> which should still be under partial UK control and therefore an attractive entry for foreign investment.
As a brit, much as my colonial arse would love this to be true, the lease expired and Britain never had any real control over HK post handover. The only power we had was economic, and we've well and truly fucked that. the UK of the 80/90s is not the UK of today. For better or worse.
> This blueprint would be elaborated on in the Hong Kong Basic Law (the post-handover regional constitution) and the central government's policies for the territory were to remain unchanged for a period of 50 years after 1997.
We should have simply never have handed it back over to China and allowed Hong Kong to remain independent. From what I understand, it was some compromise that involved the Royal Family.
> As a brit, much as my colonial arse would love this to be true [..]
I'm not going to paint a picture that British colonisation was all good, but some Countries had it better. In recent times the people of Hong Kong and Burma (Myanmar) have begged for British intervention.
> [..] the UK of the 80/90s is not the UK of today. For better or worse.
I would love to disagree with you, but I can't. I suspect most Countries are in precisely the same place, where the average person feels as though things have gotten worse.
I think the way to solve it would be to take a near-term economic down-turn and solve our fundamental issues: the interest on debt alone is astronomical, local governments need cleaning up (if only people knew the half of how corrupt they are), large investment into local security (military, NHS, energy, food, manufacturing), etc, etc. The next 20-40 years would be miserable but we would emerge strong.
point one is correct, there is theoretically a mechanism to make sure that HK is democratic. The problem is there is democratic, and "democratic". What china is doing is within the terms of the agreement.
However it's a lease, not freehold. a lease reverts to its original owner. There was no practical or legal way to make HK independent.
As a brit, much as my colonial arse would love this to be true, the lease expired and Britain never had any real control over HK post handover. The only power we had was economic, and we've well and truly fucked that. the UK of the 80/90s is not the UK of today. For better or worse.