China Says Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong No Longer Binding (2017) | Hacker News Reader

China Says Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong No Longer Binding (2017)

reuters.com

26 pointsNewJazz25 comments

If UK wants to stay involved and be responsible, they should grant British passport to every HK citizen who was citizen when before handover and their descendants.

They should have done that before the handover.

In fact, they did. Anyone who wanted to could apply to get a British National passport.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_(Overseas)

It was not British national passport and it did not give the right to just immigrate. Right to apply means that that only wealthy get to leave.

What I'm suggesting is British citizenship.

It literally is called "British National (Overseas) passport" and they could become citizens: "BN(O)s may become British citizens by registration, rather than naturalisation, after residing in the United Kingdom for more than five years and possessing ILR for more than one year." (from the Wikipedia article) So it's not immediate citizenship in the UK, but it is path to citizenship. They couldn't just grant instant citizenship, because then people in HK would be British citizens in China as soon as the handover occurred. Naturally, China would not go for that. I think what they did was quite reasonable.

> Right to apply means that only the wealthy get to leave

Your cynicism with no evidence to back it up is not becoming. You did not seem to even know about the BNO program, yet you have certainty that it was administered inequally?

I remember when it happened. HK citizens felt betrayed.

There is also catch that Wikipedia does not explain: BN(O)s of Chinese ethnic origin are entitled to Chinese nationality and do not qualify for British citizenship. The BNO to British citizenship is mainly for BNO holders who are otherwise stateless persons.

BNO is only visa free entry for ethnically Chinese. It has been easier to get Canadian citizenship than British.

The Britain that post Brexit will be in desperate need of a trade deal, will be offered a really really bad one by the US that will never be accepted by those that actually voted for Brexit, so those same people will go shopping around for anyone that can possibly replace the EU and US, at the very least if only to give them leverage against the US?

I don't think Britain can afford to be pissing off China right now.

Roughly half of the UK did not want Brexit at all though and wouldn't be that swell to hear that they have to appease a dictatorship now.

I doubt Boris Johnson could pull that off with such a razor thin majority in parliament.

However, I do agree that China is an option even though it's an unrealistic one and its reception domestically, if the UK has to do major concessions to get it in place quickly, is probably not going to be warm. But, the UK can't afford to have no options on the table.

"Roughly half of the UK did not want Brexit at all though and wouldn't be that swell to hear that they have to appease a dictatorship now"

Id count myself in that half, that isnt the half motivated by ideals of sovereignty and control of their own destiny at the expense of all else, plus that half isnt currently in the drivers seat so I kept that half out of the discussion.

I don't think Britain can afford to be pissing off China right now.

I’m not sure you understand the Brexit mindset. Everyone knew exiting the EU would be an economic hit, but they believed that some things are more important than just making money and accumulating stuff. A grand gesture in the name of democracy is exactly what a typical Brexiteer would want. Even better that it harks back to the days of Empire, in the case of Hong Kong.

If that's a part of the Brexit mindset, there's at least an equal part 'keep the Jonny foreigners out'.

That’s one way to read it; another might it is not an opportune moment for Brexit.

That's what I said, isnt it?

Putting the onus on Britain, that somehow Britain will be able to do something to not "piss off" the fascists running China? Wow.

The CCP doesn't need an excuse. When they see weakness, they use it. Remaining in the EU doesn't help either, as the EU has long been cowed by China. It's almost like the EU thinks that being a suburb of China is their future.

A thought experiment..

What if a country would say to every Hong Kong person.. come to our country, build a new Hong Kong in our country, tranplant the whole there, and be free, bringing all the culture and business with you

Bizarely enough, that was actually briefly considered by government officials in 1983, to relocate everybody in Hong Kong to Northern Ireland: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/03/uk-officials...

High cost and a lot of ways to go wrong means that it isn't worth it. One of the ways it might go wrong is that only the poorest socioeconomic class takes this option, taking almost no business with them and adding very little of value to the economy of the country they are transplanted into. What they will bring is all the inherent troubles of integrating a displaced people into a different culture, such as racism and just tribalism in general.

It's not worth it for the country they are transplanted into and it's not a given that it will be worth it for the people moving.

a lot of people already left Hong Kong right in-between the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Tiananmen Massacre. millions of them. they knew what would eventually happen to HK: full-on China. so many left that Toronto has little Hong Kong, and London is full of former HK businesses, or new businesses made after the HKers came over.

Nobody will say that. Plus, it was a very specific set of conditions and circumstances that led to Hong Kong being what it is, leading to the present days. You can't just transplant it.

To be fair, the set of conditions and circumstances cropped up in Singapore as well. One could be forgiven for thinking that if the circusmtances could be engineered then, they could be engineered now.

One of the main circumstances is a common border with the mainland with proximity to Shenzhen. How do you engineer that?

The China can end the "two systems" policy to Hong Kong, in maybe 28 years or so, and the world would treat Hong Kong as a mainland city, not a free trading city, and Hong Kong passport should be the same as PRC passport. That is fair.

One suspects many Hong Kong residents would see that differently.

There's been an outbreak of tensions between Chinese and Hong Kong students here in Australia. Suspect it's only going to get worse, as the University governing bodies and indeed the government itself seems paralysed. The Chinese education dollar is huge here, which means everyone is very wary of causing any offence, even when fights break out as happened a few weeks ago. Nothing compared to what's going on in HK itself, but an interesting microcosm.

I think most of us would expect that a fair settlement, of the relationship between Hong Kong and the mainland beyond 2047, would take into account the wishes of the people of Hong Kong.

Why is it fair? You're advocating for taking away people's rights and have provided no supporting arguments.

Are you saying that totalitarianism should be extended to Hong Kong because the agreement to preserve the HK people's rights is old?

Is it still fair if they end it in 2 months?

Anytime someone calls something fair, I wonder if the question "for whom?" should be asked. Seems to me like those in HK have no real control over their fate, whether as part of Britain or China.

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