No Forbidden Cities

Good luck to them if they want democracy in Hong Kong, as that can only mean democracy throughout China. That was made clear by the Opposition in Hong Kong at the time of the handover, an Opposition that was not in any sense opposed to the handover in principle.

There was certainly no democracy in Hong Kong under British rule, which was why that Opposition existed, not without privation. That was when most of today's protesters were small children, or before they were born.

That the events in Hong Kong are receiving little coverage in the Beijing media is, as much as anything else, because there are a lot of big cities in provincial China. A spot of fairly mild rioting in one of them is just not national news.

Those appealing to Britain or to anyone else to "do something" cannot explain what could possibly be done. Is there going to be a war with China? Is there going to be an economic blockade of China? Merely to ask those questions is to answer them.

As for the "Anglosphere", a Cantonese-speaking city the inhabitants of which Margaret Thatcher denied British passports because they were yellow-skinned and slitty-eyed need not look to that with any good hope.

In any case, at least two of the supposed Five Pillars of the "Anglosphere", Australia and New Zealand, are now more or less economic colonies of China. The other three will be on the Belt and Road if they have any sense, and they will ready themselves to get on any Indian one as well.

The Chinese regime is abominable. But so is the Dalai Lama. So are the Islamists in Xinjiang. So are many other opponents of that regime. And the world as it is is. Be at the table, or be on the menu. Be on the bus, or be under it.