It was a far cry from the full Portuguese citizenship offered for Macau, both in the latter's lack of conditions on acquisition (beyond being over age 15 at the handover), and in passing it on to descendants.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Portugal-give-full-citizenship...

They had multiple pathways. The top three destinations were Canada, the USA, and Australia. These locations offered a major benefit over the UK - they were on trade routes along which people from Hong Kong were already doing business.

Canada was particularly affected. It absorbed the most immigrants, they were a larger share of the population, and this was a major increase in ethnic diversity. The resulting cultural clashes were sometimes an issue. Here is one that literally doubled car insurance rates in British Columbia around the time I left.

Three cars, 2 in front with the left-hand car being driven by a Canadian, and the back car driven by a recent immigrant. The immigrant sees the opportunity to pass, swings out into oncoming traffic, and guns it. Leaving just a few inches of room. Normal Hong Kong driving.

The Canadian has no idea that this is happening until OMG I'M ABOUT TO BE HIT! The Canadian then swerves right to avoid the emergency, and hits the car on the right.

The immigrant drives off. Presumably wondering about these crazy Canadians who don't know how to drive.

Everyone involved behaved reasonably for how they were used to driving. But the combination worked out very poorly...

The Chinese absolutely bear responsibility for how they've governed the last 30 years, just as the British bear responsibility for how they governed the prior 150.

The fact that British HK liberalized a little at the very last second before handover is better than nothing, and the National Security Law is definitely bad, but right now the scoreboard is 7/150 years of free speech under the UK, compared to 23/28 years of free speech under PRC. It'll take another 100 years for the PRC to have a worse record than the UK.

Or surely PRC should get all the praise for diffusing geopolitical traps UK like to leave whenever they lose a colony. Patton threw a curve ball right before handover to last minute liberalize HK a little to hold onto influence, something they didn't do under UK rule. Of course it was geopolitical trap to make PRC look bad if they ever decide take away from HK what UK never provided, but PRC managed to do it anyway and most of world, i.e. global south got example that it is possible to excise legacy colonial tumors from declining empires who choose not to pass gracefully.

> I know that attributing to western countries the responsability [sic] for any bad thing happening in this world is a common reflex

I don't think I'm being superficial here. There are a few distinct events during the 20th century which can be attributed to the British. The handover of Hong Kong, Suez Crisis and the Balfour Declaration stand out the most.

> And it's not like the UK had much of a choice in the first place. China threatened to invade and there is very little the UK could have done to prevent a full control.

The leased territories are Chinese territory. Full stop. Hong Kong island and the ceded land could not survive alone. All of the water processing happens in the New Territories. It would have been impossible to either break up HK or defend it.

https://i.redd.it/zghghoib1k1a1.png

China has not rolled back any reforms that happened before negotiations began [0]. They did rollback the last-ditch efforts of Chris Patten [1] because at that point it was seen a malicious attempt to undermine the handover.

The mechanisms for China to take control were largely left in place by the British so they bare some responsibility, but it is the PRC asserting this control and there's an argument to be made that most of HK supports the PRC and it's their right to do what they wish with their own territory.

> Worth also remembering that "one country, two systems" came with an expiration date that is rapidly approaching anyway.

It'll be interesting to see what is kept. China's experimenting already in Hainan. They could structure Hong Kong in a similar fashion.

[0] - The PRC did introduce PR with the idea that it would reduce the risk of majorities forming but the system is arguably more democratic than FPTP.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Hong_Kong_electoral_refor...

> I know that attributing to western countries the responsability for any bad thing happening in this world is a common reflex

You can’t gloat that the sun never sets on your empire and then absolve yourself from responsibility for events that you had a heavy hand in influencing. Regardless, if you think the article is wrong, your point would he better served by providing examples of where it’s wrong and stating why.