Boris Johnson Gets a Hong Kong Reality Check
Britain can no longer put business first in its dealings with Beijing. China’s new national security law for Hong Kong demands a broader response.
A new approach.
Photographer: Lam Yik/BloombergChina’s new national security law for Hong Kong poses a major test of Britain’s foreign policy principles, and its mettle. The law bans subversion, secession and foreign interference. While Beijing has yet to specify exactly how the new powers will work, its objectives hardly need spelling out.
The measure effectively rips up the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that enshrined the principle of “one country, two systems,” the basis on which the U.K. handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997. The territory’s autonomous status was supposed to last for 50 years. We aren’t even halfway through that period.