Hongkong was built by the British and a symbol of foreign aggression and imperialism for all Chinese (including in Taiwan actually, at least if you are more on the KMT side). It was never "free" under the British, and in fact the LegCo was only created when the British knew that they would hand HK over to China.
Why should "Hong Kong of old" remain? Why should Chinese territory not under full Chinese control? (And by territory I don't mean some far away outpost, but really the heart of the country).
There has been a lot of noise about "decolonising the curriculum" in recent years, which some have criticised as "woke", but it is striking that the narrative on HK is still fully colonial-centric with little opposing voices.
In the West we are also oblivious to Chinese politics at historic scale. I.e., the conflict between communists and nationalists, and now also democrats. When there are conflicts about freedoms in HK it does not necessarily means against China, as the people are Chinese and in China, but against the communists. Likewise in Taiwan, although there is also an "independentist" "faction" there.
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This is a Western view of things.
Hongkong was built by the British and a symbol of foreign aggression and imperialism for all Chinese (including in Taiwan actually, at least if you are more on the KMT side). It was never "free" under the British, and in fact the LegCo was only created when the British knew that they would hand HK over to China.
Why should "Hong Kong of old" remain? Why should Chinese territory not under full Chinese control? (And by territory I don't mean some far away outpost, but really the heart of the country).
There has been a lot of noise about "decolonising the curriculum" in recent years, which some have criticised as "woke", but it is striking that the narrative on HK is still fully colonial-centric with little opposing voices.
In the West we are also oblivious to Chinese politics at historic scale. I.e., the conflict between communists and nationalists, and now also democrats. When there are conflicts about freedoms in HK it does not necessarily means against China, as the people are Chinese and in China, but against the communists. Likewise in Taiwan, although there is also an "independentist" "faction" there.