China’s Hong Kong: After 23 years, ex-British colony back to square one; only this time, it’s worse

THE mass resignation of pan-democratic legislators protesting against the disqualification of four of their number takes Hong Kong back 23 years to the handover of the British colony to China and an appointed legislature boycotted by the democrats in 1997 to 1998.

In the more than two decades since then, the democrats have been a thorn in the side of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region administration and of the Chinese government as they kept winning a majority of the votes while reaping only a minority of seats. Still, their numbers grew, and in 2016, they won 30 of the 70 seats.