The Hong Kong issue goes back to the 1830's and the Opium wars. The Brits had gained a foothold on the mainland coast of Canton. It was a rich trade port and the Brits East India Company did a brisk trade in Hong Kong. Then the Opium Wars broke out, and it was found that more than 12 million people in the area were addicted to Opium, and the Chinese government wanted to contain the epidemic. The Brits were making money on this deal, and were also supplying their own people with illegal opium. {Answer to why Lewis Carroll and Lord Byron had such imaginations] In the end, the Brits prevailed, and in 1841-2 they took control [paying the Chinese 6 million in silver coins for the Provence and made {Canton Provence} Hong Kong one of their many colonies they established all over the globe - Treaty of Nanking.
The people of Hong Kong became highly westernized, and acquired a desire for things western. Despite the horrors the Japs inflicted on them during their occupation from 1441 to 45 the Rape of Nanking where the Japs opened the first major offensive in the Pacific. The people of Hong Kong were only truly liberated by US Naval and Marine forces who had just taken Okinawa and defeated the JAPS. The US had to liberate over 30,000 Canadian and Brit troops who had been taken prisoner during their weak and failed attempts to take back their colony. During the liberation, the Russians took a combined 50,000 civilian and JAP prisoners.
So, after all this turmoil, Hong Kong was restored to it's "Colony Status. In 1997, the weak spineless Brits who have never done anything diplomatically correct in their recent 200 year history ceded Hong Kong back to mainland Chine. As is their process the deal was a mis- managed grueling ordeal that is to be finalized in June 2020. Kind of like the BREXIT fiasco -deal no deal that sounds like Howie Mandels show "Backstop, No Deal , Who knows?. The Brits haven't the will or the Whit to make any clean or proper diplomatic deals.
So what's the problem. China has the deal with the Brits who Waffle on everything in endless uncertainty. The people of Hong Kong have lived like Westerners and shared the same wealth and freedom of most in the West. The Chinese Confucian mindset requires strict rule over every aspect of a person's life. Kind of what the DNC is pushing for in the US. Natural man desires freedom and the ability to express himself and get a fair and equal voice in his life. The Chinese have already sent many signals that that will no longer be the case once June 202 comes around. In advance they are already saying to the a Hong Kong guy who has been living the life of Riley an who makes 100 times what the average Chinese 'coolie' makes in the mainland will be expected to tow the line of the Communist Chinese restrict, non humanitarian rule. Let's face it folks Chinese want to look 'progressive ' to the world only to make money and to continue to lie, cheat , steal and manipulate to gain their goals. This is what President Trump is dealing with. In the final analysis, they are no different than MAO, just a bit richer at some special strata. They are going the way of Russian history with a revolution that only barely lasted 70 years until the Proletariat realized that the only people living the good life were at the top. That's all of human history folks.
