Does anybody else, apart for the Economist and me 
find this rather worrying?
Hi John, worrying but unsurprising. Imagine being a Hong Kong resident right now, makes me shudder to think about it.
Izzy x
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Probaly the first thing that Raab has ever done that I grudgingly admire is offering a lifeline to the 300,000 British overseas passport holders in Hong Kong. Taiwan is also risking Chinese anger. IMO other countries should also offer safe haven to Hong Kong residents. An empty city will be of no use to China. Poor old Chris Patten must be tearing his (diminishing) hair out.
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China is set on a path of South East Asian domination, and a foothold in Africa too.
From then who knows.
At least they won’t get into our 5G.
Strange that Trump is acting just like his Chinese counterpart when Twitter put out a warning on his tweets!
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My cousin is the Agence France Presse person in Hong Kong, scary times 
Oh goodness Vero, that must be very worrying for your family. I hope your cousin stays safe.
Izzy x
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My friends family work for L’Oreal in Brazil. Scary too.
the anti-china vitriol is not helping either; being cast as everybody’s enemy can become a self-sustaining one;
give patten a fair hearing he had no choice legally or militarilly; the lease had ended, in what possible basis could he do anythin else - or the uk for that matter;
Forty years ago, I had a conversation with a young Chinese woman, working on an IT contract. She said that she had come to the UK to establish a bolt hole for her Hong Kong family in case things turned bad.
Fear of a mainland takeover is nothing new.
No, but it is happening now.
One man telling millions and millions of people what to do, threatening Taiwan and building islands in the South china Sea to increase its borders.
This man is dangerous and it is getting worse.
Fortunately, he has gone too far this time and breaking his Treaty with the UK does his worldwide reputation no good at all. China is not to be trusted.
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Right now, I don’t thimk the UK has the clout to do anything about it.
And what next, Gibralta and the Malvinas. . . . .
Whether the UK has the clout to do anything about it or not does not mean that China is showing itself in its true colours and is not to be trusted.
But the Americans have more troops in foreign countries. The Chinese only want to take back a few offshore islands that they regard as their own. And a moment when the rest of the world has gone crazy seems like a good time to do it.
If you mean the Spratly and Paracel islands, they aren’t/never have been Chinese (Vietnamese and phillipino ?). China has built new militarised islands on the reefs, effectively annexing them. Taiwan is a different issue altogether, could get nasty.
Can’t see that’s worse than what Netanyahu is doing, with the approval of the US, Britain’s new, most favoured, prospective trading partner.
Thought we were talking about China? (Don’t mention the Russians)
Just thought it was worth mentioning that there are other bad guys in our Universe!
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Rather surprised no-one’s mentioning what their military is doing in India?
It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves, the gov obviously sees advantages in following the US line, but at the same time is heavily reliant on China. Consequently - as with Trump - there’ll be posturing ‘for the optics’ but little real change.
In the late 1970s I had an Anglo-Hong Konger partner who suddenly learned that after the handing back of HK to the Chinese, her HK British passport would no longer enable HKers to
permanently settle in the UK. At the time I thought the principal reason for this was a fear that hard-working HK Stock Exchange traders would wreak havoc on the old school, pre-Big Bang, magnum of claret for lunch, LSE. Anyhow, as a result HK Chinese emigrés went to NYC or Canada and made loads of dosh.
One has to wonder whether the still essentially racist elitist UK government a) wanted to exclude Chinese people and / or b. Had been frightened by the subsequent financial successes of Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin (ironically a diaspora population that includes the parents of the present, anti-immigration, UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel).
Very glad that I live in France.
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Belt and Road. Tale over by indebtedness.