Britain can't protect Hong Kong from China – but it can do right by its people | Simon Jenkins

To think we can sway authoritarian Beijing is fantasy. Instead we must make those who want freedom welcome in the UK

The sight of young people anywhere being brutally stripped of their freedom is depressing. When that freedom was a legacy, however brief, from the British crown, it is more so. The ban on dissent now imposed by China on Hong Kong smashes the spirit and letter of the Sino-British treaty of 1984. It shows China for what it is, an unprincipled dictatorship.

When I reported in 1997 on ...