[gammateam]

Well the Hong Kong autonomy expires in 2047

It would be negligent not to continually manage and revise the plans as the economies change.

It would be stranger to know that you are legally obligated to annex and support a neighboring economic powerhouse with a totally parallel incompatible culture that was ignored or isolated for 50 years. Instead, Mainland China has become less and less aligned with Marx’s teachings, and Hong Kong has become more and more aligned with the rest of the bay area economic regions.

[ngcc_hk]

The whole idea is not sending hker to hell of communists. The struggle of hongkonger for basic human rights are getting worse and worse. Not sure why you get this idea.

[johnzim]

CCP propaganda is strong - that's why.

Look at the language used "return" - people still think HK was leased. It wasn't - the New Territories were.

People don't care about HK people. I wish they did but no one does.

At least Tibet has some awareness surrounding it in the West - HK just got hung out to dry.

Of all the colonies from which British rule was removed, only HK got handed over to the thugs, thieves and torturers its population had previously escaped.

Everyone else got independence. HKers didn't even get UK passports.

[em500]

> Look at the language used "return" - people still think HK was leased. It wasn't - the New Territories were.

And most of Kowloon. As opposed to HK Island, which was obtained by legitimate conquest, I suppose?

> Of all the colonies from which British rule was removed, only HK got handed over to the thugs, thieves and torturers its population had previously escaped.

What realistic alternative would you have suggested to Thatcher at the time?

[NeedMoreTea]

> What realistic alternative would you have suggested to Thatcher at the time?

Oh that's easy. Give every HKer a full British passport instead of creating an entirely new category of nationality, where they were still British Nationals, but not British Citizens. Then let in a token few thousand. Unforgivable.

Would have given HKers a free choice, and done wonders for the UK economy.

[em500]

Not easy at all, good luck getting it accepted by both the UK parliament and by Deng Xiaoping. People have this notion that the UK could do whatever they wanted in HK before 1997 (or at least before the negotiations with the PRC in the 1980s). But recently declassified documents revealed that the PRC was already pressuring the UK about HK affairs back in the 1950s.

[NeedMoreTea]

They weakened status well before the joint agreement. Yet right after Tiananmen Square, and after the joint agreement, they managed to rapidly dream up a selection of 50k families, so they were also far from powerless to act without Deng Xiaoping's approval. Thousands of HKers were leaving after Tiananmen, to anywhere that would take them, so it's not like it would have deprived China of those citizens after 97 handover.

[gammateam]

> The whole idea is not sending hker to hell of communists. The struggle of hongkonger for basic human rights are getting worse and worse. Not sure why you get this idea.

I mean, was that ever an option? So I have zero chips in this game and it is plainly obvious to me from 8,000 miles away that the writing has been on the wall since 1997: Hong Kong has autonomy for 50 years.

The various protests are just to ensure that autonomy and mainland interference... until 2047.

These are agreements that have been upheld by the international community, and Hong Kong and mainland China (with evidence of growing propaganda to align HK interests with the CCP). But real interference from mainland China before this agreement ends would be an invasion of which there is no chance of winning or gaining defense from, and they have never done that and upheld the agreement.

I wish to be empathic, as I can see the strong Hong Kong sovereign identity and the people's investment in that, but there's no outcome where that lasts past 2047, barring a new agreement, and there are outcomes where both regions align closer to ideologies.

My understanding is that Hong Kong's autonomy lasts till 2047, but the Basic Law constitution has no expiration date. There is just no framework for the Basic Law to have any weight after being absorbed back into the CCP's umbrella and supreme (but arbitrary) rule of law.

Maybe within Hong Kong it feels different as if there is a chance, but that's an echo chamber. If you want to avoid being absorbed into mainland China then you have to leave like EVERY OTHER Cantonese speaking community has done in waves for the last 200 years.

There is just not a history to support Hong Kong being an exception, it is just tolerated, for now.