> While of course the UK is responsible for policing the handover agreement, it's been too busy staring down its own irrelevance while nursing the self-inflicte

> While of course the UK is responsible for policing the handover agreement, it's been too busy staring down its own irrelevance while nursing the self-inflicted gaping wound of Brexit. I tip my hat to Beijing, they sure did know when to strike. > It'll be very interesting to see if the UK goes through with it's offer to provide a path to citizenship for 3 million HK'ers. Frankly, it's the least they could do. Just so that we're all on the same page: https://www.scmp.com/article/48108/thatcher-reveals-dengs-threat-seize-hong-kong-day https://www.scmp.com/article/48108/thatcher-reveals-dengs-th... > DENG Xiaoping threatened China could seize Hong Kong in a day, former British prime minister Lady Thatcher has revealed. The threat by the Chinese patriarch was contained in his famous warning that Beijing might take back the territory before 1997 at their September 1982 meeting in the Great Hall of the People, Lady Thatcher says in her memoirs, The Downing Street Years, to be published tomorrow. The threat is being used to try to block Governor Chris Patten's moves towards greater democracy in Hong Kong. ''He said that the Chinese could walk in and take Hong Kong back later today if they wanted to,'' says Lady Thatcher. ''I retorted that they could indeed do so; I could not stop them. But this would bring about Hong Kong's collapse. The world would then see what followed a change from British to Chinese rule.''