Hong Kong celebrates reduction in autonomy after Beijing’s approval

FRANK CHING

HONG Kong begins the new year celebrating an odd victory: a voluntary reduction in its China-granted autonomy by “leasing” back to China a portion of a new railway terminal where mainland security personnel will apply mainland law, a development which on the face of it is inconsistent with the Hong Kong Basic Law, the constitutional document of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region enacted by China’s National People’s Congress in 1990.