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Comment by rkapsoro | Hacker News Reader

The only thing that can serve to enforce the Joint Declaration (and similar bi-lateral agreements between countries) is if the signatories uphold and maintain their expectations of the other.

For the last two decades, China has been testing for any response on the part of the British to encroachments on HK's autonomy. Britain has largely remained mum, failing to call out China on increasing violations of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.

Then things really accelerated with the premiership of Xi Jinping, and those tests have come thicker and faster.

While Britain doesn't necessarily have a large amount of leverage these days with its own problems going on, taking a principled stand on things in the public eye is not without its benefits.

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Taking a principled stand only goes so far. If they’re challenged on that stand and don’t end up following through, it would make perfectly clear that Britain has 0 leverage, which I guess is scary for the British Government. Even if that is the truth.

Offering residency to every Cantonese HKer is not exactly 0 leverage. The could unilaterally have offered any number of places over the years since 97 in response to the many Chinese actions. HK is no longer the star relative to the rest of the Chinese economy so the influence of that is now far less than it might have been in the early 00s.

Britain once had influence within the EU and chose to throw that away. They could have used that influence to try and get a stronger reaction from the EU to the many and repeated transgressions, of both the word and principle of the Sino British declaration.

It's really sad to see that the only one consistently speaking out against Chinese actions has been Chris Patten, the last Governor.

Yes, although practicality of identifying who that means might mean that we do something slightly short of that - we could grant broader rights of abode and to work in the UK to British National (Overseas) passport holders (which anyone resident in HK prior to 1997 was eligible for and very large numbers registered for) in the same way we did in the early 2000s for what are now called British Overseas Territories Citizens (citizens of the remaining UK colonies).

What would be the problem with granting permissive citizenship, or a path to citizenship to citizens of HK in the UK?

Is the fear one of demographic change? It seems somewhat perplexing to me why the UK would not want to accept these folks who are fluent in English, highly educated, familiar with British civic principles (which are similar to the HK Government) and would likely provide a nice boost to the UK economy as well.

It would probably have been a huge boost to the economy - HK was doing far better than UK plc at the time, and had been for years.

Personally (as a Brit old enough to remember the creation of BNO status in the mid 80s) I see it as something to be deeply ashamed of nationally. We should have let far more get residency than we did. The fears were a) petty racism (partly driven by the Daily Fail and Sun, partly within the Tory party - Tebbit and others) and b) unemployment. Which has always struck me as absurd - even at the time when I was more Tory sympathetic politically - given how popular and well integrated the Chinese community has always been in the UK. Tebbit has always been an Enoch Powell apologist so no surprise on his views.

The Thatcher Tory government was presiding over near 12% unemployment in the UK and in 84 it was round about the peak post-war rate. They'd been elected on a smallish majority in 79 with the major advertising campaign being "Labour isn't working" [1] criticising the 6% unemployed. A rate so low that we've basically never returned to that level in the decades since, other than a brief spell prior to 08 banking crisis, but I digress. At the time of the Hong Kong declaration they'd just been re-elected on a landslide off the back of the Falklands victory, so they could have let far more in if the political will within the party were there. The Tories clearly had no problem with high unemployment - it was their policies caused it.

Governments lately seem to believe or act as though it is nothing whatsoever to do with them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Isn't_Working

That's all very true - the context in the early 1980s was that the UK government had only changed UK citizenship law to fully exclude the remaining colonies from citizenship in 1981 (which became effective in 1983); Enoch Powell was still an MP (albeit for the UUP not the Conservatives) and Commonwealth/colonial immigration in general was still seen by a large number of people as a problem, often for racist reasons.

But I don't think that's the whole story. Once the UK had conceded that it would hand over Hong Kong, it was determined to use it in a positive way - hoping that China would see the success of Hong Kong and try to emulate it, by liberalising its economy, rather than moving Hong Kong towards the Chinese system. Deng Xiaoping was relatively newly in power and economic liberalisation in China was no longer unthinkable. In the context of the cold war, encouraging this was an important strategic imperative which it's easy to forget now.

There were very real (and arguably very justified) fears that granting UK citizenship automatically would have led to a huge brain drain effect which could have harmed Hong Kong and frustrated this objective.

Of course, by the 1990s the Cold War was over and none of this was relevant any more. The decision to only offer 50,000 people full UK citizenship then was indeed a huge mistake and something we should be ashamed of - unfortunately it didn't get wide publicity in the UK at the time the decision was made and I think people are still very unaware of it.

All true.

There seemed to be a distinct hierarchy to racism back then. That so many were in the NHS, running takeaways or corner shops undoubtedly helped soften the popular view for some nationalities.

You're right there was a hope, even expectation that China would eventually move somewhat into step with Hong Kong, as at the time it was so far ahead economically. I've always wondered how much of that was the public line rather than actual assessment within the Foreign Office or government. It seemed a little wishful when Communism still looked secure - before the wall fell, Eastern bloc nations were dropping like flies, and there were pro-democracy demos across China - which of course culminated in Tiananmen.

You're also right it mainly disappeared from view after the 97 handover ceremony, which is to be regretted.

> While Britain doesn't necessarily have a large amount of leverage

Sure it does. It could probably get a small coalition of American and possible European forces to facilitate an evacuation of the city for anyone who wants to leave, to Hong Kong, the U.K. or the United States. There is a lot of human capital in Hong Kong, capital that relies on competent government, fair courts and a government with a legitimate mandate.

This isn’t happening because domestic populations in the West aren’t wholly tuned into Hong Kong’s situation.

They have bigger problems now, like Brexit.

The UK has its own political turmoil it's dealing with. That said, it would be comical to see Boris Johnson trying to sell a no-deal Brexit AND a plan to bring in thousands of political refugees to Parliament.

> UK has its own political turmoil it's dealing with

To be clear, I don’t think anyone will intervene. But to say nobody has any leverage is wrong. There is leverage, it simply isn’t being deployed because Hong Kong isn’t a priority.

The US and UK both have extradition treaties with HK (partly why Snowden fled to Russia), so they wouldn't have any standing if they tried to insist that China shouldn't have one.

China has none is part of the arrangement since long time ago. Not many place with proper rule of law has extradition arrangement with china. Only case by case.

I definitely understand why HK SAR would have issues with an extradition treaty, I was just giving a reason in my above comment as to why the US or UK wouldn't intervene in this scenario.

I’m not sure why you’re downvoted. There’s immense financial and human capital in HK (due to low taxes and access to APAC), both relatively mobile. Europe absorbed millions of poor and unskilled Syrians. Half a million knowledge and highly skilled service workers from HK would be possible, even desirable for many countries.

> a small coalition of American and possible European forces to facilitate an evacuation

I've seen documents circulated by the US military where they basically said 'we aren't sure we'd win against 2018 China'.

That sort of activity is a pretty clear attack on China's sovereignty, and I suspect the CCP would agree regardless of other possible interpretations.

The UK could break diplomatic ties and stop trading with China, but they can't do anything involving 'forces'. It is a tragic step for Hong Kong, but end of the day it is Chinese territory and they will get their way on anything they insist on.

> I've seen documents circulated by the US military where they basically said 'we aren't sure we'd win against 2018 China'

This isn’t helpful without a source. China’s army is formidable. Its Navy, however, is relatively weak.

In any case, this would (intentionally) never become a military conflict. The stakes are too low for both sides. If it came to a fight, the most would be sanctions against CPC leadership under the Magnitsky Act.

> This isn’t helpful without a source.

US Military, either Army or Navy. I don't remember exactly what was written on the cover. The context may have been an invasion of the mainland.

Anyway, if they want to wait a couple of years and do all this again that will probably be an academic detail. They are almost certainly improving their navy so they can be more pushy in the South China Sea.

> The stakes are too low for both sides.

A foreign power swooping in and offering support to dissidents? When one of China's biggest strategic goals is enforcing unity among 1.4 billion people? China could very easily see the situation differently.

It would be similar to Russia organising a uniformed 'humanitarian convoy' with China and Iran, then trundled over to America to offer material support to separatist Texans or Californians. If there was a belief it might actually make a difference that action would provoke quite a response.

Although I doubt the UK or US are about to go to war with China, both have and do engage in 'sabre rattling' involving actual forces - eg deliberately sending aircraft carriers through disputed areas of the South China Sea.

This issue has been resolved over 30 years ago. The answer is no.

I was born in British Hong Kong. I had a British passport, one that is in a special category (BNO) that was issued to non-citizen. It does not allow residency in UK, or even guarantees the passport holder can enter UK at all. The issue of former colony subject coming to UK has been debated and settled. The answer is no.

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