To properly understand China’s frustrations with Hong Kong it is enough to realise that for the authorities in Beijing it is a living reminder of a rather humiliating era in their nation’s history. Now an autonomous “special administrative region” within the People’s Republic, it once comprised a British crown colony and other territories “leased” for 99 years back in 1898. When the British finally cleared out in 1997, they left behind, after some nifty diplomatic footwork, a number of fairly weak democratic and independent institutions, including the judiciary.

The proposed new law on “extradition” to the mainland is seen, rightly, as compromising the freedom of the separate court system in Hong Kong, and the liberty of the citizens of the territory. Human rights activists and other critics of the regime could be exported to neighbouring Chinese provinces for trial. Britain may be a treaty guarantor of the human rights of Hong Kong’s 7 million people, but it is, of course, powerless to do anything to help them.

In fact it was something of a wonder that, in the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, fanatical Red Guards didn’t just march into Hong Kong and kick the imperialists out. In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher once asked her civil servants, rather fancifully, whether the British could hang on to the original colony when the lease ran out. The Iron Lady was told that, unlike the Falklands, the place could be neither defended nor liberated after an invasion.

The Chinese must also wonder why they might compromise with a nation that is taking such a hostile line (to their eyes) on Huawei, on Chinese domestic policy in Tibet, and on the treatment of the Muslim Uighur minority in the western province of Xinjiang. Sending the new Royal Navy aircraft carrier the Queen Elizabeth to the South China Sea might also seem a slightly provocative gesture.

Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Show all 40 1 /40 Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A reported two million people took to the streets to protest against a controversial extradition law in Hong Kong on June 16 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters part to allow an ambulance to pass through during a protest on June 16 that reportedly attracted two million people AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester pays tribute to a man who died after falling from a scaffolding during the protests against against the extradition law proposal on June 17 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Following the demonstration, protesters cleared rubbish from the roads where a reported two million people had marched AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters part to allow buses to pass through during a protest on June 16 that reportedly attracted two million people Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A riot police officer strikes at protesters during a protest against the extradition law proposal outside the Legislative Council of Hong Kong on June 12 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A police officer fires tear gas at protesters during a protest against the extradition law proposal outside the Legislative Council of Hong Kong on June 12 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters scatter as police fire tear gas during a protest against the extradition law proposal outside the Legislative Council of Hong Kong on June 12 Pauline Leung via Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters carry a banner opposing the extradition law proposal outside the Legislative Council of Hong Kong on June 16 AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester holds a picture of an injured man who later died after falling from a scaffolding during the protests against against the extradition law proposal on June 17 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters run after police fire tear gas during a protest against the extradition law proposal outside the Legislative Council of Hong Kong on June 12 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester rests after facing water cannons fired by police during a protest against the extradition law proposal outside the Legislative Council of Hong Kong on June 12 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Police officers use a water canon on a lone protestor near the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on June 12 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters gather outside the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on June 12 AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester waves a British flag outside the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on June 12 Getty Images Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters leap over barricades as they occupy roads by the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on June 12 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Some protesters run after police fire tear gas during a protest against the extradition law proposal outside the Legislative Council of Hong Kong on June 12 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Police officers use pepper spray against protesters during clashes after a rally against the extradition law proposal on June 10 AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester sits down in front of riot police during a protest against the extradition law proposal on June 12 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters sit in a demonstration following violence in the previous day of protests on June 13 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters barricade themselves in an area outside the Hong Kong Legislative Council during clashes with police after a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A bloody-faced police officer is led away by a colleague after clashing with protesters in a rally against the extradition law proposal on June 10 AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters march through Hong Kong in opposition to the extradition law proposal on June 9 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester sits in front of a riot police line during clashes between protesters and police following a protest in Hong Kong in opposition to the extradition law proposal on June 10 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters march through Hong Kong in opposition to the extradition law proposal on June 9 EPA Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester lifts a barricade while a police officer charges in with his baton during clashes after a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester is arrested during a clash after a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters hold pictures of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam during a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 9 AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester wave a Union Flag in front of police officers during a protest against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters gather outside the Hong Kong Legislative Council during a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester is grabbed by a policeman as he crosses the police line during a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters gather outside the Hong Kong Legislative Council during a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 AFP/Getty Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A police officer detains a demonstrator during a protest to demand authorities scrap a proposed extradition bill with China, in Hong Kong, China June 9, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest during a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester shouts next to police officers during a protest during a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters march through Hong Kong in opposition to the extradition law proposal on June 9 AP Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest during a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest during a rally against the extradition law proposal in Hong Kong on June 10 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week Protesters gather in a park in Hong Kong opposition to the extradition law proposal on June 9 Reuters Hong Kong: Extradition law protests continue into second week A protester sits by ramshackle barriers after clashes between protesters and police following a protest in Hong Kong in opposition to the extradition law proposal on June 10 AP

When the British to try behave like the global power they no longer are, the Chinese are merely reminded of their past subjugation. Seeing President Xi at a naval display out of his usual lounge suit and in a high-buttoned Mao jacket the other week was “a moment”, a symbol of how China is taking on the trappings of a superpower – and it has the world’s largest economy to back it up. It need not be pushed around by Trump’s America, let alone May’s Britain. And certainly not in its own back yard – Hong Kong.

The British started running Hong Kong for their own commercial and strategic benefit in the century before last – an age when virtually every western power was grabbing to take chunks of a feeble and backwards old imperial China into their control, especially along the coast.

The Bavarian inspired Tsingtao lager and the charming “French Quarter” in Shanghai are more harmless remnants of a time when China was the victim of “unequal treaties”, “concessions” and subjugation. The British even used opium as the means of addicting much of China’s population to take control. The Japanese subjected their Chinese colonies to the most bestial treatment.

If the Chinese Communist party has one aim in life it is to maintain and strengthen the national unity that was, more or less, recovered when Mao took power in 1949. It frets about it to the point of paranoia. China’s leaders are haunted by the past dismemberment of the nation, its disintegration and poverty. Still-independent Taiwan, a relic of the pre-1949 Chinese civil war, Tibet, Xingjian and Hong Kong are all places they look at with a mixture of historical resentment and just a touch of present-day fear.