| Fair enough regarding the people's consent. Looking at your subsequent comment you obviously know a lot more about the situation than I do. My mother was born in Hong Kong because my grandmother lived there for some years, but we barely have any connection to it. (It is interesting that I can't tell from your comments whether you are arguing in support of the HK people or in support of the PRC. I find your writing curiously ambiguous on this.) I would agree there was no people's consent in the usual meaning. But what my GP comment really means is a kind of passive consent of the people (along with active consent of the British government on their behalf), where the expressed anxieties and anger of the Hong Kong people were much more restrained in 1997 due to the Sino-British treaty and the adoption of the Hong Kong Basic Law, compared with what they would have been if they'd known China was going to dishonour those after signing them. Even not considering consent, it looks clear to me that PRC has reneged on the high profile agreement it signed with Britain that was designed to protect the Hong Kong people and way of life as Britain departed. From that I stand by my view that: "This should be borne in mind by anyone evaluating whether to trust China on any important agreement in future." If I understand correctly: Although the Hong Kong Basic Law is a PRC national law as well as effectively the constitution of Hong Kong, it's existence and content is connected to the Sino-British treaty, and its adoption is a condition of the handover. It cannot be regarded as an entirely "domestic" PRC thing, and it was not created by the PRC in isolation. There is ample evidence that the PRC no longer follows some fundamental tenets of the Basic Law (for example freedom of speech and freedom of assembly), and that now looks like a blatant contravention of the Sino-British treaty. It looks to me like the situation is heading towards one where even if a resident has a BNO passport (a kind of British passport) and could theoretically move to Britain, they may be prevented from leaving Hong Kong by the PRC authorities. |