Opinion | Britain strangely silent over China's promises on autonomy

Similar to American mail carriers, who are deterred by "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night", the British Foreign Office labours to produce a report on Hong Kong every six months, as it just has once again.

Such reports sometimes incur Beijing's wrath as foreign "interference" in Chinese internal affairs but, more often than not, they simply disappear like a stone dropped into a bottomless well, with not even a faint splash to mark its arrival.

The latest report, the 33rd in the series, appears to have been ignored entirely by the Hong Kong media, though the Macau Post Daily carried a news item, which was picked up by Bloomberg.

The latest report points out that the Joint Declaration "guarantees the autonomy, rights and freedoms that make Hong Kong the stable and prosperous society it is today". But it is silent on the erosion of the promised autonomy.

Nine years ago, a report issued in July 2004 noted that the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress issued an "interpretation" of the Basic Law, followed by a "decision" which set limits on constitutional developments in Hong Kong. Bill Rammell, the then Foreign Office minister for Hong Kong and China, said the decision appeared to be "inconsistent with the high degree of autonomy which Hong Kong is guaranteed", and expressed concern over the new requirements added to the procedure set out in the Basic Law annexes.

But the latest British report no longer questions the consistency of China's actions with the Joint Declaration. It accepts without question the propriety of the steps set up by the NPC Standing Committee.