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Comment by boxed | Hacker News Reader

This one time, turns out the colonialism was 100% on the side of moral right.

Well no. This series of events happened exactly because the laws set up by colonial British would let loose a murderer.

Joshua Wong went to the streets for the murderer, not against him, by the way.

nice rephrase of the story; the extradition bill was written in a very convenient way that somehow included completely unrelated to the case PRC that normal people would have rightful doubts about

sounds like the whole op was a setup from the very beginning, very convenient indeed and i wouldn't put it past them to even plan a murder

> This one time, turns out the colonialism was 100% on the side of moral right.

No, it wasn't.

It was just coincidental that the UK still held a 99 year lease (from 1898) when the communists took over mainland China. How they got the lease in the first place is another matter.

It was right every day after the communists took over China. That's quite a few years. And it was wrong of the UK to give back Hong Kong, as can be clearly seen today as China can't be trusted to honor the treaty, and certainly not be trusted to treat its citizens with a minimum of dignity.

Maybe how China treats its citizens is no business of the UK and the fact they were treated differently from other Chinese citizens in the first place is a historic injustice rooted in the UK's desire to force Chinese citizens into opium addiction for their own profit?

Why should the UK or you or I tell the Chinese how to do things? Who made us the ultimate arbiters of justice?

Why should one party to an agreement hold the other party accountable to the terms of the agreement?

Why should anyone honor an agreement with the drug dealer that attacked you so they could keep selling drugs and stole some of your property in the process?

If you were mugged and then the perp finally left you alone if you swore to do his bidding for another fifty years, you'd also tell them what they want to hear I assume. But I doubt you would honor your agreement once they no longer had power over you.

Because China’s no different, and geopolitics don’t map well onto personal relationships, except that trust matters. Even in your example, it would be that the drug dealer attacked and stole from my great-great-great-grandfather, and now the drug dealer’s great-great-great-granddaughter is returning the property. It’s a bit foolish to treat her with the same level of distrust, and it would be even more foolish to be the one to break the agreement if I know that I will have to keep doing business with her in the future.

Why should the UK have any agreement with France, who for so long agitated and sponsored terorism in the UK?

Or germany that tried to invade not so long ago?

Or russia that killed parts of our royal family?

Times change, and the point about the treaty was guaranteeing the rights of the people that lived in the place now. In the same way that signing an extradition treaty with germany is about allowing citizens to enforce rights. (rather than an exploitative regime using it to punish political dissidents had it been in place in 1936)

the treaty meant that instead of having to evacuate all the hongkongers (only a small amount were "truly native") leading to a huge economic collapse and negating the entire point of getting the land back (and the island that was annexed through good old fashioned cannon)

> Maybe how China treats its citizens is no business of the UK

Humane treatment of humans is the business of all humans everywhere.

> Why should the UK or you or I tell the Chinese how to do things?

Well, most people understand sanity. Now, YOU personally seem not to, so you shouldn't tell anyone how to behave :P

Who are you to define what is humane? Is the treatment of the homeless and the drug addicts in the capitalist US humane? Why don't you prioritize the humane treatment in your own backyard before lecturing a country on the other end of the world about your ideas? The universalism rings real shallow when the particular isn't even dealt with yet.

> Well, most people understand sanity. Now, YOU personally seem not to, so you shouldn't tell anyone how to behave :P

I would recommend refamiliarizing yourself with the HN guidelines.

Note that the lease was on the mainland part of Hong Kong. The island was conquered outright and Britain formally owned it in perpetuity.

> How they got the lease in the first place is another matter.

Are you suggesting that flooding a country with opium so that the ruling classes would sell them tea, causing huge addiction, is somehow immoral?

Its not the british empires finest moment. mind you, france, portugal and the USA were very happy to collude with us to get decent trading terms.

(hence why there are some really well preserved portugese style neighbourhoods in Macau )

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