”One country, two systems” is originally an agreement between the UK and China before the handover. Violating a treaty with another country makes it an international affair.
> ”One country, two systems” is originally an agreement between the UK and China before the handover.
That agreement was predicated on a belief that over time, China would open up and become more democratic and Hong Kong would smoothly merge cultures.
Unfortunately, that assumption was entirely false. It's been 20 years since the handover, and China has not at all moved towards freedoms generally considered a pre-requisite to social society in the west.
Hong Kong has completely different values than mainland China. Even if the current events fade away, they are on an unavoidable collision course.
Absolutely, I would say they’ve already collided, and I’m arguing it’s time for the West to acknowledge that fact and act, such as making Tiananmen Square 2.0 more costly in order to protect our core values such as rule of the people and fair trials. I think that would be well within our interests.
I’m Swedish, a person with the same passport as me was kidnapped from Thailand and imprisoned in China probably after hours of torture because of something he published and his democracy activism in Hong Kong. The sentiment in Sweden is that it would’ve been nice for China to not say that Hong Kong would be under ”one China, two systems” if that’s not how things would turn out. Kidnapping Swedish citizens in Thailand for something they are legally allowed to do in Hong Kong doesn’t look like a domestic issue to me.
When people can be extradited to the unfair, Chinese domestic courts or failing that kidnapped by the Chinese government I would say that’s not ”largely autonomous” anymore. There’s no way for the kidnapped Causeway books employees to use the HK courts to get them out of Chinese courts, even though they committed their ”crime” in HK.
The respect of ”one country, two systems” was something China promised the UK. The international community is absolutely remaining in the picture.
HK courts would have decided whether to extradite to the mainland in the same way they do now when deciding whether to extradite to the US or any other country HK has an extradition treaty with.
China has also extradition treaties with some western countries. Does that mean that e.g. France is no longer 'autonomous'?
This extradition bill does not impact HK's autonomy at all. This is very transparently a pretext.
One has to wonder who's behind all of this because this is really getting more farcical by the day.
It is also very interesting that western media tend to use the terms 'China' for the mainland in their reports on these events. Clearly this is not neutral and makes Western opinion believe that HK is not China.
That agreement was predicated on a belief that over time, China would open up and become more democratic and Hong Kong would smoothly merge cultures.
Unfortunately, that assumption was entirely false. It's been 20 years since the handover, and China has not at all moved towards freedoms generally considered a pre-requisite to social society in the west.
Hong Kong has completely different values than mainland China. Even if the current events fade away, they are on an unavoidable collision course.