{"id":99974,"date":"2019-07-02T15:41:32","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T13:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2019\/07\/02\/the-fight-for-democracy-in-hong-kong-is-the-defining-struggle-of-our-age-simon-tisdall\/"},"modified":"2019-07-02T15:41:32","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T13:41:32","slug":"the-fight-for-democracy-in-hong-kong-is-the-defining-struggle-of-our-age-simon-tisdall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=99974","title":{"rendered":"The fight for democracy in Hong Kong is the defining struggle of our age | Simon Tisdall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The conflict reflects a broader contest between liberal democracy and populist authoritarianism. China must not be allowed to impose direct ruleBy accident or design, the eruption of political violence in Hong Kong has opened the way for direct rule from Beijing. It is unlikely radical new measures to bring Britain\u2019s former colony to heel will be imposed overnight. But furious official statements in response to Monday\u2019s unprecedented clashes suggest the \u201cone country, two systems\u201d principle that has kept capitalist Hong Kong functioning alongside, and within, communist China for the past 22 years could be on its last legs.This long-simmering crisis of mutual confidence, now finding expression through physical confrontation, is exactly what the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984, which laid legal grounds for the 1997 handover, was intended to avoid. It states unambiguously that \u201cthe current social and economic systems in Hong Kong will remain unchanged, and so will the lifestyle. Rights and freedoms, including those of the person, of speech, of the press, of assembly \u2026 and of religious belief will be ensured by law.\u201d Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2019\/jul\/02\/hong-kong-democracy-china\" target=\"_blank\">The fight for democracy in Hong Kong is the defining struggle of our age | Simon Tisdall<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The conflict reflects a broader contest between liberal democracy and populist authoritarianism. China must not be allowed to impose direct ruleBy accident or design, the eruption of political violence in Hong Kong has opened the way for direct rule from Beijing. It is unlikely radical new measures to bring Britain\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}