You know, after illegally occupying it for 100 years, holding exactly zero elections during that occupation, discriminating against the native Chinese population there and favouring British migrants, all after getting literally all of #China addicted on opium and then strong arming them to sign Hong Kong away.
Yes, you respect Hong Kong’s autonomy SOOOOO much, UK.
Also, you want to talk autonomy? The majority of HK citizens support the PRC. Look at their election results, not parliament representation because First Past the Post is trash, but the raw numbers on who voted for what party there.
Also also, the majority of Hong Kong citizens DESPISED the protests. It massively exacerbated the COVID-19 outbreaks there (remember, this was in 2020, height of the pandemic) because protesters were literally breaking into hospitals and their quarantine areas. The metro and road systems were almost entirely blocked by protesters so you couldn’t go anywhere, windows were smashed, graffiti, various other vandalism, fires, schools and universities occupied forcing classes to stop, and any PRC supporters were violently assaulted.
Like, people in the US screech about the BLM protests (which, at least they were protesting an actual issue), or much more related to what happened in HK, the January 6 Nazi Extravaganza. Or in Canada, the Trucker’s convoy. Well, all of those were like lover’s quarrels compared to the HK protests, which also happened in a tiny city territory where you couldn’t escape, and which was also many times denser than anywhere in the US. But as long as it’s not in your home, then freedom (American style “freedom”) over literally all else, right?
But you didn’t see those people being interviewed by Western media.
As an active British communist:-
Anyone 40 and over = “Things weren’t perfect but we brought them trains, law and civilisation”
Anyone 39 and under = Some variation “of colonialism was bad actually”