On 9 February, a court in Hong Kong sentenced a former newspaper owner, Jimmy Lai, to 20 years in prison. Hong Kong is part of China, and the sentence was handed out under China’s National Security Law.
What is China’s relationship to Hong Kong?
Hong Kong became a “special administrative region” of China in 1997. Before that it had been controlled by the UK (see panel). After this, Hong Kong mostly controlled its own affairs as part of a plan called “one country, two systems”. However, many people have accused China of taking greater control over Hong Kong, especially in the last 10 years. In 2020, China introduced the National Security Law in Hong Kong. This gave China’s government more powers to punish people who criticise it or protest against…
