To Beijing: don’t hold Hong Kong too tight if you want ‘one country, two systems’ to succeed

The government of China always wanted it – politically as well as economically – in no small part because for more than 150 years, it couldn’t have it. The British wanted to keep it – and would take it back at the drop of an umbrella. Empires, British or otherwise, tend to bow out ungraciously: having been compelled to return Hong Kong to China in 1997, London still can’t stop yapping – about freedom and autonomy and so on, which it did precious little to foster while Hong Kong was in its back pocket. In reality, the pragmatic course for Hong Kong, many agree, is to forswear on a stack of…