Last week, China’s National People’s Congress set in motion new, restrictive legislation for Hong Kong. Activists in Hong Kong see this move as the end of the Basic Law, which guarded the people of Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy to govern their own affairs, writes Allen Carlson, associate professor of government, in a Washington Post op-ed.
“Beijing has previously made promises of autonomy in other restrictive regions—like Tibet,” Carlson writes in the piece. “Grasping how Chinese leaders have repeatedly offered Tibetan autonomy, only to rescind it, reveals what the future might hold for Hong Kong.”
