For a Briton it is hard to know how to refer to Hong Kong – the blue-tinted complex of peninsula and islands that protrudes into the South China Sea. You reach automatically for the word “colony”, then you stop and try “former colony”, then “territory” instead. Thirty years after the UK and China reached agreement on Hong Kong’s future, and 17 years after the union flag was lowered over that glorious harbour for the last time, it is still difficult to admit that, in judicial terms, it is part of China. Read more
