Thank you very much.
While we're speaking with Mr. Cheung, I would like to ask him a couple of questions about his views on some of these issues.
Back in April of this year, Mr. Cheung, you wrote on the website Just Security that, “On first observation, the decay of Hong Kong's autonomy has been abrupt.” In your view, however, recent events you said were long in the making. You identified three factors that have contributed to the erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy:
...the Beijing and Hong Kong governments’ abuse of “advocating independence” as a political and legal cudgel; the growing role of the Liaison Office; and the political capture of a previously professionalized civil service apparatus.
What events, developments and decisions would you say have led to the erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy since 1997? What were the warning signs that perhaps the world has missed? How did the international community including Canada respond, and how do we deal with this issue now? It's a bit of a long question.