10 ms·

The Sino-British Joint Declaration was a mistake. What did they think would happen? If not now then what about in 2047?! Were they hoping that was enough time t

• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• kiba 6y ago
  Mistake what? Risk a war with China?
• throwaway2048 6y ago
  Ultimately, the UK had absolutely zero chance at holding HK against the Chinese, HK was a tiny colony that could be seized basically instantly, and at the time decolonialization was still a global hotbutton issue. A few decades before negotiations began between China and the UK, India seized the Portuguese colony of Goa[1]. Nobody acted on behalf of the Portuguese. With the USA having just a few years beforehand suffered defeat in the Vietnam war, and extremely unlikely to have the public support for another land war in Asia, but this time against a vastly stronger opponent for a relatively much less important parcel of land, There is little reason to believe anyone would have, or could have seriously contested China seizing Hong Kong. Consider as well, during the Korean war, A China still badly crippled by World War 2 almost single handedly defeated an entire coalition of western powers, including a USA at the zenith of their conventional arms power. The declaration was an alternative to a military annexation of Hong Kong by the Chinese. The British probably acquiesced more than they had to, and didn't guarantee enough rights for Hong Kong citizens (especially the really lame part about not giving them a path to citizenship in the UK proper), but make no mistake, the alternative to the declaration wasn't Hong Kong remaining a part of the UK, it was Chinese invasion. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa
  • gruez 6y ago
    >Consider as well, during the Korean war, A China still badly crippled by World War 2 almost single handedly defeated an entire coalition of western powers, including a USA at the zenith of their conventional arms power. Isn't that because China got the drop on the western powers?
    • refurb 6y ago
      From what I've read it was mostly hubris. Intelligence knew of the build up of Chinese Troops at the Yellow River. China has also shared through diplomatic channels that if UN troops got with 300 miles (? can't remember the exact number), China would stop them. China did do a good job of attacking where the UN wasn't expecting as well.
    • throwaway2048 6y ago
      They would certainly get the drop on a tiny landmass like HK.
    • person_of_color 6y ago
      > got the drop on the western powers Meaning what exactly?
      • gruez 6y ago
        https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/get_the_drop_on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/get_the_drop_on
  • refurb 6y ago
    A China still badly crippled by World War 2 almost single handedly defeated an entire coalition of western powers I think the 1.5M North Korean who died might disagree that China "almost single handedly defeated the coalition". China paid a huge price for that war that ended in a stalemate. 200,000 dead and probably the same wounded/missing. That's ~12% of the Chinese military at the time. By contrast the US lost ~1M dead/wounded in WW2 out of a peak strength of 12M. Interesting, one reason why the US strategy in Vietnam was limited was the fear of China entering the war. Based on a few accounts I've read, China had zero intention of actually engaging in combat as they were still smarting from the Korean war.
• throwaway5575 6y ago
  During the 1967 protests in Hong Kong, the British killed enough protestors to quash it and pave the way for a new generation that accepted the situation. I wonder if that is the game plan China is following? They have given up on the current generation , and are now hoping the next generation will follow them?
  • FpUser 6y ago
    Do as I say, not as I do
  • throwaway1997 6y ago
    This is hidden whataboutism. The 1967 riots had gotten out of control and the rioters were killing people on a regular basis. This has not happened during the 2019-20 protests.
• eloff 6y ago
  There was no alternative really, China would have just seized HK by force. Jolly good show by the Brits to standby the people of Hong Kong though with this immigration offer. Politicians rarely do the right thing instead of the self-interested thing, but you have to hand it to Johnson's government on this one.
  • FpUser 6y ago
    >"Politicians rarely do the right thing instead of the self-interested thing, but you have to hand it to Johnson's government on this one." Not to worry, they'll still have a chance to turn it into Windrush Generation later on.
  • H8crilA 6y ago
    > Jolly good show by the Brits to standby the people of Hong Kong This is very much a long term, self-interest thing. Britain (just like any other developed country) heavily depends on immigration to not fall into Japanese-style deflation, since nobody wants to have kids any more. Hong-Kongers will probably make for some really good immigrants. That's what good business is like: win-win. The only downside is the possible retaliation by the CCP. And let's see if they actually let people leave HK en masse, or will they just lock all exits. And let's see how many people will actually want to go, even if you open all the doors for them. Whoever really wanted to leave has probably left quite a while ago.
  • rurounijones 6y ago
    > Jolly good show by the Brits to standby the people of Hong Kong Having a new source of immigration when you have just screwed yourself over in attracting European immigrantes due to Brexit is common sense rather than altruism.
    • thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > Having a new source of immigration when you have just screwed yourself over in attracting European immigrantes due to Brexit is common sense rather than altruism. Immigration is not actually something you need to have.
• IAmEveryone 6y ago
  They had no choice. Not due to military might (Gibraltar would be just as defenceless against Spanish invasion, and yet it doesn't happen). But simply because holding on to colonies became morally unsustainable. And the idea at the time was certainly that China would change in the five decades until unification. This was shortly after the end of the cold war, after all, which demonstrated that such change is possible, if not inevitable. Thinking may have changed on that point. But I wouldn't fully exclude the possibility that China 2047 is more democratic than it is today. Things remain the same, until suddenly they don't.
  • tim58 6y ago
    > This was shortly after the end of the cold war, after all, which demonstrated that such change is possible, if not inevitable. In 1997 most people wouldn't have thought it would be possible (or at least likely) for China to both be such a powerful country and be such an authoritarian country.
    • addicted 6y ago
      China also wouldn’t have taken this step if a certain other world power hadn’t gone AWOL the last few years. There’s a reason they decided to ratchet up the pressure on HK the last few years. They figured that in the worst case slapping a specific brand on a few hotels in a few major Chinese cities is a cheap price to pay.
      • tim58 6y ago
        > They figured that in the worst case slapping a specific brand on a few hotels in a few major Chinese cities is a cheap price to pay. Did they do that?
• vmception 6y ago
  The Sino-British Declaration is the only thing allowing UK to rationalize giving HKers this citizenship path Everything that has happened in HK so far conforms to the HK constitution as well as Beijing’s, whether it meets the spirit of the declaration or not
  • throwaway1997 6y ago
    The new National Security Law actually contradicts the Basic Law (our Constitution) in many ways but the NSA explicitly overrides the Basic Law.
• Renaud 6y ago
  Most people believe there was no choice. Most of the territory was on a lease that was expiring and would have legally returned to China in 1997, splitting the city in two. What the Brits should have done was to push reforms for democratic governance before they left. They could have allowed a fully democratic local government that would have survived the handover and been enshrined in the Basic Law. Instead, all promises of letting HK some democratic autonomy have been broken and stepped on, leading to the current situation. China didn't like this idea of introducing democratic reforms in HK before the handover but the Brits are still at fault. A colony is a dictature, the British had no interest in having any type of self-governance framework for HK. In the past 10 years -until the events of last year- there was little outspoken hate for China in HK. Most people were OK with the notion of being Chinese and part of China as long as their rights and freedoms were still honoured. China could/should have used HK as an experiment to show that its overall control didn't fear some level of local democratic process. Instead the CCP just showed the opposite: how fragile and fearful the it is of any potential dissent. [edit: spelling]
  • twblalock 6y ago
    They did make some effort, and some of what they put in place was dissolved fairly quickly. Ultimately, no matter what they did, reforms wouldn't have lasted.
  • bmn__ 6y ago
    > What the Brits should have done was to push reforms for democratic governance before they left. > the British had no interest in having any type of self-governance That is false. In the 1960s, the UK did want to introduce democratic reforms. > China didn't like this idea of introducing democratic reforms in HK That is the understatement of the year. The correct historic account is that the CCP threatened use of military force, so the UK reacted expediently by backing off.
• phs318u 6y ago
  > But the threat of draining HK is an interesting sort of pressure to put on China. I suspect that if the trickle shows any sign of becoming a significant exodus, a state of emergency will be called and all HK-ers passports will be cancelled, probably under the pretext of issuing new documents. While the US is shifting it's focus to the Asia Pacific region [0], that's probably hollow posturing. Even if the US had the willingness, what could they do on China's doorstep (beyond bluster) that wouldn't trigger a major military crisis? If Hong Kong is China's Anschluss, will Taiwan be its Poland? I sincerely doubt the current US administration has the diplomatic nouse to out-maneuver China here. The failure to check China is likely to send a shockwave around the world, signalling to allies the truth of what they already suspect - that is, that an increasingly withdrawn and internally focused US will not willingly elect to spend its blood and treasure defending anything but its immediate interests. In Australia, the government has signalled a huge (by our standards) increase in military spending in the next decade, as a consequence of this reality [1]. The times, they are a changin'. [0] https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Thousands-of-US-troops-will-shift-to-Asia-Pacific-to-guard-against-China https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Tho... [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-30/australia-unveils-10-year-defence-strategy/12408232 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-30/australia-unveils-10-...
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  aside from the fact that China was going to get Hong Kong one way or another I think there was a naive belief in the power of democracy infecting and changing the authoritarian government for the better. Which I suppose this naive belief is part of the fear that is causing the current situation.
• throwaway423342 6y ago
  Laws/Declarations etc is moot when Britain took HK as colony through weapon & war, after the 1840 opium war. Remember, the British tried to sell opium to China, the government at the time refused to take the shit the British merchants tried to sell to China, and the British was like you know what, I'll shove this down your throat. It's so weird when people talk about HK, they don't talk about how it all started, or as if they take colony and war as granted. Good thing China has nuclear these days : )
  • throwaway423342 6y ago
    All these is to say, I don't believe at all that Britain cares about democracy in HK. It's all virtue signaling and economic/political incentives.
  • throwaway423342 6y ago
    also, ready to be downvoted on HN, but just want to give people another perspective
  • Rapzid 6y ago
    Yeah, a lot has happened since 1840. Two world wars. During the second of which the British and the USA were allied with China against Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese war. After which of course Mao Zedong came into power and orchestrated the death of upwards of 45 million of his own countrymen through famine and murder. Great history lesson. I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the younger generations in HK suffering their freedoms, and perhaps human rights, being stripped away in 2020. Yeah, good thing China "has nuclear". /s