reminding the british government, it never gave hong kong democracy. all the way, as he said, all the way until the last day of british rule in hong kong, the british government never gave the territory democracy. well, let me just unpick that for a moment. and the idea that cy leung should be regretting that is for the birds. i mean, he was always opposed. i know, but. is the uk in a position to criticise? yes. and i ll tell you why. hong kong was different from any other colony. we weren t in a position where we were preparing it for independence because part of it was held on a lease and it was always being returned to china. and when, in the 50s and 60s, occasionally, british governments used to talk about a faster pace of democratisation in hong kong, the chinese, including chairman lai, on one occasion, said, you can t do that. if you do that, people
of democratisation in hong kong, the chinese, including chairman lai, on one occasion, said, you can t do that. if you do that, people in hong kong will get the impression they re being prepared for independence, and they re not. they re coming back to the motherland. in the 1980s, however, partly because of the joint declaration and partly because people said, well, if there isn t going to be an arbitration mechanism, we better do something about democracy, we did start to pick up the pace of democratisation and the number of directly elected seats was increased. it is true that when i was rubbished and lambasted as a.as a sinnerfor 1,000 generations, orsomebody who d done nameless things with president clinton i never quite understood that one. when i was being lambasted for allegedly producing democracy, the democracy i produced was pretty limited, because it was constrained by the joint declaration and the basic law. what i tried to do was to make