I find it odd that in all the articles and discussions I've seen about this, the Opium Wars are never talked about. Of course violence is never justification for more violence, but seeing as Hong Kong's very existence is based on the worst of human exploitation, it's hard to imagine that it's ever going to have a calm future.

I can't help but think that for us Europeans it touches the nerve where we know at some level that all our chickens will come home to roost like this one day?