Everything about the unrest in Hong Kong (PLUS what it says about Taiwan)

This appeared in The Millennial Source

One way to evaluate the “One Country, Two Systems” approach that Beijing is insisting on for Taiwan is to look at the relationship between Hong Kong and China. The “special administrative region” (SAR) of Hong Kong has been operating under this political arrangement for over 20 years.

Hong Kong civilians in defiance of the PRC’s One-China policy

The UK and the People’s Republic of China (mainland China, PRC) signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong in July 1997, marking the official return of Hong Kong to China after a century of British rule. As a condition of that return, the treaty specifies that the island’s governmental systems will remain unchanged until 2047.

The PRC first proposed this “one country, two systems” approach in the 1950s as a way to manage its relations with Tibet. Under the policy today, regions such as Macau and Hong Kong are able to maintain their own legal, economic and other administrative systems — at least in theory. However, the…