There is a real notion of a nation's ownership right in Western thought. It's called the Westphalian nation-state, and dates back to times of the Protestant Ref

There is a real notion of a nation's ownership right in Western thought. It's called the Westphalian nation-state, and dates back to times of the Protestant Reformation and bitter international warfare. The idea is that peace is better than everyone killing each other over religion, even if this means abandoning the people next door to some measure of religious repression at the hands of a different sect of Christianity. However, it would be a mistake to think of the Hong Kong matter in this way. To quote the Beijing party line, "Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy has made innovations on and transcended the traditional Western theories of international relations for the past 300 years" (i.e. back to the Treaty of Westphalia). Instead, Xi Jinping thought revives tianxia, the mandate of heaven, and envisions total world domination in a heirarchical system under Chinese rule. "The Chinese have always held that the world is united and all under heaven are one family," Xi told us in his 2017 New Year's message. Thus, even as China increasingly meddles with other nations' affairs to effect its strategy of world domination, it is naturally unconscionable for other nations to interfere with theirs or attempt containment. It is against this framework that we should consider the matter of Hong Kong.