By Parris H. Chang
Chinese President Hu Jintao was met with heavy protests on his July 1 visit to Hong Kong to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Britain’s handover of the former colony to Chinese rule. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to lament that the sacred political gap between Hong Kong, now a Special Administrative Region (SAR), and Communist China was closing. The backlash against China in the SAR even has a sociological component where opinion surveys indicate that more and more residents identify themselves as “Hongkongers,” rather than Chinese.
However shocking and unpleasant these developments may seem, Hu Jintao nonetheless considers the Sino-Anglo agreement that returned Hong Kong to China to be a very important and time-honored legacy of late leader Deng Xiaoping. In a similar vein, President Hu wants to "do something big" on Taiwan, according to a cable from the American Embassy in Beijing that was leaked by WikiLeaks. In other words, Hu may want to emulate Deng’s success and legacy in Hong Kong by scoring a breakthrough on Taiwan.
Read the full story at The Diplomat