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Editorial

Difference of opinion

Difference   of opinion
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This week, in an escalation that can only add fuel to the fire, the UK started offering a special visa route for the citizens of Hong Kong to eventually apply and gain British citizenship. In doing so, the UK is not only making good on what it claims is a historic and moral commitment but is also setting the stage for a showdown with China which has aggressively asserted that it sees such attempts as a blatant attack on its sovereignty. Hong Kong, as it may be known, is a somewhat special case for both China and the UK. When the UK handed back Hong Kong to China in 1992, they did so under a few conditions and understandings that would make Hong Kong an integral but distinct part of China with a series of rules and regulations that were specially made to govern them. The UK issued the first British National Overseas passports in relation to its withdrawal from the area. The overall idea of such a passport was to allow people holding it to work or study in the UK for five years, following which a pathway to permanent residence and citizenship could be availed by them.

While this special relationship was thought to not only be beneficial for the people of Hong Kong but also for bilateral relations between China and the UK, now it is at the centre of their growing feud over the fate of Hong Kong amidst the rollout of the new security law by China. Shortly after the UK opened up the special visa route for the people of Hong Kong, China responded with an announcement that stated that it would stop recognising the BNO as a valid travel document from January 31. This, as the Chinese Foreign Ministry explained, was a way of stopping the UK from subverting the original understanding behind the BNO and turning the people of Hong Kong into 'second-class citizens'. The British, on the other hand, feel that China has misled the world regarding the nature of its new security laws. Using the laws, China had, according to the UK, has attacked the rights and freedoms guaranteed to the people of Hong Kong and protected by the very same joint declaration that made Hong Kong part of China. Banding together with like-minded governments of Canada and Australia among others, the UK has vowed to continue pushing its new path of citizenship as a way of fulfilling its duty towards the people of Hong Kong. Many sympathetic voices including those of escaped pro-democracy activists have called for the world to not just contain China but also restrain the CCP by means of economic pressure among other things.

It does not need to be said that China has not meekly accepted this turn of events. Its leadership has promised "firm but necessary steps" in retaliation against the continued efforts of the west to interfere in what it sees as a matter that is exclusively open only for Chinese arbitration.This is the exact divide that makes any halfway resolution to this situation absolutely unlikely. For one thing, China does not view its prior agreement with the UK over Hong Kong as one that affords the UK any right to interfere in the governance of Hong Kong and its people. This is one part of the narrative China uses to defend its actions with the other being that the new laws are simply being misrepresented by those who are unsympathetic to China and its quick rise as a global power. It is hard, however, to see what China is doing in Hong Kong as anything but an attempt to quash out dissenters and pro-democracy sympathisers. China, however, as usual, is not interested in how its actions may be interpreted in the larger sense. They have resisted international pressure regarding their treatment of the Uighurs for years now by similar methods of deflection and obfuscation. There is a difference this time, however. There is a growing sentiment on the world stage to hold China responsible and a change in US administration may make it harder for China to use its traditional economic pressure tactics to silence voices of criticism such as those of UK and Australia. In short, there is no easy end in sight. As regards the people of Hong Kong, very few are actually seen as willing to take up the offer presently for a variety of reasons with the ongoing pandemic being primary amongst them.

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