The UK granted those liberties and some measure of self governance only in the last years of its rule. The Governor of Hong Kong was never elected. The elected portion of the legislative council was implemented rather near the end of the UK’s time in HK. For most of British HK history, the governor picked the members of the council. Basic Law which gave certain guarantees to HK didn’t even exist until 1990!

That said, British rule of HK, despite the UK having fairly authoritarian levels of power, was fairly restraint. I don’t recall many HK people feeling bitter towards the UK during that time I lived there — just prior to the handover.

> The UK granted those liberties and some measure of self governance only in the last years of its rule

Hong Kong was nearly[1] granted effectively autonomous status by Britain in the 1960s. China threatened a military intervention should that happen.

1. https://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of-hong-kongs-still...

There is a mention in Paddy Ashdown's autobiography describing when he was in the SBS in the 1960s and they were sent undercover posing as tourists to beaches in Hong Kong to evaluate their suitability as evacuation points should China invade.

Britain proposed to turn HK into a self-governing dominion like (non-democratic) Singapore - aka grant HK dejure independence from China - which obviously China would reject since it would circumvent handover. Hence ZhouEnlai labeling it as a plot / conspiracy. Most of the Thatcher memo was about trying to maintain British "control"/administration post handover to help with investor confidence (and British influence).

This QZ article is repeating a fairly disingenuous interpretation of the documents to suggest some missed opportunity for democratic reforms. The original narrative was put forth by VJMedia which bias towards HK local-ism (pro-independence). There was never any effort in the 60s up until years before handover to grant subjects of HK liberties or self-governance within the context of Extension of Hong Kong Territory lease.

Self-rule is sometimes, as would appear in the case of Hong Kong, orthogonal to wildly successful.

I thing there were large scale protests in the 60s, may be 1962 against British rule in HK.

Also did Britain do enough to protect and to take back HK during WW2.

If I remember correctly, HK was only given back to Britain after the final surrender of Japan in WW2. Japan had taken HK following the attack on the same day as Pearl Harbour attack.

Also geographically the major portion of HK, the New Territories has gone back to China in 1997 because the British had lease of it only till that time. Only the HK Island and Kowloon areas are the territories British yeilded to China under agreement. So post 1997 Britain had a claim only to a small part of the geographical area of HK.

Basic Law article 23 also requires HK to pass a national security law similar to the one that currently is so debated. They have not done for for the last 23(?) years.

Well BL 23 says HK will enact (on its own) a law to prevent sedition, treason against PRC. The comprehensiveness of such measures is where the present debate lies, and has since before the handover.

Recall that this was attempted prior to the handover and the PRC thought it insufficient. Sufficiency is in the eye of the beholder, and relative to the norms of each society, no?

The US has laws to prevent sedition and treason, but they are nowhere near what the PRC finds appropriate for their own country. HK’s cultural expectations are somewhat closer to the occidental norms than the expectations of China proper, it would seem.

Frankly, I think the expectation was (and for some people still may be) that China would become a more socialized (pardon the pun) citizen of the globe by 2047, rather than the angry and aggressive economic rescue dog they’re turning out to be, and so the threat of HK takeover by a repressive, totalitarian regime would have been moot. Sadly it’s not looking like China will normalize in this sense prior to the JD expiring, and in fact, China has explicitly stated that they disregard the binding nature of the JD, calling it a mere “historic document”, despite its contemporaneous binding nature.

>Sufficiency is in the eye of the beholder, and relative to the norms of each society, no?

Maybe but no law at all is not sufficient to any objective observer.

Are you arguing that HK should adopt China’s security law and stop resisting?

Are you arguing China should have accepted HK’s proposal in the 90’s to fulfill BL 23?

Unclear what your point is. Oftentimes no law is preferable to bad law, given what’s at risk and a lack of compromise. Examples of this being “sufficient” are plentiful in any society where the people have a strong representation.