In an interview with CGTN anchor Xu Qinduo, Peter Burnett, Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, said that the populist narrative has led to the rise of protectionism, but history proves that this doesn’t work. The Corn Laws introduced in the United Kingdom, which served the interests of protectionists, had led to famine, poverty and even insurrection. It was not until the laws were repealed that people started to focus on production and the industrial revolution began. History has taught us that protectionism does not work.
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About This Source - CGTN
This story is an English language news item from CGTN. CGTN is a Chinese state-funded broadcaster.
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”.