i have him in ignore list like 10 pages ago. His relentless mental gymnastic trying to blame China for everything and staunchly defending every thing about pro democratic HK parties is really mind numbing.
Well the pro-democracy parties for the most part have played a very straight bat in Hong Kong politics. In fact, that's why the localist parties came about, because younger HKers felt the pro-democracy parties (the traditional ones) were too passive.
If you want to talk about the localist parties then that's different. They've been more antagonistic for sure.
Unless you can produce some documents or statements suggesting that CCP was willing to grant HK the political autonomy that you describe even in circumstances where they threaten national security
I simply don't see expressing personal opinions on China's future as being threats to national security. We'll have to agree to disagree on that.
The closest thing that came to setting out what a "high degree of autonomy" was is Article 45 of the Basic Law (which was co-agreed with the CCP and not imposed on it). That said that the ultimate aim was to have the Chief Executive elected via universal suffrage, with nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee. There were no caveats about the CCP needing to feel that all HK politicians were on side or not saying annoying things implying the CCP should allow more political freedoms on the mainland.
The previous reform package simply did not satisfy Article 45. A "broadly representative" nominating committee cannot be the one the CCP proposed where it would have automatically been dominated by its allies regardless of the fact they struggle to get a majority of the votes in the geographical constituencies for LegCo elections.
I have seen complaints from pro-CCP people that HK didn't pass the national security law, so that made it ok for the CCP to ignore Article 45. But don't forget, the pro-democratic camp in Hong Kong had no way to propose national security legislation to fulfill the requirements of the Basic Law. Not only have they never had enough of the functional constituency seats to have an overall majority in LegCo, but it's the HK government that only can present legislation. We've got to this scenario in part because the Chief Executives refused to present new national security legislation.
In the same breath where pro dem groups argue for political autonomy written in the Basic Law they also simultaneously decry Article 23 in the same Basic Law.
As I think I mentioned previously, the issue was the national security legislation pursued in 2003 that was vague much like the recent document and that prompted the Liberal Party to vote against it.
If the CCP had proposed real electoral reform along with tighter national security legislation, both could have been passed together. It's obviously too late for that now.
You are laying the fault at the feet of the Chinese government. I am laying the blame at the feet of some HK politicians, groups and activists. One side held the power to grant that political autonomy, while one side desired it.
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the point. It's not like the CCP said
"provided you don't do this one specific thing, you'll get direct Chief Exec elections without us pre-approving candidates".
The CCP can be notoriously vague at times. Like on Taiwan. As far as I'm aware, the CCP has not since 2008 published a comprehensive plan for what it wants or is prepared to allow for Taiwan's political future. There have been noises from Xi about Taiwan having "Hong Kong Plus", but that doesn't answer important questions like whether the CCP would insist on direct and overriding involvement in Taiwan's politics (e.g. pre-approval of candidates for the Presidency or whatever replaced it), whether Taiwan would be able to retain its military, involvement in the WTO, whether the PLA would have bases on the island, and so forth.
Some details would need to be settled during talks, but a lot of it should also by necessity be set out first so that Taiwan could gauge whether there was any realistic chance of reaching a settlement with the PRC. However, the CCP just remains quiet bar the odd official giving their "thoughts" in journals and magazines, which of course aren't binding in any way.
Turning back to Hong Kong, prior to 2012 Beijing was mostly quiet on what was going on in HK. When pressed about political reform the most common comment was
"Hong Kong isn't ready". The most common interpretation of that was that the CCP wasn't ready for HK political reform and that the city had to wait until a change of leadership at the top after older members had retired. No one in the CCP said
"we're thinking about it, but currently [insert people's names here] have been saying [stuff] and we're concerned that if we do allow political reform [these particular scenarios] might occur".
It's possible that some HK politicians could have addressed relations with the CCP differently, but the same could be said about the CCP. And when the CCP had not set out specific qualifying tests to bring in the political reform it had previously agreed to via the Basic Law, I really have to fault it most of all than another party.