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posted by martyb on Thursday November 21 2019, @09:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the courting-disaster? dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

China says its courts trump Hong Kong's on face mask ruling

China's top legislature has insisted Hong Kong courts had no power to rule on the constitutionality of legislation under the city's Basic Law, as it condemned a decision by the high court to overturn a ban on face masks worn by pro-democracy protesters.

The statement on Tuesday came a day after the high court ruled that the face mask ban - introduced through colonial-era emergency laws - was unconstitutional.

[...] "Whether the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region comply with the Basic Law of Hong Kong can only be judged and decided by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress," Yan Tanwei, a spokesman for the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said in a statement.

"No other authority has the right to make judgments and decisions," he added.

[...] Protests started in June with rallies that brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets in a largely peaceful call for the withdrawal of a now-withdrawn bill that would have allowed suspected criminals to be extradited to mainland China for trial.

They have since evolved into a series of demands for greater democracy and freedoms as well as an independent inquiry into alleged police brutality. Protesters worry China is encroaching on the freedoms given to Hong Kong when the United Kingdom returned the territory to China under what was known as "one country, two systems" in 1997.

[...] China has repeatedly warned that it would not allow the city to spiral into total chaos, heightening concerns that Beijing might deploy troops or other security forces to quell the unrest.

"The Hong Kong government is trying very hard to put the situation under control," China's ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, said on Monday.

"But if the situation becomes uncontrollable, the central government would certainly not sit on our hands and watch. We have enough resolution and power to end the unrest."

[...] Protesters had been using masks to hide their identities in public. The proposal was widely criticised by supporters of the anti-government movement, who saw it as a risk to demonstrators.

Hong Kong's High Court ruled on Monday that colonial-era emergency laws, which were revived to justify the mask ban, were "incompatible with the Basic Law", the mini-constitution under which Hong Kong was returned to China.

Will China run out of patience with Hong Kong protests?


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @02:05PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @02:05PM (#923385)

    it was leased to the British

    Britain: So here are the terms, we keep Hong Kong, and we promise not to invade Nanking and over thrown the emperor.
    China: Those lease terms seem fair.
    Narrator: The Chinese did not feel this was fair.

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    Moderation   -1  
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    Extra 'Troll' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   -1  
  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday November 22 2019, @03:47PM (3 children)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday November 22 2019, @03:47PM (#923412)

    What are you talking about? The lease expired, like both countries knew it would eventually. The original deal was made in 1898.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong [wikipedia.org]

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @09:07PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @09:07PM (#923521)

      He is saying that "leased" does not accurately reflect the connotation of their arrangement. The "lease" was a theft of territory that China was forced into due to military inferiority.

      Now the positions of strength are reversed. It's not directly relevant but I do think it's a useful bit of historical context because it provides the setting for modern relations which, in many ways, continue to derive from this former power imbalance.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 25 2019, @03:45PM (1 child)

        by tangomargarine (667) on Monday November 25 2019, @03:45PM (#924547)

        He is saying that "leased" does not accurately reflect the connotation of their arrangement. The "lease" was a theft of territory that China was forced into due to military inferiority.

        No, you're understandably conflating two separate things: Britain originally got the core of the Hong Kong territory [wikipedia.org] via treaty acquisition, then leased the New Territories later for 99 years. They could have kept the inner part, but since the infrastructure between the two bits was so interconnected they decided it wasn't worth the bother of separating them.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday November 25 2019, @03:48PM

          by tangomargarine (667) on Monday November 25 2019, @03:48PM (#924549)

          Regardless of how fair they think the original treaty was (are the losers in a war usually enthusiastic about the terms of peace?), that doesn't mean they can legally just decide that they want everything back anyway, and throw the treaty out the window.

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"