The people of Hong Kong have been under some form of political subjugation since at least 1842, when Qing China formally ceded Hong Kong Island to the British Empire with the signing of the Treaty of Nanking. The Treaty — which came as a consequence of the Qing defeat in the First Opium War — formalized Hong Kong Island as a Crown colony “in perpetuity” and began an era of colonial control over the island which would see the British Empire, Japanese Empire (briefly), and ultimately the People’s Republic of China hold power over the city’s governance and affairs.
However, the people of Hong Kong — many of whom identify not as Chinese, but rather as “Hongkongers” — have never had a formal say on their status. They had no say when Hong Kong Island was ceded in 1842 and the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860, nor when the New Territories were leased to Britain in 1898. And they did not have a say during the negotiations that culminated in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which in turn led to the “handover” of Hong Kong in 1997 to the People’s Republic of China — a dramatically different entity, both politically and culturally, than the Qing-era China Hong Kong had once been a part of. After years of calls from the people of Hong Kong for democracy, and months of intense protest against encroaching Chinese influence over the city’s affairs — specifically in opposition to a deeply controversial proposal to effectively extend the jurisdiction of the mainland Chinese legal system over the city — it is time for the people of Hong Kong to have their say on their status within China and the world.
The Magna Carta famously states that “to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.” Yet that is exactly what has been done to the people of Hong Kong. Their right to self-determination has been denied: first by Britain, then Japan, and now China. The current government of Hong Kong ignores the will of its people out of fear of the central authorities. Of course, the principles and rights declared in the Magna Carta generally refer to the individual. However, the same rights to which a free person is entitled can, with a little logical legwork, be extended to a free society as well. A free society must be just, and there can be no justice when faraway authorities control the system, and local people have no input.
Colonialism and the forces and ideologies which drove it were largely exorcised from the world stage in the latter half of the 20th century. Of course, vestiges of it remain — we need look no further than the issues Indigenous peoples in Canada face today — but it has mostly been left in the waste-bin of history. Where we do see the after-effects of colonialism, we usually also see at least a semblance of self-determination returned to formerly colonized peoples — sometimes in the form of the right to vote in free and fair elections, other times in some form of self-governance or participation in governance. However, we see the opposite happening to the people of Hong Kong. Increasingly, their rights have been under threat from an evermore hostile Chinese government, which in recent weeks has taken to openly and brazenly taunting the city’s people with a Chinese military takeover. Troops and equipment from the People’s Liberation Army — the armed wing of the Communist Party of China and, as such, the de facto military of the People’s Republic — have been seen massing a stone’s throw from Hong Kong, and the Chinese government and their state media have not been shy about broadcasting their presence. Furthermore, the government of Hong Kong — which has faced widespread accusations of being subservient to Chinese authorities — has outright refused to consider the popular will of Hongkongers and permanently sideline the proposed extradition agreement. This leaves the people of Hong Kong with few democratic outlets for their concerns, and has eroded the legitimacy of the government of Hong Kong among its subjects.
In contrast, we see calls for sovereignty and self-determination by distinct peoples largely respected in recent years in other parts of the globe. In Canada, Quebec held not one, but two referendums (1980, 1995) on their status as a sovereign people. Both times, they chose to remain within the Canadian family. Likewise, Britain has also held two recent referendums on the sovereign status of its peoples and state. In 2014, the Scottish people chose to remain part of the United Kingdom in a national referendum on their sovereign status. In 2016, the British people exercised their right to self-determination and chose to leave the European Union in a national referendum. The European Union has largely recognized and respected their decision. This, of course, is exactly how mature states act in the 21st century. They respect the will of the people, and they respect, protect, and adhere to democracy.
In my view, the Chinese government has made a critical error in their assessment on how to assert themselves as an able and mature global power. They believe that economic might coupled with the iron fist of a one-party political system will allow them to outpace the West over the long-run. Their error — the same error made by every totalitarian and anti-democratic regime in the modern era — is to assume that ignoring the will of the people is a viable option. It is not. We see that clearly today in Hong Kong, as do the authorities in Beijing, I am sure. The only viable path forward is for the people of Hong Kong to finally have their right to self-determination respected — the same as the people of Quebec, or Scotland, or the United Kingdom. The alternative would be disastrous for China, Hong Kong, and the world — a would-be global leader, suppressing the popular will of the people in its freest and most internationally visible city. What a shame.