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China said on Friday the joint declaration with Britain over Hong Kong, which laid the blueprint over how the city would be ruled after its return to China in 1997, was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance.
In response, Britain said the declaration remained in force and was a legally valid treaty to which it was committed to upholding.
The stark announcement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, that is sure to raise questions over Beijing’s commitment to Hong Kong’s core freedoms, came the same day Chinese President Xi Jinping said in Hong Kong the “one country, two systems” formula was recognized “by the whole world”.
It was not immediately clear if Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang was attacking just the idea of continued British involvement in Hong Kong, which marks the 20th anniversary of Chinese rule on Saturday, or the principles in the document.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @12:48AM (2 children)
OK, so we're talking about 7.5 million people being probably subject to near-term, violent oppression.
Tough problem.
If the UK wants to retaliate, and give China the PR black eye of shame, they could collaborate with Trump on offering asylum to Hong Kongers. They speak English (mostly, anyway, obviously some don't), as a broad cross-section they care about education, self-advancement and making shit-tons of cash money.
Start with: "Dudes, put your cash in these american banks. Don't be shy; no taxes or fees apply. We've got your back." Next up: "Hong Kong residence papers are proof positive of oppression. Step right up." Next up: "Flights are cleared to Hawaii, Guam, San Fran, Juneau and Seattle. C'mon over, we'll leave the light on."
China goes: "HOW DARE YOU??? YOU EVIL ECONOMY-WRECKERS!!!"
US and UK go: "Talk to the hand. Nice and long. It cares."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @02:15AM (1 child)
Supposing there would be a Mainland-operated crackdown, it won't be 7.5 million people violently oppressed. It would be the millennial demonstrators.
The head of the foreign relations committee in Parliament is already proposing to give full British citizenship to HK people: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/hongkong-londoner-politiker-will-britische-staatsbuergerschaft-verleihen-a-1281803.html [spiegel.de]
The problem is that that is their home. Not many people want to live a life of exile.
How golden is still the goose that was HK? Last I heard HK contributed in the low single digit percents to China's total economy. The days are gone when you needed HK to mediate in business with the mainland. Nowadays Western executives travel directly to Jiangsu with suitcases full of IP to beg for a slice of Chinese business.
So if the Mainland goes as far to abrogate HK's status, they can clean some house: Throw out all the foreigners residing in HK, abolish the Shenzhen SEZ, turn HK into a Mainland county. Lots of administrative things easier for the Mainland, the banks all leave which will cause good turmoil in the West, young and middle age locals take a back seat to carpetbaggers from the Mainland who speak Mandarin, the territory is denied to Falun Gong and psyops operatives financed by Taiwan and the United States. The rich and famous will continue to seek the Communist Party's favor. Farmers are going to continue to farm and old people are going to continue to live in their tower blocks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @06:42AM
I don't quite buy that. The demonstrators are clearly not just millenials.
British citizenship is actually rather complex; citizenship doesn't imply right of abode, for example, which makes asylum of some description in the USA quite credible.
As for exile, it's all very well to complain about their home, but when their home turns into a miserable place, as per (for example) Xinjiang, many people will choose the exile option for $400, Alex.
HK isn't a golden goose by itself in terms of production. It's quite substantial, and losing it would hurt (however much the Party would cover it up), but it wouldn't cripple the country. What's a lot more important is its role as a legal gateway, and symbolically as a demonstration that the Party will let people do things in a capitalist way, if only up to a point. Squashing it or choking it slowly both negate that - a calculated risk that the Party appears to have already decided is acceptable. Result: it's a sunk cost. The goose is already on the block. Thus, from a practical and economic perspective, the question is the value of the people and the culture of entrepreneurship and development. The answer appears to be that China doesn't value them. Oh, well. From what I hear, the USA does. Western execs travelling to Jiangsu are a red herring here, because they have no bearing on the value of what Kowloon has to offer, except as a judas goat for capitalists, that China appears to have determined it no longer needs. The Party isn't even pretending that it cares.
The banks leaving wouldn't cause turmoil, it'd mostly be a pain in the butt that would blow over in a year or two. What matters here is the people leaving, analogous with the jewish scientists of the 1930s coming to the USA, and thereby massively boosting the USA's development. If China wants to pretend that this is no cost, or justified, so be it - but it doesn't take a radical Randroid to see a heavy cost for them.
Plausible end game: the West figures out a way to cheerfully absorb and import the people of Hong Kong in job lots, for reasons of economics as well as international politics. The Party makes the best of a terrible job by ignoring the whole thing officially while remaking the region in its own image and blaming it all on sinister foreign operatives as per the previous communique. The Party probably won't be able to do more than throw a couple of rude gestures at the rest of the world because nobody outside the PRC and the DPRK probably thinks that they're in the right (OK, barring the lunatic fringe) and the whole thing progressively contributes to the unmasking of neoimperialistic China to the utter astonishment of absolutely nobody who's paid the least bit of attention.