical relationship.
[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/queen-s-secret-letters-re...
The legal landscape is very different now, that triggered a constitutional crisis that basically ensured it will never happen again. A lot of things were also formalised after that by Acts of Parliament like the Australia Act 1986 which cut off basically all legal ties (like any remaining ability of the UK Parliament to make laws in Australia)
I'll give you another reason to consider Canada as part of the British empire. It's actually called Canada.
The local Indians have two words for settlements - one word for their own settlements, and another word for the settlements of other peoples who have come to their lands. Canada is the latter - it actually means "foreigner's settlement on our land" or "invader's settlement". Interestingly, I just tried to Google it and the only two websites I looked at - Wikipedia and some official Canada site - both conveniently leave out the part about it being a foreign settlement. Both simply translate the word as settlement, without the nuance.
I feel a citation is needed for that, since it seems in direct conflict with the given history of the word which was that Cartier heard the local indian youths at the village of Stadacona call their village "kanata" (village) and believed that it was the word for the entire area. There was no "invader's village" to even refer to at the time.
Looking into it online now, yes I agree that wherever I heard that from contradicts the established histories. It's too late for me to delete my comment, so if we could just start downvoting it so it disappears that would be great.
Does their king have any more hard powers in Canada or Australia than, say, Taylor Swift or some other rich celebrity?
Kind of! There's nothing on paper that says the King can't just decide that democracy is over and dissolve Parliament. Another example is that the King's representation in Canada, the Governor General, unilaterally gets to decide whether or not to give any passed legislation "royal assent." However in practice, they always do and they otherwise never put their thumb on the scale. Doing so would be a constitutional crisis that would likely end our relationship with the Monarchy more formally and put pen to paper that no, you don't actually have any real kingly powers.
The Governor General has in recent times prorogued Parliament when the Prime Minister asked them to. Ie. "This is politically nasty. Let's hit the pause button and come back when things are better and we're not about to be ejected from power..." And that has been politically controversial. Historically the Governor General just says yes because they want to avoid playing a political role at all (ie. preserving this convention that the Monarchy is really just a decoration of our government).
Technically. The king here has as much power as he has in the UK. And, likewise, if ever exercised it’d probably lead to the end of the monarchy.
In practice Taylor Swift might have more.
If by 'their king', you mean 'the king of England'. No, the king of England holds no power in Canada or Australia. However, the king of Canada holds limited power in Canada, and happens to be the same person as the king of England, and it's expected that that will continue as all countries that share that monarch have agreed to the same rules of succession.
Constitutionally, the king of Canada is the commander in chief of its armed forces, provides consent or assent to all laws passed by Parliament, has some immunity from prosecution, and has a pardon power. In actual practice, most of those powers are performed perfunctorily by delegates based on either action by Parliament or by recommendation of ministers determined by the Prime Minister.
In 1975 the British Queen instructed her representative the governor general to dismiss the Australian prime minister, dissolving the Australian parliament.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitution...
In principle this power still exists. Whether Charles could pull off the same trick depends on the political situation on the ground.
I don't think the Queen instructed the Governor General to do that. He made the decision.
I'm old enough to remember it and remember a statement from the palace saying something like "The Queen is watching events in Australia with interest" but I don't think she took an active part.
I quick search reveals this. I don't know this site but if true then some letters seem to confirm the above. She told the GG to obey the Australian Constitution.
https://constitution-unit.com/2020/07/16/palace-letters-show...
This is also relevant, if only to illustrate that the incident had more going on than it appeared on the surface:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the...
The claim that the Queen actually _instructed_ the Govenor General to dismiss the PM isn't widely supported.
It's true that the palace was involved in discussions with the GG to a greater extent than most Australians though was acceptable though.
However this was before the 1986 Australia Act which cleared up the ambiguity around that.
The Australia Acts put an end to that in any practical sense for Australia in 1986.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Act_1986
That makes approximately as much sense as considering Hawaii part of the British empire because they have the British flag as part of their own flag.
We do not have the same king. The King of Great Brittan is not the King of Canada, they just happen to be the same person. Is the US also part of the British Empire?
Obviously not as US does not have king in their legal system at all.
that's not what fox news says
And the UK has no influence on Canadian governance.
the king can call you to war right?
No, only parliament can declare war. And the King of Canada is a different role than the King of the UK, as explained many times in the thread.
King Charles holds the title of King of Canada!
Canada is no longer part of the British Empire. Neither is the US, since the end of the War of Independence. That’s what independence means.
Then why on earth does Canada still put British monarchs on their money? Follow up question, why doesn't the US do it?
Great, tell ozim that.
So your question was rhetorical. Not totally obvious to me, and I answered it as if it was a normal question.
Well I did not expect the thread to be that good ... but I am definitely going to get popcorn out to eat while I read all the people telling me that :)
Ha! Yeah, Canadians are quick and eager to describe their independence from the UK, relatively fresh as it is :)
Americans had 200 year dramatic and violent head start and everyone has figured that out by now. The details of Canada’s status are understandably less well known.
The sun shall never set upon the British empire, because God does not trust the bastards in the dark.
-Your access to this site has been limited by the site owner
Am I the only one getting this ?
Nah I have it too
[stub for offtopicness / genericness]
The British banks and their tax heavens still very much control the world of money. The commonwealth barely hangs together outside of the world of cricket.....
"Gott strafe England!" (translates to "May God punish England!")
Whenever the British Empire is mentioned, I involuntary have to think of this German slogan from WW1. The only military memorabilia I own carries this slogan. I came across the slogan in a meme featuring Donald Duck and found the vignette on a flea market.
I wonder what will be the legacy of the British Empire. The Roman Empire lived on in a sense as many of the barbarian kingdoms purported to be continuations of the empire for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian_kingdoms. That hasn’t been the case with the British Empire.
The British Commonwealth isn't entirely different from the Barbarian Kingdoms -- a lot of the political structure (elections to a Parliament modelled on Westminster, a nominally apolitical civil service) have been largely retained, and even almost a century after the Statute of Westminster the Commonwealth countries routinely look to the British for leadership in matters of foreign relations.
History doesn't repeat, but I think we're well into the realm of history rhyming here.
Hmmm. Canada, NZ, Australia and even SA are all pretty darn "British," to this Commonwealth citizen.
In some small sense the British Empire lives on through the US hegemony. The British were experts at replacing local governments with people they could control, and since the Second World War we have tried doing the same thing.
America? the Anglosphere? the improvements to India? The almost complete eradication of slavery? The web? The British Empire arguably has a greater legacy than the Roman Empire.
> the improvements to India
You can't be serious.
improvements to India? Improvements to Britannia you mean!
Virtually ever state today has more in common with Western States in the 19th century than their political predecessors. It would correct to say that we are "Western Cores" with X cultural skin than the opposite. Within that core, whether it's common law, parliamentary systems, or even beachgoing as a recreational activity, the British contributed major parts that define our day to day life.
It's sadly symbolic of the current political direction of the UK. It's probably not too important either way, but the chagos island deal is one of the most one sided I have ever seen. On a darker note the UK was unable to protect the people of Hong Kong when it mattered in another symbol of it's decline. At least they had enough courage and strength to support Ukraine in the early days of the war when nobody else would. Boris Johnson for all his other faults deserves full credit for that
No, it’s not symbolic of anything. The reality is that the UK has long been relegated to the status of a non-world power, but still acts as if it is one by clinging onto its colonial past.
This reminds me of an interview with the CCP spokesperson from last year when asked about how China sees the UK (timestamped): https://youtu.be/8jZ0KTRUgpU?t=240
you'd be naive to believe anyone saying anything like this. in fact if a speaker with vested interests feels the need to say something like this, then more than likely the reverse is true. the UK often tiptoes where it should stride, and it's in China's interest to keep it that way. it's obviously not a super power and hasn't been since WW2--or Suez depending on how you look at it--but it's still the world's sixth largest economy, has nukes, and has masses of soft and hard power that other powers would prefer that it doesn't make use of
They have nukes which is enough to sit on the table. Even if you don't like it or them.
North Korea has nukes too.
When North Korea can deliver these supposed nukes to your front door they will have a seat as well.
If you’re in Asia, that day has already passed.
They mostly don’t have a seat because they don’t actually want one - and China would get nervous. it pays better and is more stable for them to be the outsider.
I thought range(Hwasong-19) >= range(Trident-2). I doubt they'd get a seat for that.
Delivery mechanism is what matters not missile range...
It's not sub-launched you mean? I see.
What CCP is essentially saying Britain is nothing in their view.
that's the image they want to put across
The UK offered residence with a path to citizenship for all BNO holders in Hong Kong, which was pretty much the limits of the UK's power. What are we going to do? Invade Hong Kong? Hold China over a barrel by refusing to sell whatever it is we sell to China (Scotch whisky?)
As for the Chagos islands, it's by far the best thing to get rid of them. There's no value at all and a lot of trouble keeping them.
> What are we going to do?
I heard a Hong Kong national argue that that the end of the agreement should have seen Hong Kong go back to Taiwan, not China, because the initial agreement wasn’t made with the CCP and the Taiwanese government is closer to being the natural successor.
I can only begin to imagine the shit storm this would have caused.
One obvious problem with that is that the UK voted in favour of the UN resolution recognizing the CCP government in the 1970s.
I would have ordered a dump truck full of popcorn for that.
In a similar vein, Russia should never have got USSR's UN security council seat.
> In a similar vein, Russia should never have got USSR's UN security council seat.
Now that's an interesting counterfactual. The legal case was weak, and certainly they didn't have to on account of Russia's strength. Other than nukes, which a few non-SC members have, a lot of mostly empty land area and a space programme, Russia's credentials as a superpower aren't great when it's not the same country as Ukraine and central Asia and doesn't also hold sway over Warsaw Pact countries. Not sure China necessarily saw them as a friendly counterweight to the West then either. On the other hand, they had the other CIS states all insisting Russia was the true continuation of the USSR, no objections and they probably thought that it would help Russia become friends. Does the world look vastly different if Russia goes through an application process to rejoin the UN and doesn't get a seat on the Security Council? Perhaps not, but I'm sure Mearsheimer et al would explain that every act of violence Russia undertook afterwards was a natural response to it...
>Hold China over a barrel by refusing to sell whatever it is we sell to China
China is currently the largest or 2nd largest buyer of UK Pork.
Although I won't be surprised in 2-3 years time China will use it as leverage. As they did with Denmark.
And it is not that China wants any of these either. UK is currently desperately trying to increase its export ( without success )
> China is currently the largest or 2nd largest buyer of UK Pork.
If the UK had stuck with Truss, that mightn’t have been true. She was opening up new pork markets.
The Chagos Islands are very valuable as an unsinkable, static aircraft carrier in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Obviously valuable to a nation with the capability to actually support and operate such an aircraft carrier.
I think you are just highlighting how the UK is losing agency in the world. At this rate it will become a museum.
Last time I checked, most countries today, aside from Russia, aren't in the business of invading other countries and expanding territory or forming colonies. The UK will be just fine - it's doing as much as any other western country to keep it's relevance.
A country can have leverage that goes beyond how much potential it has to invade or destroy another nation.
> Last time I checked, most countries today, aside from Russia, aren't in the business of invading other countries and expanding territory
How about Israel that the UK is arming? Though in the case of the UK it is contracting.
> The UK will be just fine - it's doing as much as any other western country to keep it's relevance.
That's reassuring.
The UK is a mid-sized country in Europe, and that's fine. Only you seem to think this is a problem.
with another several mid-sized countries closely connected to it
> how the UK is losing agency in the world
Do you mean:
a) agency
b) influence
c) something else?
I’m unfamiliar, what’s the trouble in keeping them? I thought they’d long ago evicted the natives, and more or less handed the islands over to the Americans—does this move relieve them of either of those headaches?
Is the idea that Chagossian repatriation now becomes a Mauritian problem? Had the British been taking that problem particularly seriously?
Or more to do with the British not really wanting to be caught between the Americans and increasingly assertive regional powers who may be annoyed by the Americans’ stronghold there?
It's a constant source of legal action and negative news. There's not any strategic need for the UK to keep an island in the Indian Ocean. Might as well get rid of the whole mess for someone else to sort out.
I'm sure that showing ourselves as happy to be bullied into paying to give up territory by legal action and negative news will in no way give anyone else ideas about what might be a good way to get stuff they want from us
I don't agree. The UK can still accomplish great things if has the political will, but each time they concede they lose more and more ground. Could they have done more to protect HK? perhaps but they didn't try and now we'll never know.
Again the chagos islands, I know very little about them, but I understand that the islanders themselves hate the deal. And the UK is offering a whole lot of money to keep the military bases they had for free. You can say it was a matter of international law but Mauritius claim to the island is laughable, they are more than 1000 miles away. Also the way the deal was presented as a step away from colonialism etc just feels wrong. Timid apologetics isn't a good way to advance the UKs interest, nor is it helpful for the rest of the world for the UK to be weak and ineffective. Just look at how they helped Ukraine. Again the politicians have no will or national pride to stand up for the UKs interests and it's a shame.
> perhaps but they didn't try
Do we know that? Presumably there were negotiations. Normally both parties in a negotiation start at extreme opposites and make their way somewhere in the middle. Obviously we don’t/won’t know every detail but I don’t know you can say they didn’t try. Simple reality is that the UK wasn’t holding a lot of cards in that negotiation.
How would the UK have kept Hong Kong if China didn't want them to? Would an invasion have been better for the people of Hong Kong? How would the UK have won that battle from that far away?
There's no realistic way for the UK or anyone else to guarantee Hong Kong political freedom short of war with China.
Are you aware the UK is basically bankrupt? https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/26/more-pain-r...
Are you aware that is an impossible situation in the UK and that you should never listen to journalists or economists on this topic. They haven’t a clue what they are talking about.
Look at the one month Treasury bill to see the actual situation.
I don't know how much I trust bond buyers and other "Market participants" to have a meaningful long-term view of a financial position with the many destabilising factors we are seeing (Social, Climate, etc..). They are accurate until they aren't.
Maybe 20 years from now, you will be on a resort laughing at the treasury bill rates of 2025 and compare their accuracy to pets.com.
> that you should never listen to journalists or economists on this topic
These journalists do not say that Britain is bankrupt. Their article was arbitrarily cited by someone else to support his claim about Britain.
I know and it's a crying shame, we should be doing everything we can to encourage innovation and growth, not finding new ways to tax businesses and the people who run them. The conservatives kind of gutted public services, but the governments priority atm should really be on increasing prosperity. I can only think of one recent prime minister who had that vision and the less said about her the better.
‘Protect the people of hong Kong’?
You mean follow the treaty they signed ages ago?
They could have done quite a lot to piss of the Chinese while still honoring the treaty. The lease was only for the New Territories, but they gave all of HK back. Or they could have tried to give it to the government in Taiwan.
Whether that would have protected the people of Hong Kong is another matter. I think at the time people were still optimistic about the direction China was taking and they might have thought China would be a democracy by 2047.
Taiwan would have refused since this would have instantly precipitated war with the mainland.
If you think the UK gov’t was in any position to piss China off then (or now!) without it costing them and anyone else involved far more than it’s worth, I don’t know what to say.
It’s honestly amazing that China didn’t apply more ‘direct’ pressure to get HK bad sooner. There is nothing the UK likely would have done about it. Bad for business I guess? Macau transferred over around the same time.
The Qing dynasty ‘remnants’ in Taiwan would have just been steamrolled if they’d gone anywhere near it. And not like there was any real cultural reason why HK’ers would accept them anyway, or that the Qing were well loved. CCP steamrolled them in mainland China like they did because they were, by all accounts, terrible.
Sometimes, life just sucks.
They might mean “retaliate to the violation of the treaty they signed”. Hong Kong was supposed to get fifty years of autonomy; the National Security Law ended that prematurely.
The UK long ago lost any ability to meaningfully enforce those terms. Or do you expect them to somehow start torpedoing Chinese boats in the Straight or something to make China pay?
Who was the treaty signed with? It wasn’t the CCP.
Are you high? The handover of Hong Kong was signed between the UK and the PRC
I’m referring to the start of the agreement, not the end.
Fair, but why does that matter? The UK voluntarily relinquished control and handed HK back to the PRC
It did and I don’t think it could have gone to anyone else, leaving the choice as giving it to China, or keeping it.
The argument that it shouldn’t have gone to the CCP was one I heard from someone who lived there.
Why not? The PRC is the successor state. It makes less sense to hand HK over to ROC because the ROC never had sovereignty over HK.
Successor state by force, not by people’s choice. The small part that ended up democratic hasn’t chosen to join the PRC.
Not only were the PLA and CCP massively popular because of the insane corruption and hyperinflation under the Nationalists, the ROC imposed (at the time), the longest martial law in human history [1]
Taiwan is democratic today, because of transitional justice, but at the time when the PRC succeeded the ROC in China, the nationalists led by Chiang were as dictatorial as you can get
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)
I suspect they’re referring to the 99 year lease the UK signed in 1898 with the Qing dynasty. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declarati...]
As to how they think that has anything to do with their points, it doesn’t of course - and the UK agreed, which is why they left. Also, because it’s not like the UK had any other choice.
And you think it would be ‘protecting’ the people of Hong Kong to argue with the CCP about it? Lulz
Or that it’s ever been about ‘protecting’ anyone when the British Crown fights anyone over territory? As compared to asserting ownership?
Not to mention the UK nearly lost it’s fight with Argentina - it wouldn’t even be pissing in the wind to go to war with China over Hong Kong.
How did Argentina “almost win” the Falklands war? I thought it was over almost before it started? Only thing that worked were some French missiles.
The UK had no ready means to replace their (far more significant than anyone expected) losses, and were at the very far end of their logistics chain. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War]. Which for the UK is crazy embarrassing. ‘Sun Never Sets on The British Empire’ and all.
They lost 6 ships (including 2 destroyers and 2 frigates), 24 helicopters, and 10 fighters + 255 KIA in the debacle. If the french hadn’t disabled those missiles, it would have been an even bigger mess. Do you think the UK gov’t wants to admit they got saved by the French?
If Argentina had their act even a little more together, or had even a little more commitment, there is nothing the UK could have done about it - except maybe nuke Buenos Aires. Which would probably have been a step too far, even for Thatcher.
Argentina was expecting zero resistance and got embarrassed they lost ships and soldiers too, and pulled out because it was making the Argentinian gov’t look bad.
But it was also really embarrassing for the UK. They had more losses there than they did fighting the Gulf War alongside the US.
In fact, since Northern Ireland, it took Afghanistan to even come close - and that was over a period of 10 years compared to ~ 6 months. [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6605529d91a32...]
Protect the people of Hong Kong from what?
The idea that the British were holding territory in the world to protect anyone is laughable
Do you think citizens of Hong Kong would choose the Chinese rule of today, or go back to British rule if they could?
> Do you think citizens of Hong Kong would choose the Chinese rule of today, or go back to British rule if they could?
I think the people that lived there in 1997 would absolutely want to go back to British rule. But you have to remember that it's been nearly 30 years since it went to Chinese rule. All the young people there prefer Chinese rule, because they grew up with schools teaching them that the British were bad and the Chinese were good.
And at the same time, the most pro-British people left, either going to the USA or Canada, or actually taking advantage of the UKs right-to-return programs and going to the UK itself.
So if you asked the people who lived there today, they majority say they prefer Chinese rule.
My prediction is that they will no longer operate as an SEZ within the decade and will be folded fully into China.
I don't think so, did you forget about the Umbrella Movement?
That was over a decade ago. There is almost an entire generation that has come up since then, being told China is good and British is bad. And in the meantime China made protesting illegal, and now rounds up and ships off anyone who protests.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/28/i-was-so-naive...
But more importantly, it's more complicated than just China good/bad:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/12/05/how-peopl...
However what that shows is that the majority of adults in HK (74%) feel an attachment to China, and in the meantime China is making it illegal to disagree with them.
>That was over a decade ago.
You make me feel old
>In June 2019, millions took to the streets again in massive pro-democracy protests.
This was only 6 years ago.
>Hong Kongers ages 35 and older are more likely than their younger counterparts to feel very close to China.
That's the exact opposite of what you claim.
I agree they'll likely succeed in the end but they have not yet made HK just another part of China.
> You make me feel old
I watched the changeover live on TV in my 20s. :)
>> Hong Kongers ages 35 and older are more likely than their younger counterparts to feel very close to China.
> That's the exact opposite of what you claim.
No, it's not. What I said was young people have been growing up with propaganda, and of the people who were there for the changeover and remember it (people over 35), the ones who don't like China have left the country because they could. The ones under 35 (well technically 28) don't have that option, because you had to be born before the changeover to get the British citizenship, which is what lets you easily move to Canada, Australia, and lots of other places.
Which would mean that those over 35 that are still there are the ones that were already pro-China. So that tracks with the data.
In other words, China is indoctrinating the youth and the people who have to option to leave and hate China are leaving, so only the people that love China or were indoctrinated by it are left behind.
That's a possible explanation, but I'm not completely convinced it is without numbers. Maybe it's those under 35 who don't remember the bad of the British rule?
But even then, less than 50% of people under 35 call themselves Chinese (not even both Hong Konger and Chinese). And half of the adults call China a major threat, 22% a minor threat. Those are pretty bad numbers for indoctrination.
That isn’t why the British were there though.
Do you think they would have chose British rule when it first began?
Almost no one lived there at the time. Look at photos of how Hong Kong transformed under British rule
Do you think the subjects of British colonies ever had much of a say in the matter?
If they really really wanted too, they could have tried to go the USA route and kick both parties out and be independent. But there is approximately zero chance they would have succeeded, eh?
This is great! It’s high time a brutal empire that starved Ireland and India and created the situation that resulted in the genocide in Palestine loses its literal shine.
Honestly it is crazy that this country still exists as a monarchy in the 21st century.
Unfortunately in the case of Palestine Britain merely handed over the baton to an even more hideous imperialist monster - the U.S.A. - which has reverted to Napoleonic levels of barbarity. Imperialism is alive and well in 2025.
That's right, though I don't want to undersell the massive levels of suffering and trickery played by the British. Their stock in trade was to sow ethnic division and steal whatever they could. For example, the million+ that died in the partition of India was a result of their sowing of tensions between Hindus and Muslims. They also did a lot of looting in Africa.
Going back in time, if you read about the Duchess of Sutherland, the UK created their own internal Nakba where they internally displaced peasants to make way to "Sheepe Walks" and forced them to the sea to benefit the textile industry. Then they later wanted that land and attacked them again. The West is very familiar with creating Gaza-like situations.
Where do you guys get this nonsense from? Is there some sort of conspiracy theory factory? Do you have any idea how the rest of the world behaved during this time period? You are aware that the Muslims literally had multiple empires?
Ah yes, the killing was the fault of someone other than those killing people. Why didn't I think of that.
If you fail to see how divide and conquer strategies are employed by the imperial west both externally and internally, much of politics will become mystifying to you.
You seem to misunderstand the subcontinents history. Separation into India and Pakistan was of territories conquered by the British (from the previous 'Imperialists' by the way - which maybe you've overlooked). So 'Divide and conquer' is incorrect. Feel free to bring merit to this discussion.
I’ve been really sad getting older and having so much more context on Britain. My family weirdly had access to all of British TV in US growing up and they had fantastic programs.
Now, I feel they are a joke. They seem like a strong example of what absolutely not to do. Their cultural exports have sunk. The arrested citizens for social media posts seems draconian. The economy barely hanging on.
I understand the Media has a bias and they been hitting the UK hard since Brexit (liberals think it ended the world) and now even conservative/alternative media hates UK for the pro-immigration stances.
With all that said even trying very hard to find things to like about the UK in a neutral way (I am a fan of PG, who I assume makes very smart decisions) I think the country is completely toast. Worse off than SPAIN! I never had a high opinion of Spain but it looks more likely to outgrow its troubles than the UK.
Prince Andrew and Kate seem nice. The British countryside seems nice. But what else will these people ever be capable of again?
When I read or interact with Britains irl I lump them in one of the lowest buckets for intellectual conversation. Does anyone have any hope for Britain to share or at least data to tell me I’m wrong about the UK?
I assume you mean William, not Andrew.
You seem to be prejudice and cherry picking to backup your opinion judging from the way your post reads and the random unhinged comments on Spain for some reason, HN is attracting more pseudo-intellectuals these days unfortunately. I don't think anyone can help you apart from maybe a therapist but getting laid and interacting with people outside in a non-transactional may help
Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire. The ones who are thriving today owe a huge debt of gratitude, and the languishing ones are that way because they decided not to continue the British tradition.
The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures, on par with the decline of the Roman Empire.
I remember asking this question to a work colleague from India almost 30 years ago. I asked something like if he hated the Brits for invading his land. He said on the contrary. They advanced their people so rapidly and efficiently through education and technical advances that would have taken hundreds of years by themselves. He said this allowed them to kick the British out once they had outlived their usefulness. Or something like that. It's been along time since I thought about it.
Like anything, it depends on your point of view and time.
My grandparents and their generation were all born in Ireland, and had a very different outlook than the people who remained and folks you talk to today there. People just want to live their lives.
Some Indians benefitted, but the vast majority suffered.
Th vast majority suffered under various Indian empires too. The lower castes suffered millennia of oppression (and still do) - imagine millennia of Jim Crow or apartheid. Some of them benefited hugely from British rule as a result, probably including my mother's ancestors.
Special mention: the Partition.
But then again, without the British, there wouldn't have been a unified India but a multitude of states, sort of resembling the EU (in the best case). Worst case scenario, mini Africa.
Having a common hated enemy did have its benefits.
The brits took India from a variety of different rulers, but principally the Mughals. The Mughals werent any one thing, but they were despised in a lot of places.
The brits also largely permitted the caste system to proceed. my experience is that upper caste indians preferred the brits, where the lower caste ones dont really discern the difference.
So you found 1 person 30 years ago to justify colonialism?
It appears the person didn’t justify colonialism, they noted the benefit they got which concluded with them kicking out the colonizer.
> British colonies universally benefited from the British empire
I can’t tell whether this is a joke or a sincere opinion, but HN readers might be misled if it’s allowed to stand. Briefly, this is an absurd claim.
I can speak confidently about India, and I am pretty sure the story is similar for other unfortunate colonies. Instead of arguing here, let me provide an accessible starting point to learning about it:
The podcast “Empire,” by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand. The first series looks at the British in India, covering The East India Company, the Raj, Gandhi, Independence and Partition.
Maybe China should colonize Britain to make things better, then.
I read this using Gul Dukat's voice and cadence and it didn't sound that far off.
I like to read HN because the conversation here is higher quality than elsewhere, when the subject is tech. But when the conversation deviate to politic, I'm reminded that outside their limited expertise, people here are no better than elsewhere as I read the same ignorant drivel I can find everywhere.
It sounds like you're saying, "British colonialism was worth it." Am I getting that right?
I wonder what the aggregate sentiment of colonialism is in former British colonies.
I don’t think that is at all accurate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_genocide
Yeah. I'm from Malaysia, and while we definitely benefited in many ways, to state that we do not still have massive and pervasive social issues as a result of colonization is insane. I'm glad you posted the link above and spoke up. I didn't even know where to start, but was worried someone might take the original comment seriously.
This viewpoint is still way too popular and was also used to genocide millions of indigenous people, we definitely need to keep speaking up against that.
Lmao no. You seem like you have podcast brain.
Ireland and Wales are no where near where they would be without being colonised. Let alone states further from the core of the empire.
>The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures
Greatest successes. Honestly it could only be better if the britons pushed the angles and saxons back into the ocean.
Thankful for what exactly?
> Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire.
That's not at all true. There are many examples, but no need to look farther afield than Ireland, which has not yet recovered from the deliberate genocide of the Irish famine.
The island of Ireland had not yet reached the population it held pre-famine, and if Ireland had grown at the rate of its neighbours, it would now being closing in on 25 million+ instead of the ~7 million across the island.
> The ones who are thriving today owe a huge debt of gratitude, and the languishing ones are that way because they decided not to continue the British tradition.
Britain owes a debt to its colonies. The colonies owe nothing to it, except contempt.
> The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures, on par with the decline of the Roman Empire.
In a comment brimming with ignorance, this becomes absurd. The dissolution of the British empire is the great victory of the 20th century. A victory of human rights, decency, and even off the British population, who are disposable to the empire as foreign "subjects" were.