WASHINGTON -- China routinely vilifies any comment on its political practices as unwarranted outside "interference." Yet Beijing is always ready to lecture America on its policies.
Most recently China was outraged when U.S. officials met with Martin Lee, founder of the party with the most directly elected seats in Hong Kong's legislature. The only proper response from Washington is a not-so-polite directive that Beijing stop interfering in America's internal affairs.
The 1997 reversion of Hong Kong from a colony of Great Britain to a "Special Administrative Region" of China was perhaps inevitable. But it was no cause for celebration by anyone who values human liberty above brutal nationalism.