In Hong Kong there is:
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The death penalty (banned in Britain)
A ban on:
All political parties
Trade unions affiliating with international organisations without special permission
Trade unions establishing political funds for their members
A completely unelected legislature
A regressive tax system
Widespread corruption at all levels
No right of free assembly and association
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lacks almost all basic democratic rights. The death penalty, banned in Britain for a decade, is still unrepealed in Hong Kong.' The Colony has by far the worst hard drug problem in the world, proportionate to population — and, furthermore, acts as a key centre in the world heroin trade. Many of the most elementary measures to protect factory workers have been rejected by the colonial authorities. The social services and housing are abysmal. Yet Britain has not only failed to accept decoloni- zation for Hong Kong, even in principle, it has done nothing even to suggest that it accepts decolonization. No moves have, apparently, been made to prepare the terri- tory and its inhabitants for an end to colonial rule.
Ristory
The territory now usually referred to as Hong Kong was seized from China in three separate stages in the nineteenth century. At the basis of the seizure lay Britain's main economic activity in the area - the opium trade. Prior to the acquisition of Hong Kong, British sales of opium to China were centred at Canton, the main port in South China, a short trip up the Pearl River from Macau, a colony of Portugal. In 1839 the Chinese government appointed a new Commissioner for the Suppression of Opium, Lin Tse-hsu, who proceeded to take energetic measures against the British opium merchants. Britain's refusal to close down the opium trade led to the first Opium War (1840-1842), and part of the price China was forced to pay for a settle- ment of this war was the cession of the island of Hong Kong in perpetuity to Britain (Treaty of Nanking, 1842).
British interests had been seeking just such an island base outside Chinese jurisdic- tion for some time. In 1839 41 British traders based on Canton petitioned Parlia- ment in London to use force to effect a commercial treaty which would allow them greater opportunity to penetrate the China market. One possible step, they argued, would be "the acquisition of an insular possession near the coast of China"." At
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