related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery.

3 related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery.

China said on Friday that the joint declaration with Britain over Hong Kong, which laid the blueprint over how the city would be ruled after its return to China in 1997, was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance.

BEIJING: China said on Friday that the joint declaration with Britain over Hong Kong, which laid the blueprint over how the city would be ruled after its return to China in 1997, was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance.

The stark announcement from the Foreign Ministry, that is sure to raise questions over Beijing's commitment to Hong Kong's core freedoms, came the same day Chinese President Xi Jinping said in Hong Kong the "one country, two systems" formula was recognised "by the whole world".

It also came a day after Britain reaffirmed its commitment to the document. Hong Kong celebrates the 20th anniversary of Chinese rule on Saturday.

It wasn't immediately clear if Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang was attacking just the idea of continued British involvement in Hong Kong, or the principles in the document.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed in 1984 by then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang, laid out how Britain would end its century-and-a-half long rule over Hong Kong. It also guarantees the city's rights and freedoms under the "two systems" formula.

Under Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, Hong Kong was guaranteed its freedoms for "at least 50 years" after 1997.

Lu told reporters during a regular briefing on Friday that the document, which British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson called a "treaty" the day before, no longer binds China.

"Now Hong Kong has returned to the motherland's embrace for 20 years, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, as a historical document, no longer has any practical significance, and it is not at all binding for the central government's management over Hong Kong. The UK has no sovereignty, no power to rule and no power to supervise Hong Kong after the handover," Lu said.

On Thursday, Johnson said in a statement Britain hoped that Hong Kong would make more progress towards democracy.

"Britain’s commitment to Hong Kong – enshrined in the Joint Declaration with China – is just as strong today as it was 20 years ago," Johnson said. </s> Hong Kong, Aug 11 (ANI): China has urged the United Kingdom to stop interfering in its internal matters and making random and inflammatory accusations against Hong Kong, a special administrative region in southern China that was earlier under the British rule till 1997.

"I'd like to point out that Hong Kong today is a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China. Long gone are the days when it was under British colonial rule," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Saturday.

Spokesperson of the British Foreign Office said that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had called Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam on August 9 and discussed the current turmoil in the region.

Hua was quoted as saying that Britain has no sovereignty, jurisdiction or right of supervision over Hong Kong when asked to comment on the call.

She added that the Chinese government is responsible for the foreign affairs relating to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in accordance with the Basic Law or the Constitution of the region.

"It is simply wrong for the British government to directly call Hong Kong's Chief Executive to exert pressure," she said, urging the UK to stop its interference in China's internal affairs and stop making random and inflammatory accusations on Hong Kong.

The semi-autonomous region has seen eight consecutive weeks of anti-government protests that began against a now-suspended extradition bill, that have since broadened to include calls for democracy and police accountability.

The said extradition bill was proposed on April 3 and its opposers argue that its controversial amendments will leave anyone on Hong Kong soil vulnerable to being grabbed by the Chinese authorities for political reasons or inadvertent business offences.

Multiple protests sometimes violent continue to take place in the semi-autonomous state despite the city's pro-Beijing leader Carrie Lam publicly apologising for proposing the controversial legislation and announcing later that the bill was "dead". (ANI) </s> There is no question that the Chinese leadership under President Xi Jinping has reneged on the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 that promised Hong Kong freedom of speech and legal autonomy for 50 years after the 1997 handover from British to Chinese rule. Through repeated so-called “interpretations” of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, Beijing has poisoned our politics and bent the will of our public officials and judiciary.

For those who love this city for its unique mix of cultures and for its stubborn, downright heroic resistance to the increasingly suffocating hand of the central government, it’s a sad state of affairs.

But what about the commitment of the other party to this historic agreement, which established the “one country, two systems” arrangement under which Hong Kong’s way of life was supposed to be protected until 2047?

The answer, unfortunately, can be summed up in one word following British Prime Minister Theresa May’s just concluded three-day trip to China: Pathetic.

As Hong Kong’s besieged pan-democrats were reeling once again this week in the wake of the news that a mid-level bureaucrat—acting entirely on her own, if you choose to believe our wholly unconvincing chief executive—had barred 21-year-old Agnes Chow Ting from entering the race for a seat in the Legislative Council by-election to be held March 11, May was stacking up trade deals on the mainland adding up to more than £9 billion (HK$99.8 billion) while hailing “a golden era” in Sino-British relations.

With every stroke of the pen, the prime minister was cheered on by a large, mercenary entourage representing British businesses and trade groups devoid of interest in the blatant political vetting and erosion of freedoms now taking place in Hong Kong. Since Chow’s disqualification last Saturday, two lesser-known candidates—localist Ventus Lau Wing-hong and Sha Tin District Councillor James Chan Kwok-kung—have also been barred from taking part in the by-election. That makes for a total of 15 Legco disqualifications, either through pre-election screening or ousters from office, in less than two years.

Yes, Britain’s Foreign Office issued a polite expression of concern over Chow’s fate, but then May just signed another trade deal that relegated Hong Kong to a brief, irrelevant side topic in current Sino-British relations.

The Prime Minister was welcomed to the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing for a tea ceremony with President Xi #PMinChina pic.twitter.com/8v6SuRv2HD — UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) February 1, 2018

Meanwhile, despite a chorus of disapproval from abroad as well as criticism from prominent academics and lawyers who call Hong Kong home, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor looked straight into the camera’s eye and denied that the decision to bar Chow was a political hatchet job dressed up as a legal judgement that had been orchestrated by her or by anyone else in the Hong Kong or central governments.

No, we are asked to believe, this was just returning officer Anne Teng objectively examining the facts of the case and, without any hint of intervention by her superiors, doing the right thing.

Defending Teng’s decision—which was based on the call for Hong Kong’s self-determination expressed in the manifesto representing Chow’s political party, Demosisto, but made without any consultation with Chow herself—the chief executive declared: “The law is clear. The facts are clear.”

And indeed they are—but not in the twisted, Orwellian, post-interpretation worldview of Beijing and its kowtowing servants, from the chief executive on down, in the Hong Kong government.

According the powers that be in the north and to a chief executive who feels obliged to parrot their linguistic manipulations, advocating self-determination for Hong Kong after the handover agreement expires 29 years from now violates Article 1 of the Basic Law stating that Hong Kong is “an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China.”

While dogmatically stating and restating that point, Lam and her masters in Beijing also doggedly choose to ignore other key provisions in the Basic Law safeguarding freedom of speech and free and fair participation in elections—provisions that a group of 30 of the city’s top lawyers, including the current head of the Bar Association, Philip Dykes, insists make the barring of Chow “unreasonable, unlawful and unconstitutional.”

Hong Kong officials also don’t bother to explain why Nathan Law Kwun-chun—who, along with Chow and Joshua Wong Chi-fung, is a cofounder of Demosisto—was in 2016 allowed to run and win the same Hong Kong Island Legco seat that Chow has now been prohibited from contesting. In an earlier Beijing-engineered injustice, Law would subsequently be disqualified as a lawmaker for adding words of protest to his oath during the Legco swearing-in ceremony, but no one ever argued that he was ineligible to even run.

It seems the rules—or at least the government’s interpretation of the rules—have become quite fluid depending on the politics of the moment and the dictates of the central government. Somewhat unexpectedly, the candidacy of another pan-democrat—Edward Yiu Chung-yim, a contender for the Kowloon West seat vacated by another casualty of the oath-taking debacle, Youngspiration’s Yau Wai-ching–was approved last week. But that approval came only after Yiu, who last July was also disqualified from Legco for altering his oath, was subjected to what amounted to a loyalty test by yet another overzealous returning officer.

Not surprisingly, news of Chow’s disqualification has been poorly received beyond our shores. A host of distinguished organisations and figures—from Human Rights Watch to the European Union to former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten—have all denounced it, but the growing mountain of criticism against Beijing’s roughshod incursions on Hong Kong’s autonomy is dismissed as “foreign meddling” by our chief executive, again echoing her masters across the border.

Patten and the former leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, went so far as to coauthor a letter to May urging her not to sacrifice Hong Kong’s freedoms on the altar of Mammon during her China trip.

Apparently, however, the prime minister was too busy signing trade deals to read it. </s> Hong Kong (CNN) China has reacted angrily to a British report voicing concerns over Beijing influence on Hong Kong's legal affairs, demanding that London stop meddling in China's internal issues.

The report "contains willful comments on Hong Kong affairs," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Thursday.

"We by no means accept the unwarranted accusations against China in some parts of the report."

"Lee's involuntary removal from Hong Kong to the mainland constituted a serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration by undermining the 'one country, two systems' principle," Johnson said, referring to the system which grants Hong Kong limited autonomy and control of its own legal affairs.

The Chinese government is "confident and determined in carrying forward 'one country, two systems'," Geng said.

Britain should "stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs," Geng said, emphasizing that the city is a Chinese special administrative region.

Despite Beijing's complaints however, the UK does have a limited obligation to Hong Kong as a signatory to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration , which transferred control of the city between the two countries.

Westminster issues regular twice yearly reports on the situation in Hong Kong, including democratic development in the city.

"A more democratic and accountable system of government ... (would) help strengthen those rights and freedoms, including academic freedom and freedom of expression, which have come under increasing pressure over the past two years," Johnson said.

This week, a new session of Hong Kong's legislative council was sworn in, amid gestures of defiance from a new crop of young lawmakers, several of which had their oaths of allegiance rejected after inserting curse words and displaying a flag with the slogan "Hong Kong is not China." </s> BEIJING (AP) — The British foreign ministry said it is “extremely concerned” about an employee of its consulate in Hong Kong who has been missing since crossing into China on a business trip.

A statement from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it is seeking information from Hong Kong and Guangdong province about the fate of the employee, who was detained while crossing from the Chinese city of Shenzhen into Hong Kong.

Local media reports identified him as Simon Cheng Man-kit, a trade and investment officer at the Scottish Development International section of the consulate. The reports say he attended a business event in Shenzhen on Aug. 8 but never returned to Hong Kong despite plans to do so the same day.

“We are extremely concerned by reports that a member of our team has been detained returning to Hong Kong from Shenzhen. We are providing support to his family and seeking further information from authorities in Guangdong Province and Hong Kong,” said the statement, which was forwarded by the British Embassy in Beijing.

It is unclear whether the man possessed a diplomatic passport, but the seizure of consular staff of any status or rank is highly unusual. Despite Beijing’s declaration of a “golden era” in Sino-British ties, relations have grown tense in recent months amid pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, a British colony for 156 years before its handover to Chinese rule in 1997.

Asked about the case at a daily briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang responded, “I’m not aware of that.”

Press officers for the Guangdong police and Ministry of Public Security could not be reached by phone. The ministry did not immediately respond to faxed questions about the case. </s> HONG KONG: Hong Kong witnessed its largest protest since the city's 1997 handover to China on Sunday (Jun 9) as hundreds of thousands came out to oppose plans to allow extraditions to the mainland.

The crowds wanted the city's pro-Beijing leaders to scrap the proposals - but there is little sign of that happening, and the issue has plunged the city into a political crisis.

What's the law all about?

The city's government is pushing a bill through the legislature that would allow extraditions to any jurisdiction with which it does not already have a treaty - including mainland China.

They say it is needed to plug existing loopholes and prevent the city from becoming a bolthole for fugitives.

READ: Hong Kong leader says extradition bill will not be scrapped

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam says safeguards are in place to protect the city's free speech, and to ensure political cases will not be affected by the extradition law.

She also argues that the law meets international standards for human rights, and that only serious crimes that carry sentences above seven years will be considered.

Fears centre on getting tangled up in China's opaque and politicised courts - whether it be the city's 7.3 million inhabitants or those just passing through the airport.

A broad cross-section of society has opposed the legislation, including lawyers and influential legal bodies, business figures and chambers of commerce, journalists, activists and western envoys.

Then on Sunday some one million people marched against the bill, according to organisers, in unprecedented scenes.

Hong Kong's appointed leaders are increasingly perceived to be doing the bidding of Beijing, and there is little trust in their assurances that the law won't impact the city's prized independent judiciary or its wider freedoms.

Jimmy Sham, convenor of the group behind Sunday's protests, said young people felt "powerless" in the face of a "brutal" government.

Yes. But under the 1997 handover agreement with Britain, China has agreed to a 50-year deal where Hong Kong is able to retain key liberties, such as freedom of speech and an independent judiciary.

The city's courts and rule of law, built around the British legal system, are key to the financial hub's economic success.

The idea of Hong Kong being a bolthole for fugitives had never been high up the political agenda. But after a Hong Kong man murdered his girlfriend while on holiday in Taiwan and fled back home, local authorities seized on the case to call for an overhaul of the law.

Despite confessing to Hong Kong police, authorities were unable to extradite him because the two territories do not share an agreement.

The extradition law was born, covering any place Hong Kong doesn't have a specific agreement with - including mainland China for the first time.

But critics say the Taiwanese case is a Trojan horse to please Beijing.

DOES THE BILL HAVE SUPPORTERS?

Certainly. Outside of Hong Kong's local government, the bill has received public backing from senior party officials in China and state media.

A petition run by a group that supports the bill has collected more than 800,000 signatures, while the Hong Kong government has a comfortable majority of lawmakers who have say they will back the bill.

But proponents have not managed to get people onto the streets in anything like the numbers seen in Sunday's opposition protest, making it hard to gauge genuine public support.

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?

There are no signs of the tension diffusing. On Monday Carrie Lam refused to delay or scrap the extradition bill, and said her administration had already made major concessions to protect human rights.

Hong Kong police said they will track down protestors behind violence in the early hours of Monday morning.

But opponents of the law have also doubled down, announcing plans for fresh protests on Wednesday alongside calls for a city-wide strike.

And Beijing has added its own rhetoric to the mix, attacking "foreign forces" for trying to disrupt a "sensible, legitimate" piece of legislation. </s> Topline: Britain has expressed concern over media reports that an employee at its consulate in Hong Kong has been detained in mainland China after visiting Shenzhen on August 8.
• Fears were raised after Simon Cheng, 28, failed to turn up to work on August 9. He was due to return from a business meeting in Shenzhen the day before, according to Hong Kong news site HK01. On the night of his planned return, he told his girlfriend over the phone that he was on the train back, before he lost connection.
• A representative from Britain’s consulate in Hong Kong said: “We are extremely concerned by reports that a member of our team has been detained returning to Hong Kong from Shenzhen. We are providing support to his family and seeking further information from authorities in Guangdong and Hong Kong.”
• Cheng, a trade and investment officer who worked in the consulate's Scottish International Development department, has since been reported missing. Cheng’s girlfriend and family believe he has been detained by the Chinese authorities.
• Hong Kong Police said at a press conference on Tuesday it had not been notified by mainland officials over the detention of Cheng.
• Hong Kong’s immigration department confirmed to Reuters that it had received a request for assistance from one of Cheng’s family members, and it said it was assisting the family.

Key background: The disappearance of Simon Cheng cuts to the core of the political crisis that has gripped Hong Kong for the last three months. Millions of Hong Kongers have taken to the streets over the last 11 weeks to voice their opposition to the city government's now-suspended plan to create an extradition bill with mainland China.

Opposition and business leaders in the semi-autonomous Chinese city voiced concerns about the rule of law in China, and the use of "black jails" and the forced disappearances of dissident voices by mainland authorities.

The disappearance of Cheng, a trade official, with the British Consulate in Hong Kong follows reports police at the mainland border were checking travellers' phones for evidence of involvement in the protest movement. Chinese officials and state-media have sabre-rattled for weeks over British and U.S. politicians, including President Donald Trump, speaking out over police crackdowns over the protesters that have broadened to include calls for free elections, and protections of civil liberties guaranteed following the handover of the former British colony in 1997. </s> Critics -- including protesters who poured onto the city's streets Sunday -- say the decision undermines Hong Kong's own legal system and further erodes promises of autonomy made before the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.

China's top ruling body, invoking a rarely used power, said Monday that anyone who refuses to read the oath should be disqualified from holding office.

"Reading the vows in any dishonest, ungraceful manner is also a refusal to the oath, and it shall be void," the ruling said, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Leung and Yao were among six young politicians, elected in a September vote that attracted record turnout, who favor greater autonomy or even independence for Hong Kong Their right to retake their oaths is being challenged by the Hong Kong government in local courts. A protester raises an umbrella sitting in front of a line of police officers outside the Chinese central government's liaison office in Hong Kong, Sunday. Police used pepper spray to disperse thousands of protesters that had gathered outside China's representative office in Hong Kong -- a symbol of Beijing's rule -- on Sunday night ahead of the ruling. Clad in black and wielding umbrellas to protect themselves, they brought to mind the pro-democracy street protests that convulsed the city for two months in 2014. China has reacted angrily to calls for Hong Kong independence, with some senior officials calling for "separatists" to be prosecuted. On Monday, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress -- China's top ruling body -- said it had "unanimously" passed its interpretation of Hong Kong's Basic Law, the document hashed out by China and the UK ahead of the handover, which is the city's de facto constitution. The ruling focuses on Article 104, which says that members of Hong Kong's Legislative Council "must swear allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China." A protester raises a placard as thousands of people march through a downtown street in Hong Kong, Sunday. The Standing Committee has only invoked its power to interpret the Basic Law on four previous occasions, which have often drawn controversy. A top Hong Kong government lawyer, Benjamin Yu, said last week that it wouldn't be necessary for Beijing to intervene, and the issue could be handled in the city's courts. </s> In Hong Kong they don’t gild the lily, they gild the bauhinia. A giant golden statue of the orchid-like flower, which is the symbol of the rambunctious Asian city state, stands in the middle of a harbour-side square in the Wan Chai district. It was erected 20 years ago to commemorate the official handover of Hong Kong from British colonial supervision to the authority of Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party.

In the shadow of the golden bauhinia on Saturday China’s President, Xi Jinping, will deliver a speech in front of city officials to mark the occasion on 1 July 1997 when, after 150 years of British colonial rule, Hong Kong reverted back to the sovereignty of Beijing. He will also swear in Hong Kong’s new political “chief executive” Carrie Lam. In the evening fireworks will explode over Victoria Harbour.

But the bauhinia’s golden sheen of Hong Kong-Beijing unity has been badly tarnished. And Xi, for all the warm and bland words he will deliver, knows it.

On Wednesday the statue itself was occupied by local pro-democracy activists, who draped a black cloth over the six-foot flower to symbolise “the hardline rule of the [Beijing] authoritarian regime”.

The demonstrators were arrested. But there will be further protests on Saturday, with a pro-democracy march expected to attract tens of thousands of supporters. Xi will deliver his speech amid unprecedented security. Around a third of the Hong Kong police force, some 11,000 officers, will be deployed to keep order.

Twenty years ago, London and Beijing agreed to a “one country, two systems” compromise over Hong Kong. A “Basic Law” constitution, guaranteeing a high level of autonomy for the region and respect for its citizens’ civil and political rights (far greater than anything enjoyed by the citizens of mainland China) was put into effect. Under a joint declaration, the former colony’s way of life was supposed to remain unchanged for 50 years.

And some things haven’t changed. The territory’s GDP growth rate has averaged just over 3 per cent since 1997, roughly half the rate of the previous two decades. But this reflects the natural slowdown of a maturing economy and the backwash of global economic forces more than malign influence from the mainland. The reality is that Hong Kong’s economy has been largely left alone by Beijing. And a surge of mainland money and tourism have helped Hong Kong’s economy, rather than hindered it.

The People’s Liberation Army, which moved a garrison into the territory 20 years ago, has been a relatively unobtrusive presence. The courts are still independent. The press is still largely free. The civil service is still uncorrupted.

Yet there has been a subtle political asphyxiation. A move to a wider suffrage, which democracy activists insist they were promised by Beijing in 2007, has not materialised. Lam was selected by a committee of just 1,200 Hong Kong residents. The favoured political candidates of Beijing have ascended to power in the territory and around half of the members in the 70-seat legislature are loyal to Beijing. There have been attempts to enforce a “patriotic” and pro-Communist Party education in Hong Kong schools.

But the most chilling manifestation of Beijing’s authoritarian infiltration has been the kidnapping in 2015 of five Hong Kong booksellers for peddling works making salacious claims about top Communist Party officials. Few expect these kinds of incursions to end. One thing Xi has proved since he became China’s president in 2012 is that he is no political reformer, as his Government’s record of locking up bloggers and civil rights lawyers on the mainland shows.

Hong Kong’s massive pro-democracy Umbrella Revolution of 2014 was divisive. Some of the older generation of Hong Kongers were alienated by the zealousness of the polite children, who occupied downtown districts for weeks. But the general restiveness in Hong Kong is real, and certainly not just confined to a minority of young hotheads.

Frustration, often sadly manifesting itself as outright bigotry, towards the one and a half million mainlanders who have moved to Hong Kong, pushing property prices into the stratosphere, is expanding. A growing number of Hong Kong’s residents say they would like to emigrate. Fear over the future – political, economic and cultural – is palpable.

Twenty years have now passed since the royal yacht Britannia, bearing the last Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, glided out of Victoria Harbour. But what do the next 20 hold for Hong Kong?

The International Monetary Fund expects its growth rate to pick up to 3 per cent a year, as China’s gradually declines to below 6 per cent. But the city’s economic fortunes are likely to increasingly ebb and flow with those of its giant neighbour, which is struggling to pivot to a more sustainable, less debt-driven and polluting, form of growth.

The same, whatever was agreed by London and Beijing two decades ago, is likely to be true of Hong Kong’s political fortunes. British ministers lacked the courage to stand up to Beijing over Hong Kong’s political freedoms even before the Brexit vote. Now, sucked into the vortex of extricating Britain from the European Union and desperate to do a major trade deal with Beijing to offset the economic damage of Brexit, London lacks even that ability or desire to speak out. More than ever, the people of Hong Kong know they are on their own.

Ben Chu is the author of 'Chinese Whispers: Why Everything You’ve Heard About China is Wrong'
China warns the United Kingdom that "no country has the right to intervene on the issue of mass protests in Hong Kong", as it considers the problems of this self-governed city an "internal problem". For China, the agreement by which the United Kingdom returned Hong Kong is nothing more than "a historical document of no practical importance" and "that European country no longer has any responsibility over Hong Kong". The British chancellery, for its part, dismissed the Chinese opinion, and has said that "it is the right and obligation of the United Kingdom to work to enforce the agreement", which, in theory, guarantees a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong for 50 years until 2047 without Chinese interference.