Whatever undertakings we may have given to Hong Kong in the olden days, the fact is that China is now rich and growing richer, strong and growing stronger, while Britain is now poor and growing poorer, weak and growing weaker.
The case either for Huawei or for the Belt and Road Initiative is not that the regime in China is nice, but that anyone who is not at the table is on the menu, and that anyone who is not on the bus will be thrown under it.
Nor was the advancing British Empire nice, when it had to be given Hong Kong for 99 years. But notice that by the time that the lease on Hong Kong came up, then the British Empire had long ago ceased to exist. We shall all be dead before the eclipse of China. But that eclipse will happen, as surely as that of Britain did.
China, of course, continues to industrialise, following the same road to wealth that we once trod. Our own decline will only be exacerbated if we insist on moving to zero carbon emissions, a move that would be negated countless times over by China, by India, and by all the rest of them, present and imminent.
If we have only 12 years left, then it is far too late to do anything, anyway. 12 years is a long time if it is three quarters of your own life to date. But we are not governed by people in that position. Or at any rate, we never used to be. Increasingly it feels as if we are.
Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare.
And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
Hong Kong is the last outpost of the Anglosphere in Asia. In contrast to her communist neighbour she still has those unique Anglosphere features of jury trial, a presumption of innocence, common law, freedom of assembly and a free press.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder she fights so hard against integration into Chinese communism.
If you say "Anglosphere", then you have lost. Automatically. It is the kind of thing that only children believe. Even around the Pacific, do you see the Americans or the Australians coming to the aid of Hong Kong? Do you see the Canadians, or the New Zealanders? Well, there you are, then.
Delete