ver, something very funny happened to Hong Kong on the way
to 1997; It developed into a city state with considerable
economic power and its own life style which is diametrically
opposed to the political concepts obtaining either in the
Peoples Republic of China or Taiwan.
And let's be honest, under any other circumstances, Hong Kong
would have become independent in the 1960's and would by now
have supplemented it's economic power with real political
clout, presumably being a member of both the United Nations and
ASEAN. The reason that this did not happen was the opposition
from the Peoples Republic of China to any thought of independence
and paradoxically this has, over the years, prevented even such
a rudimentary exercise of democracy as a partly elected
legislative council. This all pervading political influence
from Peking even goes so far as to prevent the Urban Council
from taking over the new towns in the New Territories which
creates the administrative anomaly of two separate government
departments, namely the USD and the NTSD doing the same thing.
Britain's policy in regard to granting independence to all its
former colonies was clearly stated and defined, and in many
cases it pushed out states much smaller than Hong Kong onto
international waters which in spite of dire forebodings have so
far proved reasonably able to withstand the storms engendered
by the Super Powers.
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