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Britain had the chance to liberalize Hong Kong before the handover negotiations even began. You can thank Murray MacLehose for the mess they're in now. https:/

Britain had the chance to liberalize Hong Kong before the handover negotiations even began. You can thank Murray MacLehose for the mess they're in now. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2025/06/13/the-empires-last-abdication-how-britain-failed-hong-kongs-democracy/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2025/06/13/the-empires-last-ab...

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> Britain had the chance to liberalize Hong Kong before the handover How would it have made a difference when the Chinese military invaded?
nine_k 10mo ago
UK offered a rather simple pathway to immigrating to the UK for most Hong Kong residents [1]. But the choice between the stagnant UK and the booming mainland China was not obvious for everyone in late the 1990s, when China seemed to be democratizing more and more (despite the Tiananmen massacre), and growing richer by the day. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_(Overseas) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_(Overseas)
- z2 10mo ago
  It was a far cry from the full Portuguese citizenship offered for Macau, both in the latter's lack of conditions on acquisition (beyond being over age 15 at the handover), and in passing it on to descendants. https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Portugal-give-full-citizenship-to-Macau-residents-born-pre-1984-but-the-British-did-not-do-the-same-to-Hong-Kong-residents https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Portugal-give-full-citizenship...
- btilly 10mo ago
  They had multiple pathways. The top three destinations were Canada, the USA, and Australia. These locations offered a major benefit over the UK - they were on trade routes along which people from Hong Kong were already doing business. Canada was particularly affected. It absorbed the most immigrants, they were a larger share of the population, and this was a major increase in ethnic diversity. The resulting cultural clashes were sometimes an issue. Here is one that literally doubled car insurance rates in British Columbia around the time I left. Three cars, 2 in front with the left-hand car being driven by a Canadian, and the back car driven by a recent immigrant. The immigrant sees the opportunity to pass, swings out into oncoming traffic, and guns it. Leaving just a few inches of room. Normal Hong Kong driving. The Canadian has no idea that this is happening until OMG I'M ABOUT TO BE HIT! The Canadian then swerves right to avoid the emergency, and hits the car on the right. The immigrant drives off. Presumably wondering about these crazy Canadians who don't know how to drive. Everyone involved behaved reasonably for how they were used to driving. But the combination worked out very poorly...
  - phainopepla2 10mo ago
    I would argue that the immigrant behaving reasonably "for how they were used to driving" is itself unreasonable. When you move to foreign country you have to adjust some things about your behavior. Driving behaviors and anything else with such a strong public safety component should be the most obvious thing to adjust for an adult, without needing to be told.
    - btilly 10mo ago
      Question, have you been an immigrant? Do you know any immigrants? When you immigrate into a country, all of a sudden all of your reflexes are wrong. Some are obviously wrong. Some are more subtle. It is overwhelming, and too much. While in retrospect it is easy to say that they should prioritize some things over others, in practice they tend to learn from experience after people respond badly, and those who are a little more used to the culture explain why they are wrong. And the experience of being told that they are wrong all of the time will make many hold on to some of their old habits extremely strongly. Don't criticize how slowly immigrants adapt to a new country, until you've been an immigrant in a foreign culture.
      - testrun 10mo ago
        I was an immigrant to a new country. I made an effort to learn the new rules. The immigrant adapts, not the country.
      - fogj094j0923j4 10mo ago
        As an immigrant myself, this criticism on driving is valid. What you said should apply to more social contextes like table, public manners.
      - sersi 10mo ago
        As an immigrant (I immigrated to Hong Kong)，I disagree when It comes to road safety. I believe that it's the responsibility of every driver to learn the differences when driving and until then practice safe defensive driving. I agree with you that it takes a while to adapt to new sociale mores and it's worth cutting immigrants some slack but that's different from driving a multi-ton heap of metal where safety is important. Sidenote: Of the different cities I've lived in Asia, HK drivers are some of the worst. Combination of aggressive driving with refusal to signal their attention (by using their turn signal) makes for very poor driving. Not everyone but a significant percentage.
- cherryteastain 10mo ago
  BN(O) is/was not a simple pathway to UK residence. As the wikipedia article says > BN(O)s are British nationals and Commonwealth citizens, but not British citizens. They are subject to immigration controls when entering the United Kingdom and do not have automatic right of abode there Things were different before the 1981 British Nationality Act but it's not too relevant for HK as the 1981 act is before the Sino British Declaration.
maxglute 10mo ago
TBH UK never had the chance because PRC saw through their games. TLDR UK wanted to maintain influence post handover for their investments, but like most other colonies on the fading empire they had no leverage, i.e. negotiate to turn HK into self administered territory (like Singapore)... along with UN decolonization rules meant engineering pathway for HK independence. PRC keked and said fuck off and promptly removed HK from UN list of non-self governing territories. There's a reason UK/Patton had to jam in HK liberalisation efforts last minute to increase UK influence post handover and not before... because if they did it before, i.e. pre 90s there would be so much anti colonial and pro CCP sympathies that political freedom in HK could be contrary to British interests. HK was just another Suez, symptom of UK weakness, not any one man.
cm2187 10mo ago
I know that attributing to western countries the responsability for any bad thing happening in this world is a common reflex, but we are 30 years after the handover, 40 years after the negotiation, so surely China bears some if not pretty much all the responsibility here. And it's not like the UK had much of a choice in the first place. China threatened to invade and there is very little the UK could have done to prevent a full control. Worth also remembering that "one country, two systems" came with an expiration date that is rapidly approaching anyway.
- p_j_w 10mo ago
  > I know that attributing to western countries the responsability for any bad thing happening in this world is a common reflex You can’t gloat that the sun never sets on your empire and then absolve yourself from responsibility for events that you had a heavy hand in influencing. Regardless, if you think the article is wrong, your point would he better served by providing examples of where it’s wrong and stating why.
  - dangus 10mo ago
    How many years does it take for that influence to expire? In 40 years many/most of the people involved in the old system aren’t even alive anymore. That would be like blaming me for the Gulf War when I was in diapers.
    - linkregister 10mo ago
      We can attribute cause and effect to countries without implicating any individual citizen.
      - achenet 10mo ago
        nitpick: I would argue that it is more accurate to attribute cause and effect to certain groups of citizens within the country rather than the entire country. The Holocaust, for example, is, in my opinion, more accurately described as being the fault of the Nazi party of Germany, which is a subset of the German population that was politically active in the early-mid 20th century, rather than just being "Germany's" fault. The war crimes committed by the Empire of Japan during WWII are similarly the fault of a subset of the politically active population during that time, not "Japan". I believe this method of attribution has the added advantage of noting that certain citizens, or groups of citizens can make mistakes, and using them as an example of what NOT to do, for other citizens to learn from, rather than tarring everyone with the same bad brush, which I think can have negative psychological consequences - people should be held accountable for their actions, rather than stigmatized for belonging to a specific group by no fault of their own (it's not your fault you were born with citizenship in X country, but it is your fault if you start killing people).

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago

> Britain had the chance to liberalize Hong Kong before the handover How would it have made a difference when the Chinese military invaded?

nine_k 10mo ago

UK offered a rather simple pathway to immigrating to the UK for most Hong Kong residents [1]. But the choice between the stagnant UK and the booming mainland China was not obvious for everyone in late the 1990s, when China seemed to be democratizing more and more (despite the Tiananmen massacre), and growing richer by the day. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_(Overseas) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_(Overseas)

z2 10mo ago
It was a far cry from the full Portuguese citizenship offered for Macau, both in the latter's lack of conditions on acquisition (beyond being over age 15 at the handover), and in passing it on to descendants. https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Portugal-give-full-citizenship-to-Macau-residents-born-pre-1984-but-the-British-did-not-do-the-same-to-Hong-Kong-residents https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Portugal-give-full-citizenship...
btilly 10mo ago
They had multiple pathways. The top three destinations were Canada, the USA, and Australia. These locations offered a major benefit over the UK - they were on trade routes along which people from Hong Kong were already doing business. Canada was particularly affected. It absorbed the most immigrants, they were a larger share of the population, and this was a major increase in ethnic diversity. The resulting cultural clashes were sometimes an issue. Here is one that literally doubled car insurance rates in British Columbia around the time I left. Three cars, 2 in front with the left-hand car being driven by a Canadian, and the back car driven by a recent immigrant. The immigrant sees the opportunity to pass, swings out into oncoming traffic, and guns it. Leaving just a few inches of room. Normal Hong Kong driving. The Canadian has no idea that this is happening until OMG I'M ABOUT TO BE HIT! The Canadian then swerves right to avoid the emergency, and hits the car on the right. The immigrant drives off. Presumably wondering about these crazy Canadians who don't know how to drive. Everyone involved behaved reasonably for how they were used to driving. But the combination worked out very poorly...
- phainopepla2 10mo ago
  I would argue that the immigrant behaving reasonably "for how they were used to driving" is itself unreasonable. When you move to foreign country you have to adjust some things about your behavior. Driving behaviors and anything else with such a strong public safety component should be the most obvious thing to adjust for an adult, without needing to be told.
  - btilly 10mo ago
    Question, have you been an immigrant? Do you know any immigrants? When you immigrate into a country, all of a sudden all of your reflexes are wrong. Some are obviously wrong. Some are more subtle. It is overwhelming, and too much. While in retrospect it is easy to say that they should prioritize some things over others, in practice they tend to learn from experience after people respond badly, and those who are a little more used to the culture explain why they are wrong. And the experience of being told that they are wrong all of the time will make many hold on to some of their old habits extremely strongly. Don't criticize how slowly immigrants adapt to a new country, until you've been an immigrant in a foreign culture.
    - testrun 10mo ago
      I was an immigrant to a new country. I made an effort to learn the new rules. The immigrant adapts, not the country.
    - fogj094j0923j4 10mo ago
      As an immigrant myself, this criticism on driving is valid. What you said should apply to more social contextes like table, public manners.
    - sersi 10mo ago
      As an immigrant (I immigrated to Hong Kong)，I disagree when It comes to road safety. I believe that it's the responsibility of every driver to learn the differences when driving and until then practice safe defensive driving. I agree with you that it takes a while to adapt to new sociale mores and it's worth cutting immigrants some slack but that's different from driving a multi-ton heap of metal where safety is important. Sidenote: Of the different cities I've lived in Asia, HK drivers are some of the worst. Combination of aggressive driving with refusal to signal their attention (by using their turn signal) makes for very poor driving. Not everyone but a significant percentage.
cherryteastain 10mo ago
BN(O) is/was not a simple pathway to UK residence. As the wikipedia article says > BN(O)s are British nationals and Commonwealth citizens, but not British citizens. They are subject to immigration controls when entering the United Kingdom and do not have automatic right of abode there Things were different before the 1981 British Nationality Act but it's not too relevant for HK as the 1981 act is before the Sino British Declaration.

maxglute 10mo ago

TBH UK never had the chance because PRC saw through their games. TLDR UK wanted to maintain influence post handover for their investments, but like most other colonies on the fading empire they had no leverage, i.e. negotiate to turn HK into self administered territory (like Singapore)... along with UN decolonization rules meant engineering pathway for HK independence. PRC keked and said fuck off and promptly removed HK from UN list of non-self governing territories. There's a reason UK/Patton had to jam in HK liberalisation efforts last minute to increase UK influence post handover and not before... because if they did it before, i.e. pre 90s there would be so much anti colonial and pro CCP sympathies that political freedom in HK could be contrary to British interests. HK was just another Suez, symptom of UK weakness, not any one man.

cm2187 10mo ago

I know that attributing to western countries the responsability for any bad thing happening in this world is a common reflex, but we are 30 years after the handover, 40 years after the negotiation, so surely China bears some if not pretty much all the responsibility here. And it's not like the UK had much of a choice in the first place. China threatened to invade and there is very little the UK could have done to prevent a full control. Worth also remembering that "one country, two systems" came with an expiration date that is rapidly approaching anyway.

p_j_w 10mo ago
> I know that attributing to western countries the responsability for any bad thing happening in this world is a common reflex You can’t gloat that the sun never sets on your empire and then absolve yourself from responsibility for events that you had a heavy hand in influencing. Regardless, if you think the article is wrong, your point would he better served by providing examples of where it’s wrong and stating why.
- dangus 10mo ago
  How many years does it take for that influence to expire? In 40 years many/most of the people involved in the old system aren’t even alive anymore. That would be like blaming me for the Gulf War when I was in diapers.
  - linkregister 10mo ago
    We can attribute cause and effect to countries without implicating any individual citizen.
    - achenet 10mo ago
      nitpick: I would argue that it is more accurate to attribute cause and effect to certain groups of citizens within the country rather than the entire country. The Holocaust, for example, is, in my opinion, more accurately described as being the fault of the Nazi party of Germany, which is a subset of the German population that was politically active in the early-mid 20th century, rather than just being "Germany's" fault. The war crimes committed by the Empire of Japan during WWII are similarly the fault of a subset of the politically active population during that time, not "Japan". I believe this method of attribution has the added advantage of noting that certain citizens, or groups of citizens can make mistakes, and using them as an example of what NOT to do, for other citizens to learn from, rather than tarring everyone with the same bad brush, which I think can have negative psychological consequences - people should be held accountable for their actions, rather than stigmatized for belonging to a specific group by no fault of their own (it's not your fault you were born with citizenship in X country, but it is your fault if you start killing people).