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First, early post-handover, 1997, our timid, our insecure, our pusillanimous bureaucrats called on Beijing's National People's Congress to "interpret" laws for us. When they should have done so themselves.
Beijing clearly didn't want to do this. They wanted to show the world they were hands off. But our apparatchiks pressed and got what they wanted from Mummy China. Rulings — from Beijing — on things like whether babies born in Hong Kong to mainland mothers should be treated as locals. In short, we invited Beijing in. We let the nose of the camel into the tent.
Then widespread demos in 2014. Moves proposed, by our local government and approved by Beijing — to move us towards universal suffrage — real, if limited, moves — were rejected out of hand by our so-called "pan democrats", a loose coalition of pro-democracy activists from the plain-vanilla Left to the crazy Left. For them perfection was the enemy of action. They didn't get everything so they preferred nothing.
We, many of us, thought it most unwise (stupid, in fact): to reject moves forward, even if they were only limited. We could gain a beachhead and move on. But no, the pan-dem loonies had to have their extreme ways and rejected it all, out of hand.
Then, of course, the demos of 2019. These achieved their initial aims, the rejection of new extradition laws with China. Instead of resting on success, hotheads began demonstrating for independence for Hong Kong. Soon the demos became out-and-out riots, trashing our dear city. We saw all that with our own eyes. Burning subway stations, attacking mainland businesses, racist taunts at mainlanders. Horrid stuff.
That brought on the Nation Security Law, which is the main cause of the problems identified by Stephen Roach above.
On the plus side, Beijing's point man on Hong Kong, Xia Baolong has been in town and quoted as saying One Country Two Systems "will last forever". This is positive, given that it's otherwise due to expire in 2047. For day-to-day management by our own government and Common Law in our courts of law, 1C2S is key. To have a Senior Beijing official say so publicly is significant as he wouldn't say it without the most senior approvals in Beijing, including, I asssume, Xi Jinping. /Snip:
The one country, two systems principle was one of 10 things that made Hong Kong different from mainland Chinese cities, Xia told the representatives, according to one attendee who asked not to be identified. Other distinguishing features were the city’s legal system, stock market, number of international banks and proficiency in English, the official was quoted as saying.
ADDED: The comments are mostly negative.
Meantime, we hope that Roach's hope comes true: namely that he's wrong.
