Pondering the
curious pseudo-moral outrage over the plan to transfer the Crimea from Ukraine
to Russia, very much in accordance with the wishes of most of its people, I
have been looking for various parallels and exemplars of such transfers, and
mentioned some of them in a previous posting.
But the most
striking contrast is surely between the Russian desire to transfer Crimeans
from the rule of Kiev to the rule of Moscow, endorsed by most Crimeans, and the
British transfer of millions of Hong Kong Chinese, from the British Crown to
the People's Republic of China, reluctantly but impotently accepted by the Hong
Kong people .
Perfectly
reasonably, in my view, the British government was very careful to ensure that
no strong democratic institutions ever developed in Hong Kong, although it had
a very free press and the rule of law, the things which above all distinguished
it from the People's Republic, and it still to some extent continues to do so,
though not indefinitely.
The idea that Hong
Kong's population might have a say in their destiny was never even seriously
discussed, as far as I recall.
How could it have
been? An honest estimate of the political and diplomatic balance at the time
would have led any sensible person to conclude that Britain had to transfer
sovereignty. We had no real choice.
A similar
assessment, it seems to me, would tell any intelligent person that Ukraine's
existence as a sovereign nation, at least in its current shape, cannot long be
sustained, and it will have to fall either under Russian or EU influence, or
perhaps (like Sudan?) be divided into more than one country.
What's more, it
cannot be brought under EU influence without offering a dangerous and
provocative challenge to Moscow. And Moscow, under all the normal rules of
power and diplomacy, could reasonably be expected to defend its interests
against any such manoeuvre.
For Britain to have
pretended to the people of Hong Kong that they had any serious chance of
influencing the outcome of the negotiations over the colony's handover would
have been profoundly dishonest, and very dangerous.
What if Hong Kong
had voted overwhelmingly for continued links with Britain or for independent
status? The end could only have been tragedy, as Britain had no power to grant
any such thing.
Do we have the power
or the will to grant sovereign independence to Ukraine? Would such a goal be
worth the risks it entails? If not, what are we playing at?
And if we could,
without many qualms, hand over millions of people to one of the world's most
rigid and corrupt despotisms, what is our moral standing in such matters
anyway?
No comments:
Post a Comment