Quite.
"The best we can do for the people of Hong Kong is to make sure they remain a key part of this.”Meaning keeping the capitalist system, and, I add, maintaining the freedoms we currently enjoy. The rest, Trump and Pompeo, is virtue-signalling their own base, to our detriment here in Hong Kong.
Over to Lord Howell…
So we have a moral duty to protect the people of Hong Kong and guide them back to the golden world which existed before 1997 under British rule ('Let them come', 6 June)[Our duty to Hong Kong]?
Come off it. It is true that the hope behind the 1984 Joint Declaration was for HK to move gradually to stronger democratic forms, although under the direct authority of the government of the PRC, as it had been with the UK.
So we have a moral duty to protect the people of Hong Kong and guide them back to the golden world which existed before 1997 under British rule ('Let them come', 6 June)[Our duty to Hong Kong]?
Come off it. It is true that the hope behind the 1984 Joint Declaration was for HK to move gradually to stronger democratic forms, although under the direct authority of the government of the PRC, as it had been with the UK.
What has destabilised Hong Kong and alarmed Beijing is digital grass-roots empowerment — the same thing that half the world's governments are facing. In Hong Kong it appears in a particularly virulent form. The Chinese have their own way of trying to police it. Other countries have theirs; the Americans are not doing too well at present, nor are the French. Here the police do their best.
The vision of the 1984 Joint Declaration was of a laboratory of cooperation between two great powers. It would help keep Britain in the region as a major influence (and business partner) as the new Asia rose. It was thoroughly forward-looking in promising not to practise socialism within HK, and thoroughly pro-British with China's promise of 'mutual beneficial relations' with the UK. Now it has gone wrong, and unless we put down our megaphones and understand why, more will go very wrong — for Britain, for China and for Hong Kong itself. Clever handling could be a great opportunity for both nations.
Hong Kong was never going to make China more 'democratic', but it has certainly made it more capitalist. The best we can do for the people of Hong Kong is to make sure they remain a key part of this. Trump and Pompeo may have their own motives for wanting to throttle HK. But is it really in our interest — and is it our moral duty — to follow them?
David Howell (Lord Howell of Guildford)London SW7
David Howell (Lord Howell of Guildford)London SW7
