>of course in politics it isn't quite as simple as that is it? The people of Hong Kong, might of voted to stay British - if they had been asked, but there was no way that any British govt was going to argue with the Chinese, since they knew that a) they could kick the sh1te out of us, b) the next 30 years of our prosperity in the West was dependant on cheap goods from China.
But don't forget that the Crown had an agreement with the Chinese to return Hong Kong after 100 years (?) and the Crown had to stand by that agreement, granted we could have said bu$$er off, but as we all know, the Brits always stand by such agreements, well, we do now. If the Crown had reneged on that deal, as the Crown did in the New Zealand Maori Land Wars, it would have caused considerable problems, as the settling of Treaty of Waitangi claims here in New Zealand is proving to be an expensive and time consuming matter. Ralph Kiwiland ------------------------------------------------ This message was sent using InSPire Net Webmail. http://www.inspire.net.nz _______________________________________________ the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors. Leedslist mailing list [email protected] http://list.zetnet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist oh alright then :-)
