The loss of confidence can be summed up in two words:
"Tibet" and
"Nationality". The former showing to anyone who is still living in a fool's
paradise that no matter how "liberal" China may want to appear, when it gets
down to the real nitty gritty of two systems one country the answer as likely
as not is martial law. And the latter showing the falseness and hypocrisy of
the British Government who, whatever lip service they may have been paying to
the great achievements of Hong Kongers, have quite obviously washed their
hands off us and cut their losses.
The
That is very simple and
There is one other word we need to discuss and that word is "autonomy".
Joint Agreement is a glorious fudge because of that word "autonomy". The
Agreement specifies a "high degree of autonomy". The Oxford dictionary
defines autonomy as "the right of self government".
short. On the other hand, "degree" has almost a whole column to itself, but
the basic definition is "a step in an ascent or descent, one of a flight of
steps, the rung of a ladder". I won't bore you with the rest, but it is one
of those words in the English language that can mean almost anything you want
it to mean, which, of course, was the idea of using it and which is where,
much more than in the nationality issue, Britain realy Techồng Kong down.
Hong Kong should have been given domestic autonomy, full stop. But it wasn't,
and accordingly, no matter what the good intentions of the draft agreement or
the Basic Law as now written, China can quite legitimately declare martial law
in the SAR. The high degree of autonomy covers only nine steps of the ten
steps on the ladder to autonomy and the last step really allows China to do
anything they want when they feel like it. So I think it is necessary, in
view of the Tibet experience, to insert a clause into the Basic Law preventing
the Central Government, under any circumstances, imposing martial or any other
kind of special law which could suspend or override the Basic Law.
2
Page 15Page 16