Channel 4 News published this video item, entitled “Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers all resign after Beijing ruling” – below is their description.
Pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong have resigned en-masse, after four of their colleagues were expelled from the city’s legislature.
The dismissal of the four came just days after the Chinese government passed a resolution saying any politician questioning Beijing’s authority should be removed.
The former British colony, now part of China, is supposed to be governed under a “one country, two systems” principle, but has recently seen its freedoms eroded.
We spoke to Emily Lau, a human rights champion and the first woman directly elected to the legislative council of Hong Kong. We asked her for her assessment of the mass resignations.
Channel 4 News YouTube Channel
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In This Story: Hong Kong
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR), is a metropolitan area and special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta of the South China Sea. With over 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a 1,104-square-kilometre (426 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world.
Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island at the end of the First Opium War in 1842. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. The whole territory was transferred to China in 1997. As a special administrative region, Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of “one country, two systems”.
