China’s leaders can’t be trusted

The sooner we recognise Xi’s dictatorship, the sooner the Beijing bullies will have to behave better.

When I was governor of Hong Kong, one of my noisiest critics was Sir Percy Cradock, a former British ambassador to China. Cradock always argued that China would never break its solemn promises, memorialised in a treaty lodged at the United Nations, to guarantee Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and way of life for 50 years after the return of the city from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.