This conflict is magnified by several underlying subjects.

While it's apparently a conflict China / Hong Kong, it is mainly the result of a loss of soft-power by many other countries.

First off, the USA, one may or may not appreciate Trump / feel comfortable with him, but the results of his actions are that America lost tons of soft-power. Between the people who just can't make sense out of him, and all of the obvious flaws in his reign, USA is widely seen as having lost a lot of its influence. Many leaders worldwide who had a long-standing relationship with the USA are turning the other way now.

As a result, that place of diplomatic leader, usually held by the USA has been freed. There were several candidates who could have taken its place... but: France's Macron (My country) got undermined by the idiots "Gilets Jaune" and Great Britain has the Brexit, meanwhile, Merkel's recent health troubles have left her international political power weaker.

Result? China saw an opportunity. Since the USA is closing on itself and using hard power, Europe has not managed to make a true united political front, and its individual countries were undermined, there is a great space for China to take action.

With little to no power to stop it right now, China has to strike before things have settled down. It involves itself where the USA has abandoned & the others have not made progress, such as middle-orient. Getting back Hong Kong is only possible now that the other countries' leader doesn't have the power/backing from their citizens to achieve anything significant.

We citizens of the countries are the ones who allowed China to do that by not supporting our own government. When China will have a say in the UNESCO we'll ask our leader why they didn't do a thing about it, and odds are they'll throw it back at us, "did you give us the power to act at that time?" and the answer is no. We critic all forms of governments, but they are the ones who can act/oppose governments such as China, Rusia, etc.

We're so assured that they should first think of our country and nothing else, that we forget that we're frogs in a well: we ignore what's going on elsewhere and we don't care. It's fine since it's not our role, that's the gvt's role. But it needs legitimacy to do so.

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