Hong Kong marks 15 years since Chinese handover

[alp227]

Source: BBC

Hong Kong has begun marking the 15th anniversary since its handover from UK to Chinese control.

Chinese President Hu Jintao is due to lead the main ceremony. He earlier swore in businessman CY Leung as the city's new leader.

Thousands of protesters are expected to take to the streets later.

One of the main causes of tension is the system used to choose Hong Kong's leader, which many residents see as designed to install Beijing's choice.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18662668

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See also NY Times "Hong Kong in Dour Mood as Chinese Leader Makes Return Visit"

BBC: "Is Hong Kong really the world's freest economy?" (basically challenges the RW Heritage Foundation claim)

[MrModerate]

1. Anyone who thinks of Margaret Thatcher as the "iron lady" . . .

Should have a look at the spinelessness she displayed in surrendering Hong Kong. Despite a difficult situation (a number of the New Territories agreements were due to expire in 1997), the cession of Hong Kong Island itself was supposed to continue "in perpetuity." But she was sniffing around for international support (for the Falklands war, IIRC) and put Hong Kong unnecessarily on the table.

You can legitimately complain that Britain "owning" Hong Kong at all was an historical anomaly — the island was extorted from a supine China at the muzzle of a gunboat — but there is no question in my mind that both the UK and Hong Kong would be much better off today if Thatcher hadn't thrown it all away.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. The city had overspilled from what was ceded in perpetuity

so Hong Kong would have been partitioned a la cold war Berlin. There's no way that Britain could have defended this had China sought a military solution.

We must remember that Hong Kong wasn't a bastion of democracy and human rights under Britain. The colony didn't have any elections at all until 1995 and that was solely a way to give China a parting "fuck you".

[MrModerate]

4. So Thatcher calculated . . .

But renewing the leases on the New Territories was emminently doable.

And as far as democracy and human rights are concerned, you're quite right about the democracy part, but day-to-day Hong Kongers enjoyed a high degree of both freedom and dignity.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

5. I disagree about the leases

China wanted them back and had no interest in renewing the leases. They saw it as a matter of national pride that the British and Portuguese colonies were returned.

[may3rd]

2. Chinese mainlanders have linked to less filtered stories from beyond the great firewall of China

And witnessed how "the peoples" of Hong Kong have reacted to the transition


Thousands protest Hong Kong's China-fication
Despite the humid weather, organizers reported that 400,000 protesters turned out for the annual July 1 protest against what they say is the ever-encroaching hand of the Chinese central government in the city's affairs and freedoms.


....Amid megaphone-led chants for Leung to "step down" and myriad banners and costumes mocking Leung as a cunning "wolf," some protesters waved the former Hong Kong flag used under British rule -- a gesture used to symbolize the erosion of the city's freedoms following the 1997 handover.

Other protesters used images of the Hello Kitty cartoon to mock Leung's claim that Hello Kitty stickers in his home showed that previous tenants were responsible for his home's illegal — and highly controversial -- building structures, which came to light last week.

....

The carefully orchestrated ceremony was interrupted during Hu's remarks by a heckler who shouted slogans calling for a redressing of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the establishment of a democratic Chinese nation before he was bundled out by security.

.....
...CNN's television broadcasts about the handover anniversary in Hong Kong were blacked out in mainland China on Sunday and Monday, while BBC World's coverage was also censored after it veered from Leung's inauguration remarks to mentioning concurrent protests.

A photo circulating widely online Sunday picturing fireworks exploding in Victoria Harbor over the heads of protesters captured the divide between the government's representation of the sentiment surrounding the handover anniversary and the discontent brewing amid many citizens.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/02/world/asia/hong-kong-handover-protests/index.html?hpt=wo_bn4




Thousands of protesters take to the streets calling for universal suffrage and chanting slogans against new Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying only hours after Chinese President Hu Jintao completed his three-day visit to the southern Chinese territory.








Only the people can save you .
Maybe when the 13th five year plan comes around