UK has an 'obligation' to people of Hong Kong, says peer
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The UK has an "obligation" to help the people of Hong Kong, a former Conservative foreign affairs minster has claimed.
Lord Luce, who was Foreign Office minster in the build up to the signing of the 1984 Joint Declaration that returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule, said that the UK had a "vested interest" in ensuring a solution to the island's recent problems.
There have been several weeks of protests in Hong Kong over Chinese government involvement in the 2017 elections in the region.
The protests were sparked by a Chinese government ruling that would limit who can stand as a candidate in Hong Kong's leadership elections in 2017 to candidates that had been pre-approved by Chinese Communist Party.
Under the terms of the 1984 declaration, the Chinese government had agreed to keep the socialist system and policies out of Hong Kong to allow the "previous capitalist system to remain unchanged for 50 years", Lord Luce told peers.
Thousands of people took to the streets at the beginning of the demonstrations but the numbers have dwindled in recent days.
Lord Luce, who sits as a crossbench peer, said that it was "inevitable there would be severe strain from time time" as two systems tried to co-exist in one country.
But, he told peers, as Britain was part of the joint deceleration that had led to the stand off "we have an obligation...towards the people of Hong Kong".
There was now an opportunity for all sides to "work for a constitutional mechanism which can gain the trust of the people of Hong Kong", Lord Luce said.
The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, CY Leung, has said that the Hong Kong government is ready for new talks with student protesters next week.
"It is in everyone's interest to have a government in Hong Kong which enjoys the confidence of the people of Hong Kong," he said.
