Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at home. Feel free to marvel at our stockpile of high-tech spy balloons. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!
We have our own Matrix homeserver at https://genzedong.org, and a Matrix space; see this thread for more information.
Short reading list for new MLs here. To find theory (and other books), you can use z-lib, libgen, or Sci-Hub (for scientific articles). If an article is unavailable, try the Wayback Machine.
why didn’t mao take HK back during his time? why did it take so long to be integrated into mainland?
The PLA was exhausted by '49 and not ready to fight yet another Imperialist power.
As I understand it the next “target” for the PRC and PLA after the end of the Civil War was Taiwan and the remaining elements of the KMT. But the US did the whole Korea thing so China had to respond there. By the time the PLA was in a position to look towards Taiwan or even HK the Americans had solidified their position in Taiwan.