Yes, it's a very tricky one. As everyone has said, the ability of the Chinese to suggest foreign interference has been a neuralgic issue for Hong Kong since the eighties. The question was, would Britain deliberately destabilize Hong Kong after they left? Would democracy be a vanguard for British interests and not Chinese interests?
Foreign intervention has been a neuralgic issue even before now, and now it's used to dissuade a lot of countries from commenting. It is a tricky issue. As the first witness said, you don't want to play into the hands of the conservatives. You don't want to revive this notion that there's foreign intervention.
That being said, it would be a mistake—and I think the mistake has been made—for other countries to say, “Universal suffrage, isn't that a good thing? Isn't that what we all strive for? Isn't that something to celebrate?” Well no, not if you truncate it, minimize it, and diminish it, which is what's being done. That's why I come back to the treaty.
The treaty stipulates separateness; autonomy; and one country, two systems. It is a way for foreign powers to organize themselves around support for Hong Kong. Canada, the United States, and Japan were asked to openly support the joint declaration. They were asked to celebrate it. It is a way of coming at the problem and avoiding the tricky part of foreign intervention while reviving, celebrating, and remarking on the joint declaration. It is not a perfect way to get at this problem, but it is a way to deal with the tricky part of foreign intervention and the straw man.