There's hardly a media outlet around the world not reporting the chaos unfolding in Hong Kong. Details and depth of coverage may vary in quality. But the extent and reach of the chaos are beyond dispute and without precedent in the former British colony.
The best barometer to measure confidence about the future is the city's Hang Seng Index, which has been falling along with other stock markets jittery about Hong Kong and President Trump's trade war with China. The fears are well placed, with the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) units massed at the border and ready to step into Hong Kong and take control.
Not since 1967 has Hong Kong seen such political turbulence, when the Great Helmsman of the People, Mao Zedong, unleashed the deadly forces of the Cultural Revolution, which had its agents in Hong Kong creating merry hell even in the independent Crown Colony. This time it's different: it is the forces opposed to Beijing that are on the war path, apparently uncontrollably.
This has been coming for many years. As someone who has lived in or visited Hong Kong for almost 40 years, I often marvelled at how easily the local citizenry accommodated themselves to colonial rule, never seeking much in the way of representative government and remaining satisfied with a form of government where the British ran the show, including who joined the consultative forums of governance.
Everyone believed that what Hong Kong people wanted most was to be left alone to make money, and as long as there was peace and opportunity to exploit Hong Kong's special status economically, that was all the local people wanted. The fact that the Communists over in the PRC could take control of the colony if they wanted to in a matter of hours kept locals well and truly appreciative of the blessings of the British Empire for them.
Even those who resentfully accepted that Hong Kong would revert to the People's Republic of China's full control in 2047 have chafed at the bit as China has progressively taken more and more direct control with the bill to allow China to extradite whomever it wished to being the last straw. Hong Kong citizens have seen the two features that marked it out as being a better place to live than China slowly undermined. The promised 'one country, two systems' has been whittled away, to many locals' annoyance.
And now this!
"Dialogue, liberal concessions, an alternative