China is not just shackling Hong Kong, it is remaking it

FOR MOST of its modern history, Hong Kong had no time for nostalgia. Little remains of the Victorian mansions or art-deco towers that once flanked its harbour. The city was built by unsentimental people in a hurry: traders and shippers and British opium peddlers turned merchant-grandees; imperial officials as tough as the granite of Victoria Peak; wave upon wave of Chinese migrants. 20th-century elites replaced domed and colonnaded landmarks with towers of concrete, glass and steel, destroying their heritage in the name of progress and profit. Only in recent years did the pace of destruction slow, as growing civic pride saw a few old sites preserved.