Reporting from a secret location in Hong Kong, Expat Conrad says that One Country/Two Systems isn’t going to last. And you probably don’t have to guess, in a battle between Hong Kong and Beijing, which side is going losing:
Despite government insistence to the contrary, the new offenses of secession, subversion and sedition do not require a predicate act of violence, force or threat of force. When questioned about the effect of the provisions, Secretary for Security, Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, who gives the impression she would happily string us all up were she only given the go-ahead by Beijing, prevaricated — no surprise to anyone familiar with her — comparing the laws to purportedly similar legislation in the US and the UK. Of course, the cited US and UK legislation is much narrower. Furthermore, it is limited by the existence of democratic institutions and constitutional limitations (written in the case of the US and unwritten in the UK but supplemented by EU human rights requirements), none of which exist in Hong Kong.
But really, this isn’t the beginning of the end for Hong Kong. It started when Britain, with really no better choice, entered negotiations with Beijing over the Crown Colony’s future.
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