Trade.

The Chinese government really found the ideal tactical opportunity for that.

Everyone is scared about their ecconomic prospects, and therefore less willing to do anything that might hurt trade.

The US has no coherent foreign policy.

The UK has left the EU and thus the EU no longer has "you have broken a treaty with one of our members"* incentive/excuse to escalate, without scaring all other autocracies.

The UK having left the EU and insisting (for the time being at least) on a hard Brexit, is looking for new trading partners and thus not in a really good position to escalate anything.

* I assume the new regulations either contradict the treaty with the UK that should ensure the special status of Hong Kong or at least you could make plausiblish claim, that it does.

You have pretty much summed up why we're screwed.

The June 4th vigil has been banned for the first time ever. Ostensibly due to coronavirus, but everyone knows better.

Doom fell today. Beijing passed the national security law that they wouldn't let us see. Still haven't. We won't know what's in it until tomorrow.

The UK seems to be offering to take in 3 million folks permanently. Possibly rather belated, but some folks may have a relatively straight forward out.

That said, I can't be too surprised that the party that gave us concentration camps for Muslims has finally decided that Hong Kong will be treated just like Shanghai. It's just who the CCP are.

They went straight from "don't worry it's only going to target a small number of people" to arresting people for carrying signs. Even shopkeepers have been warned against displaying signs on their own premises.

The law is worldwide in scope.

Every politician, corporation, every academic, every teacher, every reporter, every non-profit staffer, every mook with an Internet connection, whoever they are, whatever their nationality, wherever they are in the world, now must watch their words and actions.

Technically speaking the entire US congress are criminals in HK and China for passing sanctions yesterday.

And Beijing says it will stop the UK from admitting HK BNO holders. Perhaps they don't plan to let people leave.

Is it time to consider leaving?

I'm not asking that idly. I know it's your home. But these are dangerous days. My wife and I have had multiple serious conversations about what would be the sign we need to get out of the US (we were both born here, our families have been here for generations, we own property here, etc., etc.).

Were Trump to be re-elected, we would leave, not as a protest, but in interests of basic safety.

Considering the only place we could realistically escape TO is a potentially Trump-ruled pandemic hellscape of racism...

Yeah.

I wouldn't worry too much about that just yet; even the Republican party's internal polls show them getting crushed, and there basically are no undecideds for another Comey to swing to Trump. He's permanently alienated 50% of the registered voters, and has basically no chance to really monopolize the 16% who don't utterly hate one or the other of the candidates (in fact he's losing the 'hate both' crowd by 30 points).

Biden-led pandemic hellscape of racism. Neither the pandemic nor the racism will go away if Trump loses; the rump will likely go completely bonkers, none of which makes for an environment conducive to being in public while Asian. Then there's the matter of uncertain employment prospects in the biggest recession since the Great Depression, and the matter of my needing regular physiotherapy because I'm getting older and my joints hate me now, which I probably won't be able to afford even with Obamacare.

Am I allowed to ask what's up with the new look? Or should I just leave it alone?

Seemed like a good idea at 2 a.m.

Passiflora? I feel all disoriented and confused...

Living in an escalating horror show here. Activists are being systematically arrested or being forced into exile, all of the pan-democrats quit the legislature in protest, teachers are being disqualified for unpatriotic lesson content, people are censoring themselves in group chats and social media, pro-democracy businesses are being harassed, school curricula are eliminating critical thinking, and there is talk of criminalizing "misinformation" on the internet. Oh, the now completely rubber stamp legislature just approved a monumentally horrible artificial island megaproject that will destroy the marine ecosystem for the sake of enriching developers. And still I have relatives overseas who are like "everything's fine if you don't criticise the government, right?"

To which I say "screw you".

I am so so sorry.