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When people tell me students from Hong Kong testified to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament urging their former colonial master to "re-exercise the Treaty of Nanking", I thought it was some sort of a prank. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

The British Parliament's "inquiry" was broadcast live. Moderate dissidents and their supporters in the media downplayed the quote, but the radicals got very excited. The local press, and online media sympathetic to the pro-independence cause, reported that on Dec 16, "Tang Chi-tak and Hui Sin-tung, two student representatives of the Occupy British Consulate-General Hong Kong Action Group, physically attended an inquiry hearing held by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament. This was on the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. In answering questions from the British parliamentarians, Tang and Hui explained how China has violated the (Sino-British) Joint Declaration since 1997."

Saying Tang and Hui "physically attended" the inquiry may sound strange, but it is necessary to say this as other people, like Emily Lau Wai-hing, joined it by video link-up. Among people who could have been invited, the British Parliament chose the Occupy British Consulate-General Hong Kong Action Group. How open-minded the British parliament is! However, it soon became clear that if "Occupy Central" was a protest against the Hong Kong and central governments, "Occupy British Consulate-General Hong Kong" was not really against the British government. The latter complained only because they felt abandoned by their former master.

According to the local press, during the inquiry the student representatives said China had violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration "in terms of press freedom (media and journalists having been attacked or threatened), freedom of assembly (Hong Kong police unlawfully beating up protesters), education and language policy (Putonghua gradually replacing Cantonese, the mother tongue of most Hong Kong people, as the medium of instruction), Chief Executive election reform (an undemocratic Nomination Committee screening candidates) and Legislative Council election reform (retention of functional constituencies), etc."

Tang and Hui claim Hong Kong's police officers beat up protesters, so they decided to complain to London. The British home secretary has secretly revoked the passports of 16 citizens over alleged links to militant or terrorist groups. They were stripped of their citizenship while abroad and banned from returning. Two of these 16 people were subsequently killed in US drone strikes. I have no doubt the British members of parliament nodded and smiled, and thought how lucky we are to still have these idiots left in Hong Kong.

While the status of press freedom and freedom of assembly in Hong Kong may be a matter of opinion, students' complaints about the "Chief Executive electoral reform" and "Legislative Council electoral reform" simply has nothing to do with the joint declaration. Read the joint declaration: There is not a word about democracy or universal suffrage. Contrary to widely held beliefs, universal suffrage was not stipulated in the joint declaration - only in the Basic Law. Hong Kong is moving toward greater democracy because of the central government's goodwill, not because its former colonial master forced a non-existing clause into an "agreement" signed in 1984.

In an attempt to meddle with China's internal affairs, the British parliamentarians repeatedly asked Tang and Hui exactly how Hong Kong people want Britain to help them achieve "genuine democracy". One of them replied that "since Deputy Chinese Ambassador to Britain Ni Jian had told Sir Richard Ottaway that the joint declaration was now void, the British might actually reactivate the Treaty of Nanking and the Treaty of Tientsin." (Editor's note: In fact the Kowloon Peninsula was ceded to the British in the unequal Convention of Peking, not the Treaty of Tientsin.)

By "void," Ni Jian meant China has fulfilled all its responsibility under the joint declaration and it was, therefore, no longer relevant. The proper word to be used should be "spent". Don't these imbeciles understand English?

Clause 3 of the joint declaration, which provides that social and economic systems and the lifestyle in Hong Kong will remain unchanged for 50 years, begins, "The Government of the People's Republic of China declares that the basic policies of the People's Republic of China regarding Hong Kong are as follows." It is clearly different from the construction of other clauses in the joint declaration, which reads, "The Government of the United Kingdom declares" (Clause 2) or "The Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the People's Republic of China declare that" (Clause 4 to 7).

This means that these policies were declared solely by the Chinese central government. Consequently, the implementation of these policies can only be the internal affairs of China.

If Tang and Hui want to reactivate the unequal treaties, why don't they simply ask Britain to send warships - as they have done before?

The author is a veteran current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 12/23/2014 page1)