Jake'S View | Hong Kong’s joint rail checkpoint shows the emperor is not always far away, and never out of mind
There will be no clear explanation from Beijing as to why co-location is lawful. This is a demonstration to Hong Kong of how the emperor is not always far away
“It is important to say that the Bar Association, like myself, is not opposing Carrie Lam or [any] individuals. They just want a clear explanation on why the co-location arrangement is lawful”. – Barrister Philip Dykes, SCMP, January 2
It cannot be a lawful arrangement. The stationing of national security agents in Hong Kong with powers of arrest is prohibited by the Basic Law. So why ask anyone why it is lawful?
But this may be just the reason that Beijing insists on it. This is a show of force, not of law.
What will do as a message to Hong Kong may not do as a message to the world at large, however, and Beijing has thus reached deep into its closet of diehard, old Hong Kong has-beens for mouthpieces to broadcast the official excuse.
This is that the National People’s Congress (NPC) has sovereignty in China, and Hong Kong is a part of Chinese sovereign territory, where the NPC has the power to do whatever it wishes.
True, and this includes the power to make international treaties that limit some of these sovereign powers in the interest of gaining concessions from other sovereign territories.
Thus when China joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO), it made concessions on foreign market access in its sovereign territory in exchange for similar concessions abroad.
