Monday, October 27, 2014

Stuart Leavenworth — How Britain failed to ensure democracy in a China-ruled Hong Kong

Paradoxically, Great Britain never introduced democracy to Hong Kong; the governor was appointed by London and there were no elections.…
McClatchy
How Britain failed to ensure democracy in a China-ruled Hong Kong
Stuart Leavenworth | McClatchy Foreign Staff

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/27/244820/how-thatcher-failed-to-ensure.html#storylink=cpy



Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/27/244820/how-thatcher-failed-to-ensure.html#storylink=cpy

3 comments:

Clonal said...

Democracy was never a part of the British Empire. Only the independence movements led to a loosening of this posture - e.g. India in 1935 (this was prior to independence in 1947) by the Government of India Act 1935

Did you know that until 1935, Aden (now known as Yemen) and Burma were a part of British India

Ignacio said...

Fail? No, it was by design.

Tom Hickey said...

"Fail? No, it was by design."

Right and for the same reason that CU Leung just gave. Britain has a huge investment in HK and it did not give that up with transfer of rule. The Chinese promised to recognize and respect existing property rights and that's what matters in neoliberalism. Popular democracy envisioned by the HK protestors is in conflict with that, who demand "redistribution" of power and wealth in a highly unequal society.