I doubt it's the state of affairs in the UK that has HK'ers disinterested. Most of HK's population has lived under fairly heavy handed British rule much of their lives and have little interest in returning to that sort of life. I don't follow Asian pacific political actions as closely as I should, but I find bizarre that Portugal and the UK didn't hammer out deals to join Macau and Hong Kong into a unified country or unify their colonies under Taiwanese rule. It seems counter intuitive to their respective economic interests to hand them over to the CCP government.
It seems counter intuitive to their respective economic interests to hand them over to the CCP government.
They didn't own the place. They were just kinda renting it.
When someone forces you to sign a contract they drafted while they're pointing a gun to your head, it becomes difficult to distinguish the difference between renting or strong armed robbery. Even more so, when the burglar utilizing less than ten percent of that lands productive potential and capability, massively develops the territory, and elevates the quality of life of the people who choose to reside there.
It's like if a criminal stole your old b&w dial knob UHF/VHF tv and forced you to take a plasma tv with full cable tv/internet service provided at gun point. Part of you will always be pissed that he took your old tv, but another part of you is resigned to begrudgingly accept that he did it to give you an insanely better one, and you're eternally baffled as to why he had to put the gun in your face at all, if that was the plan from the start.
The British didn't provide labour to build HK, they provided a less oppressive regime than the mainland (not too hard). It was the Chinese doing the building and they were taxed every step of the way. The CCP is just more of a control freak, like a crazy ex.
Opium is helluva drug.
(post is archived)