HONG KONG | China’s Lost Democracy? 

The recent convictions of 14 activists under new security laws in Hong Kong are seen as the final end of political freedom in the territory. But could the erosion of democracy have been stopped? Or was it always unrealistic to expect the “one country, two systems” to last for the full fifty years? And how do you think all this will affect Hong Kong? Will it make it more stable, as Beijing believes? Or will it undermine it, as critics argue? As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments below.

The biggest disappointment was Jackie Chan speaking against the protests

Closed Trials? Sounds like a kangaroo type of court proceeding. 💀💀💀

Hong Kong is such a relatively (compared to the late 90s) small portion of Chinese GDP that Beijing has seemingly decided the façade of democracy is no longer worth the economic benefit. Honestly this feels like a move I'd expect of any major power dealing with an internal region full of people ideologically opposed to its national government. China increasingly isn't required to appease foreign powers.

By reneging on its 50-year pledge of autonomy for Hong Kong, China pretty much shot itself in the foot in the long run. There is now absolutely no way that Taiwan would ever trust Beijing if the latter offered a similar agreement - if the PRC can't stand a democratic city under its authority, how will they ever allow an island with a thriving democracy? I find a peaceful conclusion to the One China policy to be less and less likely, I'm afraid.

I think the argument is wrong. Hong Kong’s democracy was never alive. Only in 1992 with HK’s last British governor, Chris Patten, there was a pathetic last minute rush to create a sort of democracy in the territory. For 150 years, Britain ruled by law, people had no saying in the way they were ruled. It has been the same in Singapore, just rule by law, not rule of law, no wonder the triad connected Lee family took over and democracy is a travesty there. Interesting now how HK has become similar to Singapore, the national security law is like Singapore’s Internal Security Act. It’s ironic that most of the activists in HK can trace their roots to the 1960s Chinese Leftish anti-British groups, who were pro-Beijing

So Chinese gained the land, the UK gained the population who fled from the land, the US gained Taiwanese favour over PRC, and Singaporeans gained attractiveness as the financial hub of the region. For now, it seems that everyone has their own gain. So, is it good?

The irony of Hong Kong when in the 1960s citizens were wanting to have British gone and then in the 2010s they wanted them back

Democracy in HK? When the UK was colonising Hong Kong, there were no elections and the Governor was appointed from a foreign country. It must be difficult for them to let go .... so called democratic sovereign countries have their own subversion laws to ensure peace for the majority. Countries around the world does not have to adopt the same forms of governance from the West, which has a relative short history.

Great video, and a very important topic. I think allowing China to remove Hong Kong from the UN list of non self governing territories was a moral failure, and what's happened since then just follows on from that. It's really tragic - HK has been such a vibrant, exciting and free place for so long. 😢

I'll come back to this once i can get to a place where i can actually watch this in peace, but having living roots from there, I will say this: The PRC government lives to paint nationalism over everything, but the truth is, everyone is wary of the government. You hear about this getting painted over as an ethnic or cultural thing, that they want independence... Few wants actual independence, but with the way things are going, would you blame them? Nationalism is not a reason to be an a-hole. People haven't forgotten where they came from. They know they're Chinese. Otherwise, HK and Taiwan would not be the buddies that they are. There's just no trust in the government.

Yes it is going to decline until 2047 when it is officially reintegrated into the PRC.

A defeated colour revolution Btw HK was never a democracy under UK it became democracy under Chinese rule

It really is fascinating how bad Chinese foreign policy has been since Xi took over. Up till the 2010s, China had, largely through it's inaction, convinced the world that it would be "a responsible stakeholder in the international system" and had made no major moves that signaled an aggressive foreign policy. The West, with the exception of the US, had largely disarmed, people were seeing NATO as "braindead" and there were larger movements in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines to kick out the US presence. But just in a couple years with their actions in the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Covid crackdowns, spats with India, and Wolf Warrior Diplomacy, China squandered all the geopolitical goodwill it had built up for basically nothing in return. If they'd just waited two more decades, they would've gotten Hong Kong back and could implement all these same laws and nobody would bat an eye since it was within the purview of the agreement.

Why is the west so “weak”? More than half of global gdp, basically the only markets in the world that matter to countries that want to pursue China style economic growth, etc. It just seems like we’re unable to stand up for ourselves when our ideals are under attack. Whenever someone hits us we rarely hit back, we might send a strongly worded letter though. Why are we never proportional?

I feel bad for all the people that built lives there during the british lease.

There was NEVER any " democracy " in HongKong lol

My take is that the protests were actually supported by Beijing. Specifically after they attacked the legislature building

Poignant upload on the week marking 25 years since the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Professor! I only hope that the US, Europe in its constituent nations and collectively, and mainland China listen in earnest to the wishes of the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan as events develop in the region.

We must also consider a few things: 1) while not something that occupies the minds of the common person on a day to day basis, the very existence of Hong Kong is a living relic of the Century of Humiliation, this cannot stand in the eyes of any legitimate Chinese government. Had it been the KMT ruling the Mainland through the ROC, the idea would have been the same, HK must be reintegrated. 2) HK was not much of a democracy in the first place. Under the British it was governed as a crown colony like SG, with a legislative council whose electorate was limited to the landowners; it would only be made more democratic to counter the desire of a mainland government to decolonise HK, culminating in the limited democracy that exists during the handover; even now there exists “functional constituencies” that really puts to doubt if HK had a real democracy. 3) The entire basis for the city’s autonomy is based on a handover agreement with a colonial power, the very idea that a native government has to adhere to such promises is silly, but I suppose CFA is proof that colonialism is more alive and well than one might expect. 4) Anyone who has supported the violent rioters who flooded the streets with their homemade caltrops, and set people alight, have done well to leave. No one wants to leave in constant fear of a higher authority, but neither do they want extended chaos and siege in their homes.

Thanks James for sacrificing your ability to visit Hong Kong or mainland China (safely) so others can understand the true nature of the CCP.

Now the mainlanders even have greater degree of freedom than HKer lol

Small bit of background. The mess started with an educational reformation. As an attempting to be more aligned with China, Hong Kong added civil education to the school curriculum, which was widely unpopular. To make things worse, Hong Kong used to be like the British system with 7 years of high school. In order to realign with China’s 6 year high school system, Hong Kong government simply picked one year and merged all the year 6 and 7 students into one, doubling the number of graduates for that year. Now you end up with a sizable number of youths facing heavy competition, unemployment, politically motivated, and holding strong resentment towards the government. Adding poor economy to the mix, what could have gone wrong? A sizable chunk of Hong Kong’s well educated and skilled population emigrated prior to the hand over. The mass protests resulted in two more waves of emigration. For a “city state” like Hong Kong, human capital is all it has. Whatever the ideology is, Hong Kong has lost its competitive edge and most likely, won’t get too far.

It's definitely not the end of HK's democracy, as it was never a democracy to begin with. However, we can quite sure this marks the end of civil liberty in Hong Kong.

Let's not be mock shocked here. This was a foregone conclusion at hand off.

Pains me to see my home city on this channel. Thanks for the video Professor and bringing attention to your audience 🙏🏻

Is thé UK and Canadq Göring to have to take thousands or millions when China assumes complète control?

You know what Authoritarian leadership and similar forms of government are afraid of - freedom.

I thought the brits never gave HK a democracy

yes. finished and broken. since day one.

Thanks Prof 👍🏻🇦🇺👍🏻

Pretty much yeah

Hong kong was never really a "democratic" territory! Also what did they think would happen in 2047!?

Is it not inevitable though? the 50 year transition seems to benefit Hong Kong's ruling elite coordination efforts to remain relevant once its done. They (HK ruling elite) must be satiated and don't care whether the SAR status is cut short.

James, a great topic again to have on the podcast. We all could write dissertations & books on all the wrong things that have happened between the CCP & Hong Kong, but the summation you provided covered all the salient points in an excellent fashion. Bottom line is that the CCP has shown its true intent in not adhering to international agreements it has made. It seems the international community willing engages in a form of "Kabuki Theater Diplomacy" where the reality of the PRC actions will be ignored so international diplomats can pat themselves on the back for accomplishing an agreement which the PRC never had an intention to follow. To me, the PRC is a "Con Artist" state, and efforts to engage positively with them will not be productive. Western liberal nations' engagment with the PRC betrays classical liberal values, which ultimately undermine our own societies in the West. History proves that diplomatically placating both Nazi Germany & Imperial Japan gave the world the most devastating conflict in history, and the confluence of politics now is deeply troubling & frightening. The foolish concept by Western liberal democracies that problems with the CCP could be diplomatically "managed" was and is a fantasy that only makes the PRC more bold. Bottom line again is that Hong Kong is sadly lost, and protecting, as well as defending, liberal democratic values must be paramount in all economic & political decisions made by policy makers in the collective West. Thanks for this topic. Highlighting the events in Hong Kong is helpful and should remind all of us that we must guard our liberal values from illiberal influences.

And No... the CCP is not the Qing Dynasty, and has and had no authority over the Agreement.

it is alarming that this kind of phenomenon is happening in the entire west, except people are now revolting against it. i have been of the belief that the end of Hong Kong's Democracy is an important experiment for the western government of how they can do the same on all other countries.

During the protest, pre-pandemic, I was in touch with some of my HK friends, who, without exception were in support of the protest. I actually told them that the protest was meaningless and that they would be lucky if China did not send in the tanks into HK like they did during Tianamen. They were actually not that well briefed about how the Basic Law and how the Handover came about. I had followed the negotiations for the Handover and Basic Law in the early 1980s in the UK when Thatcher was negotiating it with Deng. Simply put, the Chinese thought that they were getting back HK in the same format that was existing during the negotiations, which was direct rule by way of an appointed leader. At that time, HK was ruled by a Governor General appointed by the UK. However, after the treaty was done and signed off, the UK government suddenly decided to set up a HK democratic legislative assembly to elect HK's leader, in essence handing over a poison pill to China. Of course China was furious about it but could not do anything as the treaty allowed UK to do that. Many commentators in UK at that time lambasted Thatcher's government for the pure hypocrisy of the move. As they rightly pointed out, HK had never ever had any democratic rights and any attempts to do so had being firmly quashed by the British as seditious during their rule! The British used the same sedition law that they had introduced into Malaysia and Singapore, and which long after their independence from the UK, continued to be use by both the Malaysian and Singaporean governments against their political opponents. Suddenly, after signing off the treaty with China and years of suppressing any democracy movement in HK, the British government decided to introduce democratic elections for HK's leadership, which was not what China had expected! In essence, the British had shafted China, again! HK was given to Britain as a result of the two Opium Wars where the British had fought China to continue to be state sponsors in pushing opium into China. Read that shameful history of Britain's Opium Wars where it became the only country in history which became state Opium pusher. I told my HK friends that did they expect UK or US to invade or challenge China militarily? Like they did in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq? Those were minor countries with very weak military and financial clout. Which was not the case with China. www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/30/the-hong-kong-unofficials-who-advised-britain-on-the-handover-and-were-ignored "When the decision to relinquish Hong Kong in 1997 was finally announced on 20 April 1984, ironically it brought a sense of liberation to the advisers. Emboldened, a nine-member delegation - led by Chung - went to London to try to exert pressure on the government. But London was prepared. The press were briefed against them before their arrival and described their statement as “militant”. Their crucial questions to their colonial masters were: what would happen if China breached the Sino-British joint declaration? Would residents of Hong Kong be able to cast their vote on the joint declaration? If so, how? It was a controversial visit at home, too. Pro-Beijing newspapers accused the delegation of “spreading gloom in Hong Kong”, despite Hong Kong’s stock exchange index having already fallen by 200 points since the 20 April announcement. “We are here to try to reflect the Hong Kong people’s aspirations,” said Selina Chow, a member of the delegation, as reported by the Guardian on 13 May 1984. “We are asking the British government: ‘How are you going to fulfil your obligations to me? How are you going to protect me against these doubts?’” But before they received any answer from London, they were dismissed - including by their former boss, MacLehose, who by now had been given a life peerage. To Chung, it was unforgivable. “I shall never forget the words of the MPs who criticised us, saying that the unofficial members of the two councils were not elected so how could they represent Hong Kong? … I said to them: ‘How can you claim that you can negotiate for us? You have no mandate from us either; I never elected you,’” he later recalled to Tsang." As I kept reminding my HK friends during the protests, the Handover was negotiated by an Imperialist Conqueror and Colonist, which was never elected by HK! And who negotiated not what was in the best interest of HK but in the best interest of the UK. However, conveniently, both the HK younger generation and British commentators conveniently glossed over that!

Джеймс вначале со своей страной разберитесь, ось зла...

I think only mentioning the number of Hong Kongers that moved to the UK is a poor way to represent the exodus out of Hong Kong. The Hong Kongers I personally know are willing to move to any developed country to get out of HK if they can find work there. I think the statistic of emigration from HK would be more useful.

Obviously. At least the real money left 5 years ago !

I’m amazed how fast HK became like Singapore, same dullness, materialism, Han supremacy, racism and xenophobia where young people don’t have any children. Where anyone critical of the PAP gets sued to the last penny or worse, where the government is basically a family business

You can choose your own leader to manage the budget, but not the foreign affairs, military, or separatism.

Democracy has already been buried in an unmarked grave.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="375">6:15</a> This is sad... That moment was the end of Hong Kong.

Professor James should do a video on Euro 2024 tournament later this year. 🇪🇺

If China had simply more or less kept the One Country Two Systems idea alive the entire Taiwan situation would be very different today.

The short answer is Yes

"The Peoples Republic" did not replace Taiwan in the UN It replaced the ROC. Taiwan has never had a seat in Turtle Bay

Attempting to address China in good faith is just poor politics.

This video was very informative! Good stuff. As a Hongkonger though, I find your focus on the 2012 elections to be a bit strange? The drop in the pro-democracy vote was entirely due to a split in the movement over the Democratic Party's support of the government's 2010 electoral reform proposal. Also, far more than 10% of Hong Kong's population is foreign born. Many ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong were born in western countries, or southeast Asia.

I hope not, but probably.

This was always the CCP's plan, and it was actually a pretty ingenious one. They made the "one-country, two-systems" deal to prevent a civil war from happening in 1997, but it's set to expire after 50 years. "But isn't that just kicking the can down the road and postponing the civil war till 2047?" Not necessarily, because the plan was always to erode and subtract Hong Kong's freedoms little by little over these intervening 50 years, so when the "one-country, two-systems" deal expires in 2047, the transition to full CCP rule will be seamless. Hong Kong on Jan. 1, 2047, will be no different from what it was on Dec. 31, 2046. The "transition" will have already been made, it will just have been made slowly and gradually instead of immediately and shockingly. Thus greatly reducing the likelihood of a civil war.

I see a bunch of Britten's crying here. Nothing lasts forever! Nor Britten neither China can be trusted.

interesting to watch this as a hongkonger, although i'm watching this from vilnius lithuania :) and while i will go back to finish my university degree, i do think i will join the hundreds of thousands of hongkongers to leave hk and emigrate elsewhere after the fact. being in my early 20s, i've lived through both the 2014 and 2019-20 protests. didn't take part myself, but i did see them with my very own eyes on democracy though, my family has not once voted in legco (legislative council) elections, because we really dont think it makes a difference either way. another commenter i think puts it very well, in that there never really was "proper" democracy in hk, certainly not under the british. i dont really read local news either, so this video was genuinely the first time i learned that article 23 was passed either way, its a bit of a shame that i couldn't stay in my city of birth for longer, but sociopolitical participation really does feel useless, more so now than ever. not to mention i already have several friends that i've made in the past few months alone in europe, and my interests really do lie here in europe i think. and since i never really actively participated in civil society in hk, i dont think its a great loss to myself or hk to just up and go. don't get me wrong, i am politically active and i very much have strong opinions on certain political matters - hell i just attended vilnius pride a few days ago - but i just feel like trying to advocate for or against them in hk is about as effective as trying to fill a bathtub using a chopstick. and living in a family where half of us are pro-china, it does provide me with a more nuanced perspective than what many western media might portray and i think that's definitely a good thing in general. and here's the thing: i have known some of my classmates who took part in protests, went to study in the uk, but then came back because they realized the uk wasn't the utopia they were expecting. not to claim supremacy over these people, but i think younger post-handover generations amongst ourselves definitely put the british in too high of an esteem, because they didn't know things weren't necessarily hunky-dory to say the least pre-1997 do i have an answer to all of this? no. my solution of moving to europe sounds cowardly to some westerners i'm sure, but sometimes when you feel powerless to deal with something, it may be best to just walk away

Not true. Very one sided view

Democracy and freedom of speech are lovely. However, did anyone really expect the CCP to not act like the CCP? Wake up. I met many activists in Hong Kong in 2019. So much tear gas! 加

All clashes are foreseeable, the British Hong Kong left the liberal society, freedom of speech but no true democracy, it clash with the authoritarianism, so it just demonstrates both ideology can’t be co-existed in such a intensive city.

Too young to be born to see the fall of Saigon but old enough to see the fall of Hong Kong

When British Colonialism is better than returning the land to its rightful owner

Professor, in your mind, what does the "1 country" part of the equation mean? It seems that most westerners ignore the 1 country part and cherry pick the Basic Law so that HK will continue to be Western-dominated and any Chinese influence kept out. I see from some of your comments that you are sympathetic to HK independence. As if HK should have been given "self-rule" designation by the UN despite the fact that HK was unambiguously part of China before the Brits took it by force. A disgraceful chapter in British colonial history. Yet, if it were up to you, you'd have HK permanently separated from the rest of China. What precedent would this set? Western countries could go take small bites out of bigger countries, then claim they should become "independent" once western colonial rule ends. This would find no support in the global south. And it's no wonder the West is losing the battle of global opinion with these kinds of positions. All this whilst supporting atrocities in Gaza (not you personally, but your government and that of the US), which is tantamount to violent Israeli conquest of Palestinian land. Then you turn around and tacitly support HK and Taiwan independence from China. There's no basis for these positions in the international community. There's consensus for a 2 state solution. Likewise there's consensus for HK, Taiwan, Macau, Tibet, Xinjiang etc being Chinese territory. But here you are, scratching away at the margins of Chinese sovereignty and standing back whilst Israel wholesale conquers more Palestinian land. But what can you do about Palestine... I know that will be your response. The truth is that Britain and the US have allowed this situation to unfold. Hey, freedom and democracy right? Slogans over substance.

Please bring up Macau. Macau is even sadder than Hong Kong and no one speaks for Macau like no one has forgotten Macau's existence and it's issues with communist China. Speaking of Chinese, Chinese is not a race or a one monolithic race. The Cantonese, the Southerners clearly don't live well with other ethnics of " Chinese" like the north - the Pekingese . So don't blend the "Chinese" together. There are significant differences in terms of culture, tradition, heritage, language, custom and ways of doing things. Therefore, I find the word "Chinese" is a very ambitious term. Very often, the "Chinese" themselves or people not of that part of the world don't exactly what the " Chinese" is all about.

You should talk about Macau and it's differences to Hong Kong. I know it's very pro-China, because of the economy.

Le système totalitaire chinois a contraint de nombreuses personnes à quitter Hong Kong. Et en Europe occidentale, nous le comprenons !!☹☹☹

I thought hk was digested already

I believe the distance between Hong Kong and Britain should be far enough for UK to mind their business, and let the Chinese on either side of the divide to settle their differences, I don't really know western countries can't mind their business.

What broken promise has been broken? Has the author read the Basic Law? The mainland has been adhering to the Basic Law quite well. It has been Hong Kong that has regened on enacting Article 23. Hong Kong remains highly autonomous. The West should read more and presume less.

The national security law in HK is far less harsh than the one in the UK and ,of course,HK was swarmed with "Special Branch" officers when it was a colony and these officers would arrest anyone deemed a threat to the British including those who were against China as the British didn't want to offend them.Also international surveys ranked HK judiciary and press freedoms even higher than in the UK.So check your facts and be fair,Professor. Don't make a fool of yourself!

Was there democracy in Hong Kong during the British colonial period before the decision was made to return it to China?

Great work

Bbrp dari tim tiongkok, masih keluarga ku kok, tdk ada perpisahan antara keluarga, bisnis, dan edukasi,,

It's about time to acknowledge the superiority of the Chinese system. China has freedom from violence, America has freedom for violence. We have created a political system that polarizes the public. In no other aspect of our lives do we declare our intent to address challenges and pursue objectives by forming rival teams with the aim to destroy the others. It's an absurd proposition. It is a dumb way to try to run a government.

As an African my perspective is as follows. The British took Hong Kong by force using guns and gun boats. In 1997 - the British imposed conditions on returning a piece of property it illegally obtained, why should China abide by conditions of an agreement obtained via coercion. Keep in mind that a limited form of democracy was only introduced to Hong Kong in 1985 before that all officials were appointed by the British.

Expecting freedoms under a communist system is perhaps not the best approach. We should have considered such realities in 1984. Considering the backlash against the Gaza conflict and the mass murder by the Israeli forces, perhaps we ourselves need to look within as well.

Seems to me to be inevitable and appropriate that HK progressively align political systems and institutions with China. Is that such a bad thing, anyway? Though some aspects of China’s system and behaviour seem reprehensible (or at least we are being relentlessly taught that), there seems to be much to admire in their economic growth, technological progress, huge reduction of poverty, relative non-belligerence, long term strategic planning and apparent leadership integrity (versus Trump, Johnson, Sarcozi, Berlusconi for example). I fear we are being taught to fear and hate them in order to justify another war that will be cloaked in morality but driven by self-interest, like the Opium Wars of the past. 🤷‍♂️

Yeah, democracy is done in Hong Kong. That was the inevitable outcome, it's naive to think otherwise.

It was terribly naive to think the CCP was ever going to maintain the original status of Hong Kong. Was never going to happen.

British colonisation has no moral say in HK since they gain the territory in very wrong way: drug trade. Democracy is an awful excuse hiding the bitterness of losing the territory

While this episode has explained the history and changes over time in Hong Kong clearly and accurately, it needs to be put in a much broader picture of international context. First of all, if given a choice, maintaining Hong Kong as a perpetual crown colony under British rule probably is much preferred. Since that did not happen, it is necessary to live with its consequences. It needs to recognize that one country two systems is not absolute. It has limits in that maintaining two systems cannot undermine the one country. Open, democratic societies are often subjected to foreign influence and interference. Hong Kong is particularly vulnerable in this regard under Chinese rule, especially with China - US global competition as backdrop. This is something that cannot be foreseen in 1980-s when UK and Chinese negotiated the transfer of sovereignty. Talking Chinese government does not keep its promises overly simplifies the issue.

Hong Kong has never been a democracy and the passing of the national security law was a stipulation laid out in the China/UK agreement. While I understand that many people in the territory may be disappointed with the current political climate HK still enjoys much more freedoms than anywhere on the mainland. People always seem to forget the 'one country' part of the deal because at the end of the day HK is indeed just another Chinese city albeit one with a special set of circumstances. My perfectly democratic country would not have tolerated open rebellion in one of its regions so I'm not sure why we expected the Chinese government (which has never pretended to be anything resembling democratic) to do so.

Why you don't mention that the Qing Dynasty Collapsed...which means the 100 year time frame ended and the Territory became the U.K.s.

Kalian orang barat terlalu banyak ikut campur urusan negara lain.. Padahal negara sendiri kacau.

I don't understand why would anybody would think it will be any different. So let assume the 50 years commitment for one country two systems, would stay, then after these 50 years what? Hoping PRC will magically become democratic?

I am a Hong Kong native, and unfortunately, by the way things are going, is a resounding yes

Didn't we know this already? Oh yeah, just ask Lebron James.

En nou. Taywan

No they don’t

Why would anyone think it would end up any other way? The part that the west ALWAYS gets wrong about asia is this. They play the long game and in the short term they will put up with things, but in the end they get thing the way they want them.

Correct conclusion

Déjà fini on Europe marqué démocratie dictature parce que démocratie c’est dire comme c’est la pension unique donc automatiquement. Si tu penses pas comme eux t’es victime de dictature j’aurais pas la différence entre la démocratie et la dictature.

How many international laws/agreements does Britain honor?

Democracy is just beginning in HK.

Why is China's national security law controversial but (western) democracy is not? Does the collective west represent the world? Western democracy is something consensus of the whole human being? Personally, I don't find having to vote between a stupid and crazy then complain for four years with nothing useful getting done particularly attractive.

An insightful report but it is one sided and lacks objectivity. In a democracy, the freedom to assemble and protest should be a fundamental right. But we also saw massive protests, large scale violence, lawlessness, destruction of personal and public property, and attacks by some of the protesters on others causing injury and death. These unlawful behavior were considered justified by some foreign governments as seen in Media reports. In conclusion, this report does not spell out the alleged crimes for which various people were convicted.

Professor KerLindsay calls COLONIAL RULE "democracy"? Wow.

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I still don't get why the global community didn't immediately just say 'there are two Chinas at the world stage now'... of sorts. I mean calling one Taiwan & the other the People's Republic of China would have seemed the most reasonable if they wished. If the P.R.C. couldn't agree with those concepts formally (maybe Taiwan didn't instead), then they just wouldn't be recognised.

a lot of Hong Kong TV shows and movies made back in 80s 90s has become "sensitive" these days. Ironic isn't it, HK enjoy more freedom during the British colonial days.

Hong Kong is a great example of why your Falklands condominium agreement is a bad idea

So according to your logic, Kong Kong being a colony of the UK is democracy? Got it. 😅