HONG KONG -- From 1842 to 1997, with two exceptions, British governors of Hong Kong avoided democratic reform. In the 20th century they did so believing that China would react badly if they enacted it.
Now China has proved beyond a reasonable doubt how prescient those British governors were to calculate, and be cowardly, in this way. China has reacted badly, squashing Hong Kong hopes of sensible and overdue democratic reform -- even though China has now regained sovereignty over Hong Kong, and to veto democratic reform is against China's self-interest, let alone Hong Kong's.
Ironically, Chinese spokesmen, including Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, once again excoriated Hong Kong's former British rulers for never instituting democracy here, without apparently noticing that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was doing the very thing for which they were criticizing the British, and postponing meaningful democratic changes into the never-never land of the distant future. The same spokesmen insisted on the new Communist Party line that democracy was flourishing as never before in Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty.
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