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Comment by sudosysgen | Hacker News Reader

The Sino-British declaration was, in historical terms, a way for the UK to save face more than anything else.

It doesn't actually turn for example the free press clause into a nullity, it just means there is a conflict and one supercedes the other. It's not uncommon in law. If Apple Daily and Jimmy Lai had no contact at all with foreign agents, it would have applied unambiguously.

So clearly it doesn't turn it into a nullity, it just limits it.

Beyond that, fundamentally, the law was negotiated by the UK from a position of massive weakness, as they militarily simply could not hold Hong Kong, and legally wouldn't be able to supply it either. It is expected that debilitating clauses are included.

One such clause is that China has total sovereignty in anything that concerns foreign affairs or defence.

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> Beyond that, fundamentally, the law was negotiated by the UK from a position of massive weakness

I think a lot of the UK's weakness was self-inflicted. They were one of the first Western nations to switch recognition from ROC to PRC, all the way back in 1950. The US didn't make the same move until almost 30 years later. If the UK stuck with ROC for longer, they could have bargained a better deal on Hong Kong with PRC, in exchange for PRC recognition. Instead they gave up that bargaining chip for nothing.

> as they militarily simply could not hold Hong Kong

Would one nuclear state (PRC) would rush into war against another (the UK)? PRC loved to threaten, but what if the UK had stated that it reserved the right to respond to a conventional attack on Hong Kong with a nuclear counterattack? Consider also that the UK had a 10 year head start on nuclear weapons (1952 vs 1964).

The UK seriously considered threatening PRC with nuclear weapons in the 1960s [0]. However, it appears the UK plan was not to threaten PRC with its own nuclear weapons, but instead try to convince the US to threaten the PRC with US weapons. The plan apparently fell through when the US, after expressing some initial openness to the idea, began to get cold feet. The threat was never publicly made.

[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5130524.stm

The UK would never respond to an invasion of HK with nuclear force. China had already fought nuclear powers in Korea, they would not blink an eye.

In any case, if push came to shove the PRC would have simply invaded HK. There is nothing the UK could have done to prevent it.

A hypothetical situation, set decades ago, nobody can know how it might have turned out.

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