Britain and Hong Kong: the 2019 protests and their aftermath
Asian Education and Development Studies
ISSN: 2046-3162
Article publication date: 7 January 2021
Issue publication date: 3 March 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine British policy towards Hong Kong from the protests of 2019 through political controversies in 2020.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper offers a foreign policy analysis based on a chronological account of the public interventions made by London from April 2019 to the passage of the national security law in the middle of 2020. It discusses the factors which contributed to the UK's positions and looks in more detail at an issue which relates to the British colonial legacy: the status of British National (Overseas) passport holders.
Findings
The paper argues that the UK's policy was influenced by a combination of factors: developments in Hong Kong, the implications of and perceptions about its historical position as the former colonial power, the growing influence of lobby groups in the UK and Hong Kong (especially in agenda setting), and (to a lesser extent) the UK's wider relations with China. In trying to balance these, British policy tended to be reactive rather than strategic. London generally took positions sympathetic to the protest movement and political opposition, characterised in the paper as “soft partisanship”, shifting to clear opposition to Beijing's approach when the National Security Law was announced.
Social implications
The paper helps to understand international policy towards Hong Kong.
Originality/value
The paper offers the first account of British policy towards Hong Kong during this period and adds to the limited existing literature on the UK's Hong Kong policy over recent years. This case study sheds light on wider questions of international perceptions of developments in Hong Kong during a tumultuous period in the city's history and informs broader studies of foreign policymaking.
Keywords
Citation
Summers, T. (2022), "Britain and Hong Kong: the 2019 protests and their aftermath", Asian Education and Development Studies, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 276-286. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEDS-09-2020-0205
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited